Je T'aime, Ma
By Sarah Hendess
Ponderosa Ranch
Territorio de Alta California, Mexico
April, 1842
Adam rubbed his arms as his father double-checked the cinch on his horse's saddle. The morning air was icy, and Adam wished he had put on his coat like his stepmother, Marie, had suggested.
"You really gonna be gone a whole month, Pa?" he asked.
Ben Cartwright glanced over his shoulder at his oldest son. "Yes, son. At least three weeks, anyway. It's a good four or five days to San Francisco, and then I've got to close that timber deal and hire some men for our cattle drive this summer. Then another four or five days home."
"Pa? You think San Francisco will be part of the United States soon?"
Ben furrowed his brow. He patted his horse's neck and lumbered over to his son. "I think everything from here to the ocean will be part of the United States soon. We'll either buy it from Mexico, or they'll give it up." He laid a hand on the boy's shoulder. "What's bothering you, boy?"
Adam's intelligent hazel eyes snapped up and caught his father's gaze. He shifted his weight. "Nothin', Pa."
A happy squeal issued from the small ranch house behind them, and father and son smiled at one another. Clearly, Marie had just caught hold of Adam's five-year-old brother, Hoss, and attacked him with tickles. Even at six months pregnant, Marie was quick on her feet. Ben gave Adam's shoulder a squeeze.
"Don't you worry, son. I'll be home in plenty of time for your birthday, and well before the baby comes."
Adam's eyes darkened. Babies were bad news for his family. His own mother had died giving birth to him, and Hoss's mother had been killed by Indians only weeks after Hoss's birth. Adam had spent the past few months trying to forget about his forthcoming sibling, but it was harder now that Marie's belly was getting so swollen.
He hadn't wanted another stepmother in the first place. Hoss's mother, Inger, had been the only mother Adam had ever known. After she died, there had been no opportunity for either Ben or Adam to grieve. They were among hostile Indians in the middle of Nebraska, and they had a new baby to care for. So they buried Inger and carried on. Then six-year-old Adam had become his father's primary helpmate and like a second parent to Hoss. A rush of heat still surged through Adam's chest whenever he remembered Ben bringing Marie home last summer. Ben had gone off to New Orleans on business and had returned with a new wife without a word to Adam. In an instant, Adam had gone from being his father's partner to being just another eleven-year-old boy who was always getting reminded to wash behind his ears. Then at Christmas, Ben and Marie had announced that Adam and Hoss would be getting a baby brother or sister the following summer. It was supposed to be a fantastic surprise. And for Hoss, it was. The pudgy little boy had thrown his arms around both Ben and Marie – whom he had started calling "Ma" the instant she'd arrived on the Ponderosa – and then spent the next several minutes running excited laps around their tiny living room. Adam had shaken his father's and stepmother's hands, congratulated them, and then cracked open the new book he'd received.
Marie stepped out onto the porch just then, Hoss clutching her hand. Both of them were pink-faced and giggling. Adam's smile returned. Hoss deserved a mother, and Marie was a good one to him. While he preferred to keep his own distance, Adam was grateful to her for loving Hoss so well.
"Are you about to leave, mon chéri?" she asked Ben as he strode toward the house.
"Yes, I think I've got everything." Ben swept an arm around Marie's waist and drew her to him. They both laughed as he bounced off her belly. Ben leaned in and gave her a soft kiss. "You sure you'll be all right with these two rascals while I'm gone?"
Hoss answered for her. "Don't worry, Pa. I won't let Adam get in no trouble."
Ben chuckled again and ruffled his youngest son's blond hair. Hoss jumped up at him, and Ben swung him into his arms.
"My goodness, you're getting heavy!" Ben grunted. He gave the boy a quick hug and set him right back down. "You're gonna outweigh me any day now!"
Adam decided this was probably true. His five-year-old brother already weighed as much as he did, and there was no doubt that in a few years, he'd be head-and-shoulders taller, too. Hoss Cartwright was on track to be as big as a grizzly bear.
Ben gave Marie another kiss and then returned to his horse, where Adam was still standing. He looked down at him and stuck out his right hand. The left corner of Adam's mouth turned up in a half smile as he shook his father's hand like men should.
"You're the man of the house while I'm gone, Adam. You take care of your mother and brother, you hear?"
"Yes, sir."
"Good man." Ben smiled at Adam and chucked him under the chin before swinging onto his horse. With a final wave to his family, Ben turned his horse down the trail leading away from the house.
