PART ONE
ONE
"You're youngest brother is going to do WHAT? Without my PERMISSION?"
Adam winced. He'd known it was coming. Thought he'd prepared himself.
He was wrong.
The sound wave from Pa's shout probably rang the steeple bells in Reno.
"Now, Pa," Adam began calmly, "Joe turned twenty-four last week and he doesn't exactly need your permission to get a job."
Or for much of anything for that matter.
"No son of mine is going to ride shotgun messenger on a stage! I didn't bring you up to be gunmen!" Pa was heading for his hat, which hung on the peg by the door. One arm was already in his coat, anticipating the early November chill in the air before stepping out into it.
"Pa, leave him be. It's only for a couple of weeks while he covers for Phil."
That sounded like whining. Was he whining?
God. Joe had him whining.
His father pivoted on his heel. "Phil Anderson?"
Adam steeled himself. He nodded.
"That miscreant! I should have known," Pa growled. "I warned Joseph that one day the hijinks that young man is fond of would lead him into trouble."
Adam sighed. "Pa, they were twelve years old."
"That's no excuse for burning down a neighbor's chicken coop."
And cooking most of the chickens.
It had cost his brother a complete month's free time to work off the price of that meal.
"Look, Pa." Adam caught the older man's sleeve as he reached for the door latch. "Joe's been a man for some time now. He's old enough to make his own decisions – and mistakes – whether it be about a job or a friend." He paused, swallowed, and then added, "You can't protect him forever."
His pa had always been a big man – bigger than him, not only in size but in presence. A mountain of a man, his mettle forged by fire to a steely edge. As Pa aged – as they all aged – he'd seen that edge soften and nowhere so much as with Joe. If it had been him who had killed a henhouse of chickens, a smile and a wink, a heartfelt apology, and offering to clean up fried chicken guts would have barely scratched the surface of 'sorry'.
At his words, the older man seemed to deflate. "Adam," his pa said softly as he drew his arm back out of his sleeve and hung his coat on the peg beside his hat, "what am I going to do with that boy?"
Boy.
Adam blew out a sigh. Since he was still a 'boy' at thirty-six there was little hope Joe would ever be anything else.
"Let Joe do what he thinks is best. He's only doing what you taught him – his duty in helping out a friend. Phil's got a sick wife and no one to tend her, and the stage company told him that if he didn't show – or send a replacement – they'd fire him. Phil can't afford to lose the job."
"Are there no women in the town who can look after Mrs. Anderson?" his father asked gruffly as he crossed to the liquor cabinet and poured himself a brandy.
Never a good sign.
"Phil can't afford one."
"We could pay – "
"Joe tried. Phil won't take charity. He wants them to make their own way."
He watched that effect his father.
"Well, I can't fault him for that," the older man admitted as he stopped the bottle. "Still, pride is a sin."
Adam checked his tongue. If 'pride' was a sin, then their whole family was damned to Hell!
He watched as his father dropped wearily into the big red chair. Pa took a sip and leaned back and closed his eyes, obviously relishing the warmth of the liquor as it coursed through him. Adam stared at him a moment and then went to join him, taking a seat on the settee.
For a moment neither of them said anything. Then his father remarked, "Do you remember the first time we feared your youngest brother was lost. I mean, really lost?"
As in 'dead', Pa meant.
He nodded. "You're thinking of that day when we couldn't find Joe, when he ended up at the top of Eagle's Nest?"
His father nodded and then took another sip. "All night we hunted and most of the next day. Joe was only five. There was no way a child of that age should have been able to survive alone in the wilderness."
Adam felt a chill snake through him that had nothing to do with the November cold encroaching on the house. He'd been about eighteen at the time, all ready to go off to college and forge a new life. Joe's disappearance and subsequent rescue almost made him change his mind as he'd realized, at that moment, just how much his father needed him here.
"I can still see him, Pa, all the way up at the top of the cliff, clinging on for dear life." He could hear Joe crying too.
As well as their father.
The older man had shed tears all the way up that near-vertical slope to his young son's side.
"When I took hold of him..." Ben drew in air and let it out slowly. "When I took hold of Joe he was trembling like an autumn leaf in a nor'easter. His clothes were torn and he was covered with dust, scratches, and blood. Those green eyes of his were wide as wagon wheels."
