Premonitions

by CrazyKater

(3rd in a series. Sequel to Predicament) A month before two of his sons set out to Eastgate Ben Cartwright began to have a recurring bad dream. An AU take on the episode The Crucible.

1. 1

A month before two of his sons set out to Eastgate Ben Cartwright began to have a recurring bad dream.

If he were a younger man, he may have called it a nightmare. With hair of white he was pushing sixty, considered older than he was young, and as such he was determined not to label his dream—as haunting and deeply unsettling as it was.

The dream was centered around his eldest son, a vast desert, and a steep cliff. In it he and Adam stood on the cliff. Adam was always so close to the edge—too close for a father to be comfortable, no matter his boy's age. His clothes were torn, dirty and tattered, his skin darkened, burned and blistered by the hot sun; his hair was slicked back with sweat and grime; his eyes a startling combination of bright and dull, wide and wild. He looked drunken with fever, his body swaying dangerously; he was always so close to falling off the edge.

"Pa," Adam whispered, his voice deep and dry. "Do you think you can catch me?"

"What?" Ben asked breathlessly, his heart clenching with fear.

"If I jumped, do you think you could make it to the bottom in time to catch me?"

The question was always the same. Terror inducing and evocative and so unlike the inviolable man Ben had raised.

That was not to say that Adam wasn't fond of asking questions. It was one of his favorite pastimes. He had always been that way, even as a small child he had a thirst for knowledge that couldn't be quenched; a penchant for asking questions that Ben sometimes couldn't begin to come up with the answers to. Some of the answers Adam had learned at a young age he could find in books; when he had grown his quest for answers and knowledge had led him to college.

Adam was very fond of asking questions, though never in the way he had in Ben's recurring dream. Never with such resignation shining in his hazel eyes. Never with the intent to challenge his father's ability or desire to protect him.

Adam had never needed much in the way of protecting. He was always such a capable child. Smart, inquisitive, and mostly obedient. He had a few rough teenage years. What boy struggling to let go of childhood and grow into a man hadn't? Ben had never feared for his safety, at least not in the way he did with his youngest son.

Joe was always so impulsive and headstrong, easy to anger and quick to react. If Ben ever imagined he would experience unsettling dreams about any of his children, then he would have waged a firm bet they would have been about Joe.

Not Adam. Never Adam.

Ben never experienced the dream long enough to glean whether he had or had not been able to catch his son. He didn't even know if Adam had jumped. Still, waking suddenly, eyes wide and gasping, Ben was always overcome by the notion that Adam had, in fact, jumped and that he, himself, had not been quick enough to save him.

It was such a peculiar, reoccurring dream. The Adam in it so utterly opposite from the man Ben knew. By nature, Adam was stoic, level headed, intelligent, rational, and self-reliant. Independent was the word Marie had used when she was alive.

"That boy has a thoughtful mind and an independent streak at least ten miles long," she had often said. "He will make for a very fine man someday."

Her words were eventually proven true, though she never lived long enough to see them come to fruition.

The dream, however, continuing to haunt Ben most every night, was something he prayed never would come to fruition. He hoped its persistence was not some kind of warning sent from above to caution him of something terrible to come. He tried to heed it in any case, because when a trip to Eastgate became necessary he had tried his best to keep Adam home.

"But I always go when we drive livestock that direction," Adam protested. Planting his hands on the top of the desk, he leaned over and looked at Ben with confusion in his eyes.

"That's as good of a reason as any for you to stay home."

The dry landscape was another, so were the steep cliffs standing sporadically in the distance beyond the trail.

"But why?" Adam asked.

"You've been gone an awful lot lately, Adam. Nearly three weeks you spent in San Francisco on business and you haven't been back for more than three days and you're preparing to leave again."

"Then who's going to deliver the herd?" Neither Adam's confusion nor determination faltered.

"It's such a small herd, Little Joe can do it."

Hanging his head, Adam groaned. "By himself?" he questioned, looking up once more. "Are you really telling me that you'd rather send him over me?"

Ben felt slightly guilty—and impressed by his eldest son's ability to refrain from pointing out his baby brother's flaws in order to shift the argument into his favor. Joe was spitfire, there was no denying that, and no telling what kind of trouble he'd get into should the opportunity arise.

"Then Hoss can go," Ben said firmly, his annoyance making itself known.

