Mark of Kane

Part 3

By Kathleen T. Berney

“Gotta get away . . .

. . . gotta get away . . .

. . . gotta get away . . . . ”

He chanted the words silently, over and over, like a mantra, keeping time with the pounding of his bare feet against the earth, as he fled in terror through an endless flat stretch of yellow, that seemed to stretch on and on, away to forever.

“Gotta get away . . .

. . . gotta get away . . .

. . . gotta get away . . . . ”

His naked body was soaked, drenched from head to toe, from perspiration that seemed to ooze out of every pore. Sweat poured from his head, plastering his hair to his skin, pooling in his eyebrows, and dripping down into his eyes, stinging them with its salty touch. His breath came in shallow, ragged gasps, each more agonizing than the last, as his lungs desperately struggled to expand, pushing hard against the constricting millstone the muscles of his chest had become.

“Gotta get away . . . .

Gotta get away . . . . ”

His feet grew heavier and heavier with each step. Lifting them became a chore. Every muscle in his legs ached and cramped with each extension and contraction. He moaned softly in his agony, unable to take in enough air . . . enough breath . . . to truly cry out. Had it not been for the driving force of his strong, nearly indomitable will, impelled forward by sheer terror, he would have collapsed many hours, and many, many miles ago.

“Gotta get away . . . .

Gotta get away . . . . ”

“You’ll NEVER get away from us, Cartwright.”

No! How could that be? He had left them behind . . . FAR behind. How could they possibly be with him . . . here . . . now . . . after all this time?

He heard their cruel, mocking laughter echoing in his ears. “You’ll never get away from us, Cartwright. NEVER. No matter where you go . . . how far and how fast you run, you will ALWAYS find US there . . . waiting.”

Incredibly . . .

. . . despite the searing, white hot pain flowing like liquid fire through out his chest and his legs . . .

. . . despite the stinging, burning sweat that flowed like rivers into his eyes, blinding him . . .

. . . despite the ever diminishing capacity of his lungs to draw breath, and a heart that felt on the very edge of exploding, bursting into a million bloody pieces within the walls of his chest, pressing down heavier and heavier . . .

. . . he poured on more speed, pushing himself on faster and faster, ever faster.

“Run, Cartwright, run,” they mocked him. “See Cartwright run . . . always running, never escaping.”

He gasped as his bare foot slammed hard into a rock, hidden deep within the veritable jungle of overgrown grass. Then, suddenly, the hot, yellow earth rose before his eyes, fast and furious. Two forms, their lines blurred, their details reduced to near opaque black silhouette, stepped out from the white hot, blinding glare of the sun. He had no need of seeing their faces, nor the details of their bodies, their clothing. He knew all too well who they were by the way they moved, by the sounds of their harsh, derisive laughter still echoing in his ears . . . .

The short stooped man was old Randy Paine, a sour, bitter man, when he was sober . . . mean, abusive, and cruel when he was drunk. He spent most of his waking hours falling down drunk . . . .

. . . at least, he TRIED to . . . .

The other was a man, more in the prime of his life . . . or what should have been the prime of his life. He, too, had died, many, many years ago, on the sands of a desert very much like the one in which he found himself.

Or so he had been told . . . .

“KANE!” Adam screamed as his eyes snapped open. For what seemed an eternity, he lay on his bed, unmoving, his heart racing, gulping in deep lung full after deep lung full of blessed cool, refreshing night air.

The staccato beat of bony knuckles knocking on the hard wood of his bedroom door, fast closed, finally drew him wholly back into the world of waking reality. “Adam?” It was his youngest brother, Joe. “Hey, Adam, you ok?”

“I’m . . . I’m fine.”

“You don’t SOUND fine. Alright if I come in?”

“If you MUST,” Adam sighed with a touch of asperity.

“I heard you scream,” Joe said as he opened the door, and entered the room. By the dim, silvery silver gray light of approaching dawn, he saw the tiny beads of sweat liberally dotting Adam’s forehead, his face nearly bone white, and trembling hands that seemed to clutch the edge of his blanket, as if for dear life. “You sure you’re ok, Adam?” An anxious frown knotted and creased his normally smooth brow. “You’re not sick . . . are you?”

“No, I . . . I’m fine, Little Brother,” Adam said as he threw his sheets, blanket, and comforter aside. He offered Joe a smile, hoping to reassure. The deepening lines in his youngest brother’s forehead, the sharp glare all the more pointedly focused on his face, then his hands told Adam that he had failed miserably. “Honest, Joe. I’m fine,” he said curtly, as he slowly swung one leg over the edge of the bed, then the other.

“Hey! Where are you going?”

“If you must know, I’m riding out with Sheriff Coffee and a few others,” Adam said curtly, as he paused to light the oil lamp beside his bed.

The anxious concern on Joe’s face, quickly transformed into a look of surprise. “Posse?”

“Of sorts, I suppose.”

Joe stared at his oldest brother, long and hard, through narrowed eyes. “This have anything to do with that woman Mister O’Brien, Crystal, and Darryl found out in the desert?”

“Yes,” Adam replied, as he crossed the room to the massive dresser, set against the wall facing the bed. “How did you find out about her?”

“Susannah told Stacy and me yesterday afternoon while we were playing checkers.”

“The woman’s name is Maria Estevan,” Adam said in a voice bland almost to the point of monotone. He opened the top drawer and removed a fresh change of underwear. “I met her and her husband when we boarded the stage together in Sacramento.”

“The newly weds?”

Again, Adam nodded. “She told the O’Briens about a stage robbery, and . . . about her husband being shot.”

“So this posse you’re going with is actually a search party . . . going out to find that missing stagecoach,” Joe accurately surmised. “Does Pa know you’re going?”

“Yes, I told him yesterday afternoon.”

“He going?”

“No,” Adam said curtly, as he quickly put on his pants and removed his nightshirt.

“Hoss going?”

“No.” Adam splashed some of the ice cold water, left over from last night’s washing up, over his face, then patted it dry with his nightshirt. “From what Hoss told me last night, he’s got a pretty full plate of things to do at the Ponderosa.”

“ . . . and YOU don’t?”

“What the hell IS this?” Adam demanded angrily. “Twenty questions? Some kind of inquisition?!”

“Hoss is already running around like a chicken with its head cut off, trying to keep track of everything that needs doing on the Ponderosa,” Joe returned, in a tight, angry voice. “He doesn’t have time to oversee the work on the new house . . . while YOU’RE traipsing off all over the country side on some blamed wild goose chase.”

“Joe, I’m only going to say this ONCE, so listen closely and get it through your head,” Adam said through clenched teeth, as he snatched up the shirt he had worn the day before and slipped it on. “First of all, I am NOT accountable to you as to my comings and goings, and second, you’re not my father. So, I would greatly appreciate it if you minded your own business, and let ME take care of mine.”

“That’s the problem, Adam. You’re NOT taking care of YOUR business,” Joe angrily shot right back.

“ ‘Morning, Boys.”

Adam and Joe’s heads snapped around to the open door of the former’s room. There, they saw their father, leaning up against the door jamb, with his arms folded across his chest.

“Everything . . . all right?”

“Everything’s fine, Pa,” Adam replied in a tone of voice surprisingly calm, even bland, as he finished dressing.

“Joseph?” Ben queried.

“Yeah, Pa, everything’s fine,” Joe muttered through clenched teeth, his voice heavy laden with angry sarcasm. “Everything’s JUST peachy dandy. I’m going back to bed.” With that, he abruptly turned heel and strode briskly out of the room.

Ben silently waited until he was reasonably certain his youngest son was well out of ear shot, before turning to ask his eldest, “What was THAT all about?”

“I . . . nothing, Pa. Nothing of consequence.”

“Adam?!”

The eldest of the Cartwright offspring quickly averted his eyes from his father’s dark, penetrating, all knowing, all seeing glare. “Joe and I just had a little bit of a set to,” he said too quickly. “My fault. I’ll apologize when I get back. By then he’ll have had plenty of time to cool off . . . and so will I.”

Though the relationship between his oldest and youngest sons had, more often than not, been prickly over the years, Ben sensed the undercurrents of something far deeper. Something which neither Adam nor Joe was consciously aware . . . .

“ . . . the most important thing now is that Joe doesn’t keep it bottled up inside.”

The words Paul Martin said to him in the post office, the morning after Adam arrived, echoed once again in his ears. The doctor was referring to the ordeal Joe had suffered at the hands of Lady Chadwick and her man, Crippensworth, the sadistic brute now locked up in the Virginia City jail, waiting extradition back to England.

“I’d be a lot more worried if something like this had happened to someone, oh . . . like Adam, your oldest, given his natural stoic reserve, the way he’s always kept a tight lid on his feelings . . . . ”

The vague, nebulous foreboding Ben had felt in the post office, when Paul had initially uttered those words, that he had felt again yesterday when he learned of the young woman who had found her way into the O’Briens’ camp, returned again a hundred fold. Every protective instinct within him screamed at him to not let Adam ride out with Sheriff Coffee and the others this morning. It was all he could do to remain in place, right where he stood, and not rush over to bodily restrain his oldest son.

“Pa?”

Ben shook his head to clear it of the dark, forbidding musings that had risen so suddenly to overwhelm him.

“YOU all right?”

“Yeah, sorry, I . . . I didn’t sleep real well last night.”

Adam smiled and placed a comforting, reassuring hand in his father’s shoulder. “Why don’t you g’won back to bed?”

“Perhaps I will. You take care of yourself, Son.”

“I will, Pa, and please . . . don’t worry. I should be back in a couple of days.”

Joe, meanwhile, had returned to his own room, with every intention of going back to sleep until the sun was fully up, but the emotions surging within him, direct consequence of that face off with his oldest brother, had rendered sleep all but impossible. He was hurt over the way his oldest brother had so curtly rejected his offer to help, his attempt to reach out; bewildered by Adam’s growing preoccupation with the Estevans and the missing stage coach; and angry on general principles.

But, more than all that, he was deeply worried.

In addition to being the smart one in the family, Adam had also been the COOL one. No matter how dire the circumstance, how great and insurmountable the crisis, he always remained calm. Nothing EVER seemed to ruffle his feathers. Adam was the strongest, bravest man Joe knew . . . next to Pa. Seeing his oldest brother as he had a short time ago, when he had so unceremoniously burst into his room . . . his face pale, his brow gleaming with a thin sheen of cold sweat, his hands trembling, and most unsettling of all, the stark fear and murderous anger mirrored in those dark eyes, so like Pa’s eyes . . . had left Joe utterly shaken to the very core of his being.

He waited until he heard the sounds of the front door closing, of Sport II’s hooves leaving the Fletchers’ yard, before throwing aside the covers and getting up out of bed. His first thought was that a healthy dose of Pa’s brandy down on the coffee table might help him back to sleep. Then, he remembered. He was still on a soft, bland diet. Brandy was not on his list right now, nor was it likely to be, not for a good long while yet.

“Maybe . . . if I look sad enough . . . MAYBE I can talk Hop Sing into brewing me up one of his herbal concoctions that’ll help me go back to sleep . . . without him threatening to quit and go help some cousin with a restaurant somewhere,” Joe mused silently, as he tiptoed down the hall.

Upon reaching the bottom of the stairs, Joe was mildly surprised to find his father still up, seated over on the settee, staring into the darkened fireplace before him.

“ ‘Morning, Pa,” Joe said by way of greeting. “It IS morning now . . . isn’t it?”

Ben turned, and smiled. “Yes, Joe . . . it IS morning.” He patted the place on the settee next to him, a wordless invitation to come, sit-a-spell.

Joe nodded, then walked over and sank down into the soft depths of the settee, next to his father.

“I thought you had gone back to bed,” Ben said.

“I tried.”

“You all right?”

“I . . . . ” Joe sighed and dolefully shook his head. “No. Pa . . . I’m worried about Adam.”

“You said that yesterday morning at breakfast.”

“I know.”

“Does your concern have anything do to with the argument the two of ya were about to get into when I walked into the room?”

Ben’s question drew a sharp glare, a mixture of surprise and chagrin, from his youngest son. “Y-You knew?!”

Ben nodded.

Joe sighed. “After all these years, you knowing shouldn’t surprise me anymore.”

“You want to talk about it?”

“It wasn’t my intention to pick a fight with him,” Joe said defensively. “He was having a nightmare. A real beaut, from the way he was yelling! I went in to check on him . . . to see what was wrong. One thing led to another and then— ” He shrugged helplessly. “You have ANY idea what’s eating him?”

“Mind you, Joseph, Adam’s . . . NOT confided in me,” Ben said, with a touch of sadness. “But, I think I have a few ideas.”

“Oh yeah?! Like . . . WHAT for instance?”