"Sure they were, Pa. He was terrified."
His father's dark gaze shot to his face. "I thought that too. At first."
Adam leaned forward. "What are you saying, Pa?"
"Yes, your brother was terrified, but there was something else in his eyes of his that terrified me even more."
"What?"
"A relish of living on the edge." The older man downed the last of the brandy and then put the glass on the table by the chair. "I knew at that moment that life with your youngest brother would be lived one day at a time, experiencing again and again what I felt when I reached him at the top of that cliff."
They all joked about Joe's devil-may-care nature turning Pa's hair prematurely white.
He had more than his fair share of white hairs too.
"Joe's older now, Pa. He's...mellowed."
Pa's dark eyebrows shot up at that. "Mellowed? Your brother just signed on to ride shotgun on one of the most dangerous routes through the territory. You know as well as I do just how many times the stage to Sacramento has been robbed."
Adam wrinkled his nose. "That doesn't mean it will be this time. Besides, Joe's only going as far as the exchange at Placerville before he turns back with a fresh load."
His father nodded. "Only one hundred miles through the desert, with the possibility of outlaws hiding behind every rock." Those near-black eyes pinned him. "You know Red Pony and his renegades have been seen in the area of Webster's Station."
Yes, he knew about Red Pony. He also knew about his father. If there was even the remotest chance of something happening to one of them, he'd be planning what to do when it did.
Pa had told him something after that incident at Eagles Nest. They'd been pretty far out doing ranch work and it had come time for him to watch Joe. He'd left his little brother sleeping – just to do what was necessary – and when he returned, Joe was gone. He'd berated himself for weeks for shirking his responsibility, and even gone so far as to inflict his own punishment – abandoning his idea of schooling in the east. His pa found him outside one night, looking up at the stars. As they stood there, Pa did something that surprised him. Instead of quoting the Good Book, the older man quoted Shakespeare's Midsummer's Night Dream.
''For never anything can be amiss, when simpleness and duty tender it'. Eh, son?'
He'd remained silent a moment before answering. 'I'm not going Pa. I can't leave you with the burden of the ranch and Little Joe –'
"So now your brother Joseph is a 'burden'?'
He frowned. 'You know what I mean."
'Do you know what I mean, Adam?'
'Yes.'
That was it, just 'yes'.
His father anchored his hands in his pockets as he rocked on his feet. "I've felt it too, you know.'
'What?'
'The call of duty. I knew it the day you and I turned our backs on Boston and everything it held and struck out for the west.'
'You mean the duty to those you were leaving behind?'
The older man had shaken his head. "The duty to ourselves.'
'Pa...'
His father smiled. 'A great man named Daniel Webster said recently, 'A sense of duty pursues us ever. It is omnipresent, like the Deity. If we take to ourselves the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, duty performed or duty violated is still with us, for our happiness or our misery. If we say the darkness shall cover us, in the darkness as in the light our obligations are yet with us.'
'I know. That's why I can't go –'
His father's grip was unexpected. 'Son, it's why you have to. The Bible says it is for each man to bear his own burden. You're not to bear mine – or your baby brother's.'
Adam remembered shrugging; remembered telling his father that Joe wasn't really a burden. His father had given him one of those looks and said, deadpan.
'You could have fooled me.'
He'd sputtered. They'd both had a good laugh.
And he went to school.
Adam cleared his throat. "Is this a good time to quote Daniel Webster?" he asked his father, his full lips curling at the end.
Pa scowled. It wasn't fun to have your own words come back at you.
"You've raised all of us to have a strong sense of duty, Pa – to ourselves and to those we love. Joe's just trying to do what you've taught him, to take responsibility and be a man."
His father shook his head. "Your brother's intentions are always for the best, it's his judgment I question. Certainly something could have been done to help Phil other than Joseph putting his life at risk –"
Pa stopped as the door opened and the subject of their debate blew in with the wind. Joe'd obviously been to the barn and was chomping on one of the apples they kept there for the horses. When a glance at the somewhat full rack by the door showed him he would need two hands to hang his coat, he gripped the apple with his teeth. As he turned back into the room, he saw them staring at him. Joe's cheeks went as red as the Rall's Janet that popped out of his mouth and into his hand.
