Mark of Kane

Part 4

By Kathleen T. Berney

The stage coach loomed ominously before them, silhouetted black against a cloudless sky, bleached pale blue by the white hot desert sun hovering high overhead. There was no movement, no sign of life. Even the near incessant drone of the desert winds had stilled into an eerie silence that fell over the two approaching men like a thick, heavy pall. Adam Cartwright and Matt Wilson exchanged brief, uneasy glances, as they brought their respective mounts to a complete stop roughly fifty yards from the stagecoach. For a time, both remained in the saddle, gazing out over a debris field, stretching nearly the entire length between them and the coach, generously littered with clothing, shoes, luggage, and other personal items.

“Adam?” Matt queried, at length, in a voice barely audible.

“Yeah, Matt?” Adam responded, automatically lowering his own voice as well.

“You think we’re going to find anything . . . or any . . . ONE?” Matt asked, unable to stop or repress the shudder that shook his entire frame.

“I . . . don’t think we’re going to find anyONE, Matt,” Adam replied in a hallow voice, his gaze fixed straight ahead. “The . . . natural inclination . . . would be to move and to try and KEEP moving . . . assuming the men who set on them and robbed them didn’t shoot them all.”

“Even though it was hopeless?”

“ESPECIALLY if it was hopeless,” Adam returned in a voice stone cold.

“You sound so sure.”

“I AM sure,” Adam shot back angrily.

Matt frowned, taken completely aback by his Adam’s sudden anger. “S-Sorry, Adam,” he murmured, not quite knowing what else to say.

“Matt, I’M the one who should apologize,” Adam said contritely. “I had no call to snap your head off like that.”

An uneasy silence fell between them. Though the time was brief, less than a minute, for Adam and Matt, it seemed to stretch into eternity.

“Adam?” At length, Matt finally broke the silence.

“Yeah, Matt?”

“I’ll accept your apology . . . if you’ll accept mine?!”

Adam managed a wan smile. Barely. “Deal,” he replied, as he climbed down from Sport II’s back. “Come on. We only have a few hours of daylight left.” With his horse’s lead firmly in hand, he began to move slowly into the debris field, his eyes glued fast to the stagecoach, straight ahead.

Matt slowly dismounted. With his gun in one hand, his horse’s lead in the other, he followed at a slower pace, with his eyes glued to the ground. As he walked, his mind played and replayed that brief exchange between himself and his old friend, trying to figure out what he had said to upset him. He finally chalked the whole thing up to how close Adam had come to losing his entire family in the fire that had taken their home . . . what? A month ago? Two? He shrugged, then let the whole matter drop.

Matt took another step, then stopped when the toe of his boot hit up against something buried in the sand. “Whoa, Boy,” he whispered to his horse. “Adam?”

Adam paused and turned. “Yeah, Matt?”

“Hold up a second.” Matt began to carefully clear the sand away from whatever it was buried in the sand with his foot.

“Find something?”

Within the space of a few seconds, Matt had uncovered a small rectangular object, red, with a light brown strip along one edge. He jammed his gun back into it’s holster, then crouched down for a closer look. “Adam . . . it’s a book.” He lifted it from the sand, opening it as he slowly rose to his feet. “I . . . think it’s a TEXT book. There’s a name written here on the inside of the cover . . . Brentwood J. Carroll . . . along with an address in Freedonia.”

Adam turned and carefully picked his way back among the clothing, and luggage strewn over the desert floor. “May I see?” he asked, upon reaching Matt’s side.

Matt closed the book, then handed it over to his companion. “This Brentwood J. Carroll someone you know?”

“No,” Adam replied, as he opened the book, and started to carefully turn the pages. “I was going to ask if YOU know him.”

“No . . . I don’t know him, either. Obviously just someone passing through like— ” Matt caught himself an instant before naming the Estevans.

“You were right, Matt . . . . ” Adam said slowly, as he leafed through the pages. “It IS a text book . . . biology, if I’m not mistaken . . . wait— ”

“What is it?”

“Two envelopes stuck in the middle,” Adam replied. “One addressed to Mother, the other addressed to someone named Kellie.” He turned over the latter, and found that the flap had simply been tucked in, rather than sealed. Adam lifted the flap and removed a single sheet, folded in thirds.

“What does it say?” Matt asked.

“ ‘Dear Kellie,’ ” Adam read slowly. “ ‘Forgive me. I wanted so much to see you, to be with you that when offered the choice of taking an earlier stage out of Virginia City, I took it. Now, my impatience has very likely brought me to a bad end. Early this morning we were overtaken and set upon by robbers. They took our money and other valuables, then killed the drivers, a woman . . . an older woman, about the same age as your mother, and a young man just married. Though they left me and the others alive, they took our horses, what little food we had, and lastly chopped holes in our water barrels, emptying them in the sand. They also took the young bride and the girl, who was traveling with the older woman.

“ ‘It is evening now. Two of the others left earlier to try and find help, or at the very least, find water. If they don’t return by daybreak, I intend to strike out on my own. If I don’t make it out of this desert alive, please know that I love you, more than life itself, far more I can say on this one tiny scrap of paper.

“ ‘Promise me this, Dearest Kellie. Promise me that if it happens that I don’t survive this, that you’ll not spend the rest of your life in mourning. Promise me that you will live your life to its fullest, that you will open your heart and let yourself love another. If this is my time, I will rest easier knowing that you have made and kept this promise.

“ ‘I love you. I will always love you.

“ ‘Until we meet again, whether it be on this earth or beyond the veil . . . . ’ ” Adam glanced up. The hand holding the letter trembled slightly, and his eyes glittered with unusual brightness. “It’s signed Brent.”

“I . . . s’pose we ought to see those letters get to M-Mister Carroll’s mother and . . . to his girl,” Matt said, finding it difficult to speak past the lump in his own throat, as his thoughts turned briefly to his own wife, the former Clarissa Starling, and their young daughter.

“Matt, we need to turn these letters over to Sheriff Coffee when we reach Virginia City,” Adam said stiffly, as he replaced the letters back among the pages of the text book. “This letter to Kellie, at least, is testimony of what happened.” He, then, turned and angrily stuffed the book into his own saddle bag.

Matt sighed. Adam DID have a valid point about Brentwood Carroll’s letter to his girl, being testimony of what had happened. He made himself a mental note, however, to ask Sheriff Coffee if the letters might be sent on to Mother and to Kellie, after the trial was over.

As they drew near to the stagecoach, they spotted the bodies of two men, lying side by side, face down, roughly ten feet in front of the stage coach. Their wrists had been and tightly bound behind their backs, using leather strips. Half of their heads had been blown away by shots made at point blank range, and most of their flesh, what remained of their heads, their forearms, and hands, had been consumed by carrion eaters. Large splatters of dried blood stained ragged remnants of what had once been their shirts and jagged, white pieces of skull were clearly visible in the desert sands near their heads.

“These men must be the driver and his relief,” Matt said grimly, as they tethered their horses’ leads to the rim of the right front wheel. He knelt down alongside the larger of the two men, next to what remained of his head, while Adam slowly knelt down along side the other.

“Matt, I . . . know this man hasn’t got much of his face left, but he kind of looks like . . . Johnny Jacobs,” Adam said in a hollow voice, inclining his head toward the dead man beside him.

Matt glanced up and studied the smaller man for a moment. He slowly nodded his head. “Yeah, that’s Johnny alright,” he murmured softly. “Damn! I’d heard he was going to leave his job with the Overland Stage at the end of the year, and buy a nice little piece of property to farm. Pa said that’s all he’s talked about at the Silver Dollar for the last month or so.”

“Any idea who THAT fella is?” Adam asked, nodding to the big man lying alongside the place where Matt had knelt down.

“Yeah,” Matt replied with a curt nod. “He lives . . . LIVED . . . over in Carson City.” He frowned. “I don’t know his first name . . . but his LAST name’s Dawson.”

“Does he have any family?”

“I don’t know. He never mentioned family members the few times I talked with him, but . . . . ” Matt shrugged helplessly. “I guess the sheriff over in Carson’ll know.”

“I don’t suppose YOU thought to bring a shovel . . . . ”

“ ‘Fraid not, Old Friend.”

Adam sighed and shook his head. “I didn’t either,” he said with much regret. “Damn! Bad enough they had to die like they did. At the very least they deserve a decent burial.”

Matt stood for a moment, with hands resting squarely on his hips, staring over at the coach. “Say, Adam . . . . ”

“Yeah, Matt?”

“Think we could pry a couple of boards loose?” Matt asked. “If so, we could use the boards to carve out a hole big enough so we can cover ‘em over . . . at least for a little while.”

“I don’t know about the stage, but maybe the lid from a trunk, or the bottom out of a carpet bag would suffice.”

“I’ll see what I can scare up,” Matt said, scrambling to his feet, suddenly anxious to put a little distance between himself and the two dead men.

“I’m going to look around,” Adam said, also rising.

The two men moved off in opposite directions. Matt beat a straight line back around in the direction they had just come, to the field of debris in search of something . . . anything that might adequately serve as a shovel.

Adam, meanwhile, slipped his gun from his holster, and moved around to the other side of the stage. His sharp eyes immediately fell on a rounded, dark blue-black form, lying on the ground roughly ten feet from the back corner of the stagecoach, in direct line with the sun, now beginning its descent toward the western horizon. He approached slowly, reluctantly, every sense fully alert. He realized, upon covering nearly half the distance from Mister Dawson’s body, that the rounded, dark blue form was the body of a large, stout woman.

When he finally reached the side of the dead woman, Adam was horrified to discover that she had suffered a terrible beating. The left side of her skull had been broken, cracked like an egg shell, leaving a large, jagged, cavernous hole. Her clothing was ripped and torn, due in part, to the fierce struggle in which she had been involved. He remembered the letter from Brentwood to Kellie, mentioning a girl, also abducted by the thieves, traveling in the company of an older woman.

Had this woman been killed in a fight, trying to prevent the thieves . . . the Carter brothers and Timothy Higgins . . . from abducting the girl?

Adam noted with grim satisfaction that the woman’s finger nails were blood stained. “I hope the blood ISN’T hers,” Adam mused silently, upon remembering the scratches on Timothy Higgins’ face and Jacob Carter’s arm. “It would be really nice to know that SOMEONE had paid those animals back a small measure of the pain they inflicted on the Estevans, the drivers, and the other passengers.”

“ADAM?! HEY, ADAM!” It was Matt. Judging from the sound of his voice, he had returned to the front of the stagecoach, presumably where the bodies of the two drivers yet remained.

“HERE, MATT,” Adam yelled back. “I FOUND ANOTHER BODY.”

Within a few minutes, Matt was at his side, his hair and face drenched with sweat. There was also a large wet circle on the front of his shirt, and large semi-circles under his arms. “I . . . managed . . . to rip a couple of lids off a . . . off the t-two biggest trunks,” he said, breathless from his exertions. “They’re . . . I left ‘em back there . . . with the . . . with the two drivers.”

“Have some water and rest,” Adam said, eyeing his companion’s reddened face anxiously. “There’s shade on the other side of the stage. I’m going to move this woman’s body up to the front where the two drivers are.”

“Can you manage by yourself, Adam? From the looks of things, she was a big woman . . . . ”

“Yeah. I can manage. She’s . . . she’s a lot lighter than she looks, Matt . . . courtesy of the vultures and dehydration.”



Using the trunk lids procured by Matt, the two men labored diligently to gouge out three trenches, roughly three feet deep. They had wrapped the bodies of the two men, using a man’s cotton bathrobe and a large linen petticoat as burial shrouds. The woman’s body was wrapped in two large petticoats. After Matt and Adam had covered the three bodies with sand, they gathered as many rocks as they could and piled them overtop the graves. Matt fashioned three simple crosses to mark the graves from the wood of two ladies’ parasols, using shoe laces to bind the vertical and horizontal pieces together.

“Adam?” Matt ventured, after they had completed their sad, grim task.

“Yeah, Matt?”

“Think maybe you could say a few words?”

“I’m not a religious man these days, Matt.”

“You still have a better way with words than I do,” Matt pressed.

Adam sighed. “Alright . . . . ” he agreed reluctantly, before bowing his head, and closing his eyes.

Matt respectfully followed suit, then waited patiently for Adam to gather his thoughts.

“Eternal God . . . and Heavenly Father, we commit the spirits and souls of these men . . . Mister Jacob, Mister Dawson, and the woman . . . not known to us, but known to You . . . into Your hands for safe keeping. We ask also that as they enter Your heavenly kingdom, You would show them the mercy that their fellow men failed to show them as they left this Earth.” He paused briefly, then added a soft, “Amen.”

“Amen,” Matt murmured softly.

For a few moments, both men observed a time of silence before the newly dug graves.

“I . . . guess we ought to be moving on,” Matt, at length, broke silence. “We could make camp tonight either at Crazy Cal’s old shack, or the watering hole he used— ”

“If it’s all the same to you, I’d prefer the watering hole,” Adam said quietly. “I saw more than I cared to in that shack.”

“Yeah,” Matt agreed.

“Before we leave, mind if I have one last look around?”

“No, I suppose not,” Matt said with an indifferent shrug of his shoulders. “Is there something you’re looking for?”

“I want to try and find Lorenzo Estevan’s body,” Adam replied.

Matt frowned.

“It’s GOT to be here. That letter addressed to Kellie said the thieves killed a young bridegroom.”

“I know, but— ”

“They were good people, Matt,” Adam said tersely. “Intelligent, charming, gracious . . . still basking in the afterglow of their honeymoon . . . they ended up being a real Godsend on my trip out from Sacramento. I left before Pa, Hoss, and Candy found Joe, and, well . . . to say I was worried sick would be a gross understatement. Lorenzo and Maria Estevan lightened that load considerably. Had I NOT had the pleasure of their company, I know I would have gone out of my mind.”

Matt nodded, knowing very well how close the members of the Cartwright family were to one another.

“If it’s in any way possible . . . I want to give Maria Estevan some kind of closure.”

“I understand, Adam,” Matt said. “You remember my Aunt Hetty.”

