BEFORE:

Adam heeded Ed Payson's advice.

Abandoning Wallace Merrill's trail, he blazed one of his own, heading north and then east. He did not have to think about where he was headed, or the destination at the end of his route. After all, Ed had been right: he was so close to a place and man he had not seen for over twenty years.

There was a time when he used to write to his grandfather with regularity. Shamefully, he had not done so since well before his fallout with his father. He had not meant to stop corresponding; it was not an active decision, rather just something that had happened as time passed. His second to last letter to his grandfather had announced his engagement to Laura Dayton. The last one had advised the engagement was off; he and Laura had decided not to marry one another after all.

It's okay; I'm alright, Adam had written, knowing full-well the declaration was a lie. Still dealing with the lingering complications of his back injury he had not been; although, that was something he deemed inappropriate to speak or write about. He never told his grandfather about his fall and the injury to his back, about Will and Laura's marriage and how difficult things became after, or even Laura's eventual death and how he had taken Peggy away from Will. He never shared anything with him, and maybe that was why he had stopped writing to him. Things had happened so quickly back then, one event had led to another, then another, and then even another after that, forming a rather convoluted almost unimaginable picture. It was difficult enough to explain what was happening and why as the events were unfolding, how could one possibly properly explain them after the fact? How was he to explain the path he had taken, the fallout with his father, and the life he had found after stepping outside of his father's shadow?

It was not these questions alone that had prevented Adam from writing to his grandfather. He had a reason for not wanting to share the details of his life, as selfish and despicable as it was. He did not write to his grandfather because he knew the man wrote to his father. He did not want to share with Captain Abel Stoddard any information that could be communicated to Ben Cartwright secondhand.

Maybe it was guilt—or maybe it was resentment, still simmering acidly in the pit of his stomach whenever he dared think about his father—that led to his hesitancy to correspond with his grandfather. Or maybe it really was like Ed Payson had said: his hesitance was not hesitance at all, rather his intuition at work as fate reached out and guided him where he needed to go. It was a thought that was drastically preferable to the alternative, and one that—now it had been shared with him—he had a difficult time disregarding. After all, he was, by nature, not a hesitant man. Most of the time, he was one of the most confident and certain individuals to ever walk the planet. He knew the difference between wrong and right, and he had no trouble toeing a righteous line, backing his beliefs with words or actions, holding himself tall in the face of adversity, or standing up for the underdog or what he knew was right. And, when he was right, he was damn certain of such a thing. He did not care what others thought or said about what he was doing, or why; their opinions simply did not matter to him. Except for the ever-odd occasion when they did, when the people sharing them were the ones he loved the most and therefore were the most affected by his actions, and he himself most affected by their words. And now, looking back upon occasions such as that, it was clear to him these were instances when he had become painfully hesitant, stuck in place, crippled by the fear of the pain an impending conversation would bring.

Taking Peggy away from Will, he had sought respite in San Francisco and then avoided returning home to his father for weeks. Leaving his father's home for the last time, he had avoided returning to San Francisco, the woman he had vowed to marry and the child he had promised to care for. And months later, when he finally returned to them, the second he had set foot into their home, he had been dying to leave again. Back then he had not truly understood why he had fallen captive to such irrationalities, but with time—and Ed Payson's recent guidance—an explanation had become a little too clear. When he had been hesitant to return to San Francisco and the life waiting there for him, it had not been Eddie he was avoiding.

It had been Peggy.

Captive to an overwhelming hesitance, he could not have known it or explained it at the time, these underlying feelings of self-distrust. All the people who had been tasked with caring for the little girl had failed her. No, they had not just failed; they had destroyed her, each eroding her disposition a little at a time. Frank Dayton's extended absences had left the girl anxious, eternally waiting for something that could never be properly articulated or understood. Laura's determination to keep her husband's death a secret had instilled within their daughter a habit of counting irrationally when she felt particularly overwhelmed. Will's heavy-handed and unforgiving nature had given birth to horrendous nightmares. Adam had once found himself thinking it was only a matter of time before he became another person whose behavior left its mark upon Peggy's psyche; it was only a matter of time before he failed her, too.

Children were resilient, but only to a point. How many terrible things could one endure before they broke in an unmendable way? How much poor behavior could be modeled by the parents tasked with guiding a child before the child became incapable of displaying anything but poor behavior themselves?

At thirteen Peggy was not a bad child; she was hardly a child at all anymore. She was a beautiful young woman, feisty, and intelligent. She did well in school; she read vivaciously in her free time, she had opinions about the world and things to say. But sometimes she was a little too much like her mother, and sometimes Adam was a little too much like his father, too. He did not always listen the way she needed him to—he was well-aware of that. His stays at home were often too short, and she was no longer the only child vying for his attention, or demanding his time.

