The smell of pine. The smell of bacon. The smell of pine smoke…and something else…coffee…? His eyelids quivered in response, but he kept them closed, just in case.
There were sounds this time, too. Birdsong. A clattering of pans, faint and far away. A door opening and closing. Under it all, he kept waiting - waiting for that other sound. He strained his ears, sorting among the sounds for it - nothing. That faint, distinctive squeaking was indiscernible. Cautiously, he opened his eyes.
The room swam as things seemed wont to do these days, shivering and indistinct, then it sharpened and settled. The window was opened slightly, cracked to allow a faint breeze to enter. He inhaled delicately. When was the last time he'd smelled fresh air? The shutters and curtains were open too, and he could just make out a faint smudge of pink, stretching across the sky. The sun was just beginning to bleach it at the corners.
Sun. Sky. Sunrise. Well, old friends. I missed you. He studied them quietly, trying to absorb them. Abruptly, a dark blot swamped them - damp, revolving earthen walls, the groaning echo of a strained rope pulled against metal. He slammed his eyes shut and jerked his head away.
Oh, God. It wasn't real. Well, one of them wasn't… The pine smoke. Hadn't he decided that meant...? A cold wave of sickness washed over him. He reached up to rub the slick of sweat from his face, scrub the dark visions from his eyes, noticed he was clasping something in his hand. A soft bundle of cloth…He slit his eyes to study it, gave a short, faint laugh before he could stop himself. Oh, wonderful. What the hell was he turning into?
The resulting sigh came straight from the soles of his feet and he pressed his face into the cloth to blot it. Hoss wouldn't be wanting it back anyway. He let his hand drop, opening and closing the palm to try and lessen the ache that stretched all the way up his arm and settled, like a crouching weight, somewhere in his back. The motion of his hand caused a warning tingle through his wrist and he stopped, staring at it. A heavy white bandage shrouded the damage there and wrapped around his hand to keep it in place, so he couldn't see much. He could sense his other hand, mummified by bandages and held tight against his chest, and for a second he could feel again the stab of the hook as it thrust into the heel of it and tore through the flesh, the warm splatter of his own blood on his face, and he had to close his eyes and swallow repeatedly. He re-opened his eyes urgently, began his meticulous visual inventory: Dresser. Shaving stand. Door. Everything there, everything fine…Night table…oh.
He studied the figure sleeping in the rocker for a long moment, then closed his eyes again. Pull yourself together, Adam - you aren't the only one who was hurt. Put it behind you.
He grit his teeth. Easier said.
He tried to pull himself up. It would be better if he could get up - move around - look at things…riding would be perfect. A good, thundering gallop, one that would blow his thoughts right out of his brain and sweat the memories right out of his soul…his knee gave him a warning throb and he was still again.
Right. Riding was out of the question for a while. In fact, so was walking. He twitched the knee cautiously, winced. Standing, as a matter of fact, wasn't looking too good. Well, what was the difference, really? He was only kidding himself. There was no riding away from what was inside your head.
Still. If he could just get up…look at things…he moved tentatively, tried to pull himself up - was surprised when the room gave a sudden dip. Hm. All right, then. Bad idea. With only one good leg and one not-very-good arm, chances were that he'd just end up on the floor again. And whoever had gotten him back into bed last night probably didn't need to make a habit of it.
He looked around the room. What he needed was something to think about - something else to think about - something other the black shadows that hovered just at the edge of consciousness, waiting to rush in the second he let his guard down.
His eyes rested on Lord Byron's Don Juan, lying open face down on the night table. There was an idea. He knew a lot of poetry by heart - had taken to memorizing it at an early age, so that he could take it with him always, long after he'd returned the actual books that he could rarely afford to keep.
Let's see how many he could remember. Byron…hm…She walks in beauty like the night of cloudless climes and starry skies…he felt muscles he hadn't even been aware of clenching relax slightly…and all that's best of dark and light - a burgeoning image of ghostly, leaping light and flickering shadows on earthen walls rose suddenly and unexpectedly before him and he stopped, frozen.
Damn. Bad choice. He pressed a hand over his eyes, breathing carefully, counting slowly, until the dark vision retreated again. All right. Something else, then. Wordsworth, maybe - always innocent, faintly innocuous…My heart leaps up when I behold a rainbow in the sky. So was it when my life began, so is it now I am a man, so shall it be when I grow old, or let me - he slammed to an abrupt halt.
Well. Maybe this was a bad idea. Something else, then.