Adam nodded. Her husband and eldest son had been lost when one of the smaller mines collapsed, burying everyone on the two lower levels. All attempts to rescue the trapped miners had to be abandoned early on, due to flooding in some of the levels above. There was no way anyone could have reached, let alone rescued, or even retrieved the bodies of the men and boys trapped down on the levels below the flooding. With no bodies to bury, no tangible proof of their deaths, Hetty Wilson’s life, for all intents and purposes, had come to a screeching halt that day. She had spent every minute, every hour since, patiently waiting for her husband and first born son to return home . . . until the day she finally drew her very last breath. The thought of Maria Estevan ending up like Matt’s Aunt Hetty, grieved and disturbed him.

“However . . . . ”

“However . . . WHAT, Matt?”

“We don’t much time,” Matt said, casting an anxious eye at the lengthening shadows all around them.

This drew a sharp, angry glare from Adam.

“Adam, I’m not faulting you for wanting to find Lorenzo Estevan’s body,” Matt said curtly. “I wouldn’t wish what happened to Aunt Hetty on my worst enemy. But, it’s getting late. If we’re going to reach that watering hole by dusk— ”

“Alright,” Adam snapped, before abruptly turning heel and beating a straight path toward the stagecoach. He would never know what had prompted him to go to the coach and throw open the door. It had all happened, almost without his realization. Upon opening the door, his eyes were immediately drawn to the floor of the coach, where the body of a tall, slender young man lay half curled in fetal position. A full head of thick, coal black hair remained, presenting a stark, even shocking contrast to the whiteness of his exposed skull.

Adam knew beyond all doubt that he had found the body of Lorenzo Estevan. He also knew from the vast amounts of dried blood staining what remained of Lorenzo Estevan’s clothing and the floorboards of the coach, that the young bride groom had been shot in the stomach and left there to die.

“Adam, is that . . . . ?!” It was Matt, standing a little behind him, to his right.

“Yeah, Matt . . . it IS,” Adam replied. “Help me get him out of here. I want to take him back to town so his wife can give him a decent burial.”

Matt immediately opened his mouth to point out the impracticality of such a move, only to shut it upon getting a good look at Adam’s face, pale despite having spent the better part of the last two days under the desert sun, his dark eyes smoldering with fury. “I’ll . . . I’ll get something to wrap around M-Mister Estevan’s b-body.”

Adam curtly nodded his thanks. A few moments after Matt set off, back in the direction of the debris field, his eyes fell on a small, flat object, hued a deep forest green. It was lying on the floor of the coach, almost completely buried under the seat behind Lorenzo Estevan’s head. He reached across the young man’s body and carefully pulled it out. Adam immediately recognized it as Lorenzo Estevan’s sketch book . . . the one containing all those wonderful drawings of the ancient ruins down near Mexico City.

“He must’ve had it out . . . showing his sketches to another passenger, like he showed them to me,” Adam mused softly, noting the blood splatters across the front of the leather bound book, lying cradled in his hands. He fervently hoped and prayed that the very last person to see Lorenzo Estevan’s drawings, and hear his stories was one who was interested and captivated, as Adam himself had been.

“Adam?”

He glanced up sharply. Matt Wilson had returned an armload of ladies’ petticoats, skirts, one dress and a handful of mens’ belts and suspenders.

“You say something?”

“No, nothing of consequence,” Adam said curtly. “Just thinking out loud.”

“What’s that?”

“I found it right over there . . . under the seat,” Adam said, pointing. “It belongs . . . it BELONGED . . . to Lorenzo Estevan. He showed it to me on our way out from Sacramento.”

“May I see?” Matt asked.

“Sure.” Adam handed the book over to Matt. “The glue on the binding’s become brittle, Matt, so please be careful. I . . . I want to give it to Mrs. Estevan, when we return.”

Matt nodded, then opened the book. “Wow! Adam, I don’t know much of anything about art . . . except for what I like and don’t like, but . . . but whoever did these drawings is very good,” he remarked, as he randomly leafed through the pages.

“The drawings were done by Lorenzo Estevan, while on an archaeological expedition in Mexico with his father,” Adam said in a voice, suddenly gone stone cold.

“Was he an artist?”

“He was certainly gifted, as you can see, but he was a man of many talents and interests,” Adam replied, feeling very sick at heart.

“Sounds like a Renaissance man.”

“Yes.”

Matt continued to leaf through the sketch book, while Adam set himself to the grim task of wrapping Lorenzo Estevan’s mortal remains. Suddenly, he stopped. “Hey, Adam . . . . ”

“What?!”

“I think you need to take a look at this . . . . ”

Adam finished covering the dead man’s face with one of the petticoats, then turned his attention to Matt. “What have you found?”

“More evidence,” Matt replied. “Mister Estevan drew pictures of the men who robbed this stage.”

“Let me see.”

Matt handed Adam the sketchbook. The faces of four men, roughly sketched in apparent great haste, glared malevolently back at him from the pages of the open sketch book. Bandanas covered the lower faces of two, but had apparently slipped down, revealing the third man’s nose and part of his mouth. The fourth man’s face was completely exposed. Adam and Matt immediately recognized him as Jacob Carter’s slow witted brother, Billy Bob.

“This one’s the man we caught trying to run away,” Adam said, pointing to the rendering of the partially masked third man, an unmistakable portrait of Timothy Higgins.

“You’re right,” Matt murmured, awe struck, “ . . . and THIS guy, with the scraggly eyes brows and black hair has to be the one who ended up getting killed.”

Adam turned the page.

The handwriting proved difficult to read, between the glare of the bright desert sun against the white paper, the smearing, the splotches of ink and blood. The irregular shaped lines and curves forming letters and words, had been set down quickly, by someone in great pain.

Adam read the date at the top of the page. “ ‘We were robbed. Four men, pictures on previous page,’ ” he continued reading aloud. “ ‘One man called the youngest Billy Bob . . . . ’ Dear God . . . . ”

“What is it, Adam?”

“Matt . . . this is Lorenzo Estevan’s account of what happened.”

“We need to get his sketch book back to Sheriff Coffee,” Matt said, “along with the letters written by Brentwood Carroll.”

“Yes,” Adam said grimly. “We need to see to it that Mister Estevan and Mister Carroll BOTH have their day in court . . . . ”

Adam Cartwright and Matt Wilson finally reached Virginia City amid the lengthening shadows and the waning daylight of late afternoon three days later. The body of Lorenzo Estevan, half eaten by desert carrion and the remainder dried to the consistency of tough rawhide by the dry climate, lay draped over Sport II’s back, behind the saddle, securely wrapped in three petticoats and a long navy blue skirt, and a dress, that had apparently belonged to the stout woman, who lay back there, with the stage, buried along side the two drivers.

Matt exhaled a long, very soft sigh of great relief as meadow, trees, and mountains, finally gave way to stores, office buildings, saloons, and houses, mostly wood frame, occasionally brick. Adam had slept very little, if any the nights they had spent on the trail, as they rode from the place where they had found the stagecoach back to Virginia City. Every time Matt had roused, he found his old friend sitting on the ground, with legs crossed, completely engrossed in the forest green, leather bound journal/sketchbook that had belonged to Lorenzo Estevan. This morning, when Matt awoke at daybreak, Adam was STILL sitting there, in the exact same spot, with legs crossed, this time clutching the forest green book tight to his chest.

Matt cast a furtive, anxious glance over at his old friend, as they neared the sheriff’s office. Adam’s face had paled to a sickly ashen gray, and his brown eyes, still round with shock and horror, stared straight ahead, unfocused, as one trapped in the throes of a vivid waking nightmare . . . with no means or hope of escape. The darkened circles under Adam’s eyes, from lack of sleep and the play of the waning, late afternoon sunlight against the shadow cast by the bony structure of his skull, had lent his eyes, and his face the eerie, haunted look of a man somehow possessed.

“Adam?” Matt ventured hesitantly.

No answer.

“Adam.”

Still, no answer.

“ADAM!” Matt raised his voice slightly.

Adam started so violently, he nearly toppled right out of his saddle.

“Oh my God!” Matt gasped, alarmed. “Adam, I . . . I’m sorry. You all right?!”

“Fine,” Adam snapped, as he favored Matt with a withering glare.

“Sorry. I tried to get your attention before, but— ”

“What do you want?” Adam asked in a voice stone cold.

“I . . . was going to tell you that we’re here . . . at the sheriff’s office,” Matt ventured hesitantly.



“Confound it, Ben, it’s YOUR move,” Roy Coffee said, taking no pains to conceal his growing annoyance.

“I KNOW it is, Roy,” Ben growled back. “I’m thinking.”

“You plan on bein’ all night thinkin’?”

This drew a dark, murderous glare from the Cartwright clan patriarch. An exasperated sigh exploded from between Ben’s lips as he reached up and moved his only remaining rook.

Roy stared down at the chessboard lying on his desk between them, and shook his head in complete and utter disbelief. “Y’ sure y’ wanna do that, Ben?” he asked.

“One minute you’re urging me to hurry up and make my move . . . the next you question the move I make,” Ben observed irascibly. “What’s with you tonight, Roy?”

“I was about t’ ask YOU the same question,” Roy said, as he moved his bishop in to capture Ben’s rook. “Checkmate. That makes six games now outta six.”

“So my game’s off,” Ben sighed.

“Your game ain’t OFF, ‘cause your mind ain’t even been ON the game. You’re worried about Adam.”

“I should never have let him go with you in the first place.”

“I don’t think there was a whole lot y’ couldda done t’ stop him, short o’ hog-tyin’ him with a good, stout rope ‘n maybe hittin’ him a couple o’ times over the head t’ keep him still,” Roy said wryly, then sighed.

“Ben, he’ll be alright. Matt Wilson’s with him. I made the both of ‘em promise they’d head for home if the directions given ‘em didn’t pan out.”

“I still don’t like it,” Ben groused.

The door opened. Adam wearily trudged into the sheriff’s office, with his shoulders slumped, and back slightly bowed, as if he carried the full weight of the world’s burden. Matt followed close behind.

Roy immediately rose to his feet. “Come on in, Boys . . . glad you’re back,” he said. “We was just talkin’ about ya.”

“Adam and I found the stagecoach, Sheriff Coffee,” Matt said, as he gently pushed Adam over in the general direction of the sheriff’s desk.

Ben rose to his feet slowly, and motioned for Adam to take his chair.

“ ‘S ok, Pa . . . I’m fine,” Adam said in a hallow voice, barely audible.

“We found four bodies,” Matt continued. “The drivers . . . Johnny Jacobs and that Dawson fella from over Carson way . . . both of them . . . what was left of ‘em. . . were lying in front of the stagecoach on their stomachs, tied up and shot in the head.”

“The short man made a game of shooting them,” Adam said, incredulous, his face an unsettling mixture of anger and revulsion. “A game! Put a single bullet in the chamber . . . give it a spin, then pulled the trigger. The man who ends up with a bullet in his head first is the loser. The winner gets to play again and again, until the gun finally fires . . . and HE ends up with a bullet in his head. The man with the gun gets to laugh while the players sweat.”

“Adam . . . how do you KNOW that?” Ben asked, gazing uneasily into his eldest son’s face. “How can you POSSIBLY know that?”

“It’s all right here,” Adam growled as he slammed Lorenzo Estevan’s journal with all his angry might down onto the game board in the middle of the desk, sending the chess pieces flying in all directions.

“What’s this, Adam?” Roy asked warily, as he reached out to pick up the leather bound, forest green book.

“Lorenzo Estevan’s journal,” Matt said quietly. “He . . . before he died, he wrote an account of what happened. He also managed to draw pictures of the men who robbed them, abducted Mrs. Estevan, and left the rest of them to die in the desert.”

“Mrs. Estevan wasn’t the only person those . . . those rabid sons of bitches took with them,” Adam said, his voice shaking. “There was a girl . . . a young girl, named Isabella de Gallo. She was fourteen years old . . . a . . . a month shy of her . . . her Quinceañera.”

“Her Quin-cee-what?” Roy queried with a bewildered frown.

“Her fifteenth birthday,” Ben replied, as he watched his son with growing alarm. “According to Mexican tradition, a young girl comes of age when she turns fifteen, and is just cause for a magnificent celebration.”

“Matt and I found another body, in addition to the two drivers,” Adam continued. “HER name was Jaunita Alverez. She was Miss de Gallo’s duenna. She . . . according to what M-Mister Estevan wrote in his journal . . . Mrs. Alverez died trying to protect her young charge, but she wasn’t as lucky as the two drivers. THEY died with a single bullet fired into their heads. M-Mrs. Alverez had half of her head bashed in with a rifle butt.”

“Adam . . . come on, Buddy . . . take it easy,” Matt pleaded, the fear and worry on his face mirroring what Ben felt in his heart.

“Those animals . . . . ” Adam muttered angrily. “That girl was . . . she was only a few years older than Dio.”

“There . . . there was no gold. No gold . . . there w-was no gold . . . . ”

The words Adam spoke so long ago, after he, Hoss, and Joe had freed him from a travois, upon which lay the dead body of a man by the name of Peter Kane, echoed once again through Ben’s mind and memory.

“No gold . . . there w-was no gold . . . . ”

“That girl . . . a little older than Dio . . . . ”

“No gold . . . . ”

“A little older than Dio . . . . ”

“Those animals . . . . ” Adam muttered softly under his breath, as he turned toward the closed door separating the jail cells from the sheriff’s office, his entire body trembling with rage. Then, suddenly, before anyone could even think of stopping him he was heading back toward the jail cells, moving with surprising agility and speed, given his age.

Roy shot out of his chair with force and momentum sufficient to send it crashing to the floor with a resounding bang. With his face set with grim determination, he struck out on a direct intercept course toward Adam, who had just reached the door separating the office from the jail cells, and thrown it open. Ben anxiously followed on the heels of the sheriff, while Matt, looking lost and bewildered, slowly brought up the rear.



“Where is she?” Adam demanded angrily, as he exploded into the back room. “You!” He turned the full force of his dark, murderous glare on Timothy Higgins. “Where is she?”

“Sh-She . . . she who?” Timothy stammered. He involuntarily stepped back and raised his arms to shield his face, as if to ward off the blows of many fists flying at him, fast and furious.

