Between Life and Death

Kathleen Berney
pkmoonshine@verizon.net

To Lorne Greene, who gave Ben Cartwright life and breath, on the occasion of his birthday, February 12, 2009.

I will never forget either of you.

*********

Adam Cartwright, clad in a white night shirt and black robe, stood outside on the verandah of his Sacramento home, his face turned toward the east and another place he called home. The waning moon hung low in the western sky behind him, just above the horizon, and one by one the nearly all of stars had disappeared. Soon, the black night sky would give way to the silver gray light of the dawning new day.

For the last three nights in a row, an odd, unsettling dream had disturbed his sleep and haunted his waking hours as well.

“There’s a woman,” Adam silently remembered, “a beautiful woman . . . with long dark brown hair . . . golden brown eyes . . . and a radiant smile that brings dimples to her cheeks.”

He remembered her from fevered dreams he’d had long ago, one particularly bad winter when he had fallen seriously ill, and by all accounts, had nearly died. He and the woman stood together in the prow of a clipper ship, sailing over a black ocean through a night with no moon, no stars to guide the way. There was no captain or crew, just he and the woman on board a ship wholly at the mercy of wind and current.

“It’s all right, Adam,” the woman always whispered. “I promise you, everything’s going to be all right.” There was music in her voice, and her words of comfort and reassurance soothed his troubled spirit the same way a mother’s soft lullaby soothes a restless child.

After . . . was it hours? Days? Months, perhaps? Or years? . . . a dot of light would appear in the horizon, its silvery white light illuming the black sky behind it. He found himself drawn to the light, yet terrified and repelled by it also.

Now, however, the dream had changed.

The man standing alongside the beautiful woman was his father, clad in the clothing he must of worn when he served as first mate to his maternal grandfather aboard a merchant’s vessel named Wanderer.

Adam sighed, then turned and reentered the house through the kitchen door, wondering one minute why he dreamt of that woman again after all there years, and the next, wondering why it troubled him so much.

“Good morning, Mister Cartwright,” Adela Cortez greeted him politely, as he closed the kitchen door behind him. “I put a pot of coffee on. It should be about ready, if you’d like a cup.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Cortez. I would like a cup very much,” Adam replied.

Adela Cortez was a brisk, no nonsense, very much down to earth kind of woman, short in stature and portly, aged in her mid-fifties. She had been working for him and his wife, Teresa, almost from the day they had said their “I do’s” as their housekeeper and cook, overseeing the domestic aspects of the household with a territorial despotism that rivaled Hop Sing.

Adam left the kitchen, with a mug of black coffee in hand, and walked the short distance to his study It was the only room in the house Adela Cortez was forbidden to clean by mutual agreement reached during that first year he and Teresa were married after a number of angry confrontations, the last of which might have actually come to physical blows had she been a man in her prime instead of a woman old enough to be his own mother. He sat down before his secretary, placed up against the wall to the right of the door, set his coffee mug down, and reached for a sheet of stationary and pen.

“Dear Pa . . . . ” he wrote, “I hope this letter finds you and the rest of the family well . . . . ”

Ben found himself standing in the midst of the tiny churchyard, where his beloved wife, Elizabeth, had been laid to rest three days after giving birth to their only child . . . a son, whom she insisted they name Adam. He wore his very best suit, the gray one with the silver vest, a clean, well-pressed white shirt, black string tie, and black boots, polished to a high, glossy shine. He carried a black Stetson in one hand, and a single deep red rose, surrounded by dainty white baby’s breath in the other.

“Elizabeth?” he ventured hesitantly, his voice barely above that of a whisper.

A gentle breeze began to stir, as if in response, carrying upon it the subtle scents of lemon verbena and rose water.

“Elizabeth . . . . ”

“Here, My Darling . . . . ”

His heart quickened upon hearing the music of that much loved voice after nearly four decades. He turned and began weaving his way through the forest of carved marble and granite.

Memories, visions of another time . . . another life . . . began to appear in the eyes of his inward sight, one after the other after the other . . . .

. . . of a young woman, running down to the docks, laughing, with her long dark brown hair streaming behind her, and those golden brown eyes aglow with sheer delight upon seeing her father and him, the two men she loved most in this whole wide world . . . .

. . . those same golden brown eyes shining bright with unshed tears, her smile tremulous the day he asked her to marry him . . . .

. . . and the sight of her, through his own eyes now swimming with happy tears, walking down the aisle of the church along side her father, dressed in her mother’s wedding gown . . . .

His foot caught on the exposed root of the oak tree that had grown up near the graves of Elizabeth Stoddard Cartwright and her parents, Abel and Rebekkah. He stumbled and fell to his hands and knees.

“Hello, Ben . . . . ”

He lifted his head slowly, fearfully, praying that she wouldn’t up and vanish in a puff of smoke or bright flash of light as she had in countless dreams over the ensuing years since her death.

“ . . . I’ve been waiting for you.”

She was as he remembered her. Young, beautiful, with that thick luxurious dark brown hair, those golden brown eyes, mirrors of a highly intelligent soul, full of life, aglow with the same warmth he felt from time to time emanating from that special place in his heart that would always be reserved just for her.

“Elizabeth . . . . ” Ben whispered, his heart full to near bursting with great joy and a terrible agony, the like of which he had never known. He scrambled to his feet with all the agility and energy of a man less than half his age, and ran to her, laughing uproariously with tears streaming down his cheeks. He caught her up in his arms, twirled her around, then held her close. “Oh, Elizabeth . . . Elizabeth . . . my darling,” he whispered, “not a day’s gone by that I’ve not thought of y-you, and . . . and remembered . . . . ”

“I love you, Ben,” she murmured softly, over and over, as he clung to her, and wept, “though the time we had together was all too brief, I cherish it, My Love . . . My Darling . . . and I always will.”

Their lips brushed together in the merest whisper of a kiss. Though Ben meant for the next kiss to be gentle, it immediately deepened, growing more and more passionate, until they found themselves clinging desperately to one another, weeping, kissing each other ardently, repeatedly, over and over and over, like the long lost lovers they truly were . . . .

“Elizabeth . . . . ” Ben murmured softly, his voice hoarse, barely audible, “my beautiful Elizabeth . . . I love you . . . I love you . . . so . . . much . . . . ”

“Elizabeth?” Doctor Paul Martin queried, casting an anxious, professional eye at his patient, now lying buried under several layers of bedclothes, near comatose with a raging fever.

“First wife,” Hop Sing said, as he dipped the cloth in hand into a bowl of water, mixed with medicinal herbs, and bathed the face of the big, silver haired man he loved and respected every bit as much as he did his own father, Hop Ling. “Mister Adam mama.”

The sawbones exhaled a soft, melancholy sigh as he rose from the hard backed chair placed alongside the bed. Ben’s two younger sons, his daughter, and Hop Sing reported they had heard him either calling for his first wife, or conversing with her for the better part of the last three days now. Speaking with deceased loved ones was a common occurrence among patients sick as Ben was now, but years of experience told Paul Martin such was rarely a good sign.

Doctor Martin stepped out of the downstairs bedroom with a heavy heart, quietly closing the door behind him, as the grandfather’s clock beside the front door struck the quarter hour past four in the morning. He paused for a moment, with head bowed to gather his thoughts, before turning to face the family seated together around the fireplace on the other side of the great room, anxiously waiting.

They rose to their feet slowly, as the doctor approached . . . Hoss first, then Joe, and finally Stacy. Joe still wore the clothing he had donned in haste when Hoss sent him to town to fetch the doctor shortly before midnight, while the other two were clad in night shirts, robes, and slippers. The boys’ faces were a few shades paler than was the norm, and Stacy’s was nearly white as a sheet.

“He’s feverish, drifting in and out of consciousness,” Paul said wearily, choosing his words very carefully, all the while silently, desperately beseeching the One he knew as Lord, Creator, and Loving Father of all . . . if a gentle, easy way of telling an anxious, loving family there was an excellent chance their father wouldn’t live through the new day about to dawn existed . . . he would sure appreciate knowing what it was.

“Doctor Martin, is Pa gonna be all right?” Stacy impatiently cut right to the heart of the matter, while unconsciously twisting and untwisting the end of the belt holding her robe closed.

“Stacy, I wish more than just about anything I could give you a definite answer— ”

“ . . . and just what the hell’s THAT supposed to mean?!” Stacy demanded, giving vent to all the fear, anger, and grief that had been growing within her since Hoss made the decision to summon the doctor.

