The Spark Within

XxXxX

Ben

It seems to reach out to forever, this stretch of dry, hard desert. I feel almost as though I'm standing in the bow of a tall ship, looking out over a once great but now empty, dusty sea, full of nothing but death. But…that's not quite true, is it? Life came into this desert just yesterday. An infant was born to parents who'd turned away from the sea to build a life amidst this…desolation. Like me, perhaps? I could have stayed in the east. I could have built a life where the waves are abundant with…life.

And where storms and whales and all manner of sirens can take life for life.

I'm a fool to think like this. There would have been no point to my staying back east. No good could have come from it. Not after Elizabeth. Not with Adam, himself newly born, needing me at home…needing a home.

That's why I came west. I brought Adam to this country, to this…desolation. If I hadn't, he would be plying the waves as I once did. I have no doubt of that, none at all. But…if I hadn't, I would never have met Inger…or Marie.

Would Adam have been my only son?

By the time this day ends, will Hoss be my only son?

God help me, I can't bear to think of it! This desert steals life so readily, sucking it right out of a man, draining him dry until there's nothing left but an empty husk.

I could almost believe that's what I saw when we first climbed up into these rocks, when my sons first came into view after I'd spent all night wondering what I might find, worrying over what I might find, and never coming close to the truth. My eldest and my youngest…Adam and Joseph, were drawn together like sailors adrift, clinging to one another as though desperate to avoid being sucked under waves of sun scorched sand. Adam, still conscious, had looked at me with the eyes of a man who had suddenly found himself in the presence of angels, the eyes of a man who had expected death yet found life instead. But Joseph…. He was so still…his lips cracked from these dry sands…his eyes closed…the divine spark of life always so prominent in him suddenly hidden from me as never before.

Heaven help me if that divine spark remains lost, sucked dry by this godforsaken land.

I very nearly lost them both out here in all this desolation. I still could lose them. And for what? A timber contract. No business transaction is worth the lives of my sons. It should have been me. If that contract was so…so wretchedly important, I should have stayed in Austin alone…. I should have…should have sent my sons home—all of them—after that cattle delivery. But…I wanted to get home. I wanted to enjoy the comforts of the home that I left the sea to build, the comforts of the home I built for Adam and Hoss, the home I made ready for Little Joe. I built it for them, for all of them, and yet I've been so…so selfish. I was willing to leave Adam and Joe behind so I could get back to that comfortable home.

"I'll stay, Pa!" Joe's young exuberance rings through my head like a clarion. That spark within him had been a raging inferno. Yes. He wanted to stay in Austin. Because Austin meant excitement, enticement. It meant whiskey and poker…and yes, maybe even a woman or two. The young son for whom I'd prepared that house is so readily called away from it. What I see as a haven, he sees as a...what? A place to rest in between work and play and…adventure.

I wonder if he saw this as an adventure. Perhaps, in the beginning. I can imagine him racing alongside his brother, excitement building within him while they outran—or tried to outrun—those renegades, a group of enraged Paiutes, Shoshones and Bannocks who'd banded together to fight what they saw as an unjust…unacceptable ending to the Pyramid Lake War…who had chosen my sons to exact their vengeance.

I can almost…almost imagine Little Joe smiling as long as those Indians' arrows struck harmlessly behind him…behind them both…as long as he felt assured of a good ending. But…I'm being unfair. Joseph is not a fool. Even he would not find pleasure in the danger of such a chase. No. Joseph is not a fool.

Still…he does love the idea of adventure, that boy. He attacks life with such zealousness…almost a cavalier disregard for what could happen when the adventure turns dark, when it jumps from the pages of a book to harpoon him with an arctic sting of reality. I suppose I'm to blame for that, too, for allowing him such free rein…for encouraging him to read even such rubbish as those ridiculous dime novels that fill his thoughts with impossible adventures and implausibly happy endings.

"I'll stay, Pa!"

I shouldn't have let him. I shouldn't have….

