BEFORE:

"Talk around town is ugly."

Sitting behind his desk in the far corner of the office, the front sign of which declared his position of prominence in the small town, Sheriff Coffee bent over to procure a bottle of harsh, amber liquid that had been hidden away from view in the bottom of his desk drawer. "But I don't need to tell you that," he added as he placed the bottle on the desk and nodded between it and the twin tin mugs that sat empty.

Sitting opposite the sheriff, Adam appraised the bottle and shook his head. "No, thanks. I don't care for brandy."

"Don't I know it. Of course, I wasn't thinkin' so much about you being fond of the drink, rather how it might help loosen your nerves a bit. Make that talk floatin' about a little easier to endure when you take your leave."

Snorting, Adam wondered if any drink was strong enough to do that. He had not wanted to come here—or even to town. But it could not be avoided. The trip had been born from sheer necessity. His eyes drifted to the door that divided the small office from the back room which housed the jail cells. It was shut, currently hiding the cells' occupants—if there were any—from judgement. There were now people in town who believed he belonged in one of those jail cells, and there were others who believed he should be dead.

In the weeks which had passed between the day he had discovered Laura Dayton-Cartwright's body and this one, his life had taken a drastic, damn-near terrifying turn. A tension was building in the town; fueled by whispered gossip composed of mammoth, unkind speculations and the tiniest of truths.

Sheriff Coffee did not need to tell Adam how the circumstances of Laura's death were being interpreted by outside eyes. He saw it etched in the faces of the townsfolk when he rode into town; he felt the thickness of the anger and indignance in the afternoon air; and he heard it in the statements they traded amongst themselves as they looked at him, never once bothering to lower their voices so they would not be heard.

Rumors had been swirling around the town for months before Laura's death, telling the tale of a clandestine relationship between her and Will while she was still betrothed to Adam. Speculation had been rampant about their little love triangle, whispers that suddenly seemed so innocuous in comparison to how the town's false narrative had shifted, depicting Adam as a slighted lover. A man who had been dishonored by his cousin, betrayed by his betrothed, and left with a thirst for vengeance so powerful it could only be quenched by blood. It was quite an alluring tale—even Adam had to admit that—as wounding and erroneous as it was.

A part of him wanted to be surprised, indignant and angry that anyone would dare think such things, let alone voice them. But he was not, because another, larger part of him could not fault folks for thinking what they did. After all, he was intelligent enough to glean the troublesome conclusions one could easily make with the evidence that had been left behind.

The rifle that had been used to take Laura's life was suspect. Carved deep into the wooden stock was his family's brand. This was a common practice his father had enacted long ago, meant as a safeguard to declare ownership over the weapons in the same way it was used on their cattle. Although, the placement of the carving was done in preparation of decidedly different crimes. If discovered, stolen stock could be shepherded home. Stolen guns, on the other hand, had significantly more grim implications. Marking their weapons with the family brand was meant to be incriminating, and it was.

How did a Ponderosa rifle come to be at the Running D where it was used to kill Laura Dayton? This was a question that was often asked among Virginia City's townsfolk. The answer, though quickly dismissed and forgotten altogether, was not nearly as mysterious or incriminating as folks believed it was. It was a detail that was explained and so easily accepted that the lawman sitting across from Adam had not thought further about it. After all, Will was a Cartwright, too; he had lived with the family for a time and had access to their weapons. If this fact alone had not been enough to explain the rifle's presence near Laura's lifeless body, then Ben Cartwright's subsequent testimony to Sheriff Coffee had.

"I gave Will the rifle," Ben had said and then signed and swore his words to be true. Of course, Adam could see how easily one could dismiss this fact alongside the power of the others—especially when embellishing gossip was one's only concern.

Laura had been with child. This was something that Adam had known because Will had shared it with him. However, it was delicate information that the rest of the town, including Doc Martin, had remained unaware of until after her death. Doc had discovered it while examining Laura's body postmortem, a small yet devastating detail he had then shared with Ben Cartwright in the hopes that he could support his nephew with his grief. It was a detail that Ben had carefully safeguarded, awaiting the moment when Will's pain would demand it be revealed, making clear the depths of it could be understood.

To say Ben was shocked when Adam confided in him that he was aware of Laura's unborn child would have been an understatement. There was, for the briefest of moments, a flicker of unyielding fear in his father's dark eyes; then it was gone, chased away by steely strength as he grasped and held his son's upper-arms a little too tightly. "How do you know that?" Pa had demanded, his voice a little too jagged and deep. "How could you have possibly known that?" And if his father's underlying accusation had not been enough to bring Adam to his knees than the one that followed most certainly did.