“Well . . . for openers, Adam left Sacramento to come here BEFORE we found you,” Ben said quietly. “Since we had no way of getting word to him while he was traveling, he had no way of knowing how you were. For all HE knew, you might have been dead.”

Joe shuddered, remembering the poisoned meal Lady Chadwick had served him, and Crippensworth standing before him, with that ice cold smile plastered on his face, fingering the trigger of a derringer pointed right at his chest.

“Adam’s told Hoss and me both that if it hadn’t been for that young couple he met, when they got on board the stage in Sacramento, he would have been going out of his mind with worry,” Ben continued. “I . . . know you and Adam haven’t always gotten along very well, but he’s still your oldest brother, and he loves you . . . more, I think than you’ll ever know.”

“I love Adam, too . . . even if we DO end up fighting sooner or later,” Joe said ruefully. “That’s why I’m worried about him. Pa . . . . ”

“Yes, Joe?”

“I . . . asked him about the time he was held prisoner in the desert by that guy named Kane,” Joe confessed. “The look he gave me . . . . ” He shuddered. “I’ll put it THIS way, Pa. If looks could kill, I’d be lying dead and buried out by the lake next to my mother, and ol’ Adam would be swingin’ from the gallows for murder.”

“He’s never talked very much about what happened between him and Kane,” Ben said slowly.

“He never even told YOU?!”

Ben sadly shook his head. “. . . and I never pressed.”

“I didn’t mean to pry or anything like that,” Joe said defensively. “I . . . just wanted to know how HE came through it all with his sanity intact.”

“I know, Son.”

“He CLAIMED he didn’t remember very much.”

“It WAS a long time ago.”

“ . . . and now it seems to have come back to haunt him.”

“There could be other things at work, too,” Ben pointed out.

“Such as . . . . ?”

“That young couple who traveled with him from Sacramento here,” Ben replied. “He’s been very concerned about them ever since he heard that the stage they left Virginia City on has turned up missing.”

“At the time I asked him about Kane, he had just found out about that,” Joe said thoughtfully, “ . . . and now finding out what happened to the young wife . . . . ” He sighed again, and shook his head. “NOW I wish I hadn’t lit into him about running off on what I saw as a wild goose chase and leaving the new house go.”

“You can apologize to him when he gets back,” Ben said. “Speaking of the house, though . . . Adam had a lot of memories . . . good and bad . . . connected with the old house too, even though he hasn’t lived on the Ponderosa for . . . well, it’s been a long time. In fact, it feels like a whole lifetime. At any rate . . . that first morning he rode out there with Hoss? He . . . Hoss, that is . . . told me he thought Adam was suffering a few emotional pangs.”

“I wish we could help him, Pa,” Joe said, feeling miserable, forlorn, and more helpless than he could recall ever having felt in his entire life.

“It may be that the best way we CAN help Adam is let him know we’re here, then allow him the time and space he needs to work things through on his own . . . in his own way,” Ben said. “I think you and I’ve already made it clear that we’re here if he needs us right before he left this morning.”

“Ok, Pa . . . I’ll TRY to mind my own business.”

“You ready to g’won back to bed now?”

“Not quite yet,” Joe replied. “You mind if I sit up for a little while?”

“Not at all, Son. You want me to stay with you?”

“Thanks, Pa, but I’ll be all right. I’m glad we talked things out, though, and I meant what I said about minding my own business.”

“I know you did, Joe.” Ben rose. “Good night.”

Joe looked up at his father, and grinned. “Pa . . . don’t you mean good MORNING?”

Adam, meanwhile, walked the scant few blocks between the Fletchers’ house and the Virginia City sheriff’s office, leading Sport II by his reins. He reached his destination just as the deep maroon and port wine hues of sunrise began to lighten into the brighter shades of red and scarlet.

There, he tethered Sport II to the hitching post just outside the sheriff’s office, alongside Kentucky Blue, the magnificent big brown gelding belonging to Darryl Hughes. Roy Coffee’s horse, Tin Star stood placidly on the other side of Kentucky Blue. Glancing over at the other horses present, he recognized brands from the Five Card Draw spread, belonging to Clay Hansen; the Wilsons’ Square W, the simple HU, for the Hurley family’s farm, and the mark used by the livery stable. Two pack horses, bearing the livery stable’s mark in their left rear flanks, stood side by side, tethered to another hitching post, a few yards from the first. Both were loaded with supplies, food, coffee, cooking utensils for the most part, and ready to go. Adam also saw a buckboard, stocked with blankets and pillows, extra clothing, and bandages. Clem Foster and Sam, the bartender over at the Silver Dollar Saloon, were loading a large barrel of water, the third of three, up into the back of the buckboard.

“ ‘Morning, Adam,” Clem greeted him politely, once the barrel was in place.

“Good morning, Clem . . . Sam,” Adam nodded to both the deputy and bartender, respectively.

“ ‘Morning, Adam,” Sam returned the greeting with a curt nod. “Clem, I’d best be goin’.”

“Thanks for the barrels of water, Sam,” Clem said gratefully. “Sheriff Coffee ‘n the others’ll sure appreciate it.”

“Glad I could help out,” Sam said. “If there’s anything else I can do once you bring those poor folks back outta the desert, you just let me know, y’ hear?”

“I will, Sam, thanks again.” After Sam left, Clem returned his attention to Adam. “You’ll find Sheriff Coffee ‘n everyone else inside waiting.”

“Thanks. I hope I’m not the last to arrive.”

“No. We’re still waiting on Doc Martin.”

“You coming along, too?”

“ ‘Fraid not, Adam,” Clem shook his head. “I’ve got a couple o’ prisoners to keep an eye one, one of ‘em being the guy who kidnapped Joe.”

“Crippensworth?”

Clem nodded.

“I heard he was being extradited to England.”

“Yeah. He’s wanted for a string o’ murders there.”

“Popular fellow,” Adam remarked with wry sarcasm.

“Yeah. He sure is,” Clem chuckled, then sobered. “Sheriff Coffee got a wire this morning from the men at Scotland Yard sent to fetch him. Seems they’ve been delayed by storms and flash flooding out in the plains area.”

“I sure hope they arrive soon,” Adam said grimly. “I’d hate to see that man released on some kind of technicality.”

“You don’t have to worry none about THAT, Adam,” Clem declared, with an emphatic nod of his head. “The extradition papers have been drawn up, and signed by Judge Faraday. That says Mister Crippensworth STAYS in jail until the men from Scotland Yard arrive to fetch him, no matter HOW long it takes. Meantime, Adam, you’d best get on inside, especially if you want any o’ them donuts Mrs. Braun made up ‘n brought down to us special.”

“Thanks, Clem.”

“ ‘Mornin’, Adam,” Roy Coffee greeted him briskly, as he stepped inside the sheriff’s office. “Glad you could join us. I think you know just about everybody here.”

He did, indeed. Darryl Hughes stood next to the pot bellied stove nursing a generous mug of hot strong coffee, conversing with Eli Barnett, the foreman at the Five Card Draw spread, and his twenty year old son, Andy. Clay Hansen, the owner of the Five Card Draw, sat in one of the chairs beside the sheriff’s desk, munching on a cinnamon donut, lost in his own thoughts, while Blake Wilson sat in the other chair, blowing across the surface of the hot mug of coffee, he held in both hands. His son, Matt, one of Adam’s oldest friends, nodded by way of greeting, as he bit into the cinnamon donut in hand. Jack Hurley and David, the younger of his twin sons both silently nodded their greetings.

“Hey, Adam . . . for a minute there, I thought I was dreaming!”

Adam turned and found himself looking up into the big, smiling face of Apollo Nikolas, one of Hoss’ oldest and best friends. “Apollo, you ol’ sea dog, you! I understand congratulations are in order for you and Colleen . . . again,” he said as the pair enthusiastically shook hands.

“Yes, Adam . . . thank you,” Apollo said with a grin.

“How many to you have now?” Adam asked as they enthusiastically shook hands.

“Aisling’s the oldest . . . she just turned two last birthday, and we have another girl, named Erin Helene for the places her grandparents came from. She’s six months.” Apollo recited his daughters’ names, ages, and other facts with all the reverence of a priest reciting a litany.

“How’s Colleen faring?”

“Well enough.” An anxious frown creased the smoothness of Adam’s brow. “She’s having a bit of trouble with this one, Adam,” he confessed, his smile fading. “Doc Martin says it’s normal, because she’s older, but . . . I’m kinda worried. Molly’s staying with her while I’m away.”

“Molly?” Adam queried with a puzzled frown.

Apollo nodded. “Why do you ask?”

“Sorry, Apollo, it wasn’t my intention to pry,” Adam quickly apologized. “I was under the impression that Molly had left for the Platteville Normal School out in Wisconsin at the end of last summer.”

“She was supposed to leave at the start of August last year, but Myrna . . . Mrs. O’Hanlan . . . took very ill suddenly, and she’s STILL not quite back on her feet,” Apollo said. “To say that Francis and Molly have had their hands full makes light of the matter.”

“What about Frankie?” Adam asked. Frankie was the O’Hanlans’ only son.

“HE left home a year ago after he and his mother had a royal row to end all rows,” Apollo said grimly, then sighed. “Granted it was about time Frankie struck out on his own, but I’m real sorry it had to happen the way it did.”

“I . . . understand your mother-in-law has apron strings made of cast iron.”

“Indeed she does,” Apollo agreed. “Between you ‘n me, Adam? I think a lot of her sickness has more to do with Frankie leaving home and Molly, at the time, ABOUT to leave home, than with any kind of physical ailment.”

“From what I saw of Mrs. Hanlan when I came to visit two summers years ago, I’d say your observations are right on the money,” Adam said. “But despite the circumstances, I’m glad Molly’s able to be with Colleen now, though.”

“So am I,” Apollo agreed wholeheartedly. “Molly’s grown up to be a real self assured, level headed young woman . . . thanks in large part to your sister, despite Myrna’s constant assertions that Stacy was a bad influence.”

“Would that OUR daughters come under such bad influence.”

“Amen to that, Adam. Amen to that.”

“Alright, Folks . . . listen up!” Roy raised his voice slightly, so to be heard above the many different conversations going on at once. “Doc Martin’s just arrived. He’s outside now with Clem loadin’ up his stuff in the buckboard, so let’s the rest of us git ready t’ move on out.”

“Where are we headed . . . exactly?” Adam asked, as he and Apollo both fell in step alongside the sheriff on either side.

“We’re gonna start at the spot where Hugh, Crystal, ‘n Darryl found Mrs. Estevan,” Roy replied. “From there, I figure on headin’ toward Desert Springs. That was the where that stage was last seen.”

It was a little past noon when they arrived at the watering hole where Hugh O’Brien, Crystal McShane, and Darryl Hughes had camped out their last night on the trail coming home from Eastgate. Andy Barnett and David Hurley, along with a couple of the younger men from the Five Card Draw Ranch, immediately took charge of the horses, seeing that each one was taken to the water to drink its fill.

“Mister O’Brien, Mrs. McShane, and I had our horses tethered here,” Darryl pointed out the exact spot to Roy Coffee, Adam Cartwright, Paul Martin, and a few of the others, who had elected to follow. “I saw Mrs. Estevan coming from that way.” He pointed in the direction due east. “She could hardly walk. She’d take a couple of steps, then fall . . . get up, take another step or two, then fall again.” He silently led the sheriff, the doctor and the others around to the other side of the watering hole. “It was right here she fell . . . and couldn’t get up again.”

Roy Coffee walked over and took a cursory look at the spot of ground at which Darryl Hughes still pointed. His eyes, still sharp despite his advancing years, caught the glint of something metallic lying in the sand at his feet. He knelt down for a closer look. It was a ring, a plain simple gold band, made to encircle a very slender finger.

“Sheriff Coffee? What is it?” Adam Cartwright asked.

“A ring,” Roy replied, placing it in the palm of his own hands. “A weddin’ ring from the look of it. There’s an inscription here on the inside, but I ain’t got m’ readin’ glasses on me, so I can’t make it out.”

“Mind if I have a look, Sheriff Coffee?” Darryl asked.

“Help yourself,” Roy said, as he handed Darryl the ring.

The young foreman raised the ring to eye level, and squinted. “It says . . . ‘Maria, all my love, forever yours, Lorenzo.’ ” He, then, handed the ring back to the sheriff.

“Thank you,” Roy snapped, his eyes blinking excessively. “Doc, when we all git back, I’d be much obliged if ya gave this back t’ Mrs. Estevan.”

“Certainly, Roy,” Paul said very quietly, as he accepted the ring, and tucked it safely away in his deep right pants pocket.

“Were you ‘n Crystal able t’ git anything more out of her?” Roy asked the doctor as he scanned the horizon, shielding his eyes from the steadily rising sun with the palm of his hand.

