BOOTLESS CRIES
Chapter One
"Joe. What in the Sam Hill do you think you're doin'?"
Hoss Cartwright paused just outside his youngest brother's door. It was open and he could see into the room. Joe was in his dress clothes. He was laying on his stomach on top of his bed, stretched out as far as he could be across it clean to the other side. One socked foot was crooked around the post, anchoring him, and he was half-buried in the dust ruffle which he had raised over his head so he could look under the bed. At his voice his little brother started guiltily. Joe shifted the dust ruffle and looked out from under it with an expression something like a monk caught red-handed in the abbey.
"What?"
Hoss stepped into the room. "What in Tarnation are you doin'? Pa's waitin'."
"Well, I've got a little problem, Hoss," Joe said as his foot began to lose its hold and he started to slip over the side.
"I can see that." Hoss moved quickly and caught Joe's foot. "Ain't there an easier way of lookin' under your bed?"
"Well, if I'd realized I'd be looking under my bed, I would have done it an easier way, but I didn't realize I'd be looking under it until I did," Joe replied, his voice muffled.
Hoss puzzled over that one for a minute. It was his turn.
"What?"
"Just don't let go."
The big man stared at his hand, and then at his brother's foot – and then let go.
Joe slipped over the side and hit the floor with a loud thud!
"Hey!"
Hoss rounded the bed. His brother was sitting on the floor buried in candle wicking and cloth. The dust ruffle had come plumb out of its moorings and half of it was wrapped around his skinny little frame like a toga. Joe blinked as if a bit stunned and then plunged his head under the bed.
The big man's hair was thin and he hesitated to hassle it, but his fingers made their way there and Hoss scratched his head anyway. "Well, if that don't beat all..." When his brother failed to emerge within thirty seconds, Hoss knelt on the other side of the bed and lifted what remained of the dust ruffle and stared into the darkness.
He could see Joe's eyes shining like a rabbit's.
"You got a girl under here?" Hoss asked.
Joe snorted. "Two."
The sound of a throat being cleared made Hoss turn toward the door. Adam was standing in it wearing that expression he so often wore when he was around the two of them – one of exasperation mixed with affection and peppered with amusement.
"Do I want to know?" he asked.
Joe's curly brown head popped up over the other side of the bed. "Know what?"
Hoss was still looking. Dag blame it! if he didn't think there was a gal or two under there.
"My guess would be hide and seek," Adam drawled, closing the book he held, "except I think you two are a little old for that."
"You're right, Adam," Joe said as he stood. Hoss could hear it. He knew his little brother was wearing that maddening grin he had – the one that made you want to hug him and slap him all at one and the same time. "I am playing hide and seek."
"Really?" the black-haired man inquired.
Hoss was still looking for the filly under the bed.
"Really," their youngest brother answered. "Though it ain't with Hoss, it's with my boots."
"Your boots?"
Joe shrugged. "Yeah, my dress boots. I can't find them anywhere."
Hoss poked his head up over the other side of the bed. "So you ain't got a girl under here?"
"Not unless she's in my boots," Joe replied, wrinkling his nose.
Adam shook his head. He glanced at the clock in Joe's room. "I give it about ten seconds before –"
"Boys!"
Adam winced. "Off by eight."
Ben Cartwright's bellow carried through the house. "We have an appointment at the photographer's at noon! It is now past nine. Are you coming down, or do I have to come up there and round you up like cattle?"
Adam turned toward the stair. "On our way, Pa," he shouted. A second later the black-haired man turned back to Joe. "We are, aren't we?
Joe shrugged again. "I can't go without boots."
"Don't you have another pair?"
Their little brother paled. "Good enough for Pa for having our likeness taken? No..."
Adam sighed. "The photographer's not going to take the likeness of your feet, for goodness sake."
"You tell that to Pa. You remember that time I wore the wrong color socks to the widow Martin's fiesta..."
"Boys! I am running out of patience!"
"Joe..."
"Well, what am I supposed to do?" Joe asked. "I've running out of boots!"
