Pandora's Sisters
1
Joe raced ahead of his brothers, spurred on as much by the heat in his own blood as by the plume of smoke they'd spotted rising up over the tree line. Someone was on Ponderosa lands where no one should be…and worse, the trespasser was burning a fire at the edge of a dry valley in the middle of a drought. It was enough to enrage any one of the Cartwrights and half their ranch hands besides; but Joe seemed to be particularly angry, as though he was itching for a fight…the kind of fight that could get a man killed.
Sharing a frustrated glance with Hoss, Adam kicked his heels into his own mount, eager to catch up with his young, ill-tempered brother; but it wasn't long before he had to rein in again, discovering that Joe's mad race had come to an abrupt halt for no apparent reason. The smoke was rising just as steadily as it had moments before, the threat no less critical. Yet somehow, in an instant, Joe's rage had vanished. The fire in his own gaze had cooled. The defiant set of his shoulders had loosened…melted…fallen away.
Joe wasn't even looking at the smoke anymore. He was looking at the ground, the sky, at everything and at nothing at all.
"Joe?" The concern in Hoss's tone matched what Adam was feeling.
Joe's brow furrowed. He looked at Hoss, but only for a moment before looking away again, his attention apparently captured by the branches of a tree ahead of him. "The cabin," he said finally, softly, a slight catch in his voice.
Only then did Adam recognize the path they had taken, the path to an old cabin in the valley where Joe had planned to set down his independent roots among the ghosts of another man's misfortune, a man from Kentucky whose own roots had not taken here, his wife having died in her effort to join him. Barely a year ago, Joe had faced down those Kentucky ghosts, intent on bringing that cabin back to life for himself and his bride-to-be, Laura, a childhood sweetheart with whom Joe's friendship had quickly been rekindled, and even more quickly evolved into love.
"Why don't you head back, Joe?" Adam offered. "We'll take care of it."
Joe might as well have been a statue but for Cochise's impatient huffs. He said nothing, seeming more afraid than sad. Adam had the feeling Joe was waiting for something his brothers simply couldn't give him…as though he was waiting to be assured Laura herself was in that cabin stoking the kitchen stove, and that the past year had been nothing more than a peculiar dream.
Adam opened his mouth, keenly aware it was his duty as Joe's wiser, older brother to ease Joe's troubled thoughts, but words remained elusive. What could he possibly say now, after all these months? Any words of comfort that could have been offered had been said long ago. They'd been said, accepted, and filed away. And there weren't any left over, at least none that Adam could find. Sighing, he instead turned to Hoss, whose own brows had knit together in empathy with Joe.
"We'll take care of it," Adam said again, his voice this time sounding determined rather than consoling.
A moment later he was racing every bit as hard as Joe had been before, and feeling every bit as angry. God help whatever squatters had taken refuge in Joe's cabin.
xxx
Ready for an argument…a battle…a conflict raw in nature and thereby satisfying to a man with fire in his veins, Adam was taken off guard to be greeted by a woman at the cabin. She stepped through the door with the stance of a queen and a smile that seemed more sly than pleasant, and was wearing a white apron over a flowered dress. Her beauty was regal, as well. The stunning features of a woman who would steal the breath of any man, young or old, were marred only slightly by thin lines of age, and there was a white streak in her otherwise black hair, now pulled back into a thick, tight bun. Even so, there was nothing weary in her gaze; it bore into Adam with a sharpness he found disturbing before slipping toward Hoss and then settling back on Adam.
"May I help you, gentlemen?" she asked in a voice as tight as her bun.
"You can tell us," Adam said in return, "what you're doing on our property?"
"Your property?" There was no surprise in her reply, only the hint of debate.
"Yes." Adam infused that single word with some sharpness of his own. "You're on Ponderosa lands. You must have seen the signs on the road you would have followed to come here."
"I saw no signs, Mr.…?"
"Cartwright. Adam Cartwright. And this is my brother, Hoss. And yes, there were signs. You'd have to be blind not to see them."
"I can assure you, Mr. Cartwright, I am not blind. Nor did I see any signs. I saw only a deserted cabin, and we were in need of shelter. Would you deny shelter to people in need, particularly when that shelter has been abandoned and forgotten?"
"And I can assure you, Miss…?"
"You may call me Anesidora."
"Anesidora?" Adam challenged.
She cocked her head, saying nothing.
"That's a rather unusual name," Adam added.
"I could say the same of your brother's, Mr. Cartwright."
"Well, Hoss ain't actually my given name, Miss…," Hoss paused, seeming puzzled, before saying, simply, "Dora."
The woman smiled slightly, maybe cunningly, reminding Adam of Da Vinci's Mona Lisa.
"Am I right to presume Anesidora is likewise not your given name?" Adam asked.
"You will presume so no matter how I respond. Isn't that right, Mr. Cartwright?"