As intolerable and infuriating Laura's capricious actions had been to negotiate while she was alive, it was only after her death that her lingering decisions would become too much to bear. Though she was gone, she had left a diary behind. Volatile and vile, the words which she wrote were not enough to make Adam appear culpable for her death according to Sheriff Coffee or any law; however, they were sufficient to shift the opinions of those around him. It was enough to destroy his reputation. Enough to make the townsfolk speculate further about their so-called torrid, triangular love affair, and it was enough to make his father question something else.

Uncorking the brandy bottle, Sheriff Coffee poured a little into both mugs. Dragging one of them closer to himself, he pushed the other in front of Adam who appraised the drink with a frown.

"I said I didn't want a drink," Adam said.

"I know," Coffee affirmed. Holding his own mug in-between both hands, he leaned back in his chair and sipped lazily. "Drink it anyway. Think of it as a celebration."

"Of what?"

"The continuation of your freedom."

Brows furrowing, Adam's frown deepened. "That isn't funny."

"I didn't say it was funny."

"Then what is it supposed to be?"

"Given the hubbub that's floating about," Coffee shrugged, "true, I guess. I suppose I owe you an apology."

"For what?"

"For failing to do my job, for not being damn smart enough to figure out the truth of what happened at the Running D the day Laura was killed. There's something very peculiar about those series of events, and it's a shame people around here ain't taking the time to talk about that. There's just so much damn speculation now, and the problem with speculation is all it ends up doing is convoluting the truth. You may have discovered Laura's body, but, rumors aside, you ain't the type of man to take somebody's life, not like that, and not for the reasons people are so eager to believe. And then there's Will, who nobody seems to care much about, except to feel poorly for him. But, I gotta say, Adam, there's something strange there, too. I can't put my finger on it, and with him being away from home when his wife was killed there ain't a whole lot for me to do. I'd question him further, but that's damn near impossible seeing as how your pa has decided to stand between his nephew and the world as of late."

Pursing his lips, Adam nodded politely. He was not interested in discussing the stance his father had taken with regards to Will; Pa had become protective of his nephew, unwilling to entertain even the tiniest criticism of any of Will's behavior—past or present. This was another thing Adam wished he could say he did not understand. But he did. There was a grim solidarity between Pa and Will now; their respective life experiences, as different as they were, had suddenly intersected, leaving them both unwilling members of a tragic group. Pa thought he understood Will's grief in a way that most others could not begin to. That Adam himself could not-or at least that was what Pa had said, the last time they had bothered to speak to one another.

"So, how are things between you and your pa?" Coffee probed.

"Fine," Adam said. As Coffee cast him a skeptical gaze, he found himself wondering how or if the older man knew the truth. Surely, he could not be so easily read, his true emotions always hidden so carefully and deeply that they could never be fully distinguished. "Tense," he amended, not really understanding why, if had decided upon speaking the truth, he had chosen to soften it. Things between him and his father were, in fact, much worse than tense.

Coffee nodded as though he understood. "Things between him and you have been like that for a while, I suppose recent events have done more harm than good."

"That's an understatement."

Adam stared at the mug for a moment longer before giving in and reaching for it. He held it in his hand, feeling the coolness of the tin against the warmth of his skin as he remained determined not to drink. Not yet, at least. Leaning forward, he shifted in his seat, moving his free hand to procure an item from his jacket pocket. Tossing Laura's diary on the desk, he nodded curtly at it. "That is a work of fiction," he said.

"I figured as much," Coffee mused. "I suppose I owe you a second apology. I should have known that diary existed before it made its rounds among the townsfolk. I should have," he paused, shaking his head as he seemingly struggled to define and articulate what he wished he could have prevented most. "Protected you better from the speculation of small minded folks."

"Wouldn't have made much difference."

"It would have made a big difference," Coffee disagreed. "I probably would have handed the diary over to you and your pa to look at, but it didn't need to be publicly seen, passed around from one person to the next like a God-damn library book. I swear, if'n I ever find out who's responsible for lifting it from the Running D and bringing it to town, then there's gonna be some serious consequences."

Adam finally lifted the mug to his lips and drained its contents in one drink. He hoped the liquor would be enough to assuage his sudden, building uneasiness. It was a feeling that did not bode well for the remainder of the conversation, his reappearance among the townsfolk and their whispering in the thoroughfare outside of the small building, or his eventual ride home.

Emboldened by the words Laura had written, the townsfolk now thought they knew the truth about what happened between her, Will, and Adam. Fueled by both the lies Laura had written to herself and Adam's surreptitious knowledge of her unborn child, Ben Cartwright now doubted the morals of his oldest son.

