NOW:

With all the things that had changed over the passing years there was one that had not; Adam was not good at convalescing.

As soon as he was able to rise from bed and stand on his own, the pain of his wound ebbing enough to allow him to walk short distances unattended, he was up and about. He did not venture outside of the bedroom, any place beyond the doorway still seeming just too far to successfully trek, but he did shuffle around a great deal inside of it, striding from one end to another at a painfully glacial pace, or making his way to the window to look upon the activities of the ranch yard.

With his permission, Peggy had taken to exercising Bingo daily, and the good-natured appaloosa easily complied each time she saddled and mounted him, directing him forward with a click of her tongue and nudge of her boot. Unprovoked by anyone—and decidedly uninvited by the girl—Jamie had begun accompanying Peggy on her daily rides. It was something that if the boy had not decided upon doing, Ben would have instructed him to do, or done himself. Given what had happened to Adam, he did not want Peggy venturing out alone, lest she stumble upon trouble, or go looking for it.

Ben had kept Lil, Peggy, Noah, and Jamie away from town. Hoss and Joe, however, he had not. Delegating to them the bi-weekly supply run, he had instructed them to go together, requesting they complete the task quickly while gathering information about the townsfolk's opinions about Adam. Upon their return, they had sadly verified what Roy Coffee had already warned.

"There's some truly terrible talk floating around," Joe said. "The details of which I do not ever intend to repeat."

"It's bad, Pa," Hoss sadly concurred. "The womenfolk have been passing around Laura's diary; they're all up in a tizzy about the things they read, and the men are riled. Not even Abigail Meyers had a good thing to say about Adam, and neither did her husband Hank. Of course, he never really was fond of Adam to begin with, given what he thinks happened between Adam and Miss Abigail when he wanted to court her. I know he and Adam made their peace when Abigail agreed to become Hank's wife, but I reckon that's all over now."

"A lot of things are going to be over now," Joe said. "Pa, I know Adam's intent on staying sheriff, but I really don't think he should. Standing tall is only going to get him so far, not far enough with those folks, I'm afraid. Somebody already shot him once, what happens if they try to do it again?"

"They won't," Ben said firmly. His conviction was forced. He was as worried about the proposition as Hoss and Joe. "I won't let them."

"Yeah. And what is Adam going to let you do?"

Hoss cast Joe a careful glance. "What Joe means to say is…" Mouth hanging slightly agape, he hesitated, seemingly at a loss for how to proceed. "You see," he continued, focusing his attention on his father. "Me and Joe, we've been talkin' and the thing is… well, if Adam wants to go back to Virginia City that's one thing, but if he wants to take his children, or even Lil with him, then that's something else. We think they oughta stay here, with us, where we can protect them until this all dies down again."

"Or really explodes," Joe said.

"You want to withhold Adam's children from him," Ben said flatly.

Expression pinched with compunction, Hoss cringed.

Joe shook his head. "Not us," he said. "You."

"Me?" Ben asked.

"It wouldn't be right coming from us," Hoss said. "After all, you're his pa—our pa, too."

"And you think that gives me the right to tell Adam what to do," Ben provided.

"Not with himself," Hoss clarified. "Just with those kids."

Ben shook his head. He would not do it—despite how much he wanted to. He could not tell Adam what to do with his life, children, or job. He could only support him on whatever path he chose to travel—even if the one his oldest son seemed intent on taking was menacing and bleak.

"Your brother knows what he's doing," he said, punctuating his words with a firm nod. "It is not for you to question or second-guess his decisions. Your only job is to support him the best you can. Adam is a good father. I do not believe he would do anything that would endanger his children. He will make the right choices for himself and his family. He will do what he must to protect what he has."

The statements put an end to the conversation, but they did nothing to soothe the fear it had aroused. Coupled with Ben's doubt it created an overpowering apprehension that seemed intent on swallowing him whole. What if Roy Coffee was right? What if Adam was looking for a fight? Not running away from something rather toward it. Was he a dog that had run with wolves for so long that his instincts, his very nature had become changed? It did not seem likely in the moments Ben spent with Adam. Not with the way his son was acting toward him now.

While Adam did not complain about Lil's cosseting or Ben's persistent presence, it did not take long for either thing to begin visibly thinning his patience, grinding his nerves down to their very last thread. Even so, he kept masterful jurisdiction over his words and his tone of voice, understanding how close young and impressionable ears lingered.

