Chapter 26

Night Watch

Ben Cartwright sat down heavily on the hard wooden chair in Doctor Martin's backroom. He arranged the cushion behind his back, trying to make himself a bit more comfortable as he prepared to spend the night in the dimly lit room. The night... Did he really want to stay here the night, the doctor had asked, handing him the cushion. Ben huffed. Of course, he wanted to stay the night, the whole night—where else would he want to be tonight? Shaking his head, he traced his eyes over the still form of his firstborn on the couch before him, then buried his face in his hands. Yes, where else would he want to be?

Ben rubbed his burning eyes with his palms. Could he have prevented this? Could he? If he only...if he only had realised sooner that something had been wrong with Adam earlier that morning. But his oldest son had made a good show of faking normality at breakfast. He had teased Hoss about the amount of pancakes he was able to absorb in less than ten minutes, and laughed about Joe's attempts to steal one or two of the syrup-soaked flapjacks back from Hoss's plate before he had erased them all. He himself hadn't eaten much, which wasn't an unusual thing, had drunk some coffee and read the newspaper. All perfectly familiar. And yet, in retrospect, Adam hadn't contributed anything to the conversation himself, he had merely observed the family dynamics, relished it somehow, and, in a silent and withdrawn way, been almost too good-tempered. He had excused himself for yet another trip to Virginia City, much to the chagrin of his brothers, by claiming he had to see Doctor Martin again on behalf of his thumb.

Oh, Ben most certainly could have realised something was amiss then. Since when did Adam see the doctor without being forced to? But it hadn't occurred to him until much later, when he had sat down to figure out a timber contract and got stuck on a minor detail Adam would certainly know how to resolve. And while he pondered about why his son might have been less than accurate about his motives for going into town, he suddenly remembered Adam's departing words: "Don't get yourself riled up about the contract, Pa; you're going to be fine without me."

He couldn't believe he hadn't recognised it before. Adam had said farewell, not being sure he would ever return. His last words were not a goodbye but a legacy. Ben had known then what this could only mean, even though he had had no idea why Adam's settled conviction might have crumbled. Cursing Poole, Adam's stubbornness and reluctance to confide in someone when times were getting rough, and his own failure in reading his son, he had saddled his horse and ridden to Virginia City.

He had headed to the Territorial Enterprise office, because somehow he had suspected Miss Heatherstone would be involved in whatever was going on. Not Miss Heatherstone, however, but Sam, the barkeep of the Silver Dollar, who had been raking the slightly discoloured sand on the street in front of the saloon, had told him what had happened.

"I'm sorry," he had finished. "I'm sorry for you, Mr. Cartwright. I didn't think Adam would actually do it, but then again, Poole was pushing and pushing..."

Ben had refused the offered drink and asked, inwardly cringing at his harsh tone, where Adam was now.

"He's at the doc's; they both were taken there, Mr. Cartwright. I honestly don't know what's wrong with him, he didn't stir and the lady didn't let anyone close to him."

Ben hadn't wasted time by asking "which lady?" and hurried to Doctor Martin's office, where he hadn't bothered to knock but just entered the house. Even from the anteroom he had heard raised voices, and even though the voices had been angry and the words clearly indicating an argument, he never in his life had heard a sweeter sound.

"I expressly asked you not to join into this foolish game." Juliet Heatherstone, who else.

Adam's answering voice had been only a bit lower. "I told you it had to be done."

"I don't care if it had to be done, Adam!" Miss Heatherstone's voice had increased in volume. "You could be dead, don't you understand? You could be dead!"

"Well, I'm not, am I?"

"Yes, by accident. Purely by accident, Adam. By half an inch, to be precise."

Ben had opened the door to the surgery and had been greeted by the sight of Adam sitting on the examination table, obviously trying not to wince at the stitches Doctor Martin was administering to his right temple and glowering at Juliet Heatherstone, who had stood in front of him, arms crossed and returning the glare manifold. She still sported a fresh angry red scar at her right temple, exactly at the same spot Adam's wound would leave one too, and Ben had briefly marveled at their symmetry before he had blurted, "What happened?"

Three heads had turned to him, and three mouths had given him an answer, all at the same time.

"He's going to be all right," had come from the doc.

"Nothing," Adam had said.

And "He nearly got himself killed," Miss Heatherstone had answered.

