Elizabeth Cartwright had a head of golden curls, wide blue eyes, long eyelashes that disappeared against her fair skin, and a chubby cheeked face that tended toward smiling. She also had teeth and a strong jaw, Ben discovered, when those teeth began to have brothers and sisters. Elizabeth was teething and she would pull anything she could grab into her mouth to help alleviate the discomfort. When that included Elizabeth leaning down and taking a bite out of Ben's arm, he had little marks in his flesh.
He had two solutions. Make sure his child always had food in her mouth, or give her a nipple to chew on and hope she didn't bite through it. He'd tried other options, like wooden spoons, dried fruit, the arm of Elizabeth's favorite doll. Nothing was quite so satisfying as Elizabeth sticking her hand in her own mouth, or going for the hand of another. What Ben needed was something made of rubber that wouldn't shred in her mouth, but could be cleaned regularly.
That wasn't his only problem. Elizabeth was increasingly mobile and her mobility got her into trouble. The solution tended to be to put her into her pen to play, but Ben had discovered that Elizabeth knew how to move vertically, and horizontally. She had untold strength in her arms, and tried climbing the railing of her pen at least once.
With Adam away in San Francisco, Joe and Hoss out checking on the line cabins and fences, Ben was stuck at home, trying to get daily chores done, and keep Elizabeth from harm, or worse, from doing harm.
At first the problem was that any time Ben left the room, Elizabeth would begin to wail. Ben picked her up, shushed her, tickled at her ticklish places until she was giggling madly, then put her back in her pen and left the room, promising to be right back. He would be gone only a few seconds and piteous cries of, "Papa!" Would follow him into the hallway.
So the pen went into whatever room Ben was working in, if he was in the house, and sometimes went out into the yard.
That spring had given them ten new chicks. Elizabeth loved the chicks. With her pen, shaded by a canvas fly that Ben put up over it, sitting out in the dooryard, Ben could separate the chicks from their mothers, and put them down into Elizabeth's pen. The chickens would charge for the pen, eating their grain, and keeping a watchful eye on their babies, and Ben could collect the eggs in peace.
Elizabeth would pet the chicks and babble to them. He heard her mimicking their high pitched cheaps, and beamed. Once the eggs were collected and the hen house cleaned out, the hens and chicks would rush back into their nests, and Elizabeth would call, "Bye bye cheep cheep."
Ben let her pet the soft velvety noses of the calves, and a young foal. He showed her the budding trees on the slope of cleared timber by her "Uncle" Thomas' cabin, and the crocus that bloomed in the meadow by Sweet Water Run. The flower seeds that had so joyously seen Sarah Vince and her husband off on their honeymoon had sprouted, and there were daisies all along the shore of Lake Tahoe.
The spring had been mild, and pleasant, with plenty of rain to make green things grow. From Adam's letters, Ben suspected that Sarah Vince would be returning home instead of going on to China as planned. Her trip had been delayed several months after Adam arrived in San Francisco. Ben was hopeful.
One warm Sunday morning, after he had driven his family to church, Ben sat on the buggy in the church yard, watching Joe and Hoss play with their little sister. As expected, most of the young females in the congregation had flocked around the brothers. Ben felt the buggy sag under a slight weight, then looked to see the preacher, a man about his age, stepping up onto the driver's seat.
"Pastor Long." Ben said, holding out his hand.
The white haired man next to him shook his hand and patted him on the back. "Ben. You've a lovely girl."
"She is, isn't she?" Ben asked, smiling.
"I wanted to ask you about...about considering baptizing Elizabeth?"
Ben glanced at the preacher then gave a short laugh. "In all the excitement...by golly, I forgot all about that. The boys were each baptized, shortly after they were born."
"Seems like it's about time for little Elizabeth." Long said.
"Seems like." Ben agreed. "Well...no time like the present?"
Long beamed at him. "I suppose not. Why don't you gather your family in the church, and I'll get my things ready."
Both men descended from the buggy, Ben calling for his boys and the preacher disappearing into the church. The baptism ceremony was simple and sweet. Ben stood at the front of the church with Hoss and Joe, watched the preacher bless his daughter and sprinkle water on her head. They laughed when Elizabeth played in the water when the preacher let her hands get too close.
When they were done, Elizabeth ran to her Papa, laid her head on his shoulder and put wet fingers around the collar of his shirt. The family left the church, climbed into the buggy and went home.
Her baptism, simple as it was, stayed in Ben's mind for sometime. It was like all other ceremonies in a church. It was a ritual that could have no meaning, or all the meaning in the world. It all depended on who was there, and what you were thinking about at the time. For Ben, it was the moment that Elizabeth truly became a Cartwright. He remembered the baptisms of each of his children, and this made the fourth.
When a wire from Adam asked that they make the trip out to San Francisco, stating that he had already made arrangements for them to stay, Ben thought he knew the occasion. He was surprised that Adam hadn't returned to the Ponderosa to tell his news, or to plan the event likely to follow. But he knew his eldest well enough to know that when he made a plan to get a thing done, all other plans fell by the wayside.
