I found myself writing the next chapter before I even finished this one as this story is being very impatient and demanding to be finished. Thank you for keeping me going with feedback and reviews. I probably need to catch up on some real work soon. Maybe!

Chapter Ten

Hoss reined his horse in and threw himself out of the saddle before the horse had even stopped moving. He pranced sideways as if he could feel his rider's pent up tension, but Hoss ignored him. He could hear Adam shouting Joe's name and he struggled to take in the whole scene before them. Two bodies lay in the dirt and by the time he got there, Adam was kneeling on the ground beside another one that he assumed was Joe. He choked back that thought as he wondered if he was still even alive or not. Given the amount of fresh blood that covered his brother's back, he wasn't entirely confident of anything.

"Joseph!" Ben was already kneeling on the ground beside his youngest son, his hands hovering in the air, uncertain of where to grasp hold of him without hurting him any further. "Joe, can you hear me, Son?"

Stacey watched as the stranger ran a hand down the side of Joe's face and she almost sobbed when he groaned in response.

"It's a knife wound, Pa. We gotta stop the bleeding." Adam automatically reached a hand out towards his brother and gasped as the pain shot up his arm. The adrenaline was subsiding and the rawness of the pain was beginning to increase as he moved. Hoss noted his brother's sudden change of posture and he hunkered down beside him.

"Let me help, Adam. You take care o' that arm and I'll take care o' Little Joe."

Stacey was hovering behind them, having moved aside from Joe when Ben had almost elbowed her out of the way. "Let me check your arm, Adam."

He looked up at her and saw his own need reflected in her eyes. She needed to do something and so did he. The fact that neither of them could help in the way they most wanted to was not lost on either of them. He nodded and tried to stand up, but felt himself swaying. Hands grasped at him from behind and he turned to see Harry hoisting him upright and steering him towards a log. As he sat down, his eyes stayed locked on Joe and his father's running conversation with his brother. The one-sided comments were not fooling anybody.

Hoss grasped at the tail of Joe's shirt and ripped it in half, exposing the ragged wound that ran diagonally across his back up to his shoulder blade. Drying blood had already encrusted to the fabric and the movement brought forth fresh blood from underneath. Hoss whistled as he examined the mess and he felt a sense of frustration rising up within him. They were too late to prevent whoever had attacked his brothers from doing so and he forced himself to focus on what could be done to save Joe from bleeding out. A silver-handled knife lay in the dirt and Glen almost gagged as he picked it up to remove it from their sight. He felt a tremor run through his body as he recalled waking to see that same knife waving in his own face. He slowly moved away towards where Adam was sitting and watched as Hank checked over the two bodies still lying motionless in the dirt. His heart was in his mouth as he half expected them both to get up and start shooting again.

Joe groaned again as his father poured water onto his bandana and began wiping gently at the wound. Hoss grasped hold of his brother's shoulders as he began to writhe and he leaned down to try to calm him.

"Easy, Joe. Pa's just cleanin' up this here mess so's we can see what's goin' on in there. You know he's gotta do it." He looked up at his father and could see his own concern staring back at him. They didn't have anything better to clean the wound with and it was deep enough to cause alarm.

"Pa?"

Ben stopped and leaned down, not daring to hope he'd heard right. When Joe tried again, he almost sobbed in relief.

"It's alright, Son. I'm right here. You're gonna be all right, Joe. All right." The words sounded hollow to his own ears, but he prayed that Joe would take them to heart.

"Pa … f'give me."

At that, Ben felt his voice give out and he reached to rest the back of his hand against his son's cheek. Blood streaked his fingers and he curled them away from Joe's face.

"There's nothing to forgive, Son. Now you just take it easy." He went back to cleaning the wound and prayed that he would have time to continue the conversation and finish it, once and for all. His heart had ached at his son's cruel words and yet he could not recall a single one of them as he watched him struggle to stay conscious.

Stacey stayed kneeling as she finished binding a makeshift splint around Adam's arm and she stared at her hands, unable to make them stop shaking. She felt a hand on the side of her cheek and looked up to see him watching her intently.

"Thank you." It was for so much more than the splint and Adam found himself stuck for the words, but she seemed to know anyway. He stood up unsteadily and pulled her to her feet as well. Without thinking, she reached an arm around his waist and together they moved over to where Joe was still lying where he had fallen.

"Pa?" Adam held his breath as his father glanced up at him.

"We need to get him to a doctor."

His father's understated comment did nothing to relieve the fear churning in his gut. Only a few short minutes before, he had believed that Joe could be beyond needing anything and he tried to latch onto hope instead. He felt Stacey lean into his side and he looked down to see tears trickling down her face. She chewed on her bottom lip and in that moment, he thought she looked no more than fifteen. A scared young woman who had been through a trauma, just because she had chosen to help his brother. He squeezed his good arm tighter around her and almost smiled as he looked at her again. Joe had a very good reason to pull himself back out of the dark hole he'd fallen into if her expression was anything to go by.

Hank and Harry seemed deep in conversation and Adam wished he could join them, but he would not leave his family. He could see that Hank had bound Nate's hands and yet Mac was still lying where he'd fallen. That told him all he needed to know and he felt a sense of satisfaction that his bullet had found its mark. He would not have considered himself a man of vengeance, but he did think of himself as a man of justice. He glared across the small grassy area as Nate finally began to stir. If true justice had been served, he'd be dead too. Adam found himself swallowing down a lump of rage and he looked away as Harry took over dealing with his prisoner. For the moment, Adam was content to leave him to someone else to deal with because he didn't trust himself to keep to his usual reputation of being a rational man. There was nothing even remotely rational in the events of the last few days.