He glanced around, anxious, paused when he saw the music box again. He stretched his arm experimentally, managed to hook a fingertip under the edge of the lid and flipped it up. The music was slow, as though the box needed to be rewound, and he almost smiled. Like me. He settled back and closed his eyes.
Inger had let him play with the music box once when he was sick: it was almost his first memory of her. About the time Inger had appeared in his life, he had been tenaciously trying to work out the mystery of the woman who had originally owned that box - a curiosity only deepened by his father's reluctance to have the topic broached - so he took every opportunity to look at and handle her few remaining possessions, to try to imagine what she must have been like. Somehow, Inger letting him play with the box, the little tune sounding, and the quest to change his mother from a shadowy image to a real person, had all become inextricably intertwined - his mother, the music box, Inger. He had been years untangling the threads and filing them each in their proper places. Even now, he wasn't sure he had entirely succeeded. Or even wanted to. He did smile this time, wincing absent-mindedly at the painful tug the smile made on his split lip.
Either way, the box had always signified comfort to him - warmth, safety. Something important lost from his life, but eventually reclaimed, though in an altered state. The smile changed to a soundless sigh. He could use a little of that right now. The halting music grew slower and slower, picking through a note at a time. He'd have to enjoy it while he could - he wasn't kidding himself that he had the dexterity necessary to rewind it.
He glanced curiously at his right hand again, felt the heat simmering there, the deep-seated throb that seemed to keep time with the music. It crossed his mind to wonder what things looked like under the pristine wrappings. He could remember vividly - too vividly - what it had felt like, but he had never actually gotten a look at it. He opened and closed his hand again, slowly, frowning at the weakness and the prickle of nerve endings firing up and down his forearm. Well, it would heal, of course. Wouldn't it? Nothing permanent? His eyes fell on the guitar leaning in the corner. You needed a certain amount of finger agility to play that. Maybe now…something cold slipped up his spine.
…Or maybe not.
Everything he had loved and counted on his whole life seemed suddenly to have turned on him - showing a surprising, dark underbelly. Abruptly, he flailed out with his free hand for the music box and slapped the lid shut.
The figure dozing in the rocker jerked and snorted in his sleep, stirred. Adam made a face, Whoops, then relaxed back thoughtfully, watching as his father shook himself awake. Ben's eyes popped open and turned toward him immediately.
Adam met his eyes with an apologetic smile. All right, he was wrong - not everything he had loved and counted on his whole life had turned on him - not the most important things. "Sorry," he croaked, frowning at how faint his voice sounded.
"I hadn't intended to fall asleep at all," Ben glanced at Adam's hand, still resting on the music box lid. "Did you want that? I could rewind it." He lifted Adam's hand to reach for the box and paused, pressing one finger after another.
Adam automatically started to pull his hand away, ground his teeth together to resist the impulse. "What are you doing?" he asked instead, torn between discomfort and amusement.
"Oh." Ben smiled. "Paul asked us to check your fingers regularly to see if they were warm. If they're cold it signifies - I don't know. Bad things, I suppose. They are warm," he assured, watching Adam's face. "A little too warm, actually -" He moved the hand to rest it against Adam's cheek, concentrating. Adam felt his skin ripple in alarm, made an impatient face at the response. Would he ever be able to respond normally to someone touching him again?
Ben didn't seem to notice. "I think your temperature is down some, though. Paul is stopping by this morning - he should be able to tell us better."
That brought some of the previous night back and Adam felt his heart bump in his chest. "What about Roy? Is he coming?"
Ben gave him a piercing look. "Hoss was going to send a man to town with a message for him. I'm sure he'll be by when he's free. What exactly is so important about seeing Roy?"
"I - just -" Adam dropped his eyes to Marie's quilt, absently tracing the embroidery with his fingers. He had always loved that quilt. Marie had had a way of making everything around her a little more beautiful. "I thought he'd have some questions for me."
"Um hm. And you have some questions for him?"
Adam glanced at him with rueful appreciation. "I guess I do."
"Well, we'll let Paul decide who you can see and for how long. He may have some ideas of his own about what you're up for." He finished rewinding the music box and set it back on the table, lifting the lid.
Adam tried not to look uncomfortable as the tinny melody started up. "I'm sorry if I woke you up," he said, to cover his feelings. "I hope you weren't there all night?"
"You know I wasn't. I wasn't here the first time you woke up."
Adam frowned at his tone, tried to read his face. "What happened and when really isn't all that clear to me, Pa." he admitted at last.
Ben's expression changed. He reached over to clasp his shoulder, remembered in time and pulled the hand back to rub his own face instead. After a second, he nodded. "How do you feel? Can I get you anything?"
