4
They left the cabin on foot, neither one of them able to identify their landmarks. Their horses, along with the horses of the two men who had come for them, stood outside the cabin and Adam and Ben took all four, walking the animals while they tried to orient.
A few minutes into their walk Adam heard a bell. He followed the sound over a rise, saw a billy goat trotting toward him and said. "I know where we are."
Ben joined him at the top of the rise, looked at the goat, then turned in a slow circle.
"I hadn't realized their land was this big. I can't even see the house."
"From what Doc Eustice told us, it makes sense that they wouldn't know anyone was out here either. The ladies stay close to the main house or ride the fence line. All that land in between gets ignored. The goats keep the grass and weeds down so they don't need to come out to mow. They plant their crops and hay close to the house. This is just...pasture land."
Ben looked at his son for a moment then asked, "And what if they did know?"
Adam looked to his father and waited.
"They are peculiar, you have to admit. I can see women frightened of strange men on their land being used as a great cover for hiding any number of things."
"Or they could just be women, living alone, suspicious of strange men."
"Yeah." Ben muttered.
"Do we head for Virginia City? Reno? Try to get to the ranch house?"
"We go to the ranch house and you run the risk of getting shot." Ben said. Then added, "Again."
"Reno?"
"If we got to Reno we'd be late getting to Virginia City. The men planning this assassination would get wise, and we'd miss the chance to identify them. Arrest them."
"If we leave now we'll make Virginia City with enough time to track down Roy Coffey, give him an idea of what we have in mind, and maybe even wire the army. Wire the governor, and make sure he steers clear of town." Adam said.
Decision made, Ben stepped into the saddle and led the way south.
The closer they got to the city the less Adam liked the idea of riding in in broad daylight. They found a place to hole up until dusk before they hid the horses in a sunken river bed outside of town and walked the rest of the way. Their conversation with Roy was brief. They didn't have more than ten minutes to spare and in that time Adam tried to explain as much as he could. Roy cut him off at the five minute mark with information of his own.
"Turns out you and your brother Hoss had the same idea just this morning. I've had a tracker and a batch of cavalry men out lookin' for the two of you since late last night. I can send a runner out to get them horsemen, and get my deputies to start clearin' the streets around that livery."
"We best be going, Adam." Ben said, and they parted ways.
Once they had the horses again, Adam put the sack of his face and took on the role of one of the bad guys. Ben had tucked his gun against the small of his back and his belt, and had untucked his shirt to hide it, wrapping a rope around his wrists. Adam rode ahead of him, leading the horse Ben sat.
When they arrived at the stable there was no one to be seen. Adam stepped down from his horse, walking both animals to the stable door. There were horses in the stalls but no Wilson, and no masked bad guys. Adam silently helped his father down from the saddle. Ben even played it up a little, jerking his arms free of Adam's grip once he was solid on his feet. Ben spotted the light behind the tack room door and gestured toward it with a jerk of his head. Adam pushed Ben toward the door.
Ben crashed into the wood, throwing it open to reveal that the room was bigger than it looked from the outside, probably extending into the feed store behind the livery.
The leader of the group, and the seven others with him were on their feet instantly with guns pointed toward the source of the intrusion. The man in charge, who always wore a burnt orange brocade vest, looked to Ben, then to the masked man behind him.
"Where's the other one?" Orange Vest demanded.
"You...bastards...murdered my son." Ben bit out angrily.
Orange Vest was quiet for a moment, easing out of the shooting stance. "Where's Miles?"
"I killed him." Ben said, letting a little bit of maniacal fury into his tone.
"What's the matter, Lee? Cat got your tongue?" Orange Vest asked. Adam crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the barn door, his gun still pointed at his father. The leader turned to one of the others, called him Topaz, and told him to lock up the "old man" in the storage room. "I hope you cleared the bodies off that ranch, Lee." Orange Vest said. Adam nodded once, putting his gun away.
