BEFORE:
Adam did not see Peggy in the weeks that followed his return from Carson City.
This was a decision that was neither made in response to Will's request nor his father's, rather something that occurred due to outside circumstances. As soon as he had returned from Carson City Adam was leaving home again, first traveling to San Francisco at his father's behest to finalize the details of an impending timber contract, and then seeking isolated respite on the Ponderosa's sprawling landscape, his attention set on rounding up stray cattle. Though he had been directly asked to complete the former task, he had taken it upon himself to do the latter.
He wanted to be alone; he needed room to think in proper, peaceful surroundings, rather than the bustling townscape he had previously escaped to. In the company of Sport and their slowly growing herd of stray cows, he was comforted by the landscape. The warm, quiet days spent beneath the rays of the sun, and the cool, dark nights, spent bundled beneath a blanket in front of a lonely, crackling campfire. He felt more peace surrounded by open land than he could ever feel in any town or even at home. The time he had spent as a young boy roaming various landscapes during his family's travels West had impacted him greatly, leaving him aching for wide open spaces and unpredictability only wilderness could provide. If it had been possible for him to remain in his current surroundings forever, then he may never have gone home.
Everything seemed so much clearer out here, his anger and frustration no more than the slightest of memories, the extended argument with his father seeming like something out of the mildest of bad dreams. Things felt different out here; he felt different out here. The land calmed him, somehow inviting perspective nothing else could. And with this perspective, it was inevitable he would think of his father and their disagreement, how it had started and how it seemed to have no foreseeable end. Some things were impossible to ignore once they had been recognized; some words could never be retracted once they had been said.
"You can't, Adam," Pa had said just after Adam had regained the use of his legs as he firmly denied his oldest son the right to shoulder even the most basic of workload. "I simply won't allow it."
It had all started with a single sentence, a statement that should have been voiced as a request, instead it had left Pa's lips as a demand. Pa had demanded things before, of course. But there was something bothersome about his inflection with this one; there was something inherently problematic about the glint of worry promising to never completely leave Pa's dark eyes. I am so worried about you, those eyes said. I wasn't before your fall, but now, with everything that has changed, I am.
Pa had worried about him before, of course. But there was something unsettling in the way in which he did now. His presence no longer felt comforting, rather claustrophobic. There was something needling about his extended gaze, the way his dark eyes seemed to find and then freeze upon Adam, endlessly looking for a hint of something that could never be verified. What's happening to you? This was a silent question Adam saw so clearly in his father's eyes. And all too often it was accompanied by others: If you wanted this change, then why does it hurt so deeply? It doesn't make sense. Either you're lying about your feelings toward Laura, or you're lying about your feelings about something else.
These were all things Adam knew Pa thought but had not yet voiced. Adam refused to give him an opportunity to. Digging his heels into the ground, he had pushed his father toward a disagreement, an argument without an end meant to distract from the questions he knew Pa was aching to ask, and all the things he would not dare give voice to himself.
What Adam could not say, what he did not want to think about or admit, is that it was not the change itself that had hurt. It was not letting Laura go or having Will take his place. It was not losing Peggy's presence, or having to stand back to allow someone else to take care of her. It was the realization that had come along with all those things. With all his accomplishments, the almost sickening predictability of his deeply dependable nature, the steadfastness of his morality and virtue, he had one glaring flaw. Whatever qualities lurked within a man that allowed him to embrace permanence, making him plant roots and build a life as a husband and father, he did not have them. The idea of being married, being bound to a single woman and place for the remainder of his days, was not just untenable, it was petrifying. Though he had not known he felt this way before, there was no denying it now. Everything seemed so painfully clear.
In romantic relationships, he was more a fighter than a lover. A runner, not a stayer. Sooner or later, he had walked away from every woman he had ever pursued, always thinking this was a decision he made because something about them had been lacking, making them unsuitable for him. Never once had he entertained the notion that he was the one who was unsuitable for them.
He had an irreformable weakness. An irredeemable flaw. In his younger days, he had always believed that when he had found the right woman he would somehow know; he would have feelings that would guide him, a love so fervent and deep that it would demand certain actions take place. It was only now, midway through his thirties, that he knew the truth. He would never experience love like that, because the pain of the past had etched deep scars in his heart, and now he was much too careful to ever allow himself to feel such powerful emotions toward anyone who could be lost. It was not that he did not want to love, to find someone with whom he could share his life; it was that his fear of losing was much more powerful than his want would ever be.
