This is a long chapter - just letting you know it's over 4,000 words. If you read it, I hope you find it worth your time.
Five—Home-made Remedies
"I swear," Hoss said as he sat shirtless in the kitchen, "them damn ants made a beeline to me no matter where we bedded down. They musta passed over Joe and Adam and headed straight to me. Bit me all night. I'd check where I was puttin' my bedroll, shake it out and check it close ever' night, but they still got in there somehow…check my head too, would'ja Hop Sing? I been itchin' and Adam said I might have lice." Hoss scratched his head; it felt like he his head was "swarmin' with them critters."
Hoss knew that Adam's poker-faced comment about picking up lice from Carmelita's two boys was insincere, but the idea was planted in his fertile imagination, so Hoss' scalp itched constantly as if he was crawling with the things. They had all been sitting about the campfire, Hoss scratching his head with both hands. "Check my head, Adam," Hoss had requested. "See if I got those lice."
"I'm not touching your head," Adam said. "I'm not getting your lice on me."
"Joe, check me, will ya?"
"No!" Joe moved away, glancing at Adam.
"And make sure," Adam said, winking at Joe, "that you check your crotch—I noticed you've been scratching your balls more than usual too. Maybe those lice 've crawled down there while you've been sleeping. Wanted something juicier to bite."
Joe giggled and the fact that Adam was tormenting Hoss made him feel that "Ol' Adam" wasn't so much of a stranger anymore. Given more time, Adam may soon be the person he was before he joined up with the army. Adam just had to be given more time. At least Joe hoped so.
Hop Sing smeared his home-made concoction on Hoss' back and arms. "What is that stuff?" Hoss asked. "Smells like you're picklin' me."
"Hop Sing remedy from when you small boy. Honey and cider vinegar." Hoss touched the substance on his skin and put it on his tongue.
"Don't taste none too bad, Hop Sing. Tastes like what you done give us for coughs."
"Hoss not eat. Medicine."
"Dang, but I'm hungry, Hop Sing."
"You let dry. Go room and put all over places with bites. Then sit. You take bath before supper and put more on after if still itch. Take out poison from bites. Two day, maybe three, no itch at all and all bumps gone. Now, you bend head and Hop Sing look."
Hop Sing parted Hoss' hair with his fingers, checking different places and looking for the small, glassy eggs. He pushed Hoss' head forward and ruffled the hair at the nape. "No lice on head," Hop Sing said.
Hoss wanly smiled. "Thanks, Hop Sing." Hoss would check his crotch himself but he couldn't help but smile at the picture of him sitting on the kitchen stool in the all in all, running his fingers over his privates looking for "critters".
The Chinese cook nodded and placed a damp rag over the bowl to keep the mixture from drying out. He placed it on the counter and returned to his work after washing the sticky substance off his hands.
"Since I gotta sit here for a while to let this stuff dry, it'd be nice iffen I could have a little somethin' to eat—maybe a few of them cookies? I got to tell you, Hop Sing, I ain't had any decent food since I left here. I'd really like a little somethin' sweet." Hoss tried to look pathetic but he didn't have to go far since he sat covered with the glossy paste. He had also dropped quite a few pounds on the trip to and from Mexico.
"Not spoil appetite. Hop Sing make roast pig and cake for Mistah Adam return home."
"Dang, Hop Sing! I know that. It's smellin' that roast pig, almost tastin' that crispy skin, that's drivin' my stomach wild. And I can smell that cake too!" Hoss took in a deep breath and closed his eyes in appreciation. The sweet smell of vanilla filled his nostrils and he could almost taste the first bite of the sweet cake and its sticky, boiled icing. "Smells better'n a French whore's perfume!"
"Four cookie! Four!" Hop Sing held up four fingers.
"Yes, sir, Hop Sing. Four." Hoss walked over to the cookie jar and making sure that Hop Sing wasn't looking, he slipped a handful of cookies in a pants pocket and then made a show of counting out four of the crisp butter cookies. Hop Sing watched approvingly. "Gonna get myself a glass of milk now and then go enjoy these." Hoss held up the four cookies. He poured himself a tall glass of the foamy, creamy milk and then, smiling, he slipped out of the kitchen.
Hop Sing smiled while he peeled the potatoes and tossed them into a large steel pot. "Mistah Hoss think him fool Hop Sing. This person raise him. This person know more cookies hidden in pocket." Secretly, Hop Sing was pleased. Had Hoss not wanted more than his allowed amount of the cookies, Hop Sing would have been heart-broken. And he was glad that the boys were back, all three of them, and he happily went about preparing the homecoming meal for Adam.
