TWO
Joe Cartwright sighted along the dull gray edge and then aimed, flinging the flat stone he held across the shining surface of the lake, watching it skip time after time with the same precision and aim that he would have fired a bullet.
If he'd been allowed to have a handgun.
"Hey! That was good!" his buddy Seth proclaimed. Then he whistled. "Eight skips, Joe! I bet that's some kind of a record."
Seth was a good friend. Always there to back him up. Which was why Joe was kinda surprised that he was wasting time skipping stones and waiting for Seth to give him an answer to his question.
After wiping the mud off of his hands and onto his gray pants, Joe raised his thick eyebrows and asked, "So?"
Seth looked nervous. "'So' what?"
Joe's temper flared. He head-talked it calmly, getting it to settle down like he'd seen his pa do to a snarling dog. "Sooooo...you got my back, or what?"
Seth didn't look at him. His friend's brown boot toed the mud and then kicked at a stone. "I don't know, Joe..."
Down boy, he thought, down. "Why not?"
It took a second. Then Seth lifted his head and met his fiery stare. "Joe, this ain't like distracting Miss Jones while you slip out, and then telling her your Pa sent a ranch hand into town to take you home early."
"Why ain't it?"
Seth fairly exploded. "Joe! Placerville is forty miles away, for Gosh sake! You gotta go through rough country with hills and ravines! There's Indians and bank robbers and snakes and pumas out there! It's gonna be dark, Joe, and..."
Joe folded his arms over his chest and then frowned over them just like his pa did. He was hoping it would scare Seth into agreeing.
It certainly scared him when Pa did it.
"Your point?" he demanded.
Seth's form tensed like he was expecting a punch.
"Joe, you're just a kid."
He could hear that dog growling in his head, barking fury. Joe's fingers tensed and formed into fists. "Don't you call me a 'kid'," he snarled.
"But you are! I am, Joe. " Seth was holding his ground, which said a lot. "Why don't you tell Hoss or Adam what you – "
"I ain't telling that there block-headed Yankee anything!" he shouted.
"I'm a Yankee too," Seth said softly.
Joe froze. "Well, if you are," he said at last, drawing in several breaths and willing his fists to relax, "at least you ain't a block-headed one."
Aren't, he heard his pa's voice correcting in his head.
His friend hesitated. "How about telling Hoss then and seeing what he thinks?"
Joe shook his head. "They ain't...they're not gonna listen to me, I told you. Adam has to have something he can have in his hands to prove its gonna happen and Hoss'll just think I'm...I'm missing my pa."
He was, of course, but that wasn't why he intended to ride away as soon as he could. His pa's life was in danger. He knew it. He knew it just as sure as the sun rose in the morning and set at night.
He had to save him.
When his friend said nothing, Joe went on. "Seth, what if it was you? What if you kept sleeping and kept dreaming that something terrible was going to happen? Wouldn't you feel like you had to go out and stop it?"
Seth was looking at the lake. "I'm not sure, Joe. I think... I think I'd try to make them listen to me first. Maybe go to the sheriff."
"Waste of time," he said, waving it off with his hand. He knew Roy Coffee. He was friends with his father. "You could show Sheriff Coffee a cloud leaking water and a puddle underneath it and he still wouldn't believe it was raining.
Joe drew in a breath and squared his shoulders. "All I'm asking of you, Seth, is to tell your ma and pa I left for home early. That's it."
"What if they ask who come and got you?"
He thought hard. "Tell them my pa did on the way back from Placerville. They can't question him."
"But that's an out and out lie, Joe!"
Joe crossed to his friend and put a hand on his shoulder like his pa did to him when he wanted him to listen real close to what he had to say. In fact, it was so important he used both hands and both of Seth's shoulders.
"I am going to meet Pa. He will be taking me home. So it ain't a lie." He paused, glancing heavenward and waiting for the lightning bolt. "It's just a truth that's gonna take a little time to happen."
Seth was wavering. "What you gonna do for a horse?"
He'd thought that out. They had a lot of horses. He'd gone out shortly after Adam and Hoss left that morning and pulled one in from a big bunch corralled a little ways off from the house. It was the one he'd ridden bareback a few days before, so he knew he could handle it. It was tethered to a tree and hidden a little ways back toward the Ponderosa.