Time had proven Peggy's worry about Noah not recognizing his father without a beard as misplaced. The tot had never shown any visible confusion over Adam's identity. He spent nearly every minute of the day in his father's company; it was not often he could be convinced to stray from Adam's side as he began to cling onto his only remaining parent with the same intensity and persistence previously only displayed toward his security blanket.

Holding tightly to his father's hand, Noah walked with him across the room when the slight exercise was needed. He stood obediently when Adam took to gazing out the bedroom window. He slept when Adam slept, settling in beside him beneath the covers of the bed. It would have been endearing had Ben not thought the development worrisome, the assumed persisting anxiety prompting his grandson's clingy behavior a little too bothersome to dismiss.

What did Noah know that the rest of them did not? About the pain of the past, or the struggles the future promised? What did he remember about San Francisco? What kind of memories and grief would he express if he could only open his mouth and speak?

Who was the wolf? And who was the mouse, the person who had shot Adam in Virginia City, declaring him a murderer with a pool of his own blood, this person who Roy Coffee was convinced Adam remembered but was pretending he did not. What was the purpose of keeping such a thing a secret? Of not holding them publicly responsible for what they had done? Adam was the sheriff, he had the power to do that, and he had Roy Coffee to help. However, since waking up Adam had made it clear he did not want Coffee's help. He did not think the man could protect him as well as his badge could. The badge that the older man had once worn, the one he had handed over to Adam when he retired. But Coffee had not retired, not really. He may not have been sheriff anymore but he was Adam's deputy and still very much involved with upholding the law of the land.

Growing a little stronger and better each day, Adam seemed preoccupied with holding on to the answers to the questions that sat heavily upon his father's mind and heart. Not that Ben pressed him for answers. He did not. He did his best to bite his tongue and swallow his words each time he came too close to asking something he knew Adam would not take kindly to.

Time seemed to pass too quickly as Adam healed enough to begin making new plans, and then the day for him to leave came. They did not speak about this day before it arrived. They did not really speak of anything at all.

Standing in the doorway of his son's room, Ben watched, his heart feeling like it had risen from his chest to become lodged as a lump in his throat, as Adam sat gingerly on the side of his bed, slowly buttoning the black shirt he had emancipated from where it had been stored for years in the bureau. He wore a pair of dark pants he obtained from the same place. His feet and face were both bare. His boots had been stripped from his body after he had been shot and then procured by Hop Sing who had taken great care in removing the bloodstains which had seeped into the leather. Since the day Adam had requisitioned his father's help to shave his beard, he had kept his face free of hair. He looked so much like the man he had once been, but different, too. A strange combination of familiar and strange, older but still young. At his age, he had another lifetime ahead of him, so many things left to do and live for. Oddly, Ben could not help the macabre notion that, donning no other color but black, Adam was dressing for death instead.

He could not help worrying any more than he could deny the anguish he felt. For weeks he had looked after his oldest son, kept him close and safe while he healed, all the while he, Hoss, and Joe awaited a fight from the townsfolk that never came. No one came looking for Adam at the Ponderosa, bellowing their accusations and false beliefs, demanding a fight with or more dire consequences for the wounded sheriff. It was uncertain whether this was due to their malicious talk harboring no real action, or the threat of Ben Cartwright's wrath if they were to enter his property and act upon it. What the future would bring now that Adam had recovered enough to face the antagonistic and adversarial crowd was also uncertain. From the outside, what he was stepping back into seemed like something out of a nightmare, tasking himself with protecting a community that did not want to respect his authority, or tolerate his presence.

Ben could not help thinking Peggy's fears would be proven true: things had gotten better, and now they were going to become worse. He thought about Hoss and Joe and what they had asked him to do. He thought about Adam returning to town and bringing his children with him. There would be no protecting Peggy and Noah from the narrative swirling around town or people who meant to see their father harmed. It never had been possible to protect Peggy, but Noah was still so young. He had time and room to grow into anything he put his mind to. How could those children be expected to return to town and live beneath the crippling weight of the unkind stories told about their father? How could Adam think of returning to it himself?

"Adam," Ben quietly said from his post by the door. "Maybe you oughta back out of this thing. Take it easy for another week or two."

