PART 10

Weeks had passed and it was close to Christmas and Adam wanted to have as many trees cut as possible before the men took the holiday time off. And the men wanted to get as many trees cut as well; although they liked the two days off the Cartwrights gave them, they needed the money. They would lose a day's pay at Christmas and since Adam was offering a dollar per tree, they were fiendishly working and Adam was pleased.

"I don't think it's a good idea for you to pay them by the tree, Adam," Ben said as they sat at dinner.

"How come?" Hoss said. "We been working right along. Both me and Joe think it's a good idea. Why we was talkin' about making it a dollar a tree all the time. We'd get a whole lot more out of them."

"Yeah, Pa. What's the problem?" Adam said. "We have a contract to fill with a bonus if we fill it early and if the men like the money and if we can beat the snow, what's wrong with it? So far we've been lucky with the weather but I don't like the way the sky's looked lately."

"Well," Ben said, looking down at his food, moving the beans around on his plate with his fork. "I just think that in their rush to make more money, the men might become slip-shod. We forget how precise an art cutting trees is."

"Trust me, Pa," Adam said. "I've cut enough trees that I'll never forget how precise it has to be. My back reminds me every day."

They laughed and finished their meal and afterwards Hoss asked Adam if he felt like going into town for a few beers and maybe a little female companionship.

"Female companionship? Is that what you call it now?" Adam asked.

"Well, I can call it something else, iffen it makes a difference. You wanna go do a little debauching? That better-more acceptable? But the women are what they are, thank heaven."

Adam laughed now and shook his head. "Where'd you learn a word like that?"

"I know more'n you think," Hoss said. "You wanna come or not?"

"No, I don't think so, Hoss. For one, my back couldn't take it after the day I had and for another thing, I've washed my hands of any type of female companionship for quite a while."

"Now, Adam, that don't sound like you at all." Hoss said. "You were always the one the women wanted to marry. Hell, if I had that kind of appeal, I'd have 'companionship' every night."

"Well, why don't you go and have a good time," Adam said. "Have two women-one for you and one for me."

"All right, older brother," Hoss said putting on his gun belt. He grabbed his jacket off the hook and put on his hat, ready to leave.

"Hey, Hoss," Adam said. "You haven't asked Pa. Pa, don't you want to go into town with Hoss? There's a new girl working at the Bucket. I think she might take to you."

Ben was flustered. Adam was merciless sometimes in teasing him but Ben decided that this time he would treat him as if he took him seriously. "Well, I'd go except that beer this late gives me indigestion and I'm so old that I would probably end up pushing rope."

Both Adam and Hoss roared. Sometimes their father surprised them with his sense of humor. It was so rare for him to join in the joking and badinage that it caught them both by surprise.

"Well, I'll be thinking of you both as I'm enjoyin' myself tonight. Matter of fact," Hoss said, "don't wait up for me none-I 'spect to have such a good time that I may not be back until the cock crows."

"Yeah," Adam said, "you can always catch up on your sleep in church like everybody else does."

"Just be back in the morning early because you're not skipping church just because you had a bit too much to drink," Ben said.

"Don't worry none. No one can make breakfast better than Hop Sing-I'll be here." And Hoss closed the door behind him.

"Well, Adam," Ben said as he readied his pipe for smoking, "you planning on turning in early on a Saturday night?"

"Maybe," Adam said. "I might try to read some or work on a floor plan for making Joe's house bigger. Who designed that floor plan anyway? I swear, Pa, whoever laid out the plans for that house didn't know what they were doing. Why to add more bedrooms or another wing, Joe's going to have to grade the land to the right of it. I also would have picked a different spot. I'm worried about rain. With that grading, the rain…"

"Whoa, Adam. Stop a minute. What started all this? I just asked you if you were turning in early." Ben leaned forward.

"That house has been bothering me. I don't know why. I mean I guess it's not that bad but I would have done it differently." Adam looked at his father who raised one brow. "I know, I know, I wasn't here so I have no tight to criticize what happened while I was gone." Adam sat in silence for a few seconds. "But, there's something else, Pa, I can't believe Joe's married. I just can't think of him as anything but a snot-nosed kid. I mean, he's my little brother and every time I look at him, I just see that curly-haired kid who was always in trouble."

"Yes," Ben said, "he and Lucy always getting into everything. Stealing apples, collecting frogs to take and release at school. Remember when they stole Hop Sing's pie and ate it all in the barn and then they were both so sick afterwards that they threw up?"