Laura had written that after she and Will were married, Adam had approached and declared his love for her. It was the beginning of a torrid, clandestine love affair she documented in repulsive detail. Adam would not have thought her mind capable of such vivid depictions had he not read the diary himself. He could not have believed her to be so slandering and odious had he not had the displeasure of once knowing her so completely.

With all the falsifications the diary contained, it was not without its share of truths. In her story, she had embedded small details that meant little in the larger narrative she was crafting; still, they were not without purpose. The small truths she included served to reinforce the lies she had written as truths in other people's minds.

Laura and Adam had courted for a time; they had been betrothed. They knew things about each other, because during their time together they had shared things. Thoughts. Occasional feelings. A physical closeness that some might look unkindly upon. With all the things Laura had made up, these were the ones Adam now desperately wished she had not told the truth about.

It was not Adam's variable behavior prior to discovering Laura's body or the presence of the Ponderosa rifle that shook Ben's faith in his son. It was the diary. It was the small truths in it that Laura had told, the things she had noted in shameful detail, the marks and scars upon Adam's skin that lurked, hidden away beneath his clothes in places she had no business of knowing. The same marks and scars that Adam's own father was knowing of because of the sole fact that he was his father. He had cared for him when he was sick; he had nursed him back to health after his horrendous fall, caring for him in ways that would have been unseemly for others to do.

Ben was Adam's father, and as such, he was privy to things others were not. Laura had once been Adam's girl, his fiancé, and future wife; as such, she had become privy to certain things, too. He had not dreamed she would have documented them; he could not have predicted she would memorize his body and recount it in such a horribly detailed manner.

"I showed the diary to my father," Adam said. "Like you asked."

"He read it?"

"Sure did."

"And?"

"And it did more harm than good. He believed me before." Shaking his head sadly, Adam reached for the bottle of brandy and poured a generous amount into his mug. He did not want another drink, but his uneasiness was building again, making it hard to speak and even more difficult to remain silent.

"And now?" Coffee asked.

"And now I don't know what he believes."

"Meaning what exactly?"

"Meaning exactly that. I don't know what he believes."

Coffee cast Adam a look that declared the very notion unbelievable. "Nah," he said, waving his hand dismissively. "You gotta be takin' his words wrong, Adam. Like you said, things between you two are tense. You gotta be reading a little too much into his frustration with the situation. There ain't no one in this world who knows or believes in you the way your pa does. Surely, he sees through the lies that gal wrote."

Draining the contents of his mug, Adam abandoned it on the desk and stood, then immediately wondered why he had done so. He had no intention of taking his leave, not with so many questions left to ask. They had not spoken of Will yet, his reaction—or lack-there-of—to his wife's tragic death, and the strangeness of his long, sporadic absences from both the Running D and Virginia City before and after Laura had died. The townsfolk were so focused on Adam's alleged behavior they had forgotten to take note of that of another, it seemed.

Coffee appraised Adam curiously. "Going somewhere?"

"No." Adam shook his head. "I just got tired of sitting, that's all."

"That's the work of the brandy," Coffee surmised. "Your pa likes it because it relaxes him and tames his moods. You hate it because it makes you fidgety, fills you up with so many nerves that you don't know what to do with them."

Adam frowned. "If you knew that, then why did you give it to me?" he asked. It was a question that sounded as petulant as it felt, more suitable from the mouth of someone of a lesser age. It couldn't be helped. Not now. As Coffee said, the brandy was at work, making him feel skittish, impatient, uncomfortable beneath the elder man's stagnant stare.

"I didn't have anything else to drink," Coffee said. "Tell me more about what your pa said about the diary."

"Why do you want to know so badly?"

"Because if'n I knew what he thought then maybe I could figure a way to talk him out of believing it."

"Or maybe you'll end up trusting his opinion on the matter and you'll turn on me, too."

"I seriously doubt your pa has turned on you."

"The two of you have known each other a long time. Hell, you're practically his best friend, and my only friend at the moment. With all the things he and I have fought over lately, I would prefer if your opinion of me didn't become one of those things."

"Don't be stupid. You know damn well I ain't your pa's best friend; that is a position that has always belonged to you. And besides that, I've known you for a very long time. I've grown quite fond of you over the years. I know what's in your head and heart; I know that what you say is to be trusted. Angry or not, your pa knows that, too. Between your nasty fall and your pa havin' to help you heal after, it's been a rough year for you both. Don't you think it's about time you cut each other a little slack?"

"I think I've cut my father plenty of slack over the years."

"You're mad because you think he's hard on you. But what you don't see is oftentimes you're hard on him, too."