About a hundred things rushed to Adam's mind, but since most of them were out of the question, he eventually just shook his head. An awkward silence hovered. "Where are Hoss and Joe?" he finally burst out, to cover it.
Ben glanced toward the window, checked the sky. "Working, by now, I hope. Did you need to - ?"
"No." Adam could hear that he'd answered too quickly, closed his eyes, suddenly tired. He heard the rocker start into motion. The groan of the runners against the wood of the floor was evocative of too many other remembered sounds and he opened his eyes again, desperately retracing the borders of the room. The tinkling tones of the music box sawed at his nerves and, without thinking, he reached out and slapped the lid shut again.
Ben jumped from the rocker as though he'd been shot. "Don't!"
Adam froze with his hand on the music box lid. They stared at each other.
Ben looked away first, lifting Adam's hand carefully from the music box again and picking up the little piece of porcelain, turning it over and over between his palms.
Adam wondered for one wild second if his father was going to forbid him to play with it, just as he had that day when he had been five years old and sick and Inger had given it to him to look at. Inger had been the first person he had ever met who was patently unintimidated by his father: she had laughed at his scowls and teased at his moods and yelled back louder when he yelled. Suddenly, he missed her as badly as he had when he was six and realized that she was really gone from his life for good, never to return. He dropped his hand like a chastised child, picking self consciously at the bandages.
Ben reseated himself heavily in the rocker, still studying the box. Adam tried to ignore the creak and groan of the old chair in motion, tried to think about something else. He was focusing so hard on hearing everything but the chair that he almost missed the low rumble of his father's voice.
"I don't think I ever told you -" Ben paused to clear his throat. "Your mother. I don't think I ever mentioned…" He sounded so embarrassed that Adam turned his head to look at him. "When she died. I don't think I ever told you that she was holding this when she died."
Adam blinked slowly. "No," he said at last.
Ben nodded, his eyes tracing the little cherubs on the lid. "She, uh - it was playing - it needed rewinding. She reached for it and - well, the lid - when I heard the lid -" He sighed heavily, slid it carefully back onto the night table. "I knew she was - gone. I hadn't thought of that in years. The sound of that lid snapping shut - stayed with me, I guess. And of course I've been spending a lot of time in the past lately. It - was better than the present."
Adam nodded slightly. "I'm sorry, Pa."
Ben started, actually raised his head to meet his eyes. "You're sorry. You're sorry? What on earth for?"
Adam stopped trying to pick at his bandages and picked at the quilt instead. "For everything, I suppose. For what you went through - you, and Hoss and Joe. I tried to get home -" he shrugged. "But it never should have happened. I don't know what I was thinking. I thought she was in trouble and - well. It doesn't matter. I just wish I'd thought about it a little more carefully." Tiredness had deepened to exhaustion now and he let his eyelids slide together and turned his head away.
"You're sorry." There was a sound somewhere between laughter and tears, but he was too tired now to look and try to figure out which. "You are. Oh, dear God, Adam." A sigh. "Adam, you wanted to fire David Fairchild. You wanted him off the Ponderosa. It was me who insisted on keeping him on. I was so sure I could make a difference. Just couldn't resist the urge to play God." The sigh that followed was heavier this time. "I aimed him at you like a loaded gun."
He could hear the sound of boot heels on the floor, the rapid swing and creak of the rocker as the weight of a body left it. "And then, on top of it all, I abandoned you. I didn't even have enough faith to keep looking. And you're sorry. God, Adam, I don't think I'll ever stop being sorry about the way I handled this."
Adam forced his eyes part way open. The sun had to be higher now, because he could feel the light touch of it on his face. A small breeze blew air into the room.
"That's what he wanted, y'know?" he said matter-of-factly at last. He watched the sun form a puddle of pale brightness on the floor. "For you to suffer. He told me. That was the whole point." He kneaded at the torpid arm bound to his chest, trying to see if he could get the blood flowing again. "So, I guess he wins." He hesitated. "Do you know, I think I can live with anything but that?"
He heard the footsteps travel a short distance and stop, heard a long pause before the squeak of the rocker started up again. He turned his head on the pillow and searched for his father's face.
Ben's eyes were dark and still, one hand massaging his mouth. He sat for what seemed like a long time, rocking, wrestling with some complex problem. After a while, though, he dropped his hand and locked his eyes on Adam's. He studied him, the minutes stretching, his face a mix of things. Finally, he gave a short, reluctant nod.
A minute later, he reached down and grasped the quilt over the uninjured knee. The second nod was firm.
