Whose Sin Is Her Love – chapter three

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Hoss Cartwright occupied a chair in the saloon across from the Palace Theatre. The hustle and bustle that filled the establishment earlier had faded with the sun. When all the gals was swishin' their skirts and smilin' pretty, the piano playin', and the drinks and cards flyin' fast and free, it seemed a right happy place.

Now it was sad and sorry.

The big man turned his beer glass with his fingers. He'd drunk about half and then lost his thirst. As he sat there starin' at the batwing doors and waitin' for his pa to appear, he couldn't help but remember the commotion that had filled this very room nigh onto a year before. He'd been tossin' back a second drink when Little Joe came bustin' in fit as a rogue calf waitin' to be tied. Joe'd got into a lot of fights in just over seventeen years. Some with good reason, like when some no-good low-down snake said somethin' bad about his mama. Maybe that was why little brother was so all-fired up about Miss Menken, her being from New Orleans and all. He'd laughed at Joe, of course, and thought he was right cute for poppin' him on the chin.

Hoss took a swig of warm beer as he shuddered with the memory. When he found Little Joe in that alley, he sure enough thought baby brother was dead.

Little Joe'd lived, no thanks to Mister John C. Regan, and no thanks to that there actress neither. Hoss blew out a bit of foam as he leaned back in his chair. No thanks to him neither! He'd taken that prizefighter on and near gone down himself. It was brother Adam – Hoss snorted, 'sneaky' brother Adam – who saved the day by tellin' him to forget fightin' him and squeeze that there bully like a sack of grain.

"You want another one, Hoss?"

The big man looked up to find the bartender, Sam, standin' by him with a couple of mugs of beer in hand.

"Yeah," he said, shoving the near empty-glass away. "But make it a whiskey this time."

The barkeep's black brows edged toward his graying hair, but he said nothing. A minute later Sam reappeared and placed a shot glass in front of him. Hoss eyed it like it was a rattlesnake and then downed the fiery liquid in one gulp.

"My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains my sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk," a quiet voice said.

Hoss looked up to find his father standing beside him. He favored the older man with a half-hearted smile. "For a minute there, I thought older brother was back."

Pa took a seat. He indicated the empty glass. "Whiskey?"

The big man pursed his lips and nodded.

His father turned toward the front and caught Sam's eye. He held up two fingers. The barkeep arrived a minute later with two glasses – a full one for Pa and another half-full for him.

"Figured you might need this, Ben," Sam said.

He would know. The saloon owner would have heard that Adah was back in town and, of all people, he'd know the painful memories that came with her.

Sam loved Little Joe too.

"Thanks," Pa said.

"Saloon's open 'til two."

The older man nodded as the barkeep walked away. Pa sipped his whiskey and then let out a sigh.

"To women?" Hoss asked as he raised his glass.

Pa chuckled as his met it. "To women."

They fell silent after that, each lost in his own thoughts. Finally Hoss mustered up enough courage to ask.

"How'd it go with Miss Menken?"

His father shook his head. "As expected."

"She still defending Regan?"

Pa looked at him. "No."

"No?"

"Still loving him."

"Goldarnit, Pa!" He banged his hand on the table so hard his empty glass jumped. "How can she after what that monster done to Little Joe? How can she even stand to look at him?"

The older man shook his head. "I'm not sure your brother understood what I meant that night when I said there were 'many kinds of love'. Not all of them are wholesome or healthy. Adah fears being hurt, Hoss, so she chooses a man she cannot trust – knowing he will hurt her. It's too much to think of loving a man she believes in. Because of all she has suffered, she believes such a man will ultimately betray her and that kind of wound she cannot survive."

He scratched his head and admitted, "I ain't sure I understand that, sir."

"Neither am I," his father replied as he stood up.

Hoss followed. "You plannin' on headin' home?"

"No. I rented two rooms for us at the hotel. It's too late to travel. The weather is shifting. It began to sleet as I walked over here."

"Sleet?" The big man's gaze went involuntarily to the batwing doors and beyond them to the northern land his brothers inhabited. "You think Adam and Little Joe is gonna be all right?"

