Whispers in Silence -- 7
by BeckyS
10 Oct 2004

When Paul descended the stairs a half-hour later, he found only Ben in the great room, pouring two cups of coffee from a silver service. He took one from his friend and settled himself on the settee. He looked around approvingly. "Where are the boys?"

Ben jerked his head toward the door. "Sent them off to town for supplies; told them to fill up the wagon with wood from up around Silver Creek." He took his cup and sat in the red leather chair. "No one will be doing any wood chopping around here until you say otherwise. I moved most of the hands out to the east pasture for branding. Hoss is going to hire one of Hop Sing's cousins to cook for them – they can stay overnight out there."

"Good. Now there are some things you need to know. For the next week or so, it will help if you can keep the house as quiet as possible, keep his room dark during the day, and no more than one person at a time in his room with him. I'm assuming from the condition Joe's face was in that you had some kind of run-in with him."

"Run-in, indeed. As bad as he feels, he still nearly took all of us down. Finally just wore himself out."

Paul nodded. "That explains the sickness, then."

Ben raised a questioning eyebrow.

"Too much excitement. Too much going on. He can't take it all in, Ben; he hurts too much. It's flat overwhelming. He probably tried to get all of you to leave him alone, in the only way he could—"

"Attacking us?" Ben interrupted.

Paul nodded. "Since he can't tell you, how else would he get your attention?"

Ben sank down into his chair. "And we just yelled at him and held him down, until finally he collapsed."

Paul refilled his cup. "You see why I want the whole place calmed down. He didn't really hurt himself this time, but as he gets stronger, he well could."

"We've been going along all right so far, Paul; why now?"

"He probably wasn't awake enough before to notice."

Ben rubbed at his forehead. "So you're saying he's making progress?"

Paul grinned. "I know it doesn't seem like it, and this is something of a setback. I've covered his eyes with a bandage—"

Ben jerked his head up, alarmed.

"Just to give them a rest. Light hurts, especially bright ones like the lamp, or even the reflection off your metal vest buttons. You might want to check over his room, see if anything reflects sunlight onto the bed. You know how the sun hurts your eyes when you have a hangover -- it's worse for him; a pain like a knife when it hits his eyes. Hopefully he'll sleep the rest of the day, though. It'd be the best thing for him."

A new thought occurred to Ben. "He got up. He was trying to get to the basin." Dawning hope lit his eyes.

"Or at least out of bed. But I think you're right, Ben – he's coming back. Give him every chance to sort things through for the next week or so. Keep things simple and give him lots of time to figure out what's going on. Don't worry about leaving him alone for longer stretches – remember how you've felt on the worst day of influenza that you've ever had and multiply it a couple of times. He simply doesn't have the strength to deal with a lot right now, so feed it to him in small bits."

Ben smiled, a joyous expression that lit his face, and he grabbed Paul's hand. "He's going to make it, Paul. He's going to make it."

Paul Martin felt his heart lift, too.

And so Adam Cartwright began to heal. No longer assailed by voices, smells, faces, sounds and lights, he luxuriated in the silence and peace. He spent his small reservoir of energy trying to figure out the voices that spoke to him, now that they came simply, slowly, one person at a time. He would recognize a word here and there, but nothing really hung together enough to make sense. It was like being on one of those whirly-gig wheels he'd ridden somewhere – people shouting, but you could only hear what they were saying when you passed by them. If you tried too hard to stick to one when the others were still beating at you, you ended up dizzy and sick.

More faces had words – names – attached to them now. 'Pa' he'd recognized for a while, but he'd added 'Hoss' and 'Joe' and 'Hopsing.' He particularly liked having Joe around, liked his voice. For some reason, he could understand more of what he said than any of the others. The fifth man he'd finally recognized as a doctor, and when he'd chased everyone out that one day, Adam had forgiven him for all the hurts he'd inflicted. Life had improved since then, and although he knew he was missing large chunks of something, he was content now that the sick whirling of his head had eased.

"Grass . . . good, cattle . . . branding . . ." were words that came from the one who sat with him now, the big one, Hoss. He closed his eyes.

Grass. Tall and green, swishing against his boots as he waded through it.

Cattle. Warm smell, part nice, part foul, but part of life.

Branding. Bawling little ones, yelling for their mamas.