"He's been watching that pregnant mare for weeks. She's liable to foal any day, Pa. Hoss isn't going to want to miss that, not the way he's been looking after her."

Ben couldn't disagree. "Then I'll go," he countered.

"You?" Adam exclaimed.

The response was slightly insulting. For a split-second, Ben was tempted to bring up windmills and another journey Adam had insisted he embark on alone. He hadn't supported Adam leaving then either, but he had given in. The trip had ended badly; Adam had been hurt. It had taken weeks for him to heal—and for Ben to forgive himself for giving into his son's will when he had felt so strongly about not allowing him to go in the first place. He had had a premonition about that trip; he was determined not to ignore his supposed dreams about this one.

"Adam, the answer is no. Don't tempt fate by asking me again."

Grinding his jaw and staring stubbornly for a few moments, Adam seemed intent on doing just that. Then, standing tall, he exhaled a hearty sigh.

It was an old instruction; as effective on his grown sons as it had been when they were little boys. Ben knew he was fortunate it still worked on his eldest. Adam's eventual acceptance of the warning was due to respect rather than true fear of what might come out of pressing his father further. He was a man, after all. There wasn't much Ben could do anymore to follow through. Still, he would do anything he could to protect his son—even if it was from something as silly as a bad, recurring dream.

There was a disappointment in Adam's eyes and deflated posture that didn't bode well with Ben. And acceptance of his father's warning, it seemed, didn't bode with Adam, because turning around to leave, he hesitated in place, then walked around the desk instead. Sitting on the edge of it, a few mere inches from Ben's chair, he fixed his eyes on the wall behind his father.

"Summer goes awfully fast around here, you know," he said softly. "Spring and Fall pass by a man before he even knows they've truly arrived. It'll be winter soon and then there won't be going much of anywhere at all, except for maybe the barn and some of the closer pasture."

"Adam—"

"Look, I know I've been gone a lot recently, but that's only because winter is on the horizon. I need to get out while I still can." Adam looked at Ben, his face uncharacteristically pleading. "You can understand that, can't you?"

As sad as it was to think about, Ben could. His son's insatiable appetite for knowledge had given him a wandering spirit that often led him away from home. Someday, Ben knew, it would lead him away for good. He was not eager to push him away before that day inevitably arrived. If this understanding wasn't enough to crumble his resolve then Adam's next words were.

"Papa, please," he whispered.

It was an old term, abandoned in early adolescence by all three of his sons. Adam, however, had retained it, only uttering it sporadically in private. He was a man now, after all; it simply wasn't appropriate to say it any more. Perhaps it was due to the infrequency of its use that made Ben so susceptible to it. Or maybe it was because by saying the word, Ben knew Adam was really trying to say something else.

Let me go, Pa—in this instance, Ben knew that was what the word really meant. Let me go now so I come back to you. Let us have a few more good years before the winters become much too long to bear anymore.

"Alright," Ben conceded and Adam smiled so wide his face beamed. "But you're not going alone. Take Joe with you."

Xx

"I want a telegraph when you arrive at Eastgate and another before you leave," Ben instructed as he watched his eldest and youngest sons preparing to leave.

It was an exaggerated demand. Startling and odd, the proof of which was reflected on his youngest son's face.

"Two telegraphs?" Joe scoffed. "That's a bit much, ain't it, Pa?"

"Okay," Adam agreed easily. He grinned evilly, looking at Joe as he cinched his saddle taunt. "But, Pa, you really don't have to worry. I promise to keep your troublesome baby son safe."

Joe scowled. "I don't know about that, older brother. I think those worried words may have been aimed at you, seeing as you were the one Pa was lookin' at when he said them."

"They were aimed at both of you," Ben said.

The words soothed one son and riled another. Eyes narrowing, Adam cast Ben a tired glance.

"Look after one another," Ben continued. His irrational worry for Adam made him feel like a sentimental old man. What was the harm in sounding like one too? "And take it easy in the Eastgate saloon. I expect you both to be back by the end of the week."

"The end of the week?" Joe protested. "But that only leaves enough time to get there and come back."

"I said what I meant to," Ben said firmly as he frowned at Joe. "I'll tolerate no opinions from you."

After a moment his face softened slightly, when Joe had the decency to appear adequately chastised. The expression was counterfeit—any old fool could see that. Just as any old fool could see the frustration on Adam's face was authentic. He wasn't happy about the instructions either—any of them.