“If you’re talking about Maria . . . she’s DEAD,” Jacob said with a nasty sneer on his face.

Adam moved with lightening swiftness over to the cell, occupied by the Carter brothers. Before Jacob could even think to move himself out of harm’s way, Adam had thrust his arms through the bars and seized the eldest Carter brother by the lapels of his shirt and yanked him forward with all his might, slamming him into the iron bars separating them.

“I KNOW what you did to Mrs. Estevan, you miserable excuse for shit dust,” Adam growled. “I want to know what you did with the girl!”

Jacob turned his head and squeezed his eyes shut, in a desperate bid to escape the burning intensity in those golden brown eyes that seemed to bore into the very depths of his soul.

Adam slammed Jacob into the bars once again, drawing an agonized gasp from the latter, as the force of the blow drove the air right out of his lungs. “Look at me when I’m talking to you— ”

“STOP IT!” Billy Bob Carter shouted, his face white as a sheet, his eyes round with fear. He rushed forward and tried to pry Adam’s fingers loose from Jacob’s shirt. “STOP IT, STOP IT . . . YOU’RE KILLING HIM.”

“Where’s the girl?” Adam snarled once again, ignoring Billy Bob. “What did you do with her?”

“HELP! HELP! HE’S KILLING HIM!” Billy Bob yelled.

“ADAM!”

The sound of his father’s voice, filled with astonishment, anger, and fear, acted as a bucket of ice water in Adam’s face, dampening the white hot rage burning within him. The next thing he knew, a pair of strong, wiry arms encircled his waist and shoulders.

“STOP HIM,” Billy Bob yelled again. His voice seemed oddly far distant. “STOP HIM, SHERIFF . . . HE’S . . . HE’S KILLING ME BROTHER.”

“Adam, let go of him . . . NOW!” Sheriff Coffee ordered in a stern, authoritative tone of voice.

“He’s killing my brother . . . . ”

“You ready to kill me now, Cartwright?” Peter Kane mocked him from somewhere in the deep places of his memory. “Surely you MUST be ready to kill me now.”

“He’s killing my brother . . . . ”

“You ready to kill me now, Cartwright?”

“He’s killing my brother . . . . ”

The sound of Billy Bob’s frightened sobbing, assailed his ears then quickly gave way to Peter Kane’s maniacal laughter.

Adam, let him go.

“Adam, please . . . . ”

He turned and found himself staring Ben, full in the face. Never . . . not in the whole four decades of his life had he ever seen such a look of horror on his father’s face.

“Adam, let him go,” Ben begged. “Please . . . you keep on the way you’re going . . . you bring yourself down to THEIR level.” He inclined his head toward the three prisoners. “Let him go, Adam . . . please . . . . ”

Adam looked over at Jacob Carter again, grimacing as he might if he had suddenly found himself holding on to a hunk of decaying meat, infested with maggots. He, then, abruptly dropped Jacob like a hot potato.

Jacob collapsed onto the floor, like a limp sack of potatoes. With a cry of relief, Billy Bob ran to his brother’s side and dropped down onto his knees beside him. “You ok, Jacob?” the boy sobbed. “Oh, Jacob, please! Please be ok.”

“I’ll be all right, Kid . . . relax,” Jacob said, breathless, his voice hoarse. He placed a reassuring hand on his young brother’s shoulder, then, turned his attention back to Adam, now staring down at him with morbid fascination. “You wanna know where that gal is, Mister?” he snarled. “I’ll tell ya what we did with her. We traded her to a band o’ renegade Injuns for a hunk o’ venison.”

“R-Renegades?!” Adam could feel the blood draining right out of his face.

“That’s right . . . renegades!” Jacob returned, with a mirthless smile, deriving what amusement he could from Adam’s fear and dread.

“You have any idea what they might do to her? Any idea at ALL?!” Adam demanded, his voice shaking.

“Ain’t MY problem,” Jacob replied with callus indifference.

“Who were they? Bannock? Paiute? Shoshone?!”

“How the hell should I know?” Jacob returned with an indifferent shrug. “Injuns is Injuns. One ain’t no different than the other.”

“That girl . . . she . . . she w-was only a little older than Dio,” Adam murmured in a voice barely audible.

“So now ya know!” Jacob spat contemptuously. “What’re ya gonna do about it? Ya wanna kill me? Go ahead!”

“You wanna kill me NOW?” Kane again mocked him from deep inside his head. “Come ON, Cartwright . . . SURELY you wanna kill me now . . . . ”

“No.”

“You were ready to kill HIM a minute ago,” Kane sardonically mocked him. “If you’re ready to kill him . . . you gotta be ready to kill ME.”

“No. Shut up . . . get out of my head.”

“Adam?! What’s the matter with ya, Son?”

“I . . . I . . . Pa, I . . . g-got business to t-take care of . . . I’ll see you at the Fletchers,” Adam stammered, anxious, all of a sudden, to be away . . . to put as much distance as he possibly could between the prisoners and the Virginia City jail. With that, he abruptly turned heel and started beating a straight path to the door, leading back into the sheriff’s office.

“Run, Cartwright . . . see Cartwright run.” Randy Paine’s harsh, derisive laughter echoed in his ears, every bit as clear as it had the night he left the Ponderosa, left Virginia City and the State of Nevada, for good. “Run, you spineless, gutless, wretch. I KNEW you didn’t have the guts to kill him, you pathetic, miserable excuse for a human being.”

“Shut UP, Randy Paine-in-the-ass, shut up. Dammit, you’re DEAD! Why in the hell can’t you STAY dead?!”

Randy laughed. “I keep tellin’ ya, Cartwright . . . for YOU, I’ll NEVER be dead. The harder you try to shut me up, the louder I get. You’ll never escape from me, Cartwright . . . NEVER.”

“Adam, wait,” Ben called after him.

Adam slipped through the door and continued through the sheriff’s office, as if his father hadn’t spoken.

“ADAM—,” Ben yelled. He turned, with every intention of pursuing his eldest son. A gentle, yet firm hand on his shoulder stopped him before he could take the first step. “Dammit, Roy, get your hands off of me!” he said tersely, as he turned and favored his old friend with a dark, angry glare.

“Let him go, Ben,” Roy said very quietly.

“Roy, I can’t just— ” Ben hotly protested.

“Ben, he’s a grown man,” Roy said sternly, “ ‘n right now, he needs t’ be alone t’ collect himself.”

“Alright!” Roy had a point, though Ben silently vowed to sit down with Adam later, even if it meant hogtying him to a chair, and getting to the bottom of whatever was bothering him, once and for all. He deeply regretting letting things go as long as he had. “In the meantime, the three of US are going to sit down, and Matt?!”

“Y-Yes, Mister Cartwright?” the younger man stammered, as he looked away from that intense gaze Ben leveled at him, like a double barreled shotgun, fully loaded for bear.

“You’re going to tell Sheriff Coffee and me everything that happened after you and Adam left to go look for that . . . that damned stagecoach,” Ben growled, “and I mean everything.”



Adam, meanwhile, walked down the street to the funeral parlor, leading Sport II behind him. After securing his horse to the hitching post outside, he turned, and drew himself up to full height, with his posture ramrod straight, and strode briskly into the undertaker’s establishment.

“Good evening, Sir,” a tall, rail thin young man greeted him in a quiet, subdued voice. “My name is Tobias Chaney, Junior.” He extended his hand.

“Adam Cartwright,” he murmured his name very softly, his voice a near monotone, as he shook hands with the younger man.

“How may I help you?”

“I’d . . . . ” Adam swallowed nervously. “I’d like to make tentative arrangements for a friend of mine . . . pending notification of his . . . of his next of kin.”

“Certainly, Mister Cartwright. My condolences on your loss.”

“Thank you.”

“Was the deceased a close friend?”

“He might have been, if . . . if we’d had the chance.”

“What was the name of the deceased?”

“Lorenzo Estevan,” Adam replied. “His . . . body . . . what’s left of it . . . is wrapped in a kind of m-make shift shroud, tied to the back of my horse.”

“I will see to Mister Estevan’s remains straightaway, Mister Cartwright,” the younger Tobias Chaney said. “In the meantime, if you’ll come with me, I will show you to my father’s office. You can make the arrangements you need to make . . . for now . . . with him.”

“Thank you, Mister Chaney,” Adam said, as he fell in step behind the younger man.

He was taken to a well apportioned office, with its oak paneled walls, stained a deep, rich cherry hue, and stained glass windows, made from clear glass and same in varying shades of red that complemented the paneling. A massive toll top desk, the same color as the walls, stood against the wall directly opposite the door, and three massive barrister’s book cases line the wall in between. They were stained the same rich cherry wood stain as the desk. On the wall above the desk, Adam was greatly surprised to see a reproduction . . . a very good reproduction . . . of Jacques-Louis David’s painting of “The Death of Socrates.”

“My father is quite the philosopher, Sir,” Tobias, Junior said, duly noting that Adam’s eyes were focused on the painting. “He also has a particular fondness for the artist.”

“I see.”

“A word of warning, Mister Cartwright. Do NOT, under any circumstances, bring up Mister Socrates, Mister Plato, or Mister David,” the young man said, in all seriousness, “lest you find yourselves talking the entire night through. It HAS happened before.”

“Thank you. I’ll keep that in mind.” Another time, another place, under better circumstances, Adam would almost certainly have welcomed such an opportunity.

“In the meantime, please sit down, Mister Cartwright,” Tobias, Junior invited graciously, gesturing discreetly toward the small round table and four chairs, just inside the door to his right. “I’ll let my father know that you’re here.”

“Thank you,” Adam said quietly.

A few moments later, the elder Tobias Chaney entered. He was nearly a dead ringer for his son, albeit a few pounds heavier, and with a few more gray hairs. “Good evening, Mister Cartwright,” he greeted Adam cordially. “My son tells me that you’ve come to make TENTATIVE funeral arrangements?”

“Yes, Mister Chaney.” Adam explained the situation, omitting mention of Mrs. Estevan’s whereabouts and the grim details concerning her present circumstances. “I’m afraid there’s not much left of Mister Estevan’s body,” he concluded apologetically. “After two weeks in the desert, I . . . I guess it’s a miracle there’s anything left to even bury, let alone identify.”

“I understand, Mister Cartwright,” Tobias said quietly. “My son has taken the liberty of moving Mister Estevan’s body from your horse. We will see to it that he is properly coffined.”

“Thank you.” Adam reached into his back pocket and withdrew his wallet. He opened it, and with drew three bills. “I’d like to put this down as a deposit, Mister Chaney.”

“Certainly, Mister Cartwright,” Tobias said graciously, as he noted the denominations on the bills. “Most generous, given that Mister Estevan was an acquaintance.”

“I owe Mister Estevan a great deal, Sir,” Adam said, rising. Tobias Chaney quietly followed suit. “After Mister Estevan’s next of kin has been notified, someone . . . either myself of a representative for his next of kin will be in touch about the final arrangements.”

“Thank you. We will be waiting.”

After leaving the undertaker’s establishment, Adam trudged wearily on to the Fletchers’ house, again leading Sport II behind him. He paused momentarily as he came to the Silver Dollar Saloon. “Perhaps a couple of beers, or better yet, maybe a shot or two of whiskey WOULD be in order,” he silently decided, as he led Sport II over to the hitching post outside the saloon. If nothing else, it should help fortify him against the inevitable onslaught of questions from his family, especially his father, after . . . .

Adam shook his head vigorous, as if trying to physically dislodge the terrible memory of his actions in the jail, lurking at the very edges of his conscious thought, waiting, like a pair of thieves for an opportunity to strike . . . .


“You know what we want.”

“Yeah. I’m intuitive.”

“Just toss it down here. No tricks, huh?”

The memory of his having been robbed, after leaving Eastgate all those years ago, to camp out amid the rugged, stark beauty of the badlands, suddenly rose to the surface, like the body of a drowning victim eventually rises from the depths of the water where he met his death.

“That’s it,” one of the thieves, declared, upon looking into the wallet and finding the thick wad of bills crammed into the back flap.

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

“No . . . . ” Adam murmured softly. “You got your money . . . . ”

“Climb. DOWN.”

“Adam?!”

The sound of Sam’s voice rudely jolted Adam’s eyes snapped wide open. He found himself standing before the bar, staring the bartender straight in the face.

“Hey, Adam . . . you all right?” Sam queried anxiously, as he peered into the younger man’s pale face and round, staring eyes.

“I . . . . ” Adam shook his head. “Sorry, Sam . . . I . . . I guess I’m more tired than I realized.”

“I heard you and Matt Wilson were back.”

“Yeah . . . just.”

Sam filled grabbed a clean mug from under the bar, and filled it to the brim with beer. “Here y’ are, Adam. This one’s on the house.”

“Thank you, Sam.” Adam favored the bartender with a grateful, if weary smile.

“I also heard none of the other passengers survived the robbery . . . except for the young lady over at the doc’s.”

“That’s right,” Adam replied, electing to hold back the known details about the young girl.

“Hey . . . Adam! I heard you ‘n Matt were back.” He turned and found Clay Hansen standing at his elbow, to his right. Emil Jennings and another man, a stranger, flanked Clay on either side.

“Yes, Mister Hansen. A couple of hours ago.”

“Excuse me, I’m forgettin’ my manners,” Clay said. “You remember Emil, of course.”

“Yes, I do,” Adam said wearily, as he turned and offered his hand to Emil Jennings. “Good seeing you again.”

“Likewise, Mister Cartwright,” Emil said, as they shook hands.

“This is Todd Warrick,” Clay continued with the introductions. Todd was a small man, an inch or two shorter than Joe Cartwright. He had a dark, olive complexion, dark eyes, and a full head of thick, slightly wavy, jet black hair. “Adam, you might remember his pa . . . . ”

“Frasier Warrick?” Adam queried with a slight lift of his eyebrow.

“Yes, Sir,” Todd replied.

“Yes. I DO remember your father,” Adam said. “How’s he doing these days?”

“Pa . . . died three years ago, Mister Cartwright, a couple o’ days after Christmas,” Todd said with a touch of sadness. “He went out to ‘Frisco to have some kinda operation, ‘n the doc out there found growths on both his lungs. Said there wasn’t anything they could do.”