“As . . . as I was finishing with her examination, she told Crystal that she was . . . taken by the men who robbed the stage coach,” Paul said, still visibly shaken by the memory and accompanying emotions of his having examined and treated Maria Estevan the day before. “I took it to mean that those men abducted her, and . . . and kept her prisoner somewhere for a time . . . I’d say at least a week . . . maybe a little longer. The rope burns on her ankles and wrists certainly bear that out . . . and the fact that she’s still ALIVE.”

“Whatcha mean by THAT, Doc?” Roy asked.

“A human being can only survive without food AND water three . . . maybe four days on average,” Paul Martin explained. “That stage coach has been missing for a week.”

“Is there anyplace that could offer shelter within three or four days travel from here on foot?” Adam asked.

“You figure on us finding that missing stage there, Mister Cartwright?” Andy Barnett asked.

Adam shook his head. “I’m figuring on finding the place where Mrs. Estevan was held prisoner,” he said grimly. “If we can find THAT place, we may find clues there that would lead us to that missing stage, and . . . and to the rest of the passengers . . . . ” At that moment, he suddenly realized that the likelihood of finding any of the other passengers alive was virtually nil . . . .

In a flash, less than the space between one heartbeat and the next, Adam suddenly found himself sitting atop Sport . . . the first horse to bear that name, looking down on a man, unshaven, clad almost entirely in black, smiling in greedy anticipation as he glanced through the wallet he held in both hands. “That’s it,” he said.

“Now get down off that horse,” his companion and partner ordered.

Despite the searing heat of the sun beating down on them relentless, without a shred of mercy, Adam’s blood suddenly ran cold. “You got your money.” He heard again the anger, the desperation in his voice as he pointed out the obvious.

“Climb down,” the man holding his wallet, and the five thousand dollars inside ordered tersely.

He slowly complied.

“We’re gonna let you WALK outta here,” the other man said with a sneer, as he took hold of Sport’s lead.

“I’ll never make it without food and water,” Adam said, angry, yet half pleading. “Nobody would.”

The thieves laughed as they mounted their own horses. “Well now, I feel real sorry for him . . . ‘cause he’s right,” the man, who still had his wallet, was still laughing.

“Yeah,” his partner chuckled. “I’m all shook up.”

“I don’t want your pity . . . I just want a chance,” Adam said through clenched teeth. At the time, he was more angry than fearful . . . .

. . . angry at the two men who had just taken, not only his wallet and the money it contained, but any and all chance of him even surviving the encounter . . . .

. . . but, most of all, he felt very angry with himself.

“We’re givin’ you a chance,” the other man said, in a mocking tone of voice. “We ain’t KILLIN’ ya.”

“Very funny,” he said sardonically.

“Ain’t it?”

He stood, unmoving, watching, helpless and angry, as the two men rode off, their mocking, derisive laughter echoing in his ears . . . .

Adam . . . .

“Adam!”

He started violently, losing his balance. He would have taken a very nasty tumble, had it not been for Roy Coffee and Matt Wilson standing on either side of him, steadying him. For a moment he stared blankly at one, then the other.

“Adam . . . you all right?” Roy asked anxiously.

“I . . . I . . . y-yes. I’m all right . . . I’m fine,” Adam stammered, squeezing his eyes shut tight against a sudden onslaught of dizziness.

“You SURE, Buddy?” Matt asked, his voice laden with doubt.

“Yes. I’m fine,” Adam said curtly, as he rudely shook both of them off.

“You were talking then all of a sudden you blanked out on us,” Matt said quietly, with a worried frown on his face.

“I’m fine. Honest. I am. Now will the both of you please . . . stop hovering?!” Adam said tersely, syllables tersely clipped.

“Roy?” Clay Hansen, owner of the Five Card Draw Ranch, ventured, casting a wary glance over in Adam’s general direction.

“Yeah, Clay?”

“You were wonderin’ if there was someplace within three or four days o’ here?”

“Yeah,” Roy replied. “YOU know o’ someplace?”

Clay nodded slowly. “I seem to remember an old prospector’s shack . . . oh . . . ten, maybe fifteen miles that way.” He pointed in a general southeasterly direction.

“You thinkin’ o’ Crazy Cal’s place?” Blake Wilson asked.

“Crazy Cal as in . . . Crazy Calhoun Callahan?!”

“Yeah. That’s him,” Blake said, “I used t’ stop ‘n visit on my way back from the horse auction at Eastgate, leastwise up until he died a few years ago. If MY memory serves, its about ten or eleven miles in the direction Clay just said.”

“Any idea what Crazy Cal did f’r water?” Roy asked.

“There was a water hole . . . about a mile or so from his place,” Clay answered, “maybe just a tad less.”

“You have any inkin’ as t’ where, exactly, that water hole o’ Crazy Cal’s might be?” Roy asked.

“It was to the south or southeast of his shack, as the crow flies,” Blake replied.

Roy silently did some mental figuring. Ten miles out . . . ten miles back . . . plus time to look around . . . all that would take at least a good two days, maybe three. “Looks like Crazy Cal’s shack’s the only lead we got,” Roy said grimly. “Blake, Darryl, Apollo, ‘n Matt . . . I’d like YOU t’ come with me.”

“Sheriff Coffee?”

“Yes, Adam?”

“I’d like to go with you, as well.”

“I dunno ‘bout that, Son,” Roy said doubtfully. “Seemed like you were sufferin’ a touch o’ heatstroke just now . . . . ”

“I SAID I was fine,” Adam snapped.

Roy looked Adam square in the face, seeing not the son, but the father in the fierce, determined anger burning in those golden brown eyes, the mouth thinned to a near straight, lipless line, the rigid set of his jaw. Ben wore that very same look every time HE stubbornly made up his mind about something . . . and there was no changing it, no backing down. “Alright,” Roy said, exasperated, surrendering ungraciously to what he supposed to be the inevitable. “Alright, Adam, you can come along, but— ”

That last drew a sharp glare from Adam.

“You do exactly WHAT I tell ya . . . WHEN I tell ya t’ do it,” Roy said sternly. “That understood?”

“Understood,” Adam snapped, inwardly bristling against the sheriff admonishing him in the same manner he might a small boy.

“Alright,” Roy said tersely. He looked over at the other five men he had asked to accompany him. “I want all of ya t’ make sure your horses are watered ‘n your canteens filled.”

A soft ripple of ascent from the five men, accompanied by a couple of curt nods, followed in response to the sheriff’s request.

“Since we have that barrel o’ water from the Silver Dollar AND that water hole, I’d really appreciate it if some of you fellas, who’re stayin’ behind could spare a couple o’ extra canteens,” Roy continued. “Clay . . . Doc, I’m leavin’ you in charge. While WE’RE gone, I the lotta ya t’ break up in small groups o’ two or three ‘n ride out in different directions, keepin’ an eye out for any sign of that missin’ stage. I don’t want none o’ ya ridin’ out any more ‘n a half day’s journey, ‘n I want at least three men standin’ guard here at all times. I expect t’ be back here in a couple o’ days . . . maybe three. Any questions?”

None were forthcoming.

Satisfied, Roy Coffee turned to the men he chose to ride with him. “Let’s ride,” he ordered.

In the waning light and lengthening shadows of late afternoon, Roy Coffee and his companions paused atop a slight rise. They were surrounded on all sides by a flat expanse of desert, stretching away into the distance as far as the eye could see, broken only by a thin, jagged line of mountains, marking the northwesterly horizon line.

“Roy?”

“Yeah, Blake?”

“I think that’s it,” Blake Wilson said, pointing to what appeared to be a cluster of irregular shaped triangles and rectangles, silhouetted against the bright, near blinding desert sand.

“That’s it . . . what?” Roy queried with a perplexed frown.

“Crazy Cal’s shack,” Blake replied with a touch of asperity.

“You sure?” Roy asked.

“Course I’m sure,” Blake responded, taking no pains to hide his growing annoyance. “I’d know Crazy Cal’s shack in a heartbeat! Although . . . .”

“Although . . . what, Pa?” Matt asked.

“Well, I don’t rightly recall him having that lean-to,” Blake said, pointing to a triangular silhouette, sitting in front of the shack, a little to the right.

Roy removed his binoculars from one of his saddle bags and raised them to his eyes. “That’s a lean-to, alright,” he said grimly, “an’ it’s got four horses stabled in it.” He immediately lowered the binoculars. “We must be down wind here, or else those horses would o’ caught scent o’ ours, ‘n alerted whoever’s in that shack about us bein’ here. C’mon. We need t’ git ourselves BELOW this rise.”

Within minutes, the six men had moved down from the top of the small hill created by blowing wind and drifting sand. Blake Wilson and Darryl Hughes remained with the horses, at the foot of the rise, well out of sight of the individuals occupying Crazy Cal’s shack, while Adam Cartwright, Apollo Nikolas, and Matt Wilson followed Roy Coffee back up to the top on foot.

“Sheriff Coffee, you think maybe the people living in Crazy Cal’s shack are the men who robbed that stage?” Apollo asked, after they had all dropped down to their bellies just behind the ridge.

“I think it’s a real good possibility, Apollo,” Roy replied, “but, at the same time, I ain’t jumpin’ to conclusions. Those folks could like as not be squatters or maybe prospectors tryin’ t’ work Crazy Cal’s claim.”

“How do you propose we find out?” Adam asked.

Roy silently studied the landscape stretched out before him. The rise, sheltering them, curved slightly around to his right, sloping gradually until it came even with the ground roughly half way between their position and the shack. The lean-to had been erected near the door, its opening facing due east, so that its roof might provide the horses adequate shade against the hot afternoon sun, as it began its descent toward the western horizon. Between the men positioned at the top of the ridge and the shack lay a vast expanse of open space, broken only by an occasional tumbleweed. The only entrance from the front of the shack was a single door. There were no windows, at least none that could be seen from atop the ridge.

“Sheriff Coffee, if I keep to the ridge, I could sneak around to the place where this rise begins to curve,” Matt Wilson said softly. “That should give me a pretty good view of the side . . . and I could find out whether or not there’s any windows.”

Roy carefully thought the matter over. “Alright,” he finally assented. “We’ll cover ya, but, Matt . . . . ”

“Yes, Sir?”

“The wind seems t’ be blowin’ down from a northeasterly direction,” Roy said. “Y’ go too far along that down slope, you’re gonna find yourself down wind from them horses . . . an’ THEY’LL catch your scent, quicker ‘n you can catch pneumonia out in a snowstorm nekkid.” He paused to allow his warning t’ sink in. “You keep a real sharp eye on them horses, y’ hear me?”

“I will, Sheriff Coffee,” Matt promised.

“You better,” Matt’s father, Blake, growled. “ ‘Cause if you come back the least bit busted up . . . your ma ‘n your wife BOTH ’re gonna be out after my blood.”

“I’ll be careful, Pa . . . I promise.” With that, Matt Wilson slowly drew his gun from its holster, and silently set off.

“Somethin’ ain’t right, I tell ya. I feel it . . . deep in m’ bones . . . I can FEEL it!” Bartholomew Troutman, known as Black Bart among his associates, was a big, swarthy man, with dark brown, almost black piercing eyes, a head full of jet black wavy hair, graying around the edges, and a three day stubble, generously laced with gray. He stood nearly as tall as Hoss Cartwright, and weighed in at nearly twenty pounds heavier.

“You been goin’ on ‘n on ‘n ON about that for the last three days now,” one of his companions, a short, plump man, by the name of Timothy Higgins whined, rolling his eyes heavenward. Though aged only in his early twenties, his reddish brown hair was already thinning on top. His hazel eyes were round and staring, as if a single moment of surprise, or perhaps fear, had been indelibly frozen into the muscle and bone of his face, while his thick, sausage like lips seemed locked in a perpetual pout. “We ain’t seen hide nor hair o’ nobody.”

“Don’t mean they ain’t out there . . . somewhere,” Black Bart growled. “Hell, they could be hiding up there on top that ridge . . . . ” he pointed with a vigorous thrust of his powerful, well muscled arm. “I STILL say we shouldda gone out after that li’l gal, ‘n either drug her back by her hair, or killed her on the spot.”

“Why?” a third man demanded. Aged in his mid-forties, he was the eldest of his associates, and by nature, a cold, calculating man, named Jacob Carter. He was tall, and slender, yet well muscled. He had thinning light brown hair, generously laced with stands of silver, and alert blue eyes that missed seeing nothing.

“She’s a witness,” Black Bart said, rounding on Jacob furiously. “THAT means she can point us out to the sheriff.”

“I KNOW what that means,” Jacob said in a tone insultingly condescending. “I ALSO know there ain’t no way that li’l gal’s gonna make it outta this desert all by herself . . . on foot. The nearest li’l town . . . if ya wanna call two shacks, a near dried up well, ‘n a poor excuse for a saloon a town . . . is a good twenty miles t’ the north. That li’l gal’s buzzard bait, Black Bart . . . and buzzard bait don’t usually end up talkin’ t’ no sheriff.”

