June 1 - Enroute to Laidlaw, Oregon
A day after they left Bend, Hoss was a sneezing, coughing, sweating mess. Joe and Adam made a bed for him in the back of the Cartwright wagon and he was encouraged to sleep as much as he could while the rest of them pushed the train onward.
With more and more of the children able to drive the teams, having a man down wasn't as big of a problem. The possibility that Hoss' illness would get worse, and might spread to the rest of the train was of concern. Adam and Joe were careful to keep the other children away from the wagon, and Hoss just as careful not to sneeze or cough on anyone.
A rash of summer rain storms began to follow them from Laidlow to Sisters, Oregon, forcing the children to walk in the rain much of the time. The cool damp began to do it's work and before long three of the wagons had sick members. Adam had begun to feel exhausted and he could see the wear in his youngest brother.
"This is gonna run through the whole train pretty soon. Much as I hate it, we should probably stop once we get up to Black Butte."
"What's at Black Butte?" Bucky asked from under a hat dripping with rain.
"A ranch Pa told me about. Should be a pretty big spread. Pa asked me to stop in and say hello when we got up this way. Said the ranch was owned by one of the men who came out with him and Hoss' ma."
"How far we got to go?" Bucky asked.
"Another day or so. If you, Joe, Tom and Dan can keep things moving, I can ride ahead. Let them know to expect us."
On the morning of June 4th Adam left the train and rode out toward Black Butte. According to the directions Pa had given him, the ranch sat at the bottom of an extinct volcano, long dormant. Surrounded by snow capped mountain peaks, with plenty of creeks and rivers running through the land, it was wild horse country and the man who had started the ranch, though he was dead and gone now, had carved an empire out of the mountains with the same grit and determination that built the Ponderosa. According to Pa, the man's son, Jameson Pauly, had the best bred riding and ranching stock in the west. Horses that were built to climb mountains, survive harsh winters, and ford through five feet of snow.
Not the sort of stock that a rancher in Nevada would want, but in the northern territories anywhere east of Oregon, they were the best animals a man could buy. Adam had with him a letter of introduction from his father, written to Jameson Pauly to serve as identification. He found the fence lines of the property before he found the ranch itself, and felt a pang of homesickness hit him at the sight. He couldn't help but judge the workmanship as he rode the fence line.
When he found a small herd of horses in a pasture he rested his mount while he watched the animals. Three young colts were in the herd and at least two of the adult animals appeared to be as yet unbroken. Adam stood at the fence for a long time, chewing on a blade of sweet grass, just watching the animals move. The sun had come out after noon and there was a soft wind pushing down from the mountain, carrying the scent of pine and wet earth.
More than anything, Adam had to admit that the precious hours alone had done him a world of good. Much as he loved his brothers, and the children, he hadn't had a moment to himself in over a month.
To his surprise the ranch was called "Black Butte" and not named after the founder. The sign over the ranch gate had been recently painted over and the lettering looked roughly done. Adam leaned down from his horse to push the gate open, letting it swing behind him before he started down the ranch road.
A mile and a half later he came across a horse breaking corral. The post in the middle had been worn down to the width of a few fingers at the top and was badly in need of being replaced. A coil of rope was hanging off a nail on one of the fence posts, but the corral looked otherwise abandoned.
Further up the ranch road Adam found some fencing down. There was a rusted hammer and a bucket full of water in which was soaking about ten pounds of nails, sitting by the rotting planks of wood.
Adam kicked his horse up to a gallup and rode faster down the rutted road, swerving around puddles. The closer he got to the main house of the ranch the more disuse and disrepair he found. The ranch house yard was filled with thin, half starved chickens lazily scratching at the dirt. A mule stood in the corral connected with the barn, munching on molding hay. Adam tied his horse to the hitching post and shouted, "Hello, the house!"
There was no response. No dogs, no kids, no men, no women. Adam went to the mule and it skittered away from the fence, making Adam wonder just how long it had been since the animal had seen a human being. He tugged open the barn doors and balked at the smell. He found the source a minute later in one of the stalls. The horse had been abandoned in the barn, unable to leave the stall. Probably starved to death. Adam wedged the doors open to let the smell and the flies out.
The next step would be to check the house and Adam was in no way anxious to do it. He stalled, going to his horse and drinking from his canteen. He moved into the center of the door yard and turned a slow circle, shouting another greeting.
The last response he expected was to be shot in the back.
He heard the blast of the shotgun before he felt the pellets. A spray of pain flared across his lower back and legs and he stumbled to the side, then went down, trying to turn and draw his six-shooter at the same time. He was struggling to focus his eyes on the door of the ranch house, even while dragging himself back toward the horse trough for cover, when he realized that his target was a lot smaller than he thought it would be.