“I’m sorry,” Adam said with heartfelt sincerity.

“So . . . what’s the word?” Clay asked.

Adam took a big swallow from his beer mug, then wiped his mouth against his sleeve. “What’s the word . . . about . . . what?”

“Were the fellas Roy’s got locked up over at the jail on the level about the passengers of that stage?” Clay asked with a dark, angry scowl.

“Yes, Mister Hansen, they were,” Adam said curtly.

“What all’d ya find, Adam?” Clay pressed. “You ‘n Matt. Did ya find that stage?”

“Yes.”

“Were . . . were the passengers . . . there?”

Adam downed the remainder of his beer in a single swallow. “Mister Hansen, I don’t want to talk about it,” he said as he slammed his empty mug down on the bar.

“Don’t matter if the passengers were there or not,” Emil Jennings declared, his face darkening with anger. “Point is those three fellas over at the jail killed ‘em . . . and what they done to that gal over at the doc’s office . . . I STILL say why bother with a trial?”

“Because every man has the right to a fair trail,” Adam said, his own anger rising.

“Adam, two of ‘em confessed,” Clay argued. “The one that got killed an’ that Carter fella . . . the older one. What else do we need?”

“Mister Hansen, you can’t take the law into your hands,” Adam shot right back.

“Why not?” Clay angrily returned. “I gotta wife and four daughters livin’ with me at home. You gotta wife ‘n a daughter, too, dontcha?”

“Yes, I do, but— ”

“DAMMIT, A MAN’S GOTTA RIGHT TO PROTECT HIS WOMEN FOLK!” Clay shouted, banging his balled fist down on the bar for emphasis.

“THAT’S RIGHT!” another voice yelled out from the middle of the room. A soft ripple of ascent rose from among some of the other patrons.

“Mister Hansen, all three of those men are securely locked up in the jail cells at the sheriff’s office,” Adam said, laboring to keep his own voice slow and even. “Your wife and daughters are safe.”

“For how long?” Clay hotly demanded.

“If two of them confessed . . . as YOU said . . . the jury’s going to turn a guilty verdict, and they’ll in all likelihood be sentenced to hang,” Adam replied through clenched teeth.

“Not if that son-of-a-bitch hotshot lawyer what’s defending ‘em has HIS way about things, Mister Cartwright,” Emil Jennings said grimly.

“What’re you talking about?” Adam demanded.

“Word is their lawyer’s asked Judge Faraday to approve movin’ the trial out to PLACERVILLE,” Clay spat contemptuously. “Claims those . . . those . . . those mad dog sons-of-bitches can’t get a fair trial here in Virginia City.”

“I don’t suppose it’s occurred to you, Mister Hansen, that all this . . . this . . . insane talk about ‘why bother with a trial’ is playing right into the hands of their lawyer . . . has it?” Adam spat contemptuously.

“If YOU ain’t got the stomach to do what oughtta be done, well I sure as hell, do,” Emil declared.

“So do I,” Todd Warrick adamantly agreed.

“Yeah . . . me too,” another man standing at the bar, with a whiskey glass in hand quickly voiced his own agreement.

“Mister Hansen, I’d appreciate it if you and your men left right now,” Sam said sternly. “Feelings are running high enough without talk of lynching.”

“We got every right to be here just as much as everyone else,” Emil angrily shot right back.

“Mister Hansen,” Sam said again, pointedly ignoring the ranch hand, “I asked you and your men to leave.”

“We’ll leave . . . when we’re good ‘n ready t’ leave,” Clay said.

“Really?” Adam queried sardonically. “So tell me, Mister Hansen . . . who’s looking after your wife and daughters back on your ranch . . . while you and your men are HERE?”

Clay favored Adam with a dark murderous glare for a long, tense moment, as his hand slowly dropped down to touch the gun in his holster.

“I wouldn’t, Mister Hansen,” Adam warned. He whipped his gun from its holster and aimed for Clay Hansen’s heart. “Though I may be a city boy these days, I’m NOT out of practice.”

“Aggh!” Clay spat contemptuously. “Come on, Boys. Let’s go. The air’s startin’ to get real STALE in here.” With that, he angrily turned heel and left, roughly shoving aside a couple of patrons who didn’t move out of his way soon enough. His men followed, muttering angrily under their breaths.

“I think I’d best be moving along myself, Sam,” Adam said, rising. “Thanks for the beer, and . . . I’m sorry about all this trouble just now.”

“ ‘S all right, Adam . . . wasn’t YOUR fault,” Sam said, “but, a word to the wise?”

“What’s that?”

“You’re best off keepin’ your opinions about recent events to yourself,” Sam replied. “I know it’s a free country ‘n all, but . . . as high as feelin’s are running right now, it won’t take much to set folks off t’ doing things they’re gonna deeply regret later.”

“I fully intend to follow that advice,” Adam said soberly. “May I ask you a question?”

Sam shrugged indifferently. “Sure . . . why not?”

“Is it true what Mister Hansen said about their lawyer seeking to move the trial?”

“I can’t tell ya for absolute sure, Adam, ‘cause so far, everything’s been done behind closed doors,” Sam replied. “But, there’s been talk. A LOT o’ talk.”

“I sure hope Sheriff Coffee is able to keep a handle on things,” Adam said grimly.

“Me, too,” Sam agreed wholeheartedly.

“Good night, Sam. I have one more thing to take care of, and then I wash my hands of this whole business,” Adam said. “I came here to build a house, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

“Good night, Adam.”

“Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid!” Adam muttered softly under his breath, as he unhitched his horse and climbed up in the saddle. “If I had even a small shred of plain common sense, I would have sat down at my drafting table at home, drawn up those damned house plans, and sent them to Pa special delivery.”

As he climbed up into the saddle, Adam’s eyes were momentarily drawn to the deep indigo sky over head, just as the first star winked into sight. “Star light . . . star bright . . . the first star I see tonight . . . I wish I may, I with I might have the wish I wish tonight,” he murmured softly the rhyme Pa had taught him, that he, in turn, had taught his own children.

As he spoke aloud those words, Adam found himself wishing he were back home in Sacramento, with all his might. He suddenly missed Teresa and their children, Benjy and Dio, so much, he nearly cried out in agony. More than anything he wanted to be back home . . . .

. . . far away from Virginia City, from the State of Nevada, from places where men robbed stagecoaches . . . or a lone rider . . . then left their victims to die in the harsh, cruel desert . . . .

. . . where a young bridegroom could be gunned down in cold blood, so that his murderers could claim his widow as their chattel, to do with as they will . . . .

. . . or a young man, left to die out in the desert finding his only hope of salvation in water, food, shelter, and torture at the hands of a demented prospector, whose only reason for continued existence was goad another to murder him . . . .

“Run, Cartwright, run. See Cartwright run,” Randy Paine taunted him from his own place in the deep, wounded places within Adam’s soul. “See Cartwright run as fast as his legs can carry him. You can run as far, as hard, as fast as you like, but you’ll NEVER escape. You hear me, Cartwright? You’ll NEVER escape.”

“Shut-up,” Adam growled back, “ just . . . shut-the-hell-UP.”

“Make me, Rich Boy. Make me shut-up . . . . ”

The next thing Adam knew, he was standing on the Martins’ doorstep, ringing the bell, with no memory of having tied his horse to the hitching post, or walking up the walk.

The Martins’ housekeeper, Hilda Mae Graves, answered the door.

Adam closed his eyes and took a deep breath, forcing himself to inhale slowly, evenly.

Hilda Mae regarded his pale complexion, his trembling hands, the beads of sweat dotting his forehead with an anxious frown. “May I help you, uhhh . . . Mister?!

“Cartwright, Ma’am,” Adam greeted her cordially. “My name is Adam Cartwright.”

“You related to the Ponderosa Cartwrights?” Hilda Mae asked, her eyes narrowing with suspicion.

“Yes, Ma’am. I’m Ben Cartwright’s oldest son.”

“The one who lives out in California?”

“Yes, Ma’am,” Adam replied. “I’d like to see the doctor, if I may. I . . . I have news about Mrs. Estevan’s husband.”

“Come in.”

Hilda Mae led Adam down the hall to the Martins’ formal parlor, on the first floor. “Wait here, Mister Cartwright,” she said quietly, then withdrew.

Adam was very surprised when Crystal McShane and the doctor’s wife stepped into the formal parlor a moment later. He immediately rose to his feet, and waited until the two women seated themselves. Lily Martin sat down on the settee next to Adam, while Crystal elected to remain standing, leaning heavily against the door jamb with her arms folded across her chest.

“Adam. I had no idea you and Matt Wilson were back,” Lily Martin said by way of greeting.

“Yes, Ma’am. We returned a little before dusk.”

“The doctor is away right now,” Lily continued, apologetically. “He’s out at the Larson farm. Etta Larson went into premature labor this afternoon . . . I don’t expect him back before morning. I . . . understand you have news of Mrs. Estevan’s husband?” Judging from his trembling hands, the haunted look in his eyes, and a complexion several shades paler than normal, the news couldn’t possibly be good. She swallowed, and mentally braced herself.

“Matt and I found the stagecoach,” Adam said quietly, with much reluctance. “Mister Estevan . . . his body was inside the coach. He had been shot, several times, judging from the amount of dried blood on the floor. I . . . don’t know whether he climbed into the coach, or if someone else helped him climb inside.”

“I . . . I had hoped,” Lily Martin said in a small voice, barely audible, her voice breaking on the last word. “I knew it was impossible, but I still hoped.”

“I’m sorry to be the bearer of such terrible news,” Adam said contritely.

“It’s not YOUR fault, Adam . . . you can’t help the horrible things that befell that poor young woman,” Lily said. “I . . . I wish I knew what to do at this point.”

“Mrs. Martin,” Crystal spoke up for the first time, “we HAVE to tell her.”

“I . . . I’d rather wait until the doctor returns, and discuss it with him,” Lily said morosely. “Her mental and physical health are so frail right now.”

“Matt and I brought Mister Estevan’s body back with us,” Adam continued. “I’ve . . . taken the liberty of dropping him off at the undertaker’s. I told Mister Chaney that someone would contact him in the next day or so about final arrangements.”

“Thank you, Adam.” Lily rose. Adam and Crystal followed suit. “I’m afraid the two of you will have to excuse a silly, frightened old woman, but . . . I just don’t have the heart to tell her. Not tonight.”

“You don’t have the heart to tell who . . . about what, Mrs. Martin?”

Three heads, three pairs of eyes all turned toward the open parlor door in unison. They were astonished to find Maria Estevan, clad in a night gown and bathrobe, borrowed from the doctor’s wife. She also wore a while ruffled mob cap over her short cropped hair.

“Mrs. Estevan . . . you shouldn’t be up.”

“You’ve NOT answered my question, Mrs. Martin.”

“Mrs. Estevan, this is Adam Cartwright,” Crystal McShane quickly introduced them.

Maria turned and offered Adam a wan smile, along with her hand. “Mister Cartwright and I have already met, Mrs. McShane. My . . . my husband and I had the pleasure of traveling here from Sacramento in his company.”

“He . . . has news of Mister Estevan,” Crystal said quietly, drawing an uncertain, anxious look from Lily.

Maria turned toward Adam expectantly.

Adam wished with all his heart, with every fiber of his being that he didn’t have to utter his next words. For a long desperate moment, he wracked his brains searching for a way, a kind and gentle way . . . .

“Mister Cartwright, my husband is dead . . . isn’t he.” It was a statement of fact, not a question.

“Yes, Mrs. Estevan. I’m sorry.”

“I . . . I think I’ve known all along,” Maria said in a bland tone of voice, completely void of any and all emotion.

“Mister Wilson . . . he’s an old friend of mine . . . he and I brought your husband’s body back with us, so that . . . that he might be given a decent burial,” Adam said, his voice shaking. “I took the liberty of . . . of taking him to the undertaker.”

“Thank you, Mister Cartwright,” Maria said in a voice barely audible. “If you might do me one more favor?”

“Certainly, Mrs. Estevan. Anything,” Adam immediately agreed.

“I would appreciate it if you would ask the undertaker to prepare Lorenzo’s body as best he can for private viewing,” Maria said. “I . . . after two weeks, I . . . I realize there can’t possibly be much to work with, but . . . I want to see him. I want to see my husband one last time before . . . before I bury him.”

“I will let Mister Chaney know what your wishes are, Mrs. Estevan,” Adam promised.

“Thank you, Mister Cartwright. I deeply appreciate everything you’ve done. Now . . . if you would all excuse me, I . . . I’d like to be alone now.”

“Would you like me to see you back upstairs to the guestroom?” Crystal asked.

“Thank you, Mrs. McShane, but I can manage. I . . . I really need to be alone right now. I’m sorry, if I seem ungracious . . . . ”

“I understand,” Crystal said very quietly.

“Good night, Mrs. Martin . . . Mrs. McShane,” Maria said. “Mister Cartwright, thank you again, very much, for all that you have done . . . for Lorenzo and for me.”

“If there’s anything else I can do, Mrs. Estevan, please don’t hesitate to ask,” Adam said. “For now, I bid all of you good night.”



“Mister Adam. Hop Sing glad you back. Start to worry,” Hop Sing greeted the eldest of Ben Cartwright’s issue with a warm smile, as he trudged through the back door into the kitchen. “Supper ready ten minutes.”

“None for me, Hop Sing, please . . . . ” Adam said wearily. “I . . . I’m not hungry.”

Hop Sing frowned. “Not good. After almost whole week on trail . . . no good Mister Adam not eat supper.”

“Please, Hop Sing, I’m ‘way too tired to argue with you,” Adam begged. “Right now, I just plain and simply want to go to bed. I would appreciate a little hot water, so I can wash.”

“Hop Sing fix,” the Cartwright family’s chief cook promised.

“Hey! Look who’s back!” Hoss exclaimed with a big happy smile, as Adam stepped through the kitchen door into the dining room, where the rest of his family was gathering for supper.

“Adam, did you and Matt find that stagecoach?” Joe asked.

“Not tonight,” Adam groaned wearily. “Please . . . no questions tonight.”