“Hey, Kiddo . . . take it easy,” Joe said quietly, as he placed a comforting hand on her shoulder and gently squeezed.

“Sorry,” Stacy murmured sullenly, her voice barely audible.

“No apologies necessary, Stacy,” Paul said kindly. “I . . . understand.”

“Doc?”

“Yes, Hoss?”

“What’s gonna happen NOW?” the big man asked, in as calm and as steady a voice as he could muster.

“If things keep on as I expect they will, he’ll reach a crisis point sometime, I think, within the next three or four hours,” Paul replied. “If his fever breaks . . . his chances of making a full, complete recovery are very good, given the proper rest and care. If not . . . . ” His voice trailed away to ominous silence.

“Oh NO!” Stacy cried out. She balled her hands into a pair of tight fists to quell their trembling. “Doctor M-Martin, are you . . . are y-you saying that Pa . . . that . . . Pa m-might—?!” She abruptly broke off, unable and unwilling to bring herself to complete that dire thought.

“Stacy, I’m afraid the truth of the matter is . . . right now, I just plain and simply don’t know,” the doctor responded to the question she left unspoken, his heart going out to all of them. “All I CAN say for certain is that I’ve done all that I’m able. The rest up to God . . . AND up to your pa.”

“Is there anything WE do in the meantime?” Joe asked. “Anything at ALL?”

“The best thing you can do right now is pray,” Paul said bluntly. “Apart from that, keep on applying those cold compresses. That might keep his fever from spiking too high . . . and try to get as much liquid in him as you can. Water . . . weak tea . . . broth . . . even a little bit of watered down whiskey or brandy.”

Hoss, Joe, and Stacy nodded.

“Someone should be with him at all times, until the crisis is past,” Paul continued. “If one of you would be kind enough to stay with him long enough for me to grab a nap for a couple of hours, I’d— ”

“Doc, you’ve gotta be pretty tuckered out right now yourself,” Hoss said quietly, “what with comin’ out here ‘n seein’ to Pa, Mister Hansen’s broken leg, and Annie Wilkins givin’ birth to twins last night. Since you’re stayin’ the night here anyhow . . . why don’t you g’won to the guest room upstairs, ‘n try t’ get what ya can of a good night’s sleep. Joe, Hop Sing, ‘n me can tend t’ Pa.”

“ . . . and me, too, Hoss,” Stacy insisted, her voice tremulous.

“Of COURSE you, too, Kiddo,” Joe hastened to assure.

“You betcha!” Hoss agreed.

“It would appear that Ben’s in good hands,” Paul declared with a weary smile and a big yawn. “Alright, Hoss . . . I’ll take you up on your offer, but I want you . . . ALL of you . . . . ” he turned and took in Joe and Stacy with his gaze, “to promise me you’ll come and wake me immediately, if his fever suddenly spikes, or if he goes into convulsions.”

“We will,” Hoss promised. “Joe, why don’t you see the doc upstairs--- ”

“No need,” Paul said immediately. “I know the way. You g’won . . . look after your pa.”

“He’s hurt, Ben.”

As he gently bathed Ben’s face with water and the herbal mix he used to treat fever, Hop Sing heard a voice echo in his ears . . . a voice that had gone silent almost twenty-one years ago now when she fell from a spirited mare and died not twenty-five feet from the front door of this house.

“John-town,” Hop Sing murmured softly, barely aware that he had spoken aloud. He dipped the cloth back into the bowl and wrung out the excess moisture. “Long time since Hop Sing think of John-town . . . . ”

Johntown wasn’t really a town at all, just a collection of squalid half fallen down lean-tos and shacks up the canyon from a small mining town called Dayton, a place set aside for the “heathen Chinee.” Hop Sing and his countrymen accepted their living conditions and forced segregation from their fellow man as a given without complaint. It was the way things were in this new land they had chosen to call home, and that plain and simply was that. Every now and then, however, after spending the better part of Saturday night and their pay on stale beer and rot-gut whiskey, a band of drunken miners came up from Dayton to wreck havoc, just for the sheer hell of it.

Hop Sing closed his eyes and for a moment found himself back in Johntown lying in the mud on his back, barely conscious, his head still pounding in time with a pair massive, boulder sized fists that had just moments ago pounded his face again, and again, and again . . . .

Those fists belonged to a miner known among the community over in Dayton as Black Jack Haggerty. He was a big man, standing nearly six and a half feet tall, weighing in at nearly two hundred and fifty pounds . . . all of it pure, iron hard muscle. He was a mean, angry, bitter man when sober. After consuming a mere two or three beers, all the anger and bitterness Black Jack carried inside him began to turn vicious and cruel.

Hop Sing couldn’t see Black Jack, but he nonetheless felt the man’s massive form towering high above him. His mind, his body, every instinct he had for survival and self preservation screamed at him to rise, to flee as fast as he could. But with one eye already swollen shut and the other near so, his jaw broken, and ankle badly sprained when he slipped and fell in the mud the first time he tried to escape the wrath of Black Jack Haggerty and his gang of bullying, drunken misfits . . . escape was impossible. His only chance was to lie as still as he possibly could in the hope that Black Jack and his men would believe him to be unconscious . . . or dead . . . and move on.

“Ged-dup!” Black Jack snarled, slurring his words. A string of racial slurs followed, words Hop Sing barely understood then, but had come to understand only too well since. “You ged-dup, y’ . . . y’ yella bellied coward!”

This last had drawn a smattering of mirthless laughter from some of Black Jack’s cronies.

“You ged-dup ‘n face me . . . like a man.”

“Maybe he’s dead,” one of the other miners suggested.

Hop Sing groaned, despite all of his best intentions, when he felt Black Jack’s heavy boot slam into his rib cage.

“Naw . . . he ain’t dead,” Black Jack drunkenly proclaimed, then kicked him again, harder.

Hop Sing felt his ribs cracking under the impact of Black Jack’s boot. He bit down on his lower lip hard enough to draw blood in order to keep himself from crying out . . . .

“He’s hurt, Ben . . . . ”

The next thing Hop Sing remembered was a woman’s voice, filled with urgency, deep concern, and rage just kindled. He slitted one eye open . . . the one not already swollen shut, and through blurred vision, barely made out the lines of a woman’s face looking down into his own.

“ . . . he needs a doctor.”

“I’ll get him into the buggy,” a strong, deep voice replied, filled with the same things Hop Sing had heard in the woman’s voice. It belonged to the man he would come to know as Ben Cartwright, Number One Boss Man of the Ponderosa. “I know a man in Dayton--- ”

“Now I ask ya . . . . ” a voice high above their heads drawled.

Hop Sing inwardly cringed. It was Black Jack Haggerty. He could hear the man’s footsteps in the mud, as he strutted amongst his cronies, like as not, with all the cocksure confidence of a rutting bantam rooster. “You gents happen t’ know uva doc . . . any doc at all, worthy o’ bein’ called such . . . who’d even TOUCH a heathen Chi-nee, ‘cept maybe t’ spit on ‘im?”

“I’m taking this man to a doctor,” Mister Cartwright stated in a quiet voice, that carried within it all of the uneasy calm just before the unleashing of a violent thunder storm.

“ . . . ‘n I say y’ ain’t,” Black Jack growled. Hop Sing felt the heavy weight of Black Jack’s boot on his chest, pressing down ever so slightly for emphasis.

“Move your foot, Mister. NOW,” Mister Cartwright ordered in that same quiet tone of voice..

“Who’s gonna make me?” Black Jack spat contemptuously. “You?!”

“If I hafta.”

Hop Sing heard the other miners muttering uneasily among themselves, because in all likelihood, this was the first time anyone ever stood up to Black Jack Haggerty.

“I already told ya . . . no decent self respectin’ sawbones is gonna so much as look him, let alone try ‘n fix him,” Black Jack ranted. “Hell! They won’t even letcha bring him into Dayton.”

“That a fact,” Mister Cartwright responded, his voice filled with sarcasm and doubt.

“You callin’ me a liar, Mister?”

“If the shoe fits— ”

Hop Sing heard the woman scream, followed an instant later by the sound of fist connecting very solidly with flesh. He forced his “good” eye open as wide as it could go, and saw Black Jack literally doubled over, with both arms wrapped protectively around his abdomen, gasping in pain, astonishment, and outrage. His eyes, tiny pig-like slits in the normal course of things, were nearly as big and as round as his open gaping mouth.

