Sunshine With a Little Hurricane
There was nothing for it, Little Joe Cartwright was one nervous fella.
The older man leaning against the stage depot wall watched as the young'un pushed his black hat back on his deep brown curls, shifted his weight from one dress-booted foot to the other, and ran a hand along his back hairline. Next he anchored his thumbs behind his belt. Then he rocked from to his toes to his heels several times as he peered anxiously down the street in the direction the stage would come. Looking across the street, he saw that the Ponderosa hands who were sipping a beer and lingering in front of the saloon before heading out for the Cartwright's autumn drive, were of the same opinion about Ben's youngest boy's actions as he was. So were the fine ladies standing, fanning away their jealousy on the porch of the International Hotel. Miss Abigail Jones – who had known Little Joe since he'd first attended her school and thanked the Lord that she'd survived it – must have thought the same thing as she stepped out of the mercantile noting that 'Joseph', as she called him, had his unruly hair well under control and was wearing his Sunday best. The older man, who had noted the same thing and knew what was coming, looked at his watch and calculated just how much time it would take Ben's hot-headed and hot-blooded boy to rile some suitor and start some sort of brew-ha.
In other words, there had to be a pretty girl on that stage.
Ben Cartwright's youngest son was, at not quite eighteen, already a legend in the hot, sleepy, slowly growing and over-reactive town of Virginia City. Bets were placed daily on what the handsome devil-may-care Devil would do. Most concerned how long Little Joe could be in town without getting into a fight. A few best not mentioned to his Pa – indelicate ones placed and cherished by the ladies who peopled the Bucket of Blood and other establishment as yet 'officially' off limits to the reputed charger of the Ponderosa – concerned length of time and well, size, among other things. There was quite a pot waiting for the first one to find out the answers on both accounts conclusively and report them back to the others. Other bets, though, among Ben Cartwright's neighbors took on a darker dimension – how long it would be before the boy broke his neck, ended in jail, got himself a child on some innocent young thing, or ended up dead in the middle of the street after drawing on someone who proved, at last, faster on the draw than him.
Too often these bets were accompanied by a sneer of wishful thinking.
There were bets among Ben's friends as well, half-joking but serious. Doc Martin and him had one going on how many bullets Paul would pull out of the boy in the next year. Paul had remarked, upon making the bet, that he had ordered the apothecary in town to stock extra laudanum, quinine, morphine, and codeine, and to hold back a stock of well-aged whiskey and brandy strong enough to knock the socks off of the boy's restless feet.
No one was sure if the whiskey and brandy were for Little Joe or for his long-suffering father.
That young'un had to be tryin' to the older man, whose head and feet were just about as firmly planted on the ground as any man's could be. When they watched the four Cartwright men ride into town, most folks shook their heads. At the lead would come stalwart, honest, shootin' straight-from-the hip, generous and grace-giving Ben. To his right would be his older boy, Adam. Adam was one of those strong, silent types the ladies drooled over, thinking there must be something deep stirring in that black-clothed well, so deep it just couldn't find its way to his pursed lips. It tickled the edges of them though, turning their tips up like a bent iron.
Wasn't a woman in Virginia City didn't want that brand.
Most of the men-folk liked Adam. He was an easy man to be around, if not to know. Adam said little, but when he did speak, men listened. There was a lot of his pa in him, but then – to those who knew him well – there was also something of Little Joe. Adam had a temper near as volatile as his baby brother, but he kept it in check right up there under that black hat of his.
Heaven help the man he tipped it to.
Then there was Hoss. Ben's middle boy was, without saying anything the stupidest man couldn't miss, a mountain. It was all there. He'd seen Hoss tower over people, stopping their chatter with his shadow alone. The big man was tall like the pines on that mountain and just as firmly rooted, even if funny notions got in that big head of his and made the tops of those trees sway now and then. Hoss' heart was big as the land and a river of gentleness ran through it. Those beefy hands had the strength in them to break a man in two, but he'd never worried about Hoss.
He'd seen him rescue and hold a frightened bird without crushin' it a time or two.