“All you gotta say is yes or no,” Joe pressed.

Ben caught the murderous glare in Adam’s eyes, as he turned to face his youngest brother. “Joseph, leave it be,” he said sternly.

Joe opened his mouth to protest, only to snap it shut again, when he got a good, hard look at the steely glint in his father’s dark brown eyes. “Yes, Sir,” he murmured softly, as he dropped down into the chair on Hoss’ left .

“Adam, supper’s almost ready, if— ”

“I’m not hungry, Pa,” Adam said curtly. “I already told Hop Sing. All I want right now is a good wash, then bed.”

“Alright, Son,” Ben said quietly.

“Good night, Pa,” Adam said, as he walked past the table toward the great room and the steps leading to the second story, “and good night, Hoss, Joe, and you, too, Stacy. I . . . I’m sorry for not being very good company tonight— ”

“That’s alright, Adam,” Ben said. “You g’won up and get to bed. We’ll see you in the morning.”



They ran together, down past the long line of happy well wishers, laughing, with her gloved hand tucked trustingly within his, ducking their faces away from the rice raining down upon their heads. He paused at the open door of the stagecoach to gather her in his arms and plant a good, sound kiss upon those luscious ruby red lips.

“I love you, Teresa,” he said, as their lips parted.

“. . . and I love you, Adam,” she declared, throwing her arms around his neck with a wild, and joyous abandon.

“Hey, c’mon, Oldest Brother of Mine,” Joe teased, favoring him and his new bride with that cocky, boyish smile of his. “Better can the mushy stuff, or else you’re gonna miss the stage.”

Laughing, he reached out to affectionately tousle that mop of often unruly curls atop Joe’s head, before turning to hug his father, and Hoss. Teresa, meanwhile, had turned to bid her own parents, and her brothers, good-bye . . . .



The next thing he knew, they were in a stage coach, heading in a south easterly direction. Their final destination: Santa Fe. Mister Dawson from Carson City was driving. He and the team of horses making good time. VERY good time. Johnny Jacobs rode shot gun.

Inside, the stage was packed to near full capacity.

There was an older couple, aged in their late-fifties, occupying the seat beside them. They had boarded the stage in Carson City, taking the seats vacated by the Cruthers, after illness had forced them to disembark. Married now for almost thirty-six years, they seemed to take great delight in Teresa and himself, wed barely thirty-six HOURS.

On the seat directly across from them sat a young man, returning home after completion of his freshman year in college. He had told them he was studying medicine, that someday, he wanted to be a doctor. He looked so young, so fresh of face, he and Teresa couldn’t help thinking he belonged back in the first grade.

Another young man with carrot colored hair, a face full of freckles and a big, toothy grin, sat next to the college freshman. He made his living selling encyclopedias. He had a large truck on top of the stage, that contained a brand new twenty volume set, destined for a customer in Freedonia, one of the many stops between Virginia City and Santa Fe..

On the other side of the young salesman sat a young girl, a little older than Dio . . . traveling in the company her stern duenna, whose dimensions roughly equaled the same as his biggest brother, Hoss. Bright, vivacious, animated, she chatted almost non-stop with Teresa about her upcoming Quinceañera, until her duenna sternly admonished her as to the virtues of listening to others once in awhile. They occupied the seats vacated by Sallie Johnson and her daughter, Annie. Like Teresa and himself, they, too were bound for Santa Fe.

Johnny Jacobs . . . .

Mister Dawson, from Carson City . . . .

The older couple . . . .

The salesman . . . .

The college freshman . . . .

The young girl and her duenna . . . .

The newly weds, himself and Teresa . . . .

Suddenly, he was filled with a heavy, almost unbearable sense of foreboding.

Then, the stagecoach began to slow.

“No.

Don’t stop . . . .

Oh, God . . .

Please!

DON’T STOP!”

But, the coach did stop . . . finally.

There were four men up ahead, standing in a straight line, stretched across the dry, dusty, sand yellow road. They stood with their backs to the sun. He couldn’t see their faces, nor make out any other distinguishing characteristics. Only a vague, general outline. Yet, he knew them. Somewhere, buried very deeply inside himself, he knew them intimately.

Next, he heard the sound of gunfire.

Then, suddenly, he found himself struggling . . . struggling harder than he could remember ever having struggled his entire life . . . to free himself. All of the other passengers were gone. Vanished, as if they had never been. The driver, Dawson, and Johnny Jacobs both lay up near the front of the stagecoach, with their hands tied behind their backs, and half their heads blown away.

“No! Dear God, no . . . please . . . please don’t do this . . . . ”

It was Teresa, his beloved wife for all of a day and a half now. Glancing up, he saw her clasped tight in the arms of one of the robbers, struggling mightily to extricate herself. The man seized hold of a generous fistful of her long, luxurious dark tresses and yanked her head back, forcing her to look into his face.

“Yes . . . struggle! Struggle for all you’re worth, you slut! I LIKE ‘em feisty!” the man exhorted and taunted her in a menacing tone of voice.

Overcome by near blind, murderous rage, he renewed his own struggles, against the men holding him back in a desperate bid to free himself.

Another man sidled up on the other side of his wife. He and the first man half dragged, half carried her around to the other side of the stagecoach, out of his sight. Her heart wrenching sobbing quickly escalated to screams of agony as the two men forced themselves upon her, taking from both of them something infinitely precious.

With a scream borne now of pure, unadulterated, primal murderous rage, he broke free of the men holding him, and barreled headlong around to the other side of the stagecoach. He rounded the corner only to be shoved back, hard . . . once, then once again, as a pair of bullets slammed into his chest.

As he stumbled across the burning desert sand, his eyes shifted from the still smoking gun barrel, to his wife, lying at the feet of the men who had so grievously abused her, clad now in the torn, bloodied remains of her chemise, her face filled with grief, horror, and despair.

“You’re pathetic, Adam Cartwright,” the man laughed, “you’re the pathetic son of a rich man, who never . . . ever . . . had to do a lick o’ honest day’s work in his whole pathetic, miserable life.”

Those words, that voice, made hoarse by many long years of keeping himself falling down drunk nearly every waking minute of everyday . . . and worst of all, that cruel laughter, harsh and grating, with no joy, no mirth . . . .

No! It couldn’t be . . . .

It wasn’t possible!

He was dead!

“I keep tellin’ ya . . . I AIN’T dead, you miserable excuse for a human being.” The man laughed again as the shadows, obscuring his face moved and shifted. “For YOU, I’ll never be dead. No matter where you go, I’ll always be there . . . even if ya can’t see me, I’ll STILL be there, always watching . . . always waiting”

It was Randy Paine, laughing . . . laughing as he had that night, when . . . .

“No!”

He stumbled, and pitched backwards, collapsing hard against the men who had held him before. He knew them, too. Their names were Jim Gann and Frank Preston. They were the men, he saw playing poker in a saloon in Eastgate, who later robbed him in the desert, not only of the five thousand dollars he carried tucked away in his wallet, but of his horse, his supplies, his canteen, and rifle.

Of any and all chances of survival.

But, they, too were dead. Shot down in self defense by the sheriff over in Salt Flats. That’s what he had been told . . . .

He heard Teresa cry out once again. Adam. Over and over, begging, half in anger, half in prayer. Adam . . . Adam . . . Adam . . . .

He had never, in all his life, ever heard such terrible depths of hopelessness, despair, and grief that he heard in his wife’s voice now. “I’m sorry, Teresa,” he sobbed as the men holding him now released him . . . as his body collapsed onto the desert sands with a soft, sickening thud.

“I’m sorry . . . . ”

“So sorry . . . . ”

“So terribly sorry I . . . that I couldn’t help you when you needed my help the most . . . . ”

“ . . . and worst than that, now . . . now when you need ME the most . . . I have to leave you to face this alone.”

Then, a shadow rose blocking the blinding glare of the desert sun overhead. It was the other man who had raped, who had violated his wife. Though he couldn’t see the man’s face, he knew him by the general outlines, the shape of his head . . . .

. . . by the play of sunlight on hair gone mostly silver gray . . . .

. . . by the sound of his mocking laughter, echoing in his ears.

“Well, Cartwright?” he demanded, his voice filled with smug, contemptuous triumph.

“No . . . . ”

Laughter. That same horrible maniacal laughter he heard day in and day out as he sweated and labored to work that man’s worthless claim. “Surely you MUST want to kill me now . . . . ”

“This can’t be happening.”

“ . . . after what I’ve done to your wife?!”

“This . . .

. . . can’t . . .

. . . POSSIBLY . . .

. . . be happening . . .

DAMMIT, YOU’RE DEAD . . .

“WHY IN THE HELL DON’T YOU STAY DEAD?!” Adam screamed as his eyes suddenly snapped wide open. He found himself consumed with murderous rage, in a strange dark room, with sweat flowing, oozing from every pore in his body, like swift flowing rivers, despite the night chill in the air surrounding him.

Next came the near frantic, rapid fire staccato beat of knuckles against the fast closed door to the room in which he found himself. “Adam? Adam, it’s Joe. You alright in there?”

Joe?

Then he remembered.

Teresa, thank God, was safe . . . safe with their children back home in Sacramento, while he was here . . . in Nevada, in Virginia City, with his pa, his brothers and sister, and Hop Sing, staying in a house belonging to a couple he barely knew.

Peter Kane . . . Randy Paine . . . even Jim Gann and Frank Preston . . . were all many years dead.

None of the events in that horrible nightmare had ever happened . . . at least, not to him.

“Hey, Adam, what’s going on in there? You all right?” Joe called again from without, the worry and concern in his voice loud and clear.

“I . . . I’m f-fine,” Adam stammered, trying desperately to recover at least a small measure of his wits.

The door flew open, nearly exploding right off its hinges. Joe strode briskly into the room, without waiting for permission or invitation. “You don’t SOUND fine, Adam.”

Adam inwardly bristled against Joe’s statement of the painfully obvious, and against his brazen, even rude, intrusion his privacy.

“Now c’mon, Adam . . . what’s going on? I heard you scream— ”

“I . . . had . . . a n-nightmare,” Adam admitted with grudging reluctance through clenched teeth, feeling as if he had somehow let his youngest brother down. “I’m all right now.”

The penetrating, all-knowing, all-seeing glare on Joe’s face, so very much like Pa’s, told Adam that his youngest brother saw right through the lie with almost embarrassing clarity. “Adam, you’re sweating, your hands are shaking . . . you are NOT all right.”

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I . . . WILL . . . be . . . all right,” Adam said slowly, offering his youngest brother a smile meant to reassure. The sharpening intensity of Joe’s glare told him that he had failed miserably. “I’ll be fine, Joe. Honest. I’ll be fine. All I need— ”

“Adam? Joe? What’s going on?”

Adam and Joe both turned and found their father standing framed in the open door way, with his robe hanging open over his nightshirt, his hair mussed, and eyes half closed.

“Boys, is everything alright?”

“Ask Adam,” Joe snapped, as he suddenly turned heel and left the room.

Ben stood, watching his youngest son’s retreating back, with a perplexed frown for a moment, before turning his attention to his oldest. “Adam? What was THAT all about?” he asked, as he moved across the room, toward his son’s bedside.

“Nothing, Pa. Sorry I woke you,” Adam murmured contritely.

Ben noted Adam’s pallor, the sheen of perspiration across his forehead, and his trembling hands, with grave concern. He sat down on the edge of the bed, as he had done long years ago when the man before him was just a boy, and touched the back of his hand to his son’s forehead.

“I’m not sick, Pa,” Adam said irritably.

“SOMETHING’S troubling you, Son.”

Adam flinched away from his father’s dark, penetrating gaze, feeling horribly exposed, almost as if he had somehow been stripped naked and raped, as his wife had been in that terrible dream. “I’ll be all right, Pa, honest,” he said a little too quickly.

“Adam, is . . . is everything alright between you and Teresa?”

“Teresa and I are doing just fine,” Adam replied, taken aback by the question, surprised and outraged his father could even think such a thing.

“How about the children?”

“They’re fine, too. Pa . . . what’s this all about? Why the sudden concern about my marriage and my children?!”

“Adam, I don’t know WHAT’S wrong, but I know SOMETHING is,” Ben said, “and HAS been for quite awhile. I’ve not said anything before this because I had thought . . . whatever it is . . . that you would work it out on your own. But, that doesn’t seem to be happening. If anything, it’s grown worse. MUCH worse. Your actions in the jail this afternoon— ”

“Pa, I don’t want to talk about it,” Adam said in a voice that brought all the bitter cold of dead winter into the room, and erected a barrier between father and son higher, more insurmountable than the mountains surrounding them.

Ben sighed softly, feeling helpless and frustrated. He wanted so much to take his oldest son into his arms, as he had when he was a small boy . . . as he could even now with Joe, Stacy, and occasionally Hoss . . . and hold him close, to give to him of the abundance of love, of strength and comfort he always had in his heart to give to his children in their times of need. But, Adam held him off now, as he had since he was seven years old.

There were two exceptions . . . .

The first time was after that last Ash Hallow dream, the one more terrible, more frightening than all the others.

The second and the only time Adam, as a grown man, had allowed his father to gather him in his arms, and really hold him close as he sobbed out his anguish, was the day he, Hoss, and Joe had found him walking nearly mindless through the desert, dragging the dead body of a man named Peter Kane tied down to a travois.

“Pa?”

“Yes, Adam?”

“I . . . WILL . . . be all right,” Adam said in a dead monotone, his eyes glued to his hands, tightly clasped on the quilt covering him.

Ben nodded, as he stiffly rose from his seat on the edge of Adam’s bed. “Alright, Son, I’ll . . . see you in the morning, then,” he said listlessly. “Good night, Adam.”

“Good night, Pa.”

“Good morning, breakfast ready,” Hop Sing announced, grinning from ear to ear, as he entered the dining room carrying a large serving platter, piled high with steaming hot cakes in carefully balanced in one hand, and a bowl full of fluffy, yellow scrambled eggs cradled in the other.