“NO!” The fourth man, young, aged all of nineteen years old, cried out. He was tall, and well muscled, with blonde, almost white hair, and startling sapphire blue eyes. “No! Jacob, she . . . she ain’t . . . oh, Jacob, she ain’t REALLY dead . . . is she?”

Jacob turned to the stricken young man, and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Y’ liked her, didn’t you, Billy Bob?”

Billy Bob nodded his head. “I liked her, Jacob. I liked her a whole lot. She . . . she was real pretty.”

“There’ll be other gals, Boy,” Jacob said, favoring the young man with an indulgent smile.

“I don’t want no other gals. I . . . I want HER.”

“First one’s ALWAYS special,” Jacob said. “You’ll never, ever quite forget her. I still remember Charlene, after all these years . . . . ”

“Jacob, I wanna find her. Please? Can I please find her?”

“No, Kid . . . y’ can’t.”

“Why NOT?!”

“For one thing we got no idea what direction she took,” Jacob patiently explained. “It’s a big desert out there, Billy Bob. If I letcha got out wanderin’ around . . . YOU could end up buzzard bait.”

“I gotta TRY, Jacob,” the boy ardently begged. “Please? Can I please TRY?”

“Billy Bob, by now, there . . . probably . . . ain’t much of her left TO find,” Jacob said soothingly. “The desert is a harsh task mistress to them not acquainted with her ways.”

Two large tears rolled down Billy Bob’s cheeks. “Th-then she’s . . . she’s d-dead. She’s really honest t’ goodness DEAD.”

“Aww fer— is that cry baby brat o’ your’s gonna start cryin’ AGAIN?!” Timothy whined.

“SHUT-UP!” Billy Bob yelled, glaring over at Timothy with a dark, murderous frown. “SHUT-UP, SHUT-UP . . . SHUT- UP!”

“Why don’t ya g’won over to your cot, ‘n lie down, maybe try ‘n get hold o’ yourself,” Jacob suggested, in a tone of voice surprisingly kind. “Seems ol’ Tim over there’s doin’ enough cryin’ for all of us.”

Billy Bob nodded, then shuffled over to the cot, set up in the farthest corner of the shack.

“Jacob, he gonna be all right?!” Black Bart queried, with an anxious frown. “You know how he gets when he takes a notion to his head. Ain’t NO stoppin’ him.”

“If you’re worried about him takin’ off t’ look for that li’l gal on his own . . . ya needn’t,” Jacob said, taking great care to keep his voice low. “Give him another minute, maybe two, he’ll have forgotten all about that li’l gal ‘n gone on t’ somethin’ ELSE. YOU know that, Bart. You know that better ‘n just about anyone.”

“Blatherin’ idiot!” Timothy growled, casting a disdainful glare over in the direction of the young man, now lying stretched out on the cot, with his face to the wall. “Y’ shouldda put him in an orphanage somewheres.”

Jacob gritted his teeth, then lashed out, striking Timothy with force sufficient to send him careening into the wall behind him. The younger, portlier man cried out in pain, astonishment, and outrage as he body slammed into the wall with a sickening thud, then collapsed to the sandy floor. Jacob, his eyes blazing with raw fury, moved in on his hapless opponent, with fingers clenched into a pair of tight, rock hard fists.

“Jacob, stop it!” Black Bart growled, as he interposed himself physically between Jacob and Timothy, now sitting on the floor, gazing up with a shocked, stupefied look on his face.

“Outta my way,” Jacob growled.

“I mean it,” Black Bart growled back, “ or so help me . . . I’m gonna knock the both of ya down ‘n sit on ya ‘til ya come t’ your senses.”

“Alright!” Jacob snarled. But, I don’t wanna hear no more talk about orphanages or hospitals, or so help me . . . so . . . HELP . . . me . . . I’m gonna KILL him.”

“No one’s stickin’ Billy Bob in no orphanage or hospital,” Black Bart tried to reassure his associate and old friend. “You promised your ma you’d look after him when she was lyin’ on her death bed.”

“Damn right,” Jacob snarled, as he glared over at Timothy, still sitting where he had fallen just a short while ago, whimpering.

“Mean time, we gotta saddle up ‘n move on,” Black Bart continued. “Sooner the better.”

“We can’t leave now,” Jacob argued. “That silver shipment don’t come through for another couple o’ days yet.”

“We can’t stay HERE.”

“Why not?”

Black Bart cast a quick, furtive glance over toward Billy Bob, now snoring softly. “That li’l gal, Jacob,” he said, taking great care to lower his voice.

“Bart, you’re tremblin’ worse ‘n a vaporous old woman,” Jacob sneered.

“We can’t take the chance. She can point us out to the law.”

“Bart, I keep tellin’ ya . . . she CAN’T point us out to the law or nobody ELSE,” Jacob argued, “ ‘cause she’s dead. Gotta be, by now. Even if she DID get lucky ‘n blunder into the nearest water hole . . . there still ain’t nothin’ but desert f’r twenty, maybe even thirty miles no matter which way ya look. Ain’t no way possible for her to’ve gotten out on foot.”

“What if she found help?” Black Bart demanded.

“Aww, Bart . . . where in the ever lovin’ world is she gonna find help?! Whole time WE been livin’ out here in this shack, we ain’t seen much o’ NOBODY.”

“What about them three we saw leave Eastgate few days ago, after that horse auction?”

“Ok, so three people left Eastgate,” Jacob snorted derisively. “So WHAT? The chances of them runnin’ into that li’l gal are . . . astro-nomical.”

“I’d still feel a helluva lot better about things if we’d gone after that gal,” Black Bart declared.

“Look. Day after t’morrow that silver shipment bound f’r Placerville comes through,” Jacob pressed. “After we relieve ‘em of all that precious, heavy metal . . . we’re GONE . . . as in SOUTH to Mexico, to live like kings.”

“ . . . an’ we can hook up with some real live red hot mamas,” Timothy ventured hesitantly, with a bare hint of a lecherous sneer pulling hard at the corner of his mouth. “I’ll even betcha you can find one t’ make Billy Bob forget the one that got away . . . ?!”

“THAT won’t be hard,” Jacob grunted, “makin’ Billy Bob forget all about that li’l gal. I hafta admit, she was a nice piece of ass . . . fun while she lasted. Her cryin’ all the time for that sissy boy, Lorenzo, got tiresome real quick, though.”

“How can YOU sit there and . . . and . . . think about women, when the three o’ US as good as got our necks in a noose?” Black Bart yelled.

“Robbin’ a stage AIN’T no hangin’ offense,” Timothy immediately shot back.

“Maybe stage robbin’ ain’t, but murder IS.”

“I didn’t commit no murder.”

“The hell ya didn’t. Whaddya call the bullets ya put in the driver of that stage . . . an’ the man ridin’ shotgun?”

“Self defense,” Timothy snapped. “THEY drew on ME, first.”

“You think anyone’s gonna— ” Black Bart’s entire body suddenly went rigid. “What was THAT?” he gasped, his eyes round with sheer terror.

“Aggh! You’re WORSE ‘n an old woman,” Timothy sneered.

“I just heard our horses,” Black Bart gasped.

“So what?!”

“LISTEN to ‘em, dammit.”

Both Jacob and Timothy paused to listen. “Aaah, so the horses are makin’ noises,” the latter snorted contemptuously. “So what?!”

“Someone’s out there!” Black Bart declared vehemently.

“Dagnabit!” Roy muttered under his breath.

“What’s the matter, Sheriff Coffee?” Adam asked.

“The wind shifted,” Roy said, “so Matt’s now down wind o’ their horses.”

“ . . . and they’ve picked up his scent,” Adam said quietly.

“What do we do NOW, Sheriff Coffee?” Apollo asked.

Roy waved at Matt, frantically gesturing for him to immediately take cover. Matt glanced back with a bewildered frown, but complied. “Adam . . . Apollo . . . you boys cover me.” He rose, and cupped his hands around his mouth. “HELLO, THE HOUSE.”

“Dammit!” Black Bart swore vehemently. “I told ya someone was out there.”

“NOW what’ll we do?” Timothy wailed, his entire body quaking with sheer terror.

“The two of YOU need t’ git hold o’ yourselves for one thing,” Jacob growled. “Honest t’ God, I ain’t never, not in all my born days EVER seen nuthin’ as scaredy cat as the two o’ you!”

“Jacob?!” It was Billy Bob. He stood at Jacob’s elbow, eyes still half closed, trying hard not to yawn.

“Whatcha want, Billy Bob?” Jacob asked, unable to keep the exasperation out of his voice.

Billy Bob flinched, as if Jacob had just struck him.

“Sorry, Kid,” Jacob immediately apologized.

“Everything . . . oh . . . kay?”

“Yeah, Billy Bob, everything’s ok— ”

“No!” Timothy wailed, rudely cutting Jacob off mid-sentence. “Everything’s NOT ok. We’re caught! We’re just as good as blamed CAUGHT! Y’ know what THAT means . . . . ”

The blood drained right out of Billy Bob’s face.

“Well, I’ll tell ya one thing. I AIN’T goin’ to the gallows, no sir, not Pearl Troutman’s li’l boy . . . not no how, not no way, ‘n especially NOT for t’ likes o’ YOU.” Black Bart punctuated his passionate declaration with a dark, angry glare directed in the general direction of Timothy Higgins.

“Dammit, I told ya . . . THAT was self defense!” Timothy shot right beck. “Jacob saw. HE’LL back me up.”

“Maybe it WAS self defense agin’ the driver ‘n the man riding shot gun,” Black Bart rounded furiously on his cohort, “but NOT agin’ that boy.”

“WHAT boy?”

“That tall, skinny boy! He didn’t have no gun, no knife, no nuthin’!”

“You talkin’ ‘bout Low-ren-zo?” Timothy sneered.

“I’m talkin’ ‘bout YOU shootin’ down an unarmed man, not much more ‘n a BOY . . . in cold blood. I saw ya, Higgins. Ya shot that boy down in cold blood, just so ‘s YOU could have his girl.”

“YOU had YOUR fun with ‘er, too.”

“Will the both o’ ya puh-leese . . . shut-UP?!” Jacob ordered, taking no pains to conceal his swift growing annoyance. “You’re scarin’ the wits outta Billy Bob!”

“That boy don’t have any wits t’ be scared out of,” Timothy muttered softly, under his breath.

“What was THAT?!” Jacob demanded.

“Nothin’,” Timothy snapped back in a sullen tone of voice.

“I MEAN it, Jacob!” Black Bart defiantly insisted. “I AIN’T swingin’ from the end of a rope . . . NOT for the likes o’ him.”

“Nobody’s askin’ ya to!” Jacob’s words drew a sharp, angry glare from Timothy, mixed with generous doses of fear and trepidation. “Now, shut-up ‘n settle down . . . the BOTH of ya!” He glared at Black Bart first, then over toward Timothy. “Like as not, it’s some ol’ squatter lookin’ for shelter.”

“What’re we gonna do?” Timothy demanded.

“I’M gonna go see what the man outside wants,” Jacob replied, as he started for the door.

“J-Jacob?”

“What’s the matter, Billy Bob?”

“Are we goin’ to jail?” Billy Bob asked, his face pale, his eyes round with sheer terror.

“Billy Bob, ain’t nobody goin’ t’ jail,” Jacob hastened to assure the young man. “Now you wait right here with Mister Troutman ‘n Mister Higgins, ‘til I come back.”

“Ok,” Billy Bob agreed reluctantly, with much fear and trepidation.



“HELLO, THE HOUSE!” Roy shouted again.

The door opened. Jacob Carter stepped out from the darkened interior into the bright sunshine. “HELLO, FRIEND,” he yelled back in an affable tone of voice. “WHAT CAN I DO FOR YA?”

“I WAS WONDERIN’ IF I MIGHT ASK YA A FEW QUESTIONS,” the sheriff yelled back in response.

“WHATCHA WANNA KNOW?”

“THERE’S AN OVERLAND STAGE COACH MISSIN’. IT LEFT VIRGINIA CITY A COUPLE O’ WEEKS AGO. I THOUGHT MAYBE YOU LIVIN’ OUT HERE IN THE DESERT THE WAY Y’ ARE . . . MAYBE YOU’D SEEN OR HEARD SOMETHING.”

“SORRY, FRIEND, ‘FRAID I CAN’T HELP YA. YOU FROM THE STAGE LINE?”

“NOPE. I’M THE SHERIFF FROM OVER IN VIRGINIA CITY,” Roy replied. “GOT A WIRE FROM THE STAGE LINE A COUPLE O’ DAYS AGO THAT THE STAGE WAS MISSIN’.”