It was a difficult realization for one to admit silently to themselves, how was he ever supposed to admit it to his father? How was he supposed to look at the man who had raised him and tell him that with all the things he had taught him to be and do, this was the one thing he was decidedly incapable of? Or that it was his father's past decisions that had led him to be such a way?
Looking at the land in front of him, Adam stared at a familiar black steer in the distance and frowned. "Oh, great," he mumbled as he nudged Sport forward to lazily close the gap between him and the wayward bovine. When closer inspection of the animal confirmed his immediate suspicion, he groaned.
The animal was property of the Running D. It had made its escape from its allotted grazing ground and onto the Ponderosa's sprawling spread through the hole in the fence dividing their property lines, no doubt. But how the animal had made its way from the corral located near the farmhouse and barn was a mystery.
The hole in the fence should have been fixed by now. It was something Adam had neglected to do both before and after he was betrothed to Laura, and something which had obviously remained overlooked by Will as well—either because he did not care enough to rectify the problem or he did not know how. Will was not a rancher; there were many seemingly basic tasks accompanying such a lifestyle that remained glaringly out of his purview of experiences. This was a fact that led Adam to momentarily wonder if the steer had escaped the Running D's corral because the closing of the door had been overlooked.
"Buddy," Adam sighed as he readied his rope to lasso the misplaced steer. "You're a long way from where you should be."
The steer did not fight the rope when it landed around his neck or when it was tightened. Mercifully, he allowed Adam to guide him away from the thicket of lush wild grass he had found.
Looking between the steer and the small grouping of Ponderosa stock he had found, Adam hesitated briefly, annoyance overwhelming him. He had embarked on this stretch of land to fulfill his own duties and now he was fulfilling those of someone else. Of course, he could have ignored the steer. Allowing it to continue to graze upon his family's land and copulate with Ponderosa stock certainly would not affect him in any direct way. However, he had no choice but to right this wrong now that he was aware of it; he was who he was, after all. All weaknesses and flaws aside, he certainly had his strengths, and putting his own plans and desires aside to help someone—or something—in need was one of them.
He took his time leading the steer back to its home. There was no point in rushing; the sooner the animal was returned to its home, the quicker he would have to return to his own. When he did, he would no longer dread or avoid conversing with his father. He had accepted the inevitability of their conversation, the things he would find himself saying, and the things he knew his father would be quick to say in response. It was not going to be one of their better interactions. In fact, it probably would rank as one of their worst. He did not appreciate his father speaking to Will behind his back. He did not want his father and cousin talking among themselves about him and Peggy or anything else. This annoyance would have to be voiced; the details of what Will had said over breakfast in Carson City divulged.
Adam was skeptical of what his cousin had said. What kind of man felt or even expressed such disinterest in a child whom he had acquired? What kind of man did not care if his daughter—blood or not—sought the advice and favored the company of someone else? It did not make sense; it did not seem likely anything Will had said could be true. Either he did, in fact, care about the friendship Adam shared with Peggy and was lying for some unknown end. Or he really did not care, because he was lying about something else. Neither of these possibilities seemed better than the other; Adam struggled to discern which was worse.
Coming upon the outbuildings of the Running D, a strange feeling began to gather in the pit of his stomach. It was not anxiety, nervousness, anger, or frustration. This feeling was something else completely. Something was wrong; he knew it immediately.
True to his original suspicion, the corral door was wide open, the inside of it empty. The barn was closed. There was no noise to be heard, no animals to be seen. All the curtains covering the windows of the farmhouse were tightly drawn, as if to prevent even the slightest sliver of sunlight to be allowed inside. It was odd to see such a thing, even stranger to acknowledge it. Laura had always taken such care to ensure the curtains were pulled open; she had always embraced the opening of the window panes themselves to allow the afternoon breeze to float through the rooms of the house.
Securing the steer behind the closed door of the corral, he could have easily mounted Sport and rode away. He could have left and allowed things to remain as they were. But he did not, because something inside of him would not allow it.
Making his way to the front door, he knocked only to have the announcement of his presence ignored. He could have left things as they were when the door remained closed, but he did not. Because something was wrong here. He could not walk away; he entered the home instead.