Adam sighed – again. This time it was that sigh of resignation that martyrs have before they step into the fire. "I'll go get you a pair of my dress boots."
"I can't wear your boots, Adam!" Joe protested. "Your feet are too long."
"Well, you can't wear Hoss's!" their older brother snapped back. "Unless you want to put both feet in one!"
"Hey!" Hoss said, feeling left out. Although mentioning his feet had brought him back into the conversation.
"Come now, you can't pretend you don't have big feet," his older brother scolded.
"I ain't denying my boots are large," Hoss admitted, "but two of Joe's feet wouldn't fit into them – all of him would!"
Joe rolled his eyes.
Adam snorted.
Ben bellowed again. Really loud this time.
"Coming, Pa!" all three shouted in response.
In the end, Joe wore Adam's boots.
He also fell down the stairs and had a nice shiner that was preserved for posterity in the ferrotype that was taken three hours later.
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Since they were in their dress clothes, their Pa took them to the hotel in Carson City to eat. 'A civilized meal for the civilized man', he said.
Joe Cartwright shifted down in his chair and stared at the china plate in front of him and the half-eaten steak on it. For some reason, he didn't have much of an appetite. Of course, part of that reason had sprung from his father's insistence on picking up another piece of civilization called a 'newspaper' and perusing it while they waited for their food. In the beginning it was sort of interesting. There was a front page article on the murder of a rich man in Upper State New York whose house had been broken into and the man found in the bathroom – his throat had been cut and he had been stabbed and strangled. He read it while his father regaled them with information from the inside of the paper concerning the markets and the price of steers in Abalone, as well as a somewhat boring tale about an ancient gold crown that was on its way to the home of a wealthy man in Virginia City. Just when he got to 'continued on page nine' his father snapped the paper and folded it and began to read again. The older man had found a piece on page six detailing an article that Adah Menken had written for another newspaper about the 1860 election . Their pa started by praising Adah for tackling the subject. Then he declared Adah a marvel and said that she was a woman who was going to make waves.
Then he started over and read the whole thing out loud.
Joe stared hard at the current page of the paper facing him, searching for something to distract himself. It didn't work. Even the ad for the circus coming to town that featured both a lizard man and a human caterpillar failed. After a minute he glanced at Hoss. The big man was happy as a dry pig in wet mud. He was finishing a pile of potatoes that had started so high they reached right up to the sky and were now down to nothing but a mole hill. Adam, as usual when anything their pa mentioned had to do with 'culture', was wearing that half-smile and leaning on his hand listening, absolutely fascinated.
He was... Well, he...
He wanted to hide in a hole.
His pa and his brothers were good men. They were good to him. He knew they loved him, but they just didn't understand.
They didn't understand what it was like to be picked up like a sack of potatoes and thrown into an alley and then beaten to within an inch of dying and to have done...
Nothing.
Joe reached up, past the shiner, to his forehead. It had been over a month, but the place where John C. Reagan's fist had broken the skin just above his left eye still hadn't healed. It puckered, making his already uneven eyebrows even more uneven. It bothered him, though Ellie Matthews had told him it gave him a 'rakish air' which had been kinda nice.
"Joe?" Hoss asked.
He started. "What?"
His brother pointed toward his plate. "You gonna eat that steak?"
Joe glanced at their Pa who would've made him, but who was still waxing eloquent over Adah Menken's glories and paying no attention.
He shoved the plate over. "You can have it."
"Thanks, Joe."
His brother's fork came down so fast it was all he could do to get his fingers out of the way in time.
Hoss took a bite and chewed. Apparently he was chewing over whatever was wrong with him too. "You okay, Joe?" his brother asked a minute later.
Joe heard a snap as the paper was lowered and their father looked at them. "Something wrong, you two?"
He shook his head. "No. You...you just keep reading, Pa."
Their father stared at him for a moment and then, it seemed to dawn. The paper dropped a bit. "Joe, forgive me. I didn't think –"
"There's nothing to think about, Pa. Like I said, you just keep reading." Joe wiggled his fingers for him to go on.
"If mentioning Adah brings up painful memories..."