~ 0 ~
The dinner was as close to a celebration the family had had since Adam left. Despite the birthday parties and the few dances, there had never been a moment of pure celebration. Although Adam tried his best to muster enthusiasm, as he looked around the beautifully set table, the bottle of expensive champagne and the partially carved roast pig on the sideboard, he was amazed at the plenty before him; he didn't know what he had expected, but then he hadn't considered it.
Adam's father and Hop Sing had gone all out and the table was draped in the fine linen tablecloth with the lace overlay used only for guests. The crystal goblets and wine flutes were sparkling in the light from the chandelier over the table. One of Joe's mother's fine china bowls was piled high with green beans cooked with chunks of fatback for flavoring, and there were golden biscuits and butter, a mountain of mashed potatoes with a gravy boat filled with pork gravy made from the residual grease and the small pieces of flesh that had stuck to the bottom of the roasting pan.
"Well," Adam said, "I'm glad I dressed for dinner; the governor coming?"
"Don't you 'member what a celebration looks like, Adam?" Hoss asked.
"I guess not. Well, let's sit and eat." They sat and Adam reached for a biscuit but noticed his family and Hop Sing were waiting, staring at him. Adam sat back. His father clasped his hands in prayer and bowed his head while Hoss and Joe did as well. Hop Sing folded his hands, one on the other, and bowed his head. Adam followed suit. It had been so long since he had prayed that it seemed almost a foreign custom.
"Dear Lord," Ben Cartwright said, "we thank you for the food we eat and ask that you bless the hands that prepared it as well as those who are about to enjoy the food. May we always be able to nourish our bodies as well as our souls and pray for those who are in need, that they be fed as well. And we thank you, dear God in heaven, for returning Adam to us. In Jesus' name, Amen."
"Okay," Hoss said, "let's eat!" He reached out with the meat fork, skewering at least four or five slices and holding his plate with the other hand, slid them on.
"Hoss, what's that stink?" Joe asked, smiling, as he passed the gravy to his father.
"Very funny," Hoss said. "iffen you'd been bit like me, you'd've taken a bath in the stuff."
"Guess those ants just like marbled meat," Joe said. He looked at Adam who grinned back.
Hop Sing stood by the table, waiting, while Adam helped himself to slices of roast pig and the sides.
"You take more," Hop Sing said, urging Adam on. "Hop Sing make special." It seemed to Adam that everyone was waiting for him to taste the food.
Hoss said, "I'll take more, Hop Sing. S'prised you ain't eatin' more, Adam, after them beans and goat meat you been eatin'…" Hoss flushed with embarrassment and sat back. "I got enough, thanks, Hop Sing."
Silence fell over the table. Ben stopped eating, his forkful of food hanging in the air.
Adam spoke. "Thank you, Hop Sing – maybe some more of those green beans. Been a long time since I've had green beans." Adam took another spoonful and looked about. He knew why everyone had fallen silent; they were unsure how Adam would take Hoss' comment. "I left the hunk of fatback for you, Hoss, knowing it's your favorite."
"Thanks, Adam," Hoss said, grimly smiling, and the others began to eat as well.
Adam forced himself to eat; he really didn't have much of an appetite. And with Hoss bringing up Carmelita in a round-about manner, Adam suddenly wondered what Carmelita and her sons would do at this table filled with food. The boys would more than likely snatch up as much as they could and holding the bounty in their loose shirt fronts, scramble away from the table and eat voraciously, licking the grease off their fingers. Suddenly he felt guilty about Carmelita's boys; he considered possibly sending them money for their care. But it would never reach them, probably being opened by some postal worker along the route. A bank draft couldn't be cashed as there was no bank in Miseria – or any postal service.
He owed Carmelita nothing but guilt still hung on him. He had worked for her and taken care of her place and received nothing in return but poor food and sharing her sagging mattress at night. She did seem to enjoy the time they spent between the sheets but Adam never kissed her nor did they exchange endearments. They rarely even said each other's names; they fulfilled each other's basic hungers and that was it. The words from Hamlet ran through his mind the first time he lay with Carmelita on her soiled sheets: Nay, but to live in the rank sweat of an enseamèd bed, stewed in corruption, honeying and making love over the nasty sty!