Before Mister Cartwright could even think of pressing his advantage, Hop Sing saw a pair of arms, thin, wiry, and well muscled, encircling him, pinning his arms to his side, effectively rendering him helpless. “I got ‘im, Black Jack,” the thin, wiry man babbled, “I got ‘im! I got ‘im real good!”

“Good goin’, Tim,” Black Jack murmured, turning a baleful glare upon his antagonist. “You hold on t’ ‘im, y’ hear?”

Hop Sing watched with fast sinking heart as Black Jack half way straightened, and keeping one arm tight around his abdomen, pulled back the other with the intention of striking the man, his cohort held, square in the face. Mister Cartwright gritted his teeth and slammed the heel of his boot down with all his might into the instep belonging to the miner Black Jack had just addressed as Tim.

Hop Sing heard Tim cry out, then saw him double over when the man he had securely pinned less than a moment before, followed through with a powerful elbow jab to the stomach. Mister Cartwright barely dodged Black Jack’s intended blow, and Hop Sing couldn’t help but wince upon seeing the big miner’s fist hammer into Tim’s face. Mister Cartwright, then, very quickly ducked his head, and rammed Black Jack in the abdomen in manner very like a raging bull. The big miner stumbled backwards a few steps, before slipping in the mud and landing ignobly on his rump.

Mister Cartwright, seething now with raw fury, seized Tim by the back of his collar, and dragged him over toward the spot where Black Jack still remained, shaking his head vigorously. With his free hand, Mister Cartwright grabbed the back of Black Jack’s collar, and roughly hauled him to his feet. He brought the heads of both miners together with a loud, resounding crack, then dropped both of them like a pair of proverbial hot potatoes, grimacing as if he had just gotten through handling something incredibly soft and slimy.

“I’m taking this man to a doctor,” Mister Cartwright stated again, directing a murderous glare at Black Jack’s remaining cronies, all of whom had begun to slowly back away.

Confident there would be no further interference, Mister Cartwright lifted him into his arms, with a gentleness that surprised Hop Song, and strode resolutely toward his buggy. The woman, who Hop Sing would come to know as Ben Cartwright’s wife, Marie, followed close behind, her eyes, her face shining with pride.

The Cartwrights left Hop Sing in the care of Doctor Isaac Grimwald, a kind and compassionate man, who had served as doctor on the mission field in China. Unlike many of his fellow missionaries, he had come away with a deep abiding love and respect for the Chinese people, their history, and culture. Hop Sing stayed with the kindly Doctor Grimwald, until the worst of his injuries had begun to heal, working as he was able . . . when he was able . . . over and above the sawbones’ protestations that he rest . . . to pay off the debt he felt he owed the good doctor.

But there yet remained another, larger debt to pay . . . .

Roughly six months later, Hop Sing showed up at the house one evening, unannounced and uninvited, with little more than the clothes on his back. “I . . . Hop Sing,” he said by way of introduction. “Hop Sing work . . . pay debt.”

There had never been mention of any salary . . . although Mister Cartwright insisted upon paying him very generously . . . nor had there ever been any discussion of terms. Hop Sing took up residence in the Cartwright kitchen, where he would remain for many years to come, becoming a much loved member of the family he had adopted . . . .

The sound of the door opening drew Hop Sing from memories of times past back to the present. He turned just as Hoss entered the room, with Joe and Stacy following close behind.

“Where doctor go?” Hop Sing asked, as he wearily dropped his cloth into the near empty bowl set on the small table beside the bed.

“I sent him t’ the bedroom upstairs t’ get what he can of a good night’s rest,” Hoss replied. “He . . . told us t’ wake him if’n we . . . if we find out we need him.”

“Good. That very good,” Hop Sing said approvingly. “Miss Stacy.”

“Yes, Hop Sing?”

“Need more herb mix . . . remedy for fever,” Hop Sing said, as he picked up the empty bowl and handed it to her. “Find more in big pot on back of stove. You remember how Hop Sing say to fix?”

Stacy nodded. “One part of your fever remedy to four parts water?” she ventured.

“That exactly right,” Hop Sing replied, favoring the girl with what he hoped to be a reassuring, if weary smile. “Little Joe . . . kindling box by stove low,” he continued, after Stacy had left the room, “need more.”

“Right,” Joe murmured softly . . . .

“Holy Mary . . . Mother of God,” Joe prayed softly, for . . . he had stopped counting after about the first half dozen times. “I turn to you . . . for protection . . . . ”

His thoughts drifted to a little boy, aged four, with emerald green eyes and a mop of unruly chestnut curls, hiding in the deep shadows in the hall just outside the open door to his parents’ room, listening to his mother say that very same prayer. It was among the precious few memories he had of the mother, who had died very suddenly not long after he turned five, that he could honestly and truly call his own.

“Please . . . listen to my prayers . . . and help us in our needs, right now . . . for Pa most especially,” Joe continued. A note of desperation began to creep into his voice as a stillness, not of this world began to fall over him and the world around him in manner not unlike the way tiny flakes of snow blanket a landscape. “Please . . . please,” he begged, “see Pa safely . . . through the crisis ahead . . . and protect him now . . . from every danger . . . O, glorious and blessed Virgin.”

Joe shivered upon feeling the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end. He paused in his work and in his prayers just long enough to cast a quick, furtive glance over his shoulder.

“Holy Mary . . . Mother of God . . . I turn to you . . . for protection.” As Joe began the prayer once again, he thought he caught the scent of a woman’s perfume mixed with the scents of earth and pine. Jasmine, he realized. The scent Julia Bulette once favored . . . and someone else . . . .

His mother.

“Please listen . . . to my prayers . . . . ” he continued with an uneasy frown. Was he simply going out of his mind with worry and concern for Pa? Or did he actually hear the voice of his mother praying along with him? “Please, listen to my prayers,” he picked up the prayer once again . . . .

“ . . . and help us in our needs. Protect us from every danger, O Glorious and Blessed Virgin. Amen.”

Ben stood at the threshold between his bedroom and the dark hallway beyond, watching his beloved Marie slowly, yet with deliberate precision, cross herself, and gently kiss the Crucifix of the rosary intertwined between her long, elegant fingers. He accepted her presence here as a given, despite the voices raging in his head, adamantly insisting, “No! Impossible! This can’t be . . . this simply . . . can’t . . . be!” He waited until she had placed her rosary back down on the low table that served as her own private altar, and rose to her feet.

“Marie?” he queried, his soft voice gently caressing each syllable of her name.

Marie tuned, and smiling, held out her hand . . . .

. . . they stood at amid the tall trees overlooking the dark waters of the lake spread out before them, wrapped tight in each others arms. Smiling, Ben bent down and gently kissed the crown of the head resting lightly against his chest.

“I’ve missed you, My Darling . . . . ”

Marie raised her head and pulled away just enough so that she might look him in the face. “ . . . and I’VE missed YOU.”

They kissed once, then again.

Ben greedily savored the warmth of her body pressed close to his own, the gentle weight of her head coming to rest once again upon his chest, the faint scent of jasmine, her soft, silky golden brown hair beneath his fingers. “Marie . . . don’t leave me, My Love . . . please . . . promise me you won’t ever leave me again . . . . ”

She lifted her head once more and for a moment gazed into his dark brown eyes with longing. “I WANT to stay, My Love. More than anything in this world or the next, I wish I could stay,” she said, her voice filled with sadness and deep regret, as she reached up and gently smoothed back an unruly lock of hair that had fallen down into his face, “but I must leave come the light.”

“Marie, NO!” Ben cried out in anguish, hugging her closer. “Now that I’ve found you again, I . . . I can’t bear to let you go.”

Hop Sing muttered a long string of colorful invectives in his native language, his voice filled with deep concern and anguish, as he placed his hand down upon Ben Cartwright’s forehead. “No good,” he muttered again, this time in English, wagging his head back and forth. “Fever go up. No good.”

“Hop Sing?” It was Stacy. She entered the room carrying another bowl, the third . . . or was it the fourth? of water mixed with a double dose of Hop Sing’s herbal remedy for fever. “What’s no good?”

“Fever remedy,” Hop Sing replied. “Not working. Mister Cartwright fever go up.”

All of a sudden, Stacy felt very light headed. “Oh no,” she groaned softly.

Hop Sing took the bowl from her, half afraid she was going to drop it, given her pale face and round, staring eyes. He steered her toward the hard backed chair beside the bed and gently sat her down. “Miss Stacy, you stay here. With Papa. Hop Sing take fever remedy back to kitchen, get alcohol. Maybe rub down with alcohol bring fever down. Where Mister Hoss?”