"I'm sure they will be. There are at least two line shacks within a day's ride of the house. I imagine they've taken shelter in one of them."

"You don't think they'd head back home, do you?"

"No. Adam knows what is at stake. He'll find a way to keep your younger brother out of town and out of harm's way – in spite of the weather." Pa's black brows peaked. "At least until Regan and his exhibition have come and gone."

Hoss beamed. "Yeah. Adam can be right sneaky when he has a mind to." He paused. "I wonder where older brother gets that from?"

Pa dropped an arm around his shoulder and gave him his best innocent look.

"I was warned about Elizabeth…."

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He needed to take his brother home.

He couldn't take his brother home.

Damn!

Adam plopped down on the floor of the shack where he'd laid his bedding. He was bone-weary. Due to the shift in the weather the trip from the ridge had taken twice as long as usual, and the two of them had been thoroughly soaked by the time they arrived. Little Joe, of course, had been wearing nothing but his thin shirt and pants. It was unclear as they made their way slowly through the woods whether Joe's shivers came from that or from the fright he had taken.

The kid could have died.

Sudden death was to be expected in the West. He'd learned that as a young man – no, as a boy really. One of the greatest scourges of the westward journey had been cholera. They'd held a celebration one night, marking an important victory in their trip. Most of the company drank coffee, but a few had consumed an herbal tea.

All of the tea-drinkers were dead by the following night.

Life was brilliant but brutal here. There was nothing like the scent of pine and wood-smoke, the vast and unending mountain ranges, the blue skies, and the almost Elysian beauty of both sunrise and sunset. It was magnificent. Beautiful. Such beauty, though, commanded a high price. All it took was one misstep. One mistake.

He glanced at his brother where he lay on the shack's cot.

Or one injury.

Considering Little Joe could easily have died, the teenager had come out of the whole thing relatively unscathed. Little brother had chosen to do the same thing he'd done as a kid – stand on the edge of the ridge and stare out at that magnificent view – when suddenly the edge gave way and sent him plummeting toward the stream below. Joe'd managed to swivel – the kid was agile as a mountain cat – and catch hold of the tree roots that were jutting out of the cliff-face, saving himself from a messy death.

The trouble came on the way down.

Unfortunately, the tree roots were old and nearly petrified. Little Joe's lower leg encountered one that sliced through the fabric of his pants – and his skin – easy as a knife through warm butter. The cascade of dirt that followed peppered debris into the open wound. Adam ran a hand through his hair and leaned his head back against the wall. He'd done his best to clean the cut out. Maybe even done it well enough. So far – at least – little brother had no fever. The man in black glanced at his brother again. After suffering the agony of having half of the shack's store of alcohol poured into the wound, the exhausted teen had curled up into a ball and fallen into a deep sleep.

Adam let out a sigh as he straightened up. He had a decision to make – one that was nearly as profound as Hamlet's query about whether to live or make his quietus with a bare bodkin.

To go home or not to go home.

Aye, there was the rub.

Little Joe said he was fine. Of course, the kid always said he was fine. If little brother was able to help finish the work here tomorrow, the next shack was only a day away. That would put them barely more than two days away from the house should anything…happen. Surely, he would note any sign of his brother's condition worsening. Joe couldn't hide a rising fever or debilitating weakness. Still, the idea of heading further out bothered him. He could be putting his little brother's life at risk just as much as if he'd left him hanging on the edge of that cliff.

Or let him go to town to face John C. Regan.

"Adam?"

He started. He'd thought his brother was asleep. "Yeah?"

"Sorry."

"What for?"

There was a pause. "For being the little kid who always needs to be saved."

"Don't worry about it, Joe. We all need saved from time to time. I take it you didn't deliberately jump over the edge of that cliff and drag your leg across a rock-hard root."

"What do you think I am? Stupid?"

He sighed. The kid could turn anything around.

"No. I don't think you're stupid." Accident-prone, maybe, but not stupid. "It could happen to anyone."

