2
Ben looked over the sea of trunks that had once been standing timber. He looked at the giant tent that had been erected for turning those logs into boards, and curving those boards to build the hull of the ship. He looked at the men and women, all staring right back at him, somehow convinced that building a ship in the middle of the desert was a good idea and he wished he had never left the main house.
An hour after they had arrived, his sons had begun asking questions of the men and women doing most of the work while Thomas and Roy Coffey talked to the man presumably in charge.
Adam was the first to return. "Some of these people are from Arizona, and Mexico. They speak very little English. Most of them were under the impression that they were building a big hacienda."
Ben's eyes widened. "Have none of them ever seen a boat?" He asked, pointing at the curving beam towering in the sky. "Did none of them question why they were taking straight timber and intentionally curving it?"
Adam shrugged, giving him a helpless look. "They had shelter, food, work and the promise of payment. I don't think they cared what they were doing, or what it looked like."
Ben sighed, and brought his hand to his face, knowing that the headache that was forming would be a tenacious son of a gun.
"I talked to some of them natives. There's not a lot of them, and most of them are kinda...cast offs. Bannocks, and Paiutes and Shoshone that aren't really wanted no more." Hoss said. "Most of them aren't actually workin' on the boat. They cook the meals, and do the huntin' for the group. They didn't know what was bein' built either."
"This isn't Noah's ark, this is the tower of Babel!" Ben snapped, watching his youngest son turn in a circle twice to stare at the giant structure blocking the horizon. When Joe finally made it back to his father he stood a few feet away, crossing his arms over his chest, and offering his father a close mouthed smile.
"Well?" Ben asked.
"They said they're building a...building a big boat." Joe said.
"What!?"
"All those people, they say they are building a big boat." Joe repeated, jerking a hand around behind him to emphasize the group.
"Didn't any of them think to ask why?!" Ben asked.
Joe shrugged and put his hands on his hips. "Because it's going to flood."
"This desert hasn't flooded in all of recorded history." Ben bellowed. "Who in their right mind would think it would flood now? And how does that excuse cutting down an entire hillside of my timber?"
"Now, Ben." Roy said, hastening his steps. "This Noah character says he's willing to pay for the wood."
"Look at the tents, Roy! Look at the state of these people. There can't be two plug nickels between all of them, let alone the value of that timber. Furthermore, that hillside may wash clean away if we get enough rain. They clear cut it without a thought to what it would do downhill. We'll be wading in mud and rock, just to get through the low road to the north pastures. It'll take years to plant and nurture enough trees to keep that soil from washing away."
Roy had his hands up, patting at the air, but it was a pointless gesture.
"These people...these...religious crackpots, have cost the Ponderosa more money and hard work than they will ever see in a lifetime. And most of them don't even know what they're building!"
"Alright, Ben, alright!" Roy shouted. "What exactly do you expect me to do? Arrest every blame one of 'em? Includin' the kids? We don't know half of what's goin' on here, and it's goin' to take a whole lot more than an afternoon to figger it all out. You standin' here, spoutin' off don't help nobody."
Ben's face grew red, but he snapped his mouth shut, and glared silently.
"Thomas, do you know this man?" Roy asked, crossing back to where the giant man towered over the hunched figure.
Thomas sighed and said, "I do. Much as it shames me."
"Did you give him permission to trespass on Ponderosa land, or cut down trees?"
Thomas stiffened a little, and looked over Roy's head to Adam and Ben Cartwright, before he firmly said, "I didn't even know this man was in Nevada until we rode up on him a few hours ago."
"Alright...then where did you get the idea that you could just waltz onto private land and start choppin' trees?" Roy asked Noah.
"God." The man said, lifting his chin as high as it would go.
"I hope God warned you about the consequences." Ben said, turning from the situation altogether and climbing onto his horse.
"Storms'a comin', suh. Best to be prepared." Noah said, his drawl drawing the words out.
"You haven't seen a storm the likes of me, Noah. Nor will you ever again." Ben snapped his heels against his horse's flanks and took off at a hard gallop, too angry to stay. Adam turned to watch Ben ride off, then met Joe's eyes and tilted his head in the direction their father had gone. Joe nodded, grabbed the pommel of his saddle, and leapt onto Cochise before taking off after Ben.
"Bucky, Jimmy." Adam said softly, "Head back to the ranch and start clearing that hillside. Put all the branches and debris in piles, but don't destroy anything. We'll have to plant some grass on that hillside to keep the top soil from washing away. We can start that tomorrow."
Both men nodded, mounted and took off.