“In the kitchen making up another pot of coffee,” Stacy replied and she reached out and seized hold of Ben’s limp hand . . . .

“Stacy? Stacy, wake up . . . . ”

Stacy heard Pa’s voice . . . the night of the day a monster from the deepest blackest pits of hell named Vivian Crawleigh arrived at Fort Charlotte to take her to an orphanage and foundling home somewhere out in Ohio. She shuddered.

“It’s all right, Stacy . . . . ”

Pa’s deep reassuring voice spoke to her from the places within her heart, as he did that night.

“It’s all right. You were having a bad dream . . . . ”

She had no idea in the world then that Ben Cartwright, and his sons, Hoss and Joe, were in fact her real family. She had only met them a scant two days before. Yet, Stacy instinctively knew that the big, silver haired man who had come to her that night was a kind, loving man, someone she could trust. She threw herself into the protective circle of his arms and clung for dear life.

“It’s all right, Stacy . . . it’s all right,” he whispered softly, as he pulled her closer and held on very tight. “I’m here . . . I’m right here.”

“D-Don’t leave m-me . . . please . . . please don’t l-leave me . . . . ” she sobbed softly.

“Shhh . . . it’s all right . . . it’s all right. I’m not going anywhere.” His words, his deep quiet voice reassured her and had begun to still her fear. “I’m going to stay right here . . . with you . . . for as long as you want me.”

“Mister. Cartwright.”

Stacy cringed upon hearing Vivian Crawleigh’s voice. With a cry of alarm she buried her head against Pa’s chest, gripping his jacket so tightly, her knuckles turned a bloodless white.

“Mister Cartwright, WHAT do you think you’re DOING?!”

“It’s all right, Mrs. Crawleigh . . . . ” Pa replied. She could feel his entire body tensing. “Stacy had a nightmare that’s left her shaken up, but she’ll be all right.”

“Not if you cater to her every time she screams.” Mrs. Crawleigh’s voice dripped with icicles.

“C-Cater to her?”

“It’s a bid to get attention,” Mrs. Crawleigh informed him in a lofty, condescending tone. “As long as you keep rushing in here every time she screams, she’s going to keep right on throwing these temper tantrums in the middle of the night.”

“M-Mrs. Crawleigh, you mean to tell me . . . . ”

“Exactly right! When she screams, I just let her scream,” Vivian declared with an emphatic nod of her head. “If she keeps it up long enough, I’ll come in and give her attention . . . in the form of a good, sound whipping with my cane.”

“Can’t you see this poor child is frightened?!” Pa demanded, as his initial shock and horror began to give way to rising anger.

“I think you’d better leave. Now.”

“Gladly,” Pa growled back.

“No,” Stacy whimpered, “Mister Cartwright, please . . . please, don’t leave me.”

The look on his face, filled with love, compassion, and genuine concern, was one she would in years to come see often, usually during the times when she needed him most. “I’m not going to leave you, Little Gal,” Pa reassured her, as he gathered her up in his arms, along with her bed clothes, and pillow. “I’m taking you with me.”

“I hardly think this is proper,” Mrs. Crawleigh protested.

“ . . . and I hardly think it proper to beat a sad, frightened, lonely child . . . just because she wakes up out of a nightmare in the middle of the night crying out for someone to come and reassure her . . . to let her know she’s safe and . . . and loved— ” Pa abruptly broke off, and strode from the room, with her clasped tight in his arms.

“Pa . . . . ” Stacy ventured, blinking against the acrid stinging of new tears forming in her eyes. She clasped his hand tightly in both of her own. “You didn’t leave me at Fort Charlotte to . . . to the m-mercies of that . . . that monster from hell. Please . . . PLEASE . . . don’t leave me NOW . . . I love you, Pa, and I . . . I still need you.”

Joe dumped the fifth and last armload of kindling into the box that Hop Sing kept near the stove with a big yawn. “There,” he declared, yawning once again. “That should hold Hop Sing awhile . . . ‘n I’ve got more stacked up outside.”

“Hey, Joe . . . you all right?” Hoss queried, eyeing his younger brother with an anxious frown. “You kinda look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”

“Dooo-oooohhhh-n’t SAY that!” Joe protested with a shudder.

Hoss grabbed a potholder and lifted the coffee pot from the stove and poured a generous mug full. “Here.” He thrust the mug into Joe’s hands, then gently steered him over toward the kitchen table.

“Thanks,” Joe mumbled very softly as he pulled out one of the chairs and fell onto the seat with a dull, heavy thud.

“You . . . ok?”

“Yeah . . . oh, heck, I dunno,” Joe replied with a doleful sigh. “Between being tired as all get out ‘n worried sick about Pa, I’m of the mind that maybe the ol’ imagination’s working a mite overtime.” He took a tentative sip from the mug before him and grimaced.

Hoss set the creamer and sugar bowl on the table before Joe, then handed him a spoon.

“Thanks,” Joe murmured, as he shoveled a generous spoonful of sugar into his coffee.

“If you’re tired, y’ COULD stretch out on the settee, or better yet . . . g’won up t’ bed,” Hoss suggested. He grabbed another mug and poured out a cup of coffee for himself. “I’ll wake ya . . . if . . . . ”

Joe shook his head. “If I went up to bed now, I just KNOW I’d be lying there, staring at the ceiling,” he sighed.

“Mister Hoss! Mister Hoss!” Hop Sing barreled into the kitchen, slamming the door hard against the adjacent wall.

“What’s up, Hop Sing?” Hoss queried with sinking heart. The urgency he heard in the Chinese man’s voice couldn’t possibly bode well.

“Papa fever go up,” Hop Sing explained. “Hop Sing rub down with alcohol. Need Mister Hoss to help.”

Hoss and Joe exchanged troubled glances. “You, uhhh . . . want me to g’won up ‘n wake the doc?” the latter asked.

“Not yet,” Hop Sing replied, “try alcohol rub first.”

“Let’s do it, Hop Sing,” Hoss said grimly.

After Hoss had left the kitchen with Hop Sing, Joe poured a little cream into his coffee, then stirred slowly as his thoughts drifted back to a troubled, angry time in his life . . . .

He was clear up to his neck in hot water. He knew it the instant he walked into the house and saw his brothers seated, eying him with “that” look, and his pa standing in their midst, his back ramrod straight like a major general’s, very pointedly glancing at his watch.

“I’d like to know what happened in town this afternoon,” Pa began, speaking in that certain bell-like tone that demanded answers. Now.

Joe shrugged, outwardly indifferent, all the while wondering what Hoss and Adam had told Pa about that slugfest between him and Dave Donavan at the Bucket of Blood Saloon. “Nothing happened,” he replied. Try as he might, he just couldn’t quite bring himself to look Pa straight in the eye. “I was just having a little fun, that’s all . . . . ”

“I don’t like the idea of a son of mine brawling around town like a drunken cowboy,” Pa said stiffly.

“Pa, I WASN’T drunk and I WASN’T brawling,” Joe hotly defended himself. He, then, turned angrily upon his two older brothers. “If you two are gonna tell it, why don’t you tell it straight?” he demanded.

One thing led to another, until Pa, exasperated and angry, ordered them upstairs to bed. Joe fell in step behind Adam and Hoss, feeling a measure of relief that the whole conversation over what happened in town that day appeared to be at an end. His relief was very short lived.

“Not YOU, Joseph,” Pa said curtly, just as he reached the bottom of the stairs. “I wanna talk to YOU.” He waited until Adam and Hoss had disappeared into the deep shadows of the hallway upstairs, and he had heard the sound of their respective bedroom doors closing. “Now what’s this all about?” Pa demanded.

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean,” Pa immediately responded. “You’ve been spending quite a lot of time away from the Ponderosa lately,” he continued in tone of voice more kindly. “I’d like to know why.”

“Can’t I have some fun without the whole family jumping on me?!” Joe demanded. He loved his pa and brothers dearly, but sometimes it WOULD be nice to be able to do WHAT he wanted, WHEN he wanted to do it, in whatever manner that pleased him, without having to answer to anyone for it like his new friend, Dave Donavan.

“I’m NOT jumping on you,” Pa said curtly. “I think everyone should have a little fun . . . but at the proper times and with the proper companions.”