Settling his hands on his knees, Adam appeared thoughtful. "Do you know who I've spent the last few months thinking a great deal about?"

"Who?"

"Ed Payson."

Ben frowned. "The gunslinger."

"I thought about what the folks around here thought of him. What Billy Buckley did to him because of a damn story that held very little truth. A single mistake should not cost a man the rest of his life, but it usually does. Just because he can move past something, that does not mean others will or even can. Back then, I remember wondering why people couldn't let Ed's past go and leave well enough alone. I remember telling Ed that he needed to learn to walk away. He had everything he needed or wanted; he could have it, if only he gave up the fight. In the end, he couldn't do that. Back then, I didn't understand why, but now I do, because now I can't walk away either. There is no backing out or down. There is no walking away, at least not from this. I'm too far in now. I'm too entrenched."

Ben did not know what to think or say. He did not like the things his son was saying any more than the calmness of Adam's voice or expression. There was something wrong about what was going on. Something wrong with the way things had been and how swiftly they had changed. Adam had spent so much time being angry at him and now he was not. It was a development Ben might have been happy about if the two of them had reached any kind of resolution. If he had apologized to Adam and Adam had accepted. If Adam had spoken about the loved ones he had lost, or Ben had told the truth about Ohio. But none of that had happened.

All these things were still hanging unsaid between them, and Adam did not seem to care about a single one.

"Who is the wolf, Adam?" Ben asked. He had held on to his questions long enough. He simply could not hold on to them anymore. "The one who came back and ruined things in San Francisco."

If Adam was confused by the statement, he gave no indication. "Peggy blamed the old big, bad wolf, huh?" It was more statement than question, his voice still so eerily calm. He shrugged as though such a thing made sense and did not elaborate further.

"Adam, please, I don't want to waste time with pointless speculation or conjecture. I just want the truth."

"Years ago, when I left the life I had here, so did I. You say you want the truth but you don't even know what questions to ask. You don't even know what you're looking for, and, back then, neither did I. All I had was a bunch of worthless feelings, fear, anger, and doubt. I reckon that's another thing you and I have in common now."

"Are you talking about Ohio?" Ben asked, confused.

"I'm talking about a lot of things."

"Adam, I..." Ben began and then hesitated. He did not want to say anything that would risk dissolving their cordial rapport, leading them to disagree, or worse: fight. A fight could bring them truly closer, or tear them apart once and for all. "I don't know what to say to you," he said. "I don't know what it is you need to hear from me in order for there to be true peace between us."

"I don't need to hear anything."

"From anyone?"

"From you. I know that's a difficult thing for you to make peace with, especially being the kind of man that you are."

"And what kind of man am I?"

As Adam grew thoughtful, Ben dreaded the response his son would give.

"You're strong," Adam said eventually. "Full of conviction when you want to be. You're fierce about your sons, intense and willful when you think they're not headed in the direction they should be. In some instances, you coddled us too much, and others you left us to our own devices when we really needed help. You stood beside me in damn near everything, except in the fights when I truly needed you to. When you found Will you protected him too much, because the person you were really trying to protect was yourself. You just could not let go of the narrative you created about your own life."

Oddly, Ben was bolstered by the shift in conversation, the direction Adam had chosen and the person they were finally speaking about. He had been so worried about bringing it up; it was encouraging Adam had done so.

"Before I found Will alive in Pine City," Ben said, "I asked you about Ohio and you said you did not remember anything. I wanted to trust you. I wanted that to be the truth. Son, you have to understand, you must know my intentions were pure. If you did not remember that time then I did not want to remind you of it."

"Oh, I understand," Adam said gruffly, the deepness of his voice seeming to declare the opposite true. "When I was a boy, I used to think that my father was the bravest man in the world. Then I grew up and I realized he was a coward, and then later I realized I was a coward, too."

"Maybe as my son you never understand those events," Ben said calmly. "But as a father to a young son you are raising alone, I know you do. You were just an infant when we left the east in search of greater things out west. I had no idea how difficult the journey would be. I knew it would be challenging, but I did not know how downright impossible it would sometimes feel. You were so young; and you needed so much, things I could not begin to give you. Back then, I did not have what you have now, a family and place to come back to after the tragedies you've suffered. Somewhere to rest when the outside world begins to feel hopeless and bleak. I was alone—we were alone. I did not have a family, a father I would trust with my child. My father was not a kind man, Adam. He was a monster, hostile, hard-hearted, and dangerous. When I was a teenager, I did not just leave his home, I escaped, and then I ran. I did everything in my power to make myself into a different kind of man than he was. I promised myself I would never look back, that the things that happened did not have to matter if I pretended they had never taken place. So that's what I did, and for a long time it worked. Then I made the mistake of trusting my older brother with my son."

