Just a quite reply to the guest reader who asked whether I had read a civil war story which involved Adam being rescued by a lady. I don't think I have as it rings no bells with me. However, I'm a great believer that there are no new story ideas anymore; the originality comes in how it's written. One of my favourite writers quotes is, "I think writers are too worried that it has all been said before. Sure it has, but not by you." :-D

~0~

I was lying on my bed when I came to. I blinked up at the rafters for a few moments and then turned my head to see a pair of startling green eyes looking back at me. "How long…" My voice was nothing more than a croak. Joe Cartwright's green eyes twinkled. "Don't try to speak. That man had quite a hold on you; your throat's badly bruised." He smiled. "And you've been out for about five minutes."

Was that all? I felt like I had been unconscious for hours. I turned to see Adam propped up at the end of my bed against the footboard. He was slumped to one side, his fingers gripping his wound and I could see blood covering his fingers.

"Mr. Cart—!" was all I could manage before I descended into a coughing fit. Furious at my inability to speak, all I could do was frown and point at his side.

"We tried to get him onto the cot but he wouldn't leave you until he knew you were okay." Joe's brows rose. "That's my stubborn older brother for you."

"Don't fuss, little brother, Hoss'll sew it up."

I looked over Adam's shoulder. "Where is Hoss?" I discovered I could talk if I whispered.

"He's outside taking care of our friend," said Adam.

"Is he dead?"

"No, just grazed." Adam shook his head. "My aim was a bit off."

Joe looked from Adam to me, and then stood. "I'll go help Hoss." He paused at the door. "And I can sew you up; I don't know why you keep insisting Hoss do it."

Adam rose unsteadily, his hand never leaving his side, and sat heavily at the side of the bed next to me. "Little brother, I've seen how you darn your socks. There's no way you're coming near me with a needle and thread."

Joe's face broke into a grin and he left the cabin. Adam had been smiling, but as soon as Joe left, he grew serious. He stared down at the quilt for a few moments before looking at me.

"I'm sorry."

"What for?"

"I brought trouble to your door. If I hadn't come here, you wouldn't have been hurt."

I wanted to press my hand over his, stroke his arm, squeeze his shoulder, but my nerves stopped me. "I saw you fall. I thought you were dead."

He lowered his eyes in a slow blink as he smiled. "A little too much exertion trying to hold off the shooters. I was on the floor behind the door and down to my last bullet when the shooting suddenly stopped. It was a struggle to get up and look out the window. And that's when I saw the man strangling you."

"Clete. I don't think he meant to hurt me; he'd just watched his brother die."

The side of Adam's mouth quirked, puffing up his cheek. I think he could understand what Clete had been feeling.

"I think Clete and Jonas are two of your rustlers."

Adam frowned. "Hoss said you'd thought that."

"I met them when I was looking for your brothers and told them you were here. Why would they come looking for you unless they were the men who shot you in the first place?" I swallowed, talking so much was painful for my bruised throat.

Adam released his grip on his side long enough to press me back against my pillow. "Don't talk, rest."

We passed a couple of minutes in peaceable silence, both of us lost in our own worlds of physical hurt and contemplation. But then there was a thumping and scrapping on the porch, and the door banged open. I jumped to my feet when Clete landed hard on the floor clutching his head, followed by Joe and Hoss. Joe's gun was pointed lazily at him.

"You shot my brother," moaned Clete.

My goodness, how indignant he sounded, and after what they had done to Adam.

"You shot me," Adam said, sitting forward on the bed.

"I didn't shoot no one." Clete's fancy words were strangely absent, I noticed. He shuffled back against the wall and sat hunched over, nursing his injury. His exclamation was met with silence. I looked at Adam and saw him exchanging glances with his brothers.

"It were…" Clete broke off, his face contorting as tears sprung to his eyes. "It were Jonas done shot you."

Adam frowned. "Why? You would most likely have got away with it. Why shoot me and draw attention to yourselves?"

Clete glared at Adam. "Wouldn't you get a bit twitchy if you'd been hunted down for days on end."

I hadn't moved from where I was standing by the bed, my arms wrapped around my body.

"He was always a little too free with a gun," I croaked out. "He shot the family milk cow when he was thirteen."

Clete looked over to me and nodded, wiping his sleeve across his nose. "He weren't born right. And we figured you'd seen us. So when Mrs. Kate told us she had a gunshot man up here, we knew it were you."

"So you came to finish me off?"

Clete dropped his head and shrugged.

"Did he shoot J.T. Miller?"

Clete's expression twisted as he looked up at Adam. "Who?"

"J.T. Miller. The foreman of the Delta D, shot to death in the Sazarac." Adam's voice was loud and harsh.

"Ah…"

"Ah, yeah, now you remember."

Clete hung his head. "Jonas couldn't help doing what he done. He didn't think things through. I told him I thought we'd been recognised and that we had to scat, but he just sat there, playing with his gun. And when that fella showed up, pointin' fingers and shoutin', Jonas did what Jonas liked to do. I tell ya, he just weren't born right." Fresh tears flowed and he batted them away with his hands. I was starting to feel sorry for him.

Adam winced as he shifted position. "So you said."

Joe crouched down to Clete's level. "What about the cattle you stole? Thousands of head were taken last summer. And thousands of cows don't disappear into thin air."

Clete stopped snivelling and the expression that had started to generate pity in me was replaced with a hard-eyed sneer. "That's for me to know, and for you never to find out." His top lip curled back in a sarcastic smile.

Joe reached forward and grabbed Clete's collar, his hand rising. "Why you—"

Hoss was there, pulling Joe away so he fell onto his backside. "Leave it, Joe. Sheriff Coffee will deal with him." He pulled Clete to his feet. "For now, he'll be spending the night in the barn."

