Chapter Six: Holes in the Heart
Adam had not accepted Ben's request to accompany him on the trip easily. He had protested at first, declaring the outing as one a man could only take alone. This was an explanation Ben refused to accept, and his father's unacceptance was something Adam refused to accept, quickly transforming a simple conversation into a long, drawn-out fight. It was a fight Ben won in the end; though, he wasn't proud of the means he had used to do it, as it was the first time either man had acknowledged the time period when Adam was missing and the panic such a thing had led his family to feel. And so, Adam had conceded. It was a conditional surrender. Ben was the only member of the family he would tolerate coming along; his younger brothers were, most emphatically, not invited.
It was better that way, Adam had said, a statement with which, as he endured day and night in the desert, Ben couldn't say he disagreed.
Adam was quiet on the trip. Not as much sullen and brooding as absent and thoughtful. He didn't speak much; lost in his own thoughts, he barely acknowledged his father at all. Even so, Ben was relieved he had come along; he was convinced if it weren't for his influence his son would not have made the time to either eat or sleep. Adam seemed to have little interest in either; his attention belonged to the desert and whatever haunting recollections had survived in his memory between his first excursion and this one.
They passed through the town of Eastgate with little commotion. None of the townsfolk seemed interested in their brief presence, and Adam appeared neither anxious to leave nor eager to remain in the familiar town. They shared a companionable drink at the saloon and washed the dust and grime of the trail off their bodies in the bathhouse before heading out of the town, the ground beneath them leading them further away from civilization and toward what, Ben wasn't sure.
It wasn't until they had passed the area where he, Hoss, and Little Joe had found Adam's discarded holster that he began to question what was happening, where his son was headed and why, and it wasn't until the evening that found them carefully directing their horses to ascend to the bottom of a particularly daunting and steep canyon that he came to realize Adam had been retracing his steps.
Hidden in the area at the bottom of the canyon among a collection of mountainous boulders was an abandoned settlement of some-sort. It was more campsite than homestead; still, there was an established firepit, and someone had taken the time to build a meager overhang to provide some protection from the sun. A table had been placed beneath it, providing a place to sit. An empty wagon sat next to the shelter, and on the land between the two structures lay a scattered collection of supplies: a sparsely filled box of dishware and cutlery, a heap of rope, and a strange collection of tools meant for excavating. Everything was dirty and dust covered, declaring the camp had gone uninhabited for a while.
From afar, it was an unsettling sight to say the least, but up close the land seemed to indicate something more ominous than Ben wanted to entertain. It couldn't be helped. Not after stumbling upon the rope and noting the dark bloodstains blemishing the fibers. Not after seeing the corpse of a mule. The animal had been shot, its body left to be picked at by scavengers and rot in the heat. It was an atrocious sight; it didn't smell much better than it looked.
Ben wanted to ask Adam what had happened out here, what had led to the animal's death, or how the drifter he had been found dragging around had died. But he didn't, because he already knew.
What had taken place out here had been bad, there was just no denying it. Men didn't make camps in places like this because they had ever been accused of being well-intentioned or kindly. No, this was the kind of place a man sought when he was up to no good.
Ben couldn't cast his gaze upon this place without thinking of the haggard condition in which Adam had been found. He couldn't look at the bloodstained rope without thinking of Adam's reaction to the rope Joe had used to conduct his costly "experiment". He couldn't look at the dusty tools without thinking of his son's recent propensity for digging holes. He couldn't look at the entry point carved into the wall of the canyon without being reminded of what Adam had said about gold.
There was no gold! That's what he had said when he was found wandering the hellacious landscape with the drifter's body in tow. I'm looking for gold. Adam would say much later, when his father was finally forced to look upon the evidence of his unsteady behavior. I don't feel well. I think I would feel better if I could just find some gold.
Ben wasn't the most intelligent of men, but he was far from the most ignorant. He didn't need the specifics of what had taken place out here to be explained to him in detail; the evidence left behind was enough to glean slivers of the truth. Adam had been tied up with the rope, put to work in the crevasse carved into the canyon wall. When his family had been searching for him, he had been here, so close to being found and yet so far away at the same time.
"You heard us," Ben said grimly. "Didn't you?" He didn't want to ask the question. He promised himself he wouldn't dare ask any questions, that he would allow Adam to decide how much and when he wanted to share. But this he needed to know.
Staring at him, Adam's eyes were guarded, his expression as emotionless as his voice. "What difference does it make? It can't be changed now."