Adam had ridden through the small village of Miseria and stopped at the café for a meal and a bottle of wine. As he walked back out into the sun, holding the bottle, he heard and saw a woman arguing with a man and woman who ran a stall where they sold rice, beans, tortillas and slices of meat served up in cheap clay bowls; people would sit under their canopy and eat, and when they finished, they handed back the bowls which were dropped into a bucket filled with greasy water to be used again after being wiped dry with rags.
The arguing woman was thin and angular with a hard face and she cursed worse than most men Adam had known. A small boy awkwardly held an infant who wailed in the heat of the hot afternoon. The man waved a haunch of the beast she was trying to sell, He claimed the meat was old, maggot infested, and wouldn't pay her price; he used his thick finger to push aside some skin and Adam saw the white maggots squirming. By the size of the haunch, Adam considered it was sheep or goat. He listened and with his little Spanish, he understood the man declaring he would not be cheated and wasn't going to pay more than the peso he had given her as he would have to chop off all the rotten sections and there wouldn't be much meat left.
The wine was bitter but Adam drank it anyway. He stood in the heat and thought about traveling down to South America, maybe Brazil or Bolivia. He had read about those countries, knew they had been romanticized, but he wanted to see that part of the continent. But he never traveled further than that little village.
Adam found himself wanting to intervene in the argument between the woman with the two children and the squat vendor on principle alone. He considered pulling his gun from his military holster and sticking it in the vendor's face, but their argument wasn't his business and she was no damsel in distress. The woman stank, he could smell her rank odor where he stood, and her dress was filthy and the meat she tried to pass off on him was rotten. She reached into the basket and slammed a large leg of goat on his counter. Then asked for more money. The vendor turned the meat about in his hands, consulted his wife who examined the piece and then nodded, taking the meat to the back of the stall where she proceeded to cut it up for cooking. The man reached into his apron pocket and gave her three more pesos. She only snorted and then, putting the empty basket on the ground, took the wailing baby and walked away toward the far end of town. The older boy picked up the basket and followed her, scampering to keep up with her long stride.
Adam wondered if she had a husband or a man to help her with the animals she obviously raised, so guiding his horse with one hand and drinking the bottle of wine while he rode, he followed her path to a little adobe house. He asked her in his broken Spanish, if she needed anyone to help about; he would work for food and a place to sleep. The woman, who said her name was Carmelita, stared at him in his uniform. She agreed to feed him and let him sleep in the shed if he would help her with her goats and chickens that scoured the dirt and grass for insects. She then turned her back on Adam and closed the door.
Initially, he made repairs around the place had been neglected for some time, but soon lost interest; no matter what he repaired, it fell apart in short time or the boys destroyed it. He repaired the fence, the older boy amused himself by pulling it down. There was no money for plaster to repair the chinks and holes in the house so they lived with it. In the face of hopelessness, Adam invested his time in taking care of the goats, seeing they were fed, bred and properly slaughtered and butchered. Carmelita milked them. Adam took the fresh goat meat into town to sell on market day along with the day's goat milk. He became comfortable where he was and realized how seductive the heat and general somnolence of the life in Mexico was. Adam became resigned and lost all desire to move on.
As Adam ate the grand dinner at the Ponderosa, he considered again what he had always known. Life was not fair and there would always be those who would have more than others, whether that was food, money, health or other thing people valued. And he considered how fortunate yet fickle, the accident of birth was. So, he ate and basked in the warmth of the Ponderosa and his family's love; after all, everything could be taken away from a man in the wink of a jealous god's eye.
~ 0 ~
"Adam, before you turn in, can't you sit and talk awhile longer? Your brothers have turned in and it's been a long time since you and I…well, Joe told me a few things you shared but apparently, you didn't tell him very much."
Adam stood with one hand on the newel post. "Pa, so much has happened that I couldn't…there's no way I can tell you all that's happened."
"Then let me tell you what has been going on here. Please, son, sit for a while."
Although Adam wanted to escape to the privacy of his room, he turned. "All right." He felt he owed it to his father. "But Hoss and Joe filled me in about Mansfield." The urge to tell his father about his connection with Mansfield, however tenuous it was, seemed to choke him. But Adam chose to just swallow the information. The time would come later.
Adam sat down in the familiar chair that had always been considered his. It was a high-backed wing chair of a plush blue fabric akin to velvet. His head had worn an area in the back years ago as well as a depression in the seat cushion. As he ran his hands along the arms, Adam felt as if he was in a mother's embrace, warm and familiar and oh, so comforting.