“What was troubling me had nothing to do with having fun . . . keeping questionable company . . . or even the time I spent away from the Ponderosa, not pulling my share of the load,” Joe mused, hardly aware that he had just spoken out loud. His lips curved upward, forming an amused smile. “Didn’t take Pa long to get to what WAS troubling me, though . . . . ”

“Pa,” he finally demanded, angry and exasperated, yes, but there was a pleading note there as well, “how can I prove I’m good at ANYTHING by myself?”

“Joe . . . you don’t hafta prove anything to US,” Pa immediately returned, with the intent of offering reassurance.

“I’m not trying to prove myself to YOU, Pa . . . I’m trying to prove myself to ME!” Joe earnestly, passionately countered.

“What is it you’re trying to prove?”

“I don’t know,” Joe sighed, completely frustrated, yet desperately needing to somehow make PA understand . . . and perhaps more important, make himself understand as well. “Whether I’m good enough, whether I’m old enough, or whether I’m smart enough to do something BY MYSELF without three people waiting there to help me every time I stub my toe.”

For a moment, he felt like the most ungrateful wretch that ever had the misfortune of gracing this world, but much to his amazement . . . Pa didn’t see it that way at all. Miracle or miracles . . . Pa actually understood.

After Pa had gone up to bed, his attention turned again to the map lying on the table in the great room. It had caught his eye for a moment after the heart-to-heart talk between him and his father had come to an end. The locations of a mine, newly opened, and that strand of fir above Buckhorn Meadow were circled.

Joe know that the Sun Mountain Company had acquired the rights to work that mine and had requested bids on a contract to supply the necessary timbering. The contract called for fir. Though the Ponderosa had plenty of wood from the pine trees for which she had been named, the only strand of fir that could be used to fulfill that contract was above Buckhorn Meadow.

“Pa WANTED to bid on that job,” Joe silently ruminated,“ in just about the worst way, too, especially since it looked like ol’ Will Poavey had that contract in the bag.” The look on Pa’s face then brought a smile to his own, as he took another sip from a coffee mug now half empty. Though a good ten miles closer to that mine than anything Will Poavey could have supplied, that ten miles difference went straight up and down, according to Adam. It would be impossible to get that timber down to the mine.

Joe chuckled softly. “Hmpf! Maybe THAT was the motivation I needed . . . to do something ol’ Adam decreed was impossible.”

When Pa came down the next morning, Joe was seated behind the desk where he had spent the entire night working out a way to get the timber from that strand above Buckhorn Meadow to the mine, and figuring up the costs involved.

“That’s the most papers I’ve seen you with since you was in school,” Joe remembered Hoss saying when he and Adam came down a few minutes behind Pa the following morning.

“Joe’s decided he’s gonna bid on that Sun Mountain contract for us,” Pa informed them.

“What about Will Poavey?” Hoss asked.

“I’ll underbid him by plenty and STILL turn a good profit,” he declared with confidence.

His brothers might have been a tad skeptical, but they were full of advice, and offers to help . . . much to his annoyance.

“I don’t need any help,” Joe said curtly. “Now look! This is MY idea, MY job, and I want to do it BY MYSELF.”

“Joe? Come here,” Pa quietly beckoned, after Hoss and Adam had gone on out to the dining room.

Joe walked over to the open kindling box next to the fireplace, where Pa stood holding four thin sticks of wood.

“I want you to do something for me . . . . ”

“Yeah? What’s that?” Joe asked, curious.

“Break these,” Pa replied, handing him the four sticks of kindling wood.

“Break these?!” Joe echoed, not quite believing. “Alright . . . . ” He thought sure it would be an easy task. He tried once, then again harder. They remained intact in spite of his efforts, in spite of all his grunting and groaning. “Huh! You wouldn’t think they’d . . . . ” Bound and determined to break that bundle of sticks, he gritted his teeth and this time exerted all of his strength. “Hol-leee . . . . I can’t do it, Pa,” he finally and reluctantly admitted defeat.

“That’s right,” Pa said. “If you’re gonna like this . . . . ” he took the ends of the bundle in both hands and tried to break them himself, “you CAN’T break ‘em. But . . . . ” Pa took one stick from the bundle and snapped it in two very easily, “singly they CAN be broken.” Pa paused, allowing him a moment to ponder. “By himself, each one of US can be broken,” Pa continued. “Never let pride stand in your way, Son. We’re all here, if ya need us . . . .”

“ . . . as things turned out, I DID need ya, Pa . . . you, Adam, AND Hoss,” Joe murmured softly, remembering again how his new friend, Dave Donavan had not only let him down, but had betrayed him as well. “Together . . . we rebuilt the flume Dave blew up . . . and got the timber down to that mine well before the deadline.”

The remembered look of pride not only on his father’s face, but upon the faces of his two older brothers blurred under a watery onslaught of tears. Joe blinked, then wiped his face against the sleeve of his shirt.

“Pa . . . had you not said . . . W-WHAT you said . . . the way you . . . y-you said it . . . I m-might’ve let pride stand in my way,” Joe silently confessed. So many, many times throughout his life, whatever the problem, whenever he was sick, hurt, frightened, or troubled, Pa was there, sometimes with words of wisdom, other times with a listening ear or with his strong arms wrapped reassuringly tight about his shoulders, and always with the strength and comfort offered through his mere presence.

“Pa . . . . ” he silently implored, “I-I know there’s gonna be a time when you w-won’t . . . when y-you’ll be with us in . . . in spirit only, but . . . please? DON’T let that t-time be NOW . . . . ”

“G-Grandpa?”

It was Stacy, her voice hoarse, barely audible. Joe looked up and saw her standing just inside the kitchen door, her eyes round with the same kind of fear he had seen before in the eyes of a hurt wild animal, trapped by those out to kill it. Her face was pale, and her eyelids red and swollen.

“Grandpa, I . . . I’m . . . I’m scared.”

Joe stood and wordlessly opened his arms to her in manner not unlike Pa. Within less than the space of time between one heartbeat and the next, Stacy was in his arms burying her face against his chest, holding on for dear life. “ ‘S ok, Kiddo,” he sobbed, as his head gently came to rest upon her shoulder, “ ‘s ok. I’M scared, too.”

Brother and sister remained thus, clinging desperately to one another, giving release to their grief and their fear until the black night sky began to brighten with dawn’s silver-gray light.

Ben found Paris McKenna standing before the darkening waters of the lake, with arms folded tight across her chest, clad the bright royal blue riding costume that brought out the sparkle in her brilliant blue eyes. By the light of the near full moon, now rising in the east, he silently made his way from the woods, across the wide sandy beach, and took his place beside her at the water’s edge.

The woman who turned to face him was neither the beautiful young woman, who had so long ago, fled in the dead of night like a thief, taking their unborn daughter with her . . . nor was she the brittle, frail woman, made old long before her time by a life of bitterness, regret, and finally grief for the child she had believed to be dead. This was a handsome woman, her face and eyes filled with deep sublime contentment. There was an air of confidence about her that never was, but perhaps might have been.

“Paris?” Ben queried.

“So many times . . . . ” she said very softly, as he took his place by her side. She deftly slipped her hand through the crook of his arm and pressed close, her head gently coming to rest upon his shoulder. “So many, many times, I’ve dreamed of a loving , doting father teaching a beautiful little girl named Rose Miranda how to ride,” she said wistfully.

“With her doting mother looking on?” Ben asked, covering her hand with his own.

“Um hmm,” she replied. “Oh, Ben . . . that dream’s so vivid . . . so real . . . I . . . I almost feel as if I could reach out and snatch it.”

“Like a gold ring while riding a merry-go-round?”

“Yes. Very much like that. Ben?”

“Yes, Paris?”

“How did you know?”

“Because I’ve had the same dream,” he replied.

Her countenance brightened and there was a glimmer of hope radiating from those bright blue eyes. “I’ve often wondered . . . thought . . . if I wished hard enough . . . DREAMED hard enough . . . I could make it REAL.”

“No, Paris,” he said, with sadness welling up in his heart. “No matter how much you and I might wish otherwise, we CAN’T go back and changed what’s already happened. All we can do now is find gratitude for what we DO have . . . and find the courage to continue on.”

“Even though . . . oh, Ben . . . even though that means you and I no sooner say hello, we find ourselves saying goodbye?!” she asked, her voice filled with sadness and despair.

“At least we’ve had the chance to say hello to one another,” Ben kindly pointed out. “Better that, even if we must always part very soon after, than never ever being granted the opportunity of meeting one another.”