Even Adamwinced at that one. "Joe, you know, there was nothing you could have done," his older brother said, knowing as usual precisely the wrong thing to say. "John C. Reagan was twice as big as you and trained to kill."
Joe's whole frame tensed. "I don't want to talk about it."
"Joe, Adam's right," their father began in that way he had when he was about to philosophize or lecture. Joe steeled himself. He could take it. He could listen to them rationalize why John C. Reagan had been able to pick him up like a five year old and break him. Why Reagan had been able to spit all kinds of vile things at him while he brutalized and walloped him and left him begging for mercy. Why –
Joe exploded out of the chair.
"I don't want to hear it! I'm going outside!" As every head in the hotel restaurant turned toward him, he slammed his hand down on the table so hard the silverware rattled. "And don't any of you dare follow me!"
The three of them looked at him in stunned silence as his chair shot back striking the table behind him and rattling the guests' supper plates. Tipping his hat he mumbled an apology to the two men. Then, on his way out the door, he nearly bowled over two cowhands - one dark and one light – who were leaning in the archway as if waiting for someone. Once past them he ran down the street and ducked into an alley before his father and brothers had a chance to see what direction he had taken. By the time Joe stopped he was shaking like a leaf in a strong wind. Tears welled in his eyes but he refused to let them fall. His pa never made fun of him for tears. Neither did his brothers. But they were another thing a man wasn't supposed to have.
He'd had them that night. John Reagan had made him cry.
And he was never gonna cry again.
Never.
Going as far into the alley as he could, Joe found a stack of boxes that were left over from a delivery to one of the nearby stores and pressed his slight form into the darkness behind them, curling up like he had when he was a child. He fought with himself – fought the tears coming, fought the rage rising, fought the darkness that wanted to overwhelm him and drive him even further away from the men he loved who were hunting him right now. He couldn't let them see him like this. He couldn't let them... If he did. If he did...
Those things that Reagan said would be true.
At first the attack had been pure hate and hurt. Reagan had pounded him like a rock he meant to shatter into a million pieces. He'd been beaten before, but he'd never known such pain. But then, as he lay there on the ground barely conscious, gasping for air and praying that it would stop, Reagan had pressed in and begun to whisper words...words...words so hurtful they made the bully's fists seem like powder puffs.
'Little boy', he kept saying, 'go ahead and cry little boy.'
Little Joe.
He'd wanted to die.
But he didn't. Joe shifted uncomfortably and tried to disappear even more completely into the shadows that lined the alley. He remembered coming to the first time. He could hear his pa's voice demanding something, wanting something from him – blink, Pa said, blink. At the time he had been so confused. He hadn't understood that his pa was worried about his eyesight. At the time it had seemed like Pa just didn't care that he was hurting so bad he wanted to die. Then he had awakened again.
Alone.
Alone with no one but a strange doctor hovering over him and a crowd of strangers looking at him and all of them laughing and wondering who the baby was who had had the snot knocked out of him.
Who was no longer a man.
Joe heard something. He looked around the barrel and saw the two cowhands who had been in the restaurant standing at the end of the alley. They hesitated a moment and then moved on.. A second later they were followed by Hoss and Adam and his Pa. As his family passed by something shifted in him and he realized that if they backtracked and found him here, curled in a ball like a baby, then they would think that too.
He couldn't let them find him here.
Sniffing, Joe wiped his snotty nose on his good coat and then ran the back of the sleeve over his eyes. A steely determination entered those green eyes as he stood. He'd show them who was a little boy. He'd show all of them that no one was going to do what John C. Reagan had done to him ever again.
He'd show them he was a man.
Determined to do just that. Joe Cartwright straightened his suit coat, ran a hand through his hair, and headed for trouble.
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"Where do you suppose Joe's gone?" Ben Cartwright asked his oldest son as they stepped out onto the porch of the hotel.
Adam shrugged. "You know Joe. He's got a burr in the saddle about something. He's liable to be anywhere."
"It's not like your brother to react so violently, Adam. I mean, yes, Joe's temper gets the best of him at times." He paused. "But this seemed...different."