Though the statement had been a deflection, to Ben, it said more than any other words could have. It verified his grim suspicion, and set his heart ablaze with rage and agony, a duo of emotions that collided to overwhelm him with helplessness. This was a feeling he was certain his son had experienced out here, a sentiment that had been endlessly encouraged and intensified by the bleakness of the surrounding land. Ben's mouth felt dry, his throat a little too tight, his jaw throbbing against a wave of overpowering grief.
"I told you you didn't want to come here," Adam said. "You're the one that insisted."
"You make it sound as though I had a choice."
"You did. I'm the one that wasn't allowed to choose."
Ben wanted to ask his son what he hadn't been allowed to choose. To stay in this wretched place, or to leave it. To set foot upon this camp for the first time, or to return to it now. "What are we doing here, Adam?" he whispered, his throat almost too tight to speak.
For a moment, Adam appeared annoyed. "I told you," he said bluntly. "I'm looking for something."
"And what is that? What on earth could you possibly find out here?"
Turning his back on both Ben and the question, Adam didn't respond.
Ben's eyes found the cavity carved into the rock of the canyon; it was the only hole to be seen, a hole he was certain would be the sole focus of Adam's attention before long. It was obvious it was a mineshaft, a narrow chasm that may or may not be hiding gold. It was the place that had given birth to Adam's damaging preoccupations, his irrational desire to dig bigger and deeper holes.
"If you think you're going to crawl back into the side of that rock, then you're wrong," Ben said. "I won't allow it, son."
Turning back around abruptly, Adam's face contorted with indignance and a hint of something his father couldn't define. Was it fear? Sadness, maybe? "You say that like you exist out here, Pa. You weren't allowed to before. Why should this time be any different?"
Ben suspected there was a larger war to be one than the battle over reentrance to the mine. No, suddenly the conversation was much bigger than that. "Because this time is different. It isn't that drifter who is alongside you now. Adam, it's me."
"You say that like you never ordered me to do something I didn't want to do, that I didn't like. Like you haven't ever tried to question my beliefs, or correct me when I was wrong."
"That's true. I have done all those things, because I'm your father. I was tasked with guiding you, so you could become the man you are."
Ben approached Adam slowly, coming to a stop in front of where he stood. There was pain in his son's eyes now, a great deal of conflict too. The last time he had visited this desert, he had clung to his father and cried. Ben couldn't help thinking it was an event that was destined to be repeated. It needed to be repeated; the truth of whatever happened out here needed to be dug up and dealt with completely before it could be laid to rest permanently. Adam knew that, that's why he came back out here. Digging hole after hole, he had tried his best to bury the past back home, before finally concluding that the holes he was digging were never going to be right. The land back home was too commodious, the soil too forgiving to contain such a grim grave.
Ben extended his hand only to have Adam push it away and take a step back.
"Don't touch me," Adam said gruffly. "You can't touch me. Not out here."
"Why not?"
"I already told you, you don't exist out here." It was as though Adam expected the statement to explain everything. But it didn't. It didn't come close.
"Okay," Ben agreed gently. "Then tell me who does."
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because maybe you aren't entitled to know everything about my life!"
"I'm not asking to know everything. I'm just trying to figure out what happened here, and why it's affected you so much."
"Who says it's affected me at all?"
Ben was tempted to list the ways in which he was aware his son had been affected, but held his tongue instead. It was better not to say things that would only promise the devolution of the conversation. It was better to stay strong in the face of the sudden variability of his son's emotions.
"Never mind," Adam said sharply. "This whole thing is just so…stupid anyway."
"What is?" Ben probed.
"How far I let that man crawl under my skin. The things I allowed him to push me to do."
"What kind of things?"
"Digging in that hole in the rock. Staying in place, even though everything inside of me was screaming to run." Adam shook his head sadly. "There just wasn't anywhere else to go at first, and then later, it wasn't an option. The whole damn thing is so asinine I can't stand it. What happened here before and what brought me back now. I know who I am. I know what I'm capable of, and what I'm not."
"What did that man think you were capable of?"
"He took me for the wrong kind of man, that's all."
Looking at their surroundings, Ben wondered how that could possibly be all. A man had died, this he knew because he had found Adam dragging his body around. What had the drifter done to his son? What had Adam done to him in return?
"He wanted to confuse me," Adam continued. "To make me forget who I was." He sounded terribly unsure, as though he was saying the words for the sole purpose of convincing himself. "He wanted to trick me into thinking I was something I wasn't."