"Yeah, Joe's partner in crime. But why do you bring up Lucy?" Adam asked suspiciously.

"She still bother you, does she?" Ben smiled at his eldest son.

"No, she doesn't bother me," Adam lied.

"Good. Then I suppose it's a good thing that Gloria Peters-I mean Melville, came back to town. I always thought you were sweet on her. She's a good one for you, Adam. I've always liked her. She's pretty and comes with a ready-made family."

Adam said nothing but the mention of Lucy's name had started him thinking about her again and he didn't like it. His mind would just go around and around like a dog chasing its tail, over and over, covering the same ground again and again.

"I only mention Lucy," Ben said, "because I wonder if Lucy hadn't been sent away, maybe Joe and she would have developed their friendship into love." Ben stared pensively while he puffed on his pipe. "And I'm the one responsible for having her sent away."

"You, Pa? What did you have to do with it?" This was the first that Adam had heard of this and he was puzzled. How could his father be responsible?

"Yes, me." Ben took a puff on his pipe. "Do you remember when Lucy was about thirteen, fourteen, she started coming over not so much to see Joe, but to see you after you came home from college?"

Adam looked down, "Yeah, I remember."

"You were always chasing her off, telling her to go home. Remember that?"

"Yes. I remember it."

"Why did you start telling her to leave? What was it about her that caused you to send her home?" Ben looked at Adam. Adam was working his jaw which meant he was upset.

"She….she just bothered me-I just-she was just such a pest, always following me around, asking questions. I couldn't turn around without her being there. Hell, I couldn't take a piss without checking to see where she was." Adam smiled gently, his eyes soft. "I remember how she used to dance and skip after me and she was turning into quite the beauty."

"She was, wasn't she? And that scared me, Adam."

Adam looked up at his father; he didn't understand.

"What do you mean, it scared you?"

"I could see that you were beginning to look at Lucy in a new way. She was becoming a woman before our eyes and I was afraid that you, well, that you would start to be attracted to her-and she was too young then. So I went to her parents and asked them to keep her home. They tried but somehow, Lucy always ended up here. Do you remember that day her father came for her and dragged her home?"

"Yes," Adam said quietly. "He slapped her because she refused to leave-because she told him no. I wanted to hurt him for hurting her. And he embarrassed her when he dragged her off. I remember it all."

"And then he sent her away to school the very next day. That's why I feel responsible," Ben said. "But I think it turned out well. Joe married Polly and they're happy."

"But what about Lucy?" Adam asked. "What about her? No one thought of her and what she wanted."

"Now, Adam, that's not true. Her parents did what they thought was best and Lucy grew up to be a beautiful, intelligent woman."

"With two fiancés she never married. You don't think that's their fault?" Adam was sitting on the edge of the settee now; he found that he was angry, angry at his father and at Lucy's parents and angry with himself for not having defended Lucy so long ago.

"Maybe part of the fault lies with you, Adam. Lucy loved you-at least as much as a young girl's heart can. Maybe, had you been patient and waited until she grew up, then she wouldn't have tried to make herself fall in love with other men."

Adam stood up. "Oh, so now all this is my fault. Well, let me tell you a very simple truth about Lucy-she has a definite mind of her own and if she didn't marry those men, it's probably because they didn't measure up."

"Measure up to you?" Ben could tell that Adam was upset; he had seen Adam looking for Lucy at the wedding reception and then ask her parents about her. He also noticed that Adam had left the reception early to take Gloria back home but Ben had been guessing and now he was certain that Adam had left early to stop and see Lucy, not to spend time alone with Gloria.

"The hell with this," Adam said. "I don't have to sit here and be blamed for the fact that Lucy-that she hasn't married yet.

"Adam, I'm not blaming you…" Ben stopped since Adam had walked away and took the stairs up to his room, not even saying goodnight.

And as Adam lay on his bed in his dark room, he wished he had gone to Virginia City with Hoss. He could have drowned himself in beer and taken the edge off by having some saloon girl sit on his lap and then take him upstairs. That would have taken his mind off Lucy-he wouldn't think of her constantly then. But Adam pressed the heels of his hands over his eyebrows as if he could press his longing for Lucy out of his mind. And the more he thought of her, the more restless he became until he sat up, his breathing rapid, the sweat beading on his forehead.