Ben, Hoss, Joe and Elizabeth caught the morning stage out of Virginia City. They were the only passengers. The first day of their trip the weather was perfect. There was a cool breeze blowing through the carriage, Elizabeth withstood the bouncing like a champ, and the horses made better than expected time.
In Reno, Ben and his children caught passenger service on the railroad to San Francisco. It was Elizabeth's first trip on a train. While she wasn't too fond of the whistle or the noise of the steam train, she was delighted with looking out the window and watching the world fly by. From the stage tickets, to the train tickets, all of their fares had been taken care of.
When they arrived in San Francisco it was late evening. The train station was filled with people just meeting, or just saying goodbye. Hoss carried Elizabeth off the train while Joe and Ben handled the luggage. When the wait for Adam went from a few minutes to half-an-hour, Ben began to get annoyed. When the half-hour turned to an hour, Ben ordered a cab to take them to their hotel.
After the near eventless trip he was looking forward to a long night's rest. Elizabeth had become fussy, her stomach growling. Hoss wasn't too far behind her. The cab took them past most of the nicer hotels in the center of the city and started toward the docks, and Ben called up to the driver, to make sure the man had understood the name of the hotel he was to take them to. The driver repeated the address back to him, nodding the whole time.
Ben became increasingly skeptical when the buildings they were passing began to resemble shacks and worn down saloons from a bygone era.
"No, no, no. Driver, take us back to the station, please. We'll find different accommodations."
The driver glanced back at them, but turned the horses around and they started back.
"I sure hope Adam ain't really stayin' in a place all the way out here." Hoss said, peering with disgust out the window.
"Eat, Papa, eat. Eat, Oss, Eat. Eat, Jojo, Eat."
"Yeah, we'd all love to eat, Elizabeth, but all we have is our hats and ties. Those wouldn't taste too good." Joe said, giving Elizabeth's poor empty belly a poke. That started a favorite game of hers, and Joe had her distracted and giggling in no time.
"We'll eat as soon as we get to the hotel." Ben said, making sure the driver was still taking them in the right direction. A block away from the railroad station was an establishment that he and his boys had stayed in before. Ben had the driver take them there, paid him, then guided his family through the doors. A wedding reception was going on in the dining room and was spilling over into the lobby.
Ben had to shout to be heard, and asked if the dining room was still open to the public. The clerk looked at the wide-eyed, Elizabeth and smiled. "We have room service for our guests!" He shouted back.
Ben smiled in thanks and they made their way to the room. A few minutes after they had closed the door on the noise coming from below, there was a knock. The clerk stood outside with a high-chair and extra blankets. Ben blessed the man, thanked him, then asked that menus be sent up so that they could order.
He left Elizabeth with her brothers once the food was on the way and went down the block to the train station. He asked every ticketing agent there if they remembered the man who had bought fairs for himself and his boys. He described Adam, and described Sarah, in case she had been the one to make the purchases. The only man who remembered anything, remembered a very young man purchasing three tickets.
"He had a strange gait, walked sort of stiff legged. Very clean cut, but his clothes were poor."
"Poor enough that..that you might have wondered how he could pay for train tickets for three people?" Ben asked.
The agent shrugged. "Wasn't my business. He said he was bringing his family in to visit."
"Well..did he..did he give his name?"
"Didn't need to. He paid in cash."
"You say he was...about how old?"
"Seventeen, or eighteen maybe."
"Thank you.." Ben said, even more confused now than he had been before. He returned to the hotel where the clerk flagged him down.
"Your meal has been delivered to your room, sir. And this arrived for you shortly after you left."
Ben took the folded piece of paper and thanked the man, walking to the stairs, while he read what had been sent. He didn't make it more than a few steps before he was turning back.
"Who...who brought this to you?"
"A young man. I'm sorry, I didn't get his name."
"Was he...about my height, black hair, broad shoulders?"
"No, sir." The clerk said. "Shorter than you, young, reddish hair, and he had a stiff sort of gait."
"And he didn't identify himself?"
"No." The man said. "Is there something wrong, Mr. Cartwright?"
Ben thought for a moment, opening the folded note again. "Did he say anything at all?"
"Just that he had a note for you. I took it from him, gave him a nickel, and off he went."
Ben started to turn, then turned back. "You...you gave him his tip, after you put the note in the room box?"
The clerk's eyes rolled up and to the right as he thought, then nodded.
"So...he saw which room box you put the note into?" Ben asked.
The clerk nodded again. "I suppose he did. Is this kid going to cause some kind of trouble, Mr. Cartwright?"
"I don't know. I….wait. When...when did that party break up?" Ben asked, pointing toward the dining room, realizing that he hadn't been shouting.
"Shortly after you left. We had a couple complaints from the guests and asked the party to quiet down or move on. They chose to leave."
Ben took in a deep breath and nodded to the clerk. "Thank you." He said, then headed up the stairs to their room.
He found the hallway deserted, and blood on the door handle.