Hoss hesitated, trying to spare his feelings. "You think it might'a had somethin' to do with that there article about Adah Menken, Pa?"
Ben sighed. "There are times, boys, when you have a fool for a father. I should have thought better of mentioning Adah..."
"Pa, why would you? It's been over a month and Joe's seemed fine." Adam frowned, obviously considering what had just occurred. " 'Seemed' being the operative word."
"What do you think it is, Pa?" Hoss asked.
Ben thought a moment. "Son, none of us know what your brother went through in that alley. Mentioning Adah must have triggered something, brought it all back, though why that would have made your brother want to run away from us, I don't understand."
"Maybe Joe just needed time to think, Pa," Adam suggested. "If that's the case, then we probably shouldn't look for him."
Ben pursed his lips and shook his head. "Your brother's behavior is inexcusable. Joe is no longer a child. Temper tantrums are not acceptable in a man. He needs to –"
"What I think Joe needs to do, Pa, is blow off a little steam," Hoss suggested. "Adam's right. I think we need to leave him alone this time and let him figure it out for himself."
Ben considered his sons' wise words and agreed.
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He regretted his choice at five a.m. the next morning when Sheriff Coffee came knocking at their door. Ben hadn't been asleep for long. The knocking woke both him and Adam who followed him sleepily down the staircase. When they opened the door they found Roy. The sheriff had Joe in hand.
His shiner had a shiner and he had a split lip.
As Roy deposited his youngest son on the settee, the sheriff said, "I shoulda locked him up, Ben, for all the trouble he caused. I didn't 'cause I know you'll take care of things. But I'm warning you, one more night like last night and I'll lock Little Joe up good and tight and throw away the key!"
Ben's eyes were on his youngest. Joe's head was down. He refused to meet his gaze.
"What did he do?"
"Got drunk and got into a brawl with a stranger. Busted out the window of a nearby store. I told the store keep you'd pay for it."
Ben nodded, his eyes still on Joe. "Is that all?"
"He darn near took the other man's head off." Ben could tell Roy was worried about Joe. The look the sheriff gave him said way more than his words. "Could 'a killed him."
The older man looked at his son's fists. They were raw and bloody. He drew a breath and met Roy's gaze. "I'll take care of it, Roy. Thank you."
Ben saw Roy glance at Adam as well. The look they exchanged about said it all.
"Well, then, I'll be goin', Ben. Good night, Adam." He paused. "Night, Little Joe."
Joe said nothing. Every muscle in his body was primed like dynamite waiting to detonate.
"I'll walk you to the door, Roy," Ben offered.
As he stepped outside with the other man, Roy Coffee turned to him. "Do you know what's wrong with Joe, Ben?"
He shook his head. Rethinking the entire episode, he couldn't see how a simple newspaper article had set his son off. "I've no idea. Everything was fine when we came to town. The boy just seemed to plunge off the deep end for no reason."
"He was drinkin' hard, Ben. The barkeep tried to cut him off, but Joe wouldn't have it." Roy shook his head. "That was the first fight he got into."
Ben opened his mouth to answer, but a crash from inside the house stopped him. Looking at Roy, he frowned and then rushed to open the door.
Adam was standing beside a small table that had been overturned. Joe was nowhere in sight.
"Where's your brother?" he demanded.
His eldest bent down and righted the table. "Sorry about the lamp, Pa," he said, kicking at the broken remnants of glass. "Joe's upstairs."
"What happened?"
Adam shrugged. "I tried to talk to him."
Ben's own temper flared. As he headed for the stairs, his voice rose in volume. "I don't care what bee that boy has in his bonnet, there is no excuse for this kind of behavior! He and I are going to have a talk and then I might just take him over my knee like the spoiled child he is!"
"Er, Pa..."
Ben halted, rigid, and turned back to bellow at his eldest son, "What?"
Adam remained silent for a moment. Then, all he said was, "Point taken?"
It took a second. Then he realized what his eldest meant.
"Pa, getting angry at Joe isn't going to solve anything. Let it go until morning. Maybe he'll have cooled down enough by then that we can get him to make sense."