"Why? Why?" He whispered to himself. "Why does it have to be her face, her voice, her body I want? Why, when after all this time I was finally content-content until that night I danced with her and she told me how she had loved me for so long. And I kissed her and it was like balm for my soul. Why?" Adam asked himself but he was really asking God, asking why he had to continue in his perpetual misery because in the back of Adam's mind was the fear that if he returned Lucy's love, if they were to take each other, something would happen and she would be ripped from his arms and taken away. "No more," Adam said to himself, "no more." And Adam decided that he would go to town and join Hoss. Beer and women-no better combination.

When Adam woke up, the first thing that came to his consciousness was that the sun was shining directly onto his face; he hadn't pulled the shade last night. The second was that he smelled like stale beer and cheap perfume and that he desperately needed a bath. He also decided that he would strip the bed; he didn't want to sleep another night on these sheets that smelled like a whore house. So after pulling the sheets off the bed, Adam grabbed his robe and went downstairs to the washroom. The downstairs was warm; the fire was still going strongly and glancing at the grandfather clock, Adam could see that his father and brother hadn't been gone that long; for once, no one had knocked on his door asking if he wanted to go to church. "Took them long enough," Adam grumbled. But while the great room had been warm, the washroom was chilly so Adam had to start the furnace under the cistern to heat the water. He then went to the kitchen to fix another pot of coffee. There was some left in the coffeepot on the sideboard so Adam drank the rest of that, picked up a few cold hotcakes and ate them while he waited for the water to heat and the coffee to boil. He again smelled the odor that rose from him and he considered that he'd have to wash the robe too. If his clothes from last night smelled half this bad, Adam considered that he may have to burn them.

He hadn't drunk much the night before; Adam had been in a mean mood and he knew that if he became drunk, he'd become even meaner. He might even have killed someone-or, which was his biggest fear, gone to Lucy's and demanded that she give her body to him because now he would take it-take it and enjoy it. So he only had two beers and he was perfectly sober when the two saloon girls asked him if he'd like a twirl upstairs.

"Dang," Hoss had cried, "I'm s'possed to be the generous one, having one of these beauties for me and one for you!"

"Well," Adam said, one arm around each girl's waist, "when I'm through, maybe you can take a turn-that is if they're not worn out." And Hoss and all the men at the table where they were drinking and the surrounding tables laughed.

Finally the bathwater was hot enough so Adam took a mug of coffee in with him and soaked in the tub, drinking his coffee. He rested his head against the high, curved end of the slipper tub that they had ordered from back east over seven years ago. It was large and roomy-it had to be big enough for Hoss, and after he had washed his hair and scrubbed himself clean-he knew that if he still stank of sour beer and cheap women after this, then he would never get clean of it.

So he lay back again in the tub and closed his eyes and thought of last night again and then, as usual, his thoughts turned to Lucy and he felt his body respond to the memory of her. "Damn," he mumbled to himself. "Always…always the same thing. I need to marry that girl." And Adam quickly sat up. He had decided, almost against his will, that he would marry Lucy. He would wait a while and then, maybe around Christmas, he would ask her. He decided that he would ask her to the Christmas Ball; he would ask her then and she would say, yes. Then they would marry as soon as they could and he wouldn't be driven by this madness, this constant desire for her. That would solve everything. And then Lucy would be safe in their home and not sleep alone in her narrow bed in the back of Madame Millais' dress shop. Adam lay back again and smiled. "Yes," he thought, "I've waited this long for her. I can wait a bit longer."

Adam was sitting in the blue chair by the fire drinking more coffee and trying to read a volume of poetry but he didn't particularly care for the poet. There was something about Clough that didn't sit well with him but he was trying anyway. Perhaps Lucy would bring Clough up and expect Adam to talk about him, after all, she had talked to him once about Milton and Clough was one of his contemporaries. That's when Adam had told her the story his father had shared with him telling how his name, Adam, came about-why his mother had chosen it. And Lucy had smiled and thought it was touching.

The front door opened and along with Hoss and the chilly wind that followed him and made the flames in the fireplace dance, came Gloria Melville and her two children followed by Ben.

"Well," Adam said, standing up, "to what do we owe this visit?" Gloria, after Hoss had taken her cape, came over to him and as expected, Adam kissed her cheek.

"Only on the cheek, Adam? I thought we were better friends than that." Gloria looked up at him with her blue eyes and smiled gently. Adam had to admit that she was pretty but she was wearing that atrocious, red hat again. Adam wondered if Lucy had sold Gloria the hat as a spiteful joke.

"In front of the children?" Adam asked, a small smile on his face.

"All right," Gloria said, "I'll be content to wait until we're alone. Gloria turned to her children. "You remember Mr. Cartwright, don't you?"

