Disclaimer: Do I really need to tell you that I don't own? I don't and I won't. Ever.
A/N: Is it me or were the first few chapters really short? Sorry. They should begin to get longer starting now. This one was really short before I rewrote it so now it's about four handwritten pages or so. Still don't know how many chapters there are going to be altogether. I'm guessing around twenty-something. Yes, we've got a long way to go so let's get going then!
Chapter 7
Joe leaned back in the grass under the shade of a tall Ponderosa Pine as he finished the last of the cold fried chicken Hop Sing had packed. "You know, I'm really glad that you agreed to this picnic, Anna," Joe said told the young girl he was with.
The brown haired girl smiled at him shyly. "Well, I peaked at what Hop Sing was putting together and I can't resist chicken. Besides," she continued, pulling a wind blown stray hair from her face. "When I thought about it, it seemed silly to disincline your request if we were going to be working together all day.
Little Joe studied her for a moment as his hat blew onto the side of the picnic basket. "It's windy today isn't it?" he asked as she stopped his hat from blowing away from the couple.
She nodded. Joe had known her for such a short period of time but he felt so drawn to her whenever Anna was near him. It had hardly been one day and yet he wished she would stay with them forever.
"You know, you're really beautiful when you smile, Anna," he said as she grasped the hat in her hand with triumphant grin.
Her smile faded as she rested the hat halfway inside the open picnic basket and began to blush in embarrassment. "Well, thanks," she finally said, biting the inside of her cheek before rising to her feet. She remembered the last time someone had told her that and it didn't make her very happy. "I don't really know what else to say," Anna told him before rushing away.
Joe followed her curiously to the team of horses tied beneath the shady arms of a tall elm. Anna buried her head into the mare's brown mane, breathing in the smell of the horse next to her. Just with one whiff of the smell of horses, it was as if nothing had ever changed those last few years. It brought her back to barn work that would be done everyday on her parents' small farm. Everyday it was the same type of work and even though Anna never did like it, she wished for one more day to be working the stable or the fields again.
Joe's voice pulled her away from the memories she was finding herself immersed in. "Anna?" he asked worriedly.
Pulling her head away from the mare's neck, she looked over at him sadly. "Anna, I didn't mean to..," he began but she shook her head.
"I'm fine. I just scared myself, that's all." She smiled faintly before letting go of the horse next to her. "I suppose that sounds funny to you.." she trailed off as her eyes flickered between Joe and the fence posts behind him.
"I think we should get back to work," she said before brushing past him to the wagon of timber.
Joe grabbed her arm as she passed him by. "Are you sure there's nothing wrong?" he asked, not sure if he had been to forward with her.
A faint smile flickered upon her face as she took his free hand. "Come on. We better get these fences done instead of jawing all day."
She led him back to the back of the wagon and began to pull one of the boards out with Little Joe. "The last time a person, any person, told me that I was beautiful it was my father. It was my birthday and the last time I ever saw him alive. The last time I ever saw any of my family alive," she explained as she grabbed the other end of the board and they began to bring it to the half finished corral.
"I had six siblings. My younger brother Henry would have been three this spring," she said. "I had gone to see my friends, our family friends of the nearby tribe of Indians who lived a day's ride from us. We were all friends with them but I was the one who spent the most time there and I usually got in trouble for that. They gave me Dancer as a gift that day. When I came back the next day, my family was dead," she explained, holding the fence up as Joe hammered a nail into place.
"I knew it wasn't Indians because I was with the only ones who lived near us. They mourned their death right along with me. Without them there, I didn't have anything to keep me in Dakota. That's when I left."
Joe shook his head as he finished hammering in the second nail. "It doesn't make sense. Who would kill them?"
Anna bit her lip. "I don't know, Little Joe. All the other farms were fine in the area. I've tried to chase them down but I never could find out who they were. I've thought about it for two years and the way I see it, they were after something. Our home was trashed and then burned. The stone chimney didn't burn and some of the timber was still intact and I was able to tell that from the rubble. It just doesn't make sense." Anna replied slowly. "It didn't mean anything that it was my birthday that day. It just happened to coincide with what took place."
Little Joe looked at her sadly as she took her turn with the hammer. "You've been living with that for two years? Alone?" He shook his head. "I don't know how you can be so calm about it."
"Oh, I've been angry. I still am. I think I'll always be angry, Little Joe," Anna replied hammering the nail into the fence board with more force than was needed.
"I've wanted to kill whoever it was with all my strength. I wanted to dance on their graves but I don't know who they are or where they've gone," she said before starting on the second nail with less force than before. "I've realized I can't try to get revenge for the rest of my life. It's not easy to say that I won't but I've got to do it or it'll eat me up inside and even though I'll still be living, I'll be as dead as they are. Life goes on for the living, Joe. If there's nothing else, I've learned that these past few years."
The youngest Cartwright watched her with a small amount of admiration. He wasn't sure if he or his family could do anything to find the people that had hurt her but he hoped they could. Anna Reed was a young woman he was become very glad to know. He wished she would stay. They could give her a place to live on the Ponderosa and maybe she would stop searching. Joe thought there was even a certain feeling he had growing inside his heart for her. He couldn't tell her though, not yet. Not until he was ready.