Step one complete. Now for step two.
He went back out for the horses, but instead of leading them inside he pulled the switch he'd cut from a tree, out of where he had tucked it into the saddle tack, and whacked both horses across the hind end. Both animals bolted into the stable, rearing on their hind legs and raising cane with the other animals.
The noise and confusion acted as both a distraction and a cue. From inside the tack room Adam heard the first of several gunshots and he followed them up with shots of his own, mostly aimed at the ceiling. Men scattered, terrified horses kicked and thrashed in their stalls. Adam found a place to crouch that was well hidden from lantern light and took aim at ankles and knees, firing his own gun, and the extra weapon he'd taken off of Miles. The shooting lasted only a few minutes. The enraged screams from the frightened horses lasted a few minutes longer. Adam yanked the sack off his head and peered under frantically stamping hooves. Creeping out of his corner, he guided first one, then the second horse back out of the barn. Under their hooves, three of the eight remaining men had been shot, trampled, or both. Adam disarmed them.
From inside the tack room he could hear moans.
"Pa?"
When his father's voice didn't respond, Adam bolted into the smaller room, stepped over two more masked bodies, then into the small closet where they had intended to put his father. It turned out to be not a closet but a short passage that opened into the storage room of the feed store. The store was dark, but Adam could smell the burlap, and the grain and feed souring just a little.
Adam did some math. Three on the floor in the barn, two more in the tack room. That left three including Orange Vest and his father. He dumped his near empty guns and picked up the unfired ones still in the holsters of the men on the tack room floor.
The storage room of the feed store was by far the largest part of the building. The stacks of grain, feed and other dried goods were separated by two-foot wide walkways. The walkways created a grid pattern that ran the length and most of the width of the building. Adam tried to control his breathing, listening hard for footsteps or voices.
He heard cloth brushing against burlap behind him and turned, staying in a crouch as he moved from stack to stack. When his boot knocked against the wooden foundation of one of the stacks he heard his quarry jump, then saw the barrel of a gun edging out from the stack in front of him. The faint shadow of a man with a sack over his head was projected on the back wall of the building.
Adam flattened his body against the stack beside him and pointed his gun. "Step around slow and easy or you're dead." He said, his voice pitched low. The barrel of the gun disappeared, then he saw the grip swing out into the open, dangling from the gunman's finger. "Drop it. Kick it over to me."
The gun was lowered, then dropped and the pointed toe of a dandy's boot kicked it across the dirt.
"Come out into the open with your back to me, hands up."
The man did so, hands at shoulder height.
Adam crossed the opening between the stacks and grabbed the man's shoulder to turn him around. He pulled the sack off the man's head and found another face he didn't recognize. "What's your name?"
"Don't matter."
"Ok, Mr. Matter. Where's my father?"
"Gone. Dead."
Adam's hand went out, making a fist around Matter's collar and pulling it up until it cut into his neck. "Try again." Adam hissed.
"I don't know. When the horses run in we scattered. Your Pa started shootin' then shucked outta the barn."
"Are there other horses? An escape route?"
Adam twisted his fist and squeezed when the man clammed up.
"No." Matter said, choking a little. "We was supposed to stay in town until after we set the trap for you and your Pa tomorrow night. After we-"
The man's eyes went wide and he grunted, before he gurgled low in his throat and all his weight came down on Adam's fist. Adam didn't think about a knife until there was a handle sticking out of his own shirt and something cold and hard stuck deep into his shoulder.
Adam stumbled back against the stack behind him, then eased around the end of it, trying to judge how big the knife was, and just how hard it would be to pull it out again. Before he could get to it, another knife buried itself into a sack of rice on the stack opposite him and Adam zigged and zagged through the stacks, putting several thousand tons of grain between himself and the man throwing pointy objects.
