Whose Sin Is Her Love – chapter eight

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Ben opened the ranch house door and ushered in a cloaked and hooded figure. They'd traveled through the rainy night in order to protect his guest from prying eyes and arrived just as the sun broke on the horizon. He'd had no way to alert Hop Sing, so the house was dark, the windows shuttered, and the fire banked. No doubt the Asian man was still in bed.

Which suited him just fine.

The rancher closed the door behind them and hung his hat and coat on the peg. When he turned into the room, what he found gave him pause. Adah had removed her cloak and gone to the hearth.

Many years had passed since a woman he loved stood before that fire.

Had loved.

Adah turned to look at him. "Thank you, Ben. For everything."

He went to her side. "Do you mean that, Adah?"

"Yes. I…didn't really want to die, but I did want it to end. I…." She drew a breath. "I couldn't – I still can't see any other way out."

He touched her cheek. "There's always a way."

Adah pulled back. "You don't know!" she snapped. "You have no idea what that man is capable of!"

He held her gaze. "Is that so?"

"Oh, Ben." The beautiful woman rested her head on his chest. "I'm so sorry. I was…such a coward. Your beautiful son…."

"Is alive." Ben breathed out his relief. "Joseph is alive."

Adah's head jerked back and her eyes went wide with a sudden thought. "Little Joe. Where is he? Is he here? John threatened – "

He brushed a stray lock of hair from her forehead. "I sent Joseph away with his older brother. Adam knows not to bring him home until after Regan leaves Virginia City."

"That won't be until after the bout with Sawyer."

"A week or less. It will take them at least three to run the line on this end of the Ponderosa."

"But if John finds out he'll…."

"Happening on Joseph in Virginia City is one thing. But tracking him down? Taking that risk?" The rancher shook his head. "No, Adah. I can't believe any man – even John C. Regan – is vindictive enough to risk everything just to pay a seventeen-year-old boy back for surviving."

"It won't be to pay Little Joe back," she said.

"No?"

"It will be to pay you back for offering hope where there is none. For daring to love the woman he owns."

"Regan can't own you unless you let him."

Adah's jaw grew tight. "Have you never known such a love, Ben? Surely with three wives you have. A love that possesses you, body and soul? One that takes your breath and steals the very beat of your heart? It is such a love as the bards speak of – that the minstrels sing. A love without which you cannot live. A love –"

"Adah," he said. "John C. Regan is a monster."

Tears kissed her eyes before she lowered her head. "Ah, yes. But he is my monster."

He'd believed she was like Marie when he met her – willful, vivacious, battered but unbroken. He'd been wrong. Adah was nothing like Marie.

How could he have ever thought he loved her?

"Ben, I'm tired," Adah said, her voice utterly weary. "If it's all right with you, I'd like to lie down."

"Mistah Ben? What you do home?" They both turned. Hop sing was coming out of the kitchen wing, linens in hand. "You tell Hop Sing you not come home 'til tomorrow night!" The Asian man halted when he saw Adah. "Forgive this one," he said with a bow. "He not see honorable guest."

"Hop Sing, this is Adah Menken. She'll be staying with us for a few days. Please show her to the guest room."

"This one happy to do so. Hop Sing make guest room fresh last night." The man from China passed them and headed for the stair. "Missy Adah please come this way."

Adah gave him one last long look, as if pleading with him to understand, and then 'The Menken' – as she was known by literally hundreds of thousands of souls around the world – made her weary and woebegone way up the stairs.

Ben turned back to the hearth after she turned the corner. He took a moment to tend it, stoking the coals and adding fresh wood, and then sat on the table before it and stared into the flames. Fame. So many sought it. Like the smoke rising up the chimney to dissipate on the wind, it eluded most. The few who found it were counted lucky, even blessed, but that too was an illusion. Like the flames that leapt before him fame burned bright, drawing everyone's attention, and yet, just like those flames, it contained within itself the seeds of its own destruction. As wood burned, it was consumed. The rancher's gaze followed the path his houseguest had taken. Paul told him before they left that, if Adah had ingested the entire bottle of laudanum, there would have been nothing he could have done to save her. The beautiful woman would be dead and John C. Regan free to go on with his egocentric and dissipated life. The actress' death would be laid at her own feet and not his, even though Regan was her murderer.

As he had almost been his son's.

Ben's fists clenched in rage. Seldom, if ever, had he felt such hate for another human being. He supposed it had been too much to hope that the prizefighter would never darken Virginia City's streets again. To others John C. Regan was the 'Benecia Boy', the self-proclaimed fighting champion of the world. Men wanted to be like him. Women dreamed of being with him. They didn't know that the man was an ignorant brute whose off-hand, arrogant, and self-serving nature sucked up and spit out any who dared to cross him. And worse than that? What the crowd saw was a three-hundred pound man taking on an equal opponent, duking it out in the ring, and emerging as a winner and hero. His son was a slight teenager. Adah, a tender woman.

John C. Regan was a coward.