It would be over an hour later that the group finally moved out and began the slow trek back towards Virginia City. Joe had been carefully laid out across a pile of bedroll blankets in the back of the wagon and Adam was wedged in beside him. He had barely reacted as he was jostled across from the ground and Adam was keenly watching every rising and falling breath. A makeshift bandage had slowed the bleeding, but red stains marked most of the length of it already. Stacey sat in the front of the wagon with Hoss while Glen rode alongside on Hoss's horse. Betsy had been tied to a lead rope along with Adam's horse and Ben trailed beside the wagon with both horses in tow. Harry and Hank had their prisoner trussed up like a Christmas turkey with a gag wedged tightly in his mouth. Nobody was interested in hearing the venomous threats he had been spitting out earlier. He rode along tied onto the back of his horse and was forced to watch his brother's body bounce along beside him, having been unceremoniously tied to his own saddle and covered with a blanket. To say Nate's face was murderous was an understatement. Adam was under no illusion if the man ever got loose, he would hunt down and destroy every single one of them without mercy. His gut churned as he considered the question Joe had asked several times and not really gotten a satisfactory answer for.

Why?

He looked across again to where his brother was possibly slowly bleeding to death and he reached out a hand to rest it on his shoulder. He thought it was ironic really as it was Joe who always craved the touch of others and would reach out for physical connection, but at that moment, Adam needed to feel life in his brother. He needed to feel warmth and movement as he breathed. He needed to know he had not been too late in chasing after Joe when his suspicions had been raised that all was not right.

"I'm sorry." The whispered words choked in his throat and he prayed he would get a chance to say it again when Joe could actually hear him. He'd heard his brother's plea for forgiveness and his father's calm declaration that he loved his son. It was never said in so many words, but it was a given. He recalled Joe's agonized expression when he'd talked of his fear that his father must hate him. Adam stared at him as he knew that would be the worst punishment his brother could ever take; to think he had lost his father's love and respect. He hung his head as he reflected on his own behaviour in recent weeks. He'd been so angry that he'd failed to read things correctly and he'd condemned his brother without ever hearing the truth from him. He was complicit in driving Joe away and if he died then Adam knew he could never forgive himself for failing him so badly.

As is sensing his thoughts, Ben called his name and Adam looked up to see his father watching him intently.

"Don't do it to yourself, Adam."

"Pa?"

"All the what-ifs that are going through your head."

Adam mustered a small smile as he looked back at the man who sometimes seemed to know everything.

"How do you know what I'm thinking, Pa?"

"Because they are going through my head too, Son." The pain in his father's confession was almost his undoing.

"Let's get Joe home first and we'll deal with everything else later."

"Sure, Pa." The words weren't exactly spoken with conviction, but Ben took them on face value. He knew his eldest son would brood for some time yet and each of them still had some demons to face, but he would not be sidetracked until he was sure Joe was going to survive. Nothing else mattered.

The sun was dropping low in the sky as the group came to a fork in the road. One road led to Virginia City and the other towards the Ponderosa. Ben had wrestled with the plan as they approached and he could not bring himself to go anywhere but home. He knew there could be a delay in getting the doctor, but he also knew his son's aversion to the doctor's office in town. Joe needed to be home when he woke up. As the wagon turned off and continued along the well-traveled road towards the ranch, Ben could not help but stare after the riders who continued on towards Virginia City. Nate had fixed him with a look that could only be described as evil before Hank had pulled at the horse's lead rope and taken him on to the sheriff's office. Glen had long since disappeared down the same road as he had ridden off to find Paul and bring him back to the ranch. Ben prayed the man would be there waiting for them when they arrived.

Roy had barely been back from Carson City for an hour before he was making plans to ride out again. When he walked into his office and found it empty, he had wandered over to the saloon in hopes of finding where his deputy may be. It wasn't like Walt was a regular deputy, but he'd filled in a few times when Roy knew he'd be gone for any length of time. The man was honest, level-headed and respected reasonably well by the citizens of Virginia City, but as Roy was just remembering, not always the best at reading situations. The wire that sat in his drawer had gone unanswered and Roy kicked himself to realise that Ben had never received the warning he should have. The fact the sheriff from Silver Falls had been a little oblique in his wire and not spelled out the details was not Walt's fault. If he'd been expecting the town's sheriff to receive it, he didn't need to go into all the details. It still didn't stop Roy from feeling that he'd failed one of his oldest friends when he was needed the most.

He was barely into the saddle and heading for the edges of town when he saw a horse and rider barreling down towards him. He would have sworn it was Hoss's horse, but it was clear the much smaller rider was not Hoss Cartwright. He watched as the rider pulled the big horse into the railing near Paul's office and flung himself to the ground before racing into the doctor's office. He knew something was wrong even before he made it to the door, but as the young Ponderosa hand he now recognised came racing back out towards his horse, the look on his face confirmed it.

"Glen? What's going on, son?"

"Do you know where the doc is? We need him, now!"

"He's up at the Carmody house. Little Flossie took a tumble off the stairs this afternoon. He was heading that way probably twenty minutes ago to check on her again."

"Where is that?" Glen's distress was rising as he tried to recall what little he knew of the local townsfolk.

"That way, up the second block behind the saloon. What's the hurry, son?"

"It's Joe. I think he might be dying."

Roy stared at the young man who was making no sense. Unless of course Joe had come home in the few days he'd been away.

"Joe Cartwright?"

"Yes, sir! Mister Cartwright's takin' him home and I gotta get the doc. The sheriff's bringin' in the others, but I gotta find Doc Martin. Joe's in trouble."

"This way!" Roy turned his horse for the Carmody's and just assumed that Glen would follow him. "Now you better start talkin' young fella and tell me just exactly what's been going on while I've been outta town."