PART 3
Adam found what he needed at the livery. Mr. Lewis had a small rod that was employed to fix carriages and Adam saw how he could cut it and use it as a pin. He then could solder it to the end of a chain that was attached to the hasp and have the lock he had envisioned. He paid Mr. Lewis and decided to ride by the church
He smiled to himself when he saw his father and brothers talking in the churchyard with people from the congregation but now Polly was beside Joe; he would be eating with the Sampson's tonight making one more place available at the table. And then there was Lucy walking with her parents. Adam pulled up Sport a ways from the churchyard and watched her. She was wearing a plain, dark brown hat, similar to a man's bowler but with a beige scarf tied around it as a hatband and flowing halfway down her back. Funny, Adam thought, that a man's style would look so attractive on a woman. And as he sat and stared, Lucy turned and saw Adam. Their eyes met and Adam became embarrassed and tipped his hat and she nodded. Then Adam urged Sport on and began his solitary trip home.
By the time Hoss and Ben arrived at the Ponderosa, Adam was already halfway through making the gate clasp. He had bent and shaped the iron around the wood posts and was working on creating the hasp.
"What are you doing, Adam?" Ben said as he walked his horse over to the corral.
Adam was familiar with his father's disapproving tone so he braced himself and answered, "Well, I finally decided to replace that jury-rigged contraption of Joe's. You won't have to raise the board to slip through that loop to keep it shut. I'm almost through. See, I plan to attach a small chain…"
"It's Sunday, Adam. You shouldn't be working." Ben looked sternly at Adam.
"Oh, C'mon, Pa." Adam gave a small laugh. "It's just repairing this gate latch. It's not as if I plowed the lower forty or such."
"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days thou shalt labor and do all thine work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath. In it thou shalt not do any work, nor your son."
"Yes, Pa, I know. Genesis, chapter 20, verse eight. I can quote chapter and verse as well as you and I can tell you a few other verses I've broken that would upset your whole way of…" Adam looked at his father who stood before him. Adam knew that his father was a God-fearing man and raised his sons to be the same and to have concern, not just for this life but for their eternal life as well. Adam considered his father as provincial but the words came to Adam from his early teachings, 'Honor your father… that your days may be long.' and although Adam wasn't going to make any deals with God for a longer life, especially if it continued to be such a source of misery, he did love and respect his father. They often didn't agree but of all the people in his life, his father had always been behind him, lifting him up as a child when he fell, feeding Adam first when there was little food to split between the two of them, buying Adam larger boots when his own boots' soles were full of holes and had to be lined with old newspapers to keep the dampness out and because of this and all the other many things his father had done for him, Adam deferred.
"Okay, Pa. I'll respect your wishes." And Adam picked up the tools and the parts for the latch and took them back to the barn.
Hoss, who had stood and watched the conversation between Adam and their father, led the two horses into the barn. Adam turned to look.
"I like that new gate latch you done got worked up, Adam. I swear, I was gettin' tired of havin' to lift that board and Pa was complainin' about a sore back a while ago and I done said that it was probably liftin' up that thing that caused it."
"Well," Adam said, "this should make it easier. Here, leave the horses with me-I'll unsaddle and curry them. You don't want to get your Sunday best dirty with Laura and Will coming for dinner."
"Um, Adam, 'bout that, how do you feel about them comin' for dinner and all, I mean seein' all that's happened and such?" Hoss had tried ever since Adam had returned home to get their closeness back, the confidential relationship that they had always had as brothers.
Hoss had always looked up to Adam despite Adam's affectionate teasing of him. Adam was smart and handsome and generous with all his gifts. He had helped Hoss with his schoolwork when young, was unusually patient and he taught Hoss how to ride and shoot a rifle and how to lasso cattle. When it came time for Hoss to help with spring branding, it was Adam who helped Hoss get past his empathy and affinity with animals to realize that the calves weren't hurt even half as much as they protested-and since Adam said it was so, Hoss believed it; Adam had never lied to him. As a matter of fact, Adam had always told him the truth even when Hoss didn't want the truth revealed to him. Nevertheless, as his father did, Hoss felt that Adam was often a stranger now, closed up and silent, not willing to reveal feelings about much of anything.