No, it was just that young one of Ben's he worried about. The one standing, waiting on the stage, pacing back and forth like a mountain cat in season. As Roy Coffee pushed off the wall and headed for the landing where the stage would eventually light, he wondered if there was some tether to the boy he couldn't see. Else he didn't know how in the world Little Joe hadn't taken off like a stallion to meet that stage halfway to Carson City.
Coming up behind him, Roy paused, a slight smile lifting his lips so they tickled his mustache. "Someone important on that stage, boy?" he asked.
Little Joe jumped. Then he turned beet red. "Hey, Roy," he said, quickly swallowing over his embarrassment. "What are you doing here?"
The sheriff loped up to stand beside the boy. He pulled his watch out again and looked at it. "Waitin' on the stage, just like you. Looks to be right on time."
Joe looked toward the rumbling, rattling vehicle that had finally come into view and was moments away from pulling up in front of the depot. "Is it? Seems like I've been here forever."
'Forever' being about fifteen minutes.
The lawman snapped his watch shut. "Nope. Five-thirty on the dot." Roy paused. "Someone important on that stage, Little Joe?"
If the boy'd been any redder he would have been an Indian.
"No... Not really. Just a...friend."
Roy nodded. "Must be a mighty important friend." He reached out and fingered Joe's fine duds. "You're powerful gussied up, boy." He leaned in and sniffed. "Ain't that cologne there on top of that Bay Rum you're so fond of?"
Joe's temper flared. Roy liked it when it sparked like that, snapping his nostrils open and puttin' fire in his green eyes.
It made the boy look right cute.
"That's none of your business!" Little Joe snapped.
"Well, now, I don't know as you can rightly say that, son," Roy drawled. "You see, I'm sheriff in this here town and, well, everythin' is my business. Let's say that young lady your waitin' on steps off that stage and some other feller sees her and thinks she oughta be his. Could mean trouble."
Joe's reaction was priceless, even if Roy wasn't entirely sure what it meant. Those supple eyebrows of his dipped and then lifted toward the pile of ornery curls dangling on his forehead. Joe's tightly pressed lips tightened and then one end slid up real slow-like toward that little pert nose he got from his dead mama. Then he started to laugh.
Lord, the angels listened when that boy laughed!
"Roy, I promise you I can whip anyone with a romantic interest in Bella," Joe said, snorting in tear-snot.
"Sounds like a might pretty lady," Roy replied, one grizzled eyebrow arched, not quite believing it.
Joe Cartwright was a little feller. Couldn't have weighed more than a man-size bag of grain. He'd seen his brothers take him up in one swing and throw him over their shoulder and haul his sorry hide out of a lot of places he shouldn't have been. But he was a tough one. Joseph Francis Cartwright had been kicking and screaming from near the moment he drew breath and that was bound to make a man strong in more ways than one.
As bound as it was to wear just about everybody else out.
"Oh," Joe said, having better luck taming his laughter than his hair, "she's a beauty all right. Bella's got hair the color of sunshine coming out of Heaven; long, curly as a sheep's winter coat, and just as thick. She's got the face of an angel." Joe extended his hand out as if paintin' a picture. "She's got eyes wide as the moon and deep blue as a night without stars." The boy leaned in close, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "But they've got stars in them, Roy. They sparkle like moonlight hitting water."
He could use a few lessons in poetry, but it was easy to see the boy had it bad.
Roy's eyes went to the stage. It had finally found roost and sat like a red hen waiting to give up its eggs. He looked over his glasses at it and nodded. "Door's openin', prince charmin'. Don't you think you best be seein' to your lady friend?"
Little Joe's impish eyes held his for just a second. Then he leaned in again and winked. "This is the one I'm gonna marry, Roy. I'm tellin' you."
Just like Little Joe had told him at least twice a year since he'd been old enough to know what a girl was for.
Roy watched as the young man pivoted lightly on his heel and headed for the disembarking passengers. Little Joe stood with his hands linked behind his back, burdened by a boundless energy that kept him bouncing on his feet. The first passenger off was an overweight, stuffy middle-aged businessman. The minute his gator shoes hit the boardwalk he was complainin' about the dust and the heat and just 'bout everythin' else. Close behind him was a tall rail-thin man wearing a black suit with a white collar around his neck.
The lawman smiled. Good. That there parson showin' up would go someway toward making Little Joe more temperate in the thoughts he was having about that young lady.
