Thank you so much for the comments and ideas. Joe doesn't always think things through, as we know. I hope to have the next chapter up soon, but I'm moving house and it all depends on how smoothly it goes. I promise I will finish posting.

Chapter Five

Despite Adam's assertion that Joe could not have gotten far, nobody was denying the length of time he had been gone and the clearly lathered state that Sport had been in. It was obvious with hindsight that he had ridden off in a panic and nobody was fooling themselves about what that could mean. If Joe did not want to face the accusations, as seemed apparent, then it may not be as simple as riding out and bringing him home.

Ben had no idea which of the hands had heard Angelique's ugly words and right at that moment he didn't care. His son's safe return was far more important than a slur against his reputation that would soon be rectified. He quickly issued instructions for two of the men to ride with them and left the day's work orders in Hank's capable hands.

Adam silently cursed himself as he saddled his horse and stowed gear into the empty saddlebags. He'd been so blinded by love for a woman who clearly did not love him back, that he'd been an unwitting pawn in her games.

"We'll find him."

Adam turned to see Hoss coming up behind him.

"Sure we will." He didn't feel half as confident as he sounded and he noted the grim set of his brother's shoulders as he checked the cinch of his own saddle. Apparently neither was Hoss.

It was a flurry of activity as more horses were saddled and extra water canteens were stowed alongside bedrolls. Hop Sing scurried back and forth with hastily packed trail rations. Finally the group was ready to ride and Ben frowned as Clay pulled his horse alongside them.

"I know we have things to talk about, but they will have to wait until we find Little Joe. You don't know the country and will just get lost. We don't have time to be keeping track of you just now."

"Sorry, Sir, but I'm coming too."

"I don't have time to waste here and you don't know your way. Joe needs his family, not strangers chasing after him. Now we'll be back as soon as we find my son and we'll discuss things then."

"I can't do that."

Ben turned in the saddle and shook a fist at the new hand. "You will stay here as instructed!"

Clay held onto his saddle horn to keep his hands still. The irate man before him was intimidating, but he had to stay. "He may be your son, Mister Cartwright … but Joe is my brother … well, half brother …and I think Angelique may have come after him because of me."

Multiple stunned faces stared at him as Clay stood his ground. "This isn't how I planned to have this conversation, but I told you already that Jean de Marigny was my father. Well, his wife … your wife … Marie … was my mother. I came here to find my brother and I'm not going to just sit here and wait for you all to come back."

Ben stared at the determined young man and saw a familiar set to his jaw and the squared off shoulders. He could have been looking at his youngest son. His breath caught in his throat as he slowly nodded.

"We need to find Joseph first and then we sort out everything else."

Clay nodded in agreement as he nudged his horse forward once more. Neither Adam or Hoss had anything to say that mattered more than picking up Joe's trail and it was Adam who charged the way towards the corral with multiple riders following in his wake.

Joe's boot prints were clear in the dirt on the far side of the corral gate and for a time, it was easy enough to follow one unshod horse's tracks. Hoss muttered under his breath as he realised his little brother had paid attention to his lessons after all and was heading for rocky terrain. Within an hour, the tracks had petered out and they were forced to split up.

Each of them took separate directions with an agreement to return to Hanson's Peak by nightfall. Ben rode on with his thoughts in a swirl. He knew Marie had had a son, but the baby had died as an infant. He glanced across at the younger man riding beside him and tried to see his wife's features along with the man who had worked for him so many years ago. There were shades of Jean there, but could he be telling the truth? And why had Marie said he died?

It was almost twelve hours later when Hoss pulled his horse in beside Sport and he slid down from the saddle. He could pick out his father's silhouette against the fire and there was a definite smell of coffee in the air. He didn't need to comment on his success or failure as he could soon see each of the other's faces.

"Any sign of him?"

"No." Adam held out a mug of coffee which Hoss took hold of before dropping down onto a nearby log.

"Where's Josh and Gerry?"

"I sent Gerry into town and Josh back home." Ben hurried on to explain his reasoning. "I need Roy to know what's happened and we need to get the word out in case anybody sees Joe to tell him to come home."

"You think he ain't gonna do that on his own?" Hoss took a mouthful of the coffee and frowned at his father's comment.

