Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury

Signifying nothing.

— Macbeth (Act 5, Scene 5)

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Prologue

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The handsome young man finished latching his satchel and then rested his trembling gloved hands on the case's leather exterior. He stood in silence for a moment, thinking, and then crossed to the window and looked out at the fading October day, forcing his mind back to the moment when he had chosen to walk away from everything he had known. At the time, he hadn't decided if he would ever go back.

He still didn't know.

Of course, he'd said nothing about leaving for good to his father that day or any of the other days before when they had talked over, decided on, and planned this trip. There were big innovations happening in the timber and milling industries in Minnesota and Wisconsin and his pa thought it would be a good idea for him to take an extended trip and see just what they were. There was also hope that with the expansion of the railroad and the opportunities for transporting goods it provided, there might be a place for Ponderosa lumber in the East. He had several old friends in the area – mill owners and operators – his pa had said as he slipped a paper into his hand with three men's names written on it. Pa said the trip would do him a world of good. It would be a chance for him to get away, to see new sights and gain a new perspective.

He didn't want a new perspective.

He wanted his old one back.

Lifting his hands, the young man placed them a foot apart on the window panes. It was raining. Hard. Water coursed down the bubbled glass echoing the tears flowing down his cheeks. In it he saw a reflection of the life he had tasted for a little less than a year. If he had known what was to come, he would have savored it like a fine wine, rolling it on his tongue, considering the flavor, the bouquet – the sweetness – of each and every moment so he could hold onto that taste for eternity. But there had been cows to rope and horses to break and fences to mend and a house to finish, and the time he had spent with her had been no more than one or two deep inhaled breaths.

Then, with a suddenness he still could not comprehend, she was gone.

Utterly devastated, the young man rested his curly head between his hands, touching his forehead to the cold pane of glass. In his life, he had seldom questioned his father's wisdom. He questioned it now.

Pa should never have sent him alone.

He'd rarely been alone in his life, being the baby in the family and all. For those first five years he'd been only one in a crowd that included his mama and Pa, as well as his two older brothers. Then, though Pa continued to insist that God was watching over them and that the man upstairs was in control, that crowd started to thin like a herd exposed to winter kill. First, it has been Mama. And then his oldest brother had left, never to return. Next, his middle brother died so suddenly and unexpectedly that the thought of it still had the power to take his breath away.

When Alice died, it had all but stopped his heart.

Joseph Francis Cartwright, the only remaining son of Benjamin Cartwright, once one among many and now only one, turned and dropped into the chair beside the window. Leaning back, he rested his head with its tousled silver-grey curls on the cheap hotel wallpaper and closed his eyes. The tears were unstoppable now. The all-too-familiar soul-wracking sobs were forming, rising from the darkness within. In time, if he didn't stop them, his too-thin body would shake and convulse until he was spent. Joe's green eyes flicked to the table beside the bed that held the cure. The bottle of whiskey sitting on its scarred top was a new one. It was almost full. As he looked at it, a chagrined smile curled the corner of his lips. You'd think a man crying himself out would be enough to wear him down and let him rest. But it wasn't. It only left him empty. And an empty thing needed to be filled, now, didn't it? Least, that's what he told himself every time he tossed back enough liquor to become numb and fall in a drunken stupor to the bed.

'Course when he woke the next day he just felt twice as empty.

His pa was worried about him. He knew that. It had taken about all the older man had in him to send him away. Alice had been gone for close to two years now. Life had moved on and for a time he thought he had too. Then, as the endless days marched forward, sometimes pointless, most times painful, he began to doubt there was a purpose to it after all. His Pa'd been taken hostage not once, but twice, coming close to being killed. He'd lost that beautiful black stallion that had made his heart soar above the constant grief. Candy had left. Griff had been hired on and left. Jamie was still with them, but he was a man now and soon he'd be gone as well. Joe sucked in air as another face from the past came to mind.

Then, just under a year back, there'd been Tanner and the torture he'd suffered at the insane soldier's hands.

His soul and his body longed for Alice. He missed his brothers more than he could say. But it was his nightmares of that time in the desert, still so potent after so long a time, that had capped it all and uncorked the bottle of his despair.

His black moods were what had made his pa send him away to gain that 'new' perspective.

Joe rose and went over to the bedside table. Picking up the whiskey bottle, he held it in his hand and looked at it as he sat on the edge of the bed. He'd never considered himself a weak man. He would have decked the first man-jack who suggested he was. He still didn't know if he was weak, really, but he was certainly broken.

Joe snorted and shook his head as he removed the stopper from the bottle. He thought of all those years he'd spent breaking the spirit of those wild, beautiful horses. He wondered now if this was how they felt when he did.

He wondered if they hated him busting them as much as he hated himself for being busted.

Lifting the bottle to his lips Joe took a good, long swig. Still holding the bottle, he lay back against the cool feather pillows. Tomorrow would begin the last leg of his journey to La Crosse, Wisconsin. The hotel, such as it was, that he was staying in was located in a town called Medary, established by the Dakota Land Company out of Minnesota in eighteen fifty-seven. It hadn't grown up much due to the railroad passing it by, but things were improving – at least that was what everyone he'd run into in the town told him since it seemed now that the train might just be coming this way after all. That train would make or break the small town that was mostly made up of Norwegian immigrants. He'd made some inquiries about the man he was supposed to look up for his pa in Minnesota on his way through and found he was a relative of one of the families in Medary. They'd given him instructions on how to find the mill the man owned and operated. Traveling there was the reason he'd left the train behind and bought a horse of the man who owned the livery for the final part of his journey. The small town was off the beaten track and had only been platted a year or so back. It had been named for a grove of Black Walnut trees standing nearby.

Taking another long drink Joe closed his eyes and waited for the whiskey's numbing qualities to wash over him. He'd been a hard-drinking man in his youth, wild at times but rarely out of control. Even his brothers – who were no saints themselves – had been amazed at how much liquor he could hold and stay in possession of his wits. He opened one eye and measured the golden-brown liquid in the bottle. About three more gulps and he'd be done. Done with another day without his brothers. Done with twenty-four more hours without his wife.

Done with every single minute he'd lived since he'd lost his child.

Done with life.

Joe took another drink. This time he felt that edge, like the world was tilting slightly and if he timed it just right, he might just slide out the open door and be gone.

Yeah.

Pa should never have sent him alone.