THIRTEEN
He'd kind of held out for some kind of glowing fish. One time, he thought he'd seen one, but it vanished when he tried to catch it.
He did try to catch it.
Didn't he?
Joe was awake, or at least he thought he was. He was having trouble telling what was a dream and what was reality. He'd used the tips of his fingers like feet on a ladder's rungs to pull himself up using the edge of the lockboxes until he was sitting again with his back against the door. He was completely sweat-soaked and panting like Cochise now after one of their free-flying flights. His head felt mighty funny too – kind of like it could explode – and there were a dozen or more church bells ringing in his ears.
Sally Simms was mighty pretty. She'd have liked one of those glowing fish if he could have caught it.
He'd seen her last summer at the church social. The wind had been riffling her hair and her thin white gown up was billowing up around her knees. He'd laughed when she caught him looking and tried to hold it down in the font, only succeeding in making it fly up higher in the back. His pa'd taught him to be a gentleman and so he'd looked away. He'd looked at the church steeple.
The bell was ringing.
Hop Sing was calling him in to supper. He was in the barn. He'd done all the dang work that Adam had set him and more and then, played out, taken a seat in the back of the last stall he'd mucked out. Tossing his head back, he'd been asleep in seconds.
Only to have that darned bell call him back.
Well, Hop Sing would have to wait. He wasn't hungry anyhow. And he was just too doggone tired to drag his sorry frame up to the house. They could just come and find him.
Come...and find...
Pa.
Come. Find me.
Joe blinked and forced his eyes open. For an instant – just a second – he realized he wasn't falling asleep but was falling unconscious. He remembered now that he was trapped in a bank vault. He'd been trapped there for hours without any fresh air. While the reason he was in the vault eluded him, he knew he had to stay awake. Someone might come. Someone might still come and if they did, he needed to be awake. He needed to be able to answer if someone called his name.
Joseph.
Joe's lean frame stiffened. "Pa?" he asked aloud.
Hang on, son. I'll find you. Wherever you are, I'll find you.
"Pa!" Joe rose up on his knees and banged on the vault door. "Pa! Pa! I'm here! Pa, you gotta hear me! Pa!"
Pa was there. He was just outside the door. Pa had come to save him, he knew it.
He knew it!
With his chest heaving and tears running down his cheeks, the church bells ringing, his head fairly popping, and those dang glow fish swimming by, Joseph Francis Cartwright shouted and continued to bang on the unforgiving metal door until his knuckles ran red with his blood.
When he was unable to shout any longer he kept banging.
When he was no longer able to bang on the door, he cried.
Out of tears – out of hope.
He succumbed.
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"Joseph. Hang on, son. I'll find you. Wherever you are, I'll find you."
Ben Cartwright was standing on the porch of the sheriff's office staring at the bank building. After reburying Hoyle and the other outlaws, they'd returned to Genoa. They arrived just as the sunlight illuminated the town's wood and brick structures, including the sad and sorrowful city bank with its black wreath hung above the door. Sheriff Whitaker had taken them to his office so they could regroup and come up with a plan, and then left them to carry on his official business. The night before Whitaker had wired every lawman within a twenty mile radius of Genoa informing them of what had happened and asking them to keep an eye out for the robbers who had escaped. He was going to send a second wire, asking if there had been any sighting of DeLoyd Beaumont or a Weston McCloud. Names had been dropped during the robbery and McCloud's name was one of them.
Ben grimaced. DeLoyd he knew. He'd given him the run of his house for nearly a month and hired the man after that, much to his chagrin now that he knew he was a wanted man. Who this Weston McCloud was, he could only guess. It didn't really matter. All that mattered was that one or both had to know what had happened to Little Joe.
One or both of them could have Joe.
Ben glanced at the chair on the porch behind him, nestled up against the office door, but remained standing. The Sheriff had left to round up men to form a posse. Hoss and Roy went with him. He and Adam had chosen to remain in town. Much as his feet itched to be on the trail of the men who could have his child, DeLoyd or Del most of all, he wanted – no, he had felt compelled to remain in town. The older man sighed. He found himself in fact, for some inexplicable reason, drawn to thebank building itself. That was where he and Adam were going to begin their search as soon as his oldest son returned from talking to the woman who had incorrectly identified Joe as a bank robber. It seemed her husband would make it after all and so he'd felt it was proper for Adam to go to her and ask her what she remembered.