He noted with dismay and concern, that the family members who had come to the table, Mister Cartwright, Mister Hoss, and Little Joe, were too quiet this morning. Apart from mumbled, barely audible, barely even discernable good mornings, Papa and boys hadn’t spoken at all. Mister Cartwright seemed lost in the very private world of his own thoughts, troubling ones judging from the uncertain look on his face, and the great sadness in his eyes. Mister Hoss and Little Joe looked over at each over occasionally, worried and anxious, wanting to do something, but not knowing what.

Miss Stacy’s chair was empty, sure sign she had overslept this morning. Not that Hop Sing could have faulted her for that. She WAS still recovering from the terrible injuries she had sustained as a result of the fire that had taken their home . . . that had damn near taken THEM as well. Plus all that had happened in the wee hours of the dark morning with that nightmare Mister Adam had . . . .

Hop Sing dolefully shook his head. Even with all that, it was still very unusual for Miss Stacy to oversleep.

It was ADAM’S absence at the table, however, that disturbed and worried Hop Sing the most. Like Miss Stacy, he, too was an early riser. Before leaving the Ponderosa and the house of his papa to make his own way in the world, Adam, like his young sister now, more often rose with the sun to get in a ride out to Ponderosa Plunge, or someplace else just as beautiful, to contemplate the awesome magnificence of that part of the world he once called home.

Of course Mister Adam HAD spent the last six days and nights out on the trail, something rarely, if ever, part of the lifestyle he now enjoyed out in Sacramento. Spending the better part of the daylight hours on horseback, the nights sleeping out in the ground, all the while traveling through some of the hardest country around would have wearied Mister Hoss , Little Joe, and even Miss Stacy, all of whom were well used to that sort of thing. Mister Adam wasn’t, not now, and like everyone else, HE wasn’t getting any younger either.

Still, for Mister Adam to sleep in past the stroke of seven was very unusual.

“Ummm UM! Nothin’ like a good, hearty breakfast before goin’ out t’ put in a full day’s work,” Hoss declared with a broad, appreciative grin, as reached up to relieve Hop Sing of the bowl, containing the scrambled eggs.

“Where Mister Adam, Miss Stacy?!” he demanded, casting a pointed glare at the two chairs that yet remained empty.

“Sorry, Hop Sing,” Stacy yawned, as she hobbled slowly into the dining room. Though she had taken a few moments to wash her face and run a comb through her hair, she was still wearing her nightshirt, robe, and a single slipper. “I didn’t MEAN to oversleep this morning.”

“I’m sorry, Stacy. It certainly WASN’T my intention to rudely wake everyone up out of a sound sleep last night, either,” Adam said, angry and very much on the defensive, as he entered a few steps behind his sister.

Stacy stared over at the oldest of her three brothers, open mouthed with shock, as he slipped past her. “Adam, I wasn’t— ”

“I SAID I was sorry,” Adam snapped. “Can we just forget it?”

Stacy’s face immediately darkened with anger.

“Come on, Li’l Sister, sit yourself down here ‘n have some breakfast,” Hoss said very quickly, patting the empty seat beside him, on his right.

Stacy mutely nodded, as the sharp, angry retort sitting on the tip of her tongue evaporated under her biggest brother’s earnest gaze, begging her to please hold her peace.

“Sit down, Mister Adam,” Hop Sing ordered, gesturing to the remaining empty chair. “Best eat when hot.”

“I’m not very hungry this morning, Hop Sing,” Adam said stiffly. “I’ll just have coffee, if you don’t mind.”

“No good!” Hop Sing declared, sparing no effort to conceal his vexation and his concern. “Last night, Mister Adam come home, breath smell of beer. Mister Adam no eat supper, today Mister Adam no eat breakfast. No good.”

“Hop Sing, I’m NOT hungry,” Adam reiterated with a touch of asperity.

Hop Sing glared over at Adam as he set the platter of hot cakes down on the table next to Joe, then abruptly turned heel and strode at a very brisk pace back toward the kitchen door, muttering a long string of bleak invectives under his breath in Chinese.

“Adam, you ok?” Joe asked.

“I wish everyone would stop asking me that,” Adam returned through clenched teeth.

“Well, maybe everyone WOULD stop asking that if YOU’D stop behaving like a lunatic,” Joe immediately shot right back.

“Joe!” Hoss exclaimed, making eye contact with his younger brother, and shaking his head.

Joe glared over at Hoss, seething with anger and frustration, but kept silent. A strained silence fell over the entire family.

“Pa . . . . ” Adam ventured in a voice barely audible, taking great care to avoid looking into the faces, most especially the eyes of his father, brothers, and sister.

“Yes, Adam?” Ben responded without looking up. His head remained bowed, his eyes pointedly fixed on the rim of his plate, at the place of twelve o’clock.

“I really AM sorry . . . about . . . about last night, and . . . for what happened yesterday afternoon at the jail.”

“It’s all right, Son. Consider both matters forgotten,” Ben replied in a wooden monotone, drawing a sharp glance filled with complete bewilderment and grave concern from his younger sons and only daughter.

“Thank you,” Adam murmured softly, his words stilted and formal. “I appreciate that very much.” As he reached for the coffee pot in the middle of the table, he was all too aware of three pairs of eyes intently watching every move he made. “Stacy . . . . ”

“Yes, Adam?” she responded warily, every muscle in her body tensed, like a cougar ready to spring on its prey the instant it came within range.

“I’m sorry I jumped all over you just now,” Adam apologized. “I . . . I guess I’m not as used to spending nearly a week out on the trail as I once was.” His excuse sounded lame even in his own ears.
“ ‘S ok, Adam,” Stacy replied. “Like PA just said . . . consider it forgotten.”

Adam curtly nodded his thanks, as he poured himself a cup of coffee.

“You want anything in that, Adam?” Joe asked.

“No . . . thank you. Black is just fine.” He set the coffee pot back down on the table, and blew gently across the steaming surface, heartily wishing his younger brothers and sister would turn their attention elsewhere . . . ANY where, but on him.

“Say, Adam?”

“Yes, Hoss?”

“I was just thinkin’ . . . . ”

“ . . . and?” Adam prompted.

“Well, I’m gonna be headin’ out t’ the lumber camps and the saw mill tomorrow, t’ see how things are comin’ along on them railroad ties,” Hoss said, as he speared a generous helping of hot cakes from the serving platter. “If ya wanna tell me what ya need as far as buildin’ material goes, I can— ”

“Dammit, first Joe . . . now YOU!” Adam exploded.

“A-Adam, I only— ” Hoss protested, astonished by his older brother’s sudden angry outburst.

“I’ll have ALL of you know, I’ve put in a lot of good, hard work on that house,” Adam angrily cut his biggest brother off, mid-sentence, “and in case the lot of you have forgotten, things are moving along AHEAD of schedule.”

“Hey, Adam, I’m sorry I— ” Joe began, feeling very strongly that somehow an apology was in order, without having the slightest idea why.

“I’ll see you at supper,” Adam said curtly. He downed his coffee in a single gulp, then banged his empty coffee cup down onto the table before turning heel and walking away, leaving his father, brothers, sister, even Hop Sing, staring after his retreating back, too stunned to move or even speak.

It was the sound of the front door opening, then closing, as Adam left the house, that galvanized Joe to action. “THAT does it!” he angrily muttered under his breath. Before anyone could move or even think to stop him, he had shot right out of his chair and set off, beating a straight path toward the kitchen door.



Joe found his oldest brother in the small stable out back, in the process of saddling Sport II. “Adam— ”

A short, curt, exasperated sigh exploded from between Adam’s lips, thinned with anger. “What the hell do YOU want?”

“For starters, I’d like to know just what the hell’s wrong with YOU,” Joe angrily returned without missing a beat.

“None of your business,” Adam shot right back, as the adjusted his cinch and securely buckled it.

Joe defiantly planted himself in the middle of the stable door, now standing wide open, effectively barring Adam’s egress, with arms folded tight across his chest. “I beg to differ, Older Brother . . . especially when you’re jumping all over the rest of us with both feet every time WE so much as say, ‘BOO!’ ”

“Get out of my way.”

“Ok. Fine. DON’T talk to me,” Joe said, his words and syllables terse and clipped. “I’m the little brother, the baby of the family, who in YOUR eyes, doesn’t know or understand diddlysquat! All right! I can accept that! But, Adam, please . . . I’m beggin’ ya, please! Don’t shut PA out.”

The change of tone from impassioned anger to ardent pleading stunned Adam into silence.

“Talk to him, Adam, please,” Joe pressed, taking full advantage his oldest brother’s momentary pause. “I don’t know what happened between the two of you last night after I left the room, but it’s hurt him . . . it’s hurt him deeply.”

“I can’t see it.”

“Maybe its because you’re so wrapped up in your own self pity you don’t give a damn about anybody ELSE,” Joe spat contemptuously.

“Joseph, THAT will be enough.” It was Ben. He stood behind Joe, with back stiffly erect, feet shoulder width apart, hands at his sides, loosely curled into a pair of formidable looking fists. Both Adam and Joe flinched against the dark, angry glare he leveled at both of them.

“But, Pa— ” Joe started to protest.

“I SAID, ‘That will be enough,’ ” Ben said again, in a stern tone that brooked no further argument, as he walked the remaining distance between himself and his youngest son.

“Yes, Sir.”

“Now g’won back into the house. I want to speak with your brother alone.”

Joe nodded, and after one last angry glare over at Adam, abruptly turned heel and started walking toward the back door, still standing open.

“Pa, if you came out here to ask me yet again if I’m all right— ” Adam began, once he felt sure his youngest brother had done as their father had bid.

“No, I HAVEN’T come out here to ask you yet again whether or not you’re all right, because its clear as the nose on my face that you’re NOT all right,” Ben angrily cut his oldest son off, mid-sentence.

“I’m sorry,” Adam responded in a sullen tone, as he turned his attention to checking the fastenings on his bridle.

“Adam, will you please LOOK at me when I’m speaking to you?!”

Adam sighed and sarcastically rolled his eyes. “Pa, I am NOT a five year old child . . . I’m a grown man— ”

Ben seized Adam by the shoulder and forcibly turned him so that they were eyeball to eyeball, their faces bare inches apart. “Then ACT like one,” the former growled.

“What the hell’s THAT supposed to mean?” Adam demanded, angry and outraged.

“It means get hold of yourself and stop this business of sniping at me . . . at Hop Sing . . . at your brothers and sister . . . and at anyone else who says something the wrong way or looks at you cross-eyed,” Ben said sternly. “If you can’t work through whatever it is that’s troubling you on your own— ”

“Alright!” Adam snapped, rudely cutting his father off mid-sentence. “You want to know what’s bothering me?! My brothers’ impatience!” He closed his eyes and forced himself to take a deep breath. “Ok . . . I should know by now to expect it of Joe. But Hoss?! Pa, he’s always been the very heart and soul of patience . . . and right now, when I really need that the most— ”

“Adam, I don’t think Hoss was trying to put any kind of pressure on you,” Ben said in a more kindly tone. “He was simply going to offer to take a list of whatever you’re going to need in the way of building material out to the saw mill when he goes over there tomorrow morning.”

“Pa, how can I possibly give Hoss a list of what I need . . . when I don’t have the final drawings completed yet?” Adam demanded.

“Y-You . . . you haven’t finished the final drawings . . . yet?” Ben echoed, mildly surprised.

“No,” Adam replied, angry, and very much on the defensive. “I haven’t.” . . . and all he had to show for his efforts was a waste can, full to overflowing with paper wads, containing all his fits and starts. “You want to lambast me about that, too?”

“Adam, no! I’m not criticizing you,” Ben said. There was a desperate pleading note in his voice. “Neither are Hoss and Joe. We know you’re doing a fine job on that house. A real FINE job . . . and we appreciate it.”

“Sorry,” Adam muttered under his breath. It seemed like every time he turned around, every time he so much as opened his mouth, he was apologizing to someone for something. He took hold of Sport II’s reins and led him out of the stable, into the yard.

Ben silently followed Adam, his troubled thoughts churning a mile a minute. He would have accepted this kind of moodiness from his youngest son a given, barring any kind of disrespect of course. “Even so . . . Joe’s temperament’s evened out a lot in the last year or so,” he mused in uneasy silence. He had even accepted the strict, sometimes even harsh restrictions forced upon him by his convalescence with a mature grace that almost certainly wouldn’t have been there this time last year. Not that any of it had been easy of course . . . .

By contrast, Adam had always been the cool, stoic one. He was certainly capable of fierce, white hot anger, when sufficiently provoked, but such occasions were rare, even when he was a very young child. While not easy going like Hoss, he had never, not as far back as Ben could remember, ever displayed this kind of mercurial temperament.

Granted, the terrible tragedy that had overtaken the Estevans, Adam’s traveling companions from Sacramento to Virginia City, was certainly more than enough to make of blood of any decent human being, man or woman, boil. His own certainly did, especially at the thought of his own daughter, Stacy, suffering through the horror Maria Estevan was forced to endure. However, in Ben’s mind, all that couldn’t adequately explain the sullen, black mood that seemed to be taking possession of his oldest son. There were deeper currents, running swift and silent, at work here.

Ben fervently hoped and prayed that he might discover what lay at the heart of the matter . . . before whatever lay at the heart of the matter devoured Adam body and soul . . . .

. . . or better yet . . . that Adam himself would.

“Pa?”

“Yes, Adam?”

“Would you like to come out and see how things are progressing?”

“Today?”

Adam nodded.

“I’d like to come, Adam,” Ben said. “I’d like that very much, but I don’t want you to feel like I’m checking up on you, or trying to rush you, or put undue pressure on you.”

“Pa, I WANT you to see what we’ve done.” There was an almost childlike pleading on Adam’s voice. “If you’d like, you can bring Stacy and Joe along. A breath of fresh air and a change of scenery would probably do them both a world of good.”

“You sure it would be alright?”

“Yes, Pa . . . it’ll be fine,” Adam replied. “After you’ve seen the foundations of the new house, I’ll come back with you . . . so I can finish those drawings, and give Hoss my order before he rides out to the saw mill tomorrow morning.”

Ben smiled, delighted and relieved to see something of the Adam he knew so well back in the face and the eyes of the man standing before him. “Alright . . . I’ll come out this afternoon,” he said, “and if Joe and Stacy want to come, I’ll bring them along, too.”