Adam smiled at the two children, the pretty little girl and the shy boy who stood behind his sister.

"Danny," Gloria said, "get your finger out of your nose and stand up straight." She walked over to her children and pulled Danny out by his arm. "Now say, hello."

"I'll say, hello, momma," Brenda said.

"I'm not talking to you, Brenda. Danny, say, hello."

Adam felt himself become uncomfortable and embarrassed; he wasn't quite sure why he felt such turmoil, but his heart went out to Danny who stood there looking as if he was going to cry. "It's all right, Gloria. He doesn't have to say, hello. Hello, Danny," Adam said, bending down. "Welcome to the Ponderosa and I hope you like peach pie because that's what we're going to have for dessert. Do you like peach pie?" Danny nodded. "Good."

"Well, c'mon, you two," Hoss said. "I promised you each a horseshoe for good luck. Now c'mon with me out to the barn and you can meet the horses and pick out the shoe you want. We got a whole pile of old horseshoes."

"Can we each have two?" Brenda asked. Hoss laughed.

"Brenda," Gloria said. "Don't be rude."

"It's okay, ma'am," Hoss said. "They're just scrap shoes."

"I know," Gloria said. "What am I go to do with scrap horseshoes? Only one apiece, please." After they left, Gloria turned on Adam. "And, Adam, as far as Danny, I'm trying to build a little backbone in him; he can't go through life being afraid of everything."

"I'm sorry, Gloria, but I just don't think it's that important if he says hello to me or not. He's just a small boy of what? Four? Five?"

"He'll be five and it's about time he got his voice. Now please—I know what's best for my children."

"Yes, ma'am," Adam said bluntly. He wanted to say more but Gloria was correct-they weren't his children and he had no right to interfere. So he suppressed any more commentary on her method of raising children and said nothing more.

"Oh, Adam," Ben said as he prepared to sit down and enjoy his pipe and their company in front of the fire, "could you get us a cup of coffee? And Will and Laura and their brood are coming to dinner as well. As soon as Hop Sing gets here, which better be soon, he needs to know."

Inwardly, Adam groaned; he had lost his taste for company completely since his return from sea. He had always preferred to stand on the side and watch; had he been a female, he had often thought, he would have been a wallflower. And although he was fond of children, the idea of having six children at the Ponderosa all at one time was more than he felt he could tolerate.

"Of course, Pa. Sit down, Gloria. I'll bring the whole tray over."

"Why, thank you, Adam." Gloria sat down and looked around the room and admired the beamed ceiling and the solid furniture. The huge fireplace was welcoming and gave the room a certain masculine air. "Yes," she thought to herself, "when I am mistress here, I'll add a few feminine touches-not too many, but just enough to show that it's now my home." She knew that Marie had been the last mistress of the Ponderosa so she looked around the room and tried to decide what reflected Marie's taste; she would have to be careful not to step on any toes when she decided what would stay and what would go.

Adam took the coffeepot into the kitchen to refresh it and start another pot when Hop Sing came in through the kitchen doors, shivering from the cold, wearing his heavy, quilted jacket, a wool scarf wrapped around his neck and pulled up to his ears. He was cursing the cold in Chinese.

"I assume, Hop Sing, that what you are saying is that the weather is as cold as a wife with too many children," Adam said with a smile.

"It cold, Mistah Adam. It so cold that Hop Sing loses feeling in feet."

"Well, if you'd wear something sturdier than those Chinese slippers, you…"

"Out, out, Mistah Adam. Hop Sing make big fire-start stove-make kitchen very warm, very warm."

"Oh," Adam said, "we're having company for dinner."

"Who company?" Hop Sing looked suspiciously at Adam.

"Mrs. Melville, you don't know her, and her two children and then Will and Laura and their four children." And Adam stepped back in case Hop Sing went on a rampage.

"Make more work for Hop Sing." Hop Sing threw his arms in the air, pulled off his jacket and started opening cupboards and drawers, pulling out bowls and knives. "Always more work. More people, more work."

"Oh, and Hop Sing," Adam said just as he was about to turn the corner out of the kitchen. "I told them that we were having peach pie for dessert." Adam took off just as Hop Sing started his new round of cursing in Chinese, gesticulating emphatically with both hands and Adam was glad that he spoke no Chinese-he felt it was best not to know what ills Hop Sing was wishing on him.

About four in the afternoon, Will showed up minus Laura, their oldest boy, Billy and Tell. Will explained that Billy seemed to be coming down with something, he seemed to be running a fever, so Laura had stayed home with him and therefore, Tell was at home as well.