"You expected him to be different than he turned out to be."

"I did. John ran away from our father's home long before I did. He knew what our father was like. He was supposed to be better than that, Adam. He was supposed to be wiser. What other purpose does pain serve if a man does not learn from the events that caused it? If he doesn't look upon the mistakes of his father and decide to be a better man for his son? I walked away from the family I was born into determined to be a different man than my father was. It was my mistake for believing John decided upon growing into a different kind of man, too."

"He did not," Adam said. His voice held no emotion; it was merely a statement of fact. "And neither did Will, but you knew that, because you were the one that found him. You knew he had problems when you brought him here. You knew he was a problem. You knew what kind of man he had grown into. There were things about him that the rest of us could not readily see, but you saw them right away, because you knew the kind of home you and John had grown up in, and you knew what kind of home Will had grown up in, too. Instead of admitting the truth, doing something that would have prevented Will from hurting anyone, you kept the past hidden and lied for him. You knew what was going on in the home he shared with Laura and Peggy; you kept it a secret; you did nothing to stop him."

"I did everything I could," Ben said. "I spoke to Will about it. I kept him as close to me as I could, and some days, as far away from the Running D as I could get him. It was an impossible situation, son. There was no easy or quickly accessible solution. I was trying to shepherd him; I was trying to help him."

"You were trying to help yourself by preserving the lies you built your life on. If I couldn't know about your father, or Ohio, then no one else could either. And Will threatened to tell. Didn't he? He knew the past because John never hid it from him the way you hid it from me, or even Hoss, and Joe. Will, he knew it all, everything you had decided to pretend did not exist. When he came back you had a choice: tell the truth or continue running from it and cling to the lie."

"It wasn't a lie. It was an omission. There comes a time in a man's life when it is no one's business what kind of people he came from, or who his father was or is. It's the man's own behavior, the way he conducts himself that matters to those around him. My father was who he was, so was my brother for that matter. You spent ten days in his household when you were nearly four years old. I know it was not a pleasant time. I know he was strict and cruel, but, son, it was ten days. I came back and we moved on from it. We found good things and we had a good life. How can what happened in Ohio hold any weight in comparison to that? It should not make a difference now."

"It doesn't. Don't you understand? It isn't Ohio that's wedged between us. It isn't what John did to me as a child. It's what you did for Will as a grown man. You knew what kind of man—what kind of husband and father he was and did nothing to stop him. You hid what he did. That makes you culpable; it makes you responsible for his crimes."

"Crimes?" Ben asked, his confusion etching deep lines upon his face. "What do you mean by his crimes? Will was heavy-handed with Peggy, unkind to Laura, but, Adam, I stepped in. You're right in saying I lied about it. I lied to you. I kept it a secret, because I did not want you to know. I thought I was protecting you. You were so unhappy, struggling to find peace and firm footing in life after your fall and your engagement to Laura ended. I knew that however finite your feelings for Laura had been, that your love for Peggy was pure and true. I did not want you to know that Will had hurt her, that his hand had grown a bit too firm. I was afraid of how such a thing would make you feel. What it would do to you. I wanted to protect you."

"You lied to me to protect me."

"Yes."

"And yourself," Adam said strictly. "You knew, the whole goddamn time, you did. You did whatever you had to, you said whatever came to mind to keep me away from Peggy. She may have hated Will and was unaccepting of him as her stepfather but she had good reason to, and you knew what it was. You looked me in the eyes day after day and you lied about what was going on. You made it seem like there was something wrong with me. You made me feel like I was the one in the wrong."

"I wanted to protect you. I wanted much more for all of you than what fate allowed—"

Adam lifted a warning index finger. "Don't you dare speak to me about fate. Fate did not have a single thing to do with this. You made a choice. You decided to value your lies over all else, and then you stood back and looked upon the situation you had created and pretended like you had nothing to do with it. You pretended like it was my frustration, obstinance, and dislike of Will that made me do for Peggy what I did. I took her away from the man that was hurting her and when I returned to you, you destroyed me for it."