As it had turned out, they all had been right. Adam nearly had been killed; but by pure luck, or maybe because he had been a split second quicker and so the stricken Poole's shot had gone astray and only grazed his temple, he was going to be all right. Adam had been out cold from the force of the bullet's impact for a period of time that Miss Heatherstone called an eternity, and the doc said that was to be expected, but he got away with no lasting damage. Besides the scar, but that was really nothing.

The doctor, however, had been adamant that the patient stay the night at his office, just to be sure. Adam seemed a bit nauseous, he was pale and unsteady, and clearly in pain. Naturally, there had been an argument about this, with Adam claiming he was "fine as frog's hair," the doctor warning about possible concussion, brain damage and infection, Ben scolding his son for being too stubborn to concede defeat, and Miss Heatherstone staying surprisingly silent, until she finally had sat down beside Adam, put her hand on his arm and said, "Adam, please. I'd be much more comfortable knowing you're under supervision this night. You scared me to death, you know? I want to be sure you're safe now."

Adam had looked at her pleading face, and Ben had seen his resistance faltering.

"I'll go and get something to read to you, what do you say? We haven't finished The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket yet. You surely want to know what happened to Pym after the mutiny, don't you?"

Ben would never be sure if it had been the prospect to hear more of that gripping tale or the pleading green eyes, but Adam had given in and agreed to stay at the doctor's. Whichever it had been, Ben was grateful Miss Heatherstone had provided it.

While she had gone to get the book and to run some "errands," Ben and the doctor had helped Adam into a nightshirt and had settled him onto the couch in the backroom.

"Adam," Ben couldn't have stopped himself saying, right after Paul had left them alone with the promise to send a message to the Ponderosa, "you didn't do this for the family pride, did you?"

"You know I didn't." Adam's answer was low and a bit impatient.

"Then—why?"

"Pa..."

"Was it...your honour?"

"Nonsense."

"Did he threaten the family?"

"No. Pa..."

"Then...did he threaten Miss Heatherstone?"

"Pa! Really, I don't...I can't talk about it. I—it's something...private."

"It is about the lady, isn't it? You did it for her."

"Pa, please let it go, will ya?"

Ben had gazed at Adam intently and then, eventually, patted Adam's shoulder and nodded, "All right. All right, son. "

Adam, clearly exhausted, had closed his eyes and drifted off, and Ben had adjusted the bed cover over his child and, pacing the room, spoken a silent prayer of thanks before he allowed himself to sit down and rest.

Now he supervised his son's slumber and waited for the lady who apparently was the cause for all this to return. He would have a question or two for her.

The lady appeared what felt like hours but couldn't have been much more than thirty minutes later. She silently opened the door and entered the room cautiously, nearly tiptoeing. She had a blanket draped over her arm, and her hands full with a book, some mugs, and a teapot with a colourful flower pattern. She discarded her load on the bedside table and laid the blanket on the armchair the doctor had appropriated for her.

Ben noticed that she had changed her dress. He remembered the linden green skirt she'd been wearing earlier had been stained with blood and dirt, and for a brief moment he pictured her kneeling on the street with Adam's head in her lap, warding off onlookers. She now wore a simple dark blue housedress, which made her look even paler than usual and very vulnerable.

Miss Heatherstone sat down and leaned over to Adam, searching his face, then looked up at Ben.

"He looks rather pale, doesn't he? I hope his injury doesn't turn out to be more serious than the doctor first thought."

"Well, we won't be sure until tomorrow morning. It's just well that we convinced him to stay here."

She arched an eyebrow and smiled a smile that bordered on a smirk when she drawled out, "Yes, I'm glad we managed that."

The emphasis was small, nearly inaudible, but it drew Ben's attention. He studied her features, her sparkling eyes that didn't avoid his. Her face was guileless; there wasn't any challenge in it, only amused knowing. Eventually he smiled back and acknowledged with a small nod, "Yes, we did it very well."

She accepted his unspoken recognition by closing her eyes and smiling brightly. Non-verbal conversation obviously was not a trick only she and Adam had mastered, Ben thought, and for some reason he felt flattered that he had accomplished it too.

Miss Heatherstone checked the temperature of the teapot with the back of her hand, then looked at Adam again and sighed, "I didn't think he was so exhausted. Is he—?"

"No, he isn't. And he would like the pair of you to stop speaking as if he weren't in this room." Adam's unexpected voice nearly made them jump.