"Yeah, but it didn't. It happened to me." His brother's voice cracked. "It always happens to me."

Adam thought a moment before replying. "Can I tell you a story?"

Joe stirred. He thought maybe the kid sat up. They'd put out the lamp so it was hard to tell.

"Okay."

"I was, I don't know, somewhere in my early teens. Pa wanted to look at a plot of land that was for sale. We rode out together to see it. The man who owned it had come west to find his fortune, but gave up and went back East." Adam shifted so his dicey back was braced better. "We decided to stay overnight."

"So you camped out?"

"Sort of. There was a shack on the property, kind of like this one. A storm had taken part of the roof off and it was open to the sky, but it sheltered us from the wind. Pa told me before we went to sleep to stay put."

Something in his voice must have alerted his brother. "But you didn't."

"Nope. I woke up midway through the night and needed to take a piss. That was all right. What I did next wasn't."

"Which was?"

He grinned at the memory. "I went exploring. Before we left, one of the men told me there was silver on that land. So I went looking for it."

"I take it, it didn't go well?" Joe asked, his tone brighter.

"Hardly. I failed to see the rotten boards covering the top of an old well. I stepped on them and went right through. My leg broke when I hit bottom." He frowned. "It took Pa a couple of hours to get me out."

"Older brother, you make me feel like a genius!" Joe giggled. "I stopped wandering away and fallin' into wells before I was ten!"

Adam masked the smile in his voice. "The point is, Joe, you didn't intend to fall over that ridge any more than I intended to end up at the bottom of that well. It just happened. So stop kicking yourself and get some sleep."

"Did Pa kick you?"

The man in black slid down into his bedding.

"All the way back to the Ponderosa."

Ben wasn't sure what time it was when he woke up. He went to the window and pulled back the curtain so he could look out on the scene below. It was then he realized the sun was up, but was veiled by a thick gray haze. A glance at the building next door told the story as the rail out front glistened like the hard-worked forehead of morning. Sleet. Or ice. Neither was welcome. Either would make the journey home difficult. The rancher turned and headed for the stand by the bed. He'd slept in his clothes, shedding only his belt and shoes. He imagined Hoss had done the same. Just as he imagined the big man was already up and moving as he was. The life of a rancher rarely afforded a man the luxury of malingering in bed. Not unless he was sick. The older man chuckled

Or named Joseph Francis Cartwright.

As he pulled on his belt and buckled it, Ben's thoughts flew to his missing sons. A line shack provided shelter, but very few creature comforts. It would have been a cold night for them. Still, while both Adam and Joe enjoyed the comfortable home he had made for them, they were young and also enjoyed roughing it.

"Not so this old man," Ben muttered as he tied his tie.

The expected knock on the door came a second later. "Pa? You up?"

There was something in his son's tone. "Hoss?" he asked as he opened it. "Is something wrong?"

Rage was written into every line of Hoss' massive frame.

"You could say so, Pa," he growled. "John C. Regan's in the dining room."

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It took Ben ten minutes to arrive. He'd had to restrain Hoss and, in the end, sent his son to the livery to fetch their horses to keep him out of harm's way. Before doing anything else, he stopped at the front desk and asked the clerk about Regan. The man said the pugilist and his entourage had pulled in sometime after midnight. The rancher steeled himself as he approached the dining room. John C. Regan had a big voice and an even bigger ego. The prize fighter was holding court, regaling the hapless hotel guests with tales of his prowess and power. Ben drew a deep breath and let it out. Then he took another.

Then he showed himself in the archway.

"Why don't you tell these good people about your greatest victory?" Ben suggested, pitching his voice so all could hear. 'About how, just under a year ago – in this fair city – you accosted and nearly beat to death a defenseless teenager!"

John Regan was an enormous man. He stood six-feet-seven and weighed nearly three hundred pounds. Regan had a face only a mother could love. Due to his vocation, the flesh had been pounded and punished and pushed in a dozen directions until it resembled a lump of dough. Set directly in the middle of that misshapen mass were a pair of narrow, nut-brown eyes. The bully hadn't even bothered to remove his hat before dining. It sat on his head, pushed back at a jaunty angle, and spoke loudly of the kind of man he was.