"Well, Anesidora," Adam went on, emphasizing the peculiar name, "this cabin may have been abandoned, but it most certainly has not been forgotten. The simple fact is you're trespassing. We won't deny you shelter, but you can't stay here indefinitely. How long before you and your family can be prepared to move on?"
"That depends."
"On what?"
A shrill scream from within the cabin pulled Adam's gaze to the small structure, where he finally noticed two rifles poking through the open windows, aimed at both Hoss and him. Going rigid, he returned his attention to the woman just as another, more anguished scream sounded from inside. There was a slight tensing of the woman's shoulders in response, but her composure never wavered.
Slowly, Adam dismounted. "Just what is going on here?"
"Nothing that concerns you."
"That's where you're wrong. This is our property; it most definitely does concern me." A quick glance to Hoss assured Adam his brother had also dismounted, and was as concerned as Adam.
Then a third scream pulled both brothers forward…until both rifles fired, the bullets hitting the ground at their feet with a spray of sand.
"Tell them to put down their weapons," Adam demanded.
"They are only trying to protect their sisters."
"We would never hurt your daughters, ma'am," Hoss said.
"They are not my daughters. They are my sisters. And none of us has any reason to trust you."
"Sure you do, ma'am. We won't bring any harm to any of you."
"Unless," Adam added, "any of you made it a point to bring harm to us."
Another scream sounded from inside, though this one was softer, almost a desperate moan.
"It looks terrible bad, Hannah!" another woman's voice called from inside.
When Adam looked again to the woman who'd named herself Anesidora, he finally saw a chink in her armor. "Hannah, then? Is that your name?"
Her responding glare was answer enough.
"Why Anesidora?"
"Do you know its meaning, Mr. Cartwright?"
"I know it's from Greek mythology. An alternate name for Pandora, if I'm not mistaken."
"You are not. As a word, Anesidora means a giver or sender of gifts."
"And yet Pandora—"
"Brought ruin and misfortune to men."
"Is that what you intend to do?"
"Only to those who deserve it."
Adam looked again to Hoss, who seemed hopelessly confused. Then, he looked to the cabin, searching for clues to whomever was inside. Finally, he caught a glimpse of the dark skin and coarse hair common to Southern slaves; and then, someone else…a Chinese girl, if he wasn't mistaken.
"Tell me, Hannah Anesidora, just what are you and your…sisters…doing on the Ponderosa?"
An agonized moan sounded from inside.
"Hannah!" a woman shouted. "I don't know what to do! I don't know what to do!"
Hannah started slowly toward the cabin, though her gaze stayed locked on Adam.
"We can help you if you let us," Adam said.
She stopped at the door, her chest rising and falling on a series of deep breaths. "Agnes is in labor," she said finally, glaring at Adam as though he might dare to argue. "The baby is breech."
xxx
Joe had not been back to the cabin in months. In the first weeks following Laura's death, he'd found it hard to stay away. He could spend hours there, imagining how life would have been—how it should have been—with Laura as his wife. He would stare at the cradle Adam had made for him, picturing the baby that should by lying there, Laura's baby…his own son. But at some point things began to change. The cabin began to feel cold rather than comforting. It began to feel empty…and yet, not empty at all, as though its ghosts were crowded with him there, as though he was no longer welcome.
Joe had grown up hearing talk about that old cabin being haunted, but it wasn't until Laura's touch began to fade from his memory that he, too, came to believe it, when he began to feel a different kind of touch, the touch of death.
He couldn't bring himself to go back there. Not anymore. Not ever again.
Not until two rifle shots told him he had to.
That cabin had already taken Laura; it wasn't going to take Joe's brothers, too.
xxx
When Adam followed Hannah into the cabin, another woman stepped between them, seeming intent to keep him out despite Hannah's unspoken decision to allow him inside.
The woman's eyes caught him first; they stopped Adam before he even came to notice the rifle in her grip, aimed at the ceiling but threatening nonetheless. Her eyes were a wide ball of pure white around an almost fiery center…or like a fly trapped in amber. Yes, that's what those irises reminded him of, the deep black of another life, from another time, caught in an amber ball, waiting to be unleashed.
Slowly, he came to realize that the white surrounding that amber was intensified by the blackness of the woman's face. Adam had never before seen skin so richly black, and shockingly, stunningly beautiful. She looked ethereal, like something coming alive out of the pages of a book, a goddess from ancient times, a creature both animal and human, as captivating as she was deadly. She was tall, too, her eyes on a level with his own. Tall and thin, she was more sinewy than skeletal. He could imagine her lithe form slipping through the trees beyond the cabin with the grace of a woodland nymph.
"Hecate," Hannah's voice said from somewhere ahead of Adam.
Hecate. It was the name of a Greek goddess, a moon goddess, if Adam could remember correctly.
The goddess before him neither moved from his path, nor turned her gaze. As she continued to stare at him, his thoughts conjured an image of a black cat making ready to go for his throat.
"Hecate!" Hannah called more sternly.
Finally, the goddess's eyes shifted. Her right shoulder dipped and she turned away, every move like a dancer in a ballet.
