Chapter Two

Twenty minutes later, the boys reconvened in the loft. They'd had a hard time getting down the ladder safely and digging around in the barn for some scrap lumber, twine, and a big piece of canvas – their arms and legs weren't responding properly, and they both had to stop twice to pee.

"Now, I think da Vinci's problem was he made it too comp'cated," Adam said. Dust tickled the back of his throat, and he coughed. "Thanks," he said as Ross handed him the whiskey bottle. Adam frowned to see that it was two-thirds empty. He couldn't figure out what his father's problem was with alcohol; he'd never felt better in his life. "I think all we really need's a pair o' wings."

For the first time in his life, Adam constructed something slapdash. Rather than measuring, sawing, and nailing, he and Ross pieced together a rudimentary framework by approximating and lashing pieces together with the twine. Adam used his pocketknife to poke holes in the canvas so they could tie it to the frame, and he prided himself on stabbing himself only twice in the process. He gave himself a pretty good gash across his left palm the second time, but he tied his bandana around it, took another swig of whiskey to dull the pain, and kept working.

The boys were so caught up in their project that they didn't hear the barn door creak open.

"Ross? Adam? You boys in here?"

Adam and Ross froze and stared at each, mouths agape. Mr. Marquette would tan them both if he discovered they'd been drinking. Adam's stomach lurched.

"Uh, no!" he called back. "Nobody here but us cows! Mooooo!"

Ross slapped him upside the back of the head.

"You idiot!" he stage-whispered. "This is a horse barn!"

"I mean horses!" Adam hollered. "Neeeeiiiighhh!"

Ross buried his face in his hands.

Mr. Marquette chuckled; he clearly thought the boys were just being silly. Adam's scalp jumped as they heard him approach the ladder to the hayloft. Ross stuffed the cork in the whiskey bottle and buried it under the hay, and Adam took a little comfort in knowing that at least he was going to die alongside his best friend.

Mr. Marquette's smiling face popped up over the edge of the hayloft.

"There you are!" he said. "Been lookin' all over for you two. Adam, Mrs. Marquette wants to know if you're stayin' for supper or if your pa's expecting you home."

"Oh, uh, I 'spect I better get on home," Adam muttered, not meeting Mr. Marquette's gaze. "They prob'ly need help wi' Joe."

Adam realized too late that he should have covered his mouth when he spoke. Mr. Marquette's nose wrinkled as Adam's breath drifted toward him. The man's face hardened.

"Adam, why do you smell like liquor?" he demanded.

"Liquor, sir?"

"Yes, son, liquor."

As Adam sputtered nonsensically, Mr. Marquette pulled himself up into the hayloft. As he closed in on Adam, his foot knocked against the whiskey bottle, and he dropped to his knees and fished around under the hay until he found it. His eyes went as wide as wagon wheels as he studied the two inches of amber liquid sloshing about in the bottom of the otherwise empty bottle. He turned his gaze toward Ross so slowly that at first Adam wasn't sure his head was even moving.

"Ross. Peterson. Marquette."

Ross scuttled backward like a crab until he reached the gaping loft door. Sweat pouring down his face, he peered over his shoulder at the sharp drop-off.

"Ross, come here."

Fear and something that Adam could describe only as insanity flashed in Ross's eyes as the friends' gazes met. With more dexterity than he should have had given the quantity of whiskey he'd consumed over the past hour and a half, Ross sprang to his feet and grabbed the contraption he and Adam had been building. He flung the crude wings across his shoulders, shouted "You'll never take me alive!" and leapt out of the loft door.

Mr. Marquette shouted as his son hurled himself into thin air, and he darted to the loft door. Adam tried to follow him, but the world swam before his eyes when he stood up, and he had to crawl to the gaping door. He was afraid to look down, certain he would see his best friend broken and bloodied in the dirt below.

Adam peeped over the edge of the loft. Ross lay sprawled on his back, the wings in splinters all around him. His left leg was bent at the knee, the ankle and foot underneath his rear end. There was no doubt he was dead. Tears spilled from Adam's eyes as he and Mr. Marquette stared down at Ross's limp form.

But then Ross began to laugh.

It started as a wheeze and grew into a deafening guffaw as Ross rolled over to one side and tried to push himself up. He got all the way up to his knees before he pitched sideways and landed in the rubble, laughing like a hyena.