Adam and Hoss shared a look, before they joined the conversation with the old man. Most of his answers were short, mono-syllabic, or reserved to cryptic warnings and prophecies. The man was crippled, unassuming, not very well spoken. There was little at all that could be considered charismatic about the man. The only thing he had going for him was an unshakeable belief that what he was doing had been commanded by God. Adam couldn't understand how so many people had latched onto the man, and willingly camped out in the desert to build the most preposterous structure a man could build in the driest part of the state.
Yet, here they were.
"You're just gonna have to accept it, Mister Noah. This is grand theft. You don't have permission to build nothin' out here, and you don't have permission to do it with stole timber. If I haft'a get the military involved, I will, but this here boat is gonna have to come down. That timber needs to be returned to the Ponderosa, and all these people are gonna have to answer for what they done. Whether you told 'em to do it or not."
Noah glared at the sheriff at the end of his speech, shaking his head as though he were a disappointed father. "So little faith. When did you forsake your God?"
Roy turned to Thomas with a frustrated sigh.
"He's always been this way. Since he got religion. He's never gone this far though. And it's been ten years since I saw him last."
"If anyone is goin' to make him understand, I spect it's you." Roy said, crossing his arms.
"In the meantime, it's going to take an age to get all this wood back to the Ponderosa." Adam said. "It'd be faster just to cart it to the railroad in Reno. Selling it shouldn't be a problem. Everything that hasn't been warped, that is."
"Even that could be sold for firewood.." Hoss said, craning his neck up to look at the main beam.
"Unless you need us here, Hoss and I could ride into Reno, get some wagons, and a lift rig, start moving all of this." Adam said.
"Just a minute, Adam. Are you sure all this lumber is yourn?" Roy asked.
Adam sighed. "I think so. Judging by what was cut, this is about how much they'd have gotten out of that stand."
"Everything but this main beam." Hoss called from where he stood touching the broad, squared piece of lumber. "This ain't like any kind of wood we got on the Ponderosa."
"It is gopherwood." Noah said proudly.
"More like oak…" Hoss said. "But it's old, Adam. It's not fresh cut. It's been sealed, and treated."
Thomas walked to where Hoss stood and pressed the palm of his hand against the beam. His fingers found divots in the wood at regular intervals.
"Nail holes." He said, pointing them out to Hoss.
Hoss found the holes and studied the length and width of the beam before he said. "Looks like this might'a been the main beam of a roof or somethin'."
Adam looked back to Roy who sighed and slapped his thighs with his hands. "If anyone is goin' into Reno, I best go with 'em. We're gonna need more than just Virginia City law involved in this. Hoss and Thomas, you two mind stayin' put?"
Both of the men, still standing and staring up at the main beam, shrugged and shook their heads.
"Alright then. Try to get it into this man's head that construction stops, as of now." Roy said, going to his horse. Adam went to his own, whispering as he passed, "Good luck."
"Well, construction stops, but deconstruction starts right now." Hoss said, shaking his head at the wasted work. "You take one end of this thing, and I'll take the other. And-"
Noah's cane came crashing down on Hoss' head hard enough to flatten his hat and knock him down to his knees. Before Noah could take a second swing Thomas stepped in and yanked the staff out of the old man's hand. Noah stumbled back and fell to the ground, and Thomas went to check on Hoss.
The next moment it was as if they were the Gulliver brothers in Lilliput. Men, women and children swarmed them, taking sticks to their heads and shoulders. In just the few minutes that it took for Noah to regain his feet, they had brought Thomas down to the ground, and Hoss was out cold. Noah shouted for them to stop.
"No, brothers! Our way is not of violence. Vengeance is MINE sayeth the Lord. Do ye not act in anger."
The people backed away, their heads hanging. Thomas, through a fog of pain, noticed that not one of them questioned Noah having been the first to strike. The old man directed a few of the women to help Thomas to his feet, instructing them to see to his wounds and care for him.
Thomas let himself be led away a few feet, then noticed that Hoss was still laying where he'd fallen, untended.
"Wait a minute…" He said, stopping the forward momentum of the two girls, simply by standing still. "What about him?"
"That man is a heretic." Noah said, his chin jutting out. "He does not believe. He wishes to stand in the way of the salvation of God's chosen people."
Thomas looked between Hoss' prone form and Noah for a moment before he asked, "What about love thy enemy?"
Noah turned his head back to look at Hoss with antiquated slowness before a single motion of an arthritic hand sent four men to look after the biggest Cartwright.
"Build the ark, my children. Build the ark!"