"I just wanted to protect you," Ben repeated mournfully. He could never be redeemed for his past actions, he knew that. But he could explain. He could give Adam something to hold on to other than the horrible words he had once said. "I wanted you to be happy. I wanted Laura and Peggy to be safe. I wanted Will to be a better man than his father had shaped him to be. I tried my best, and lord knows it was far from good enough, but I spoke to Will. Repeatedly, I did, and when he did not seem intent on heeding my direction or advice, I went to Roy Coffee. Together, we visited Laura and tried to encourage her to speak about what was going on. She refused, and then there was nothing to be done after that. Will was her husband; he had more power over her than I did, and she did not want to talk about what was going on. There was nothing else to be done at the time, and then, of course, Laura did what she did. She wrote that diary and left it in town. Then she took her own life and your reputation died with her."

"And what about after? Why did you stop trying to protect Peggy after Laura died? Why did you leave her in the company of a man you knew meant to hurt her?"

Pressing his lips closely together, Ben could not form an acceptable answer. There was not one. He had no reasonable explanation for doing what he had done—or had not done, rather. "Foolishly, I thought it had passed," he said. "Will and I were spending a great deal of time together at that point; I thought the strength of his grief had quenched his anger. I thought his pain would shape him into a better man than who he had decided to be. Adam, I failed Peggy, I know that. I failed you, and I failed Will, too."

"You're right," Adam said. "You did."

"And what does that mean for us now?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing?"

How could it mean nothing? After all, was this not the mistake that had shattered and then reshaped everything? How could talking about it mean nothing? How could it not change anything?

Looking at Adam, Ben realized what his son already knew. What even Peggy had known. Things had already changed. They had shifted a long time ago, and nothing would make them the way they once were. Nothing could return them to how they used to be.

Standing, Adam looked around the room. "I appreciate the recent hospitality," he said. "Thank you for doing what you did. Taking care of me and my children when I was unable to." He looked at Ben. "I can't stay in this house any longer. I hope that is something you will choose to understand and accept rather than fight."

"Adam," Ben whispered, his emotions feeling much too close to the surface as he thought about his son leaving the safety of the ranch house, mounting his horse, and entering a town whose goodwill toward him had long run out. "I don't want you to go."

"There's nothing else to be done. Trust me, I know."

"There is everything else to be done."

"I'm going back to Virginia City. If I don't, those people won't look at me the same; I won't look at myself the same."

"I thought the way the townsfolk looked at you was the problem."

"It's part of it."

"What's the other part?"

"Me," Adam said simply. His expression softened, his eyes clouding with regret. "I don't hate you for Ohio, I want you to know that. I don't fault you for not telling me, or falling captive to your fear when Will returned. I know what it's like to work hard for the life you have and the stability you've given your children, only to have someone threaten to take it away. The only real difference between you and I is that you kept a firm hold on what you built and I allowed what I had found to slip through my grasp. I didn't hold on to it tightly enough. I did not truly know what to do with it when I had it. You were right when you said I wasn't fit to be a husband. Lord knows, I hate saying it, but not admitting it outright does not make it any less true. I used to believe I was a better father than you were, though. Given what's happened, and what I'm about to ask of you, I reckon, I don't think that's true anymore. I am going back to town, and Peggy and Noah need to remain far away from it, at least for right now. I need you to look after them for a while."

Deeply grieved by his son's admission, Ben was horrified by his request. It was his worst fear confirmed. What kind of resolution was this? For he and Adam to speak openly about Ohio and Will only for nothing to change. For his son to become privy to his greatest mistake only to repeat it with his own children.

"Leaving you in Ohio was a mistake, son," he said. "Leaving your children here would be a mistake, too. I know you think it's different, because you won't be far away from them, but it is. Abandonment is abandonment, it does not matter the circumstance. With the way he clings to you, Noah won't understand, and Peggy will act like she does, but deep down, she will not. Those children need you with them. They already lost their mother; do not make them lose their father, too."

"I won't have them with me. It isn't safe, not anymore."

"There is another option. You could stay with them here."

"I can't do that."

"No. You don't want to do that."

"Can't, don't want to, what's the difference?"