“Damn, damn, damn, DAMN!” Black Bart vehemently swore, upon hearing Sheriff Coffee identify himself. “I knew we was caught! I knew it, I KNEW it!”

“Willya f’r heaven’s sake settle DOWN?!” Timothy growled back.

“Settle down? Settle DOWN?! Didn’t ya hear what I just SAID?! We’re as good as caught . . . ‘n you’re tellin’ me t’ settle DOWN?!”

“I swear! You got more fright in ya that the Good Lord gave a rabbit . . . and you’re scaring the boy, besides! The sheriff’s just askin’ questions. That’s ALL! He ain’t accusin’ us o’ nuthin’ . . . . ”

“ . . . YET! How you of all of us can stand there so cool ‘n calm, I’ll never know. YOU’RE the one facin’ a hangman’s noose, after all.”

“I ain’t neither!” Timothy declared heatedly. “It was self defense, y’ hear me? Self defense! When in the hell are ya gonna get that through your thick head?!”

“I don’t call shootin’ two men lyin’ in the sand, trussed up like a pair o’ calves for brandin’ self defense,” Black Bart shot right back. “I call it cold blooded murder . . . same as that boy . . . ‘n same as that WOMAN.”

“You’d tell ‘em that, wouldn’t ya?”

“Damn’ right, if it’ll save m’ own neck, you snivelin’, whinin’ li’l— .”

“Well. So much for honor among thieves,” Timothy said, as he whipped his revolver out of its holster.

“Hey! Whatcha gonna DO?” Billy Bob cried out.

Black Bart’s swarthy complexion paled as he watched his cohort aim the barrel of his revolver straight at his own heart. “Come on, Higgins . . . put that thing away,” he murmured, as he raised his hands to shoulder level.

“Get this through your head, Big Man,” Timothy said contemptuously, “I got no intentions o’ dancin’ on air either.” With that, he pulled the trigger.

Black Bart had vague awareness of Billy Bob somewhere, screaming, as he dropped to the floor, his face contorted with agony, clutching at his chest. “Y-You . . . b-back stabbin’ J-Judas goat son of a bitch,” he spat.

“You’re no better,” Timothy sneered. “You we’re gonna tell on me t’ save your own crummy neck, remember?”

“What the hell’s goin’ on here?” Jacob Carter demanded, as he charged into the shack.

“I had no choice,” Timothy whined. “I HAD t’ shoot him. T’was that or let HIM shoot ME.”

“You . . . you l-lyin’ b-bag o’ shit dust,” Black Bart muttered angrily through clenched teeth. “I . . . I ain’t even wearin’ m’ gun.”

“You . . . you stupid . . . THAT’S IT!” Jacob screamed, his face contorting with rage. “THAT IS THE ABSOLUTE, POSITIVE LAST STRAW! HIGGINS, YOU ‘N ME ARE QUITS! BLACK BART, BILLY BOB ‘N ME ARE LEAVIN’ . . . JUST AS SOON AS I CAN SADDLE OUR HORSES.”

“GOOD RIDDANCE!” Timothy shouted, on the edge of hysteria. “GOOD RIDDANCE TO YOU AND THAT IDIOT FREAK BROTHER OF YOUR’S! Y’ HEAR M— ” His words ended abruptly when Jacob punched him, with a granite solid right cross, that shattered virtually all the teeth in the front of his mouth.

“Billy Bob, get your things,” Jacob said, his entire body quaking with fury. “We’re leavin’. We gotta get Black Bart to a doctor.”

“Jacob . . . n-no!” Black Bart gasped, as Jacob knelt down beside him.

“We gotta get those slugs outta ya,” Jacob said in a calm, almost detached tone of voice.

“T-too late . . . . ”

“Mister Black B-Bart, are ya . . . are ya gonna . . . die?” Billy Bob asked, as he knelt down beside his brother.

“ ‘Fraid s-so, Billy Bob . . . . ”

“No,” Billy Bob said softly, shaking his head. “Y’ can’t die . . . how’s Jacob ‘n me gonna rob that stage, if . . . if YOU die?”

“Listen t-to me, Billy B-Bob . . . you ‘n Jake . . . y’ gotta git, y’ . . . y’ hear me?” Black Bart said. “There’ll be . . . there’ll b-be plenty . . . other . . . st-stages.”

“It’ll be ok,” Billy Bob protested, “ ‘Cause J-Jacob already g-got rid o’ that sheriff.”

“Well, now, I wouldn’t go so far as t’ say THAT, Son.”

Jacob, Billy Bob and Timothy looked up, and found, Roy Coffee standing framed in the doorway, with revolver in hand . . . much to their sinking horror.

“I want all three of ya t’ take the guns outta those holsters . . . slow ‘n easy . . . with the finger tips o’ your LEFT hands,” Roy continued. “Then toss ‘em over here next t’ my feet, by the barrel.”

“I had nothin’ t’ do with this, Sheriff . . . neither did Billy Bob,” Jacob said, nodding toward his brother, as he reached across with his left hand and slipped his gun from its holster. “I w-was outside . . . talkin’ with YOU . . . remember?”

“I remember.” Keeping a sharp eye and the barrel of his revolver trained on the three men standing before him, Roy bent down to retrieve the gun belonging to Timothy Higgins.

“ . . . ‘n Billy Bob here?” Jacob continued.

“What about him?”

“He wouldn’t harm a fly.”

Roy glanced over at Billy Bob, standing alongside Jacob, with trembling hands upraised. Slow. THAT was the kind word for folks like Billy Bob Carter, who ended up having the body of a grown man . . . or woman, with the mind of a child, or sometimes even a baby living inside.

“I MEAN it, Sheriff. Billy Bob wouldn’t harm a fly!” Jacob insisted.

“I’ll take your word for it,” Roy said as he lifted Timothy’s weapon to his nose and sniffed. The gun was still warm to the touch, the smell of powder quite strong. “If you gimme your word you won’t try nothin’ silly, like an escape attempt, I’ll let you ‘n Billy Bob share a cell, so you can better look after him.”

“What are you takin’ Billy Bob ‘n me in for?” Jacob demanded, outraged. “I told ya . . . I DIDN’T shoot Bart . . . neither did Billy Bob.”

“I ain’t takin’ you or the boy in for shootin’ that big guy in front o’ ya,” Roy said. “I’m takin’ HIM in . . . ” he inclined his head toward Timothy Higgins, “ . . . for that.”

“Then . . . why are you takin’ Billy Bob ‘n me in?”

“Suspicion.”

“Suspicion? For WHAT?!”

“ ‘Cause I got a real strong feelin’ you know more ‘bout that stage disappearin’ than you was lettin’ on just now.”

“Are you . . . are you g-gonna . . . hang me?” Billy Bob asked, his entire body trembling.

“They ain’t gonna hang ya, Boy, ‘cause y’ ain’t killed nobody,” Jacob said quietly, yet very firmly.

“P-Promise?”

“I promise. Only one’s gonna get hanged is Higgins over there— ”

“N-No! NO!” Thoroughly panicked, Timothy scrambled to his feet, pushed past Roy and fled from the shack.

“Going somewhere, Mister?”

Timothy immediately stopped dead in his tracks. The momentum of his forward thrust coupled with his sudden stop, sent him toppling face first down onto the sand. For a time he simply lay as he fell, rendered immobile by the pain of his body thudding hard against the desert sand, and from all the broken, shattered teeth in his mouth, resulting from a single blow from Jacob Carter’s fist. Upon glancing upward, he found himself staring into the long barrels of three rifles in the hands of Adam Cartwright, Matt Wilson, and Apollo Nikolas.

“On your feet,” Adam ordered, his face dark with the murderous rage steadily building inside him. “Keep your movements slow and easy. You so much as bat an eyelash the wrong way . . . . ” He let his voice trail away to ominous silence.

For less than a second, Timothy considered making another mad dash, only to think again in the face of the black fury he saw mirrored in Adam Cartwright’s eyes. He swallowed, then slowly rose to his feet, his entire body quaking with fear.

“Damn! I was hoping he’d make a run for it,” Adam muttered angrily under his breath.

Behind his back, Matt and Apollo both exchanged apprehensive glances. They would have expected that kind of an angry response from Joe Cartwright, when he was much younger . . . but Adam?! Never! Not in a million years!

“I . . . I had nothin’ t’ do with it y’ know,” Timothy said, his voice shaking.

“Then why are you so hell-bent on running?” Adam snapped out the question.

“ ‘CAUSE I DON’T TRUST YA,” Timothy yelled., on the verge of tears. “THAT LOOK ON YOUR FACE . . . . ” He shuddered. “YOU’D KILL ME AS MUCH AS LOOK AT ME.”

“No!” Adam whispered, as the blood drained right out of his face. “No!” He could hear Kane’s maniacal laughter echoing within the deepest recesses of his heart and soul.

“You want to kill me, don’t you, Cartwright?”

“No . . . . ”

“Yes, you do. You want to kill me.”

“NO.”

Adam?!

Adam started so violently, he nearly dropped the rifle in his hands. He turned and found himself staring into Matt Wilson’s pale, apprehensive face. Timothy Higgins stood less than ten yards away with trembling hands reaching upward. Apollo had his own rifle aimed square at the short, squat man’s belly.

“Adam?! Hey, Buddy, you alright?” Matt asked, anxiously.

“I . . . . ” Adam shook his head vigorously to clear it of the strange reverie that had just possessed him. “No!” he snapped, glaring over at their badly frightened prisoner. “I look at that man and keep thinking that I have a wife, a daughter . . . AND a sister.”

Matt gave Adam’s shoulder a firm squeeze, meant to reassure. “Hey, Apollo . . . how about you keep covering us whilst I search this low life bag o’ scum,” he said, as he ambled over toward the cowering man with his hands still up.

“My pleasure,” Apollo replied. “To echo Adam’s sentiment, I have a wife, TWO daughters, a twin sister, and a niece. Not to mention my in-laws. I, too, wish he’d make a run for it . . . for THEIR sakes.” He caressed the trigger of his rifle for emphasis.

“I . . . I d-d-don’t know what you f-fellas are t-talking about,” Timothy stammered.

“Oh, yes, you do,” Matt countered, in a tone of voice deceptively benign. “However, your appalling lack of respect for those of the opposite gender is gonna be the LEAST of your worries, if the man you shot in there dies. That’ll get you the gallows for sure.”

“I didn’t do nothin’, ya hear me?! Nothin’!” Timothy declared, his voice shaking, his eyes round as saucers. “I don’t know what you fellas are talkin’ about, I swear, I d-don’t.”

Matt set himself to the task of searching for the man. He took a knife from Timothy’s boot, an enormous wad of bills from his right pant’s pocket, and a man’s gold wedding ring from the top pocket of his shirt. “Don’t know what were talkin’ about, hunh?” he said, fixing the hapless Timothy with a hard, steely glare.

“What’s THAT s’posed to mean?” Timothy demanded warily.

“YOUR name Lorenzo?”

Timothy unconsciously stepped back , and brought his hands down to shield his face against the raw, primal fury he saw in both Matt’s and Adam’s faces, when the former uttered the name of the young bridegroom. “I, uh . . . I . . . I . . . . ”

“The inscription inside this ring says, ‘ . . . darling, Lorenzo. I will love you always and forever. Maria.’ You Lorenzo?” Matt pressed relentlessly,

“No, I . . . .”

“Alright, if you’re not Lorenzo, then where’d you get that ring?” Adam asked, his calm, dispassionate tone at frightening odds against the rage burning in his dark eyes, his body rigid, trembling with anger.

“I . . . I FOUND IT!” Timothy yelled. “I FOUND IT, DAMMIT, Y’ HEAR ME? ! I FOUND IT!”

“Boys, I’LL take over the questionin’ when we git back t’ town.”

Three heads, three pairs of eyes turned, just in time to see Roy Coffee stepping into their circle. His complexion had paled to a sickly ashen gray, and his mouth was thinned to a very taut, near lipless, angry line. A dark, murderous scowl, deepened the furrows already present in his forehead and made darker the shadows, formed by the bony structure of his eye sockets. The haunted look in his eyes stood out in stark, uneasy contract against the raw fury so present, so very palpable in the rest of his face.

Jacob and Billy Bob Carter walked meekly in front of him, with their hands firmly tied behind their backs. The former’s head was bowed, his face masked by the deep shadows cast by the harsh desert sunlight against the lines and planes formed by bone and sinew. Young Billy Bob’s face was noticeably pale, and he glanced around at the others stupidly, in fear and bewilderment.

Roy inclined his head toward Timothy Higgins, with trembling hands still raised to shoulder level, amid a half circle formed by three angry men, with rifles aimed at his head. “We got this one for murder,” he stated in a hollow voice.

