Now almost two years since that conversation had taken place, Adam sat with his head in his hands at Hoss' bedside. While taking his shift at keeping watch over his brother, Adam pored over his plans for the flume. He had been over them so many times that he could hardly see straight and wanted to pitch them into the fireplace. Hoss laid silent and unmoving. The load of guilt was so heavy that Adam was ready to bolt. More than anything, he was kicking himself for not having left the Ponderosa before the timber expansion project ever came to his attention. He did not want to see the tortured look in his father's eyes yet again. Adam knew that Ben was trying hard not to condemn, but his father had questioned the project from the beginning.
It was the largest flume ever built in Nevada to date. Adam had patterned it after one built by James Harris. The design was a simple "V". Adding a flow of water helped to keep the logs from jamming the way they often did in a "U" style flume. This would be exceedingly important in the proposed twelve mile flume. Harris had hoped to patent his "V" design, but after checking with his connections in the Nevada state government, Adam had been assured that it would never happen. It took him months to design the flume and many more months for it to be built. Without an access across Ponderosa land, it was taking other companies much longer to build flumes two or three times the length of the Ponderosa project. This was a source of great frustration to many of the big players in the rapidly expanding timber industry.
The narrow gauge railway that ran from Tahoe to Spooner's Pass was less problematic and had been delivering timber to the summit for a few weeks when the long awaited day for the test run of the flume finally came. Hoss and Joe were given the task of monitoring checkpoints along the way while Adam and Ben waited at the Clear Creek camp ready to celebrate when the first of the logs splashed into the water.
Joe let out a triumphant holler and fired off three shots to let Hoss know that the logs had cleared his checkpoint. The youngest Cartwright took off down the mountain thinking that it would not be long until he heard shots from his brother confirming that all was well. He began to worry when no shots came; so he urged Cochise to move more quickly. Sometime later he arrived at the long, slow, curved section where Hoss would be. Joe was shocked by what he found. Hoss was lying face down, unconscious, amidst logs and pieces of the trestle. It appeared to Joe that the logs had jammed causing a significant pile up that sent some of the trailing logs hurtling through the air. One or more of the logs had taken out some of the supporting trestle which caused a fifty foot section of the flume to collapse. Not suspecting anything like that to happen, it looked as though Hoss had been hit by the flying debris from the break up resulting in a serious head wound and his body battered and bruised.
The signal that something had gone wrong was passed along the trestle by the remaining sentries and eventually to Adam, Ben and a group of investors and foremen of the work crews who had been anxiously waiting for the first logs to splash into Clear Creek. The Cartwrights and their foremen mounted up and rode along the trestle hours later arriving at the point of the disaster.
"He's alive and that's about all", were Joe's ominous words as Adam and Ben dismounted near where Hoss was laying. Adam's mind began to spin as he took in the destruction around him. He started barking orders to the foremen which brought glares from his father and Joe. Adam sent one man back to the work camp for a wagon to transport Hoss. Others he told to organize patrols to protect the flume and rails. He told them that anyone who could not be vouched for was to be held for questioning. Adam made it clear that absolutely nothing was to be moved at this site until he had time to survey the damage and determine what had happened. Realizing there was nothing he could do for Hoss that Joe and his father had not already done, Adam stalked off and attempted to sort out his thoughts. The idea that a miscalculation in the design of the flume had left his brother's life hanging in the balance was unbearable.
At the ranch house the following day, Dr. Martin applied a large bandage to Hoss' battered head. What the doctor deemed more worrisome was what he could not see. It had now been over a day and Hoss was not awake. Adam wanted to go back to the site and look for answers, and yet he did not want to leave until he knew that Hoss was out of the woods. Despite his orders, he was fearful that clues might disappear as the time passed. He berated himself as he thought about the possibility that his father's concerns about the flume may have been justified. Adam prayed that Hoss would regain consciousness soon and be able to give him some answers.
The hours wore on, and Hoss still did not wake up. When Ben came to Hoss' room to relieve Adam, the stifling, heavy silence between father and son was burdensome to both men.
Ben kept his focus on his middle son. "Any change?"
Adam sat up in an attempt to arch the kinks out of his back. "No", he murmured. His hands came up and he massage his temples with his fingers.
"Go get yourself some food and rest", Ben stated flatly.
Adam made a weak attempt to shuffle the plans in front of him. "Pa - I -"
"Not now, Adam", Ben interrupted. He did not want any conflict in Hoss' presence, not knowing for sure whether his middle son might be able to hear their voices regardless of how he appeared.
Adam used the arms of the chair to push himself to a standing position, grabbed up his blueprints, and trudged out of the room. He went directly to the kitchen to get a cup of coffee and eat a biscuit before heading to the barn to saddle up Sport. He was thankful that Joe was occupied with other ranch work for the time being while Hoss was incapacitated.
Adam pushed Sport hard until he got to the higher elevations. the Sierra Nevadas. He knew some of the big players, but definitely not all in the ever-expanding industry. The bottom line was that he really had no idea where to begin such an investigation. He prayed that Hoss would regain consciousness so that his brother could give him some clue, any clue, as to who might have done this.
Adam's mind churned as he rode back to the house. It was near the junction of Clear Creek and two smaller streams where the flume had collapsed. Because the creek was still too narrow at this point to float large volumes of timber, the flume continued for miles and emptied into the broader expanse at Empire City. Adam dismounted to survey the damage. Before disturbing anything, he took long looks from different perspectives. The twenty logs used for the test run were strewn at odd angles, some were impaling the earth. The massive devastation made him realize that it was a miracle Hoss had survived. However, the more he thought about it, nothing made sense. Surely his brother would have been standing back or seated on Chubb at a distance for a better view of the timber coming down the flume. He located all the damaged supports and inspected where they had broken away from the trestle. Some were in splinters obviously rammed with great force by the logs that had escaped the flume. Yet there were some pieces of the smaller crossbars that appeared to have broken away too cleanly. It appeared now to Adam that it was highly probable that the flume had been sabotaged. Located in the heart of the Ponderosa, he had not been as concerned as he probably should have been about the possibility of someone damaging the flume. He did, however, understand that this was a high stakes game he had gotten his family into, and chided himself for not taking more precautions. Adam pondered who would want this project to fail? As he thought on it, there were several possibilities that immediately came to mind. However, the timber business was exploding in the area. Did the perpetrator of the accident think Hoss was dead? If so, had word to the contrary already gotten around town? Also whoever it was seemed to know enough about the project to choose the most likely location for a problem to occur. Would there be another attempt to destroy the flume? These questions and many more filled Adam's brain and made the path forward difficult to see. If he waited too long to repair the flume, his investors would pull out. Assuming that Hoss survived, Adam worried that his brother's life might still be in danger because of what he could tell about the accident. Reining up Sport, Adam grabbed his canteen and took a long draw. He dropped the strap back over the saddle horn, rolled his shoulders and rubbed his neck trying to relieve some of the tension that had settled in.