Adam let out a wistful sigh as he watched his father disappear on his tall, black stallion. With his father's permission, he was allowed to ride Ben's second horse, but it was no secret that Adam wanted a mount that was truly his own. One he could saddle up anytime he wanted and explore the vast expanse of the Ponderosa Ranch. Ben had bought 100,000 acres off the Mexican government for a song about three years ago. Since then, he'd increased his holdings to 350,000 acres, and he wasn't done yet. Adam knew he'd never get to see it all without his own horse.
When Ben had vanished from view, Adam turned to Hoss and Marie. "Hoss, did you get the eggs already?" The little boy nodded. "All right. Let's get those stalls cleaned out, then." Adam started for the barn, but when he didn't hear any footsteps behind him, he turned around. Hoss was still on the porch, looking questioningly up at Marie.
"You know you have to mind him even when your father is home," Marie gently reminded Hoss. "So that goes double when your father is away. Go on." She gave Hoss a little nudge. The boy trudged down the porch steps, a scowl on his face and his hands jammed in his pockets.
"Don't like cleanin' out the stalls," Hoss grumbled. "They smell like poo."
Adam bit back a laugh. "That's the problem, you goose. The animals don't like it, either." He slung an arm around his little brother's shoulders as they ambled toward the barn.
Adam kept Hoss busy until lunchtime and then let his little brother play for the afternoon while he continued fussing about. There wasn't much that really needed to be done, but Adam was relishing being in charge. He brushed Ben and Marie's horses until they shone and then spent the next ten minutes sweeping all the horse hair out of the barn that he and Hoss had cleaned so carefully that morning. If he'd remembered the horses were blowing their winter coats, he would have brushed them outside. He tried to brush their milk cow, too, but patient though she was, Bessie let her disdain for the currycomb be known with a loud, indignant "MOO!" right in Adam's ear.
Near suppertime, Adam scrambled up into the hayloft to feed the horses. He chucked hay into the stalls and was about to climb down the ladder and go back to the house when he heard high-pitched mewing coming from one corner of the loft. He tiptoed over. When he was nearly to the corner, he dropped to his hands and knees and finished his approach at a crawl. Pushing aside some hay, he revealed a fat black cat lying on her side, a litter of tiny kittens nursing greedily at her belly.
"Gretel!" Adam exclaimed, breaking into a grin. "You've got yourself a family! Congratulations!"
Ben had brought Gretel and her male counterpart, Hansel, home from a trip to Eagle Station two summers ago, but this was their first litter. Adam glanced around but didn't see the burly orange tomcat.
"Probably strutting around the ranch, pleased to pieces with himself," Adam muttered. He turned back to Gretel and counted five kittens: two jet-black like her, two orange like Hansel, and one calico. They couldn't have been more than a day or two old – their eyes weren't even open yet. He smiled at the calico, who was a little smaller than the rest. "You're gonna be Hoss's favorite," he told the kitten. Then he caught Gretel's gaze. "I'll leave you be. You take good care of these babies." Still grinning, he crossed the loft, scampered down the ladder, and dashed to the house.
Hoss was beside himself with joy when Adam told him about the kittens over supper.
"Can we go see 'em tonight, Adam? Can we? Can we, please?" The boy's cherubic face glowed as he bounced up and down in his chair.
"It's almost dark," Adam said. "We'll look at them tomorrow morning."
Hoss's face fell, but only briefly. "Tell me all about 'em again, Adam!" he begged, his eyes shining.
Adam chuckled and told him for the fourth time about the five little kittens.
"They boys or girls?" Hoss asked.
"Couldn't look that closely. They're only a couple days old. Gretel would get real upset if we started poking at them already."
"I think I remember hearing that calicos are almost always female," Marie said as she began clearing dishes from the table. Adam sprang from his seat, took the dishes from her, and jerked his head toward the table, indicating that she should sit back down. "Thank you, Adam. Anyway, I just wish I could see them tomorrow, too. But I don't suppose I should be climbing up and down that ladder in my condition." She sank back into her chair and gave out a little laugh.
"When they're big enough, Ma, we'll bring 'em down so you can see 'em," Hoss said. "How long do you think that'll be, Adam?"
Adam returned from setting the dishes in the kitchen. He shrugged. "About a week, I guess. Once their eyes are open, Gretel probably won't mind so much if we pick them up. But like I said, we go poking at them right now, and she's gonna get real upset."
