Chapter 3
"Morning, Roy." Adam walked into Roy Coffee's office where the lawman was sitting, drinking coffee and reading correspondence. There was a stack of wanted posters to his right, waiting to receive the lawman's attention. Adam repressed a smile; it always amused him that, no matter what the weather, Roy was always so nattily dressed wearing a clean shirt, a vest and a tie, his moustache neatly trimmed. And he wore his hat even inside his office.
"Well, Adam, good to see you. Sit down, sit down." Roy smiled, motioning to the chair opposite his desk. "Help yourself to coffee – just made it so it's not burned yet."
"A little too hot for coffee right now but I'd like some water." It was a hot June day and there had been no relief from the white heat that baked the land and its inhabitants.
"Help yourself, son." Adam walked over to the white ceramic crock on the side table, and holding one of the empty mugs below the spigot, filled it with cool water. He then went to sit down, pulled off his hat and placed it on the corner of Roy's desk. He leaned back and propped one leg across the knee of the other.
Roy pulled off his spectacles, smiled and sat back. "What brings you to town? Don't need the law at your place, do you? Hop Sing kill someone for insulting his cookin'?"
Adam chuckled and looked down at the thick-walled mug he held. "No, no – just a friendly visit. Had to deposit a bank draft and ordered two new lamps for the house…d'you believe Kendrick is out? Then I had a beer at the Silver Dollar. So, since I was in town, just thought I'd stop by and say hello. That's all."
Roy Coffee had known Adam since the Cartwrights first moved to the area. Roy had been a deputy to the territorial marshal and then, when the small town rose to more than a few stores, one saloon and a whorehouse, a sheriff was needed to cover "the Fourteen-mile City" and Roy was voted in although he knew he was a shoe-in as no one else even considered running; there was far more money to be made mining for gold, that is if it could be found. And if not gold, well, there were some copper deposits around the area as well. The streams and creeks were lined with placer miners and many a fight had broken out over claims and more than a normal share of murders. Roy had been a busy man. Things in the area were finally becoming more civilized and homesteaders were moving in, hoping life would be easier than back east. But that was a possibility only for those who survived the trek.
Roy had always been fond of Adam. The boy had a sharp mind and a sharper wit and the two appreciated each other. Roy would have wanted a son of his to be like Adam but his wife, Mary, died early on and Roy never found another woman who moved him as his Mary had. So he was destined, in his own judgment, to remain childless.
"Now, Adam, I'd say somethings weighing heavy on your mind and since you're not talkin' it out with your pa, I take it you want to bounce something off me. That right?"
Adam grinned. "Yeah, that's right. Must be the lawman in you, Roy. Can't pull anything over on you."
Roy took the teasing in stride. "Well, go ahead and say what's on your mind." Roy waited.
Adam sat upright and placed the mug on the table. "Um…well, I want to marry Ginevra Sullivan."
Roy considered; he wasn't a man to respond without consideration – usually. Granted, he often lost his patience with anyone who didn't see things exactly the way he did, but Roy could tell Adam was upset. But then any man in love, young or old, lived in a state of sexual energy that left nerve endings exposed and raw.
"Well, you have been squiring her places and people have remarked on it. Why I even mentioned it to your pa last week so what you say comes as no surprise. And I can't blame you there. I'm sure your pa can't either, considering that she looks so much like her mother. The prettier of the two girls, but Teresa, she was a beauty too. Sad about her – died so young. I take it that it's not so much her age as it is 'cause she coulda been your sister once."
"My sister? What do you mean?" Adam leaned forward.
"Your pa didn't…." Roy considered whether or not to continue, but Adam was there sitting in front of him, a man grown, and his father should have explained the way things were years ago with the Cartwrights and the Sullivans; nothing was a secret to the people who had witnessed the whole affair. "I know you were young, but you must remember when Ginevra's mother and the two girls visited the Ponderosa? You must've been about 9 or 10, I guess. Teresa was a year or two younger than you and Ginevra…what? She's Hoss' age, I guess."
"Yes, but that has nothing to do with…"
As Roy watched, he saw the change in Adam's face as revelation dawned. Adam now knew, now understood the subtle meaning of the mother and her two small daughters often visiting the Ponderosa, and the times his father left smelling of pomade and witch hazel and wearing his best Sunday clothes.