Ben frowned and ran a hand across his chin. Joseph. In front of the vault with a smoking gun in his hand; Lemuel Douglas dead at his feet.
What in the world had his boy gotten himself into?
The fact that there had been no ransom demand troubled him. If Del and this other man were trying to escape and had Joe with them, then why not use that to their advantage? No. In his heart, he believed his boy – alive or dead – was somewhere in Genoa. Joseph might be hurt. The amount of bullet holes in the facade of the bank was unnerving. Little Joe might have crawled away injured from the robbery scene. His beautiful boy might be laying somewhere even now, alone, in filth and squalor, bleeding to death.
Calling out to his pa.
"Pa?"
Ben started out of his reverie. It was Adam. "Yes, son?"
"Sorry it took so long. I had to find someone who had a key to the bank. Since Lemuel died..."
The bank manager had been a good man and a good friend. His loss would be felt by many.
"I found the assistant manager," his son said as he joined him on the porch. "A man by the name of Burnett Clawson. He's going to meet us at the bank." Adam hesitated.
"Yes?"
"He doesn't know much, Pa. He was just hired last week Due to that, he doesn't know the bank all that well and he wasn't privy to the combination on the new vault."
Ben frowned. They had to check the vaults just in case. "What about the old one?"
"It was abandoned when they put in the new Chubbs safe, partly for security, but mostly due to the fact that it wasn't working. They had a dickens of a time operating the door. They'd actually gone to leaving it open so no one would get trapped in there."
The older man paled. "Did anyone check it after the robbery?"
Adam shook his head. "Burnett didn't say. I'm sure they did."
Ben's near-black eyes went to the bank. The robbery had happened the night before around six o'clock.
More than twelve hours before.
"There he is, Pa," his son said as he returned to the street.
A young man, about Adam's age, was coming toward them. His hair and clothing were askew as if he had thrown them on and hurried out the door without checking to see what he looked like. He was a good-looking man with a strong jaw and wide open eyes. His dark curly hair reminded Ben painfully of his missing son.
"Mister Benjamin Cartwright, I presume?" Burnett asked while extending a hand. "I'm sorry to hear about your son Joseph – "
"Yes, yes. Thank you. Now, I need to get into that bank."
"We searched it thoroughly the night of the robbery, sir. There was no one left in the building when we shut it down."
"Did you check the vaults?"
The young man paled. "No. I've just wired for the combination on the new vault, sir. We will hopefully have an answer within the hour. It took a lot of convincing for the company who supplied the safe to believe the request was legitimate. They had to be sure."
"I understand." Ben's eyes remained locked on the silent brick building. "What about the old vault?"
Burnett looked puzzled. "We swept the cellar. We knew one of the outlaws escaped that way."
"What about the old vault?" he repeated.
The young man frowned. "I didn't give it much thought."
"Was the door open or closed?"
Adam was staring at him, puzzled as well. "What is it, Pa?"
"Burnett. Answer me. Was the vault door open or closed?"
He knew his answer before the young man gave it words. Burnett's skin had gone to paste.
"It was closed."
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Hoss Cartwright stood beside his horse, waiting for the animal to take a drink. As he did, he balanced his hands on the saddle and looked back toward Genoa. The sun was halfway to noon, near done chasing off the chill of the night. Most times that sight would have brought a smile to his face. But not today.
Not with his baby brother still missing.
The big man couldn't really put into words the feelin' he'd had when his Pa'd stepped into that grave. It was all of the terrors he'd ever known wrapped up into one. As they rode to the edge of town, headed for the spot where the lynchin' had taken place, he'd tried to keep Joe's face in front of his eyes – Joe smiling, Joe smartin' off; Little Joe giggling and falling on the floor, laughing so hard the veins popped out in his forehead.
Tried, but failed.
He was old enough. He'd seen men hung before. He knew what a dead man's grin looked like where the teeth bit down on a tongue gone black as Hades, while above it the dead man's bloodshot eyes bulged out. He kept seeing Little Joe, his neck stretched out long and thin, his head snapping to the side –
Suddenly sick, Hoss moved off into the trees and lost what little was left of the food he had in him.
When he returned, it was to find Roy Coffee standing by Chubb waiting for him.