"What did he want to make you think you were?"
Adam stared at him blankly, his eyes glistening with sorrow. "I didn't ask you to come here," he said. "I didn't want you to be a part of this."
"A part of what?"
"This." Adam extended his arms, indicating at the desolation surrounding them. "There was a moment in time when you could have come and you would have become a part of it too. You could have been, but you weren't."
"Because you heard my voice when I called out for you," Ben provided grimly. It was such a tortuous truth to be privy to. It was such a horrible thing to know that while he had been so anxiously looking, his son was so close to being found. "You knew I was out there searching, but for whatever reason you weren't allowed to be found. That man, the drifter, he didn't want you to be found. What did he want you to do, Adam?"
Shaking his head, Adam refused to reply, but he couldn't keep his face from contorting painfully; he couldn't keep the emotion intent on overwhelming him as tears filled his eyes.
"Adam," Ben prompted gently. He took a single step forward, and when Adam showed no interest in moving away from him again, he took another, and then another and another as he slowly closed the gap between them. "If I had been there, if you would have been able to call back and your voice led me to this place then what would I have seen?"
Wiping his shirtsleeve over his eyes, Adam absorbed one collection of teardrops only to make room for another. He opened his mouth, seemingly to speak, then expelled a thick breath, and inhaled a deep, shaky one to take its place. He was going to cry; there was just no stopping it now.
"What happened?" Ben asked gently.
He wasn't certain which Adam thought worse: the question he had asked, or the answer. As the first question went unanswered, Ben longed to ask another. He wanted to know what the drifter had done. What terrible injustices had he subjected his son to in order to make him feel like this? It couldn't be as easy as he tied him up, kept him captive and forced him to work in a mine. No, this hurt cut much deeper than that. That's what made it so scary, so frightening for both father and son. Adam didn't hurt easy; his stubborn, convicted spirit occasionally bent but not enough to crease or break. He never cried, but he was crying in earnest now, his breaths coming in quick, convulsive gasps.
Ben wanted to reach out, pull his son into his arms, ground him in the current moment instead of the past and hold him tightly until his last tear had been shed. But he couldn't do that without risking that the action would be rejected. He couldn't allow his own impulses to govern his son's next word, or action. As upsetting as it was to stand still, nothing could be rushed or forced. As always, Adam had to be the one to make the first move; he had to be the one to reach out and let his father know what he needed from him. But that didn't mean Ben had to stop talking; it didn't mean Adam couldn't be led closer with words.
"Whatever it was, it's okay," Ben whispered. "Whatever happened out here is over now. You don't have to hang on to it the way you have been. You don't have to try so hard to bury the truth. You can acknowledge it, grieve it, and then let it go. You don't have to carry it with you for the rest of your life."
Given the camp surrounding them, the bloodied rope and dead mule, how Adam had been found, the way he was acting now and how he had conducted himself in the interim, the thought that Adam had killed the drifter was as logical of a conclusion as any. Ben couldn't fault his son for such a thing.
"Son," he continued. "I don't know what happened. I know a man died, and I know you lived. I don't know what kind of man he was, but I know who you are, and believe me when I tell you that no matter what you were pushed to do, it was justified. I don't have to know what he did, seeing this camp is enough to understand he gave you no choice."
It was the weight of his forgiving statement—or perhaps it was the unvoiced reply it provoked—that broke what was left of Adam's resolve. For one fleeting second, he appeared aggrieved, then expression crumbling, he hung his head and grasped the lapels of Ben's vest, holding them in tightly clenched fists. The action was one of pure desperation as aggressive as it was; still, it was the sign Ben had been waiting for. He gathered Adam in his arms, holding him tight and close as his son cried in the desert for a second time—what his father hoped would be the last.
They held onto each other for a long time after Adam's tears had dried, each lost in their thoughts or trying not to think of anything at all, rather just taking comfort in their closeness of their current proximity, something that under normal circumstances was decidedly no longer allowed. And later, when they finally broke the embrace and carefully stepped away from each other, they didn't speak further about the drifter, the mine, or the camp. They didn't talk about any of these things, not because there was not anything left to say about them, but because, in the moment, there wasn't anything to be done about them.
The sun began to sink in the horizon, reminding Ben that it would be dark soon. He had no intention of spending the night where they were. "Come on," he said. "Let's find somewhere else to camp. If you feel the need to come back tomorrow then fine, but you aren't going to spend another night rooted to this egregious place."
He was grateful when his son adhered to the direction without rebuttal.
TBC