3
It didn't take long for news of Hoss' midnight ride into Virginia City to spread. As it was the winter months, and there was little to do for the men but drink and gossip, and little to do for the women but sew and gossip, the story floated from Cass' General Mercantile, to the ladies salon and the saloons, to the restaurants. Once it got in the ears of the saloon girls, waitresses, barbers and shop owners there was no stopping it.
"I heard that Ben Cartwright took that baby from a den of wolves. He slaughtered those awful beasts and brought that child down from the mountains near froze hisself."
"I heard it was a mountain lion, and she was raising the babe like it was one of her own. That child will be a wild one when it grows up."
"I heard the babe was the last healthy soul out of a hundred settlers hit by cholera. Poor thing lay among his dead family members for days before Adam and Joe come along to fish 'im out."
"It was Hoss that went up and fought off a pile of indians to rescue that dear child. He should be given a medal."
"I heard one of Ben's boys got a lady in trouble, if you know what I mean. Kept the lady hid out at that big ranch til she give 'em a child, then booted her out in the middle of the night."
"Well you know Adam has been seein' that goat herder from up Reno way."
"Goatherder!? What's a cattleman doing with a goat herder!? That just ain't natural."
"You hear about the goatherder girl that Adam put in the family way? The baby's been born out at the Ponderosa."
"I heard they've kept her there because she's got devil horns."
"You old, crazy fool! Who would believe such a thing. You shut your mouth and drink your beer."
"What a shame, that poor child stuck out there with all those men, and those ranch hands."
"Ben raised his boys pert near on his own. I suppose he could raise another."
"But a baby needs a mother. Why would they toss the woman out in such a way?"
"My brother told me that his best friend's sister's second cousin was out riding by Sweet Water Run. Saw one of the boys up on that cemetery hill diggin' a grave. I'll bet that mother died and they buried her right there on the Ponderosa."
"You hear? That Ben Cartwright married a woman, had her give him a babe, then murdered her and buried her right there on his land, bold as day?"
"I said, shut up and drink your beer, you old fool."
Some of the rumors made their way to those that knew the Cartwrights well, and they were quick to deny them. But having no truthful explanation to put in their place, the rumors seemed to spiral all the more out of control. After four days, Roy had had just about enough of it all. He left his deputies in charge of the town and rode out to the Ponderosa to see for himself what was going on.
When he arrived he found a bundled up Joe Cartwright splitting kindling for the kitchen fire in the door yard.
"Sheriff!" Joe called, taking a break from his labors. "It's been a long time. What brings you out this mornin'?"
"Curiosity, Joe, curiosity. Your Pa in?"
"Sure is. He won't be goin' anywhere for a while yet. Doc only just let him get outta bed a few days ago."
"Doc!? Was he sick?"
Joe laughed. "Nah. Got clawed by a cat he was tracking. Tore up his leg pretty good but he's healin' alright. He's in at his desk, I 'spect."
"Take care of my horse?"
"Sure. You holler loud enough, Hop Sing'll bring you coffee and cookies."
"I'll holler, then." Roy said, and walked into the house, removing his gloves and hat. As he entered he eyed the clotheslines strung across the room from end to end with hats, booties and dresses hanging from them. He spotted a few rags and blankets folded against the back of the settee and a pile of rattles and toys on the end of the coffee table.
Ben came around the corner leaning heavily on a cane, but dressed in his usual working pants, shirt and vest. He offered Roy a smile and a handshake and invited the sheriff into the main room. "Forgive the mess. Recent events have changed our priorities quite a bit."
Ben closed the door behind the sheriff, then followed him slowly, removing detritus from the living room furniture with a single, practiced sweep of his hand. He piled the things on the round table near the base of the stairs and called, "Hoss! Adam! Company!"
A child's cry pierced the air and Ben winced, turning back to Roy. "Forgot." He said, then raised his voice again to yell, "Hop Sing! Would you bring us some coffee?"
Hop Sing answered to the positive from the recesses of the kitchen and Ben limped his way to his chair by the fireplace, sinking slowly into its comforting embrace.
"Joe told me you went after a cat?" Roy asked, pointing to Ben's leg.
"Oh yes. I was tracking it well up into the mountains. Found it hiding in the lean-to that Wi-Jah's mother had built."
"Weejaw?"
"Ah…" Ben winced, straightening his leg, "Yes, that's what the boy's named her. It means snow goose in Shoshone."
"We just got her to sleep, Pa." Adam said, coming down the stairs with a fussing, wriggling bundle in his arms.
"We been tryin' that swaddle thing, but she won't cooperate a'tall...oh, hey Roy."