"I got one. I left it between here and home." Joe glanced up at the sky. The sun was past its zenith and heading to the west. "I really gotta get going, Seth. Adam and Hoss will expect me to be home after supper. I gotta build up a lead."
Seth shook his head slowly. "They're gonna skin you."
Yes, they would – if he was wrong.
But he wasn't.
"You let me worry about that."
His friend stared at him, drew in a dying man's gasp of air, and then nodded.
A minute later the two boys went their separate ways.
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Ben Cartwright reined in his horse and drew to a halt. He removed his hat and wiped his sleeve across his forehead, noting how the abundance of sweat transformed the powder blue fabric to a gun-metal gray. His dark brown eyes narrowed as he looked at the sky, squinting in the sun. It was just after noon and he was still far enough out from Ponderosa lands that it would mean another night sleeping beneath the stars which, on most occasions, he would have welcomed. But he didn't like the look of the sky any more than the unusual heat. It was as gun-metal gray as his shirt had become. There were no clouds – or rather, everything was clouds. The firmament over his head looked like a gray piece of paper waiting for someone to scribble something on it. He knew what that meant.
Somewhere a storm was being drawn in lightning and thunder.
After replacing his hat on his brown hair, which was quickly turning gray, Ben dismounted. He led Buck to a short tree bristling with green leaves going gold and a patch of sweet grass under it and laced his reins through the extended fingers of its branches. Then he stretched, pressing his arms outward, clenching and unclenching his muscles. That brought on a yawn. He was tired, but it was a good tired because it meant he would see his boys tomorrow morning at the latest rather than late the next night. The trip had been necessary. They were due to make payroll and the Virginia City bank just didn't have enough cash to cover it after what had happened. It was a curious business, that bank run, triggered by idle speculation and rumor and nothing more. He hoped the bank manager had managed to allay the fears of the good people of Virginia City and that things would soon return to normal. While Placerville was not that far away, depending on the road, the weather, and what he had to do there – two things this time – he could be away a week or two and he didn't like to leave his boys for that long.
Although now, with Adam home again, his burden had been eased somewhat.
Ben reached for the canteen hanging from Buck's saddle horn. Opening it, he took a swig. As he capped it, the older man shook his head. Burden. Why did he choose that word? His sons were never a burden to him. They were more of a charge, a trust for the future; one he had promised each of their mothers on their deathbeds that he would nurture and care for until they grew to men who no longer needed him. Adam was close, very close. At twenty-two he was a man, but a young and somewhat inexperienced one. Four years at college had taught his eldest many things and while some of them were wonderful, there were others he was not too keen on. Adam had come back changed in some ways – more questioning, less willing to accept his authority and, well, more skeptical, as if he'd lost his connection to the land and maybe to the One who'd created it. Words in books were not reality. Adam needed knowledge of the real world and not one in which men, joined in polite conversation, argued intellectually while discussing abstract theories and absurd hypotheses. His eldest needed to recognize the one he occupied; a world in which a man was forced to make life and death choices day to day, if not minute to minute, and to do it with the guidance of a Heavenly Hand. He wanted his son to be strong in every way.
He wanted all of his sons to be strong.
Of course, no one would doubt that Hoss was, at least physically. All you had to do was look at him. At seventeen he was already a giant of a man. Thinking of his middle boy brought a smile to Ben's tired face. Inger had been so slight. He'd nearly been able to circle her waist with his hands. He didn't know where the boy's size had come from, but he did know what God gave it for.
To watch over his exuberant and energetic little brother.
Joseph.
Ben began to examine his horse's tackle, shifting the saddle so it had a better seat on the blanket beneath, unbuckling and buckling straps, and then pulling on them to make sure they were secure. That youngest boy of his, he was a caution. Marie had warned him. While she was still carrying Joseph, Marie had complained about her side hurting. He'd insisted on taking her to town so Doc Martin could look her over. Paul told her she was carrying the child high and that what she was feeling was its feet pressing against her ribs. 'Just take hold of those feet and move them where you want them,' he told her. That night, Marie had tried it.
The baby within her fought back.