“Far better to have loved and lost . . . than never to have loved at all,” she murmured softly, with a touch of bitterness.

“The girl IS real,” Ben pointed out.

“So is the loving father,” Paris agreed with a wistful smile.

“ . . . and the doting mother,” Ben added. “Though she stands on the other side of the veil that separates matter and spirit, she is nonetheless there . . . watching.”

“ . . . always watching.”

“Someday, Paris . . . someday, the father, the mother, AND their daughter will stand together,” Ben promised, “and on that glorious someday, the mother and father will say hello to one another . . . and never say goodbye again.”

“Someday?” she queried, her eyes welling up with tears.

He hesitated.

“I . . . think perhaps that alcohol rub’s done some good, Hop Sing,” Doctor Paul Martin ventured, wary and guarded. “His temperature seems to have stabilized somewhat . . . . ”

“Still too high,” Hop Sing said darkly.

“Yes,” the sawbones had to agree, “still too high. However, he seems to be breathing a little easier . . . and though his pulse is weak, it’s steady.”

Hop Sing dipped a clean cloth into the bowl of ice water and his herbal remedy for fever and wrung out the excess moisture. “Still talk to loved ones not with us no longer,” he said, as he bathed Ben’s face, neck, and hands. “Talk with Little Joe Mama . . . now talk with Missy Paris.”

Paul sighed. THAT didn’t bode well . . . .

“Paul . . . . ”

The good doctor could almost hear his old friend now, his voice filled with a grim, almost angry determination. Yet, there was a plaintive note there as well.

“ . . . where there’s life . . . there’s ALWAYS hope. Every breath . . . . ”

“Fill in the blank,” Paul silently mused, a bare hint of a wistful smile tugging hard at the corner of his mouth. “Adam . . . Hoss . . . Joe . . . and Stacy over the past few years now . . . even Hop Sing. Every breath . . . whoever it was . . . took . . . is every reason for hope.”

He saw images of an anguished, worried sick father keeping watch at the bedside of a child gravely ill or seriously injured . . . .

. . . ADAM, the winter what began as a head cold went into pneumonia so quickly, no one had the wherewithal to realize what was happening. He had almost died that year . . . in fact a lesser man almost certainly WOULD have succumbed. He found Ben sitting by his eldest son’s beside the morning Adam’s fever finally broke, holding his son’s hand while he slept.

“I had plenty of company last night, Paul,” Ben wearily confessed, his eyes straying to the picture sitting on the nightstand beside the bed. It was an old photograph, one that actually predated the daguerreotype by a few years, of a woman who bore a very strong resemblance to the young man who now lay peacefully sleeping . . . .

. . . STACY, last winter a few days before Christmas, lying in her own bed, buried under a mound of blankets and comforters, same as Ben now . . . literally burning up with fever. Earlier that evening, she had ridden out into deep snow and temperatures well below freezing at the bidding of her father’s late wife, Marie, of all things, to find Joe whose homecoming was several hours overdue.

Whether the result of fevered imaginings or a genuine haunting . . . to this day, Paul Martin still preferred to simply keep an open mind. But somehow . . . someway, she knew exactly where to find Joe, and ended up leading Ben, Hoss, and Candy right to him. He was summoned to the house in the wee small hours of the morning, after the snowstorm had subsided, thankfully.

Paul had done what little he could for the near comatose young woman. Her prognosis, at best, was very grim.

“I’M of the belief that where life remains, there’s hope,” Ben said stiffly, weariness etched into the very lines of his face, every plane and muscle in his body. “Each time my daughter draws breath . . . I have every reason for hope.”

“She was pretty ill most of that winter,” Paul silently remembered, “but she eventually pulled through.” When he left Stacy’s room that night, Ben was seated in a hard backed chair drawn up to the very edge of the bed, with his daughter’s hand clasped firmly in both of his, talking to her . . . encouraging her . . . occasionally pleading . . . .

. . . JOE, the time a drunken, has-been heavy weight boxing champion by the name of John Regan beat the boy to literally within an inch of his life. He and the famous actress, Adah Menken had been lovers once upon a time. Though she had reportedly broken off with him years before, he still obsessively thought of her as his exclusive property, and had threatened bodily harm to anyone who so much as looked at her cross-eyed.

“The man couldn’t have gone five seconds in the ring with a welterweight,” Paul muttered under his breath, mildly surprised at the anger rising up in him as he recalled the incident, “but a young man . . . not much more than a boy actually . . . was no match.” The beating was intended as a message of course “ . . . a message sent by a cowardly bully who lacked the guts to face down a REAL man.”

The sight of Joe, battered, bruised, and bleeding profusely from a wound to the side of his face, dangerously close to his eye, reaching up with trembling hand to gently touch his father’s cheek, brought tears to Paul’s eyes as he examined and treated the injured young man. Ben’s eyes were also unusually bright as placed his own hand over Joe’s and gently squeezed.

Though there was a momentary fear that Joe had suffered irreparable damage to his optic nerve and would be blind as a result, that, thank the Good Lord, did NOT come to pass. The worst he suffered was a few fractured ribs, a miracle all things considered. The ribs mended quickly and his other injuries healed and faded, all under the watchful, solicitous eye of that same anxious worried sick father.

He saw Hoss once again lying face down on his examining table, unconscious, bleeding out profusely from a bullet wound meant for someone else. He began to probe gingerly for the bullet, and very quickly discovered in was in deep . . . too deep for one of his meager skill and expertise to safely remove.

“No . . . . ” he remembered shaking his head in complete and utter despair as realization of how hopeless the situation facing him truly was. “No. I . . . can’t consider it.”

“But, he’s bleeding to death,” a man, a doctor by the name of Mundy, immediately protested. Paul Martin had never met Doctor Mundy until he appeared in town, selling “medicine” that was at the very least one hundred proof under the assumed name of Professor Poppy. But he had heard of the man. He was once a very fine surgeon, with a sterling reputation and a thriving practice in London.

“I tell ya . . . . ” Paul replied, feeling dreadfully sick at heart, and about as useless as the fifth wheel on a wagon, “I . . . CAN’T . . . get to it!”

“Of COURSE you can’t,” Mundy immediately returned, his robust complexion several shades paler than was the norm, “not with a probe . . . . ”

“But . . . y-you’re asking for the kind of surgery that . . . that . . . . ” Paul Martin shuddered at the very thought of attempting to perform the operation needed to save Hoss Cartwright’s life. “It’s . . . too tricky . . . too risky.”

“Paul?” Ben ventured, his face white as a sheet, his dark brown eyes round with sheer horror. “Paul . . . you’ve GOT to do SOMETHING . . . . ”

“I CAN’T, Ben,” he replied, desolate, resigned.

“Why? WHY?!” Ben demanded, unable, unwilling to accept what Paul Martin saw as inevitable.

“I don’t have the knowledge,” he replied, “I DON’T have the skill.” Never, in his entire life could he ever remember feeling so utterly helpless.

As Ben looked from one doctor to the other, his initial shock and horror began a dark transformation to raw, impotent fury. “Are you telling me that my boy’s going to lie there . . . and DIE . . . without help . . . from either one of ya?!” he queried, shocked, appalled, and very angry at the thought.

Paul winced against the accusatory note he heard amid his old friend’s escalating anger, frustration, and grief. He swallowed, then drew himself up to the very fullness of his height. “I can’t help him, Ben,” he reiterated in a deadly calm tone of voice, “but Doctor Mundy is a surgeon.”

The blood drained right out of Doctor Mundy’s face. “No!” he vigorously denied Paul Martin’s assertion.

“HE was one of the best,” Paul continued, as if Mundy had not spoken. “HE has the knowledge . . . AND the skill.”

“THAT was another man . . . another world,” Mundy vehemently contested. “I’m sorry. I can’t.” He abruptly turned heel and bolted for the door, moving as fast as a man possibly could, just short of breaking into a dead run.

“DOCTOR!” Ben was on him like a lodestone to iron.

Mundy halted in his desperate flight mid-stride, turned, and faced him. “I’m no longer a doctor,” he said curtly, his voice filled with bitterness.

“You’ll ALWAYS be a doctor,” Ben argued passionately. “When you took your Hippocratic Oath, you pledged yourself to be a doctor for the rest of your life.”

“Will you leave me alone?!” Mundy begged.

“My son is DYING!”