Charlie followed his father around like a puppy, and it seemed as though little Noah always wanted to be held. Though he had taken his first steps months ago, he preferred to be carried rather than using his feet, his tiny index finger directing whoever held him in the direction he wanted to go. In the company of his buoyant sons, Adam often found making time for his moody daughter difficult—especially when everything he did seemed to displease her.

He loved her; he always had and he always would, but goddamn if he did not sometimes wish she could be different than she was. She could not be, though—he knew that. Some scars were just too deep to be allowed to truly heal. The underlying fears governing some behaviors were just too irrational to ever be corrected. The past had left its mark on her, etching deep scars into her mind and heart. Will was a demon who still haunted her in her dreams, and Adam could do little to protect her from the pain of the past. Like his father before him, he had become complicit where Will Cartwright was concerned. Though he had a badge, he neither sought nor chased Will. Outside of San Francisco and away from his family, he thought little of his cousin or the past at all. It was just too much to think about now. Getting lost in the past did nothing to help one navigate the future—he had always known that. That was why he himself had become so strong, careful, and stoic, good at starting over, moving on, and letting go—or he had always thought he was, at least.

He had grown from a boy into a young man believing that the pain of the seemingly repetitive traumas he suffered over the course of his life did not matter if given enough time. It was not until he had reached an age at which he began to think of himself as older that he realized it simply was not true. Not knowing Elizabeth, losing Inger, Marie, and countless others he had cared for over the years, every big pain and disappointment had hurt. He still felt the sting of them all, because he had never really dealt with the pain associated with any of them. He had swallowed and pushed it down, taking one step forward after another as he ignored the events of the past. One never had to cry if they never allowed themselves to become upset. Painful events simply did not have to exist if they were never thought of.

Adam was forty when he learned the truth. He was not stoic or strong, but he was careful in all the wrong ways. He was careful not to love; careful not to feel; careful not to think of anything that would dissolve his steadfast demeanor, or shake his confidence in himself.

The afternoon of his forty-second birthday, he stood on Captain Abel Stoddard's doorstep. Lifting his fist to knock, he held it suspended in the air and almost lost his nerve. Was this a door he wanted to reopen? Or was it better left closed? There was so much about the past he did not want to think about. So much about himself he did not want his father or even his grandfather to know.

The last time he hesitated in front of this door, he was afraid of closing it. Newly graduated, his father having spent what he would come accustomed to describing as a small fortune on his college education, Adam had been fearful that the life he had found outside of his father's influence would fizzle, his own achievements—or at least the ones his father's money had allowed him to have—would fade the moment he reentered the Nevada territory and obediently stepped back into his father's shadow, and, over time, they had.

He had left this place so young, full of promise and hope. And now what was he? An aging lawman with an unkempt beard, a loaded side-arm, and scuffed-up badge pinned to his blood-stained coat. Years ago, he could have been anything, and now he was this. If Ben Cartwright were ever to become aware of his son's profession, Adam knew his father would never understand; he doubted his grandfather would either. And there was that sneaky sentiment again: doubt. The thing Ed Payson had said fate instilled within him to guide his actions. Well, Adam thought, if that was the case then fate seemed to have changed her mind about facilitating the impending reunion. Hand falling to his side, he turned to leave the unopened door and well enough alone.

The door opened and a woman stepped out. "Hello," she said. "Can I help you, sir?"

Adam recognized her voice before he turned around. Standing on the stoop, Mrs. Callahan was a woman who seemed to have been born old. She had aged since the last time he had seen her; her face was profoundly wrinkled, her carefully pinned back hair solidly gray, but her smile was as welcoming as ever.

"Oh, my stars," she exclaimed softly. "Well, you're no sir at all. Adam Cartwright, my goodness, boy, it's like you've been blessed with second sight."

"What?"

"Your grandfather and I were just talking about you, and here you are, standing right outside the house!"

Before he knew what was happening, she spanned the distance between them and wrapped him in a tight embrace. She was smaller than he recalled her being. Had old age shrunken her frame, or was it that he himself had grown, not taller, just more muscular and stout?

"Oh, the Captain will be so relieved to see you," she said.

"Relieved?"

Before he found the wherewithal to stop it, she pulled out of the hug, grasped his hand, and pulled him into the house. Mrs. Callahan was surprisingly nimble on her feet. She was the woman who had once been tasked with caring for Adam as a newly born infant, who had relinquished her duties to Ben Cartwright just after his son's first birthday, and who had greeted Adam with open arms and a wide smile when he had arrived on the doorstep as a teen, nervous yet excited to begin his college courses. Back then, she had been an unforeseen influence, her maternal softness welcome in comparison to the stern, gruffness of the Captain, a man who would lord over his grandson's remaining teenage years with a startling combination of intensity and disinterest.