Bold, brassy, brazen, and brutal.

The prizefighter pushed his chair back and rose to his feet with unnecessary noise. "Well, now, if it isn't Ben Cartwright." Regan indicated the empty chair next to him. "Care to join me?"

"Certainly," he said, taking satisfaction in seeing surprise register on the other man's face. As he approached, the rancher noted how the other patrons began to move away. He had pushed back his coat and made it abundantly clear that he was wearing a gun.

Sadly, Regan wasn't.

The pugilist recovered quickly. He shoved the extra chair away from the table with his foot before plunking his considerable bulk in its mate.

"I was just having breakfast," he said. "Molly, bring Mr. Cartwright whatever he wants."

"Molly won't have what I want," Ben said as he took his seat.

Regan's brows popped up. "Oh?"

"No. I don't think the dining room has justice on its menu."

The bully picked up his napkin and tucked it under his chin. "Justice?" he repeated as he jammed a bit of meat into his mouth – again, with unnecessary force. "I don't know what story that kid of yours told you, but he was asking for it."

Ben's fingers gripped the table's edge. "Would you care to explain yourself?"

"Now, I know boys will be boys," Regan drawled, "but that young one of yours? Who-ee! I caught him in Adah's room. He tried to take advantage of her." The pugilist popped another bit of beef into his mouth and began to chew. "Just ask her."

"Adah said nothing of it."

"Women," he snorted. "Probably found it flattering." The bully swallowed and then washed the beef down with a swig from his glass. "What was I supposed to do? I had to defend her honor."

"By nearly killing a seventeen-year-old boy?"

Regan leaned in close and lowered his voice. "Seven or seventeen, Ben," he said with a wink, "any man knows how to open the gate and bring the ship snugly into harbor."

The rancher shook his head as Molly attempted to put a plate of steaming food in front of him.

He thought he might vomit.

"You, are as pathetic an excuse for a human being as I have ever encountered," Ben snarled.

John Regan's gaze went to the weapon on his hip. "You gonna shoot me? An unarmed man?"

Ben was on his feet before he knew it.

"You have a gun. Go get it."

The brute rose as well. He laid his napkin down and raised his fists. "How about we try it my way, cowboy?"

As Ben released the strap on his holster, he called out to the concierge. "You can place the cost of any damages on my bill."

"How about reimbursing the city for a day and night in jail?"

The rancher pivoted on his heel. His temper flared when he saw Roy Coffee step into the dining room.

It flared even higher when Hoss followed.

"How dare you?!" he demanded.

Hoss was eyeing Regan like he was a cougar crouched to kill. "Pa, this ain't the way. You said so yourself."

Roy nodded. "Now, Ben, you just come away from that table nice and easy."

"You have no right to stop two men from settling their differences with their fists."

Roy pulled at his whiskers. "Well now, Ben, I hate to tell you, but you're wrong. Seems the city's got an ordinance – fact is, I think you helped to draft it – says no violence will be tolerated in public places."

He eyed Regan who was eyeing him back – and sneering.

"Then we'll take it into the street."

"Can't do that either, Ben. That'd be public brawlin' and I'd be forced to arrest you and Mr. Regan here."

The pugilist snorted. He looked at Roy with disdain. "I'd like to see you try."

Roy scratched his head. "Well, sir, I'm sure you could overpower me and probably two or three of my deputies at one time. That'd be all right. I'd just take my black eye and sore back over to the office and serve a warrant on that there show of yours and shut it down." The sheriff paused. "Course, I'd have to confiscate the box office take and all that money that's been laid down on whether you or that English feller wins. Seems like that might amount to a couple thousand dollars. I imagine that'd be enough to give the office a nice re-do."

"You wouldn't dare!"

Roy drew his gun and pointed it at the prize fighter. "Just you try me."

"Stay out of this, Roy," Ben warned.