“YOU WANT ME TO KILL HIM?!” Mundy furiously rounded upon Ben. “I HAVEN’T USED THESE . . . . ” He held out his hands, with fingers slightly curled, like the talons of a raptor. “ . . . AS A SURGEON FOR . . . too long.”

“You don’t forget, Doctor,” Ben pleaded, “you DON’T forget!”

Mundy began to slowly wag his head back and forth. “I can’t risk it.”

“Risk it?!” Ben echoed. “What are you risking, Doctor? My son is in there . . . maybe dying . . . because of his friendship for YOU. What about HIS risk?! He BELIEVED in you, Doctor. I believe in you. Help him.”

Doctor Mundy straightened his posture, and strode back into Paul Martin’s examination room with a grim, determined look on his face and a fire in his eyes that Paul suspected had been absent for a very long time.

“I don’t know whether you realized it or not, Old Friend,” Paul Martin said softly, as he placed a gentle hand on Ben’s shoulder, “but in fighting so valiantly to save Hoss . . . you ended up saving two lives that day . . . and who knows how many more since . . . thanks to YOU . . . Doctor Mundy found the courage to begin practicing medicine once again.”

The faces of others Ben Cartwright had helped over the years appeared before the eyes of his inward vision one after the other . . . .

. . . Leta Malvet, a young woman who might to this day be pariah among those living in and around Virginia City because of the actions of her father and brother, had Ben and his boys not stood by her . . . .

. . . a young Chinese boy by the name of Jimmy Chong wrongly accused of murder . . .

. . . Frank Medford and his wife, the former Emily Colfax, who owed their happiness to Ben Cartwright . . . .

. . . and the Mahon and Clarke families would never have put aside their differences and come together to properly raise their orphaned grandchildren had it not been for Ben Cartwright.

“ . . . and countless others,” Paul silently mused. He and his wife, Lily, had also been on the receiving end of Ben Cartwright’s generosity a fair number of times.

A world without that big silver haired man lying so terribly still on the bed before him?

“Such a world would be a poor place, My Friend . . . a very poor place indeed,” Paul said very softly. He gave Ben’s shoulder a gentle squeeze, then rose stiffly to his feet. “Where there’s life . . . there’s hope. As long as you keep on breathing, Ben, I’m gonna be close by pulling for you.”

Paul gingerly stretched, wincing against the protestations of joints and muscles made stiff by long periods of lying upstairs wide awake, staring at the ceiling overhead or sitting in that hard chair beside the bed. He walked over toward the window, drawn by the brilliant colors of what promised to be a magnificent sunrise.

“Perhaps a word or two to The Man Upstairs might be in order,” he silently decided.

The darkness, the steady, forward motion of the wagon, and the even rhythm of horse hooves striking the hard ground lulled him to the very edge of sleep. He settled himself comfortably against the blankets and soft down pillows piled against the back end of the wagon. Inger lay beside him, comfortably ensconced within the loving, protective circle of his arms, nestled close, her head resting against his chest. He felt his eyelids growing heavier and heavier . . . .

Then, suddenly, he stiffened.

Inger stirred gently within his arms. “Ben?” she queried, sounding as if she were yet half asleep.

“Hmmm?”

“Is anything wrong?”

“I . . . . ” Something niggled at the back of his mind. He frowned.

“Ben?” she gently queried after a long moment of silence.

“I dunno, I . . . thought maybe something was amiss, but . . . . ” His words trailed away to an uneasy silence. A moment later, he shrugged. “I . . . must’ve been dreaming,” he decided. “Sorry I woke you, My Love.”

Inger returned his warm smile with a radiant one of her own. “I love you, Ben,” she whispered, before closing her eyes, and settling herself against him once again.

“ . . . and I love YOU.” He bent down and tenderly kissed the top of her head, then settled back once again, with the intention of giving himself over to the sleep once again stealing over him.

“Doctor. Mister Doctor.”

Hop Sing’s voice, made terse and strident by extreme urgency drew the sawbones from his desperate pleading with The Almighty for the life of a man who numbered among his oldest and closest of friends. Paul Martin quickly finished that last thought, and murmured a quick “Amen.”

“Fever go up,” Hop Sing reported.

Paul’s heart sank. “Ice,” he said, turning from the window to the crisis now enfolding before him. “Hop Sing, do you have anymore ice in the cellar?”

“Some,” Hop Sing replied. “Not much. Use most in fever remedy.”

“Get it,” Paul snapped out the order, as he strode briskly from the window across the room toward the bed.

“H-Hop Sing? Doc?! What’s going on?”

Paul glanced up and saw Joe and Stacy standing framed in the open doorway. “Come in,” he invited. “Where’s Hoss?”

“He . . . he said he was going out to the barn,” Stacy replied, her voice catching. She blotted her eyes and cheeks against the edge of her robe’s sleeve. “S-Said something about . . . about brushing Chubb.”

“For the third time,” Joe added, his emerald green eyes blinking to excess.

“Hop Sing go. Get ice,” the Chinese man said as he barreled out of the room.

“You . . . want one of us to . . . to get Hoss?” Joe asked, his voice breaking.

“Why don’t the two of you keep close to your pa?” the kindly doctor suggested. “I’LL go find Hoss.”

He was a boy again, just a li’l feller, tearing through a big wide meadow of grass nearly as tall as he. The sun overhead beat down upon him hotter than in the middle of a desert at high noon. Rivulets of sweat flowed from his sodden hair and blow, stinging his eyes and carving trails through the dust and grime upon his cheeks. Every muscle in his little legs ached, the occasional sharp jab in his side had grown into pain almost unbearable, and now he found it increasingly difficult to breathe.

His eyes were focused on the small covered wagon up ahead. At first glance, the horses drawing the conveyance appeared to be plodding along at a very slow walk. He had taken off running, fast as his small legs could carry him, sure that he would catch up to it and its occupants in very short order. Problem was . . . the faster he ran, the quicker the distance between him and the wagon seemed to grow. Tears borne of grief, anger, and frustration began to stream from his eyes, mingling with the sweat still streaming from his hair, as he felt his strength and stamina beginning to flag.

“NO!” he silently screamed in rage and denial. He gritted his teeth and tried to pour on more speed, faster, faster . . . .

Then, suddenly, for one brief horrifying moment, his entire world turned topsy turvy. The next moment, he slammed hard against the dry packed ground, with force sufficient to drive the very wind from his lungs.

“PA-AAAA-AAAAHHH!” he screamed in anguished despair . . . .

“PA!”

Hoss’ eyes snapped wide open and for a moment he stared in complete bewilderment at his surroundings, not knowing were he was or how he’d come to be there.

A soft snort from his horse yanked him the remaining way back to the waking world. He was seated on the stool he kept outside of Chubb’s stall, with brush in hand. The candle in the lamp at his feet sputtered then went out, plunging his entire world in darkness.

“Dear God!” Hoss whispered as he scrambled to his feet. “Pa!” A cold hard knot of fear began to form in the pit of his stomach as he half ran, half stumbled his way through the dark from Chubb’s stall to the barn door.

“Hoss!” Ben gasped, suddenly wide awake. “Inger!”

He found himself standing in a wide meadow of grass reaching almost to his knees. The wagon and Inger were gone as if they had never been, and he saw no sign whatsoever of the big gentle man she had birthed into the world. The shadows about him began to lengthen, and the sunlight began to wane.

He stood in the midst of the meadow, unmoving, as the sun began its descent toward the distant, jagged line of mountains in the west, his heart torn. He wanted so desperately to be with them once again . . . to be with Elizabeth . . . with Paris . . . with Marie . . . and with Inger. To hold them in his arms, to inhale the wondrous aroma of their own natural scents mixed with the fragrances of their favorite perfumes, to feel their silken hair entwined in his fingers, to look again into their faces . . . their eyes . . . .

Yet, he found himself yearning desperately to be with his children, the sons and daughter each woman had given him. Their faces swam before the eyes of his inward vision and for a moment, he found himself in their midst.

But something was wrong.

Terribly wrong.

Adam . . . Hoss . . . Joe . . . and Stacy stood together, clad entirely in black from head to toe. Their faces were deathly white, their eyes red rimmed as they would be had they spent many hours weeping. They were grouped together around . . . Ben frowned. Was it Marie’s grave stone? Paris’?!

No.

This was a new stone, one he had never before laid eyes upon.

A cold prickle of fear stood the hairs on the back of his neck on end and rushed down the entire length of his spine. He shuddered.

Choose.

Choose.

You must choose.