The boy might have been twelve or thirteen. He was probably only a foot taller than the gun in his hands was long. He looked rail-thin, sunburned and terrified behind the gun, and though it felt like Adam had taken both barrels, to the back, the kid made no effort to reload. Adam came to rest sitting up, his back against the watering trough. The list of little hurts vying for his brain's attention were distracting him from the angry face in the doorway, and he couldn't deal with any of that with a gun in his hands. He put his gun back in it's holster, reached behind him until he caught the lip of the trough and pushed himself up until he was perched on the edge.
God almighty it hurt.
"Now you ride off, Mister." The boy shouted, still holding the gun on him. "This here is my property and we don't want no visitors."
"Where's your pa?" Adam called, setting his teeth against the pain.
"Get off, Mister! You don't need my Pa to tell you that. Get!"
"My name is Adam Cartwright, my father is Ben Cartwright and he's a friend of your grandfather's. Now where's your Pa?"
"If you come in on the ranch road you can head right back out that way and say hullo to him as you go." The boy said.
Adam could hear something dripping behind him into the trough. He had the feeling it was his own blood falling into the water. From the feel of it, he had one too many holes in his hide now to last much longer, and he certainly wouldn't make it back to the train. He didn't even know if he'd make it down the ranch road.
"You think you're Pa will be ok with you shootin' a man in the back?" Adam asked, unable to keep the pain out of his voice.
"Don't spect he'll care at all. He's dead, Mister."
"Jamie!" It was a woman's voice and she was screaming bloody murder. Adam turned his head to see a girl round the corner of the house, dressed in black. The apron she'd been wearing was stained with blood and she was wide eyed with terror, searching the door yard. Adam could see the blood on her hands, the knife she'd been using clutched in bone white fingers.
Fear got him to his feet and he stumbled back towards his horse thinking he'd ridden himself into a night mare, and bleeding or not, he'd best ride himself back out again.
"Get back, Wendy! I'm takin' care of this." Jamie called coming out onto the porch. To Adam's astonishment the boy sat in a wheelchair.
The sudden burst of energy didn't last long. Every muscle on Adam's left side, down to his left knee, was burning and he was very certain he wouldn't be able to get into the saddle.
"I'm...I'm Adam Cartwright." He tried again. "My father's name is Ben Cartwright...he's a friend..of.." Adam's head swam and he was cut off by a graceless crash to the ground and the fast sweep of unconsciousness taking over.
He floated around in the darkness for a bit then woke with his head pressed against the blood stained apron, a chicken feather vibrating where it was stuck on the apron near the end of his nose. Cold water was running down his forehead, competing with the warmth from the sun and the hot agony in his back and leg.
"See...he's alive. Now help him on his horse and send him outta here, Wendy."
"Shut up, Jamie. I can't do that."
"He ain't that big." Jamie groused.
"That's not what I mean. You shouldn'ta shot him. He could help us."
"He ain't gonna help us, Wendy. Look at that gun. He's a nothin' but a saddle tramp."
"I'm...leading a wagon train...I'm not...I'm no saddle tramp." Adam insisted, his voice going a few octaves higher than normal.
"A wagon train?" Wendy asked.
"He's lyin'."
"Shut up, Jamie." Wendy said, her voice harder. She pressed the wet cloth she'd been using to bring Adam around against his rapidly flushing cheeks. "You're tellin' it straight? You're with a wagon train? Full of people."
"I got two ounces of buckshot in me, why would I lie?" Adam growled.
"Oh...oh lordy. Don't die, mister. We need you more than ever." Wendy begged softly, wetting her cloth and bathing his face again with it.
"Probably...could use a doctor." Adam suggested, doing his best not to sound sarcastic. Pain did that to him.
"Ain't no doctor." Jamie shouted angrily from the porch.
Wendy snapped her head around to glare at him but confirmed what he said. "No doctor. Not for two days ride."
"One of you could ride south...get to the train. Get one of my brothers to-"
"Ain't you got eyes, mister. You think this chair will fit up on that saddle?" Jamie demanded.
Adam groaned and rolled his eyes. "I think I'd rather ride back myself. Dying somewhere out on the trail has to be better than this."
He put a gargantuan effort into trying to roll away from the girl's lap. He pressed his good elbow and knee into the ground and started the long journey upwards. Some of the blood had dried, the shallower wounds not bleeding anymore, but the dried blood stuck his shirt to his skin. Moving meant the cloth pulled away from the recent scabs, irritating him all the more. Adam remembered now why he hated buckshot.
"No...no. Mister, please." Wendy begged, rising with him, her hands hovering over the wounds, as if afraid to get them bloodied. "Please...we need help. We're all alone out here. Our pa is gone. Our ma left us a long time ago. Please…" She was practically in tears by the time Adam had managed to totter to his horse. He got his hands up on the ridge of the saddle and the saddle horn and leaned his forehead against the seat, panting.