Roy Coffee was still there. "I think Adam's right, Ben."
He had to physically restrain himself, but in the end Ben agreed.
But tomorrow morning the boy was going to talk – no matter what!
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TWO
Ben Cartwright halted outside Joseph's room with his hand raised to knock on the door. Outside the sun was shining on another hot dry day. There had been a hint of rain as they rode back to the ranch, but it had never materialized and they were looking at another long day of making sure the cattle and sheep and all their other livestock were watered enough to live.
Breakfast had ended and Joe had not made an appearance.
After what had happened the night before, he hadn't pushed it. He figured his youngest son was too shamed by his behavior to show his face at the table and to take the ribbing he would receive from his older brothers. So he had dismissed Hoss and Adam to their chores and, after spending a moment with Hop Sing speaking about supplies, headed to Joe's room . From what Roy had said about Joe's drinking the night before, he probably had a monumental headache – which, of course, served him right. He might not even be out of bed yet. Of all his boys, Joe was the one he worried about the most. Of course, part of that was due to the fact that the boy was young.
But there was more.
While Adam and Hoss felt things just as deeply as Joe, his oldest's analytical mind was able to take things and work them around until – on the whole – he came to a sound judgment. With Hoss the turmoil was usually directed inward toward himself and in time he found his way out.
Joe's exploded in everyone's face.
Ben shook his head. He'd have to head into town soon and find out which window his son had broken.
As he stood there, thinking, Ben heard the sound of someone stirring in the room. He rapped on the door and opened it slowly, sticking his head in and saying. "Joseph. It's your father. We need to – "
"Joe ain't here, Pa," Hoss answered.
Ben stepped into the room. Hoss was on his knees and had been looking under the bed.
"You didn't think he was down there, did you?" Ben asked, a bit confused.
The big man laughed. "Shucks, no, Pa. I was looking for Joe's boots."
His father blinked. "I sent you out to work and you came up here to look for your brother's missing dress boots?"
"Well, Pa," Hoss started haltingly, "it's just that, well, after Joe went off half-cocked last night, it seemed to me that he needed something a little special. I thought if maybe I could find his boots..." The big man paused. "It's silly, ain't it? He was just plumb upset that he couldn't find those boots."
Joe was, if anything, immaculate about his appearance and clothes. "It is strange," he admitted.
"Have you noticed, Pa," his middle son began, "how Joe's seemed kinda distracted lately?"
"Distracted? No." Ben moved to sit on the edge of his youngest's bed. "What do you mean?"
"You don't work alongside him as much as Adam and I do," Hoss said. "Joe's been makin' little mistakes, nothing too big, but the other day he headed off into the desert without a canteen. Adam ran him down and took him one."
Ben frowned. "What did Joe say?"
The big man grinned. "He told us he was thinking about a girl."
"And you believed your brother because he's always thinking about girls," Ben said with a rueful smile.
"Yes, sir." Hoss thought a moment. "It's almost like, well, like he's tired and don't never get enough sleep."
"Maybe he's not well."
"That'd be, Joe. If he wasn't feeling good, he wouldn't tell you." The big man shrugged. "He'd be worried about being less than perfect."
That stabbed Ben a bit. He was demanding with his boys, he knew, but he hoped none of them thought he expected them to be perfect.
Hoss seemed to sense his distress. "It's just Joe, Pa. It ain't you. It's like he's got this thing deep down inside him that he keeps holdin' himself up to – kinda like a mirror we cain't see – and sometimes he don't like what he sees."
"Ah, Hoss," Ben sighed. "Always the philosopher."
His son stared at him a minute and then beamed. "Me? One of them there real smart men?"
Ben rose and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Sometimes, Hoss, you are the smartest of us all." The older man looked around the room. He noticed nothing out of the ordinary except the light gray shirt Joe had worn the night before, which had a trace of blood on the collar and, curiously enough, dried mud. Turning back to his middle son, he asked, "Where is your brother? You saw no sign of him when you came in?"
Hoss shook his head.