"Where're you going, Pa?" It was Saturday night but Adam had become suspicious when his father took his bath early and shaved.
"Just to visit someone."
"Yeah, but who're you visiting?"
"I won't be late, Adam. Hop Sing'll be staying in tonight so he'll watch Hoss. Just make sure you get to bed on time and don't stay up too late reading. And wash your teeth and say your prayers."
"But, Pa, who're you visiting? Why's it a secret?" Adam had a bad feeling. Secrets meant there was something bad or shameful to be hidden. He knew as he had secrets himself.
"It's not a secret." Ben sighed; there was no avoiding Adam. "I'm visiting the Widow Ackerman, okay?"
"Why? Why her?" What did his father want with her? Adam had noticed the way his father smiled whenever he saw the widow, even insisted they pick up the small family for church. Adam also knew men and women did shameful things together, the deed of kind, and he knew that grown men like his father missed having a woman around, but that couldn't be it – not his father. After all, his father had loved Inger and although she had died five years ago, well, men, unlike the animals on the ranch, the rooster who constantly climbed on top of the hens and the hog on the sow, well, men could control their behavior. At least Adam hoped so. And just a few weeks earlier, Adam overheard his father ask Roy Coffee, the deputy marshal, if he ever yearned to have a woman to warm his bed at night. Roy asked what made him think that he already didn't have a woman who did so – and then was thankfully gone in the morning? And they had laughed together. Was his father going to spend the whole night with the widow and then come home by early morning? Did things work that way? Did people like his father behave that way?
"Because I like Mrs. Ackerman. Don't you like her?" Adam slowly nodded but remained suspicious; it was an easy answer quickly given. "Now, I won't be late."
Father and son looked at each other a heartbeat longer but neither said another word. And then the father left.
"You saying my father wanted to marry Ginevra's mother once?"
"You must have known that, by the way he behaved, if by nothing else. He was in love with her but she ended up marrying Titus Sullivan instead. Don't really know why she did, but I have my idea. I mean back then Titus Sullivan was the wealthiest man in the area. Remember, your father was basically piss-poor and sacrificed quite a lot to build up the spread, slowly buying more and more acreage. But you boys never did without. And until he could afford help, your pa cleared all that land himself, cuttin' down trees and hauling off stones.
"But never could believe that money was all that caused her to marry Titus. But you never know with women. I mean she was barely scraping by after her husband died, and having two young girls and all to raise. But your father was promising and Titus Sullivan, well, he was wealthy but has the temperament of a rattlesnake. And she had those two beautiful daughters.
"Anyway, maybe that's why your pa isn't too keen on you and Ginevra Sullivan marrying. It might be a constant reminder of her mother - cause him pain. But if I know your father, your being happy means far more to him than his feelings. Just give your pa time, Adam – that is if you're serious about marrying her. She is young, you know."
"She's not that young," Adam said. He rose and picked up his hat. "And I am serious. Thanks, Roy. You gave me something to think on."
"Now, Adam," Roy said, pushing his chair back so he could walk from behind his desk, "I don't know if I should have told you about your father and Ginevra's mother…"
"You didn't," Adam said. "You just reminded me."
Adam left and Roy sat back down. "You talk too damn much," he told himself. "Getting senile early." He picked up a pencil to write but stopped, tapping it on the desk top. "You're gettin' as bad a gossip as those church women, cluckin' like a group of old hens."
~ 0 ~
Adam pulled his horse up and stood in his stirrups to pull out his pocket watch. He pushed the crown button and the case lid sprung open. It was 11:15. Ginevra would be waiting. He was about to flip the lid shut with his thumb when he glanced again at the engraving – May we love through all time. 1792. The watch had been his grandfather Cartwright's and the engraving was from his deceased wife given on their wedding day—Adam's grandmother.
Adam gave a sigh that seemed to echo off the surrounding mountains and to hang in the air until it dissipated like fog. Love. Did love really last through time? If Ernestine Cartwright hadn't died a year after her second son was born, having never recovered her fragile health, would she have loved his grandfather through time? According to Adam's father, Joseph Cartwright had been a contrary, stubborn, cold man who rarely showed affection. And yet, Adam had listened to his father tell stories of his own father's moments of kindness and generosity toward his two sons, acts that ensured his children knew they were loved.
