Belly of the Whale
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Prologue
I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; the earth with her bars was about me for ever: yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O Lord my God. Jonah 2:6:
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A shovel driven down, lifting, hefting, tossing. Not an unusual sound. It happened frequently around a ranch – manure flung in the barn, grain being struck and winnowed, weeds in the field or garden cut down and tossed in a pile along with the dirt that held them. It was the sound of good clean hard work. Yes, that's what it normally was.
Not today.
Oh, no. Not today.
Each shovelful of earth that struck the ground before him jolted twenty-seven year old Adam Cartwright with the force of a bullet penetrating flesh. The sound carried with it the same white-hot fire, the same sense of being torn apart – the same sick-in-the-gut-terror that something had entered that wasn't supposed to and something irreplaceable had been carried out on the other side.
He glanced at the hole in the ground.
Something irreplaceable had been carried out, all right.
Adam passed a hand before his eyes, swatting at the darkness that refused to go away. Then he glanced at his younger brother, Hoss, who stood on the other side of their father. Hoss' giant hand was anchored on their pa's shoulder, linking the two of them in their despair. Adam sighed. He stood apart as he always stood apart, driven by that thing inside him that insisted he remain cool, collected – in control. He should offer that same touch – a touch of comfort to the man who gave him life. But he knew if he did that control would crack and then Pa would have another son to grieve over – not just the one already lost – but a living breathing dead man.
Another shovelful of dirt was taken up and tossed aside. The man was careless. Several clods tumbled back into the open grave to strike the top of the ugly pine box that had just been revealed; the one meant for a pauper that cradled a prince instead.
Thud.
Joe was dead.
Thud.
Stubborn, mule-headed, damned-if-I'll-listen-to-you-older-brother; beautiful, brilliant, irreplaceable Joe.
Thud.
Joe. His kid brother who'd been so angry with him; who'd fled the ranch in a fit of blazing hot anger that drove all notion of kin aside.
Thud.
Joe, who'd chosen strangers over his own, running away, disappearing, never to be seen again.
Thud.
Until now.
Adam shuddered as another shovelful of dirt hit the ground, some of it scattering and brushing his boots. Pa insisted once they knew. Adam breathed deep. Once they'd been told what happened, Pa insisted. He had to see his son.
Had to touch Joe one last time.
Pa was looking down into the grave, at that damned pine box, as the man reached for the lid. Adam turned aside. He couldn't. He didn't want to see, because he knew what he would see. When he closed his eyes in the empty years to come, he wanted the image behind them to be his little brother laughing and snorting and fighting and shouting, not some bloated corpse with blackened lips and staring eyes.
God.
Joe...
Adam glanced over his shoulder at the tree where the ropes still dangled, cut in stark silhouette against the horizon. The sheriff of Genoa was there, watching them, and about half of the citizenry of the town. They didn't know the name of Cartwright. They didn't know how impossible it was that his little brother had shot and killed the manager of the new Genoa City Bank and robbed it, callously stealing their sweat and blood.
Blood. This was his blood.
Joe was dead.
He was only fourteen.