Over two decades ago, the Captain was exactly how Ben Cartwright had warned—and worried—he would be. He was a man who had only ever held his grandson as an infant; he had shaken Adam's hand exactly two times. Once upon their introduction when Adam was sixteen, and then again nearly four years later when Adam was preparing to board the first stage line of many that would return him home to his father and brothers. Maybe if Adam had been born a girl, then things between them would have been different—his grandfather would have felt comfortable rather than awkward expressing fondness—then again, if he had been born a girl then a lot of things about his life would have been different.

Mrs. Callahan pulled Adam to stand in front of the fireplace where the Captain sat comfortably in his paisley upholstered chair. He made no effort to stand or shake his grandson's hand as he looked at Adam, his eyes narrow with disbelief, his wrinkled lips hanging open as he pulled his pipe away, clenching it tightly with fingers belonging to a hand that settled limply on his knee.

To his grandson, the Captain had always been a man described as intense, as gruff as he was old. The last time Adam had seen him, the Captain had been in his sixties, and now he was in his eighties. The last twenty years had aged him significantly. His hair had gone from silver to white; his wrinkles had deepened and spread, embedding themselves in nearly every inch of his face.

"Hello," Adam said dumbly.

"Hello?" the Captain repeated, his shock ebbing to make way for sternness. "You disappear off the very face of the earth for five years and when you finally reappear all you have to say for yourself is hello."

Squaring his shoulders, Adam inhaled a breath through his nostrils and tried again. "Hello, Grandfather," he said. "It is nice to see you."

Rising from his chair, the Captain made his way to his grandson with a series of careful steps. Time had slowed his strides, shrunken him, too. Adam recalled being slightly shorter than his grandfather, and now he was more than an inch or so taller as the Captain's back had become slightly bent, his shoulders hunched. Oddly, the sight reminded Adam of Abraham Merrill and the way the man had fallen on the ground. He took an unconscious, preemptive step forward and extended a steadying hand.

The Captain pushed it away. "Dear god, lad, I may be old but I'm far from decrepit. Now, stand still and allow me to get a good look at you."

Shoving his pipe in between his lips, he puffed on it, expelling a series of small clouds of billowing smoke, as he looked his grandson up and down.

Adam wiggled his nose, the potent smoke tickling and filling his nostrils, abruptly awakening a longing in his heart he was previously unaware of and therefore unprepared to deal with. It was the Captain who had modeled pipe smoking to Ben Cartwright, and to this day Adam was certain his father and grandfather still smoked the same type of tobacco. The familiar smell had served as an endless comfort to Adam during his time in college, especially in the evenings when he found himself particularly homesick. Today, there was no comfort to be gleaned from it; there was little purpose in heeding the memories or emotions it prompted. He thought of Pa and anger overwhelmed him immediately, then a deep sadness took its place.

If time had changed his grandfather this much, then what was it doing to his father? And what was he himself doing still running away from the staggering harshness of one asinine disagreement? Of course, it had not been a single argument that had driven Adam away from his father's home. There had been a lot of things that had facilitated such an outcome. Like Pa's decision to blindly protect Will, Adam's choice to take Peggy away from his cousin's care, and about a thousand tiny things that had happened in between the days on which such decisions were firmly made. Pa had not defended Adam against the townsfolk of Virginia City; he had not stood with his son at all.

The Captain stood in front of his grandson, his careful gaze seeming to evaluate every detail of his appearance, from his scraggly beard to his dust-covered boots, and all that lay in between. Extending his finger, he indicated the mended bullet hole, surrounded by a faded bloodstain marking the breast of Adam's yellow jacket.

"Dare I ask what happened?" the Captain asked.

"I was shot."

"I believe the answer I am seeking is why?"

Adam was not immediately certain how to reply..

"I chased someone I should have let go of," he said simply, deciding on a pragmatic approach. Even as he said the words, he knew they were the closest to explicitly explaining the event he would ever come.

"Ah." The Captain poked at the bloodstained and mended bullet hole defacing the side of Adam's jacket. "And this one?"

"Same day, same reason."

Brows knitting, his face contorting with deep lines of concern, the Captain nodded and took a long puff of his pipe. "I see," he eventually said, the harshness of his tone seeming to indicate the opposite. If his displeasure lay with his grandson or the person who had shot him, Adam was not sure.