“Great! I’ll see you later.”



Upon reentering the house, Ben found himself staring into four stunned, pale faces, four pairs of eyes filled with apprehension and concern.

“Pa?” Hoss spoke up first, as Ben closed the front door behind him. “Is Adam—?”

“For now,” Ben replied. He, then, turned to his two youngest children. “How would the pair of you like to make a trip out to the Ponderosa this afternoon?”

“Oh, Pa . . . I’d LOVE it!” Stacy exclaimed, her bright blue eyes shining with pure delight. “Can I visit with Blaze Face, too? Please?”

“I suppose it would be alright . . . just so long as YOU remain on one side of that corral fence, and HE stays on the other,” Ben said firmly.

“I will, Pa,” Stacy eagerly promised.

“Tell ya what, Li’l Sister . . . I’ll leave some o’ those tasty treats that Blaze Face likes in the pocket o’ your jacket,” Hoss said.

“Thank you, Hoss,” Stacy said gratefully. “Thank you, thank you, thank you! If I had you right here, I’d give you a great big hug and a kiss.”

Hoss grinned. “Now that’s something I can take care of real easy,” he said, as he walked over to stand within arms’ reach of his young sister.

Hop Sing gamely took charge of her crutches, as Stacy threw her arms around the biggest of her three brothers, and squeezed tight. She then, stood up on the toes of her good foot, and with a steadying hand from Hoss to keep balance, planted a great big kiss on his cheek. Hoss hugged her back and kissed her forehead.

“Now you behave yourself, ‘n mind what Pa says,” Hoss gently admonished her as he let her go, then slipped an arm back around her waist to steady her, as Hop Sing handed her back her crutches.

“I will, Hoss,” Stacy eagerly promised.

Ben, meanwhile, turned expectantly to his youngest son. “Well, Joe? You up for a trip out to the Ponderosa with your sister and me?”

“Would you ‘n Stacy mind too terribly much if . . . well, if I sat today’s trip out?” Joe asked, drawing worried glances from his father, his brother, sister, and Hop Sing.

“Are you feeling alright?” Ben asked, as he automatically eyeballed his youngest son, from head to toe, with an anxious frown. He reached over across the table, and touched the back of his hand to Joe’s forehead.

“I’m not coming down with anything, if THAT’S what you mean,” Joe replied. “I . . . well, I was kinda thinking that . . . after last night . . . AND this morning . . . maybe it would be better all the way around if I stayed out of Adam’s way today.”

“I’m sure it would be alright if you came with your sister and me,” Ben said. “In fact, ADAM was the one who suggested that I bring the both of you.”

“Well, he’s hardly gonna tell YOU to come and just bring Stacy, Pa,” Joe pointed out. “I . . . also didn’t sleep real well last night, and my ribs are feeling a mite tender.”

“Will you be alright by yourself?” Ben asked.

Stacy looked over at her brother and smiled. “He won’t be alone, Pa,” she said.

“Yes, he will. I gave Hop Sing the afternoon off so he could go and visit with his father,” Ben said.

“I wasn’t thinking about Hop Sing.”

“Then who—?!” Ben’s dark brown eyes suddenly shone with the light of revelation. A big smile slowly spread across his face. “Yes, of course. Susannah O’Brien,” he said slowly, thoughtfully. “She’s been coming into town with Hugh . . . and while HE’S visiting with Crystal over at Doc Martin’s . . . Susannah’s been coming here to visit with the two of you.” His eyes moved up to the clock hanging on the wall above the Fletchers’ sideboard. “She’s due here in about another hour or so, isn’t she?”

“Well, uhhhh . . . yeah,” Joe said.

“Stacy, if you’d rather stay and visit with your friend— ”

“Not a chance, Pa,” Stacy replied. “When it comes down to either spending a beautiful afternoon like today’s gonna be visiting with my friend cooped up in the house and or spending it with YOU out in the fresh air and sunshine . . . MY choice is pretty clear, and besides! . . . I think . . . lately . . . my friend has been coming more to visit with my brother, than with me.”

“Well, now I don’t know about THAT, Kid,” Joe murmured, as a spot of brilliant scarlet appeared on each cheek.

“I do, Grandpa,” Stacy said with a smile. “Susannah O’Brien and I have been close friends for a very long time, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen her face light up like that when she sees ME.”

“I’m sure she says the same about YOU . . . and HER brother, Jason,” Joe teased.

“She DOES,” Stacy agreed, her complexion a bit ruddier than usual.

“Stacy, you’d best get on upstairs and get yourself dressed . . . and Joseph, YOU need to make yourself presentable, if you’re going to be visiting with a nice young woman,” Ben said, with a wry, pointed glance at Joe’s unruly mop of curls, and the thin sheen of stubble covering the lower portion of his face.

“I’ll be ready in two shakes, Pa.” Stacy said, before turning and heading for the stairs.

“As for YOU, Young Man,” Ben said, favoring his youngest son with a stern glare. “I expect you to conduct yourself like a gentleman.”

“Pa . . . a guy with broken ribs on the mend . . . who’s STILL limping from a badly sprained ankle has no choice BUT to conduct himself like a gentleman,” Joe sighed with dramatic melancholy.

Ben nodded curtly, satisfied with Joe’s answer. Yet, somehow, he couldn’t quite shake the feeling that somewhere . . . somehow . . . his youngest son had a hidden agenda.

“Good morning, Susannah,” Joe greeted one of his sister’s two best friends with his boldest smile, the one about which his own mother, Marie, had on many occasions, declared would someday leave a string of broken hearts pining in its wake. “Please . . . come in.”

“Where IS everybody?” she asked, with an impish, knowing look in her deep chocolate brown eyes, as she demurely entered the house, firmly closing the door behind her.

“Pa gave Hop Sing the afternoon off so he could go look in on HIS pa,” Joe replied, “and Pa . . . MY pa, that is, took Stacy out to see the progress on our new house.”

“Obviously you didn’t go with them.”

“Obviously.” Joe’s smile began to fade. “Susannah?”

“Yes, Joe?”

“I, uhhh . . . have a favor to ask of you. Hopefully you came in your buggy?”

“As a matter of fact, yes,” Susannah replied. “Pa’s arthritis has been acting up lately, and sitting a horse isn’t a prospect he particularly relishes much right now.”

“You left him over at the doc’s?”

She nodded.

“Susannah, would you mind giving me a lift down to Sheriff Coffee’s office?”

“Would YOU mind telling me what for?”

“That’s only fair, I suppose, but you’ve gotta promise not to tell anybody,” Joe begged.

Susannah didn’t exactly cotton to the idea of keeping secrets from her father and older sister, but she also knew that Joe Cartwright would never ask this of her unless there was a very good reason. “Alright,” she agreed. “What’s going on?”

“It’s Adam,” Joe said, as he led her over to the settee next to the fireplace. “Something’s wrong, Susannah, something’s terribly wrong, and . . . well, frankly . . . I’m worried.”

“What’s the matter with him?”

“You remember Adam . . . how he was before he left the Ponderosa and Virginia City for good,” Joe began. “Always so cool, calm, and collected. Sure, he could get madder ‘n a wet hen sometimes, but not often . . . and it would have to really be something.”

“Yes, I remember.”

“He’s been edgy, Susannah.”

“A lot of people have been edgy since we found out about that missing stagecoach and all the horrible things that happened to Mrs. Estevan,” Susannah pointed out. “Edgy and outraged! SO edgy and outraged, the main topic of conversation at the Silver Dollar these days seems to be why about why bother with a trial. That what Pa says, anyway.”

“Hoo boy!” Joe chortled, with a sarcastic roll of his eyes. “I’ll bet Sheriff Coffee and Clem are real overjoyed about THAT.”

“I’m sure they are,” Susannah agreed wryly, as she sat down on the settee. “But . . . Joe, think about it. If people here in town . . . who didn’t know the Estevans from Adam ‘n Eve’s house cat before all this happened . . . are going so far as to talk lynching because what happened to them . . . well, doesn’t it stand to reason that Adam might be even MORE edgy and outraged?! After all, he had the chance to get acquainted with them on the trip out from Sacramento.”

“It’s STILL not like Adam. Susannah, you should have seen him at breakfast this morning,” Joe said miserably. “First off, Stacy comes to the table late, apologizes for oversleeping this morning and BAM! HE’S jumping all over her with both feet.”

“Uh oh. What did STACY do?” Susannah asked, knowing all too well about the ferocious Irish temper her best friend had inherited from her mother, Paris McKenna.

“Nothing. Thank goodness HOSS got to her first,” Joe replied. “When Adam sat down at the table, he and Pa both were acting like they were barely on speaking terms with each other. After Hoss got Stacy half way settled down, he tells Adam that he’s going out to the lumber camps and saw mill tomorrow, then offers to take a list of the building supplies out to the foreman at the sawmill. Adam jumped down HIS throat and MINE, too . . . and I hadn’t even said anything to him.”

“What did HOSS do?”

“Nothing. He was too shocked. At that point, I had just about all I could stand, so when Adam stormed out of the house like . . . like an immature fifteen year old, who had just been told no . . . I went after him.”

“I take it things quickly went down hill from there?”

“You take it right . . . or they WOULD have, if PA hadn’t shown up.”

“Well . . . you and Adam have NEVER quite seen eye to eye on a lot of things.”

“Sure . . . and I freely admit that it’s come down to trying to settle things with our fists more times than I care to count, but . . . he’s NEVER been like this,” Joe insisted. “There’s something else going on with Adam.”

“Why do you want to see Sheriff Coffee . . . if . . . whatever it is, had been affecting him since he arrived?”

“Because it’s grown steadily worse since he found out about that stage coach missing and since he and Matt Wilson returned yesterday?! He went straight to bed with barely a hi, how are you, I’m back, kiss my— ” Joe suddenly broke off, as two bright splotches of red appeared on his cheeks. “ . . . uuhhh . . . sorry.”

“Apology accepted,” Susannah said demurely. She refrained from adding that she said a lot worse herself in the course of things.

“You get the picture.”

“Yes. I don’t suppose its occurred to you that Adam may have been out of sorts last night because he was tired after having spent six glorious days and nights out on the trail . . . has it?”

“I’ve seen that man weary to the bone, but he’s always kept his good humor,” Joe sighed wearily. “Last night, after he woke all of us out of a sound sleep with a real beaut of a nightmare, I started wondering if something had happened while he was out with the search party . . . something that might have really unsettled him. That’s why I wanted to see Sheriff Coffee.”

“Seems to me the man you REALLY want to talk to is Matt Wilson. Didn’t the two of them end up finding that stage and . . . and Mister Estevan’s body?”

“The thought HAS crossed my mind, Susannah, but if Pa found out I went all the way out to the Square W, after begging off a trip to the Ponderosa with him and Stacy, I’d be in heap deep trouble up to my neck.”

“You will be anyway . . . after Sheriff Coffee tells your pa about you visiting HIM,” Susannah hastened to point out.

“True, but I’ll only be in KNEE deep for visiting with Sheriff Coffee,” Joe said with “that” smile.

“Joe . . . any one ever tell you you’re absolutely impossible?”

“Sure. You, ummm want me to name ‘em all alphabetically or numerically?”

Susannah sighed and rolled her eyes. “Well,” she said briskly, “ we’d best get going if we’re going to go.”

“Susannah?”

“Yes?”

“You won’t be in trouble for taking me . . . will you?” Joe asked, his smile fading.

“No,” Susannah shook her head. “I’ll just tell Pa and Crystal . . . TRUTHFULLY, I might add . . . that I was taking a convalescing friend out for a bit of fresh air . . . and for a visit with an old friend of the family.”



Sheriff Roy Coffee, with a loaded rifle resting in the crook of his arm, his other hand pointedly at his side with knuckles occasionally brushing against the handle of his holstered revolver, stood in the open door to his office, glaring at the crowd gathering on the board sidewalk outside. They were all men of varying ages and occupations, numbering approximately twenty and steadily growing.

“ . . . and you can rest assured with all the evidence we have against ‘em . . . the jury’s gonna find all three of ‘em guilty as sin,” Roy sternly addressed the angry men gathered around the door.

“Well if it’s a sure bet those . . . those ANIMALS . . . are gonna be found guilty . . . why should we even bother with a trial?” one of the men demanded. His name was Wesley McGrath. Aged in his mid-thirties, he was a ne’er-do-well, who spent more time bending elbow at the Silver Dollar and the Bucket of Blood Saloons than putting nose to the grindstone. He was a born follower, rather than leader. Unfortunately, the men he most often chose to follow, were those who ended up making some of the worst kinds of trouble.

“That YOUR opinion, Mister McGrath?! . . . or is it Ray Donnelly’s?” Roy asked, knowingly.

Wesley glared murderously at the sheriff, but said nothing.

“Sheriff Coffee, that may very well BE Ray Donnelly’s opinion, but we ALL share it,” Walt Jared declared with a curt nod of his head for emphasis. He was the younger brother of Virgil Jared, who ran the general store, along with his wife, Amelia .

Walt’s words stirred a loud murmur of ascent among the men gathered.

“Alright. The bottom line is THIS,” Roy said sternly. “The LAW says those men are entitled t’ a fair trial. Period. As sheriff, it’s my sworn duty t’ uphold the law . . . whether anybody agrees with it, or not.”

“Come ON, Roy,” an old man, standing at the edge of the crowd, now spilling out into the street demanded. “You ain’t gonna shoot down your friends ‘n neighbors t’ protect the scum you got locked up in your jail . . . is ya?”

“I sure hope it don’t come down t’ that, Zach,” Roy replied, patting his rifle for emphasis.

“Well, I hear tell the lawyer representing the scum you got locked up in there’s tryin’ t’ get the trial moved to Placerville.” It was Chad Morgan, a widower with a son and two daughters. He and his family owned a small farm a few miles east of Virginia City. He stood at the front edge of the crowd, with arms folded tightly across his chest, glaring defiantly back at the sheriff.

“Why?” someone demanded from somewhere in the back.

“ ‘Cause THEY claim those animals in there can’t get a fair trial HERE,” Chad sneered, his eyes still glued to the sheriff.