"You all right, son?" the older man asked.
Hoss nodded.
"Thinking about what might have happened to your brother?"
Again, he nodded.
"Terrible thing, hanging, even when its needed." The lawman shook his head. "Too bad about that boy, Hoyle. Too bad."
Hoss paled. He was so focused on what had almost happened to Little Joe, that he'd near forgot it had happened to Hoyle.
"What do you suppose drives someone like Hoyle to commit a crime?" he asked the sheriff.
"Hoyle? If he was eighteen or more, Hoss, he was old enough to make his own choices. Nothin' need drive him to them"
"Yeah, but why make that choice?"
"Could of been his brother." Sheriff Roy's smile was soft. "Younger brothers look to their older ones for their lead. Maybe Hoyle wanted to be like Del. Just like Little Joe wants to be like you and Adam."
"Joe ain't nothin' like me."
The lawman shook his head. "You can't see it, can you? He's kind, boy, just like you. Joe's got a big heart. Makes him too trusting." He paused. "He's kind of like you there, too. And your pa."
Sheriff Roy was right. They'd taken Del and Hoyle into their home because they assumed they were who they said they were. After all, Del had saved Joe's life.
Now, he might cost it.
"I hate to think what Little Joe felt when he found out Hoyle was usin' him," he said. "Joe thought of that boy as a friend."
"The one who trusts can't ever be betrayed, Hoss," the sheriff said kindly. "Just mistaken."
Hoss nodded. "Yes, sir."
The lawman eyed him. "You're still lookin' peaked, boy. You ready to ride yet?"
"I'm all right, Sheriff Roy," he said as he placed his foot in the stirrup. "Let's go find that pair. Hopefully Joe's with them and he's all right." Hoss drew a deep breath as he settled into the saddle and picked up the reins. Otherwise, I'll –"
"Otherwise, you'll do what, boy?"
Sheriff Roy was giving him that stare – the one that belonged to the lawman and not his father's friend.
"I'll mind myself and my temper, sheriff," Hoss said as he pressed his knees into Chubbs' side and started moving.
The big man wondered if the sheriff noticed.
He didn't promise.
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It was too late to call Hoss and Roy back. Hopefully they would find the men who had escaped.
Hopefully, they were about to find Joe.
It was a race which of them reached the bank door first, him or his pa. For being the older of the two, Pa beat him there. Burnett was fumbling through the keys on a ring he had, trying to find the right one to open the door. When he found it, he tried, but the key scraped against the metal and never found its mark. Snatching it away, Adam took it, stuck it into the key hole, and then thrust the door open.
Again, his pa was quicker. Lantern in hand, the older man ran through the bank and down the back stairs and was on his way to the old vault before his own boots hit the cellar's brick hounds-tooth floor. As his father's knees hit the ground, he started calling.
"Joseph. Joseph? Are you in there, son? Can you hear me? It's Pa."
Burnett looked at him askance as he crossed to the coal chute and threw the trap door open so they had some light. "That door is more than a foot thick, Mister Cartwright."
"Joe will hear him," Adam said.
"He's likely to be unconscious by now – if he's even in there."
Adam drew in a breath. "Joe will hear him. If there's any way, Joe will hear his pa." He closed his eyes then. It wouldn't do him any good to call out to Joe. Two voices might be confusing. But there was nothing to stop him calling out to God.
God. Please. Let Joe be alive.
The silence as they waited was deafening. His pa crouched by the door, his fingers pale, stretched out on the dark metal surface as if he could divine by touch whether or not Joe was in there. Nothing else made sense really. Joe was missing. None of the telegrams had reported a boy with the men who had been spotted. The bank vault door that should have been open was closed.
He wanted to pray that his brother was in there, but at the same time, that was the last thing he wanted to do.
God. PLEASE. Let Joe be alive.
His father's hand shot out. His head came up. The older man looked at him and then returned his cheek to the heavy metal door.
"Joseph? Son? Was that you?"
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He'd been warm and safe and lying in his mother's arms. She was singing again.
If my boy lie still in bed,
God, too, will be pleased and glad,
And will say, "I'll send to him
All night long the loveliest dream."
Joe stirred as she stopped abruptly. He looked up to find her smiling. 'C'est ton père', Mama whispered. 'Il est venu pour vous.'