"Life and death."

"You've been talking to Roy Coffee too much."

"I think maybe I've been talking to him too little."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"He said you were lying," Ben said bluntly. "He said you know who shot you and that there was a reason you did not pull your gun."

Adam nearly rolled his eyes. "Roy Coffee says a lot of things."

"Maybe, but he doesn't lie."

"No," Adam snorted. "He just misleads. He told you I was lying, well then let me tell you I am not, and let me tell you something else: he did lie. He lied to me. Before I ever came back here, he promised he'd talk to you. I came back into your life thinking you knew everything, only to find out you knew nothing at all. That should not have been a surprise, and maybe it really wasn't. Nothing about anything I found here truly was. Not that backwards town or the opinions of the people who live in it. Not your eternal anger and fear or the way you still want to control your grown sons. Not the way Joe and Hoss welcomed me as though I had never left. The only thing that really surprised me was Jamie, but even that made sense after a time. You saw a kid who didn't have anyone in the world to look after him properly and you took him in, claiming him as your own. It's a shame you choose to judge me so harshly for doing the same thing."

"I don't judge you for taking Peggy. I'm proud of what you've done for that girl. It's because of you she has a future in front of her; it's your love that's made her capable and strong. You took her away from a broken home and you built her a new one."

"Yeah, I did do that." Staring at Ben, Adam's disappointment was palpable. "And do you know what you did for her? Nothing. The secrets you kept are what broke her, and she is broken. You can't see that now, because you've been too preoccupied with your damn guilt and redeeming yourself that you have not taken the time to see what's right in front of you. There's a cost to keeping secrets; a price to the lies we tell so that we can live with the horrible things we've done. You taught me that, but it's the years that passed between us that taught me that people who tell lies are usually the ones who are least affected by them. You protected Will, and it's Peggy, not me, who must live with the scars of your decision. All these years, Pa, I wondered if you knew the truth, and now I stand in front of you finally realizing that you don't."

"Know what?"

"If you don't know, I'm not going to tell you. Consider it a kindness."

Watching his son's eyes narrow with disdain, Ben felt whatever goodwill had settled between them vanish. They were right back where they had begun.

"Now it's me who's lying to protect you," Adam continued. "You think your harbor regret now, it's nothing in comparison to what you would feel if you knew the truth about Will, the things your protection allowed him to do. He did not ever try to hide himself from you. He did not need to, because the only things you're determined to see are the ones you want to. Your life, it's more than a lie about where you came from now. You still omit things you don't want to remember. You're still pretending what you have is something it's not. Years ago, I ran away from this place and you, and I changed. I became someone else, something other than your oldest son. I've seen terrible things and I've done much worse. The townsfolk in Virginia City, the ones that remember me, at least, are still holding on to the old Adam Cartwright, and, so are you. You don't see me for who I really am. All you see is what you want me to be for the sole purpose that it would be convenient for you. You can't ask someone to look at you differently just because you want them to. You don't get to decide that the pain you inflicted is gone just because you've finally decided to apologize.

"I know," Ben admitted sadly.

They had finally spoken about the past and it meant nothing, because nothing could be changed. The past was what it was; it was the future that was uncertain. He thought about Roy Coffee's warning, Peggy's premonition of worse things to come, the loved ones Adam still had and the ones he had lost. Was the pain of losing a wife and son too much to bear simultaneously? Was grief guiding Adam, influencing him to make decisions that only promised more pain?

"You did not pull your gun to defend yourself the last time you were shot," Ben said. "Is it going to be different next time? Keeping your children here, returning to a position of leadership in a town that has declared you a murderer, are you looking to die?"

"Of course not."

"Then what are you looking to do?"

"The thing I'm best at."

"Which is what?"

"The only thing you really taught me how to do," Adam said tersely. "Stand alone."

There was nothing to say after that. Nothing to do other than step aside and allow Adam to make his own decisions—for himself and his children.

As the evening came, with his eldest son once again absent from his home, Ben was proven right. Noah did not understand why or where his father had gone. The poor child had no way of conceptualizing that Adam would return, because he had not said goodbye. To Noah gone was just that: gone. Peggy did not take the news much better than Noah; however, forcing back her tears and an indifferent expression she pretended to. Lil tucked them both into the bed in Adam's room early, and Ben read to them. It took hours for them to fall asleep. When they finally did, Ben retired to a chair in front of the fireplace, watching the flames of the fire as he began to brood. Lil joined him after a while, the handles of her packed carpet bag hung in the crook of her arm.