Miss Heatherstone recovered from the surprise faster than Ben; that he had to give her. She turned to Adam, who was pushing himself into a sitting position, and glared at him. "Well, if you weren't in this room, we wouldn't be here, either. Stop being difficult."

"I haven't even started to be difficult, Mylady, but if you insist—"

"You've been difficult since you got down from your horse, Adam, so don't even try and—"

"Oh, yeah, I forgot: contradicting the Qu—you equals being difficult. Well, if that is so, Juliet, then you'll have to get used to me being difficult. I will not surrender to your every word—"

"To listen to the voice of reason hardly seems like surrender to me. It rather would be a sign of good judgment; but maybe that's too much to expect from you!"

"Good judgment? Good judgment? Where, if I may ask, was your good judgment when—"

"Enough!" Ben thundering overrode both combatants' testily raised voices. "I do understand this day has taken a toll on everyone's nerves, but you both have no cause to go for each other's throats like that."

Miss Heatherstone and Adam looked, first at Ben, then at each other, like two schoolchildren who had been caught at filling the teacher's inkwell with plum preserve.

Ben had expected an apology from at least one of them: Adam nobly blaming himself for being provocative; Miss Heatherstone offering an exasperated "Oh, all right, I apologise," or maybe even both of them stammering an embarrassed "sorry"; but what he hadn't expected was the sheepish look on both their faces, that slowly turned into two wide grins and barely suppressed chuckles. He would never understand the enjoyment they seemed to take out of their bickering, nor would he stop being amazed at how these two very articulate people conversed even better without using any words.

Miss Heatherstone smoothed her already wrinkle-free skirt and Adam's blanket, before she poured tea into one rose-decorated mug, then looked at Ben, and, indicating another cup, lifted a questioning eyebrow. When he shook his head "no, thank you," she put down the teapot and handed Adam the drink.

"I think the tea is at a pleasant temperature now, Adam, so you had better drink it instantaneously."

Adam took the offered cup and eyed the content questioningly. "Is that Lapsang Souchong?"

"No, it's Darjeeling. No sugar, no milk. That's much better for you now, Adam."

He screwed up his face. "I assume water is out of the question?"

"Unless you want to be sick, it is, I'm afraid." Miss Heatherstone managed to sound both reprimanding and caring, and for a split second the image of Inger, his second wife, flashed through Ben's mind. "We had that talk before, Adam. Don't you remember?"

"I do; I just hoped you had forgotten about it, Lady Assam."

What was so funny about this, Ben didn't know (especially when the lady had provided Darjeeling, anyway) but he enjoyed the couple's easy, good-tempered teasing, and their low shared laughter.

Adam finished his tea and even drank another cup, purely to please Miss Heatherstone, as Ben suspected, and then settled back into his pillows and, closing his eyes, listened to her reading of The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket.

Ben made himself as comfortable as possible on his chair and soon found himself lulled into blessed oblivion by Miss Heatherstone's pleasant, soothing voice. Even though Arthur Pym's adventures on the sea were nothing less than exciting, and Miss Heatherstone's narration was lively, Ben felt the weight of the day's events slowly being lifted from him and replaced by drowsiness.

He was awakened from a dream in which Inger had argued with Miss Heatherstone about the type of tea Adam should drink (and in which Inger had cut short the lady's ingenious theories about the superiority of Indian tea over Chinese by simply thrusting a mug of Swedish mint tea into Adam's hand) by the sound of Adam thrashing out in his sleep. He kept a mild curse down, just in time remembering the presence of a lady, and turned to pacify his nightmare-tormented son.

His help wasn't needed anymore. Miss Heatherstone, with a face that betrayed not a second of sleep, had put her hand on Adam's shoulder, rubbing slow circles over his collarbone, and cooed, "Shh."

Ben watched in amazement at how Adam quieted down and fell back into a peaceful slumber, while Miss Heatherstone continued the caressing. Her face gained an expression Ben was very familiar with. He had seen it several times, on the faces of his three wives, and the word "love" didn't even begin to describe it. The surprise of seeing such an intensity of emotion made him involuntarily gasp, but when Miss Heatherstone's head shot up at the sound, her features were guarded as ever, and Ben wasn't sure anymore if he had only imagined the raw passion.

"He's getting them from the pain medication—the nightmares, I mean," Ben offered rather clumsily.

"Yes, I know. He told me so when he was injured by those burglars." She smiled reminiscing, then frowned. "He must have been in quite some pain earlier if he agreed to take some."