The older man double-checked. Joe's bed had been slept in. As he turned back to Hoss, Ben caught the sight of himself in Joe's dresser mirror. And there were times when he wondered why his hair was nearly white!
"What're you gonna do, Pa?"
"I'm not sure. The ranch won't run itself and, with this drought, we don't have a hand to spare. Your brother is being very irresponsible. I can't just let that go."
"Pa..."
"Yes?"
"If you ask me – and I know you ain't – this whole thing has got somethin' to do with that there beatin' Joe took last month."
"Oh?"
"He just ain't been the same since then. Both Adam and me has seen it."
And he hadn't. Ben was humbled. "How is Joe different?"
"Well, like I said, he's been kind of distracted. Joe's always hot-tempered, so that ain't nothin' new. Any time the boy's wranglin' with somethin' it's best to get out of his way." Hoss grinned. "You know, you kind of expect him to go for ya when he's riled, but he ain't been doin' that."
"What's Joe been doing?"
The big man thought a moment. "He's quiet, Pa. Real quiet. And..." Hoss hesitated.
Ben steeled himself. What now? "And?"
"We think he's been drinking, Pa," a new voice added.
The older man whirled to find his eldest son, Adam, standing in the doorway. "Did I raise three sons who don't know how to follow their father's orders?" he growled.
Adam shrugged. "I was waiting on Hoss. When he didn't show, I came back to the house and heard you talking, so I came upstairs." Adam looked at his brother. "Joe's gone?"
Hoss nodded.
"Drinking?" Ben demanded. "You mean more than a few beers at the saloon?"
Adam's eyes were haunted. "Whiskey, Pa. I smelled it on him...during the day. I confronted him about it. Joe denied it, of course."
"Good God..."
"Pa, something's eating at him. I don't know what it is for sure, but Hoss and I have talked and we think it has to do with what John C. Reagan did to him."
"Am I always the last to know? " Ben tried not to sound too wounded, but he was.
Adam came to stand before him. "Pa, we didn't want to worry you if it was nothing, but after last night..." His hazel eyes flicked to Hoss. "Well, I don't think either of us think it is 'nothing' anymore."
"That's for sure enough true," the big man agreed. "Pa, I sure am worried about Joe."
Ben Cartwright rose from his youngest's bed and looked out the window, wondering where in all of the Ponderosa his troubled son had gone.
"Me too, Hoss. Me too."
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Joe paused to wipe the sweat out of his eyes. He had risen early sicker than a dog; his mouth dry as the desert and his heart pounding. The early morning light stabbed his eyes and set him to shaking. He had barely gotten dressed and made it out of the house before everything he had eaten and drunk the night before came up and out of him.
He was miserable and he deserved every agonizing minute of it.
He'd gone back into the house and cleaned up, eaten a very light breakfast, and then, careful not to wake anyone, headed out early. His pa had told him the day before that he wanted him to go mend some fences along one of the north pastures after they got back from the photographers. He hadn't done it, of course, and so he had headed there now to do just that, figuring he was at least good for picking up a sledgehammer and driving posts.
Hopefully he'd sweat out whatever was wrong with him.
Joe removed his shirt and used it to wipe his forehead. Then he tossed it over the rail. Picking up the sledgehammer he swung it over his head again and brought it down with a satisfying whack on the wooden post, driving it an inch farther into the dry dirt.
There was going to be hell to pay when he went home and he knew it. He could hear his Pa now – Joseph Francis Cartwright! Do you know how irresponsible your behavior has been? Do you know how you have let me down and let your brothers down by indulging your childish whims? Are you aware that this ranch cannot function without you pulling your weight?
If you want us to think of you as a man then you better begin by behaving like a man!
He'd tried to be a man last night.
He'd failed at that too.
Joe paused, breathing hard. He leaned on the handle of the sledge and removed the leather glove on his left hand and then reached up to feel the place where John C. Reagan's fist had split his skin. It was pounding again. His fingers came away bloody, causing him to sigh.
It seemed the wound might never heal.