"Oh, no," Ben said. "Not you, too."

"I spoke to Hoss and Joe," Lil said. "Given the lateness of the hour, they agreed to accompany me into town. You look after Peggy and Noah; I am going to look after our boy."

"Our boy?"

"He's as much mine now as he is yours. He's going to need someone to look after him, even if it's only cooking, laundry, and such. I plan on returning to the house on Kay Street. Keeping it up for when the town finally calms enough for the children to return."

"If such a day ever comes."

"Don't be so pessimistic," Lil chastised. "After all, wrangling the hostile is one of Adam's strengths. Up until now, he's been taking it easy on the belligerent in that crowd. The tide will turn, things will change once those folks realize who he really is. What kind of man they have guarding their town."

"What kind of man is that?"

"A good one." She tilted her head thoughtfully. "Albeit a slightly lost and occasionally dangerous one."

"Dangerous?"

Lil's expression became guarded. "Did Peggy not tell you about the wolf?"

"She did. As did Roy Coffee, although, no one will tell me who it was. I asked Adam, but he would not speak about it either."

"No, I don't suppose he would, least of all to you. Not with the way things were left between the two of you. Not with the way you protected your nephew, or what happened between the two of them when they both strayed far from the man who had been tasked with shepherding them both."

"Because Will was the wolf."

"At one time he was. The thing about wolves is they don't belong in a house full of lambs. Will knew that and that's why he left years ago. Adam knows it, too, and that's why he left today."

Ben's stomach turned with dread. "Adam is not a wolf," he said firmly, as though the strength of his tone would be enough to negate the truth.

"Sometimes bad things happen," Lil said. "A good man loses himself in grief and fury. Later he becomes aware of his actions only to be overcome by worry that his very nature has changed. Adam is still a good man, no matter what terrible things he thinks about himself. I intend to try my best to change these opinions. That's why I came here to be with him and the children. That's why I intend to follow him now."

And a little later, in the company of both Hoss and Joe, Lil did follow Adam. Watching the buggy and the accompanying rider disappear, Ben was overcome by a mixture of sadness and jealousy. He wanted to follow Adam into town, too. But he could not do that.

Adam and he had finally spoken about Ohio and Will. They had not talked about everything, but what they had was enough—or it would have to be. It was not, Ben knew that. No amount of explanations, understanding, or apologies would be enough to bridge the gap that had settled between he and Adam's respective lives. Nothing could change what had been or what currently was, transforming it into what should have been. Nothing he could do would ever be enough to change anything, he knew that now. The only thing he could do was look after his grandchildren as he had been asked to.

He hoped Lil's knowledge about how to help Adam surpassed his own, that she could do for him what he himself could not. He prayed for his son's continued safety and for Roy Coffee to be wrong. He did not know how long he remained outside, but when he heard the faint sound of an approaching horse it was long past dark.

It was a single rider; he could tell that by the sound. It was most likely Joe, or Hoss. One of them had probably decided to remain at the house on Kay Street with Lil for the night and the other had decided to come home. It sounded like something they would do, especially considering it was Adam's first night back in town. They would want to be there in case anything went wrong.

As the rider became closer, Ben realized it was not one of his sons. It was not someone he recognized from memory at all. Directing her horse to stop a few paces away, a blue-eyed woman peered down at him. Her blond hair was tied up, hidden in a tight bun beneath the back rim of her hat. From what he could see of the gray dress that poked out beneath the worn oversized men's jacket she wore, her attire was neither fancy nor simple. The dress fit her well; the jacket was a little too big on her frame not to seem out of place.

"Is the sheriff here?" she asked.

"No," Ben said.

"Was he here?"

"He was." Eyes narrowing, Ben's stomach began to turn. He had no reason to know her, but, somehow, he did. He would have recognized the black hat and tan coat she was wearing no matter how many years had passed since he had last seen them. "Who are you?"

"I'm Eddie," she said. "I'm the sheriff's wife."

END PART TWO

TBC… in Part Three

The chapters of the final part will continue to be uploaded to this story. THANK YOU much for your comments. I hope you enjoy the rest.