"You cain't do that, I'll freeze to death."

Hoss propelled him towards the door. "You'll be sharing the barn with six horses, you'll be warm enough." He reached out to open the door, but I stepped forward to stop him.

"One more thing. Was your father...was Emmet involved?" I prayed Clete would give me the answer I needed to hear. His shoulders slumped and his head rested a moment against the door. "No. The old man don't know what day it is most of the time." Clete's eyes met mine for a brief moment, and I nodded a thank you, the relief probably apparent on my face. As Hoss reached towards the door handle, Clete turned to me once more. "Mrs. Kate, I'm sorry for what I done, to ya neck an' all." And then he was gone, followed by Hoss and Joe. I stared at the closed door.

All of a sudden, I felt so weary. Adam's eyes followed me as I moved to the bed and sat next to him, leaning back against the headboard. We sat together in silence. I think he passed out because when Hoss and Joe walked back in a short while later, they took one look at him, grabbed the almost empty bottle of whiskey and without a by-your-leave, brought him round with a slap to the cheek. I moved off the bed to the armchair. One last look showed me Adam had grasped the bars of the bedstead, and Joe was holding down his legs. As before, Adam didn't make a sound as Hoss went to work on him. But at the sound of what had clearly been a long-held breath being released, I twisted around in the chair to see Hoss pulling a blanket over his now unconscious brother, and attempting to squeeze into a kitchen chair placed next to the bed, a job made all the harder by the huge coat he was still wearing.

Joe threw himself down on the hearth beside me. His neck sunk into his shoulders as he tipped his head back, closed his eyes and sighed. "It's so good to be warm again," he said. He looked over at me and saw my raised eyebrow. "We've been on the trail of the rustlers, and then Adam, for what seems like days. Last night I slept under a fallen tree trunk." He snorted. "Hoss was too big to fit under it so made do with wrapping himself in both our slickers."

"I didn't sleep a wink," said a disgruntled voice behind me.

Joe shook his head, leant in close and whispered. "He was snoring so loud the bears woke from their hibernation."

I bowed my head, his attempt at humour wasted on my guilty conscience. "I'm sorry I sent you away. I was tired, scared, I'd had to..." I gulped slowly, holding my hand to my throat, and swallowed the words I didn't want to say. "He was feverish, I had to cut…"

A warm hand reached out to cover mine. "It's okay. You did good."

I blinked away tears that threatened to flow. "And when I saw you both outside, with your rifles and…you looked so threatening. I thought you were the rustlers and you'd come to finish what you'd started."

There was the sound of a wooden chair creaking behind me and I looked over my shoulder to see Hoss standing over Adam. He rested a finger on his brother's form for a moment and then joined Joe and me by the fire, holding his hands out for warmth.

"Ma'am, if you knew how many times we'd been threatened, shot at and run off folks' properties, you'd understand our attitude. We were dang tired of it. I knew mountain folk were wary of strangers, but every place we visited, we got short shrift. Even a little ol' lady north of here threatened to cut off…" Hoss paused, his cheeks reddening. "She had a real large knife."

"You..." I coughed, having to clear my throat once more. "You came back, though?"

Joe Cartwright peeled off his coat. "We rode about an hour or so down the track before deciding we needed to turn around. The tracks led here—"

"And you seemed mighty nervous," finished Hoss.

"We figured you were hiding something," said Joe.

"Or someone," I whispered.

Their faces told me I was right. I looked at Adam, at the man I had been hiding. He was knocked out by pain and exhaustion. There was nothing more to do now but wait.

I held my arm out to Joe. "Hand me your coat. And you," this to Hoss, "take off that monstrous thing. I'll fix you something warm to eat."

As Hoss unburdened himself of his thick furry coat, his face lit up with a wide grin that pushed his cheeks up towards eager blue eyes. "Ma'am, that's the best thing anyone has said to me in days. I ain't had a hot meal since we left the Ponderosa. I'm startin' to waste away."

"It'd take more than a few days to shrink that waistline," said a slurred voice from the bed. Both Hoss and Joe were by Adam's side in moments, and after reassuring themselves Adam was okay, and on the mend, fell to much teasing and joshing between them. I felt such relief to see him awake and fooling with his brothers. But I had no place amongst them, and left them alone whilst I prepared the meal I had promised. I pulled a smoked ham down from where it was hanging in the rafters and set to chopping the meat to make a stew.

How could I have been so wrong about Hoss and Joe? The faces they had shown me earlier that day were not their true ones. What I was witnessing and listening to now was the real essence of these men: quick to laugh, full of joy, and displaying a love which could never be acknowledged out loud but shone through with every smile and touch. The care they had for their brother was so strong, so palpable, I felt I could reach out and touch it.

I listened to their conversation. They spoke of their father, and how he would be going out of his mind with worry by now. Little Joe, who I soon discovered was as quick to cry as he was to laugh, picked at the quilt, the concern for his father dampening his previously happy spirit. But when Hoss and Adam started to compare injuries, and who had received the worst ones over the years, and both agreed Joe would take first prize in that contest, Joe was soon returned to his former good mood.

My cabin was filled with laughter for the first time in years. I laid my unfamiliar knife down—it wasn't the knife I generally used to cut vegetables; that had been used to cut into Adam the night before, and the sight of it now filled me with revulsion—and enjoyed the lightness which imbued my small home. But I couldn't stop a sadness crawling over my skin as I knew my cabin would soon return to its old lonely state. I determined to ignore that fact, so picked up my knife once more and chopped into my months-old vegetables with increased energy.

That night we ate and we slept; Hoss and Joe wrapped in their blankets on the floor next to the fire. I refused to let Adam give up my bed for me, and so spent an uncomfortable night on the cot.