WAKING UP ON TH WRONG SIDE OF THE BED

OOOOOO

I

"Looks like little brother's got hisself a night of courtin' planned."

He winced. Where'd that big galoot come from?

The young man –wearing an immaculate gray suit, black hat and dress boots, his skin dashed with just the right hint of Bay rum, and his thick mass of coiling brown curls tamed but not controlled by a healthy dose of macassar oil – halted where he was and sighed.

"How long have you been there?" Joe asked, praying that there was only one.

"Just arrived, little brother," Adam answered, proving that if there was a god in Heaven, He hated him.

His remote and reserved, but too infrequently reticent older brother stepped out of the shadows and looked him up and down. "Who's the lucky lady?" he asked, his lips bowing up.

He'd like to have set an arrow to that bow and shot that smug look right out of Adam's eyes.

"I bet it's that pretty little gal what was eyeing baby brother in the mercantile yesterday. The one with that passel of big ugly brothers said they'd break him in half if he came around."

Adam advanced. "No...I think not. Coral wasn't wearing blue and, as you know, little brother has a penchant for girls in blue."

Joe wasn't sure what a 'penchant' was, but he was sure as shooting positive he didn't have one.

"Why don't you two go pound sand up where the sun don't shine," he snarled as he headed for the buggy he'd already hitched Cochise to.

"My, oh, my!" Hoss shook his head. "He's sure got a fiery temper, don't he, big brother?"

"You'd think all of that Bay rum would have put it out, middle brother," Adam snarked as he crossed his arms and leaned back on the hitching rail.

"Maybe all that grease in his hair's feedin' it," Hoss snickered.

Hoss snickered.

His brothers didn't know it, but ever since his mama had died there was this beast in him just waiting to be riled. It lived in that dark spot in his heart – the one that never stopped hurting. Most of the time it rattled it chains, snarling and shrieking and striking out but stopping just sort of breaking free.

Most of the time.

Joe spun on his heel. Fists clenched, jaw tight, steam blowing from his nose, he growled, "You take that back."

That was stupid. He did sound like a kid.

Maybe the beast was showing. Hoss and Adam were looking at each other and they looked something like Miss Jones had that day she'd told him to stay after school and tried to tie an apron on him so he could clean the boards while the other boys were snickering.

He didn't like snickering.

"Now, baby brother," Hoss was saying, "you know Adam and me is just teasin'."

"Yes, I know you're teasing and, yes, I know I'm your baby brother because neither of you ever let me forget it, and yes, if you don't take back what you said – both of you – I'm gonna knock your lights out!"

Hoss was scratching his head. "Well, Joe, I'd take it back right fast since it's got you so all-fired up, but you know, for the life of me, I cain't remember what I said." Hoss pursed his lips as his eyebrows reached for his thinning hair. "Maybe you can tell me? No?" Middle brother glanced at Adam who was still leaning on the fence rail looking pleased as a stallion in a stable full of fillies. "How about you, Adam?"

"Little brother took offense at your comment on his hair...grease."

That...did...it!

So much for the suit.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Head wagging. Joe wondered idly if there was a competition for it.

Pa would certainly win.

He was doing it now while he paced up and down in front of the hearth, wearing a deeper rut into the floorboards. Adam and Hoss had told him that that place on the floor had grown thinner by inches since he'd been old enough to walk. They kept talking about Pa's hair too, claiming it was him and his hi-jinks that was taking all the color out of it, but he didn't believe it. He had the same brown hair pa had had when he was young and, truth to tell, there was already gray creeping into it.

"Joseph. Joseph. Joseph."

He couldn't help but think it. Went to show how grown up he was.

That's my name, don't wear it out.

Pa stopped and looked him square in the eye. "What in Heaven's name am I going to do with you?"

He 'd tried giving Pa that look – the one where he furrowed his brows and pursed his lips and looked down and up at the same time – the one that meant he was sorry but just couldn't say it. It didn't work. The set-in-stone look of disappointment and anger on his pa's face just hardened, it didn't crack. Must have only worked with someone under seventeen.

He used to be under seventeen. Now he was over.

Barely.

And then it started. The lecture. Pa walking and talking and shaking his head and sighing and scowling and raising his hands to the sky, and all the while older brother Adam and middle brother Hoss were sitting there – looking just as much responsible as him with their busted lips and torn clothes – smiling smugly while he took a dressing down like to tie him to the bed post, lock the door, and get the key thrown away – for a whole month!

And on top of all this Coral Violetta Gertner was waiting on her front porch, looking pretty as a picture, wondering where he was.

A sigh escaped him.

"Am I boring you, Joseph?"

There was ice there that wouldn't thaw 'til spring.

"No, sir."

"Well, that's good!" That white head was shaking again. "That's good! Because it seems I have to say a thing a hundred times before any of them get through that thick skull of yours!"

He licked his lip. The blood drying on it was itching.

Didn't taste too good either.

"Yes, sir."

"And you two!" his Pa roared, turning toward his self-righteous brothers at last. "I see I can't trust you two to keep this young scamp out of trouble!"

Joe touched his rear, remembering.

Pa did love that word.

"Pa, you have to understand..." Adam began.

"Pa, you gotta see..." Hoss tried.

"I do not have to see or understand anything when the evidence of it is here right before my eyes!"