Heaven help me I shouldn't have enabled him! We drew straws, yes. But I'm the one who prepared those straws. I knew exactly which one to pick and which to encourage Hoss to pick. I wanted Joseph to have his adventure in Austin. And I wanted Adam to be there to watch over him in my place.

God help me, I'm responsible! I not only led my sons into this...adventure…I drove them to it!

When did Joe's smile turn? When did adventure become…hopelessness?

Well…I know for a fact that smile would have died the moment he knew his brother had been hit. But the adventure…no. That could not have ended so easily.

"You should've seen him, Hoss," Adam's voice should have consoled me while I'd held Joe and watched Lieutenant Hayes' medic clean and attend to that horrific wound in my youngest son's back, cutting out infection before it could grow worse. "He practically dragged me up into these rocks. And then he…he fought like…an army." So…Adam had been hit first. His youngest brother had saved him.

My heart swells from the words, even now. But…even now, those words offer no consolation.

"Like an entire army," Adam had crowed. "He covered three sides to my one. It was…the only one I could reach…."

Yes. Joseph had his adventure. But then he'd been hit, too.

"You'd have been…proud of him, Hoss."

Adam was proud. Hoss was proud. And I, too, am proud. But…I'd rather have a living son with human flaws than a prideful heart and a freshly dug grave.

Am I wrong? Am I so wrong to think this way? If Joe had not made us all proud by saving his oldest brother, then Adam might already be dead. And yet, for that very act, they might both die.

"Dear Lord, why?" I look up into a blinding sun and hear nothing in reply but the low whistle of a sudden breeze...a hot breeze that stirs up a swirl of dust, almost taking the shape of a woman as it brushes my skin with the feel of a bellows blowing over an inferno.

The inferno of Joseph's hidden spark, perhaps?

"God works in mysterious ways." I can still hear the Scandinavian, song-like cadence of Mrs. Olverson's sweet voice calling out to Hoss and me before we rode away…before we rode here, to save my sons.

I want to believe it. I want to believe in that breeze, in that spark and…. I want to believe my sons will make it back to Austin. I want to believe they'll both make it into the hands of Doctor Emil Olverson, a man whose troubles became our own for a day and a half, and who I know will be more than willing to take on these troubles as his own. He can make them well again. He can give them back to me.

"God works in mysterious ways."

"Please, dear Lord, work those ways on my sons!"

XxXxX

This supply wagon moves too slowly, trundling through the sands of a great, dusty sea. And…it is a rough sea. Among the roughest I have ever known. The wheels bounce and jump enough to make my own, old bones ache. I want my sons to come awake, and I dread it all the same. I can't imagine the pain they would both feel if they were to do so, yet I would take it all on myself if I could.

But…they won't feel anything, will they? Not for a while. If at all. Both lost so much blood. So…so very much….

I wish I could shake away that image…the moment I pulled Joe from his brother to discover Adam's chest red with blood. I thought…we all thought Adam had two wounds then. But no. He'd only been hit in the leg. It was a bad wound, surely, but it was also his only wound. The blood on Adam's chest had spilled from the open gash in Joe's back when he'd rested against his older brother.

They had clung together at the top of that path like sailors adrift, riding the crest of a sun-frozen wave, waiting for….

Waiting for us. I must believe that they were waiting for us. I want to believe it. But….

I am too old to ignore…reality. They could not have known we were coming. They had to have expected those renegade Indians would come at daybreak to…to finish them off.

"Pa?" Hoss's voice is strong. Comforting. The sound of it lifts me from depths I'd never thought to know. "It's Private Johnson, Pa."

I look past the bulk of my middle son there in the driver's seat—an anomaly, certainly, for an army supply wagon, but he had insisted…and I had agreed…and the lieutenant had to have recognized Hoss's need to take responsibility for his brothers, even if all that meant was driving a wagon team.

Yes, Private Johnson has returned from yet another errand delivering messages. He's a good man, lean and wiry, an easy load for any horse to bear and a perfect fit for speed. He proved that barely twenty four hours ago, when he'd ridden hard to find Hoss and me where we'd been encamped on the road to Virginia City with the Olversons. That ride had been to tell us the corporal's patrol had encountered Champ and Cochise, riderless, lathered, and with Champ's saddle spattered in blood. This ride had been different, but no less urgent.