"Adam, Hoss…"
Adam handed the baby to Hoss before going to shake Roy's hand. He stepped back towards his middle brother almost instantly. "Hoss, put her down on that table. I want another crack at it."
Hoss and Adam switched places, Hoss shaking the sheriff's hand and thumping down in the blue velvet chair. "I tell ya, that critter gets stronger and feistier ever'day."
"Well that answers at least one of my questions." Roy said. "Rumors have been flyin' through town chocolate through a hound dog."
The comment left Ben flabbergasted for a moment. When his boys had stopped laughing he confirmed. "Yes, there is a baby on the Ponderosa. No, she is not the progeny of myself or any of my sons. Her mother is dead, may God rest her soul. And no we weren't responsible for her death." Ben held a hand out, palm up to Roy and raised a brow.
"That's most of the rumors." Roy said.
"I suppose some of them have to do with little green men, or witches or demons?" Hoss said. Roy and Ben laughed.
Adam finally turned from the table, showing off what appeared to be a successful wrapping job. Swaddled in the blanket, Wi-Jah could hardly move and should have been warmly secure. Until a fist popped out the top of the cocoon and Adam took a tiny palm to the face.
"Adam.." Ben said, waving for the girl to be brought to him. While the boys watched, Ben propped his good leg on the knee of his bad, held Wi-Jah safely in the crook of his legs and wrapped her swiftly and tightly like a Mexican burrito. The whole time he worked he kept eye contact with the baby, whispering to her. "Yes, dear. I know that Adam thinks he's awfully good at this business, but he hasn't had the practice that I've had. We must be patient with them, darling."
"I haven't seen you do that in…"
"More than twenty years?" Ben asked, smirking up at his old friend. "It's surprised me a little how quickly it's come back to me."
As Hop Sing came in with the coffee service and the promised cookies, Ben said, "Adam.." And pointed to the door. Adam nodded and went to the door to call Joe inside and the Cartwright men gathered around the fireplace.
Together they told the story of how Adam had met Ruth Halverson long ago. A story that Roy started to recognize after a bit. Ben then told of his trip up into the mountains, finding the lean-to, shooting the cat, then hearing Wi-Jah gurgle. The boys picked up their parts of the story from there, including Adam's trip to the Tungsten ranch, Hoss' trip into town and the visitors they had helping to look after the baby in the first few days of her stay.
"I remember us lookin' for family for Ruth Halverson after you had recovered, Adam. I suppose there ain't no point to lookin' a second time." Roy said.
"I doubt it." Adam shook his head, eyes unfocused as his mind played back memories of the search. "I think her closest kin were dead long before she was picked up by the Bannock's. Her tribal family was destroyed, leaving her on her own there in the mountains. The real concern is the father of the baby."
"We suspect he is Shoshone based on the jewelry she had with her, and where I found the lean-to. But there was no evidence of a brave living with her, and a woman abandoned, in her condition.." Ben trailed off.
Roy nodded. "It's likely they meant to abandon the baby, too." He said.
"Much as we'd like to have her grow up with her true kin…" Hoss began. "Revealin' where she is to a tribe that would ruther she was dead would put her in danger."
"Still...it's good to know there might be a brave pesterin' folk about a missing baby in the next coupl'a months." Roy said. "I'll think on it a spell. I know of a Shoshone guide that worked for the railroad when they was layin' a spur line into that territory. He's the cussedous old injun you ever saw, but he likes tobacco and a good game of chess. I might visit the old feller and see what he knows. We'll need a doc to go out to that grave you dug, Adam, fill out a death certificate, just so's folk can stop wonderin'."
"I ordered a stone in town. I'd be happy to pick up the doc the day I bring it out to Sweet Water Run."
"I s'pose it can wait til then." Roy said. He stood and leaned toward Ben, then asked, "May I?"
"Be careful." Adam said with a smirk.
"I'd watch myself around her." Hoss warned.
Joe just giggled.
"Does she bite?" Roy asked, surprised.
"No." Ben said, chuckling. "The boys have decided that Wi-Jah's charms are so potent, a man should be warned before taking hold of her. Lest he be bewitched."
Roy smiled down at the quiet, angelic face and believed every word.
"I think this is a sort of bewitchin' I need more of in my life."
Ben gently transferred the bundle into Roy's arms and the sheriff sat, knowing in an instant that the Cartwright boys had been right.
"I suppose you're going to adopt her, then, Ben?"
Roy's comment was met with silence and he looked up to downcast faces.
"There's a great deal to consider." Ben said, after a delicate silence. "Raising a girl is very different than raising a boy, for one thing."
"But what a girl she'd be…" Roy said, smiling down at the pink softness of her face, poised in sleep.