"Kid...I got a wagon train...full of sick kids...headed this way. I came out here to tell your pa who I was...and ask if we could use his rangeland...to rest up for a few days. And...for my troubles, I get shot in the back. You'll excuse me…" Adam said getting his foot up into the stirrup.
"If I no longer…" Adam bounced a few times then heaved. "Feel welcome…" The horse pawed the ground under him and Adam felt like he'd gone up a thousand feet in elevation just rising into the saddle, but he hung on.
"No…no please." Wendy was weeping now. "Please, we'll take care of you, we'll take care of those kids. I'll make your supper and water your horses." She followed Adam's horse, sobbing.
Adam wasn't certain he would make it to the end of the ranch road, but he was positive that if he gave the kid, Jamie, enough time to reload the shot gun he wouldn't be able to avoid a second peppering. His horse was taking it slow, and Adam bent over the saddle horn for support, with the girl now clinging to one of the stirrups, still begging for him to stay.
They went half a mile that way before Adam had had enough.
"Stop...please. Please stop." He asked, as calmly as he could, his cheek pressed against his horse's neck.
The girl noisily sucked in a few breaths, snot and tears mixing with the chicken feathers and blood on her face until she had swiped at her nose with the cloth still in her hands. Adam closed his eyes and groaned, wishing he'd stayed out on the fence line watching the colts. It would have been the perfect place to camp and wait for the wagons, or the return of the Messiah, whichever came first.
He dragged in a few breaths. "You want us to stay here?" He asked her.
She nodded eagerly.
"Then you go back to that house, you get every gun you own and you dump them in the biggest manure pile you can find."
She made a face at him, wiped her tears from her face then nodded solemnly. "Are you gonna live?"
Adam screwed his eyes tightly closed and dredged up the energy to sit up in the saddle. "Only if you're nice to me." He said, turning his horse and letting the girl walk the animal back to the ranch house. He stubbornly sat in the saddle, watching Wendy's brother fume as the girl went around collecting all the guns and getting rid of them precisely as he'd instructed.
"Can't believe you're listening to that shifty-eyed sidewinder."
"Jamie, if you don't shut up and start makin' yourself useful I'll dump you into that manure pile as well and bury you there."
That threat had Jamie wheeling himself back into the house.
Once she was done with the first chore, Wendy brought Adam's horse to the corner of the porch and helped him step down.
"What...what do you want me to do next?" She asked quietly, wiping hopelessly bloodstained hands on an equally blood stained apron.
"You got soap, water?"
"Course."
"Go wash your hands, good and clean." Adam instructed softly from where he stood clinging to a porch support. "And don't touch anything til you make it back out here."
"Ok." Wendy said meekly.
When she ducked into the house Adam closed his eyes, pressed his forehead to the thick pole holding up the porch roof and began to pray. "Our father, who art in heaven. Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Bring me this day the patience of the saints and lead me not to murder that boy in there, even though he deserves it for shooting me in the back. Help me to forgive the skinny little whelp...and it sure would be nice to not die the death of a thousand cuts. Ay-men."
An hour later Adam was lying face down on the dining room table surrounded by lanterns. The only alcohol in the house amounted to less than a shot and since it would be needed for sanitary purposes there was none to consume for pain killing purposes. Pellet, but painful pellet, Wendy had patiently used a pair of flat upholstery needles, bound together at the top with a bit of thread, to dig the buckshot out. The spread of the shot had covered some uncomfortable areas for both of them, but Wendy understood there was nothing she could do, but to do what was needed. She didn't complain and Adam did his best not to squirm.
While she worked on him Wendy explained most of her life story.
"See...when grandpa died, Pa took over the ranch. That was when Jamie and I was little. The ranch was makin' good money and Pa kept usin' that money to buy up land, get more breeding stock. The winter...oh...sorry. The winter Jamie had his accident was a long one. We lost a lot of horses, and with Jamie's doctor bills, and then sending him to Portland for a few months, and all...Pa sold off all but the best of horses. Let most of his hands go." Wendy broke off and Adam was sure she was endeavoring to dig the bones out of his leg with how deep the needles went. "Got it! Got it!" She cried happily like she'd hit a vein of silver, and Adam once again considered whether or not dying of infection and fever would be less painful.
"Anyhow...once Jamie started to get better, and started gettin' around ok in his wheelchair, we figured the worst was over. Pa sold off a little of his land to a farmer that wanted to raise sheep. He rented some of his horses out to the farmer and they was good neighbors to us, until the horse one day went plum crazy with the head worm and dumped the farmer. Broke his leg."
"Ow."
"The farmer said it was Pa's fault."