"Can't do that, Ben. It's my job to uphold the law." The sheriff came close and laid a hand on his shoulder. "And to keep someone I love and respect from bein' bull-headed and dab-blamed foolish enough to get himself killed."

"Pa," Hoss said, "he'll kill ya. Plain and simple. You gotta think of Joe. He's just a little feller. He needs you. We all need you."

Again, the horror of what had happened the year before shuddered through Ben. He was five-feet-eleven and two-hundred and fifty pounds. Hoss was six-foot-four and over three hundred. Joseph weighed in on the shy side of one forty and was barely five-foot-nine.

It was only by the grace of God that his youngest still walked the earth.

Ben drew a deep breath, pulled his hand away from his gun, and turned and headed for the door.

"This isn't over, Cartwright," John C. Regan called after him. "I haven't forgotten – or forgiven – what you did to me. You and your sons."

"Is that a threat?" Roy asked.

The pugilist sneered. "No, sheriff, it's not.

"It's a promise."

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"You're certain you're all right?"

Joe Cartwright rolled his eyes. "I swear, Adam, you're as much of a mother hen as Pa and Hop Sing! You took a look at my leg this morning. You said it looked good."

"I said it didn't look bad. There's a difference."

Adam was back on the shack's roof. They'd risen early and removed the old one without too much difficulty and spent the better part of the morning shoring up the walls before replacing it. Fortunately, there'd been enough wood lying around that they didn't have to cut any. Since the shack would be sound and the privy was usable, they'd decided to forgo repairing the shed until their return trip. There were still a lot of shacks to go and the weather wasn't looking too pretty. There had been more sleet overnight. In fact, Joe was surprised older brother hadn't thrown in the towel and headed for home. After all, he was just a kid and would probably be stupid enough to go out in the snow to pee and then decide he was some kind of explorer and go looking for silver or something, but Adam?

Joe snorted and then he sneezed.

"What was that?"

He winced. "Got somethin' in my nose."

"Like a cold?"

"I haven't got a cold and I haven't got much patience either! You gonna take this beam and finish that roof or make me stand here so long I take root?"

Adam caught the other end and took it from him. His brother stared at him a moment before returning to work.

"What?"

Adam scowled. "What 'what'?"

"What are you looking at me like that for?"

"So now I'm not allowed to look at my brother?"

"Not like that!" he snapped.

"Like how?"

"Like there's something wrong with me."

Adam laughed as he hammered in a pair of nails. "Shows what you know."

Joe waited a few seconds. "Well, are you gonna tell me or not?"

His brother halted what he was doing and then put the hammer down and turned toward him. "You want the truth, I suppose."

"It wouldn't hurt."

Adam slid so his feet were dangling off the shack's roof. "I intended to bring Hoss with me on this trip."

Joe felt deflated. "So, I was second choice."

"Don't take it wrong, Joe. Hoss is, well… You have to admit he could have moved this whole building back onto its foundation by himself in less than a minute. When I travel the line, he's a great help."

"And I'm not?" he squeaked.

His brother slid off the roof and came to his side. "When I was looking at you, I was thinking the exact opposite. I would have missed something special if you hadn't come along. I've enjoyed the time we've spent together immensely." Adam grinned. "With the exception of the little detour over the edge of the ridge."

"So what you're saying is that what I lack in size I more than make up in enthusiasm?"

"Right…." Adam laughed as he placed a hand on his shoulder. All too quickly, the smile on his face was replaced with a frown. "Joe…?"

He stepped back, shaking off his brother's hand, but Adam was not to be put off. Older brother followed him and this time that hand landed on his forehead.

"You've got a fever."

Joe wrinkled his nose. "It's only a little one."

Adam puffed out a sigh. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because I knew you'd make a big thing out of it like you are!" Joe threw his hands in the air. "I'm fine!"

Older brother continued to stare at him for several heartbeats before he nodded. "Okay. Just let me know if it goes any higher."

And with that, he returned to the roof.

Joe stood there, mouth agape. Not only was he stunned, but he was something else for the first time since he and Adam had ridden away from the ranch.

Suspicious.

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