Following the preacher was another man and then – my, oh, my, the boy hadn't been stretchin' the truth any! – a stunning young lady in a form-fitting sapphire silk gown, with golden ringlets spilling onto her shoulders and a face to stop a stage. No, that wasn't sayin' enough. That there face and figure could have stopped one of them eastern trains runnin' at full tilt. She looked to be a few years older than Little Joe, maybe more than a few. As the thought crossed his mind that Ben was gonna be none too happy about his youngest courtin' another Julia Bulette, the lady favored Little Joe with a beautiful warm smile.
And walked on.
That left the aging sheriff scratchin' his head.
Joe glanced over at him. His green eyes were dancin' and he was doin' the best he could not to start giggling like a girl. Turning back, he held out a hand. A young lady's appeared to take it.
Maybe he oughta rephrase that.
A very young lady's.
The girl was no bigger than a minute; skinny as a filly and barely nigh high to Joe's chest. The top of her curly golden head ended at the bottom of the black silk tie the boy'd anchored around the collar of his fancy white shirt. Roy shifted to the side to get a look at her face and what he saw there near set him to giggling as hard as Ben's baby boy had been before.
If that wasn't love, he'd never seen it.
"Little Joe!" the girl cried out, bouncing just like the young'un had been on her toes. "Hey, little brother! You been behavin' yourself?"
Roy's plentiful brows peaked. There was a story there, he was bettin'.
"Hey, big sister!" Joe exclaimed as he reached down and caught her in his arms and then hefted her up to his height. "Ain't been in one lick of trouble since I saw you."
Little Joe was holding the girl in his hands near perpendicular to his body. Her feet, which were wearing a pair of fancy black dress boots, ended at his knees. She reached out and touched his face gently, lovingly. Then she scowled. "Are you tellin' me the truth, Little brother? You ain't done nothin' wrong?"
Roy cleared his throat. "Maybe you'd best be askin' me, Miss," the lawman said, hiding his smile and trying hard to look like a big bad sheriff. Just to emphasize how big and bad he was, he let the tips of his fingers brush the firearm at his side.
They both turned to look at him. Little Joe's look was amused – and wary. Poor kid. He wasn't really all that much older than his 'lady'.
Joe released the girl and she walked right up to him. "You're Roy Coffee, aren't you?" she asked.
He glanced at Joe. "You been tellin' tales, boy?"
"Who? Me?" Joe shook his head. "Never."
Roy knelt so he was on the girl's level. "I take it you're Bella."
She held her hand out. "Elizabeth Annabelle Carnaby. My Pa calls me Bella. I told Little brother he could too."
The name sounded slightly familiar, like something out of a tale told on a cold night by the campfire. Like the files in his office, Roy fingered back through the memories. Ben. Last year. On the porch at the Ponderosa tellin' him how Joe'd been hurt. No bullet this time. Caught in a fire. This was after they'd brought the boy home, and after he and his posse'd hunted down the men what left Little Joe in a burning cabin for dead.
The sheriff shoved his hat back on his thinning hair. "Well, I'll be hornswoggled! This is the little gal what done pulled you out of harm's way and saved your sorry hide, ain't it, Little Joe!"
Elizabeth Carnaby beamed like that sunshine Ben's youngest had compared her blonde hair to.
Roy stuck out his hand. Growing solemn as she took it, he said, "I want to thank you, Miss Carnaby, for saving the life of one of Virginia City's finest citizens. You ain't got any idea what you did for this here town." His gaze shot to Little Joe. "Why, I don't know what I'd do if this here boy wasn't around anymore."
'Cept have more hair and fewer wrinkles, and drink a whole lot less.
Joe had his hands locked behind that their fancy pin-striped suit coat he was wearin'. He was bouncing on his toes again and lookin' at the sky.
"Ain't that right, Little Joe?
Joe winced.
Roy stood. "Now if you're planning on takin' this young lady out to the Ponderosa tonight, don't you think you'd best be on your way? You got a long road and its gettin' dark." He paused and looked at the boy. "I take it Elizabeth's here for a visit?"