It was Pa. He'd come for him.
When he felt her start to release her hold on him, Joe panicked and clutched his mother's arm. "No, Mama," he rasped, his throat raw, "stay with me."
He felt her gentle touch on his cheek. Her lips caressed his brow. 'Non, ma petit Joseph. I must go. You must stay. Your papa needs you.'
Joe shook his head. "Pa isn't here. You are, mama. I don't have the strength..."
Her fingers released his arm. He felt her pull back.
Miserable, bereft, Joe screamed.
"NO!"
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"Did you hear it?"
Adam nodded as his father turned a ghostly pale but hopeful face toward him. At least he thought he had.
"You try," Pa said as he sat down and leaned his back against the vault.
Moving in, Adam put his ear against the door and called, "Joe! It's Adam. Hey, lazybones! What are you doing sleeping? Time to get up. Hop Sing's hopping mad!"
This time he heard his brother's voice, clear as a bell. Well, a muffled bell.
"Don't...want to."
He and his father had to hold each other up.
"Joseph," his father said as soon as he was able. "Boy, how are you?"
"Go away...want to...sleep..."
Adam couldn't help it. He grinned. "That's definitely Joe."
The grin faded with Joe's next words.
"...want to...go...with Mama..."
He saw every muscle in his father's frame go rigid. In a heartbeat the older man was on his feet and bearing down on the bank's assistant manager.
"Open that door!"
Burnett paled and took a step back. "I can't Mister Cartwright. Even if I had the combination, the locking mechanism is broken – "
"I am not interested in excuses!" Adam turned from the door to watch his father take a deep breath to regain control. The next time the older man spoke it was with that voice that had built an empire and kept three very unruly boys alive in a deadly land over a period of nearly three decades. "Well, then, find someone who can!"
"It's a Chubb...sir," Burnett stuttered. "There's no way."
Adam eyed the vault. He hated to leave his brother's side for even an instant in case Joe called out again. Still, he knew something his father didn't.
"Pa?" he said as he walked to his side.
The older man rounded on him. "What?"
"I read it in a paper at the Palace the other day. A man got caught in one of these vaults recently. They managed to get it open. They had to...blow the safe."
Those black eyes pinned him. "Did he survive?"
Honesty. That's what this man demanded – even when it was brutal. "No. But he was locked in over two days. It was the weekend."
"Blow the safe? You mean like those men did at the old bank?"
Adam took heart from that. If it had worked once...
"Yes."
His father's eyes were on the vault. "But we don't know where your brother is. It sounds like he's right by the door."
Adam nodded. He'd thought of that as well. "We'll have to get him to move."
"What if Joseph is unconscious and can't move?"
The question hung in the air between them.
He shook his head at last. "I don't know Pa. But we can't leave him in there much longer."
His father's eyes mirrored his emotions – hope, determination, fear, and then a reach for faith. His jaw tight, the older man nodded. Turning to Burnett Pa said, "Take Adam to where he can get what he needs."
Adam frowned. "Pa. No." He swallowed hard over his own fear. "You want me...?"
His father's hand rested on his shoulder. "You've done it before, in the mines. And you're an engineer, Adam. You'll know best how and where to set the charges to keep your brother from getting...damaged."
"Maybe someone in town has more experience?" Adam turned to Burnett who was shaking his head.
"Not that I know of. And I wouldn't know how to find them if they did."
He'd begun to tremble. "Pa. What if – what if something goes wrong? What if I...kill..." He couldn't finish it.
His father's grip intensified. The older man waited until he met his resolute stair.
"Joseph is dead already if we don't try."
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With what little strength he had, Joe groped the darkness searching for his mother. She'd gone away and left him alone and he didn't understand why. He'd heard Pa calling him, but Pa was so far away and he was so scared. Scared to be alone. Scared to be in the dark that he used to think of as a friend.
Scared he was going to die with no one touching him.
As he lay there, quietly sobbing, he heard his pa call him again.
"Joseph. Joseph?"
At first Pa's voice was soft. It sounded like it did when the older man used it to wake him up during a sickness to give him medicine. Then it changed. It became the voice pa used when he'd done something wrong. When he'd better pay attention and hop to, otherwise there'd be a switch waiting.
"Joseph! Boy! Answer me. Answer me now!"