“Muh-muh-muh-murder?!” Timothy stammered, looking from one man to the next through the round eyes of a wild animal, irrevocably caught in a trap.

“That’s what I said,” Roy affirmed.

Timothy blanched. “N-No! Th-those men on the stage . . . it was self defense, I tell ya! Self defense!” he cried nearly overcome now with hysteria. “I HAD t’ kill ‘em . . . or else THEY wouldda killed ME!”

“I ain’t talkin’ about the stage . . . I’m talkin’ about YOU shooting down your partner in cold blood,” Roy said grimly. “I saw ya do it.”

“I SHOT him,” Timothy sobbed. “I didn’t KILL ‘im!”

“Yes, y’ did,” Roy said. “Black Bart Troutman died five minutes ago from the bullet YOU put in his gut. That counts as murder in my book, AND in the eyes o’ the law.” He paused to let the import of his words sink in. “He also made a death bed confession. Said he wanted t’ clear his conscience before leavin’ this world t’ meet his maker.”

“A . . . a . . . what?!” Timothy stammered, reeling under the impact of all that had just happened, and the grim consequences that lay ahead.

“Black Bart confessed,” Jacob angrily rounded on Timothy, “to everything. The stage robbery, the killin’, that li’l gal . . . everything!”

“Oh no,” Timothy sobbed. “Oh, G-God, no . . . no, no, no, no . . . . ”

“Ahh . . . shut-up! It’s your old woman’s fright what got us caught. Least y’ can do is face the music like a man!” Jacob growled.

Within a very short time, the Carter brothers and Timothy Higgins were both atop their saddled horses with their hands securely tied behind their backs. The body of Black Bart Troutman was buried in front of the shack, and marked by a simple cross. A quick search inside yielded Maria Estevan’s traveling suit, now reduced to a pile of filthy rags, two wallets with money and letters addressed to men listed as passengers aboard the missing stage, and an assortment of men’s and women’s jewelry. Everything was handed over to Sheriff Coffee as evidence.

“Hey, I . . . I c-can’t ride like this . . . with my hands tied behind my back,” Timothy whined in protest.

“Mister, y’ got a choice,” Roy said, taking no pains to hide his anger and contempt. “Y’ can ride like y’ are now . . . OR y’ can stay here . . . ‘n keep Black Bart company, if y’ git my meanin’. Which’ll it be?”

Timothy blanched at the implications, but said nothing.

“Alright, Men, we got three prisoners t’ take back t’ town,” Roy said, still angry, yet all of a sudden very weary. “Let’s go.”

“Just a minute, Sheriff Coffee,” Adam protested, gazing over at the lawman in utter disbelief. “What about the missing stage?”

“You wanna know where that missing stage is, Pal? It’s about twenty miles due south o’ here,” Jacob immediately replied. He looked down at Adam from atop his horse, and smiled. It was a nasty, cruel smile, void of any and all mirth or joy. “It’s THAT way.” He inclined his head over his shoulder, to his right. “Y’ go along the road, ‘bout ten miles or so, ‘til ya get to the gateway rocks.”

Adam frowned. “Gateway rocks?! What are the gateway rocks?”

“You’ll know ‘em,” Jacob said cryptically. “At the gateway rocks, ya leave the road, ‘n go right. Ride as the crow files, you’ll find the stage.”

“Sheriff Coffee, I’m going to ride out and— ”

“Adam, there ain’t no point in going out t’ look for that missin’ stage,” Roy said, accurately perceiving what Ben’s eldest was going to say. He felt very sick to his stomach, and even sicker at heart.

“WHAT?!” Adam sputtered, outraged and bewildered.

“Y’ heard me,” Roy said.

“Sheriff C-Coffee, are y-you suggesting that we . . . that we ABANDON those people?!” Adam demanded, appalled by the thought.

“Before he died . . . Black Bart said they waited ‘til that stage was too far out in t’ desert for those poor folks t’ make it b-back on foot before settin’ upon it. After . . . after these men . . . ” Roy grimaced as if he had just bitten into something very rancid, very foul tasting, “ . . . after these m-men robbed the folks aboard that stage . . . shot the two men drivin’ . . . shot M-Mister Estevan . . . they took their food, their water, ‘n the horses . . . ‘n just LEFT ‘em there . . . all of ‘em . . . except f’r MRS. Estevan . . . . ”

Adam felt the air explode from his lungs, as if he had just taken a hard blow to the stomach. Had he not been holding tight to Sport II’s saddle, he would have almost certainly fallen down. He stared over at the sheriff through eyes round with horror, too stunned to move, or even speak . . . .


“Hold it right there, Mister.”

Adam froze.

A man moved out from behind a large boulder, just ahead to his right, with his gun drawn.

“Just don’t move,” a second man ordered, from his perch in the niche of a larger rock on Adam’s left. He jumped down, with gun in hand, its barrel aimed squarely at Adam’s chest. “Drop your gun, easy like.”

“Didn’t I see you in Eastgate?” he queried, looking from one to the other, concluding he had no chance of escape . . . for the moment, anyway. He reluctantly handed over his gun and his rifle.

“Yeah,” the second man answered his question. “You did. It’s been a long trail.”

“You sure took your time before making your move,” Adam observed sardonically, as the men retrieved his gun and rifle.

“In OUR line of work, we like privacy,” the second man returned with a wry smile, without missing a beat. “You know what we want.”

“Yeah,” Adam said with rancor. “I’m intuitive.” He reached into his back pocket, and pulled out his wallet, all the while silently cursing himself for the stupidity . . . HIS stupidity . . . of carrying around such a large sum of money alone.

“Just toss it down here,” the first man said. “No tricks, huh?”

Adam did as he was told.

The first man caught the wallet, then opened it. A greedy smile spread slowly across his lips. “That’s it,” he declared, the instant his eyes fell on the generous wad of bills squeezed into the back.

“Now get down off that horse.”

The second man’s words chilled the very morrow in Adam’s bones. “You got your money,” Adam said tersely, as horror mixed with rising anger.

“Climb. Down.” The first man reiterated the order, enunciating each word for emphasis.

Adam warily obeyed.

“We’re gonna let you WALK outta here,” the second man sneered.

“I’ll never make it without food and water,” Adam argued, as he watched them mount their own horses with a fast sinking heart. “Nobody would.”

“Well now, I feel real sorry for him,” the second man laughed derisively, “ ‘cause he’s right.”

“Yeah,” the first man agreed, also laughing. “I’m all shook up.”

“I don’t want your pity. I just want a chance.” There was a pleading note in Adam’s terse, angry tone of voice.

“We’re givin’ you a chance,” the second man snickered. “We ain’t KILLIN’ ya.”

“Very funny!” Adam returned in a voice as cold as the stone that had formed deep in the pit of his stomach.

“Ain’t it?” the men laughed as they rode off with his wallet, his money, his horse, food, and water . . . reducing his chances of surviving the encounter from slim to virtually nil . . . .

Adam?

“Adam?!” Matt ventured hesitantly, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder.

“N-No . . . . ” Adam murmured, shaking his head vigorously in denial. “No . . . . ”

“Come on, Pal, we got a long way back— ”

“No, Matt,” Adam said, angrily shaking his old friend off. “I’m going to find that stage.”

“Adam, every last one o’ them folks is DEAD,” Roy said, giving vent to the fury and the sickness rising within, threatening to devour him alive. “Y’ hear me?! They’re dead! There ain’t a blessed thing we can do for any of ‘em now.”

“We DON’T know that!” Adam argued. “We can’t possibly know that. All we have is the word of . . . of . . . of a damned murderer and a rapist!”

“Twenty miles due south o’ here . . . the closet town bein’ Eastgate, which has gotta be at least two ‘n a half days away, maybe even THREE days RIDE away from there. . . no food, no water, no horses . . . Adam . . . for God’s sake . . . do I hafta spell it out for ya?!” Roy argued, angry, yet deeply troubled that he was actually having this conversation with the eldest of Ben’s boys, rather than the youngest.

“Sheriff Coffee, I am going to find that stage,” Adam said through clenched teeth. He lifted his leg and angrily jammed his foot into the stirrup.

Roy seized Adam by the shoulder in a painful, vice like grip and spun him around so that they stood face to face. “It’s been a week ‘n a half since they was last seen in Desert Springs, Adam. You remember ANYTHING o’ what Doc Martin said?”

“Of COURSE I do,” Adam growled back, trying hard not to wince. For a man of his years, Roy Coffee’s grip was surprisingly strong.

“Y’ know what that means?”

Adam furiously pulled away from the hold Roy Coffee had on him. “I know very well what that means,” he said in a low, dangerous tone. “In fact, I know better than most what that means.” He grabbed hold of the saddle and, this time, climbed up with the surprising speed and agility of a man half his age. “I am going to go look for that stage,” he said again. There was a determined, steely glint in his eyes, not unlike the same that appeared in his father’s once a hard decision had been made. “I . . . I have to do this, Sheriff Coffee.”

“Now if this ain’t the most hair brained— ” Roy sputtered, outraged, angry, and thoroughly perplexed.

“Sheriff Coffee . . . . ” Matt ventured hesitantly.

“What?” Roy snapped.

“I’LL go with Adam,” Matt said quietly.

“Matt— ” Blake Wilson started to protest.

“I’ll be alright, Pa. Adam and I’ll be along in another three days, four at the most.”

“We got three prisoners t’ take back t’ Virginia City,” Roy immediately reminded the two younger men.

“They’re tied up. You, Apollo, Darryl, and Pa can manage ‘em,” Matt replied, “and when you return to the water hole where the others are waiting . . . well, you’re NOT going to miss Adam and me.”

“Tryin’ t’ find that blamed stagecoach is gonna be like . . . well, like looking for a needle buried deep in a haystack,” Roy argued. “I don’t wanna hafta be getting a search party together to look for the pair o’ YOU.”

“Adam and I will follow the directions given,” Matt said. “If they don’t lead us to that missing stage, we’ll head home. RIGHT, Adam?”

Adam pointedly remained silent.

“Adam . . . . ” Matt pressed.

“Oh, all right,” Adam snarled. “We don’t find that missing stage following directions, we head for home.”

“I want your word on that, Boys,” Roy said, glaring at Adam first, then Matt.

“I give you my word, Sheriff Coffee,” Matt said immediately.

“Adam?” Roy prompted.

“Alright! I give you MY word as well,” Adam growled, ungraciously surrendering to the inevitable.

The search party, minus Adam Cartwright and Matt Wilson, reached Virginia City with their three prisoners, Timothy Higgins, and the two Carter brothers, Jacob and Billy Bob, during the early afternoon hours the following day. Clem stood outside the open door of the sheriff’s office, cradling a loaded rifle in the crook of his left arm, having been forewarned of the sheriff’s return by a half dozen concerned citizens with in the space of the last five minutes.

“Clem, I want ya t’ take charge o’ the prisoners,” Roy said wearily, as he dismounted from Tin Star’s back. “Apollo . . . Darryl, you boys give Clem a hand.”

Apollo Nikolas and Darryl Hughes both nodded curtly, then set themselves to the task of helping Clem Foster escort the three prisoners to the jail cells inside.

Satisfied that the Carters and Timothy Higgins were in reliable hands, Roy turned to address the rest of the men who had made up the search party. “I want t’ thank each ‘n everyone o’ you for all your help. I know this is a busy time o’ year for all o’ ya . . . ‘specially those who have farms ‘n ranches t’ look after . . . ‘n I appreciate ya takin’ the last few days from everything else y’ had t’ do. My only regret is that we were ‘way too late t’ save any o’ those poor folks who had the terrible bad luck o’ bein’ on that stage.”

“At least I can rest easier knowing that we caught the filthy lowlifes who robbed that stage and . . . and violated that poor girl,” Clay Hansen declared with a black, angry scowl on his face.

“Too bad we couldn’t have done t’ THEM, what they did t’ those poor folks on that stage,” Eli Barnett declared, drawing a loud murmur of ascent from most of the others gathered.

“Those men are gonna get a fair trial,” Roy said very sternly, “ ‘n I believe we got evidence strong enough t’ convict all three of ‘em.”

“Then why bother with a trial?” one of the other men in the crowd shouted. His name was Emil Jennings. He had just started work at the Five Card Draw Ranch, after having been fired from the Wilsons’ Square W, the O’Briens’ Shoshone Queen, and the Ponderosa. Aged in his mid-thirties, he was about the same height and build as Joe Cartwright, with sandy blonde hair, blue eyes, and a single thick eyebrow stretching the length of his forehead, that seemed forever locked in a perpetual scowl.

“Emil’s right! Why bother with a trial? Let’s string all three of ‘em up right here . . . right now,” Andy Barnett declared. “I know I’D sleep a lot better tonight.”