The little girl answered. "After I put Little Joe in the water and pulled him out – and he wasn't out of his head no more – he promised me I could come visit him this winter when he didn't have a heap of chores to do. Ma and Pa are comin' too, 'cause Mister Cartwright – that's Joe's Pa – invited all of us to stay for the whole winter, but they had to stop in Silver Springs 'cause Ma's sister had a baby and she had to help take care of it for a while. They got my other little brother, Jack, with them, so's now he gets to be a big brother, I guess, even though he's little and he's just a cousin. Since it's Ma's sister, that makes him a cousin, don't it?" She finally drew a breath and added with a scowl, as if everything she'd said had headed toward that conclusion. "Jack's four now and he's a handful."
Must run in the family, Roy thought.
He looked from Elizabeth to Joe. Heaven help Ben Cartwright.
Now he had two of them!
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Joe Cartwright glanced at his companion. They were riding in his pa's surrey. It was almost dark. Elizabeth was bundled up against the cold, and her small form and face were near invisible. Yes, sir, it was kind of hard to see her, but – Boy howdy! – could he hear her. Joe grinned. He knew what Adam would have said if he'd been riding along with them instead of being out on the open range with Hoss.
'I would never have believed it, little brother. Someone who talks more than you!'
Chatty women usually bored him, but there was something about this particular chatty 'would-be' woman that charmed him instead. Maybe it was the fact that she wasn't talkin' about the latest fashion or how much she paid for her hat or – even more important – about herself. He learned at the start of their journey – along with just about everything else her family had ever done, was going to do, and might ever do – that this was Elizabeth's first trip on a stagecoach by herself and that she was excited because she'd never been alone in a stagecoach before or this far south or west. She'd made a couple of trips to her aunt's house when she was little, she said, but that didn't count 'cause she didn't remember them and she didn't do it on her own two feet, her being a 'baby and all' and only able to crawl. She thought she might have been able to remember crawlin' even though she didn't remember the trips, because she remembered her knees hurting real bad, and when she'd checked her brother Jack's knees when he crawled, his were red, so she figured hers must have been too.
Had Joe crawled when he was a baby, she asked?
No. His only problem with the late night trip to the Ponderosa so far was stifling so much laughter it made his stomach hurt.
Joe shook his head and let out a long-suffering sigh. "Nope. I never crawled."
"How come?" his young passenger asked. "Pa says its good for babies, though Ma tells him all the experts say he's wrong."
"Well, now, I don't rightly remember this, but my brothers tell me that the moment my feet hit the ground I was on the move," he said as he urged the horses on. The animals were tired. He should have stopped to let them rest, but he wanted to make the Ponderosa before sun down. "They said my Mama had such a hard time keepin' up with me that she just let me go. Hoss said if I'd of had wings, I would have flown right up to the top of one of our Ponderosa pines."
"Boys can't fly, silly," she pronounced.
"I don't know." Joe pursed his lips and shook his head. "Seems nobody told me that, and what a body doesn't know, can't stop him."
He could see Elizabeth's profile cut against the rays of the dying sun, including her pert little turned-up nose. "Are you tellin' me the truth, Little Joe?" she asked.
Joe grinned. "No, I'm just joshin'. You're right. Boys can't fly." He paused, remembering how his youthful antics had aided in his father's hair turning to silver. "But I thought I could. I climbed right up to the top branch of one of those pines when I was a little younger than you."
"What happened? Did you really try to fly?"
He laughed this time. "Not on purpose. I fell out of the fool thing. Put my shoulder out of joint and broke my left leg."
She shook her head. "Boys sure are stupid sometimes."
"They are, are they?" he snorted. "And I suppose you, bein' a girl, ain't ever done anything stupid?"
Perfectly serious, she replied, "Of course not. Girls are way smarter than that. I bet your Mama never climbed to the top of a great big old tree and tried to fly."
No. She'd just ridden into their front yard on a feisty horse, hell-bent-for leather, and died.
When he said nothing, Elizabeth leaned in closer, studying him. After a moment, she asked, "Will your Mama be there when we get to the Ponderosa? I'd like to meet her." She paused and then added shyly. "I bet she's pretty as you are."
For a moment Joe had no response, her second statement having taken him completely off-guard. He decided to ignore it for now and deal with her question first.