His son had been fighting in this world from the moment he drew a breath. As big as Hoss had been, Joe was small. It had taken him some time to gain weight and, for a time, it had been touch and go. But once that boy got his wind there was no stopping him. No babe cried louder or longer or cooed or giggled more. Ben had a picture in his head. One he would hold close until the day he died. Marie was standing in the great room with her back to him. The sunlight spilled in the open window, turning her golden hair to fire. She was holding Joseph over her shoulder and singing softly while patting his back. While most infant's eyes would grow drowsy with such treatment, Joe's green eyes were wide open. His son was staring at him, challenging him even then to try to define him in any way other than that with which he chose to define himself. All of a sudden Marie turned and looked at him with that same look. Mother and son were two parts of a whole. Two parts...
One soul.
Ben shook himself and scoffed. It was hard. He'd loved Marie so much, it was hard not to look for her and find her in her son. But he had to remind himself – almost daily sometimes – that Joe was not his mother. He was his own wonderful creation.
He was his own unique and beloved son.
Patting Buck on the withers, the older man turned with the canteen in his hand. It was almost empty and he could hear a creek running somewhere close by. He'd fill it, take a moment to eat and rest, and then mount and ride. Glancing at the sky again Ben determined he'd probably be able to travel three or four hours longer before the approaching storm broke.
It looked like it was going to be a whopper.
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It was nearly dark and Adam was standing in the open door of the ranch house looking out. With some concern he eyed the sky. He'd recognized the signs a few hours back. There was a storm coming. The day before they'd had mares tails clouds riding high, streaming against a brilliant blue sky. Today a gun-metal gray pall overhung the land. It had been unnaturally warm and oppressive for an autumn day and there was a ring around the moon. While it might not turn out to be a gully washer, it had all the promise of a fierce storm, which meant they'd have to watch the horses and other animals to make sure they didn't spook.
Adam twisted and looked at his brother Hoss where he sat on the hearth staring at the checker game he'd been playing with Joe the night before. While they might be able to prevent a stampede, Hoss was already spooked. It had started around the time they sat down to eat supper. Middle brother began to ask when Joe would be home – asking why Joe wasn't home – and then asking if he could go get him. Seth's father was supposed to bring Joe home sometime after supper, he reminded the anxious teenager, and not everyone ate supper at the same time. Joe'll be home by eight, he told him, he was sure. The boys had school tomorrow and Bill Pruitt was sure to want to get back home so Seth could get to bed in time. Adam's hazel eyes flicked to the tall case clock.
It was now quarter past nine.
Almost as if on cue, Hoss sprung up from his seat and headed for the door. "Dag-nabbit, Adam! I'm going after that little squirt."
He eyed the sky again. "There's a storm coming. Maybe Bill decided it wasn't worth the risk. Maybe they're going to keep Joe overnight."
His brother halted. Adam could see the thoughts whirling like wagon's wheels behind his brother's clear blue eyes. For a moment, it seemed, the temptation to believe what he said was almost strong enough to overcome the teenager's worry, since it meant a night of peaceful sleep with no screaming Joe. But only for a moment.
Hoss shook his head slowly. "Adam, I know something's wrong."
Their father had that. An intuition about danger where Joe, well really, where all of them were concerned, though it was felt the most with Joe – probably because it was needed the most with Joe. Now, it seemed Hoss had it as well.
Had he lost it when he cut the apron strings and went East?
"Hoss, I'm sure there's..." Adam's voice fell off even as his fear ratcheted up. Someone was approaching the ranch house and they were coming fast.
Hoss was by him in the open doorway a second later. "Who is it? Can you see? Is it Pa?"
He didn't think so. It sounded more like a wagon or carriage than a single horse. With a glance at his brother they both stepped out the door and waited. It wasn't two minutes before a small wagon appeared with two occupants – one a man, and the other a young boy.
"Is it Joe?" Hoss asked. "Can you see?"
Even as they waited a soft rain began to fall. The clouds closed over the moon and the yard suddenly went dark. Adam squinted, trying to make out the boy's features.
A moment later, his voice betraying his emotion, he said, "It's not Joe."
"How can you tell?"
He pointed to his head. "No curls."
Hoss stepped forward even as the pair began their approach. "I think it's Seth and his pa."
Adam caught the doorjamb with his hand. Seth and his father. Without Joe.
Good God...
Since the rain was falling steadily now, Adam ushered the two into the ranch house and quickly closed the door behind them. He looked from one sodden form to the other. Seth refused to meet his eyes but Bill, well, Bill met them squarely and in the older man's eyes he saw things he had prayed he would not.
Guilt. Shame.
Fear.
"Where's Joe?" he asked without preamble.