"Did I miss something?" he asked.
Adam winced. "Uh, no. Not much, at least. Pa and I were just discussing –"
It was 'the' voice and it came down like a sailor lowering the boom.
"Your new job."
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Joe swallowed over more than the piece of apple stuck in his throat. "My new job?" he squeaked as his green eyes shot accusatorily to Adam. "You know about my...job?"
"Don't blame your brother, young man. I asked a direct question and he answered it."
"A direct question?"
Pa was doing that 'thing' he did. Nodding his head up and down like a bull building up steam for a charge.
"Yes, a direct question," the older man replied. "Unlike certain other members of the family, your older brother doesn't dissemble and dissimulate when it comes to his activities."
Joe's brown brows popped up toward the curls dangling on his forehead. "Dis...what?"
"Lie," Adam translated, helpful as always.
"I didn't lie!" he declared. "I just...well...didn't mention it."
His father folded his arms. "And just when were you going to mention it? From what Adam tells me, you leave tomorrow morning."
Joe reached into his coat and with two fingers drew a folded piece of paper out of his pocket. "I was gonna leave you a note, Pa." He blanched. "I didn't want to have you worry any longer than you –"
"You...were...going to...leave...a...note?"
He jumped on that last word. "You know how you are, Pa." Turing to his older brother, he said, "Tell him how he is, Adam."
His father pivoted. "Yes, Adam, tell me how I am."
"As the Bard once said, 'the better part of valor is discretion'." Adam pursed his lips and one black brow popped up toward his thinning hairline as he raised a hand to his ear. "Hark! I distinctly hear one of the horses calling my name."
And before he or Pa could say another word, older brother used the better part of his valor and walked out the door.
Coward.
When Joe turned back to his father, the older man was staring at him – not glaring – staring. Glaring would have been easier to take. He could have glared back, flown off the handle, shouted something about not being trusted or treated like a man, and eventually stormed up the staircase to his room.
Yeah, he could handle glaring. Staring. Well, that was another matter.
There was a world of hurt in that stare.
In the end he simply said, "I'm sorry, Pa."
His father sucked in a breath and let it out slowly. "So am I, son."
That was new.
"Really?" he asked. "You're sorry?" Joe hesitated. Maybe it was a trick. "About what?" he asked guardedly.
"That you feel I have so little trust in you that you have to lie to me about what you're doing."
Joe frowned. "Ah, Pa, it's not that. I know you trust me. Well, some of the time. It's just..."
"Just what?"
"There's different kinds of trust, Pa. I know you trust me to get my work done. You trust me with the horses and the men, and with the ladies, Pa. You taught me right. I'm always a gentleman." He grinned. "I mean, I know you aren't worried I'll come home some night with a little Joe." He paused. "I mean a little Little Joe."
"Thank Heaven for small favors," his father muttered.
"But you don't trust me to know what's best for me. It's like, well..."
"Like what?"
"Like I'm still a little kid who needs his hand held when he crosses the street." Joe grew serious. "I'm not a kid anymore, Pa."
His father was staring at him again, only this stare was okay 'cause it was riding on the back of a twist to the lips that was almost a smile.
"How old are you, Joseph?"
He frowned at that. "Don't you know, Pa?"
"Pretend I don't."
He rolled his eyes. "If you say so." Joe silently counted up the toll. "Twenty-four years and seven days. Oh, and a few hours."
The older man sighed. "How?"
"How what?"
"How can you be that old? It seems just yesterday that you were a toddler sitting on your mother's lap in the big blue chair by the fire." Pa's eyes got that faraway look in them. "The fire always caught in her hair and in your eyes. It was like God had buried gold in both."
Pa was 'waxing poetic' as Adam liked to say.
It was kind of embarrassing.
"Sure thing, Pa," he said as he removed his gun belt and laid it on the credenza, not knowing what else to say.
"Your mother used to chide me, you know, for treating her the same way."
No, he didn't know. He didn't know much about his mother at all.
"Like what way?"
"Let's take a seat by the fire, Joseph," the older man said, nodding toward it. "I can feel the cold creeping in."