"Spoken like a true best friend."

"Don't do that."

"Do what?"

"You got the whole town against you. Don't go out of your way to alienate me, too."

"I thought you trusted my opinion."

"I do," Coffee said. "That's why I want you to tell me what you think I don't know about Laura's diary, and then I want you to tell me that what she said about you ain't true. Tell me, Adam, good or bad, I want to hear it either way."

Adam stood still, frozen in the place by the disarming offer. He had not realized he was so desperate to hear the words—although not from the man who had voiced them. Coffee had said what his father should have; he had so easily given what Pa refused to offer. God, if only Pa could have given enough to allow himself to offer the support that was so desperately needed, then maybe Adam could have given a little, too. Then maybe things would be different than they were, not easier, just not quite as hard. Maybe the things that seemed intent on dividing them would shift and they could drift closer together rather than further apart.

"Well?" Coffee asked expectantly. "Are you gonna expand upon the conversation, or are you gonna leave after all?"

"Laura's diary," Adam admitted softly. "There were some things in it that were true."

"Like what?"

"Like…" Adam hedged as he felt a rush of embarrassed awkwardness. It was difficult enough to know the town had read such details; it was scandalizing to have to confirm them. "Like," he repeated, resigning himself to say the statements as quickly as he could. Best to just say difficult things quickly, lest he hesitate and never say them at all. "Like when it came to certain excerpts, dealing with our intimacies and such; Laura detailed some very specific scars and marks that could appear quite damning to the right audience."

Eyebrows raising, Coffee expelled an exasperated sigh. "Oh, you have got to be joshing me," he said, his tone becoming tired. "You're tellin' me that your pa is believing all the things Laura wrote just because she happened to include somethings that were right. That's just about the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my life. He can't really think you made to your age with your virtue intact? Stupidest damn thing I've ever heard. You and Laura were engaged for a time! I know that doesn't make it better, but it surely doesn't make it any worse. Though people don't want to think or own up to such things, it ain't like they don't happen. Folks just don't speak of it is all. Your pa knows that. Just as I'm sure he knows, it's unfortunate Laura decided to write such things down, and even more unfortunate they've been so widely shared."

"I don't think Pa cares so much about what Laura and I did when we were engaged. I think it's more about what she said happened when we weren't."

"He cannot believe the rest of that bullshit story."

Adam shrugged. "I don't know what he believes. I know he's angry; he is furious with me. I know he's worried about Will and what he thinks and believes about the diary and everything else. Pa's more worried about what Will will say or do in response to all of this than anything people have to say about me."

"I'm sure that ain't true."

"Who cares if it is?" Adam said, his tone of voice betraying his question. Of course, he cared what his father thought. How could he not? But if Pa was not going to look at the situation with a clear, untainted lens, then he could not make him. He could not make his father see something he was desperately trying not to.

From the beginning, there had always been an invisible line separating Adam and Will. They were so different—too different to ever find themselves without the tensions which divided them. At one time, Adam could remember his father standingsteadfastly in the center of this unseen line, seemingly resigning himself to never choose either side, silently decreeing that whatever differences and conflict existed between Will and Adam belonged solely to the two. But lately Adam felt his father move away from the center of the line and the side where now stood was not that of his own son. It was not that Pa did not care about the truth of what happened to Laura; it was that he had already decided what it was. In his eyes, Will's grief over Laura took precedence over everything else.

"I'm not a child," Adam said. "I don't need my father to bolster my words in order to make them true. If he doesn't want to believe me then that's his choice. He can't be angry when I make one of my own."

"Which is what?"

"I think I'll take another ride out to the Running D, see if Will has finally decided to take responsibility for what he's taken on and began to properly care for his newly acquired ranch and my girl."

"Your girl, huh?"

Adam shrugged. He had not meant to refer to Peggy as his own. The words had left his mouth impetuously; he would not take them back now that they had, because lack of intention did not make them any less true. And if keeping his distance from Peggy had proved difficult before, it was downright impossible now. With both her mother and father now dead, and with her stepfather's interest in her sporadic at best, she needed someone to look after her properly. Will had never been one to do that.

"You be careful now," Coffee warned. "Don't you be looking for any more trouble."

"I never look for trouble."

"That don't mean it won't find you. You be careful when it does."

"I'm always careful."

"Except for when you ain't. I mean it, Adam. If you want to check up on that little gal, then I ain't gonna stop you, but that don't mean I can stop what Will is gonna think about it, or what the townsfolk will think about you doing such a thing, or what your pa will say, for that matter."

Shaking his head dismissively, Adam strode toward the front door. He never did have much use for what others thought of him.

TBC