Adam closed the watch lid and slid it back into the watchpocket. He was thinking too much, that he knew. He always thought too much and it sometimes kept him from acting. He needed to get to Ginevra – she'd worry should he be late. He kicked his horse and rode until he saw the stand of yew trees. It was on the edge of Ponderosa property, but far closer to the Sullivan house that the Cartwright homestead. And why yew trees with their reddish-purple bark, seemed to spring from there but not elsewhere in the area, was a puzzle. They had grown as if struggling to stay on the earth, the trunks painfully twisted, vying among themselves for sunlight and the rain.
But Ginevra loved the spot. There was an open space in the almost circular grove of trees and Ginevra said that it looked like a fairy circle to her- the trees dancing fairy queens. As a child, after her mother married Titus Sullivan, she would often escape the house and run to this spot to create dances, pretending that she was a fairy, light as air with translucent wings attached to her shoulder blades. Once, she confided to Adam, she had stripped off her clothes and danced naked in the midst of the protective trees, feeling more free than she had ever known. And Adam had listened, mesmerized by her narrative, envisioning her dancing naked and graceful among the trees like one of the Three Graces.
Nevertheless, the Ponderosa built a fence to keep livestock from grazing in that area and being inadvertently poisoned by fallen yew seeds hidden in the grass. Sullivan had done the same, fenced off his side, but a person, by slipping through the narrow, unfenced area between, could enter the spot. It was private and cool.
And Ginevra, his fairy princess, was waiting. At the sound of Adam's horse, she turned and a smile greeted him. Adam dismounted, slipped through the fences, and held out his arms, Ginevra ran the few steps to him and threw herself into his embrace, raising her face to him. Adam kissed her again and again, her mouth, her cheek, her temples. "Oh, Ginevra," he whispered. She pulled away but held tightly onto his arms.
"Adam, I talked to my stepfather and he told me what he said to you – that he wants you to work to earn me. He said you refused and I understand completely – really, I do."
"Ginevra…"
"No, my love, I understand. But he wants to send me back to Philadelphia, to my Aunt Pauline. She's supposed to find me a husband. Oh, Adam! What are we to do? I can't bear to be separated!" Ginevra fell against Adam's chest, making an effort not to cry but she wanted to ceaselessly wail.
"We won't be."
"What?"
"I'm going to take your father up on his proposition. I told my father about it last night."
"Oh, Adam…you shouldn't. There's another way. I've been thinking about it. If I became with child, my stepfather would let us marry then. See, Adam? We could lie together here, in my fairy circle."
Her "fairy circle." Adam realized that although Ginevra was a woman in many ways, she still had the remnants of girlhood hanging from her. "No, Ginevra. As much as I want you, I won't have people say we had to marry, that your father stood through the whole ceremony holding a shotgun to my back. I want all of creation to know I married you because I love you – not just to make a child legitimate."
"But, Adam, we want children anyway, we've talked about it and then, well, we wouldn't have to wait so long to be together. Think about it, Adam." Ginevra grasped his shirtfront and held tightly. "No one would see us here and I love you so very much – I long to show you."
Adam grabbed her hands, pulled them from his shirt and pushed her back. Adam hadn't counted on Ginevra's logical solution. And it was logical – he could see that. Cause and effect. And he loved Ginevra and did want her, yearned for her, burned for her. But what if her father said no to their marrying even as she became full with his child. What if Sullivan sent Ginevra away to her aunt's to give birth and then had the child spirited away? Adam knew he would have no say in what happened because Ginevra was so young.
"No, my love. The first time we're together won't be on the ground under these poisonous yew trees. And it'll be after we're married. It'll all be proper and no shame'll be attached to our love."
"I'm sorry, Adam." Her golden head dropped and she covered her face with her small hands. "But I wouldn't be ashamed – I'd be proud to carry your child."
Adam pulled her into his arms, caressing her hair as he would a child. "Don't worry, Ginevra. We'll be married in seven months. I plan on seeing your father in the morning and signing on. It'll prove to him, to my father, to the whole world, that I love you enough to labor for you."
"Oh, Adam, kiss me, my darling." She turned her flower face up to him as if he was the sun that gave her life, that drew her to turn constantly to follow him.