Bill looked down at his son. The older man's voice was harsh, ragged. "Seth. Tell Adam where his brother is."
The boy's eyes flicked up and then back to the floor. "I don't know where he is," he said quietly.
His father's fingers clutched his shoulder, making the boy wince. "Now, don't you go lying – "
"I ain't lying!" Seth looked at him, tears in his eyes. "Honest, Adam, I don't! I just..."
Adam glanced at Bill and then sank to his knees so he was on more of a level with the boy. "What do you know, Seth? What can you tell me that will help my brother?" He glanced at Hoss and then back. A second later he asked through a forced smile. "What'd Joe talk you into?"
Seth saw a loophole and he plunged headfirst into it. "I didn't want him to go. I tried to talk him out of it, really I did! But he said he had to go and he knew you wouldn't listen to him and Hoss wouldn't listen to him and the sheriff wouldn't listen to him, so he was just gonna go no matter what."
Adam swallowed hard. Sheriff?
"Whoa, whoa, Seth," Hoss said in his gentle way, like he was working with a frightened filly. "Where'd little brother think he had to go in such a gol-darn hurry? And why...why would he need a sheriff?"
"He went after your father," Bill said, his voice flat.
Adam rose to his feet. "After Pa?" Again he looked at Hoss who was as confused as him. "Whatever for?"
"Joe said...he said..." Seth drew in great gulp of air. "He said his pa was gonna be hurt and he had to save him and neither of you would believe him when he told you that your pa was in danger and so he had to go by himself."
Adam breathed for him. "Pa? Hurt?"
"Why'd Joe think something was gonna happen to Pa?"
"He..."
Of a sudden, Adam seized on it. "The nightmares, Hoss." His hazel stare went to his brother. "We thought Joe was scared, calling out to Pa to help him." He felt like an idiot. "But he wasn't, was he, Seth?"
The boy shook his head. "Joe said he saw his pa lying at the bottom of a ditch with a bullet in him. His pa kept reaching for him, calling him, but he couldn't reach back far enough to take his hand. Joe... Well, Joe..." Seth's eyes went to his own father, so strict, so stern...
So loved.
"Yes, Seth?"
The boy straightened his shoulders. "Joe said your pa told him that God speaks to people in dreams. That sometimes, that's the only way they'll listen. And that his dream was telling him that he had to go find his pa and make sure he was safe."
Both of them were silent. It was Hoss that said it first. "We never thought to ask him what that there nightmare last night was about."
Adam shook his head. "It doesn't matter. He wouldn't have told us anyway. He didn't...trust us to believe him."
Bill was looking from one of them to the other. "Boys, don't be too hard on yourselves. I don't think any of us would have done any differently." The older man sighed. "As best I can determine your brother has been on the road for about six hours. He has a horse. Seth said its one of yours." Bill's eyes sought forgiveness as they fastened on his face. "Joe left just after noon. Seth told us your pa had come and picked him up. It wasn't until the storm came on that I knew something was wrong."
"Do you think Joe'll drown, Mister Adam?" Seth asked, breathlessly.
Joe drowning was the least of his worries. Though being wet through and out all night was not something he would have wished for his brother, there were so many other dangers on the road. Joe's horse could take a misstep in the dark and throw him. There might be a rattlesnake on the road, or a mountain lion tracking him through the rocks. And there was another threat, more probable and far more deadly than any animal.
Men.
He felt sick to his stomach.
"Adam?"
It was Hoss. "Yes?"
"What about them outlaws that robbed the bank? " his brother asked, his voice shaking. "The ones Roy warned us about? You don't think..."
Oh, God. No, he didn't think. Dear God! He didn't think. Why had he spent so much time yelling at Joe and so little time talking to him since he'd come home?
A silence filled the room, pregnant with horrific possibilities.
Bill broke it first. "Is there anything I can do, Adam?"
He went to the door, opened it again, and looked out. The rain was torrential. It was striking the ground so hard now it sent missiles of mud into the air. For a moment he stood there, looking at it, imagining his baby brother's small bedraggled form huddled somewhere along the road, caught in the midst of the tempest, calling out for his 'pa'.
His pa who didn't even know he was missing. Who thought Joe was well watched over and was in his bed, sleeping tight, gaining strength for the new day to come.