Gloria said that it was a shame, she so wanted to get to know Laura better but at least her Danny and his Stewart could meet and perhaps be friends. Peggy, who greeted all the Cartwrights with kisses and hugs, was the object of Brenda's admiration and she followed Peggy around and sat next to her on the settee and asked her all sorts of questions.

"Uncle Adam," Peggy said quietly to him, "Brenda won't leave me alone. She keeps following me and asking me things about school, my dress, my hair-gosh, Uncle Adam, how can I make her leave me alone?"

"Well, Peggy," Adam said, putting an arm around her shoulders as he sat, "she probably thinks that since you're almost twelve, that you're just about the smartest, prettiest girl she knows and that's why she's asking you all those questions. I bet she wants to be just like you."

"Just like me?" Peggy was flattered.

"Yup. Just like you. So why don't you try to be nice to her. You can be like her older sister. You know what it's like only to have brothers, right?"

"Boy, do I ever."

"Well, you and she have that in common. Now go on and talk to her; I bet you'll like her. Go on," Adam said, giving her a small push.

Peggy turned around and with pure candor, she said, "I still wish that you were my father instead of Will." And then she went off.

Adam sat stunned-and secretly flattered. He looked at Will in a close conversation with Gloria and wondered again what life would have been like had he married Laura. And had he married Laura, he considered, would he still love her? Would he have made a better husband that Will? And then he wondered what their married life was like, their matters of intimacy. Having never been intimate with Laura, Adam couldn't quite picture Will and Laura together but it seemed odd to him that two such disparate people as Laura and Will, would fall in love and marry.

But then, Adam thought about Lucy and wondered if he had married Laura, would he still yearn for Lucy or was it merely that he was still a bachelor. Were he married, Adam considered, she never would have followed him to the barn that night, never confessed her love for him, never kissed him. He shook his head clear; this wasn't the time to begin to think of Lucy, to feel his blood start to boil with desire. So he took a deep breath and looked around the room. Hoss was sitting at the round table with Stewart and Danny, playing checkers; Stewart sat in Hoss' lap since he was the youngest and Danny was moving his own pieces and for the first time ever, Hoss cheated at checkers to make sure that each boy won every other game.

Adam smiled to himself; of all of them, Adam thought, Hoss would make the best father since he had such compassion for weaker living things, whether they be human or animal. Gloria and Will were still talking and Ben was sitting in his chair, his head against the back of the chair, softly snoring. Adam shook his head and looked at his father with love. Adam had the same urge he had when a child fell asleep-to pick his father up in his arms, take him upstairs and tuck him in his bed, placing a benevolent kiss on his forehead. But soon enough, Hop Sing came out of the kitchen to announce that "Suppah ready. Eat now."

"Pa, Pa," Adam said, gently shaking his father's shoulder.

"What, what is it, Adam? What's wrong?"

"Nothing, Pa. It's time for dinner. You fell asleep. Don't ask me how you managed it. If I knew, I'd have slept too."

It was late when dinner was finally over and the children were weary and Stewart was hanging over Hoss' shoulder as he slept in Hoss' arms. Danny was fussy and that made Gloria irritable. She snapped at her two children and Brenda began to cry.

"I guess it's time for us to go now," Will said. "Hoss, would you carry Stewart out to the buggy?"

"Sure, Will. C'mon, Miss Peggy. Help me with Stewart." Hoss and Peggy walked out, Peggy warmly wrapped in her cape and hood that Adam helped her with in the house the same as he kneeled and helped Brenda with hers.

Gloria stood and waited until Adam helped her with her wrap as well. "Will you drive us into town, Adam?"

Adam had thought that since Hoss and his father had driven Gloria and her children out that one of them would drive her back but it was obvious that Gloria wanted Adam to drive her home. He felt himself becoming resentful but he took a deep breath and controlled his annoyance.

"Of course," Adam said. "Give me time to hitch up the horse and I'll be back in to get you." And Adam put on his jacket, buttoned it up, buckled on his gun belt, adjusted his hat and after giving a wink to Brenda, he went out to the barn, hunching his shoulders against the cold. "Damn," Adam thought, "it's colder than a witch's teat." He pulled his gloves out of a jacket pocket and slipped them on, working his fingers through. "I won't get home before ten," he thought, "and we have a full day of work ahead of us trying to beat the snow." So he sighed and went about hitching the horse to the closed carriage lined up on the opposite side of the barn.

TBC