Every move scraped the blade in his shoulder against the bones and tendons, taking his breath away. Adam had begun to feel like a mouse trapped in the burrow of a snake. He didn't like the silent enemy with the silent weapon and weaved in and out of the stacks until he had solid wood behind his back again. By then he knew he had to get the blade out. He tried doing it with both his hands holding guns, and when that attempt failed, Adam holstered one of them and yanked the blade free. It didn't look any better covered in his own blood.
"Bet that blade is starting to hurt." A voice called. The sound bounced off the walls only to be dampened again by the bags of grain. "If you've pulled it out already, you should know that the blade has tiny serrations on it. Does quite a bit of damage, going both ways."
Adam backed along the wall. He wanted to be in a corner with fewer blind spots, and as he backed away from the last stack of grain he noticed the ladder leading to the narrow loft. The upper level would be a great vantage point, but he'd be exposed the whole way up the ladder. Climbing fast, in the dark, with his shoulder bleeding didn't sound like a good plan.
"You've caused a lot of problems, Mr. Adam Cartwright. For much longer than even you realize. You and your father. I originally planned to only implicate your pa. But then when I found out that my men had shot your little brother, then you turned up, poking your nose in. And then Ben Cartwright waltzed right into my hands...well. When you're dead and your father hangs, I'll find a way to take a bite out of Hoss. Just to make it even."
He didn't recognize the voice. He couldn't think of anyone that he could have done so much wrong to. Certainly not someone hiring a whole passel of men that he didn't recognize. He'd also noticed the slight eastern brogue in the man's speech pattern. He suddenly had questions that it took everything in him not to ask.
Adam looked up at the ladder again, tired of the cat and mouse game. He holstered the one gun, tucked the other into his waistband, then took a deep breath and went up the ladder as fast as he could manage. By the time he reached the loft he felt like someone had dug the knife back into his shoulder and twisted the point around before ripping it free. Adam gritted his teeth hard, stifling the sound coming out of his mouth with the back of his hand, and lay in the loft motionless, begging the pain to go away. When it had died enough, he rolled into the darkest of the shadows and stood cautiously. The loft was about eight feet deep, and ran the length of the front of the building. There was a second ladder all the way at the end and he could see the whole storage area from there.
Adam pulled the gun from his belt and stood in the shadows, bathed in sweat that made the blood roll down his arm all the faster, his eyes searching the building. "You the leader?"
There! On the far side of the building, four stacks from the back. He caught a flicker of movement that turned out to be a shadow. Adam figured the man's position based on the way the light was shining through the stacks and started creeping along the loft.
"You could say that." The man called, and Adam could tell from his shadow that Orange Vest knew he was in the loft.
"What have you got against the governor?"
"Me? Personally? Not a thing. I'm the means to an end for some other fellas, back east."
"You wouldn't feel like sharing their names, would ya?" Adam asked.
Orange Vest chuckled, and Adam heard him running between the stacks before a tall and narrow pile of oats swayed, marking where Orange Vest had stopped.
"No...I don't think I will. But I'd like to share an alias with you."
"Your alias?"
"Yes...you once received a letter from me. A letter sent to an associate of mine who, unfortunately, passed away from a drinking problem before he could do what I asked of him."
Adam watched stack after stack shift or sway, following the man's progress towards the side of the building where Adam had come up the ladder. Adam was moving parallel to Orange Vest in the opposite direction, watching the ladder he had just come up.
"I don't get that much mail. I'm surprised I don't remember." Adam called.
"Forgive me for being so vague. How about the name Bill Earnest?"
Adam's eyes narrowed, but nothing came to him. He settled back into the darkness and took a knee, making sure he could see both ends of the loft from where he was. His shoulder ached miserably and his sleeve was soaked with blood, rivulet's rolling down his fingers to the floor. "Sorry. Drawing a blank, buddy."
Orange Vest popped out from behind the stack that stood next to the ladder then stepped back behind cover. Adam didn't have the time to train a good shot on him, and realized shooting would have been a mistake anyway. In the shadows Adam had a lot more freedom and a greater advantage. One gunshot would make him obvious. From behind the stack Adam heard Orange Vest sigh like an exasperated school master. "Alright...try...Johnson Shipping."