Every other man in that room sat silently, watching Roy beam down at the baby, knowing that not one of them could be a mother to the child, no matter how hard they tried.
"As much as we would love her, and support her. For as much as we could teach her, she would never have a mother. She would never have siblings of her own age. I'd be ancient by the time she was old enough to marry."
It was as if Ben had forgotten that his boys were in the room. Each of them thought of what twenty years in the future would look like for them. What twenty years of trail drives and breaking horses and mending fences, harsh mountain winters and hot, dry summers would do to a man. How many of them would still be able to move when Wi-Jah was old enough to do for herself.
"No, Roy, when this winter has finally thawed, and it's warm enough to take her, we'll be looking for a family to adopt her. We'll support them financially of course, but...this just isn't the place for her." Ben said, his voice drifting slightly.
A few minutes after he had grown silent, Joe excused himself quietly and went back out to chop wood. Ben wasn't sure if it was his imagination or not, but he thought the axe might have been coming down just a little harder than it had been before.
Adam stepped over to Roy and gently took Wi-Jah from him. "I'll...put her to bed." He said, walking quietly up the stairs.
Hoss stared at the coffee and cookies he had plucked off the serving tray, not wanting any of it. "I got chores to do. Good to see you, Roy."
The sheriff watched the room empty and sighed, "I shouldn't'a brought it up, Ben. I'm sorry."
Ben smiled tiredly. "We've had our heads spinning so fast lately. Not one of us has bothered to come down to earth. We might as well burst that bubble before it goes too far. Doesn't make it any easier."
"What about her being a half-breed, Ben? She looks white now, o'course, but these things change as kids get older. Suppose she starts to look like her pa?"
"I'm sure there are families in the area that wouldn't be put off by that. We'll discuss how much of her past we share with prospective parents before we let her go."
"And..you don't plan for that to start until spring?" Roy asked.
"Yes." Ben murmured.
Roy thought, but didn't say, 'You won't be able to give her up by then, you old coot.'
He could already see little Wi-Jah as a toddler, tearing around the house and the door yard with three frantic brothers and one weary father on her tail. Six year old Wi-Jah dressed in petticoats and ribbons with all the charm of her brothers, flashing long lashes at the boys in town and driving them batty. Twelve year old Wi-Jah out-racing all the boys in town on horseback, and able to rope a steer as fast as she could sew on a button.
He as much wanted Wi-Jah for Ben and his boys as he wanted her for himself. He'd been an uncle and adopted god-father to Ben's boys for so long, his heart yearned to be that again for a youngster. The boys could use the softening touch of a woman in the household and Roy suspected that the only woman who could latch onto them for good would be a small one, in need of a loving home.
He and Ben sat and talked by the fire for another hour or so before Roy could see the pain starting to appear on Ben's face. Roy bid his goodbyes, offering to help Ben up to his bed. When Ben swatted the offer away with a curmudgeonly growl, Roy laughed and they shook hands, before Roy went out to saddle his horse.
Ben painfully made his way to the door to watch the sheriff leave, then went back to his desk, determined to put in a full day's work.
When he reached the town, Roy made a few strategic deposits of information at the doc's office, the newspaper, and the telegraph office. Having seeded the rumor mill with grains of truth, pun intended, Roy went back to the jail to finish out the day and by nightfall, the mostly true story was spreading around town.
It took two days for his telegraph to Fort Ruby to be returned. The response was promising. Petsunahi agreed to come to Virginia City to stay with his friend, the white law chief, and to help solve a mystery. The offer of a gift of several pounds of tobacco didn't hurt the invitation any. Roy had been careful not to mention the baby in connection with the native guide's arrival.
When Adam came into town to pick up the doc and the tombstone, Roy and Petsu went with him to the grave on the hillside. Together the four men dug the hole for the stone and put it in place. The doctor filled out the certificate and had Roy witness it. While Adam and Petsu talked by the grave, Roy and the doc went down to the waiting wagon and team. Half-an-hour later they were heading back into town.
"Petsu says he recognized my description of Ruth Halverson. He thinks he saw her at the fort after the soldiers returned from defeating a band of renegades a year ago." Adam said.
Roy thought for a few minutes, watching the horses before he said. "If they took her from the Shoshone a year ago…"
"I think I need to ride out to Fort Ruby and ask a few questions." Adam said. "Petsu suggested I ride with him. He offered to show me where some of the Shoshone live now. I thought I'd show that medicine bag and belt around and see what comes up."
"That sounds an awful lot like inviting trouble, Adam." Roy said.
Adam nodded in agreement, but remained silent. "I...have a friend I can bring that will discourage trouble."
Roy raised a brow but shook his head, pushing the team through the snow toward the road.