He pulls alongside the wagon and then matches our pace, Hoss never slowing. "Doc Olverson says he'll be ready, Mister Cartwright. Says to bring your boys straight to Mister Buell's house when you get to town."

"Mister Buell's?" I want nothing to do with that man. The very sound of his name burns like acid in my stomach. My boys would be fine if Buell had been in town as promised. We would all have ridden for home ahead of the renegades. We would all have missed the Indians and encountered the Olversons, instead. We would all have marveled at Emil's stories of the sea. And we would all have rejoiced at the birth of their infant son.

Benjamin Eric Olverson. Imagine that. He was named for Hoss and me, honoring us for simply doing what was right and lending a helping hand to fellow travelers on the road. I wonder what that child's name would be if all of us had been there, all four of us, as it should have been.

"Mister Cartwright? Did you hear me?"

"What? Oh, yes. I'm sorry. You said to go to Mister Buell's, didn't you?"

"Yessir. On account of the fact Mister Buell's got the only fully built house in town. That town's too new to have anything much else built up yet. Even the saloons are in tents. Doc Olverson didn't want to tend to your boys in a tent."

Yes, yes. I know about the tents. We just rode out of Austin two days ago. Sighing, I hold my tongue and start to grasp what the private has just told me. "You mean to say Doctor Olverson convinced Mister Buell to give up his house?"

"I wouldn't say give it up, exactly. But the doc did convince Buell to give him and his wife and that baby of theirs decent shelter until he can get a house of his own built up. And soon as I told that doc about your boys, well, I guess you could say he upped the ante, some."

"I knew I liked that fella!" I can hear a smile in Hoss's tone, and it lifts me even further than he had a moment ago. It lifts me enough that I feel a small smile of my own come to the fore.

"God works in mysterious ways."

Perhaps he does. Perhaps he does, indeed.

XxXxX

What's wrong with me? My thoughts are a jumble, swirling like desert dust from the sea to the sand and then back again before landing in a finely adorned house with mahogany furnishings and crystal chandeliers.

"It's brandy, Mister Cartwright." David Buell is standing over me, handing me a heavy, leaded crystal glass.

Buell's house. Yes. Of course. "The doctor?" My throat stings and I realize…I can't remember when I've last taken a sip of water. The brandy helps but little.

"He's in the dining room, of all places. He's taken it up as a surgery. Even equipped it with cots. I don't know how I let him talk me into this. It's the most out—"

"Show me where." I set down the glass and rise from a sturdy wing-backed chair to a very unstable Persian rug. My legs wobble like a man on his first excursion at sea.

Buell presses down on my shoulder, forcing me—with very little effort applied—back to my seat. "No." It is a simple declaration.

"Show...Me…Where." My words sound far more forceful that his push.

But he doesn't move. "I've been given strict orders to see to your health while the doctor sees to the health of your sons."

"There is nothing wrong with my health. Now take me to my sons or I will find them myself."

"There is an army in there already. Literally, in fact! A medic, a corporal and a private. Not to mention Doctor Olverson and your other son, Hoss. You will only get in the way."

"Will you please stop this nonsense and just take me to—"

"Mister Cartwright…. May I call you Ben?" He nods without any acknowledgement from me. "Ben, your sons are in good hands. Very good hands. Please. Rest. Why, you went from redder than an Indian to paler than a ghost when you walked in here. Now, if you don't want to add to the doctor's troubles by making him tend to you, too, I would encourage you to sit back for now, and then, in a few moments, relax with a fine meal. Mrs. Olverson, tired as she is, oversaw everything with my own cook in the kitchen to see to it this meal was special."

He's talking so much that the words roll over me in waves and I am helpless to stop them. I feel like a sailor adrift, and I have no sons to cling to. None at all.

XxXxX

"Pa?" Hoss's voice…and the feel of his hand gripping my arm…pulls me from the depths of sleep.