"Ow…"
"It wasn't Pa's fault! He was a lyin', thievin' dirt masher!"
"Ow!"
"Shut up, Jamie!"
"Uh..Wendy." Adam had put his hand back, grabbing Wendy's wrist as gently as he could.
"Hmm?"
"Either...tell the story...or dig the bullets out."
"I can do both." Wendy insisted.
"I'd rather you didn't. Y-you seem a little distracted."
"Lay back down, Mr. Cartwright, and stop distracting me, then."
Adam groaned and gave up.
"Anyway...the farmer went all the way to Camp Sherman to wire for a lawyer and a justice of the peace so's he could sue Pa. It took two days for the lawyer to get back to him and tell him that he didn't have no case against Pa, but by then that farmer had riled up every enemy our Pa had, from here to Santium Junction and they all come'a gunnin' for him."
"Is that how he died?" Adam asked, through gritted teeth, hoping to cut the story short.
"Nope...My Pa and his hands held them pole cats off til ever last one of them either took off or laid down dead." Wendy said proudly. Adam groaned.
"Was the beginning of the end though. Pa lost a bunch'a customers that year. And them that survived the Butte Ranch Range War spread lies around about Pa and his horses. We barely made it through this past winter."
Wendy started digging into the meat of Adam's leg in earnest and the eldest Cartwright could see that his squirming was tickling Jamie pink. He glared at the boy who only enjoyed his torture all the more. Wendy gave a satisfied sigh when the pellet finally came out, plunking it down on the plate that held the collection. She started counting holes and pellets. "Just three more…"
"Take a break...let's...take a break." Adam said. "Just...finish your story...let me bleed out a while."
Wendy gave him a look of consternation but covered the large area of injury with a clean towel and let Adam rest for a moment. She sat down on the hearth of the fireplace directly opposite the operating theatre and wiped the back of her hands across her forehead, pushing back the strands of hair that had escaped her bun. She had told him she was nineteen, and despite how skinny she was, Adam could see muscle tone on her arms and neck. She had dark brown eyes, thick, straight brown hair, and under all the dirt and chicken blood she was rather pretty. He could enjoy her company he thought, so long as she never again came at him with either needles or a knife.
Her brother Jamie was a different creature all together.
"Well," Wendy sighed. She had slung one long leg over the other, and the dangling foot swayed back and forth under her skirts proving something else that Adam had noted about her. She had a hard time staying still. "Pa took sick. When his ranch hands figured out he couldn't pay them for the winter work they all took off. Come spring Pa kicked the bucket and it's just been me and Jamie ever since."
"What about your mother?"
Wendy's fingers went to the ragged decorative hem of her apron and she played the tattered lace through her finger tips. "Mama left soon after Jamie was hurt."
"Her fault I got hurt in the first place."
Wendy's eyes brimmed with tears and she licked her lips but didn't deny her brother's accusation. "Mama was...h-heart broken. And Jamie was so hateful to her."
"She crippled me-"
"Shut up, Jamie." This time the command came from both Wendy and Adam.
Jamie glared at them both then wheeled his chair into a room that branched off the living room and slammed the door. Wendy offered Adam a brave smile and wiped her tears away before ignoring the rest that took their place. She stood up to wash her hands again using ample soap, and then the alcohol. She peeled back the towel and picked up her tools once more bending over the final three wounds.
"Last I heard from Mama was before winter. She sent us a letter from Lebanon, Oregon. Said she'd found a job there workin' for a lady who made dresses. She said she had her own room at a boarding house, and would love for me to come out and stay with her a while." A pellet was plunked down by his head and Adam closed his eyes, bracing for the next one.
"Other than...your brother...what's keeping you here?" Adam asked.
"Somebody's gotta look after the place." She said after a long moment. A second pellet hit the plate.
She dug the last one out in silence before giving him a soft warning and pouring the last of the alcohol gently over the road map of wounds. "I don't think I have sheets enough to bandage all this…" She said, dabbing at the bits of blood welling up out of each of the holes.
"I don't think I want you bandaging any of it...for propriety's sake." Adam mumbled into the table.
"I'm staring at one half of your bare backside, Mr. Cartwright. Propriety is no longer an issue."
Adam burst into exhausted laughter at that one and he heard Wendy joining him after a moment as she walked away to gather more supplies. She was barely 19, but she had the wit of a much older woman. It made him feel just a little less old and worn down.
Wendy returned with clean sheets, light blue with flowers on them, and a blanket. "We'll do this in stages, then." She said.
For as bad as the barn and fences had been, the inside of the Pauly house was clean and well looked after. Once Adam was bandaged he was guided to a weathered but comfortable settee and lay on his good side, passing out shortly thereafter. The fact that he had naught but bandages and a blanket covering him didn't matter.