"And when Gretel gets upset, people get hurt," Hoss added.
"That they do."
The Cartwright boys had learned that lesson the hard way. Last summer, Adam had accidentally startled Gretel while she was sleeping in the woodpile behind the house. Hoss rushed in to rescue his brother from the terrified cat, and both boys had emerged from the skirmish scratched to pieces. They were much more careful around the woodpile after that.
After supper, Hoss helped Marie wash the dishes, and Adam enjoyed a few quiet moments in the living room. The air had grown cold again after the sun had set, so he built a small fire in the fireplace and stretched out on the hearthrug with a sketchpad and a pencil. Adam liked to draw. He could draw passable portraits of people and animals, but it was buildings that really caught his fancy. With a new baby on the way, the Cartwrights wouldn't be able to stay in the small two-bedroom ranch house forever, and Adam spent hours sketching ideas for a bigger house. He was so caught up in his most recent design that he barely noticed when Marie and Hoss joined him in the living room. Hoss paged through Grimms' Fairy Tales – he couldn't read much yet, but he loved looking at the illustrations – while Marie picked up her knitting. Adam couldn't understand why Marie was knitting so much. The baby was due in July – not really the time of year that one needed wool socks. But it seemed to make her happy, so he said nothing.
A half hour passed, and Adam was about to tell Hoss to wash up for bed when Marie let out a little "Ooh!" and clapped her hand to her belly.
"Boys! Come here, quick! The baby's kicking!"
Hoss scuttled across the sofa and slipped his hand under Marie's. His face split into a huge grin and he let out a squeal.
"Adam! Adam, the baby kicked me! You gotta come here!"
Adam had looked up but hadn't budged from the hearthrug. He was pretty sure he'd die of embarrassment if he put his hand on Marie's stomach. Besides, he'd felt Hoss kick plenty of times through Inger's belly. And he didn't like thinking about Inger. It made him feel like there was a belt tightening around his chest and squeezing all the air out. "I'm all right," he told Hoss. "You enjoy it." He turned back to his sketch. Hoss shrugged and laid his head in Marie's lap, giggling madly as his unborn sibling kicked his cheek.
When the baby settled down a few minutes later, Marie sent Hoss to the boys' bedroom to get ready for bed. When the sound of Hoss banging around for a nightshirt wafted down the hallway to the living room, Marie turned to Adam.
"The baby will probably move around again soon, if you'd like to feel it," she said.
"I'm all right, but thank you, Ma'am." He turned to his sketch once more.
"Are you sure?"
Adam fought against the squeezing in his chest. "Yes, Ma'am."
"You know, sweetheart, you can-"
Adam forced out a yawn. "If you'll excuse me, please, Ma'am, I'm awfully tired. Think I'll turn in early."
Marie's face fell, but she quickly plastered on a smile. "All right. I'll be in to say goodnight in a few minutes."
"Yes, Ma'am."
Adam zipped down the hallway toward his and Hoss's bedroom, his sketchbook clutched in his hand.
"Whatcha doin', Adam?" Hoss asked as his older brother burst into the room.
"Goin' to bed. What else would I be doing?"
"At my bedtime? You feeling all right?"
"I'm feeling fine. Just tired. Get in bed, Hoss."
The five-year-old obediently climbed into the top bunk of the bunkbeds he and Adam shared. Adam changed into his nightshirt and washed his face at the basin in one corner of the room. He tried to hurry so he could pretend to already be asleep when Marie came in, but he wasn't quite fast enough. Marie knocked on the door just as he crawled under the covers. Hoss, of course, called her right in. Marie smiled as she entered the room and crossed to the bunkbeds. Hoss leaned over the top bunk to hug her.
Marie gave him her usual goodnight wish in French: "Bonne nuit, mon chéri. Je t'aime." She kissed Hoss's forehead.
"I love you, too, Ma!" Hoss said. He nuzzled under his covers and closed his eyes.
Marie bent down with some difficulty and pulled the covers up around Adam's shoulders. "Goodnight, my darling. I love you," she repeated, again in French.
"Goodnight, Ma'am," Adam replied.
Marie gave him a sad smile and brushed a dark lock of hair off of his forehead. She hesitated for a moment, and Adam was afraid she was going to kiss him, too, but she just patted his shoulder and left the room. He rolled over and closed his eyes, the sensation of Marie's soft hand lingering on his brow.