I open my eyes to see him smiling warmly down at me. Yes. Down. I'm in a bed. No…a cot. Buell's dining room?

"They've taken it up as a surgery. Even equipped it with cots."

"Joe?" I try to push myself up. "Adam?"

Hoss gently holds me back. "They're restin' up, Pa. Doc thinks they're gonna be fine. Need to watch over 'em for a few days, but…should be just fine."

"Why am I here? What happened?"

"Heat exhaustion…." Emil Olverson is now standing beside Hoss, and he, too is grinning. "…Dehydration, lack of sleep, worry. The body can only take so much, Ben. You reached your limit."

"That's absurd. I didn't work any harder in the sun today—or yesterday—than I have before."

"Add your excursions in the desert heat to the anxiety you felt that whole time you were with my wife and me. Remember? And it only grew worse when the private delivered Corporal Rogers' message about finding your sons horses…."

"Funny thing, isn't it?" Hoss adds. "We both got awful jittery before we even knew Adam and Joe were in trouble. You reckon somehow we knew they were gonna need help?"

"God works in mysterious ways."

"I don't know, Hoss." But I do. Somehow…I do. Something had been holding us close, keeping us from finishing our journey home.

"All that anxiety," Emil was saying, "all that worry, combined with a night spent listening to my new son testing out his lungs—which, you can certainly tell, are strong as can be—and another restless night waiting for the sunrise to give you your chance to rescue your sons…. As I said, you reached your limit. A little rest and a lot of liquids, and you'll be ready to race your sons home."

"No." I hear an infant crying and close my eyes to find my thoughts swirling like dust until they land in the days just after Little Joe's birth, when the Ponderosa had felt more like home than ever before. But…. "No racing. Please. Nothing is so important that we have to take any risks getting home."

"Pa?" Little Joe's voice drifts over the baby's cry, pulling me toward him.

But I can't be certain I've heard him at all…until I see Hoss turn and his smile widen, sparking into life in his eyes. Then adrenaline fuels my strength, but still I rise slowly, accepting the doctor's help. As the room whirls around me, I'm grateful Hoss can move more swiftly. I hear him before I reach him at Joe's bedside.

"You sure are a sight, shortshanks!"

"Am I dreaming?" Joe's words are barely more than a mumble, and his eyes, heavy lidded, are clouded with pain and confusion, but…the spark is there. It is weak, but it's there.

"No, Joseph." I take his hand in mine…push a strand of hair from his forehead. My own eyes cloud with relief. "This is very, very real."

"It's your dime novel rescue, Joe." Adam? Yes. Adam, too, has come awake. "Just in the nick of time." His words are slurred, his eyelids as heavy as Joe's, but he looks at me with an easy smile, one that leaves me…wondering….

I take his hand and he wraps his fingers with mine, his grip weaker than it had been when he had been that crying infant with lungs strong enough to drown any siren. I can almost smell the damp salt…the fishermen's catch…the stewing chowder…. I can almost feel the roll of waves beneath me, hear the creak of rope going taut, the clang of clamps on the mast….

As I look from one son to another, the smell of sea becomes the scent of pine. The roll of the waves gives way to a horse's canter. The creak of rope becomes the creak of leather. And I know my sons, both of them…all of them…are right where they belong. Not in desolation, but in verdure. Yes, even the desert cannot extinguish the spark that is within each of us.

Joe, too, is grinning now. "Y'see?" He pauses, gratefully accepting a sip of water from his brother, Hoss. "The story of Adam and Little Joe," he adds then, his lids drifting closed, "just ain't…finished, yet."

In moments, after Adam, too, has had a sip of water, they are both asleep once more. But this time I know they will come awake again. Both of them. They will come awake to tell this…story…of Adam and Little Joe that has somehow given Adam, a far more vocal critic of dime novels than I, an appreciation of Joseph's adventures. And then Hoss and I will tell them of angels in the guise of cavalrymen, a wayfaring doctor, a golden haired woman whose words float like music in my ears, and an infant who filled an empty desert with the promise of life.

The divine spark is alive in them all. And in every one of my sons.

XxXxX

end