I
I probably shouldn't tell you this story because it, well, it casts me in a bad light, lustful and perhaps disloyal, but I feel compelled to do so; maybe it'll help me sleep at night if I get it off my chest. Maybe then I can have some peace.
Jason Blaine had died—there was nothing mysterious about it so this isn't about a murder but a love story of sorts. Actually it's about how I manage to exist with my heart having been shattered, left in shards like pieces of sharp glass—destroyed, and I should be dead. If there's any mystery at all, it's that I'm not.
But there's no mystery at all about Jason Blaine; he died of a broken neck—was glassy-eyed drunk for an unknown reason, at least at the time-and fell off his horse—went over the damned animal's head when it shied at a piece of paper fluttering in the street. It had been a bad winter and we buried him in the rock-hard, frozen ground. My family paid extra money for more gravediggers—in order to start the grave, they had to blast the ground open with a small charge of dynamite- as a favor to Mariette, Jason's widow, and the closest that I and my brothers have to a sister.
Mariette's father, Brock Larson, and ours were close friends having both arrived in the area at the same time and both started ranches simultaneously, helping each other out. My father was "luckier," he always said, as if making excuses for the many acres we owned and the wealth we received from the mill and the silver mines, but I knew that wasn't true. My father had simply persevered in the face of misfortune and adversity while Mariette's father collapsed in similar situations. When a plague hit the cattle, Larson had no idea what to do but to shoot the remaining steer in the herd and piss and moan about his misfortune while my father cut the sick ones from the herd, shot them, burned the carcasses, and then carefully watched the others; we lost only a third of our stock. Pa, of course, gave Larson a starter herd and one of our best bulls but that's Pa. Besides, I think he felt guilty.
"I have you to help me, Adam," Pa had explained when I asked him why he was just giving away the cattle and the bull. I was only thirteen at the time but even then, I thought it was too much and it surprised me that Brock Larson would even consider taking the animals gratis. "In a few years, Hoss will be able to help us and then, eventually, Joe. Brock has only Mariette and won't have a son, anyone other than his few hands to help him, until she marries. I think that giving Brock a few steer so that he can build up his stock—well—it's the least I can do for an old friend." But I didn't buy it—I knew that my assistance in running the Ponderosa was limited and that Old Will, the foreman, and the other ranch hands were far more valuable than I was and that Larson had ranch hands as well. What I didn't know at the time was that we were paying Larson's ranch hands until he was back on his feet. Nevertheless, I didn't question my father about it any further. I could tell he didn't want to explain himself to me—actually didn't have to explain himself to me-because he lowered his eyes when he spoke to me and then went back to his pipe waiting for Marie to join him downstairs after baby Joe was asleep.
Both men, my father and Larson, also lost their wives within three months of each other, Marie, Joe's mother, tragically dying first. When Mariette's mother died, her father just couldn't rouse himself to accrue any more land or even to manage that which he had. So Pa helped him, sending over our hands for round-up and branding and bringing Mariette to the ranch for days at a time as her father fell into despair. I remember I was disgusted with Larson—how could a man just give up like that? But my father told me never to judge anyone's depth of grief or how they dealt with it. I think he was talking about himself. But I remembered those words later; grief can be debilitating if it is deep enough. I know that now.
But it was nice to have Mariette at the house and I grew fond of her and protective. Mariette and Hoss were the same age so I became her older brother, Joe her younger, and Hoss her companion. We all loved Mariette, especially Pa who I think saw her as the daughter he never had; she was pretty and a sweet-natured girl with a coy smile but sad, blue eyes even when she smiled. But she and I were closest for some reason and I became her confidante. Mariette didn't go to Pa when she had a problem, but to me and I always felt special.
On his deathbed, Mariette's father made my father swear that he would see to her upbringing and he did. Mariette stayed with us for almost two years and went to school with Hoss and then Pa sent her to a boarding school in Baltimore. When she came back at 17 years, Mariette met Jason Blaine, a mineralogist and an assayer, when he came out to the Ponderosa for a job. He began to court Mariette and they fell in love and married a year later, the ceremony held at the Ponderosa. Pa gave her away. It was a joyful day and Pa went all out as well as Hop Sing or so I was told, as I was away at school at the time. When I finally returned home and met Jason, something about him made me wary; he behaved like a hunted animal but Mariette was in love with him and so I ignored my gut feeling. That's always a mistake.
As I said, Jason seemed like a hunted animal because he was one. Before Jason left San Francisco for Virginia City to set up shop as an assayer, he had worked for a group of high-powered 'claim jumpers' known as "Murdoch's Gang." When the miners would come into his San Francisco office to validate their finds, to verify that what they had was gold and ascertain its value, Jason would tell his 'boss,' Murdoch, and Murdoch would send out his "night riders," anonymous vigilantes to kill the miners. Then Murdoch would usurp the claims and Jason would receive a split. It all came out two years after he and Mariette married and it's a long story I'd rather not tell here but suffice it to say that Jason did a year in prison, a "gift" from the state for turning state's witness. He then returned to a welcoming Mariette who had lived with us after the trial. During that time, she had thrown herself into charity work for the church, helping to start the fund to build a hospital and a clinic for the Paiutes. My father helped set Jason up in business again and because he had the approval of the Cartwrights, especially my father and me, and because Mariette was so kind and beloved by the townsfolk, Jason soon had a thriving assayer's business despite his past. I was always cordial to Jason for Mariette's sake but I still didn't trust him—he had shifty eyes. Hoss just laughed at that when I mentioned it but it was true albeit it a childish reason. Jason seemed to always be looking around, never really settling his gaze for long.
'Now, Adam,' Hoss said, "iffen you'd been through what he has, you'd be on your guard all the time too. Matter of fact—you always are anyway, 'fraid someone's gonna get the best of you or turn on you."
Although I told Hoss to kiss my ass, he was right, I am always on guard and there aren't many people I trust and I definitely didn't trust Jason Blaine despite the fact that Mariette adored him and he seemed to make her happy for over four more years.