"I think he's scared and he thinks we believe Angelique's story."

Adam hung his head as he thought back on his words to his brother. "Hardly surprising. I told him I'd kill him."

"Now Adam, Little Joe knows you don't mean that. Soon as he stops and thinks about it, he'll know."

"You didn't see his face, Hoss. He believed me."

Nobody spoke for the next few minutes. Finally Ben pulled some hard tack from his saddlebag and began to hand it around.

"We need to eat and we need to rest. Tomorrow, we'll find him."

Each of them nodded in agreement, but none of them looked convinced. Silence descended again as they each wandered off with their own thoughts.

"Why don't you tell us about yourself?" Ben nodded towards Clay.

"Yeah, I suppose you've got a hundred questions." He chewed off a chunk of jerky as he tried to think about how to start. This wasn't at all how he'd planned things in his head on the way from New Orleans.

"Jean de Marigny was my father and from what I know of him, he ran off and left my mother to face a scandal and social blacklisting."

"Marie was really your mother?" Adam had been studying the man's features and it was possible, but he still wasn't sold.

"She was. She died when I was born … or so I was told! I was raised by my adoptive parents in a poor quarter of New Orleans. My mother passed a few years ago, but my father was still alive until last year. I knew I was adopted, but never knew the truth of just who I was until one day a man turned up looking for me. He was an old friend of my real father's and he was trying to re-establish my father's claim to the family money. I didn't know what he was doing, but he used me to threaten my grandmother. He tried to blackmail her."

"I can imagine how that went down." Ben had never forgotten his own run-in with Madame de Marigny and how she had been so cold when told of her son's death, but so passionate when talking about his despised wife and her supposed betrayal of the family.

Clay nodded with a grim expression on his face. "Nobody threatened her and got away with it. By the time I realised his claim had more to do with self-gain and nothing to do with helping me, it was too late. I had already run afoul of Angelique and her mother. I heard a while back that her mother passed away and my dear cousin was the sole heir to the family fortune."

Hoss didn't miss his brother's shudder at the mention of the woman he had almost been trapped into marrying.

"My grandmother sent some of her men to set me up. They claimed I shot a man in cold blood in a card game. I shot him alright, but it was self-defence. No judge in New Orleans was going to argue with a de Marigny witness, but they didn't count on a federal marshall who witnessed it all too. Since they couldn't get me in a rigged trial, they tried to kill me. They were supposed to drop me off in a swamp for the alligators to deal with."

"What happened to stop them?"

"My father saved me. He killed three men to save my life and the alligators got their supper after all, but not before my father took a bullet in the stomach."

Nobody spoke as Clay looked around for any sign of condemnation. When he saw none, he hurried on.

"It took him two hours to die in agony. He told me the whole story that had been buried for so long. He and my mother kept the story quiet to protect me. It seems my loving grandmother wanted me dead and somebody defied her to save me. My real mother didn't die when I was born, but she had been told that I died from a fever. I was taken and hidden and she never knew I was still alive and I had no idea that she was. I guess they just wanted to break her and have the whole scandal just go away."

Clay hung his head as the memories overwhelmed him. "I told my father I had to find her and he told me she had gone west with you. I decided to find her and for a time I believed I would. I searched the public records to trace her and that's where I found your marriage listed in the register. As I got closer to Virginia City and asked questions, everyone knew of the Cartwrights. I was in Arizona when I was told my mother had died many years ago. I almost quit then and there until somebody mentioned Little Joe. I figured I had to come and at least meet him."

Ben had been listening intently to the tale and it certainly made sense. All but one thing. "Why didn't you just tell me who you were? Why sign up as a ranch hand?"

"I guess I wanted to see if I liked you. If I didn't, there was no skin off my nose. And you would be none the wiser and I could just leave."

"Fair enough." Adam could see why a stranger with such a tale would err on the side of caution. He figured he would have done the same thing.

Joe stared at the horse as it pawed the ground and snorted in disgust in being trapped within the corral.

"Well, kid. Time to put your money where your mouth is!" Larry tried to keep a straight face as he half expected the newcomer would back down from the challenge when he saw the horse that had been selected. After all, he'd made some real big promises.