Stepping back, Joe returned the glove to his hand and gripped the sledgehammer again. His Pa had always told them that hard work was the cure for what ailed a man. He just wished he knew for sure what was ailing him. It had something to do with what had happened a month before – he wasn't denying that. Somehow what John C. Reagan had done to him was wrapped around all of the feelings he had of being the youngest and not being taken seriously and being treated like a child, but...
There was something more. Something he couldn't put his finger on.
Something...deep.
Joe's eyes flicked to the saddlebag on Cochise. The leather bulged, not quite big enough for the whiskey bottle it contained. It was there. His insurance – in case whatever was 'deep' tried to rise again.
Lifting the hammer, Joe swung it over his head once more and brought it down with a vengeance on the post. A few splinters flew into the air. He didn't intend to use the bottle, but he'd found that when the deep rose in him it sucked the fire out of him and left him empty and he just had to fill that emptiness with something or he would die.
Just...die.
As he brought the hammer down again and the sound echoed across the drought-ridden land, Joe heard something. Something not right. Wiping sweat from his lip with the back of his hand, he leaned on the hammer and listened. This time he heard it clearly.
A woman's scream.
Dropping the heavy tool where he stood, Joe caught hold of his shirt and threw it on as he headed for Cochise. Just then the woman screamed again. It was a shrill high disbelieving sound and it spooked his horse so that the Paint reared up and struck out with his hooves. Deciding he didn't have time to cope with calming the animal, the youngest Cartwright checked to make certain the tether was good and then took off at a sprint across the dry dusty field north of the broken fence.
At least the hard baked earth made running easier.
At the other end of the field Joe laid his hand to the rail fence and hopped it. Panting, he halted on the other side and listened again. The screaming had stopped.
It had been replaced by the mournful sound of someone sobbing.
As he stood there, breathing hard, Joe considered what it might be he was headed straight for. He hadn't heard any gunplay and had assumed it was a woman in trouble. Now he wasn't so sure. And yet, even if he was right, blundering in like a train car cut loose on a steep grade wasn't going to help anyone. Slowing both his breathing and his passage through the trees, Joe drew his pistol from his holster and crept forward cautiously. As he did the sobbing turned into a kind of wail. It was a haunting sound that shivered through him from the top of his curly brown head to the bottom of his well-worn work boots.
Abruptly, through a break in the trees, Joe saw a lean-to where there shouldn't have been a lean-to.
He halted. The mournful sound was definitely coming from the area of the makeshift dwelling. Joe couldn't see anything yet, but he assumed whoever it was who had been screaming was crying now. Knowing well how quickly the threat of death could spring from out of nowhere on the frontier, he circled the area that held the lean-to cautiously before entering it. One time he thought he saw something – a hint of movement, a flash of color – but, after standing and listening, he decided it had to have been an animal and moved on.
The early morning light struck the figure of a woman kneeling beside a fallen man. Whoever he was, the man had a slight build like him and looked to be in his late thirties. He was laying face down, his torso halfway in and halfway out of the lean-to. His coat was part ways off his shoulders as if he had crawled forward from the interior, dragging his body to fall where he lay. Joe shifted in the underbrush, uncertain of where to go from here. The woman obviously needed help, but she was an Indian. He hadn't seen anyone else, but her men folk might be close and might misunderstand what he was trying to do if he stepped out into the open and offered her aid. Still, the man lying on the ground might need help too – a doctor maybe – and every minute that he wasted was another one in which the wounded man, whoever he was, could die.
The problem was, he didn't even know if the woman could speak English. He might offer help and have the gesture completely misunderstood. Still, as he stood there, her grief tore at him. From the look of her, she was older than Adam but younger than his pa. Maybe the man on the ground was her brother or husband. Joe thought about what he would want if he found himself alone in the woods with his brother or someone he loved dying right in front of his eyes, and decided that even an unwelcome stranger might be welcome if it meant having someone to go for help. He looked at his gun. He couldn't really come out of the trees with it drawn, not if he expected her to give him the least chance of helping. Holstering it with a sigh, Joe parted the leaves in front of him and emerged into the clearing where the lean-to had been erected.
The woman didn't see him. At least, not at first. But when she did, her reaction surprised him – she was afraid.