Hoss couldn't wait until after breakfast the next morning to see the kittens, so as soon as the brothers were dressed, Adam took him out to the barn. He knew he should insist they complete their morning chores first, but Hoss's excitement was infectious.
"Don't go charging over there," Adam instructed as he let Hoss climb the hayloft ladder ahead of him. "Wait for me." The ladder groaned under their combined weight as Adam followed Hoss into the loft. Some of the rungs were rickety, too, which Adam hadn't noticed the previous evening. He frowned. If the ladder were protesting him and Hoss together, it couldn't be any safer for Ben. Adam finished his ascent wondering if his carpentry skills were advanced enough to build a new ladder without his father's oversight.
Hoss clapped a hand over mouth to muffle his shriek of delight as Adam pushed aside the hay in the corner to reveal Gretel and her babies. The kittens were nursing again, and Gretel blinked up at them with sleepy eyes. Adam could have sworn she looked smug.
"Oh, Adam, they're so cute!" Hoss whispered. "One, two, three, four, five, just like you said!"
"I know how to count," Adam replied with a grin.
"What are we gonna name 'em all?"
"I suppose that depends on whether they're boys or girls."
"Well which are they?"
Praying that Gretel wouldn't attack him, Adam very slowly reached out one finger and lifted the tail of one of the orange kittens. He stared, his head cocked to one side. Wrinkling his brow, he dropped the thin orange tail and raised the one attached to the calico. Stumped, he checked every kitten before turning back to Hoss.
"I can't tell," he said.
Hoss giggled. "You don't know the difference between boys and girls?"
"I know the difference!" Adam huffed. Ben had had that talk with him a couple years earlier, and besides, they lived on a cattle ranch. The animals made the difference quite plain. Ben hadn't had much to tell Adam that the boy hadn't already seen for himself. "They're just too small. We'll have to wait until they get a bit bigger."
Hoss's shoulders slumped. "Maybe we can at least name that one." He pointed to the calico. "Ma said most calicos are girls."
"All right. What do you want to name her?"
Hoss scrunched up his face in thought so hard that Adam thought his head might pop. "Patches," Hoss said at last. "'Cause she looks like a little patchwork quilt."
Adam smiled. It wasn't very inventive, but Hoss had a point. "All right, then. Welcome to the family, Patches Cartwright."
"Adam, do you think I can hold her?"
"I think we're lucky Gretel let me touch her. You better wait at least another day or two. Besides, she's eating. How would you like it if some giant picked you up in the middle of your breakfast?"
"Not very much," Hoss admitted. "I do like breakfast."
"Me, too. Let's go get some."
The brothers grinned at each other, and Adam carefully pushed the hay back into place to conceal Gretel and her babies so they'd feel safe. The boys picked their way back to the ladder. Hoss was about to clamber down, but Adam held out an arm to stop him.
"Let me go first," he said. "I'm not so sure about a couple of these rungs." Adam made his way slowly down the ladder, jiggling each rung to test its soundness. A couple of them could stand to be replaced, and one truly concerned him. It was beginning to splinter. Usually the Cartwrights looked for such signs of wear on their equipment each year when winter broke, but the winter had been especially hard that year. Come spring, they'd been so busy repairing walls and roofs that the hayloft ladder must have gotten overlooked. "Watch out for this rung here near the middle," he called up to Hoss. "I don't trust it. Skip it if you can." Hoss nodded and made his way down slowly, stretching one leg as far as he could to skip over the damaged rung. Once he was safely on the ground, he and Adam raced each other back to the house, which was already emitting the delicious scents of bacon and eggs.
"Hey, Adam?" Hoss puffed as they reached the porch. Adam could easily outrun his little brother, but he'd made sure their race had ended in a tie.
"Hey what?"
"D'ya think we're gonna get a baby brother or a baby sister?"
"I don't know. I suppose the odds are even."
"What're you hopin' for?"
Adam cocked his head and studied Hoss's eager face. "Can't say I've really thought about it."
"I want a little sister," Hoss said thoughtfully. "Already got you, so a sister would even things out."
"That's a good point. But I guess we'll get what we get, won't we?"
"Oh, it'll be a girl. Ma says I'm so cute I can get just about whatever I want."
Adam laughed. "Come on, buddy. Let's get that breakfast."
Hoss slipped his plump hand in Adam's as the brothers headed inside.