It clicked into place. Bill Earnest...known to Adam as William P. Earnest, supposed owner of Johnson Shipping. The company that had tried to sell a wagon train of orphans to buyers in Portland. The company with such slipshod contracts that it only took one lawyer and a handful of telegraph messages to set the kids free legally, costing Johnson Shipping and it's conglomerate World Wide Shipping, a grand total of $15,000.
"My bosses weren't too pleased at the price tag you handed me. They kicked me out of my cushy job as owner of a shipping front and sent me on this little errand instead. Waiting until the governor was to visit your fair city, and finding a way to implicate you and your family in the process, well...that was the icing so to speak."
Adam didn't know how he had been spotted, but Earnest made it clear that he had been when the man popped out from behind the stack and emptied his gun into the loft. The bullets whined past him, taking chips out of the floor and the wooden railing, pushing Adam back away from his hiding spot and toward the opposite end of the loft.
He had missed the final man. Adam would realize later that Earnest had been knocking against the stacks intentionally to keep Adam's attention trained on the warehouse floor, and away from the silent man climbing the far ladder.
Adam was heading for his only way down when he was pushed from behind. His bad arm went out as his feet slipped off the edge of the platform, and he caught the railing with his hand. He had to drop the gun when all his weight came down on the hurt shoulder. He changed his grip several times, managing to get closer to the ground before he dropped, landing on his feet.
Adam scrambled for the gun he had dropped but a skilled shot caught the grip and the gun went out of reach. Adam turned to run but the twin sounds of hammers being pulled back stopped him.
"I don't particularly want you dead, Adam." Earnest said. "Come on down, Topaz. Check him for guns."
The man who lowered himself to the ground turned out to be the biggest of the ten. He was the one that had clobbered Adam the first time he and his father had tried to escape. He was also black, and looked like a mix of African and native American. As before, Topaz did all of his talking with his hands. Adam was stripped of the guns and his gun belt, before Topaz put one hand on his shoulder and dug his thumb in the knife wound.
Adam's good hand flew up, digging at the thick fingers.
"Ooo!" Earnest said, wincing as he paced slowly across the length of the warehouse. "Topaz, you are one mean son-of-a-gun. You and Lee, both. Shame Lee is dead."
Earnest put his gun away and scratched at the side of his nose, his eyes traveling down the blood soaked sleeve. He tilted his head to look at the still caked blood on the side of Adam's head.
"You are a mess. But you don't look quite right. You look like a victim of foul play at the moment. I need you to look like you were caught by a heroic citizen of Virginia City after trying to assassinate the governor."
Earnest's hands came together as if he were praying and he pointed the tips of his fingers at the big man. "Topaz, pretend you are an outraged citizen of this fair municipality, who has just watched his governor and some unfortunate neighbors and friends be blown to tiny bits by a wagon loaded with explosives. And you have just caught the man responsible. What would you do?"
A hand came down and went around his neck and Adam was forced back against the wall of the warehouse. Adam clawed at the hand holding his neck, the forearm thick as a fence post. His head hit the boards and rang like a bell before a fist landed in his stomach once, twice, three times. Adam struggled to breathe in, fighting the pain in his belly as well as the fingers around his throat.
Topaz sneered at him, before looking back to Earnest to see how he was doing.
Earnest stood with his fists on his hips and nodded. "Good, good. Very good start. Now...imagine that one of those neighbors that were blasted to wee pieces, was a boy that you grew up with. Your best friend."
Adam had focused on a few of Topaz's fingers and was trying to bend them back. Topaz gave an irritated growl and aimed punch after punch at Adam's midsection. He managed to turn, taking the blows to the ribs and swinging a foot up toward Topaz' knee before a rib caved. Adam's knees wobbled and he had to cling to Topaz' arm again to keep from suffocating.