Joe stifled a snicker of his own. They were a sight. Adam's left eye was black and beefy as a steer's hindquarters and his lip thick as a center cut steak. Hoss, on the other hand, had nothing to show for their fight other than a cut over his right eye. Course, the kick he'd given middle brother to his middle section with both boots was gonna show up the minute the big lummox took his shirt off.

Served him right for teaching him how to fight dirty.

Joe felt a smile tickle his lips. It must have been contagious because his brothers were fighting it too.

Their father looked from Hoss to Adam and then back to him. That was when Pa pulled out the big gun and everything went to Hell.

"Your mother would be ashamed of you."

Joe felt the beast stirring, tightening the skin around his lips and jutting out his jaw. He'd strike the first man down who said his pa lied, but about this, he just...well...he wasn't telling the truth. He'd heard plenty of stories about his ma from Hop Sing and his brothers, about how she 'vexed' his pa and how he was unable to control her, about her spitting nails when they disagreed, and flying off the handle.

Joe tried to tame the beast but he failed.

"That ain't true!" he shouted. "She was just like me! You're a liar!"

A feather dropping to the floor would have sounded loud enough to wake the dead.

After that, it all came in slow motion, like one of those magic lantern shows winding down. There was no sound, just a rushing in his ears and his father's face – stunned, shocked, disbelieving – and enraged. There was a flash of Adam rising. Of Hoss, shouting something.

And then his father struck him across the face with his open palm so hard it jarred the teeth in his head.

His ears were ringing. Tears stung his eyes. He looked at his brothers who were staring open-mouthed and then he looked at his pa whose mouth was drawn into a tight line and then he did something he never would have done if the beast hadn't been needling him on.

Joe pivoted on the heel of his dress boots and stormed out the door.

A second later, the sound of that buggy roaring out of the yard wasn't the only thing to be heard.

That beast was laughing.

II

OOOOO

There it was. That sound. The one she knew all too well. That soft huff like a train was coming far down the line.

It wasn't a good sound.

Not...at...all.

"Elizabeth Annabelle Carnaby, whatever do you think you're doing?"

The little girl tried to brush the golden ringlets out of her eyes, but they fought back. Blowing out a breath in hopes that it would dislodge at least one or two of the bothersome things, she said, "Looking at the water, Ma."

Adults could be so thick sometimes. Like nut butter.

"And what would it be that is so important to look at that you had to come all the way down here and perch on a rock and dangle dangerously over a rain-swollen creek? It's near a half mile to the house."

She drew in a breath and let it out real slow. "Can't say."

She could'a said the next three words afore her mother did. "Can't or won't?"

Elizabeth, or Bella as her Pa liked to call her, knew she'd be in trouble if she didn't say something. But she couldn't tell her ma what she was really doing.

It was too embarrassing.

Elizabeth glanced at the water rushing in the creek out front of the Clayborn's old cabin, and then up at the sky. The new moon was a fingernail and that's what Josie had told her it had to be for it to work.

But she had to be alone.

"Well, I'm waiting," the older woman prompted.

No, she wasn't. Ma was tapping her toe and her hands were on her hips and she had about two seconds to come up with something that kind of made sense that the older woman might just believe.

"Jack wanted a fish."

"Whatever for?" her mother huffed.

Oh, dear. Something more.

"Well, he wanted to sleep with it."

Her ma's brown eyebrows danced. "A fish. To sleep with?"

"Well, you know, I was reading him 'Stories about the Whale' and he really wanted a whale, but I told him whales only grow in oceans and all we had was a creek so I'd have to get him a little bitty whale and well, ain't a fish a little bitty whale?"

"Isn't."

She pursed her lips and frowned. Pa said 'ain't'. Ma didn't think it was proper.

Did that mean Pa wasn't proper?

"Isn't a fish an itty bitty whale?"

There was that sound again. Like air snorting out of a mule's nose. "And how do you propose to keep this itty bitty whale alive once it's out of the water and tucked safely in your little brother's bed?"

Elizabeth drew in a big bunch of air and held it 'cause it helped her think better. Well, really, letting it out slow-like helped 'cause all the best ideas seemed to come out with it. "How 'bout I put it in a bowl and put the bowl in Jack's bed?"

It sounded good.

"Well, you could try that. But what happens when Jack turns over in the middle of the night and knocks the bowl on the floor and no one is awake to know the little thing is lying there gasping for breath? Is that what you want?"

It wasn't a pretty picture.

"No, ma'am."

"So why don't we leave the...whale where it belongs and your brother where he belongs?"

Elizabeth nodded slowly. "Yes, ma'am."

Her mother turned then and started up the rise beside the creek. At the top she turned back. "Are you coming?"

The little golden-haired girl looked at the new moon and then at the creek one last time. Maybe she could try again tomorrow. Wasn't a moon that was only a sliver thicker still a new one? Was it only new one night or did that go on until it was old? When did it become old? Did it have to be twelve or thirteen like she did? As she watched her reflection roll one way and the other, Elizabeth frowned. Josie had told her if she perched over the creek and held real still when the moon was high and new and pushed a yellow flower under her chin, she'd be able to see the face of her true love. She was ten.

Life was passing her by.

It was time she knew.

"Elizabeth!"

She hoped he'd still be there the next night.