“So would I!” Clay Hansen declared. “ ‘Specially with a wife ‘n four daughters still at home t’ look after.”

The murmurs of ascent grew louder, more strident.

Roy Coffee quickly slid his revolver from its holster and fired two shots into the ground. All voices were suddenly stilled, leaving a strained, tense silence in their wake. “That’ll be ENOUGH o’ that kind o’ talk!” he angrily admonished the men still gathered. He closed his eyes for a moment and quickly counted to ten.

“I know . . . it’s been a rough couple o’ days for all o’ us . . . in more ways than one,” Roy said in a calmer, more conciliatory tone of voice. “Traipsin’ through the desert . . . finding out what those men did to those poor folks on the stage . . . it’s enough to weary a man t’ the bone.” He paused briefly, to allow his words to sink in. “I think the best thing all o’ us can do is go home, rest, put our feet up, have a good supper, ‘n git t’ bed early.”

Though most of the men left quietly, a ripple of discontent could still be heard, mostly among the men from the Five Card Draw. Roy grimly bade everyone a curt good night, then turned, intending to trudge wearily into his office. He was surprised to find that Doctor Paul Martin remained. “Somethin’ I can do for ya, Doc?”

Paul Martin shook his head. “I was going to ask you if you might need an extra hand to help keep an eye on things tonight,” he said. The apprehension and concern came through in his voice loud and clear.

Roy barely managed a wan half smile, as he resolutely shook his head. “Clem ‘n I’ll be fine, Doc, ‘n besides . . . Mrs. Estevan probably needs ya a heckuva lot more’ n I do.”

“True,” Paul agreed. “Roy . . . . ”

“Yeah, Doc?”

“I . . . don’t like what I heard here just now.”

“Can’t say I care all that much for it either,” Roy retorted in a wry, sarcastic tone of voice.

“You think there’ll be trouble?”

“I dunno . . . but if there is? Clem ‘n me are ready for it.”

“If you need me, don’t hesitate to ask.”

“There IS one favor y’ can to for me, Doc.”

“What’s that?”

“You can stop by the Fletchers’ ‘n let Ben know that Adam’s not gonna be back for a few more days.”



“HE’S . . . WHAT??!”

“You heard me, Ben,” Paul Martin said grimly, bound and determined to maintain his ground and not flinch against those dark brown, almost black, piercing eyes filled with anger, astonishment, and worry.

“Why in the hell didn’t Roy stop him?! For that matter why didn’t YOU stop him?”

“NOBODY could have stopped him, short of knocking him down and sitting on him,” Paul said, his voice rising slowly, steadily in volume.

“WELL? WHY DIDN’T YA?” Ben yelled.

“WHY DIDN’T I . . . WHAT?!” Paul Martin yelled back.

“WHY IN THE HELL DIDN’T YOU KNOCK HIM DOWN AND SIT ON HIM?!”

“BECAUSE . . . DAMMIT, BEN, ADAM’S NOT A LITTLE BOY ANYMORE! HE’S A GROWN MAN . . . WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT!”

Ben lapsed into sullen silence, his intense glare, wholly directed toward his physician and good friend never wavering. Finally he looked away, and sighed. “Sorry, Paul.”

“He’ll be alright, Ben,” Paul Martin tried to reassure his old friend with a confidence he was very far from feeling. “He’s got a good head on his shoulders . . . always HAS.”

“ . . . and you said Matt Wilson went with him?”

“Yes.”

“That’s some consolation anyway,” Ben sighed again. Not very much, but certainly lots better than the thought of Adam having set out on his own.

“The two of ‘em should be along within the next few days.”

“I hope so, Paul. I sure hope so.” Even as he tried desperately to remind himself that Paul Martin was right—that Adam WAS a grown man, not a child, Ben knew that he wasn’t going to rest easily until his oldest son was safely back here . . . with his family.

“They will, Ben,” Paul said, feeling suddenly bone weary. He rose from the settee in the Fletchers’ home. Ben automatically followed suit, rising from the easy chair that he had occupied. “I’d best be going. I’m anxious to see Lily and . . . I still have a patient under my care.”

“Paul, I . . . really AM very sorry I jumped all over ya the way I did,” Ben said ruefully as the pair walked toward the door . . . .



“ . . . and it’s all MY fault.”

Unbeknownst to either Ben Cartwright or Paul Martin, their entire conversation had been overheard by a young man with hazel eyes and an unruly mop of thick, chestnut brown curls, standing at the top of the stairs, well out of sight. He had just awoken from a brief nap a short while before, and had intended to go downstairs to pick up where he had left off in the new detective novel he received from his father last birthday. The sounds of his father’s and Doc Martin’s voices, raised in anger, had stopped him. He had paused at the top of the steps, not meaning to eavesdrop, yet unable to help himself.

“I should NEVER have said those things to Adam,” Joe Cartwright ruefully castigated himself, as the words of the argument he and his oldest brother had in the dark early morning hours the day he left, began to relentlessly replay themselves within the silence of his mind, over and over and over again. He found his troubled thoughts drifting back to memories of the time he and Adam had sold a herd of prime beef cattle in Eastgate . . . .


After they had concluded their business, and Adam had pocketed the five thousand dollars made from the sale, they had gone over to the barber shop together for a bath to wash off the dirt of the trail. It had been a long, exhausting drive, most of it through harsh, dry, badlands.

Joe remembered again how, at that point, he was so sick and tired of living life on the trail. All HE wanted was a bath, a steak dinner with a big mug of cold beer to wash it down, and most important . . . a soft bed with clean sheets, and down pillows. Adam, however, wanted to head out toward Pyramid Lake, across country even more harsh than what they had traveled through on that cattle drive from the Ponderosa to Eastgate.

“Signal Rock . . . three days. Be there . . . ON TIME.”

Those were Adam’s parting words, before setting off toward the badlands.
Three days later, Joe and Cochise arrived at the appointed meeting place, on time for once, as he himself had admitted to his beloved pinto companion. He had yelled for Adam a few times, whistled once all with no response. As he settled himself down to wait, Joe wasn’t worried about his normally punctual-to-a-fault oldest brother’s absence . . . not at first. In fact, he spent the first few hours eagerly contemplating how he was going to tease Adam unmercifully for not arriving on time.

As the day wore on, with still no sign of his oldest brother, Joe’s light, playful mood slowly gave way to concern. By nightfall, he was nearly going out of his mind, envisioning every dire possibility, that would have left Adam either too badly injured to help himself, or worse. Joe slept little that night, starting to full wakefulness at even the slightest sound. He would call his oldest brother’s name over and over again several times, all the while peering hard into the near impenetrable blackness of the night surrounding him and his campfire. After a time . . . he would never be sure if it was MINUTES later or HOURS later. . . he would drop off into light, fitful slumber, only to be wakened again.

The following day, exhausted from not having gotten enough sleep and from the ride out from Eastgate the day before, he spent the early morning hours sharing a cup of coffee with Cochise, silently debating on whether he should stay and wait for Adam, or leave to begin searching for him. Finally, as the sun rose to the very top of the sky, marking the noon hour, Joe suddenly knew with a dreadful certainty that Adam wasn’t coming.

Joe immediately set out, heading in a southerly direction, heading toward Pyramid Lake. He and Cochise ended up with a man, who operated a blacksmith’s forge and small livery, a few miles south of Eastgate, when the horse went lame. The man examined the bad leg and found that the pinto had a split hoof.

“It’s going to be while before I can ride him,” Joe murmured in complete, utter dismay.

“You can stay here, if you’d like,” the man graciously offered.

“No thank you, I need to push on. You have a horse I can borrow?”

The man nodded, and went to the barn to fetch him.

“Can you tell me where the next town is?” Joe asked, as he secured Cochise’s lead to a nearby hitching post, and prepared to remove his saddle. He intended to stop there to pick up extra supplies of food and water.

“Salt Flats, to the west,” the man called back from the barn.

“I’m heading south.”

The man laughed as he led a big, magnificent brown horse, with three white feet and a white stripe down its face. Joe suddenly felt as if he had taken a hard sucker punch below the belt. He legs shook and his knees began to buckle. If he had not happened to have both hands clasping the saddle, still secured to Cochise’s back, he would have almost certainly fallen.

“South? There’s nothing— ”

“Where’d you get that horse?” Joe demanded, his face darkening with anger. “That’s my brother’s horse!”

The man looked at him oddly.

Joe seized the man by his shirt collar, and pulled his gun, all in the same swift, fluid movement. “I asked you where you got that horse?” he asked again in a low, dangerous tone.

The man paled as the cold steel of Joe’s gun barrel lightly touched his cheek. “I . . . I didn’t steal him . . . I b-bought him from two fellas— ”

“You have a bill of sale?” Joe snapped out the question like the crack of a whip.

“Y-Yes . . . it’s . . . it’s right here— ”

Joe snatched it out of the man’s hand the instant he drew it from his shirt pocket. “Jim Gann,” he read the name on the bill of sale. “You know where he was headed?”

“Salt Flats,” the man replied. “He and another fella . . . Frank . . . Frank P-Preston were headed for Salt Flats.”

“Looks like I’m going to Salt Flats after all,” Joe muttered through clenched teeth.

His search for Adam ended abruptly at Salt Flats when the sheriff there told him that Jim Gann and Frank Preston were both dead. “Last night, they tried to shoot up the town and a few of its leading citizens,” the sheriff explained. “I ended up shooting both of them. I have ‘em laid out in the back.”

Joe wired Pa and Hoss from Salt Flats.

Together, the three of them diligently searched the badlands for Adam. Joe would never forget his father’s face during the course of those terrible, uncertain days. At the start of the search, Pa had that fierce, determined scowl on his face, and that hard glint of steel in his eyes. He sat very tall in the saddle, his back straighter than a seasoned cavalry officer, hands gripping the reins, jaw set with an almost granite-like obstinate determination. Ben Cartwright had made up his mind he was going to find his oldest son and that . . . was simply that.

Three days into the search, Pa found an empty gun belt.

“Adam’s?” Hoss asked.

“Yeah,” Pa replied wearily, in a voice barely audible. They had been on the move, non-stop for three days and three nights, with very little rest and no sleep. The grueling pace to which they had set themselves would have completely done in a lesser man half Pa’s age before the first day was out. After three days, Joe saw in Hoss’ face and in his body the same bone deep weariness he, himself felt.

“Tracks . . . out there, by the rocks,” Pa continued. “Tracks show three horses . . . one man on foot.” The implications were all too dreadfully clear. “We have to spread out . . . cover every direction,” Pa insisted, bound and determined to continue.

Using the spot where Adam’s gun belt had been found as their starting point, they fanned out, each riding off in a different direction, diligently searching. Hours passed into days . . . the days became a week, then two weeks. Joe noted, as time passed, how Pa sat a little less straight in the saddle . . . a little less tall. His jaw, so rigidly set in the beginning, grew less and less like granite. At times, it even trembled. Gazing into Pa’s eyes was the worst thing of all, as that steel hard glint melted into the bright, glistening sheen of tears, yet to be shed.

At the end of those dreadful two weeks . . . even the eternal optimism of big brother, Hoss, started to wane. “Pa . . . . You can’t go on, Pa . . . you can’t do it.” Joe heard again the voice of his biggest brother, filled with despair, grief, and a deep, abiding concern for their father.

“We’re gonna have to face it, Pa. We’re not gonna find Adam,” Joe said in a voice stone cold, wholly resigned to the fact that Adam was gone, forever swallowed up in the shifting sands of the desert. He remembered wishing desperately to scream, to cry, to curse . . . but all he felt inside was a terrible numbness that had dampened all his ability to feel.

“It’s been two weeks since he left Eastgate,” Hoss pressed, his voice breaking.

“Yeah, I gu— I s’pose you’re right.”

Joe would never, not if he lived a million years . . . EVER . . . forget the terrible look on his father’s face that day. He saw a flash of anger toward his younger sons for reminding him of the grim reality facing them, mixed with hopeless despair and a deep, all pervading, all consuming grief. Worst of all were Pa’s eyes. The warmth, the sparkle of life were gone, leaving behind the opaque abysmal blackness of a man about to leave behind a vital piece of his soul.

As the three turned their horses, to begin that long, weary ride back to the Ponderosa, to home, empty handed . . . with not even a body to bury to give them a measure of peace, and closure . . . .

Pa caught movement out of the corner of his eye. He turned, as kind of an afterthought . . . and spotted Adam, walking along the flat expanse of sand below them, moving on a course parallel to the rise upon which they stood, still mounted on the backs of their horses. He shuffled along, moving forward, mindless, with no purpose, no destination . . . with his dark eyes fixed on the horizon ahead, staring intently, but seeing nothing . . . aware of nothing. His back was bowed under the weight of a gurney strapped to his back. On it lay a man, roughly the same size and build as Adam, his body ominously still.