"He was, Miss Heatherstone. He tried to make light of it, as usual, but a bullet wound like that hurts a lot." Ben shook his head. "I don't dare to think what could have happened. If Adam hadn't hit Poole before he got his shot off..."

"If, Mr. Cartwright, if is a mighty word for our imagination, but very weak in the light of reality. Adam was quicker, he was more accurate; he is still here and Mr. Poole has gone. That's what counts, not what could have happened if."

"Do you never become absorbed in ifs, Miss Heatherstone?" He really wanted to know. He remembered all his wives had been dreaming of ifs and whens.

She laughed silently. "You caught me. Does anyone not dream? But I prefer to ponder about what might be, not what might have been."

"Well, that certainly sounds like a well thought-out philosophy," Ben chuckled. "And you are right: what matters is that Adam is here and Poole..." He stroked his chin. "Hmm, I never asked what had happened to him."

"Mr. Poole has been taken care of, Mr. Cartwright. The funeral will be this morning, shortly after sunrise. There won't be any participants anyway, so I thought it was the wisest to do it with as little stir as possible."

"You arranged everything with the undertaker?"

"Yes, I've spoken to Mr. Proudfoot."

"Well...about the costs—"

"I've taken care of that, too."

"You...? But...?"

She sighed. "Mr. Cartwright, Mr. Poole might not have been the most pleasant person under God's sun, but he saved my life the other day. I owe him. And this was the least I could do for him."

Ben tried to read her face. It was nearly blank, only a slight trace of...remorse? "Miss...I'm sure Adam would like to share the costs, he would—"

"Adam and I have spoken about it, and he has made his...contribution to this." She underlined her end-of-business tone with a cutting off hand gesture, and Ben was wise enough not to prod more. Obviously Adam and she had found an arrangement that satisfied both of them; and that was good enough for him.

There was something else still on his mind from earlier that afternoon, and this was as good a time as any to question her. Who knew when he would get another chance to talk to her privately. And since she cultivated frankness herself, he decided to take the bull by the horns.

"Miss Heatherstone, ever since I came to town today I wondered what made Adam change his mind about the duel. You don't happen to know what that might have been?"

Her face fell. She pointedly leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms. "No, I don't happen to know what made him change his mind," she said sharply. "He had his reasons, but he didn't want to talk about it. I accept that."

This he hadn't expected. Somehow he had thought the clue to all this lay in her, but apparently she was as unaware as he was. Well, maybe he wasn't quite so unaware.

"I'm sorry, I assumed you...well. Anyhow, I do have an idea why he—"

"Mr. Cartwright, please, I don't want to hear it." She nearly pleaded. "I don't need to hear it. Adam had his reasons, and that's enough for me. Whatever it was, he couldn't help it, it had to be done, and it was the right thing to do."

Ben considered her. Was that the woman with the most inquiring mind he had ever met? The woman whose thirst for knowledge rivaled his oldest son's? Yes, it was. It was the same woman who had bared her soul when Adam had sung a song for her, the woman who had let down her defenses for him.

"You do trust Adam a lot, don't you?" he asked her, but really, it was a mere statement.

She nodded. "If there's one thing I know, then it is that Adam would never do anything he knows is not right. And he would never do anything to hurt me." She took a deep breath and looked straight into Ben's face. "And you should know that just as well, Mr. Cartwright."

While Ben, dumbstruck, was looking for words, Miss Heatherstone stood up and folded her blanket. "It's nearly dawn, Mr. Cartwright. I want to attend the funeral and then I have to arrange some things in town. Please, give Adam my best, and tell him I would like to meet him tomorrow in the International House, at lunchtime, as usual—that is, if he's up to it and the doctor allows it."

Ben forced a smile to his face. "I'm sure Adam will be very eager to meet you, Miss Heatherstone. As you said, however, we'll have to wait and hear what the doctor says."

"Yes, of course. I will inquire after Adam's health with the doctor later. Adam can leave a note for me here."

And with that, a nod and a smile she went out of the room. Ben stared at the door after it had closed behind her for a full minute. He was sure he had missed something—but what?

ooOoo

We're never so vulnerable than when we trust someone –
but paradoxically, if we cannot trust, neither can we find love or joy" ~ Walter Anderson

drmweaver2265, aww...thanks a lot! Those two are as loyal as they could be, aren't they? I hope that'll be enough...