Joe licked at his lip and nodded. "Sure thing."

"Hey, Larry, I'm not so sure about this. That's a mighty mean lady and he's just a kid." Sam leaned against the corral and watched as the horse pawed the ground and clouds of dust wafted up around her hooves.

"He's a mouthy kid who reckons he busted that big ol' black he was riding. Time to back up his tough talk and prove it … or die trying."

"It's the dyin' bit I'm worried about. How you gonna explain that to the boss when he gets back?"

Larry shrugged his shoulders, stuck both hands in his pockets and nodded towards the corral. Before he could answer, Joe had climbed up onto the back of the grey and grasped at the reins. He sucked in a sharp breath and nodded for the hands to let the gate go. The horse pranced sideways before suddenly bucking violently. Joe held on for all he was worth and vaguely heard the shouts of encouragement from across the corral.

"Stick with her, kid! You got this one."

Joe felt his body lurch forwards and then sideways as the horse tried desperately to dislodge him. He gripped the saddle with his knees and tried to anticipate her next move. It felt like an eternity before the horse began to tire of its antics and dropped to simply kicking out at the hands who had climbed over the fence. It took another couple of minutes for her to slow down altogether and Joe pulled at the reins to walk her in a wide circle. His arms ached from the effort, but he pulled her back the other way and slowly circled the corral twice. The sweat dripped into his eyes, but he didn't dare wipe it away. Finally he pulled the horse to a stop and slid from the saddle. A hand slapped him on the back and almost shoved him into the horse.

"Now that was a sight to see!"

"Wait 'til we tell the boss we got us a new bronc buster."

Joe looked around the group and smiled at the comment. "You mean it?"

"Sure. That was impressive. Of course, since you're only half the size of our usual hands, you'll be real cheap."

Joe swallowed down the angry retort to the comment as he desperately needed the job. It took a minute before Larry began to laugh and Joe looked around again to see all of them joining in.

"Just teasin' you, kid. But you do need a good feed to get some meat on you. Don't know how you managed to stay on for so long when you don't weigh any more'n a sparrow!"

Hours later as Joe lay stretched out in the bunkhouse, listening to the sound of snores all around him, he smiled at his good fortune at turning left at the fork in the dusty road and not right. Adam had often told him he had a mouth on him, but it had paid off. He'd thought he was going to get run off when he'd started telling Larry what he could do and the trio of men had laughed at him. But then he'd climbed up on that horse and shown them exactly what he could do. He smiled at the thought of the cheers and shouts as he'd ridden her to a standstill. For the first time in days, he fell into a deep sleep and slept clear until dawn with no dreams of his brother hunting him down and shooting him square in the chest.

"Hey, kid, what's a young'un like you doin' out here anyway?"

"Ain't got anywhere better to be."

"Hmmm." Larry moved another checker and frowned as Sam moved his piece and kinged it.

Joe was sprawled across his bunk with his legs hanging over the edge. He'd been given the tick of approval when the boss had returned and Larry had taken the kid on like some kind of pet project. He wasn't getting very far in pulling any real details and every so often he caught the kid looking off into the distance with a real funny look on his face. A couple of times he'd hollered in his sleep, but most folks did that sometimes. Of course, the fellas all snored like they were sawing logs so Joe's indiscretion had been pretty much ignored. Still, something about it all just gnawed at him.

"Who taught you to bust broncs the way you do?"

"My brothers." The response seemed choked off and Larry wondered if he'd hit a nerve.

"Your brothers? Why ain't ya still with 'em?"

"Cause they don't want me around."

Larry held his piece in mid air as he looked across at the bunk. Joe had pulled his legs up and curled onto his side, away from the game. Larry looked across at Sam and frowned.

"Why?"

"Just shut up with the questions, will ya?"

"Sorry, kid."

Well after lights out, Larry heard the door open and the footsteps headed outside onto the porch. He fell asleep before he heard them come back inside. He had already decided that on the next day off, he was going to take the kid up to his favourite fishing hole and get the rest of the story. There were too many things that didn't add up. Like the quality of horse and gear the kid had. And just how did someone so scrawny learn to hold a full-grown wild horse and ride it to a stop? And just what was he running from?