They called to him, shouting his name over and over . . . Pa, Hoss, and himself . . . frantic, near hysterical with relief, and deeply thankful that they HAD found him.

Their shouts fell on ears beyond hearing.

They turned their horses and rode, hard, on an intercept course. Adam stumbled, just as they reached him, dropping to his knees, then flopping down onto his belly. Pa reached Adam first. He half climbed, half fell off of Buck, then reached down to free Adam of his gruesome burden and lift him to his feet.

Soon, they were all surrounding Adam, frantically calling his name, trying desperately to pierce the mindless fog that had surrounded and engulfed him.

Finally, Adam laughed. Softly at first, swelling, increasing in volume and intensity. “There . . . there was no gold,” he murmured, laughing so hard now, the tears flowed down his cheeks like rivers. “No gold . . . there w-was no gold . . . . ”

“ADAM!” Pa shouted, frightened by the hysterical edge, and the increasing intensity of his oldest son’s laughter.

Pa’s voice acted as a bucket of ice water, dispelling the fog, the near hysteria. The laughter stilled, leaving for a moment the thick silence of the grave.

“Oh, Pa . . . . ” Adam whispered, before collapsing into his father’s arms, sobbing.

The thought of losing Adam to the desert again . . . this time, maybe, for good . . . .

For one brief, insane moment, Joe desperately wracked his brains, trying to come up with a plan to go out himself in search of Adam. His sides still felt a mite tender, but he was walking really well now, with barely a trace of his limp, and he was keeping down everything on his current diet of soft and bland. Though his beloved Cochise remained on the Ponderosa, Joe was confident of his ability to manage Buck, his pa’s horse . . . assuming he could slip by Pa. That in and of itself could be a big if, given that in the past, the more desperate he had ever been to sneak out, the greater his chances of finding Pa waiting for him.

That, however, pretty much paled in the face of his biggest obstacle . . . which was trying to find out which way Adam went in the first place. Any inquiries that he made would almost certainly get back to Pa . . . .

“Joe?”

He gasped and started so violently, he nearly toppled over backwards.

Ben, his face a mixture of worry and remorse, reached out and caught his youngest son by the shoulders, preventing him from taking what might have been a very nasty tumble. “Joe? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you, Son . . . . ”

“ ‘S ok, P-Pa,” Joe murmured softly, as he clutched the lapels of his father’s shirt for support.

An anxious frown deepened the creases already present in Ben Cartwright’s brow, as he noted Joe’s complexion, paled to a sickly ashen gray, the round, intense staring eyes, and the slight tremor in his hands. He touched his lips to his youngest son’s forehead. “Thank the Good Lord he’s not running a fever,” Ben mused silently. Aloud, he ventured, “ . . . Joe?”

“I . . . I’m . . . I’m all right, Pa,” Joe barely managed to stammer.

“Come on, Son,” Ben said gently. “Let’s get you back to your room.”

Joe allowed his father to gently turn him away from the top of the steps, and lead him back down the hallway to the room he had chosen for himself. “My fault,” he murmured in a voice barely audible. “All MY fault.”

“What’s all your fault, Joe?” Ben probed very carefully as he eased his son down into the big, overstuffed easy chair near the bed.

“Adam . . . oh, Pa, I’m so sorry . . . it’s all my fault,” Joe insisted.

Ben seated himself on the edge of Joe’s bed, then leaned over to touch his arm, resting atop the arm of the easy chair. “Can you tell me about it?” he invited in a kind, gentle tone.

“It’s my fault Adam went into the desert . . . then and now,” Joe said miserably. “If only we hadn’t had that argument . . . well, maybe . . . just maybe . . . he’d have come back w-with everyone else.”

“Joe, I want you to listen to me very closely.” Ben’s tone was gentle, yet very firm. “I don’t believe for one minute Adam went in search of that stage because the argument the two of you ALMOST had . . . drove him to it. I think Susannah O’Brien told you and your sister about the young woman over at Doctor Martin’s?”

“Mrs. Estevan. Yeah, Pa, she told us.”

“You know the Estevans traveled out here from Sacramento with Adam,” Ben said.

Joe nodded.

“He was grateful for their company, of course, but more than that, by the time the three of them reach Virginia City, they’d established the beginnings of what might have been an enduring friendship, had it not been for the terrible tragedy that befell the Estevans,” Ben continued in a gentle, yet firm tone of voice. “I’M more inclined to think that Adam insisted on finding that missing stage so that he might ascertain for himself what finally happened to Mister Estevan . . . in order to give Mrs. Estevan some kind of closure that would eventually, enable her to move to a place of healing . . . of maybe even falling in love again.”

“B-But, Pa . . . he’s gotta know that M-Mister Estevan’s dead,” Joe protested.

“I’m sure he does . . . and DID before setting out to look for that stage,” Ben said. “Just like you knew Lady Chadwick was dead before you laid eyes on her lying in her coffin . . . because I had told you.”

“Y-You mean . . . Adam, maybe had to see for himself that Mister Estevan’s dead?”

“That’s EXACTLY what I mean.”

Joe silently digested all that his father had told him. “Pa?” he ventured at length.

“Yes, Son?”

“Do you really believe that? What you just told me?”

“Yes, I do,” Ben said with conviction. He did. But, deep down, he sensed other, deeper currents at work in his enigmatic oldest son. The Estevans were merely the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Looking into Joe’s eyes, Ben knew HE sensed the same thing. “I believe the Estevans are PART of what’s troubling Adam.”

“ . . . and what about the REST of whatever it is that’s troubling Adam?” Joe demanded.

“I wish to heaven I could tell ya, but I CAN’T . . . because I just plain don’t know,” Ben replied. “However, I DO know this. The argument you and your brother were on the verge of having when I came into his room the morning he left had absolutely NOTHING to do with his decision to go look for that stage.”

Joe stared hard into his father’s warm, dark brown eyes for a long moment, and saw that the big silver haired man he knew as Pa, spoke truly about the set-to between himself and Adam not being the reason for his oldest brother’s trek into the desert. “Th-thanks, Pa,” he murmured, covering Ben’s hand, the one still gently resting on his arm, with his other hand. “But, I’m STILL worried.”

“So am I,” Ben readily admitted.

“I want to go after him, Pa,” Joe said, half surprising himself upon making that confession. “I want to go after him so bad, I . . . well, when you came upon me just now? My mind was working fast and furious, trying to come up with a plan. That’s why I never saw you coming.”

“I would advise you to discard that notion immediately, Young Man,” Ben said, favoring his young son with a stern glare.

“I know,” Joe said with a rueful smile. “I’m not too told for you to turn over your knee.”

“Actually, I was going to remind you that I was dead serious about hogtying you and your sister both, if I so much as caught you LOOKING at Cochise and Blaze Face, before Doc Martin tells ya it’s alright,” Ben said in a wry tone.

“Pa, we almost lost Adam to the desert once,” Joe said, his smile fading. “I . . . I don’t want to lose him to the desert NOW.” His voice caught on the last word.

“Joe, there IS something you and I can do for Adam,” Ben said slowly.

“What’s that?”

Ben smiled. “I found myself doing it a lot while you were being held prisoner by Lady Chadwick,” he continued, “and it’s something we can do any time . . . any place, whenever we feel so moved. It’s called prayer.”

“I found myself doing a lot of that, too, while I was still in Milady’s clutches,” Joe said, returning his father’s smile.

“For yourself?”

“Some, but mostly for YOU, Pa . . . you, Hoss, Stacy, and Hop Sing.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. I . . . I knew Stacy was hurt, and . . . and for awhile, I . . . I thought she had actually . . . that she had actually DIED.” It took nearly every ounce of will Joe possessed to utter those words. The next, however, poured forth from his lips, like a river in springtime, its waters swollen my winter melt. “Then, I thought, I was afraid you had been taken in by Lady Chadwick’s plan to make you think that her son’s body was MINE.

“One night, I had this horrible nightmare in which I f-found myself at Stacy’s funeral, then mine,” Joe continued, his voice shaking. “Then, finally, I saw a new tombstone, standing along side Mama’s.” He looked over at Ben, his eyes and cheeks glistening with tears as all the feelings that had accompanied those dreams surfaced now with a vengeance. “It was YOURS, Pa . . . and the inscription s-said something about you dying of a broken heart because . . . because STACY had died and . . . and because you thought I was dead.”

Ben gently drew Joe over to sit beside him on the bed. “So THAT’S why you were so happy to see Stacy and me . . . why you kept hugging the both of us like you were never going to let go,” he murmured softly, as he wrapped his arms tight about his distraught, weeping son.

“I prayed that . . . that Stacy would b-be alright and . . . and that y-you wouldn’t m-mistake Jack Murphy f-for me,” Joe sobbed, as he slipped his arms around his father’s waist.

“I’d say God ANSWERED those prayers,” Ben said softly. “Stacy almost died . . . in fact, they . . . they told me she HAD died, but she came back, Son.” He smiled amid the tears now forming in his own eyes. “By golly, she . . . she gave the Angel of D-Death a good, swift kick in the shins and . . . and she came back.”

“Good for Stacy! I hope he’s STILL limping,” Joe said, laughing now as he wept.

“I’m sure he is, Son, in fact, I think he’s gonna be limping for another hundred y-years, at least,” Ben said, his own voice unsteady. He paused for a moment to wipe away the tears from his own eyes on the sleeve of his shirt. “Joe . . . . ”

“Yeah, Pa?”

“We weren’t fooled by Lady Chadwick’s feeble attempt to pass her son’s body off as YOURS,” Ben said, “not for a second. We KNEW you were out there somewhere, and we were searching long and hard for ya.”

“I . . . I came to that realization when I looked out the window and saw the full moon, after . . . after I woke up from that horrible nightmare,” Joe said, as his tears began to subside. “I remembered Stacy’s Grandmother Moon, and saw Hop Sing’s Moon Hare, and, I found myself remembering Mama’s prayer.”

“Your mother’s prayer?!”

“Yeah . . . you remember, don’t you, Pa? She used to say that prayer every night, whenever you were away on business,” Joe continued. “ ‘Holy Mary, Mother of God, we turn to you for protection. Listen to our prayers and help us in our needs. Save us from every danger, O, glorious and blessed Virgin.’ Sometimes? If I close my eyes and listen real hard? I can almost hear her voice as she prays that prayer.”

“I remember now,” Ben said, his voice tinged with sadness and regret as his thoughts lingered for a moment on Marie, his third wife, and mother of the young man he still held in his arms. “She also used to say that prayer whenever she knew . . . or sensed . . . that her men folk were in danger.”

“ . . . and sometimes when we were sick,” Joe suddenly remembered. “One time . . . I think it was right before she died, Pa, but, I remember . . . Adam was sick . . . bad sick. It started as a cold, but real quick turned to pneumonia. I can still see him, even now, in bed, with his eyes closed, his face white as a sheet, burning up with fever . . . . Doc Martin had all but given up hope, but . . . Mama sat up with him all night, saying that prayer over and over.”

“I remember,” Ben said quietly. “God answered HER prayer, too, because the next morning . . . when I went in to check on Adam and your mother, I found him awake . . . barely, but he WAS awake, and telling me to shush, because your mother was fast asleep.”

“Pa?”

“Yes, Joe?”

“Would you mind saying that prayer now . . . for Adam?” Joe asked. “I’ll pray silently along with you.”

“Joe, I was just thinking that maybe, this time, YOU should be the one to pray out loud, and I be the one to pray silently.”

“I don’t know, Pa,” Joe said doubtfully. “I don’t think I could do it half so well as YOU do.”

“I think you CAN, Son. After all, you had a lot of opportunity to practice while Lady Chadwick held you prisoner.”

“I . . . I hadn’t thought about that,” Joe said quietly, then bowed his head.

Ben quietly followed suit, then waited.

“Holy Mary, Mother of God, we turn to you now and pray for protection . . . THIS time for my brother, Adam,” Joe prayed softly, with all the rock firm conviction he had ever heard in the prayers his father had offered over the course of his own long life. “Please, listen to our prayers and help Adam now, where he needs your help. Save and keep him from every danger, O, glorious and blessed Virgin. Amen.”

“Amen,” Ben murmured softly. In the course of that prayer, he saw dark days ahead for Adam, for Joe, for all of them. Yet, hidden in the deepest, darkest place of all, a tiny candle burned, it’s flame flickering, occasionally sputtering, but never going out. Then, he heard a still, small voice speaking from the deep places of his heart and soul, over and over repeating, “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path,” words well known and very familiar.

He realized, then, that the small candle, its tiny, brave flame burning so brightly amid the deep darkness surrounding all of them, was hope . . . and that it would lead them all out of the darkness, one step at a time. All he had to do was trust.

End of Part 3

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