Despite the brightness of the afternoon sun, the entry of the home was dim and dark. It was difficult to distinguish anything beyond the general outlines of the furniture scattered among the space. Nothing looked obviously out of place. If it was not for the curtains preventing light from entering through the windows, he might have convinced himself that no one was home. It was such an odd thing for Laura to allow—his knowledge of her specific habits regarding such a thing was strange in its own way. Perhaps, if he had not pursued her the way he once had, leading him to know her the way he did, then maybe he would not have thought much of the curtains. Maybe he would have been able to turn around and leave, allowing things to remain as they were.
"Peggy?" he asked, his voice becoming lost in the confines of the seemingly empty house. "Laura?"
No one replied.
He stood at the base of the staircase for what felt like the longest time, his heartbeat thudding in his ears as he quietly listened and silently questioned whether it was appropriate for him to ascend the stairs leading to the bedrooms upstairs. It was not seemly for him to travel further into the house. It did not belong to him; he did not belong inside of it under such conditions. Perhaps, at one time he did or could have, but he had no business inside of it now—whether anyone was present or not. This he knew, still, he found he could not bring himself to turn around and leave, because something was horribly wrong with the way things were. He could feel it in the stillness of the air, the dimness of the rooms, and the silence that surrounded him.
"Will?" he asked as he began climbing the stairs. Extending his arm, his hand found the railing, and its linear coolness led him up to the slender hallway containing the bedrooms. The air upstairs felt impossibly cold and incredibly thick, a maddening contradiction that only added to his unease.
"Laura?" he called, his voice a little louder this time.
"Adam?" came the confused reply from behind the cracked half-closed door at the end of the hall, a whisper so faint it was almost as though it had never been voiced.
"Peggy?" Adam asked as his brows furrowed with concern.
For a moment, he hesitated, painfully unsure of how to proceed. He knew neither the bedroom nor the voice belonged to the little girl whose name he had called. Something deep inside of him urged him to ignore the whisper and the half-open door, the dim coldness of the house hidden behind curtains that had been pulled tightly closed. Something inside of him demanded he leave, imploring him to turn around and walk from the house as quickly as he had entered it, because something was terribly wrong. It had nothing to do with him now, but it would not remain that way if he remained where he was. He had no business being here. No reasonable explanation for walking so far into the house. There was nothing he could do that would be enough to change what had already taken place. But he could leave. He could turn around and pretend like he had never come.
His legs and feet moved beneath him, bringing him closer and closer toward the bedroom door until he finally stood in front of it. He simply could not leave, not after already having come so far.
"Laura," he said, then waited for a response that never came.
Lifting his arm, he nudged the ajar door with the palm of his hand. The hinges groaned in bitter protest and folded upon each other slowly. To Adam, it was almost as though the sound was punctuating a reality he had yet to understand or fully realize. A dreadful forewarning of what he could not see.
The smell overwhelmed him immediately. Vile, vigorous, and potent, the scent was so powerful that it overcame his senses and forced him to take an unconscious step back. Stomach turning, he fought the urge to lean over and vomit. The smell was horrendous but familiar, a terrible mixture of steadily decaying flesh and cold blood; it left little doubt of what was being hidden in the darkness of the bedroom.
Covering his nose and mouth with the sleeve of his shirt, he squinted into the darkness, struggling to verify with his eyes what he already knew. Alone on the bed was a body, the lifeless form of a woman who had not called out to anyone. He recognized her dainty figure, the dress that she wore, the color of the hair that was untied and cascading on the pillow behind her head, but her face was completely gone, irrevocably fragmented and fractured, transformed into a bloody hollow heap by a bullet from the shotgun discarded at the foot of the bed.
"Laura," he whispered thickly, his face contorting with horror as he took another step back.
Even among the sheer madness of the days which would follow this one, Adam would find himself looking back at his actions, helplessly questioning why he had entered the house in the first place and if he really had heard the faint voice in the darkness that led him to discover what he had. These would come to be unanswerable questions that would assault him alongside others which were equally as haunting. Why couldn't he have left the steer on the land on which it had been found? Why did he feel a duty to return it to its home? And why did he go inside a house he had no business entering in the first place?
It was the retelling of where he had been and what he had been doing prior to discovering Laura's body that he would struggle to explain in a way that could be understood and believed. He had wanted to be alone, therefore he had no one to collaborate his story. No one to help silence the growing rumors and allegations surrounding his supposed horrendous intentions and actions towards the woman who many assumed had wronged him by marrying his cousin. He had been alone for days before making his gruesome discovery, but it was only after, when he was once again surrounded by people, that he would find himself truly alone.
TBC