VIII
"Invite her here", Adam said. "Honestly, I am not the only one curious about the creature that is keeping you wandering to the far-off borders and camping right at the eye of the storm."
He lifted the horse dung and some streaks of straws away with the pitchfork and eyed at his brother. "Although I have to admit, the way you've kept it from Pa has driven him to the edge of losing his wit", he added with a chuckle.
Hoss grinned. "I didn't plan it so in the beginning, but when I got it going, I sorta liked the feeling of it and decided to keep it to myself." He squinted his eyes as he pointed a finger at Adam over the saddle he was waxing. "Ain't too many times a son of Ben Cartwright can indulge himself in that."
Adam's laughter was soft and passed quickly, leaving a dimple on his left cheeck. "But there is a point. Maybe it's time she comes away from her own little world and relates to the rest of us."
"Maybe she feels fine in her own little world without the rest of us."
"Come on. She's been a widow for six years, and she should come to her senses and start behaving like the people she belongs with."
Hoss' face darkened a shade.
"Think about the kids, too. What will happen if they don't learn the ways of the normal people."
"Maybe that's just it, Adam. She is right where she belongs, and she don't care a dadburn thing how other people judge her or her farm. You haven't even been to the place; and yet you think she can't see to that things are clean and in shape and, daggummit, arranged so beautiful that it feels you're in a fairytale."
Adam's jaw clenched. "I admit, I said it badly."
"Dang correct, you said it indeed all wrong. You saw the wild stories of her but forgot to look." Hoss' jaw was clenched too, now, his lower lip protruding far ahead and his eyes gleaming warily from under the deep brow. Adam turned his back and let his brother examine the curve of his shoulders, while he crossed his hands and tucked his fingers in his armpits, closing his eyes to calm the prancing tongue.
"What's this, I leave you two together for a day and in an hour you're already at each other's throats?"
The voice of Little Joe was deliberately careless, as he tried to relax the tension he could have touched with a ten-foot pole from the outside. "Stop glaring. It's been a long time since I saw my brother Hoss at this ranch, and I intend to keep him here for some time."
He walked to the towering figure of Hoss and put a hand on his shoulder. "Listen, brother. Pa'll have your hide if you only come home to fight." His face was as careless as his tone, but his eyes examined Hoss with intensity. With force and good gathering of his thoughts, Hoss inhaled, closed his eyes and tried to let go of his annoyance at Adam. Joe was right.
"Sorry, Joe. Just something stupid between me and Adam."
Joe looked at Hoss as if to measure his credibility, and left his hand on his shoulder for a moment. Then he patted on his arm quite heavily and exaggerated a blink. "That's it, Hoss. I can now see that you're still there." Before Hoss could decide if Joe might need a little new hairstyling with his fists, the youngest brother strolled away and patted Adam's arm too. "Be a good boy, Adam. Grumpy is not the way I want to remember you if you end up in an early grave."
At Hoss' familiar roaring laughter Adam swirled to catch Joe, who had anticipated the move and was half a way out of the barn already. He had miscalculated the speed of his older brother, who jumped to tackle his feet and pulled him to the ground, and started to wrestle him in the hay. Hoss was leaning on Adam's fallen pitchfork, and laughed at his brothers, until a speck of horse droppings well-aimed at his forehead made him change his thoughts about the game.
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When Ben entered the barn he was welcomed by three dusty angry men who were throwing hay and straw and each other around the barn while the horses followed their boyish game with complete silence and serenity.
Without a sound, he pulled back from the barn, closed the doors behind him, and took the head of Buck in his palms.
"Does it ever stop, old friend?"
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Under his bridle, Buck was trying to tell Ben not to be too jealous.
Or to jump in if he felt so, in spite.
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