"Leave you to your rest . . ."

His brows furrowed. Leave? Go away? No. He wanted . . . he wanted the big man to stay. A warm hand rested on his shoulder, a palm on his forehead. It eased his headache to have it there, and he turned his head into it. The hand began to slip from his shoulder, and he thought that meant the man – Hoss – was going. He grabbed at it, caught hold, tugged just a little. Big as Hoss was, his hand came back easily.

He opened his eyes again.

"Want me . . . stay?" Hoss said.

What was it Pa had showed him? He nodded, just once.

Hoss broke out into a big smile. ". . . sure . . . big brother . . ."

He closed his eyes again as Hoss continued his story, but this time, there was a smile on his face, too.

"An' every time I stood up, thinkin' he'd gone to sleep, he grabbed hold o' my arm again." Hoss dug into his dinner. "Didn't think I'd ever get down here, but Hop Sing musta knowed somehow, 'cause he came up with a bowl o' that good soup there, an' Adam finally let go."

"He was really listening?" Joe asked, fork forgotten in the air where it held a pile of mashed potatoes.

Hoss sat back in his chair. "I asked him straight out if he wanted me to stay, and he nodded his head, just like that."

"Paul was right," Ben mused. "I wonder if there's some way we can get him to tell us what he wants?"

"Well," Hoss dug back into his dinner, "We can ask him yes and no questions, for a start. Won't do for everything, but if he knows he's getting through to us, it should help."

"Ask him what?" Joe said.

"First thing I imagine he'd like to tell us is if he's hurtin' someplace we can fix up."

"You can do that," Joe said. "You're good at telling what's hurting on a critter."

"'Critter' indeed," scowled Ben.

"Well, it's true," said Joe, unrepentant. "Don't matter much if it's a man or animal, you know Hoss can read 'em like it's printed in a book."

Ben sighed and looked at his middle son. "Well? What do you think?"

"Well, sure, Pa. Y'know I'd do anything to help Adam. Gonna take some time, though. He's pretty wore out tonight, and this ain't the kind o' thing you can rush through." He turned to his little brother. "Joe, you're gonna have to go check on the mine, then, instead of me. I was supposed to go up there tomorrow and talk with Cal about how things are going; y'know, how much they got dug out again and such. Gotta find out if he can tell us when they can start diggin' again."

Joe grimaced. "Okay. I hope I don't have to go in. That place gives me the willies – it did even before Adam got caught."

Ben put a reassuring hand on Joe's arm. "I'm sure you can find out most of what we need to know by just talking with Cal; he's a good foreman. And he won't let you go inside if it isn't safe."

Joe nodded. "Yeah, and the sooner we can start getting silver out of it, the sooner we can buy that stallion we need, get more of that feed Hoss says is helping the broodmares, and some of those windmills Adam talked you into." He stood and rolled his shoulders to loosen the tension from them. "Well, guess I'd better get some sleep then. Gotta get up early if I'm gonna make it out to the mine and then into town."

"Into town?" Ben asked.

"Well, I gotta ask Susie if she can go to the church picnic with me." Joe rose. "Don't worry, Pa, I'll be home for dinner – unless her ma invites me to stay. Mmm, mmm. She does make good pie, her ma does."

"All right, son, just get home before dark."

"G'night, Pa; g'night, Hoss." He headed up the stairs, a long-missing spring to his step.

"He's right – she makes a darn good pie," Hoss said.

Ben laughed. "Well, if Joseph has eased up on his worry enough to be thinking about someone's pie, then I think we might be getting back to normal here."

"Yep, I do believe we might be, Pa."

Eager to see if Hoss had been right, Joe stopped in Adam's room on the way to his own. He walked softly over to the bed and sat carefully on the edge. "Adam?" He waited patiently and was rewarded by a deep breath, then Adam opened his eyes. It seemed to take him a moment to focus, but then a small smile appeared and he reached out with his good hand. Joe took it, gripped it firmly but gently in his own. "You're gonna be all right, big brother."

Adam narrowed his gaze.

"It's gonna take a while longer." He paused, then spaced his next words carefully, "but you'll be all right."

Adam squeezed his hand, a weak imitation of the firm grip he used to give, but Joe felt it and knew it for what it was. His brother recognized him, and he not only understood what Joe had said, he believed him.