The words echoed through his mind, and down into the depths of his very soul.

“Choose?” he wondered. Choose?! How could he possibly choose between his children . . . his beloved sons and daughter . . . and the four women he once loved, he STILL loved, more than life?

“Perhaps the time has come for you to look to a wisdom greater . . . infinitely greater than your own,” a gentle, masculine voice whispered in his ear.

“R-Reverend . . . Reverend J-Jordan?!” he queried.

No. Not Reverend Jordan, may God rest his soul . . . someone he and the members of the church in Virginia City had mistakenly believed to be the good Reverend Jordan . . . the being who had simply identified himself as “the guardian of this place.”

He opened his eyes, slowly, tentatively, and found himself standing, not within the church in Virginia City as he had half expected, but within the church he had attended with his parents, his brothers, and sisters as a boy. The sanctuary was just as he remembered, a long, narrow room, with a low ceiling, reminiscent of a large cabin aboard a ship. The light from without shone through a line of clerestory windows, circular in shape, like portholes, gilding the interior with a soft, almost otherworldly silver. Ben removed his hat, then started up the aisle, walking slowly past row after row of rough hewn pews, made by the men of the parish.

At the front of the church, Ben stopped before the steps, leading up to the raised sanctuary, where a simple, box shaped altar was centered, unadorned, save for the many colored splotches of light steaming in through the stained glass window directly behind. He knelt down upon the very bottom step, and bowed his head.

In the same instant Ben lifted his head, a shaft of light shone down upon him from the two clear pieces of glass centered at the very top of the stained glass window. The story he had been told was, those two clear pieces were placed there by the artist who pieced the window together, as a memorial to the young wife who died in childbirth and their babe, who came into this world stillborn. In that moment, Ben knew what he had to do. He bowed his head once again, and prayed, “Eternal God . . . my Heavenly Father . . . not MY will . . . but YOURS . . . . ”

Upon uttering those words, peace came into his heart, the like of which he’d not felt in a very long time . . . .

Epilogue . . . .

“Blanket STAY!” Hop Sing insisted belligerently, with a dark angry scowl on his face. “Mister Doctor say you keep warm.”

“Oh all RIGHT!” Ben growled back, knowing it was useless to argue when Hop Sing took THAT tone, with arms folded loosely across his chest, feet placed shoulder width apart.

Hop Sing pointedly tucked the blanket securely around Ben. He, then, picked up the sickly brown glass bottle from the coffee table and a spoon. “Medicine. Time you take,” he snapped presenting both to the Number One Boss Man of the Ponderosa.

Ben groaned. “Again?!”

“Yes. Again.”

“I just TOOK some of that . . . that--- ” he shuddered.

“Time you take AGAIN,” Hop Sing declared shoving both into Ben’s hands. He waited until Ben had taken two spoonfuls of the noxious liquid within, as per Doctor Martin’s instructions, sternly delivered. That done, he snatched bottle and spoon back from Ben and stormed out into the kitchen muttering a very long string of terse, clipped, and very colorful invectives in his native tongue.

A few minutes later, Ben heard the latch slip and the front door inching it’s way open.

“Pa?” It was Stacy.

“About time you got home from school, Young Woman,” he admonished her sternly as she entered the house.

“Sorry, Pa . . . Hoss, uhhh . . . asked me to stop by the post office on my way home . . . . ”

“So he did,” Ben remembered chagrinned by the reproachful look on her face. “Sorry I’m being such a cantankerous ol’ mule . . . . ” He looked up at her with a wan smile and held out his hand.

“ ‘S ok,” Stacy murmured softly as she crossed the room, and took his outstretched hand in her own, “tells ME you’re well on the mend.”

He remembered again the sight of their faces looking down into his, illumined by the sunshine of a glorious autumn morning shining in through the window when he finally awoke from a dark stupor of fever induced dreams and visions in the downstairs guest room . . . .

. . . their faces pale, their eyes round and staring, sparkling like diamonds in the sunlight with tears newly formed, though not yet shed. Joe and Stacy both wept openly. Hoss managed a tremulous smile amid the tears streaming down his cheeks.

Elizabeth . . . Inger . . . Marie . . . and Paris were lost to him once again, and that realization crushed his heart with grief too heavy to bear. But as he reached up to smooth back that unruly lock of curls that was forever falling into Joe’s face, caress Stacy’s cheek, still gleaming with the wetness of her tears, and give Hoss’ very strong, yet very gentle hand a reassuring squeeze, joy again filled his heart.

“W-Welcome back, Pa . . . . ” Hoss murmured softly . . . .

“Pa?”

The sound of his daughter’s anxious voice brought him back to present time and place.

“You . . . ok?”

“Not yet, but I’m getting better,” Ben replied. “Your brothers home yet?”

Stacy nodded. “They were out in the barn taking care of their horses when I came in,” she replied.

“Good. That’s good. Anything interesting in the mail?”

“There’s a letter from Adam, Pa . . . . ” Stacy fished the envelope out of the stack in her hand and gave it to her father.

“That’s funny . . . I thought I owed HIM a letter,” Ben mused aloud, as he opened the envelope.

“Dear Pa . . . . ” Adam’s letter began, “I hope this letter finds you and the rest of the family well. This morning I dreamed again of a beautiful dark haired woman standing in the prow of a ship sailing over a black ocean. There was a handsome man standing beside her, dressed in the uniform of a ship’s officer . . . captain, maybe or perhaps the first mate. I hope you won’t think your first born has gone completely around the bend when I tell you this, but the dream troubled me for some reason . . . troubled me in a way I’ve not been by my dreams since the days long ago when I woke up screaming from nightmares about Ash Hallow.

“As I sat in my study later, nursing a cup of coffee that had long ago gone ice cold, I remembered how you were always there at my side when I woke up terrified by that recurring nightmare about Ash Hallow, and other times, too, whenever I was sick or injured. The sight of you sitting close by my bed, sleeping or watching me sleep has always been among the most reassuring things in the world for me.

“I love you, Pa. I don’t know WHY I feel so compelled to tell you now, at this moment. I only know that I do. The only other thing left for me to say is thank you for being the best pa in the world to me, and for teaching me to be the best pa I can be to my own son and daughter.

“Take care.

“Love,
Adam.”

“Stacy?” Ben said as he carefully refolded the letter and slipped it back into it’s envelope. “Would you mind fetching me a pencil and a couple of pieces of stationary from my desk?”

“Not at all, Pa,” Stacy replied as she rose to do his bidding. She brought back the requested items in very short order.

“Thank you,” Ben said softly. “You have homework?”

She sighed dolefully. “Yes, Pa . . . I’m afraid I do.”

“You’d best get on up to your room and get working on it, Young Woman,” Ben said. “It’s another couple hours or so until supper. If you start now, you ought to be finished by the time we’re ready to sit down.”

“Yes, Sir,” she sighed again, surrendering to the inevitable.

After Stacy had gone upstairs to begin her homework, Ben put pencil to paper. “Dear Adam,” he began . . . .

“ . . . I just received your letter this afternoon,” Adam softly read his father’s letter aloud as he sat before the drawing table in his study nursing a hot cup of coffee, freshly made. “Thank you. I love you, too, Son, more than I can ever hope to say. I love you. Three words we can’t ever say too often, and tragically don’t say often enough. I’m going to do my best to rectify that, starting now.

“As for the rest . . . . ” Adam felt the blood drain right out of his face as he read the remainder of his father’s letter about having suffered through a long, serious illness at the very same time he dreamed again of the woman.

“Pa?”

Adam glanced up and saw his daughter, Dio standing in the door between the hallway and his study.

“Ma asked me to come tell you . . . . ” her voice trailed away to stunned silence upon getting a good hard look at his father’s pallid complexion, the round, staring eyes, and slightly trembling hand that still held tight to the letter from his father. “Pa!” Dio gasped as she stepped into the room. “Are you ok?!”

Adam held out his hand and favored Dio with a loving, if wan smile. She scampered across the room and upon reaching him, climbed into his lap. “I was reading a letter I just got from Grandpa,” he explained.

“Is Grandpa ok?”

“He told me he was very sick for a little while, but he’s on the mend now and will very soon be good as new if not better,” Adam replied.

“Oh,” Dio exhaled a sigh of relief. “For a minute there, you kinda looked like you’d seen a ghost or something.”

“Almost, Princess . . . . ” Adam murmured softly as he gave the child sitting on his lap a big hug, “almost.”

The End.
February 12, 2009

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