Ben released the fists he had made as he heard the front door open. He rose and went to greet his son.

"Hoss. I didn't expect you home so soon." His son had remained behind in town to deal with business.

"Buck's in the stable, Pa. I took real good care of him. And I gave some extra oats to that filly what pulled the carriage you rented. Made her right happy!" The big man's smile turned into a frown. "I left town before first light. I wanted to get home so's I could head out again as soon as possible."

"Oh?" Ben was wary. "What for?"

Hoss' beefy face showed a mixture of emotions – disbelief, anger…fear. "I gotta go after Adam and Little Joe, Pa. I just know they're in a heap of trouble."

"Breakfast ready soon, Mistah Cartwright." Hop Sing halted when he saw his son. "Mistah Hoss, good to see you home. I set another place."

"I ain't got time to eat, Hop Sing. I'm gonna get a couple of things and head back out lickety –"

Ben placed a hand on his son's arm. "Hoss, come eat. You need your strength. Plus you can tell me about whatever it is that has you so riled up that you'd be willing to skip a meal!"

"Pa…." He chewed his lip. "I ain't sure I should wait."

His son's anxiety was rubbing off on him. "Is it that imperative?"

Hoss held his 'ready for action' pose a moment longer and then seemed to deflate. "I don't know. I just…. Well, I don't like the idea of Adam and Little Joe out there alone when no one knows where that dang Regan feller is."

"Mistah Hoss no go look for brothers on empty stomach," Hop Sing chided as he placed a pot of coffee on the table. He looked right at him. "Mistah Ben no go without food either."

Was he so easy to read?

"Come on, son," Ben said. "We'll both do better on full stomachs."

The big man hesitated. Then the smile returned to his face. "You're right, Pa. And, Hop Sing, that breakfast sure does smell good!"

Ben took his seat and placed a napkin on his lap. "Now, what is this about Regan?"

Hoss was sipping coffee. "Ain't no one seen that bully in near a whole day. When I went to the livery last night to check on Buck, the man there mentioned how surprised he was to see two giants in one day."

"It wasn't the owner?"

"Nope, some little feller fillin' in for him. I told him who I was and asked who the other big man was? He told me the man didn't give no name, but he was with some other fellow name of Brig."

It was an unusual name. "Not…Brig Louden?"

Hoss smiled his thanks as Hop Sing placed a plate of flapjacks before him. "Yes, sir. That mean somethin' to you?"

"Mm-hm. Brig Louden worked for me around ten years back. He was a good worker, but about as arrogant as they came. Thank you, Hop Sing", he said as he received the same. "I ended up firing him. He left the territory."

"I wonder why he's back?"

"Who knows? I imagine he's still drifting. A man like that doesn't change."

"Well, if it was him, he was with a man 'big as a mountain', as the feller at the stable put it." Hoss reached for the syrup. "Said they rented two horses and took off around midday."

"And you think the other man was Regan?"

"I know it was. Brig let slip he was a prizefighter." Hoss looked at his plate and then shoved it away. "That Regan feller's gone after Little Joe, Pa. I'm sure of it!"

In spite of his words to Adah, Ben feared it might be so. "But how would Regan know where your brother is?"

"You said Brig used to work here. Maybe he ran into one of the hands he knew. Maybe they told him."

They'd kept it as quiet as they could, but still, some of the men knew what Adam and Joseph were about. Riding the line was hardly a secret. Someone could have said something. Still, it astonished him and seemed a bit absurd, that a full-grown man could harbor such hatred and ill-will for a young man – a boy, really – who had done nothing to him; that Regan would be willing to risk everything – his freedom, his life, his career – to take revenge.

Then again, that hatred was not directed at Joseph, but at him.

Hop Sing arrived with a new pot of coffee. Ben raised a hand to stop him filling his cup. "If you would, Hop Sing, please put that in a container and prepare two days rations for both Hoss and I."

The man from Asia eyed their uneaten breakfast with a sigh. "You go check on Mistah Adam and Little Joe?"

"Yes," he said as he rose to his feet.

"Pack extra for them. They tired of beans and jerky by now. When you go?"

Ben looked at Hoss and saw reflected in his middle boy's eyes the dread he knew was radiating from his own.

"As soon as we can."

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Adam crossed the floor in five long strides. He snatched the gun from beneath his brother's foot and aimed it at Brig before addressing Joe.

"What happened to you?"

The teenager was a mess. His wet hair was strewn with bracken. The shirt he wore was shredded, revealing his skin, which was caked with mud and blood. Little Joe was bleeding – just about everywhere – from a myriad of cuts. There was one on his arm that was deep.

His brother scowled as the hammering continued. "I told you. Regan!"

Adam looked at the safety bar. It was shuddering but held fast. "You mean you ran into John C. Regan while you were peeing?"

To say that Joe was not happy would have been putting it mildly.

"You knew, didn't you?" he demanded. "You knew he was here! You and Pa!"