Terribly afraid.
"Ma'am," Joe said tentatively. "I'm not here to hurt you. I'd like to help." He waited for the tone of his words to penetrate her fear. "Ma'am?"
The woman glanced at the trees and then turned her face toward him. Otherwise she did not move.
Joe took a tentative step forward, his hands outstretched to either side to show he held no weapon. "I don't know if I can help, Ma'am, but I'd like to try. My name's Cartwright. Joe Cartwright."
She nodded, like she knew the name. Maybe she knew she was on his pa's land and that was why she looked so scared.
"It's okay," Joe said, taking a step closer. "Its' not important now whether you should be here or not." He indicated the man with a nod. "Your friend needs help. I might be able to get it for you." All the while he advanced Joe was scanning the trees surrounding them. Even though he had taken time to make sure no one was lurking in them, it wasn't beyond some Indians to stage something like this just so they could take someone captive and either trade or sell them.
They could have been hiding.
Joe was within ten feet of the woman now. He had been right about her age, though it was sometimes hard to tell with natives since their skin was burned dark and wrinkled early from living mostly outside under the sun. The man lying on the ground had coal black hair that was cut short around the ears and was wearing a brown suit coat of an average cloth with a vest over the top and a pair of gray trousers.
Eight feet now. Five, and he stopped. The woman continued to stare at him as if astonished that he existed. Joe gestured toward the man on the ground. "Can I take a look?" he asked.
Slowly, reluctantly, she nodded, so either she understood his words or the gesture. He had no idea which.
"Okay," he said as he crouched. "Let's see what..." Joe's voice trailed off as the manner of the man's death registered. Not only had he been strangled, but he had a knife sticking out of his back. His suit coat was stained with blood.
Joe winced. Coupled with the pool of blood lying under the man, things did not look good. He glanced at the woman and saw the resignation in her eyes. She had known it before him.
The man was dead.
Rising to his feet, Joe looked around again and, again, he caught a sense of movement. A glance at the woman told him it was not his imagination. She was looking in the same direction. Coming to a quick decision Joe began to run, ignoring her as she reached for him and shouted something even as he sprinted into the trees. Hugging the shadows he followed whoever it was with caution, well aware that this could be the murderer. Abruptly, through an opening in the leaves, he caught sight of a tall man's form. The stranger was blond. He was dressed like a ranch hand and moved like greased lightning. Joe watched as the man stepped to the side and disappeared. Seconds later a horse burst out of the foliage. As the man turned and looked his way, Joe ducked into the trees. He caught a flash of a face – pale, determined, mean.
Then the man was gone.
There was no point in following. Joe knew there was no way he could catch him on foot. And to be honest, he didn't know whether the stranger had anything to do with the murder of the man – though he would have laid money on it that he did. Puzzled, Joe swung back and looked in the direction that he had come, contemplating his next move. In the end, compassion won out over curiosity.
The woman back there needed him.
Joe emerged from the trees to find her waiting for him. He started for the dead man only to have her stop him. She grabbed his arm and pulled him in the other direction as if trying to speed him on his way. He shook his head, pulled loose, and went to search the ground in front of the lean-to. With a sigh, the woman followed him.
The first thing he noticed as he searched the area for clues was a trail of dried blood leading into the lean-to, indicating the man had crawled at least a short distance. So he had been attacked elsewhere. There were a few horse and boot tracks alongside the blood, but the earth was baked so hard they were difficult to make out. Still, it was clear they had been left by white men and not Indians. Joe looked at the man again. Bending down, he took hold of him and began to haul him out of the makeshift structure. The Indian woman glared at him as he did and then, with a resigned sigh, joined him in his effort.
As the man's body came clear of the lean-to something caught Joe's eye. The murdered man was wearing a pair of highly polished, expensive-looking Western boots that didn't fit with his citified clothing. They were like the ones he'd lost and would have cost a small fortune. The boots were covered with mud, which Joe bent down to brush off. As he did, a chill snaked up his spin as he realized they didn't 'look' like the boots he had lost – they were the ones he had lost.
The dead man was wearing his missing boots.