Turning back, he replied, "You may as well stay, Bill. There's no traveling in this. We'll leave as soon as it breaks to look for Joe. Maybe you... If you would, you could ride to town in the morning and let Roy know what's happening. Help him put together a search party." His eyes went to Joe's friend who looked all out. "You can leave Seth here if you want. Hop Sing can look out for him."
"Should we have Bill send a telegram to Pa?" Hoss asked.
Adam shook his head. "Pa's due in late tomorrow. He's on the road." He straightened up. "No, it's up to you and me. We lost Joe and we've got to find him."
Hoss came to his side and then pressed through, taking a step out the door. The wind was howling. It drove his brother's thin red-blond hair back from his beefy face. When he turned back, the look on that face nearly broke Adam's heart.
He felt it too.
Something was threatening, and it wasn't just the storm.
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He kept watching for the ark, but it just didn't show.
Joe Cartwright sniffed as he curled himself up more tightly and pressed into a crevice cut into the rock behind him. About an hour back the clouds had been pulled over the moon like a curtain on a privy and everything had gone black. He'd kept riding for a while – even keeping on as rain started to fall – but a half hour before the sky had opened up and a hard rain come pouring out and it sure looked like it was gonna stay that way for a full forty days and nights.
Joe sniffed and sneezed and shifted back again though it weren't no use. He was already soaked to the skin and covered with mud from nose to toes. His brown curls were dangling in front of his eyes and dripping like icicles on a warm day.
He must look like a drown-ded rat.
'Drowned, Joseph', Pa's patient voice sighed in his head. 'What am I going to do with you?'
Usually when he came in soaking wet Pa and his older brothers would all rush over to him and make a big fuss, like he had an arrow in his shoulder sticking out or some such thing. Pa'd take his chin in his hand and force him to look up into his sharp brown eyes and ask, 'Joseph, are you all right?' Hoss would be hovering behind, like he was waiting for him to keel over so's he could catch him, calling him something like 'punkin', and making him feel like he was two years old. Joe snorted out some rain. And all the while Big brother Adam would be standing there with his arms folded across his chest, frowning and saying without saying it, 'Stupid, kid.'
He bristled a bit at that, which was a good thing.
It made him hot for about two seconds.
He hadn't brought a coat, of course. He didn't think he would need it. And while there was a blanket rolled up and cinched on the back of his borrowed horse's saddle, it was wetter than he was. He'd grabbed his satchel before heading for the rocks and so his matches and tinder were dry. Joe glanced at the leather pouch laying on the ground beside him. Well, at least as dry as they could be. But there wasn't gonna be a stick of dry wood left to light so the whole thing was useless.
About as useless as he was.
Here he'd come out to save his pa from something terrible happening to him and he was stuck like a dog down a hole waiting to be drown-ded...drowned.
Joe sniffed again and looked up. There was a little bit of sky showing to the west. Maybe the storm was gonna be over soon. The rain was still pounding the earth so hard he couldn't hear nothing else, but the wind had died down – just a bit – and the sky was lightening. Gathering what energy he had left, Joe pushed himself to his feet. He continued to hug the rocks as he considered his options. He'd been on the road between six and seven hours, one of which had been spent here waiting out the rain. With any luck his brothers still hadn't learned about him leaving. If they had, and they started out on horseback at a fast pace, they could catch up to him in a couple of hours. The mud, of course, would slow them down so he thought he might have three at least. Joe eyed the road. If he kept to it he could make better time, but he'd be easier to track and find. Maybe he should ride just within the trees that lined it. 'Surefoot', as he'd christened the horse he borrowed, was about as steady a ride as he'd had, though since he was young he was kinda skittish. He could probably navigate the uneven ground. The problem would come if there was just no safe place for the horse's feet.
Of course, then, he could always return to the road.
Joe looked again at the sky and decided the rain was gonna come to an end at last. It was still coming down hard, but not so hard he couldn't ride. He'd stick to the road for a little longer and then make his way into the brush when it stopped.
Weren't no use in taking too many chances when what he'd come out here to do was so important.
After unloosing him, Joe climbed up onto his horse's back. As he settled in, he spoke softly to the animal, thanking him for carrying him and apologizing for the fact that he was gonna make him travel in the rain.
Then, with his jaw set and a steely determination in his green eyes, young Joe Cartwright spurred his horse forward through the rain and toward his pa.
"I'm coming, Pa," he promised. "Hold on."