And then another scream sounded from the bedroom beyond, and suddenly Adam was forgotten. The Nubian woman named Hecate thrust her rifle into Hannah's hand and then drew back the curtain separating the bedroom from the rest of the cabin.
"Go!" she commanded to someone inside. The word was pronounced in a way Adam had never heard before, a way that somehow gave it more power.
An instant later, a much shorter, very young, red-headed woman slipped out of the room, her gaze landing briefly on Adam before darting away in fear. She threw her arms around Hannah as the curtain slipped back into place behind her.
"She's gonna die, Hannah!" the red-head cried. "I just know she's gonna die!"
But Hannah pushed her away. "She is not going to die, Lucy! Now get a hold of yourself!"
"She is!" Lucy argued. "She is gonna die! The baby ain't comin' right! It ain't comin' right at all!"
Surprisingly, Hannah slapped her. "She can hear you, you fool!" Hannah hissed in a low, menacing tone. "Now, either pull yourself together or get out of here!"
"We'd best get Doc Martin," Hoss said as Lucy ran outside. His tone was firm, but his eyes revealed his discomfort with the young woman's hysteria and the persistent sounds of moaning from the other side of that bedroom curtain.
"No!" Hannah shot back. "No doctor," she said again, more softly.
"She needs a doctor," Adam argued.
"It isn't possible."
"Why not?"
Hannah glared at him. Pulling her back as perfectly straight as it had been before, she regained her regal stance. "As you must surely have determined by now, we are on the run, Mr. Cartwright. All of us. I had hopes that the Ponderosa could shield us, at least long enough for Agnes to deliver that child she was too stubborn to shed herself of months ago."
"So you did know you were trespassing," Adam pressed, ignoring the disturbing undertone of her words.
She cocked her head. "With good cause, Mr. Cartwright, I assure y—"
Another scream, this one from outside the cabin, stopped Hannah cold. Adam was about to race outside when a rifle shot exploded beside him. He looked to the Chinese woman still perched at the window as she pulled back the lever, preparing another round.
"Joe!" Hoss shouted, running through the door.
xxx
Moments earlier, Joe had left Cochise hidden in the trees, and then crept forward, his gun already in hand. As soon as he had the cabin in his sights, he slipped from tree to tree, edging ever closer until he reached his last hope for cover. He held himself tightly against the trunk of a large pine tree, his eyes locked on the cabin.
Sport and Chubb were hitched to the post in the front yard, but there was no sign of their riders. Joe could only assume his brothers were inside. He had to assume someone else was in there as well, someone who had already fired once on Adam and Hoss. One thing Joe could not assume was whether or not either of his brothers had been hit; and from this vantage he had no hope of finding an answer to that very critical question.
He was about to make a dash for the side of the cabin when a young woman ran outside sobbing. She rushed toward him, clearly oblivious to where she was going. He ducked back behind the tree, listening as she approached closer and closer…and then…too close. She threw herself against the very same tree.
Glancing briefly up at Heaven in exasperation, Joe held himself perfectly still, stifling his own breaths as he listened to hers, coming ragged and harsh with her desperate, pain-wrought tears. And then…Joe began to wonder what it was that had caused those tears. Was she crying because someone else inside that cabin had hurt Joe's brothers…or worse, killed them?
Suddenly feeling a desperation of his own, Joe cast another glance upward before daring to break his cover.
"Shhh," he whispered without moving as he slid his gun back into its holster. "It's alright. I won't hurt you."
He heard the girl's breath catch.
"It's alright. I promise, you. It's alright." He eased himself away from the tree. His gaze met hers.
Her eyes went wide a split second before her mouth did the same. She screamed.
"I won't hurt you!" Joe said louder, his hands gripping her shoulders. "I won't—"
With the crack of a rifle, something slammed into Joe's foot, dropping him to the ground.
Since his hands were still locked on the woman's shoulders, she came down with him, but she was quick to slither away, her own hands slapping at his face and shoulders as she extricated herself from his grip. An instant later she was on her feet, running toward another tree and then planting herself against it as though it were a shield.
Joe watched her watching him, her chest rising and falling with quick, unsteady breaths, until a harsh click like an angry slap drew her gaze back toward the cabin, and Joe's as well. He knew that sound, the cocking of a rifle. Whoever had shot at him a moment earlier was preparing to try again, and this time he was out in the open.
"Joe!" Hoss's voice pulled Joe's attention from the rifle at the window to the welcome sight of his brother running through the cabin door.
Relieved, Joe pushed himself up far enough to examine the damage done to his foot, but before he even had the chance to look at it, Hoss was hovering over him. "Where'd she hit you, boy?"
Joe looked at him, confused. "She?"
Hoss nodded. "Little Chinese gal. A crack shot, if ya' ask me. My guess is if she'd wanted to kill you, she would have."
"She?" Joe asked again. And then suddenly he found himself the center of attention, surrounded by a small crowd of women and the wary gazes of both of his brothers.