Earnest gave Topaz' shoulder the slightest of taps and stepped in close to pull Adam's shirt out of where it was tucked into his belt. He looked at the damage and nodded in satisfaction before peering at Adam's face like a painter displeased with the first few strokes of his creation. "Little more on the face, I think. A broken nose maybe...or fracture his jaw."
"You sadistic, cowardly son of a bi-"
Topaz simply leaned towards the wall of the warehouse and Adam couldn't breathe.
"No, no, Topaz. Not the neck, just the face." Earnest said, gently. With speed that defied his size, the big man split his lip, blacked his eye and nearly broke his cheekbone with three swift pops, before he let Adam drop.
Adam landed on the seat of his pants, then shifted onto his side, intent on crawling away if that was all he had left. He heard Earnest squat in front of him and felt a smaller hand grab his hair, forcing his head up and back.
Blood began to pool inside his mouth and Adam spat it full in Earnest's face, his lip curling a little into a lopsided grin. "Can't let...you get away...clean….buddy." Adam said.
Earnest pulled a kerchief from his pocket and dabbed at the blood on his face. He looked at the thin drops on the white cloth and smiled at Adam. "Someday." He said, rocking Adam's head back and forth. "If you manage to escape hanging for the crimes I plan to commit tomorrow, I will get a great deal of enjoyment out of killing you. But...not today."
As Earnest stood, the big man took a step forward, starting to bend down toward Adam. "No...no, we'll lock the doors and leave him in here for a bit. Carrying a man around town in his condition is a might suspicious. Why don't you drag him back to the tack room and we'll take care of the rest of the mess he made."
Earnest walked off, even before he had finished talking and Topaz lifted Adam up to his feet. Adam in turn did the best he could to be difficult, slumping down and making his body as heavy and awkward as possible. When Topaz opened a palm and slapped Adam, before dropping him to the floor, Adam fought the bolt of pain that went through his bruised skull and put his feet together, aiming both his boots at the big man's right knee.
The pop and crack, and the scream that followed it, were the first sounds he remembered hearing Topaz make. Adam rolled and crawled to the door that led from the warehouse into the storefront. He dragged down the door handle and managed to get through it before he kicked the door shut behind him. His head was spinning, and every time he got to his knees the world turned too fast for him to handle. He followed the low light coming through the storefront windows and tried to push the front doors open, but they were latched at the eave of the door jamb. Adam clung to the handle, desperately fishing for breath before he clawed his way up to his feet, dragged the locking mechanism down, and fell out onto the boardwalk.
The night air was blessedly cool and clean and it helped to clear his head a little. He grabbed one of the support posts for the porch roof and made it upright again. He was trying to understand where his father had gone. Why the gunshots in the livery, and then more shots in the warehouse, hadn't drawn a crowd of citizens. Wilson's livery was at the edge of town, but there were plenty of houses there, too.
The word conspiracy flashed into Adam's mind as he went from the porch to the street, leaning on the hitching post. Did Earnest somehow empty the street of witnesses ahead of time, so that no one would disturb their plans?
Adam made it to the end of the boardwalk and stepped out into the intersection of streets and remembered suddenly why it was so quiet. He could see them scattered around the shadows. Dark blue uniforms, some of them in black suits, and still others in plain clothes. He spotted Hoss, peering over the top of a roof across the street, and watched his brother point over and over to the side of the street opposite where Adam stood.
Adam lurched that way, holding his broken ribs and focusing on the see-saw of the world around him. When he finally reached the shadows he was pulled into familiar arms and lowered to the boardwalk.
"My god, Adam what did they do to you?"
"T-topaz...Earnest...in warehouse."
"Ben...there's smoke." Roy Coffey said somewhere behind his father.
"Splosives...Pa. Splosives." Adam tried.
"Spl- Roy, the wagon Joseph found was full of bottles of nitro. That fire might be meant to set more of that nitro off." Ben said hastily.