"I never got a chance to tell you. My mama died when I was younger than you, Bella. I was just a little older than Jack. I was about five."
Elizabeth thought about that for a long time. Finally she asked, the puzzlement obvious in her voice, "So your Pa raised all three of you all by himself?"
"Yes, ma'am."
She sighed. It was so deep a sigh the horses looked back at her.
"What's that for?" he asked.
"Ma always says a man can't see the forest for the trees and if it was left up to him to raise up a child all on his lonesome, there wouldn't be one woman who'd want anything to do with what he raised."
It was a good thing it was dark. She couldn't see him smiling.
"And your mama's always right?"
"Sure thing." Elizabeth fell silent again. He heard her shift and turn so she was looking toward the sunset.
"Leastwise, she's always been 'til now."
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Ben Cartwright shifted back in his desk chair. He argued with himself for half a minute and then rose and went to look at the tall case clock by the door. While Joseph and his young guest were not exactly late, he had expected them well before now. The stage was due in around five-thirty and it was now going on midnight. The twenty mile ride, taken at a good clip, should have taken no more than five and a half hours without mishap.
It was the thought of that 'mishap' that had him worried.
Whatever the reason, his youngest seemed to draw trouble to himself like a bear cub knee-deep in honey drew angry bees. Sometimes it wasn't Joseph's fault. As a young boy, Joseph had often been the target of bullies and boys twice his size who wanted to lord it over his son, whom they saw as a spoiled rich boy. While Joe had been known to take advantage of his position as youngest, and there were times when 'spoiled' fit – and not by a long stretch – the boy had never cited his wealth or used it to unfair advantage with his contemporaries. Joseph took it as a point of pride to make it on his own without counting on his connections. Still, his beloved son by his late wife Marie often came home with bruises and a nosebleed. Every time he would ask him what happened, it seemed Joe had taken a different 'fall'.
'I fell off the steps, Pa.' 'I fell off my horse.' 'I lost my footing and fell into the pond.'
And on and on.
So, whenever Joseph was late – even the slightest bit late – he began to worry. His older boys told him he was overprotective of the youngest member of the family. Ben shook his head as he walked toward the door. Maybe he was. No, he most certainly was.
But it was with reason.
"Mistah Ben worry about Little Joe?" a soft voice asked from beside him.
He didn't know how Hop Sing did it. Their Chinese cook moved like a shadow.
Ben cleared his throat. "I was just going out for a breath of fresh air. Joe will be along soon. He's not that late."
Yet.
"Little Joe come all the way from Virginia City with little missy, yes?" Hop Sing was holding a stack of towels and had been headed toward the stair. "Long way from there. Take many hours. Maybe stage come late. Maybe tree fall across road. Maybe Little Joe take little missy for soda before he comes home."
He'd made all those points with himself. It didn't help.
"Maybe."
The Chinese man nodded. "Hop Sing understand. Mistah Ben's love for his boys fierce like dragon. Worry much. Why you not find something to do other than worry? Need towels in little missy and Little Joe's rooms." Hop Sing offered him the pile of linens. "Honored grandfather always say, a man grows most tired while standing still."
Ben hid his smile. He was pretty sure he had just been admonished.
He was reaching for the towels when he heard buggy wheels rolling into the yard. The silver-haired man exchanged a relieved look with Hop Sing.
"That's them!" he said with a smile.
The other man nodded. "You go greet number three son and little missy. Very late. Both be tired. Hop Sing take towels upstairs so room for missy ready."
Ben clapped his friend on the shoulder and then opened the door and stepped out onto the porch. As he watched the buggy slowly roll to a stop near the barn, he frowned. Joseph knew to pull the rig right up to the front of the house to let his young passenger disembark.
What was his son thinking?
Ben was halfway to the buggy when he realized something was wrong. The first thing that clued him in was the horses' behavior. They whinnied and shied at his approach. The one on the left snorted and shook himself and then reared back, bumping the surrey and making the black fringe on its top swing wildly. Ben spoke soothingly to the animals as he approached them, even though his own heart was pounding fiercely in his chest.
It was dark and there was very little light in the yard, but a blind man couldn't have missed it.
There was no one in the buggy.