He tried to lick his lips. They were swollen and cracked. At first nothing came out. Then he managed a strangled, "Pa..."
"Little Joe!"
Joe turned his head so he was facing the door. "Pa?"
This time pa's voice was that one he used when he found you laying in a ditch with a twisted ankle or hiding out in the barn, 'cause you were scared you'd get in trouble.
"Son. You have to listen to me. You're trapped in a bank vault. We have to get you out before you run out of air. The only way is to...blow the safe's door off." There was a pause, like his pa had taken in a big gulp. "You need to get as far away from the door as you can. Find something. Put it over your head. Joseph! Do you hear me?"
Yeah, he heard him.
Joe's eyes drifted to the back of the vault. It was about a million miles away.
"Can't..." was all he managed. It took too much effort to shake his head.
"You must!" His pa sounded desperate now. "Son, I know you're so tired you think you can't move. Maybe you can't breathe right. But, son, you're alive! You have to fight!"
Fight? He'd of snorted if he'd had the energy.
"Joseph?"
"Yeah, Pa..."
His pa's voice was steady. He kept talking. "Joe, you remember that little black foal you loved so much? The one who almost didn't make it? You remember, don't you, sitting with her and talking to her and telling her she couldn't give up no matter what?"
She'd been a beauty. All black with a star on her nose. He loved black horses. They were like midnight come to life.
"I...remember..."
"You kept talking to her until you willed her to chose life, to move. To get up on her feet and move. Joe, listen to me, son. You have to move!"
His muscles spasmed as he reached out with his hand, his fingers groping for something to grab hold of.
"Joseph?"
"I'm...trying...Pa..." he breathed even as the tips of his fingers found the seam between the pine boards that made up the floor.
"What was that, Joe?"
He didn't have any more energy for talking. His pa would just have to get mad at him for not answering. What energy he had was being channeled into those fingers. They'd moved on now with a will of their own, creeping from the first seam to seek the second. The floor was rough. No use using good lumber for the bottom of a basement vault. His knuckles were red already and now his fingers and chest were bleeding from the splinters being driven into them. Still he kept crawling, his progress agonizingly slow, inching his way across the rough floor toward the back of the vault where his pa had ordered him to go. Finally, his fingers struck metal and he reached up, taking hold of one of the metal bars that made up the cage door.
A triumphant smile spread across Joe's cracked lips.
"Made it, Pa," he gasped.
Then his fingers let go and he struck the floor.
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Ben turned from the vault and rose as his eldest son came into the basement followed by several other men including the sheriff and Burnett. He'd been bent so on Joseph hearing him and getting his son to move away from the door, that he hadn't realized what a strain he was under. When he stood, Ben found his knees were next to jelly. Adam came to his side quickly and offered his shoulder. He nodded his thanks as he accepted.
After a moment the older man said, "Thanks, son. I think I can manage."
His eldest boy raised his black brows and pursed his lips. "Really?"
Ben inclined his head toward the men gathered in the room. There were two new ones. "Who's this?"
"You know Burnett and Hiram. The tall one is Jasper Smith. He owns the hardware store. And this is Milton Hanks." Adam paused. "Milton's the town doctor."
He should have known. Hanks was an older man with graying hair, wearing a conservative brown suit and tie. He saw the bag now in his hand.
"How long has the boy been in the vault?" Milton asked as he came to their side.
It was the sheriff who answered. "Near as we can tell, from the time the robbery ended." Hiram paused and his voice fell. "Near thirteen hours."
The doctor blinked. His crisp blue eyes narrowed. "Thirteen hours?"
"At least."
The older man drew in a deep breath. "Then for God's sake, wait no longer! Get him out of there!"
"Pa?"
He'd been looking at the older man, gauging what the physician's violent reaction meant for his youngest son. He turned now toward his oldest.
"Yes?"
"I've got what I need, Pa." He gestured to Smith, who'd brought with him gunpowder, fuses, and cord. The shop owner had brought as well several small cotton bags and tape. "I think its best to blow the hinges to take the door off. Hopefully the sideways blast will keep anything from flying inward where it might...hit Joe."
With force enough to kill.
Ben looked at the materials in the man's hands and then at the locked vault. Joe couldn't hold out much longer. These lethal things could mean life or death for his son.
It was up to God which it was.
"Do it," he said with a nod.