Murmurs of surprise and discontent began to circulate among the crowd gathered.

“Well, lemme tell ya somethin’ . . . the lot o’ YOU gatherin’ ‘round my office like . . . like a pack o’ jackals around a lamb or an antelope could go a real long way t’ convincin’ any judge they CAN’T git a fair trial here, if push comes down t’ shove,” Roy said, taking no pains to hide his growing anger and frustration.

“What’s the name of the lousy son-of-a-bitch that’s defendin’ the scum o’ the earth you got locked up in your jail, Sheriff?” someone standing along the outer fringes of the crowd demanded.

“I know who he is,” Dirk Alverez, a young man recently hired by Rita Mae Kirk to work as gardener and handyman at Kirk’s Hostelry. “I heard Miss Kirk ‘n her ma talkin’ ‘bout it the other day.”

“Who is it?” Walt Jared demanded.

“Who CARES?!” That was Eli Barnett.

“I do!” Walt immediately returned. “Only fittin’ we string HIM up along side his clients.”

This provoked a smattering of derisive laughter.

“Now you listen t’ me . . . ‘n you listen real good!” Roy Coffee said, raising his voice to be heard above the harsh laughter and murmuring among the men gathered. “Ain’t NONE o’ ya gonna be stringin’ up the prisoners locked up in my jail, their lawyer, or anybody else f’r that matter. First one that tries . . . . ” He let his voice trail away to an ominous silence, patting the rifle balanced in the crook of his arm for emphasis. “Now I’m sure the lot o’ have other, more important things y’ gotta do— ”

“I don’t.” It was Wesley McGrath again. “ ‘Cause I’m out of a job . . . again.”

“THAT bein’ the case, you might better spend your time LOOKIN’ for work,” Roy countered. “As for the rest of ya . . . well, it’s long PAST time you were all about your business.”

“You ain’t heard the last o’ this, Sheriff,” Wesley vowed, as the men began to slowly disburse.

Roy waited until the last man had gone before heaving a great big sigh of relief. He had prevailed in upholding the law, he had dutifully sworn to protect many, many times over the course of years, on the heels of more victorious elections than he cared to count sometimes.

THIS time.

Barely.

By the skin of his teeth.

Roy had been witness to at least a dozen or so lynchings over the course of his life. Decent men, angry, embittered, and frustrated over what they perceived to be the gross imperfections in the law. Too much talk, and worse, too much whiskey and beer to fuel the rage, in the same way too much oil or kerosene fuels a fire, and men, otherwise and at better times, law abiding, moral, and upright, become a mob, out for blood, hell-bent on murder.

Worst of all, if they ended up following through on their murderous intentions, the relief, that sense of justice having been served would elude them. It always did. The rudely sobering dawn of the morning after brought guilt in its wake to all participants, a particularly corrosive kind that ate away at a person the rest of his life . . . .

. . . and THAT was if the man lynched turned out to be guilty as sin.

Roy Coffee had seen it in folks all too often, especially in the early days . . . .

He sighed, and morosely shook his head. “I’m gittin’ too old for this,” he muttered.

“Hey . . . Sheriff Coffee!”

Roy turned, upon hearing and recognizing the voice of Joe Cartwright, noting that the young man sounded more chipper this morning than he in a long time. “Howdy, Joe . . . Susannah.” He nodded politely and touched the rim of his hat as his eyes fell on the youngest of Hugh O’Brien’s daughters walking alongside Joe.

“Good morning, Sheriff Coffee,” Susannah politely returned the greeting.

“What was THAT all about?” Joe asked, gesturing to the last of the departing crowd of men.

“They were all makin’ it clear they felt a trial for those three men locked up in the jail would be a complete waste o’ time,” Roy said, as the three went into the sheriff’s office. Susannah shot Joe a sharp ‘I-told-you-so,’ glance.

“You don’t think they’d actually . . . well, go through with anything foolish . . . do you?” Joe asked.

“I hope t’ heaven they don’t,” Roy said grimly, his voice filled with doubt. “ ‘Cause I sure don’t have the stomach for shootin’ down friends ‘n neighbors to protect men like the Carters ‘n Mister Higgins. Mind ya now, if push comes down t’ shove, I’ll do what I’ve sworn t’ do . . . . ”

“Maybe it won’t come to that, Sheriff,” Susannah suggested hopefully. “After all, you were able to talk ‘em out of it a few minutes ago.”

But, would he the NEXT time? . . . and Roy Coffee knew there WOULD be a next time. He knew it with as much certainty as he knew that the sun would rise tomorrow morning and set the following night. He smiled again for Susannah’s benefit, and for Joe’s, too. “ ‘Course it’s early yet . . . they got the whole rest o’ the day t’ cool off ‘n start thinkin’ sensible,” he said, trying to reassure his young companions with a confidence he, himself, was far from feeling.

“Good morning, Joe . . . Susannah,” Clem greeted both with a smile, as they followed Sheriff Coffee in from outside. “Hey, Joe! You’re really lookin’ GOOD.”

“Thanks, Clem,” Joe replied with that mischievous, boyish smile. “You don’t look so bad yourself.”

“Thanks,” Clem retorted with a wry smile, then sobered. “Seriously, Joe, how’re you coming along?”

“Physically, I’m doing great,” Joe replied. “As you can see, I’m NOT limping much anymore.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” Roy said. “Can I getcha some coffee?”

“I’d love a cup,” Susannah said immediately.

“None for me, thank you, Sheriff Coffee,” Joe politely declined.

Roy walked over to his desk, and sat down in the chair Clem had just vacated. “So . . . what can I do for ya?” he asked, looking from Joe to Susannah, then back to Joe. He wordlessly invited them to sit down with a sweeping gesture toward the chairs in front of the desk.

“Joe, you, uhhh . . . maybe want Clem and me to step outside?” Susannah asked, drawing a sharp glance of surprise from the deputy. Catching the look, she turned to Clem and smiled. “This could get kinda personal.”

“Tell ya what,” Roy said. “Clem, take a rifle with ya. You ‘n Susannah can go sit out on the bench, and kinda keep an eye out on the street. If there’s anymore trouble, let me know.”

“I will, Sheriff Coffee.”

Joe sat down in one of the chairs facing the sheriff’s desk, and waited until both Clem and Susannah had stepped outside.

“What’s this all about, Joe?” Roy asked, as a worried frown deepened the creases already present in his well lined brow.

“Adam.”

“Adam?”

“Yeah. Sheriff Coffee . . . did something happen out there on the trail?” Joe asked, coming straight to the point.

“You askin’ if somethin’ happened TO Adam?”

Joe nodded. “Either TO Adam or if something happened, maybe . . . that really upset him.”

“No, leastwise not while he was with US,” Roy replied. “He WAS kinda edgy . . . right from the git-go, but I figured it came o’ bein’ worried about the Estevans.”

“But nothing happened?” Joe pressed.

“Nope.” Roy shook his head. “Not as far as I could see.”

“How about when Adam and Matt took off on their own to look for that stage?”

“Matt told your Pa ‘n me yesterday evenin’ that he ‘n Adam found the stagecoach . . . right where Jacob Carter said they would,” Roy began slowly. “They found the bodies o’ the two drivers . . . what was left of ‘em . . . lyin’ on their stomachs all tied up like a pair o’ calves for brandin’. Both of ‘em had been shot in the back of the head.”

Joe felt the blood drain right out of his face.

“They also found the body of an older woman,” Roy continued. “She was a doo . . . a doo . . . . ” He frowned trying to remember.

“A duenna?” Joe asked.

“Yeah. THAT’S the word,” Roy said quietly. “Your pa said she’s like some kind o’ governess, or something. Anyway, she was travelin’ with a young lady fourteen goin’ on fifteen. The Carters ‘n their cohorts beat her t’ death, ‘cause she tried t’ keep ‘em from takin’ off with the girl.”

Joe suddenly felt very sick to his stomach. “Y-You mean those men back there . . . . ” he inclined his head in the general direction of the door that led back to the room where the jail cells were. “You tellin’ me those men took Mrs. Estevan and a . . . a fourteen year old girl?!”

“Yeah,” Roy replied, feeling every bit as sick as poor Joe looked.

“What happened to her?”

“Jacob Carter told us that they traded her to a band o’ renegade Indians for food,” Roy replied. “He didn’t know whether they was Paiute . . . Shoshone . . . Bannock, or whoever.”

“Charming fellas you got back there, Sheriff Coffee,” Joe said grimly, his voice shaking, “and THAT includes Crippensworth.”

“Leastwise I won’t have HIM long,” Roy said quietly. “Got word from the two fellas Scotland Yard sent to fetch him just this morning. They’ll be arriving within the next week or so t’ collect Crippensworth.”

“I’m glad to hear THAT,” Joe declared with heartfelt relief.

“I gotta admit I’M gonna be happy to see him go m’self,” Roy admitted. “I tell ya, Joe, I’ve seen more warmth in the eyes of a hungry rattlesnake.” He shuddered, then sighed. “Anyway, getting back t’ Adam, he ‘n Matt buried the bodies o’ the two stagecoach drivers ‘n the duenna. Matt said Adam wanted t’ take one last look around ‘fore they left. That’s when he found Mister Estevan’s body, lyin’ curled up on t’ floor o’ the stagecoach.”

“Didn’t they bury Mister Estevan’s body along with the others?”

Roy shook his head. “They brought Mister Estevan’s body back with ‘em. Adam said somethin’ about givin’ Mrs. Estevan some kinda closure.”

“I can understand that,” Joe murmured softly, remembering his own insistence on seeing Lady Chadwick lying dead in her coffin.

“Adam ‘n Matt also found a journal the Mister Estevan kept pretty regular,” Roy continued. “He managed t’ give account o’ what happened AND draw pictures o’ the men that robbed ‘em. They also found a couple o’ letters one o’ the other passengers wrote, that also tell what happened.”

“Did . . . did Adam read the journal or the letters?”

“Matt Wilson said he did.”

“You mind if I borrow them for a couple of days?”

Roy shook his head. “It’s evidence, Joe. I got it all locked up tight in my safe, ‘n it’s gonna stay there ‘til the trial.”

“I see.”

“Joe?”

“Yeah?”

“My advice for what it’s worth?”

“Fair enough, I suppose.”

“I read both letters, ‘n part o’ what Mister Estevan wrote down in his journal,” Roy said. “Not all of it mind, but enough. Now takin’ into account what all happened t’ Mrs. Estevan, I imagine readin’ MISTER Estevan’s accountin’ o’ what happened just might leave Adam more rattled than usual, t’ say the very least.

“ . . . ‘n he ain’t the only one that’s come back feelin’ edgy either. Like as not every man who made up that search party’s feelin’ anxious, ‘specially those with women folk t’ look after,” Roy continued. “Hell, I’M feelin’ kinda skittish . . . ‘n I ain’t got no one t’ look after ‘cept myself. Adam’s dealin’ with all the same stuff as the rest of us . . . plus HE’S got the extra burden o’ havin’ gotten t’ know the Estevans.”

“ . . . and knowing that girl who ended up being traded to a band of renegade Indians was close to Dio’s age didn’t help matters any, either, I s’pose.”

“No.”

“So. What’s your advice, Sheriff Coffee?”

“Try not t’ crowd Adam too much the next couple o’ days or so,” Roy said quietly. “I expect he’s gonna need some time t’ work out ‘n come t’ terms with everything we found out. I know I will.”

“You don’t have to worry about me crowding Adam,” Joe said grimly. “Whenever I’m around him, I feel like I’m walking on eggshells. So do the rest of us. . . even Hop Sing! One wrong word, move . . . glance . . . or even a gesture . . . and he’s snapping our heads off. This morning . . . well, to make a long story very short, Adam and I were real close to slugging it out. Probably would have, too . . . of PA hadn’t come on us when he did.”

“Now, Joe . . . you know as well as I do . . . THAT’S nothin’ new. You ‘n Adam’ve been at each other’s throats since you got old enough t’ say no ‘n sass back,” Roy pointed out.

“Not like THIS, Sheriff Coffee,” Joe insisted. “Sure, Adam and I HAVEN’T seen eye to eye on a lot of things in the past, and I’m not telling YOU anything new when I admit to us trying to settle the things with our fists a lot of the time. But this time . . . it’s different.”

“HOW is it different this time?”

Joe sighed wearily. “OK. I’ve seen Adam boiling mad a few times, and I freely admit that a lot of those times, it WAS at me, but when he still lived with us on the Ponderosa, it’s really took a lot to set him off,” he explained, “and when Adam DID blow up? He and I always apologized . . . after we cooled off first, and THAT was an end to it. Now, I get the feeling he’s angry ALL the time, and getting more so with each passing minute. I also can’t shake the feeling that something ELSE’S eating Adam. Something that’s been made worse by that stagecoach being robbed and all the terrible things that have happened to the Estevans.”

“You got any inkin’ as t’ what that somethin’ might be?”

Joe sighed and shook his head. “Try as I might . . . I just can’t quite put my finger on it. I was hoping that something had happened while Adam was away that might give me a clue as to what’s eating him.”

“I’ve told ya everything I know,” Roy said. “Tell ya what, though . . . . Matt Wilson’s comin’ in later on this afternoon t’ give me a formal deposition as t’ what he ‘n Adam found. I’ll ask HIM if he can recall anything outta the ordinary happening that might’ve account for the way Adam’s been actin’.”

“Thank you, Sheriff Coffee. I sure would appreciate it,” Joe said gratefully. “In the meantime, I’m going to make an effort to mind my own business and try to keep out of Adam’s way for a little while. That’s one reason I decided not to go out to the Ponderosa with Pa and Stacy to see how things are coming with the new house.”

“ . . . an’ the OTHER reason’s sittin’ outside with Clem,” Roy said knowingly, with an impish wink.

Joe grinned. “I’m not denying THAT!” he declared.

Roy decided not to say anything about the sudden appearance of a complexion slightly ruddier than usual. “You give Adam a few days, Son,” he said. “I’ll bet you anything he’ll be back t’ his old self.”

“Thanks. I sure hope so.”

“I hope so, too, Joe.”

End of Part 4

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