"I feel fine about it," Adam said as he unsaddled Buck. "Laura and I reached an understanding long ago, remember? And Will, I hold no resentment toward him. Actually, he did me a favor and took the bullet for me. When I think back, I really did avoid what would have eventually been quite the mess. I think I just wanted to be a family man, you know, have a place of my own and a wife to come home to and then there was Peggy; she alone was worth marrying Laura-a daughter I would've been proud to have. But before…well, before I left here, Will and Peggy were basically father and daughter although Will told me that he had finally broken Peggy of the habit of calling him Uncle Will and was then at 'Will." Next, he was working on getting her to call him 'Pa.' "
"Well, You're a better man than me," Hoss said.
"I don't need you to tell me that," Adam said, concealing a grin.
Hoss stood still-he was trying to decide if Adam was serious but then Adam turned to him and Hoss saw that half-grin on Adam's face and gave him a slight shove.
"I mean only that I couldn't sit there at table with some woman that I usta love enough to wanna marry and the man who done got her instead. I mean won't it kinda make you look at them and think about what they do together? I mean I'd just be picturin' it and it'd put me off my food."
"I think it'd take a lot more than that to put you off your food," Adam said with a small laugh. He led Buck into his stall and removed that bridle, carefully removing the bit; Buck sometimes threw his head back too quickly to be free of the piece of metal.
"Yeah, well," Hoss said, "like I done said, you're a better man than me. I don't think I could do it."
"Well, if I get up and leave the table, you'll know I couldn't either" Adam stepped over to Chubb and started unsaddling him. "And you're just standing there with your hands in your pockets to see if I still remember how to unsaddle a horse?"
With that remark, Hoss turned and left the barn. He knew that Adam preferred being solitary these days but Hoss, who never liked to think too deeply because that always made him unhappy by bringing up issues he would prefer to forget, respected Adam's wishes to be left alone. So he shuffled across the yard. Hoss missed his brothers; Joe was always with Polly Sampson now and soon would be married and moving out and then Adam wasn't fully there. So Hoss was lonely.
Adam finished up and went back to the house where his father was sitting. "What time are Will and Laura coming?"
"Not so early that you don't have time to wash up and change clothes before they get here," Ben said, puffing on his pipe.
Adam stopped himself from asking his father who the hell he thought he was to tell Adam to wash as if he was a small child. "I suppose that I've worked up a little sweat and even though I haven't worn any of my best clothes since I've been home, if they fit, I'll wear them." Adam left for the washroom off the kitchen and then he hard his father call him back. When he turned, Ben was standing up.
"Yes?' Adam asked, puzzled.
"I'm sorry, Adam." Ben dropped his eyes. "It's difficult to stop being a father. I know that you're a grown man and have the right to make your own decisions, especially about small things like what to wear when company comes over…but, Adam, every time I look at you-and the same with your brothers-I see you as the small boy you once were, so alone and afraid of being abandoned and that was all my fault. I want to make things up to you-I've been trying your whole life to protect you but I've been, well, I'm afraid that I've failed."
"No, Pa," Adam said, "you didn't fail me, I failed you."
"No. no," Ben said, stepping toward Adam, "you never failed me. Adam, I.."
Adam stepped toward his father and pulled his father to him in an embrace, smelling the hair pomade his father wore and noticing how his father arms held him tightly and so they stood like such for a few seconds until Adam began to release his father from his arms and they parted and without saying anything, Adam smiled gently at his father whose eyes were welling with tears. Adam patted him on the arm and with understanding in their exchange of glances, Adam left to go wash up.
TBC