"It's good to see you home, son. I've sat here opposite that chair so many nights and hoped you'd soon be sitting there—and now you are. I can't tell you…" Ben felt tears welling in his eyes. This wasn't what he wanted, to cry again, but he had prayed for this moment so many times-mornings, nights and it seemed almost every waking moment of his life and now Adam was home.
Adam noticed his father trying to control his emotions so he sat forward, resting his elbows on the arms and clasped his hands. "Pa, I owe you an explanation as to why I stayed away. Wait, that's wrong. I didn't 'stay away", I just needed more time before I returned to… Life is different now and I…"
"Adam, I'm not asking for an explanation and you don't owe me one." He swallowed deeply. "How about a brandy?"
Knowing that the partially full whiskey bottle waited for him upstairs, he replied with a small lie, "Thank you. That might help me sleep." Adam waited, silently staring at his hands and noticed how much darker his hands were from his wrists and lower arms. The wrist-length sleeves on the tunics he had worn for the past few years had kept his arms from the sun and his hands looked ten years older than the rest of him. But now with the sleeves rolled-up on the clean shirt he had changed into after his bath, he was more aware of the dichotomy of just a few weeks ago and now. Change was abrupt. He had been there in Mexico and now was here. One moment one could be alive, breathing, feeling the blood surge through the veins, and the next moment, be dead.
Ben handed Adam his glass and then sat down in his chair opposite his son.
"There are cigars in the humidor, good cigars from Cuba. They're becoming as valuable an import as sugar—and costs far more. Better than the cigars from Virginia. Help yourself to one."
Ben concentrated on packing his pipe but he surreptitiously watched while Adam rested his glass on the coffee table and helped himself to a cigar. Despite the cutter on the table, Adam bit off the end and spat it into the fire. He lit up and after the first puff, relaxed into the chair with his brandy. The warmth of both eased him into relaxation.
"Before I talk about our issues on the Ponderosa, Joe told me about your daughter, my granddaughter. I'm sorry about her passing. He said her name was Miracle. I suppose it was difficult for you…and her mother. Carmelita, was it?"
"Yes." Adam was tempted to tell his father that it hadn't seemed that difficult at all. It seemed that grief was now a foreign emotion and he didn't seem capable of it anymore; he was numb. He even doubted if he was capable of love. He seemed to exist in a shell where nothing could penetrate. But he didn't relate that to his father. Nor did Adam tell his father how his small daughter, Milagro, had been born, from the looks of her, early. She was thin and her skin was like paper. She barely made any noise and her small thin legs were constantly drawn up. Carmelita had tried to nurse the child but she either couldn't or wouldn't suck. Adam had dipped his little finger in goat's milk and put it drop by drop on the infant's tongue but it would just roll back out again. He sat up with her for two days while she struggled to breathe, trying desperately to get the child to take sustenance but there must have been more wrong than just an early birth. In a few more hours, Adam knew the baby would be dead and because Carmelita refused to go, Adam carried the infant wrapped in a serape, a basket of fresh eggs over his arm, to the small village church. The padre prayed and blessed the child with holy water, making the sign of the cross while Christening her. As thanks, Adam gave the priest the basket of eggs. He carried the child back to the house but she died before he reached it. So, wrapping the serape more closely about the body, he buried his daughter not far from the house. Two days later, Adam put the hand-carved cross he had made at the head of the small mound of dirt and stones to mark the spot. Then he went back to his chair behind the little house, kicked it back and drank.
As to his father's condolence, the only response Adam gave his father was "Thank you."
Ben knew Adam well enough to recognize the end of a conversation; he had wanted to ask Adam if he would like Carmelita to come there and live but he knew the answer. If Adam had wanted Carmelita and her boys there, he would have brought her. So, Ben decided to talk about Mansfield and how he had practically surrounded one side of the Ponderosa with his property. There were only a few ways now to leave the Ponderosa for Carson City, all of them circuitous. The way to Virginia City was still clear but narrowed. Ben didn't know for how long though. "Mansfield's tightening a tourniquet around us, choking us."
"Why steal cattle though?" Adam asked. "That land's not good for grazing and Hoss said he's not a rancher."
"I think it's just to torment me. Everything he does seems to be to aggravate the already hostile situation."