"If the nitro don't do it, that grain will." Roy said then took in a deep breath and shouted. "Explosives! Everybody back!"
Adam was tugged to his feet and supported by Roy and Ben as they charged away from the warehouse and the growing fire. The explosion, when it came, would be all it took to cancel the governor's visit. Ben, Roy and Adam had enough time to make it under the boardwalk, two streets away from the warehouse before it blew. They heard and felt the blast but were well protected from the debris.
The cavalrymen and sheriff's deputies had done their best to clear the area, suffering few injuries. Even Hoss had found a place to hunker down on his rooftop. He came close to flying for the second time in his life but managed to hang on. The resulting fire consumed the warehouse, livery and blew through bag after bag of grain, destroying more than $50,000 dollars of property in the warehouse alone.
Once Hoss had found them Ben was unaware of all of it. His focus narrowed to his boys, how much work it took to get Adam to a safe place, how hard it was to find the doctor, and how bad the damage was in the lamplight. Then, while Ben sat through to morning, waiting for Adam to wake, he was focused on reliving the frantic moments in the barn. His temporary confidence that Adam had managed to escape, and all the things he did in the minutes that followed, instead of going back and shooting dead the men who had brutally beaten his boy.
Men that, evidently, managed to escape the blast and the town, without a single witness.
Roy came to the doctor's office at noon, closing the door quietly behind him. The nurse directed him into one of the rooms at the end of the hall. The room contained two single beds. Hoss lay on one, sleeping on his side, and Adam lay on the other.
Ben sat between the two beds on a straight backed chair, his elbows on his thighs, forehead sunk into the palms of his hands.
"Ben?"
Cartwright's head came up almost instantly.
"I saw the doc a few minutes ago. He said Adam could be moved, and I thought I'd take you and the boys back to the Ponderosa. Got a buggy outside."
"Is there a problem with..staying here?" Ben asked, his voice low and rough.
Roy sighed. "I'm concerned about where Earnest and Topaz might show up next. They may have cleared out of the area by now, or they may plan to come back. The way you and your boys are beat up...you're easier to guard with miles of the Ponderosa and a dozen hands between you and the rest of the world, than you are here in town."
Ben stared at Adam and asked, "Is that really the reason?"
Roy leaned one shoulder against the door jamb, his other hand coming to rest on the door knob. "You know it isn't." Roy's tone hardened a little. "If this...killer was given to only using guns, or knives, it would be simple to protect the people of Virginia City and you and your boys. But he likes to blow things up. And that affects all of us, no matter what his target is."
"You'd rather he blow up the Ponderosa than Virginia City."
Roy's lips paled as he pressed them together hard. "That ain't true, and it ain't fair." Roy said. He cleared his throat to free it of the sudden quake. "And when you're in a better frame of mind I'll forgive you for it. I'm bound by my duty to do what is best for all of Virginia City."
Ben had turned his head away from the door and Roy began to understand why a minute later. He excused himself quietly and left the man in peace, waiting out in the foyer of the doctor's office. When Ben finally emerged it was behind his two oldest boys. Hoss was coaxing a drugged Adam down the hall and out into the buggy. Ben hung back, his hat in his hands.
"Roy..I'm-"
Roy shook his head and put a hand on Ben's shoulder. He pulled his friend into a hug that he knew the man needed, then said, "I'm ridin' out with you, Ben. Not sendin' you out on your own."
Ben took a deep breath and said, "You don't have to."
"I want to. I want to see for myself that your home is secure. I want to warn the hands about what might be coming their way. I'm going to protect you just as if you lived right here in the middle of town, Ben. You...and your boys, you don't even know what you've done yet. You're the key to the success of this town, Ben, especially now. Don't forget that."
Ben wasn't sure what to do with the words, or their meaning, or what they were stirring in his heart and mind but he offered his old friend a tired smile and they walked out to the buggy together.