"Joe, we –"

"Open up, Cartwright! I know you're in there!"

Little brother sighed. "I suppose it would be wishful thinking to hope he meant you."

Adam turned to look at the fourth inhabitant of the shed. The blonde woman wasn't cowering, but she'd backed into the corner of the shack and had her hand on her belly. "Temperance, I know you can hold a rifle. I need you to take care of Brig. Tie him up and then keep it aimed at him."

"Look, Cartwright, I ain't got anythin' against you or your brother here," the weaselly man announced from the floor. "I gotta make a livin' and Regan paid me to show him where you were. I didn't know what he was gonna do. Honest. You pay me more and I'll switch to your side."

From what he remembered of Brig Louden, 'honest' was not in his vocabulary – nor 'trustworthy'.

Adam pointed the pistol he held at him. "How about I don't kill you and you keep out of it?"

Louden swallowed hard. "That works too."

"Temperance?"

"CARTWRIGHT!" Regan bellowed louder. "Let me in, you sniveling little coward!"

Joe wrinkled his nose. "So he thinks if he asks nice, I'll let him in?"

Regan wasn't thinking. At this point the man was pure instinct, and that 'instinct' was to kill Little Joe.

Adam caught Brig's collar and roughly hauled him up. He passed him on to Temperance and watched a she pushed the scum onto the cot and then sat in the chair beside it and began to bind his knees together.

He gestured his brother out of the way and moved to the door. "Regan! This is Adam Cartwright!"

"So?!"

"So…you are going to listen to me."

"Adam…." Joe began.

He shushed him. "Joe and I are not alone in here. Brig Louden is with us."

That precipitated a moment of silence.

"Who's that?"

"You know full well 'who' and unless you want me to turn Brig over to the sheriff and have him tell everything he knows, you will cease and desist and climb back up onto whatever beast brought you here and return to town." He paused to let that sink in. "You have a lot to lose, Benicia Boy. Think about it."

"Adam what are you….?"

He turned to his brother. "Joe, think about it. It's your word against his. Regan could just as easily say that you came after him to pay him back for beating you."

"With what? A mountain cat?"

"Cartwright?"

"What?"

"I could burn you out."

The words hung in the air a moment. "You could," he replied, "but you'd be murdering four people. I don't think even you could escape the law for that."

"What do you mean 'four'?"

"There's a woman in here. A pregnant woman."

"I don't believe you. You're just protecting that runt of a brother of yours."

Joe bristled at the term, but held his tongue.

"Temperance?" Adam asked.

"I'd be happy to come out there and blow your head off, if you'd like," she shouted.

As Joe's eye went wide, Adam chuckled. "Not quite the wilting flower we had her pegged for, is she?"

"What's a woman doing in there?"

Holding her own quite nicely, he thought.

"Admit it, Regan. You're out of luck. Take your ego and animosity back to Virginia City and keep it there. And once you leave town, don't take any more engagements in Nevada."

"Or what?"

Adam turned toward his brother. Little Joe had that look – the one that said he was pissed as hell to have him fighting his battles for him. Coupled with it was something else; a glint in Joe's green eyes that acknowledged this was one battle he knew he could not win by himself.

"Or else you'll have to deal with the Cartwrights!" He held his brother's gaze. "Not one, not two or even three, but with all four of us, and I can tell you, mister, that there is nothing on the face of God's green earth that can stand against that!"

Regan let out a guttural sound. "This isn't over,' he announced. He and Joe waited, breath drawn, as silence fell. They only let them out when they heard the sound of Regan's horse galloping away.

Joe favored him with a grin – and then silently and unceremoniously slid to the floor.

Adam knelt beside him. "You okay, buddy?" When his brother nodded, he went on. "Look, I'm sorry Pa and I devised this little trick. We were afraid you would try to take Regan on by yourself."

Joe leaned his head against the wall. "You were right. I would have. I…."

"Yeah?"

"I forgot just how big he is. All I can say is it's a good thing that cougar came along."

Adam fingered his brother's shredded sleeve. "Courtesy of the cougar?"

Joe nodded. "You should see Regan.! He won't be turnin' the ladies heads anytime soon."

"Here, let me see to that."

They both looked up. Temperance was standing beside them. Adam's gaze shot to Brig. The man was thoroughly lashed to the cot and going nowhere.

"I can take care of it myself," Joe insisted.

Temperance held out her hand. "You could, but you don't need to."

Little brother smiled his killer smile as he took it and rose to his feet.

Adam watched the pair of them move off toward the room where Temperance slept. Once they'd disappeared, he went to the door and cautiously lifted the bar and looked outside. It was his hope that John C. Regan had more between his ears than muscle, and that the strong-arm man realized he was beaten. The exhibition bout in Virginia City was the day after next. The prizefighter would need to lick his wounds and prepare for that. He remained where he was for a minute and then closed the door and dropped the bar back into place.

Once the bout was done, Regan would pack up, board a stage, and go away.

In a pig's eye.

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