Adam smiled slightly. He had just poured himself another glass of brandy and swirled it in the glass, admiring the dark gold color. "Mansfield sounds clever and I wouldn't be surprised if he's hoping you'll sell if he makes your life miserable enough. My guess is he knew about the railroad expansion before most people in this area did, where the line for the Virginia &Truckee Railroad was going to be and bought up the land for two reasons; to prevent or stall the Ponderosa from getting the milled timber to the sites and to sell or lease the land to the railroad coming through. If Mansfield's bought timberland in the mountains, he'll have the advantage over the Ponderosa. Hoss told me about the flume that's being built." Mansfield had been an excellent tactician, that Adam knew. But even the best can have flaws due to hubris. And although Adam was sure Mansfield had powerful friends, he wondered who had let him in on the information before shares went public.
"Yes, by the Carson-Tahoe Lumber and Fluming Company. There's a planing mill and box factory in Carson City owned by them and a loop line of the railroad we have now serves it. They're providing wood for mines as well. Adam, we're being squeezed out; Colonel Mansfield seems to be fighting a war."
"So big business is taking over Nevada; this isn't the only place in the country, Pa. Hoss told me that the small ranchers are all squeezed out now and that only a few of the bigger ones—such as us—still exist. And while I was bathing, I read the back issues of the newspapers in the washhouse. The railroad's going to be the only way to travel shortly; no more stage coaches."
"But if things keep going this way, I don't know for how long we'll exist. I need your help, Adam. We all do."
"Pa, I don't know what you expect me to do? Go find and shoot Mansfield?"
"Don't be ridiculous! That's not it at all."
"Pa. You're going to have to change with the times. Things are so different now. The whole country has changed. And I've no interest in powering my way through co-bidders to win bids for bridges or flumes or such since you can't deliver timber to the mines that aren't yours, you need to find another market for the timber or invest money elsewhere like…oil. According to what I read…" Adam noticed his father seemed hurt for some reason. A silence fell.
"Seems as if you have exempted yourself, Adam. You said 'you' instead of 'we'. Does that mean you're not staying, not going to help us recover what's rightfully ours?"
"What is it that you want to recover? Exactly."
"Why, the ability to travel freely to Carson City without going the long way around, to live without the fear of being shot just by stepping over our property line onto Mansfield's, and to be able to get out timber to the railroad site. There's no way now, the way things stand, that I can put in what might be the lowest bid and still make money on the deal. We're washed up as far as timbering as long as things stay the way they are and now that most cattle are shipped by rail, well, that's becoming more difficult as well."
"And what do you hope to do about it? I told you, things are changing; you can't cling to how things used to be done. Mansfield has legally purchased the land, and granted, he probably had an insider's knowledge about the flume and the railroad, but there's nothing you can do about it. We still have timber on the mountainside, right? We used to have our own flume to float the timber down. We can still do that and then maybe even reach an amicable agreement with the…what did you say it was?"
"The Carson-Tahoe Lumber & Fluming Company."
"Why don't you go talk to them? I'll go with you later, maybe day after tomorrow." Adam pushed his hair behind his ears. "I need a haircut, and to buy some things in town." Adam stood up. "I really need to get to bed. I'm about to fall asleep on my feet." Standing up, Adam finished his drink and when placing the empty glass on the low table, he noticed his guitar where he had last placed it—off to the back, beside the chair. Some things didn't change at all and he could see Hop Sing dusting it and then gently placing the instrument back in its spot. But Adam left it sitting where it was and said nothing.
"Goodnight then" Ben said. He was disappointed. His hope was that Adam would be righteously angry and would propose facing Mansfield and his men in a non-violent confrontation, but heavily armed just in case. But Adam seemed to want nothing to do with anything involving a conflict.
"Goodnight, Pa." Adam started up the stairs.
"Adam," Ben said and his son turned to him. "Sampson's not the barber here anymore. He went back to Missouri after the war. Fifteen years here and then he ups and moves to Missouri. Doubt you'll recognize too many people in town anymore—or they you."
"That's fine with me, Pa." Adam went up the stairs and Ben heard his son's footfalls on the floor above his head.
Ben sat back down and looked at the brandy in his glass. He hadn't said everything he wanted to Adam but hopefully, there would be more time. He hoped Adam would stay for good; this land was his as well as his brothers. Ben recognized that Adam was carrying a burden of some type and wanted to help his son. But Adam wasn't Hoss or Joe and after all this time, Ben still didn't know how to reach him. Now, if Hop Sing only had a home remedy for that.