Unable to stand in place and in direct line of his grandfather's extruded tobacco smog any longer, Adam took a step back, turned around, and found himself directly in front of Mrs. Callahan. Her smile was positively beaming, a glaring contradiction of the expression on the Captain's face. Adam could not help but feel claustrophobic. The house surrounding him suddenly felt much too small, the gazes of the people in his company too stifling as they lingered upon him a moment too long. He found himself longing for the isolation of a trail, nothing but freedom, wilderness, and an underlying purpose surrounding him.

"Why don't you give Missus Callahan your coat," the Captain said. "Then take yourself upstairs, clean up a bit, and lay down for a while."

"I'm not tired," Adam said.

"But you are a mite dirty," Mrs. Callahan said. "Come on, now, you did not arrive to stay five minutes and then leave, did you?"

Shaking his head, Adam was not certain he knew what he had come here to do. Or what there was to say now that he had. He was not going to leave—he knew that much. Conceding to his grandfather's request, he unbuttoned his coat, shimmied out of it, and handed it over to Mrs. Callahan's outstretched hand.

"My goodness," she said, her eyes locked on the silver star pinned on Adam's breast. "Now, I suppose, we know why you appear the way that you do."

"And why is that?" the Captain asked.

Turning, Adam found his grandfather had returned to the chair in front of the fireplace.

Puffing on his pipe, the Captain squinted his eyes as he struggled to decipher what Mrs. Callahan had so easily seen. "Come a wee bit closer, lad. My eyes are not what they used to be."

Adam did not adhere to the request. "Missus Callahan was admiring my badge," he said.

"Your badge?"

"Yes."

"What does that make your line of work?"

"I'm a lawman, a U.S. Marshal to be exact."

"Hmm," the Captain hummed, his lips closing around his pipe. "You left the grandness of your father's great Ponderosa, turning your back on what he called your birthright to become a lawman, a U.S. Marshal to be exact."

"Yes," Adam said. When had Pa said he had turned his back on his birthright? To the Captain, no less. "When did he say that to you?"

"When did who say what?"

"Pa. Did he write about what happened between us?"

"No. He came for a visit."

"Here?"

"Aye."

"When?"

"The year before last. He stayed for nearly four months."

"He did?" Adam asked, finding such a thing nearly unbelievable. Since when was Pa comfortable enough to do such a thing, leaving the oversight of the vast ranch to his sons for such an extended period of time?

"Aye," the Captain affirmed. "I think he was looking for something."

"What?"

Pulling his pipe from his mouth, the Captain pointed the end of it at his grandson. "You."

"Me?"

"Aye, you. You did not really believe you could disappear for so long without your father looking for you?"

But Adam had. For years he had believed such a thing; he simply had no evidence to the contrary—until now. "Why would he look here?"

"Probably for the same reason you are here now," the Captain said cryptically as he settled his pipe back in between his lips. "Go on," he instructed as though Adam was still a youth. "Do what is asked of you. Go upstairs, clean yourself up, and then take a rest. Mrs. Callahan puts dinner on the table at eight o'clock."

"It may be a little later this evening, Captain." Mrs. Callahan smiled at Adam. "After all, I do believe we have a birthday to celebrate."

"That's not necessary," Adam tried.

"In a pig's eye!" the Captain exclaimed. "It'll be a cold day for the devil himself when this day is overlooked in this house. It would have been recognized with or without you, lad, that being said," his expression softened as his lips curled into a slight smile, "I am glad you are here. It has been much too long, and we have a great deal to talk about. So, please, Adam, be a good lad and do as you're told. Go upstairs and rest while it is still achievable, for, in a few mere hours, you might find it slips too easily from your grasp."

Having had enough talk for the moment, Adam excused himself with a nod and obediently climbed the stairs. He was unsure he would find sleep obtainable. He was suddenly unsure of a lot of things as he made his way to an all-too-familiar bedroom upstairs.

Why had Ed urged him to come here now? Why had his father come here before? And what event had his grandfather been insinuating would leave him restless and sleep feeling too far away to be obtained? The fact that he would be spending the anniversary of his mother's death in the room she had died in, or their seemingly impending conversation, the one in which his grandfather would inevitably explain why Pa had visited and what such a thing had to do with him.

Why would Pa have come here? How could his reason for visiting be the same as Adam's own when Adam was sure he had no explicit reason for coming himself? All he had had was an unfinished list, a dream, and an overabundance of doubt. Doubt in Eddie. Doubt in himself. Doubt in his desire or ability to follow through on what was needed from him.

Do you ever stop to wonder why you have doubts about the things you should be most certain of? Ed Payson's question sprung from the depths of his memory.

No, Adam did not—at least not on this day when he had more than enough other things to think about. He was going to catch hell from his superiors for ditching Wallace Merrill's trail in favor of an impromptu vacation. He was in for a strict talking to from his grandfather for daring to pin a badge upon himself. He wondered which conversation he was dreading the most.

TBC