It was true. He'd ridden home with the wind at his back and after taking time to stable Cochise for the night, he still felt chilled to the bone. Ever since that time five years back when he and Adam had been caught out in freak early snow during Elizabeth Carnaby's visit and almost frozen to death, he found he had less tolerance for the cold. He'd have to bundle up before he left tomorrow.
Joe glanced at his father who was leaning against the hearth, studying the flames.
If he got to leave tomorrow.
"It's funny," his father began, "often what attracts a man to a woman is their differences. One is slow, the other hasty. One, thoughtful, the other just a little bit reckless. One fiery, and the other cool enough to put out the flame. With your mother and I, well..."
"What, Pa?"
"We were very much alike."
Joe snorted. "You and Mama? Adam said my ma was a hellion! That's nothing like..." He halted at his father's look. "Well, Adam didn't exactly use that word, Pa. He called her..." Joe thought hard. "Spirited."
The older man was silent a moment. Then he chuckled. "Adam was right. Your mother was more than spirited – she was a spitfire! Marie was never at a loss for an opinion, and crossing her was tantamount to taking your life in your hands."
"But you aren't like that, Pa."
This time he snorted. "Really?"
Joe puzzled it over. His Pa had mellowed with age. It wasn't too long ago he'd have taken a rifle and chased anyone who came onto the Ponderosa without permission into the next territory, threatening to kill 'em if they trespassed again. And before that, well, his oldest brother had told him how hard their pa had become after his first wife's death. Adam said Pa had sulked for years, brooding on his loss and making everyone around him miserable until Inger showed up.
Imagine that. Pa, wearin' his emotions on his sleeve just like his mama.
Just like him.
His father came over and sat on the table directly in front of the seat he had taken on the settee. He hung his hands between his knees before speaking. "I'll deny this if you ever bring it up in front of your brothers," Pa said, looking up without moving his head, "but of all my sons you are the most like me." When Joe smiled, the older man held up a hand. "And that is why you worry me so."
Joe considered that before speaking. "Did you worry your father?"
"Nearly into an early greave," the older man snorted as his eyes rolled up. "You think this head is white!" After a moment, Pa reached out and placed a hand on his knee. "I knew it that day at Eagle's Nest."
"Knew what?"
His pa leaned back. "Joseph, do you know why I went to sea?"
He shrugged. "To see the world, I guess. For the adventure."
"Yes," he nodded, "there was that. But that wasn't the only reason – or the main one."
He leaned forward. This was something new.
"What was it then?"
"Why did you climb Eagle's Nest when you were afraid of heights?"
"You mean a few years back?" That episode was still a sore one with him. In trying to overcome a childhood fear and be taken as a man, he'd acted childish and nearly gotten both of them killed. He really didn't want to talk about it.
"No, when you were five."
Joe relaxed. "Gosh, I don't know, Pa." He thought a moment. "I guess I just wanted to see what was up there."
"Even though you were afraid you might die?"
A chagrinned smiled curled his lips as he scratched at his sideburn. "I figured I wouldn't – at least until I looked down."
"It was exciting, wasn't it? Thrilling even. Cheating death?"
Joe looked at his pa with new eyes. "Are you saying that's why you went to sea?"
His father reached out to touch his chest, just over his heart. "I'm saying that's why you agreed to ride shotgun messenger for Phil, and why you hid the fact from me. Because you feared I would forbid it and something in you just has to go – just has to take a look. Just has to take that risk."
"Pa, I..."
He was right. It was like there was something inside him, pushing him to take on every challenge, forcing him to look danger in the eye, to face it, to laugh at it and come out on top – just to prove that he could.
Pa's hand fell to his own. The older man squeezed his fingers. "You can't beat death, Joe. No one can. No matter how hard they try."
His father squeezed his fingers again and then turned round and sat on the settee beside him. For some time the two of them remained there, side by side, saying nothing, just staring into the fire. Then Joe did something he hadn't done since he was a young boy. He laid his head on his father's shoulder. As the older man's arm encircled him, Joe shifted closer, relishing the feeling of complete and total security.
For the moment it was enough.
Tomorrow, he'd go about findin' that danger.