"Hey, Adam!" he called up between peals of hysterics. "I don't think this was that next step you had in mind!" He snorted and rolled over onto his back, waving his arms and legs in the air as he continued to giggle.

Mr. Marquette grabbed Adam by his upper arm and dragged him across the loft to the ladder. He jabbed a finger toward the barn floor.

"Down. Now."

Adam swallowed hard and belly-crawled to the edge of the loft. He swung one foot over the edge and waved it around, searching for the top rung. Mr. Marquette sighed.

"Looks like I better go first." Tucking the whiskey bottle under one arm, he nudged Adam out of the way and began his descent. Halfway down, he called for Adam to follow him.

As Adam made his clumsy, unsteady way down the ladder, he imagined he now knew what it was like to climb the rigging of ship in the middle of a hurricane. The ladder that had been so solid earlier that afternoon now waved around like a kite, and Adam had to cling tightly to each rung to avoid being thrown off, his injured hand screeching with pain.

When Adam's feet hit the floor, Mr. Marquette grabbed his left ear in a vice-like grip and dragged him from the barn. Even drunk as he was, Adam knew better than to protest, and he stumbled along behind Mr. Marquette as he tore around the barn to Ross.

Ross was on all fours when they reached him, and his back looked like a porcupine. Sharp splinters of wood stuck out at all angles from his bare skin, which was oozing angry droplets of blood. Mr. Marquette kicked away the debris surrounding Ross and dropped to his knees beside his son. He brushed the boy's shaggy brown hair out of his face.

"Ross! Ross, are you ok?!"

In response, Ross turned his head and vomited into his father's lap. The sickening sour stench wafted up to Adam's nose, and he went to pull his shirt up over his face before he remembered he wasn't wearing one – his shirt was still in the hayloft next to Ross's. Fighting to keep from vomiting, too, Adam started plucking slivers of wood from Ross's back. Ross got only halfway through the word "Ouch" before he retched a second time. Mr. Marquette leapt back.

"Wonderful," he griped, looking down at his ruined trousers. He sighed. "Let's get you inside and get those splinters out of your back." He grabbed Ross's forearm and hauled him to his feet, but Ross shrieked with pain and dropped to the ground, landing in his own sick. He clutched his left ankle.

"It's broke, Pa! It's broke!" he cried.

Mr. Marquette shoved the whiskey bottle at Adam, lifted his son, and bore him toward the house.

Alone in the barnyard, Adam considered fleeing the scene until Mr. Marquette turned around and ordered him to get his sorry rear end inside this instant or there would be so little of him left that they would return him to the Ponderosa in a matchbox. Head hanging, he staggered across the yard and followed Mr. Marquette into the house.

Mrs. Marquette wailed in terror when she spotted her vomit-soaked husband carrying their sobbing child into the house. Frightened, little Matthew sent up his banshee-like screech again, his howls bouncing painfully around Adam's swimming head.

"What happened?!" Mrs. Marquette shouted over the baby's screaming.

"These two fools," Mr. Marquette jerked his head toward Adam and then down at Ross, "got corned out of their minds, and Ross decided to jump out of the hayloft."

Mrs. Marquette was too stunned to speak.

"Rosemary, let's get these splinters out of his back, and then I gotta ride for Doc Martin. Think Ross broke his ankle." Mr. Marquette laid his son face-down on the sofa and turned on Adam. "And you, young man, had better not still be here when I get back. I'll be by the Ponderosa first thing tomorrow to speak with your father."

Adam quailed. "But, Mizzzer Marquette," he slurred, "wha 'bout the-"

"Not another word outta you! Now get on home!" Mr. Marquette sent Adam reeling toward the door with a stinging smack on the rear end, never noticing that Adam still had the bottle of whiskey in his hand.

Adam weaved back to the barn to saddle up his horse. He thought about leaving the whiskey on the porch, but he worried that this reminder of their indiscretion might make things harder on Ross, so he held onto it. It took him twice as long as usual to tack up his chestnut mare, Beauty. No matter how hard he concentrated, his long, usually nimble fingers didn't want to manipulate all the buckles and straps. He broke out in a cold sweat, desperate to be gone by the time Mr. Marquette came out to the barn to collect his own horse to ride for the doctor. An eternity later, Adam had Beauty tacked up more or less correctly and after three failed attempts managed to flop into the saddle. He rode out of the Marquettes' barnyard, the bottle of whiskey tied to his saddle horn.