When was the last time he had requested Adam send two telegraphs or take it easy in a strange town's bar? He and Adam both knew the answer, just as they knew the requests were tiresome and unnecessary.

"On with you then," Ben said.

He couldn't bear to watch Adam go, so he turned and walked to the house instead. He had only made it inside when he was assaulted by such a feeling of overwhelming wrongness that he had to fight to prevent himself from rushing outside and pulling Adam off his horse.

The door creaked open behind him, followed by a single word, "Pa?"

Ben turned as Adam approached him. "Yes?" he said, forcing a smile as his son's stood before him.

Adam looked hesitant and Ben crushed the urge to haul him upstairs and lock him in his bedroom. He only wanted his son to be safe. What harm could come to a boy in his bedroom where it was safe and warm? Adam wasn't a boy anymore, making such a wish impossible to make true.

"Yes, son?" Ben prompted when Adam showed no sign of ever speaking.

Adam stepped forward and pulled his father into a tight hug. It was an atypical farewell from his eldest, one which only served to intensify Ben's fear.

"Promise me," he whispered, his deep voice close to his son's ear. "That you'll be safe."

"I promise," Adam vowed.

Even in the moment, Ben felt as though it was a promise destined to be broken.

Xx

Ben's dream continued reoccurring in Adam's absence.

Even so, the week passed quickly. The first telegraph from Adam and Joe came and so did the foal Hoss had been anticipating. It was a fine addition, a colt by the looks of him; Ben's middle son couldn't have been more excited if he was the stallion who sired it.

A second telegraph followed the first; it was not news Ben wanted to hear. His eldest and youngest sons had conspired against him, deciding they were deserving of a few days off. The second telegraph didn't promise a third, rather that they would return at the end of the following week. Ben had been nearly as furious as he was anxious. Then, eventually, a third telegraph did come and he was swiftly reacquainted with his fear.

Adam had ventured off into the desert outside of Eastgate alone. He had been robbed, stripped of his horse and whatever else. Joe had found Sport; Adam was still missing, lost among steep cliffs reminiscent of the one in his father's dream. Ben and Hoss met up with Joe quickly and together they embarked on what would become to feel like a desperate, foolish search. There were miles to cover; rough, rugged, and barren, the landscape was as unforgiving as the heat of the sun—something the three of them didn't dare give voice to. There was little point in discussing the heat of the sun, the danger of the land, or Adam's slim chances of survival past the first few days after being robbed. Rough estimation advised that would have been nearly a week ago now.

They fired their guns into the air, one, two, three hopeful shots of alert, and they called out Adam's name. Hoping and praying that if he were still alive then he would be able to hear their voices and be reassured that they were looking for him, or, better yet, that he would shout back and let them know he was somewhere in the distance waiting to be found.

Adam never responded to any of the yells.

They found Adam's holster discarded in the sand. Black, worn and achingly familiar, Ben held the item in shaking hands as he inspected it, searching for physical verification it was what he thought. His fingertips eventually found what he was seeking, branded on the inside of the leather the initials AC. They were worn nearly flat now as the holster was growing old; it had been a gift to a son from his father nearly ten years ago.

Holding the holster tightly, turning it in-between his hands, Ben felt increasingly old as he was reminded of the occasion and what had prompted the gift. There had been nothing wrong with the brown holster Adam had carried before this one; it hadn't needed replacing. Upon his return from college Adam had begun favoring dark clothes, and, to Ben, matched with dark pants and shirts, something about the lighter, brown leather had begun to seem a little off.

When Adam had traveled back East, he had left still displaying small remnants of the uncertainty of a boy and he returned with the assurance of a man. The evolution in his appearance only seemed to reinforce the fact that he had grown and changed. Ben was proud of the man Adam had become during his years away, the gift of the black holster had been somehow needed to signify this fact.

Taking great care in placing Adam's holster in his saddle bag, Ben continued searching for his son.

He didn't sleep during those days—or nights—despite the incessant worry of his other two sons. He was afraid he would fall victim to the dream once again. As unnerving as it was to experience when he had known Adam was safe, experiencing it while his son was missing would be unbearable. Still, he found himself preoccupied with cliffs. They were a hard thing to ignore out here, standing tall and jagged in nearly every direction. He investigated all them, the tops and bottoms, half-wishing, hoping, and praying they would stumble upon Adam. Each cliff was as unfruitful as the one before, empty, and evidence-less. Adam was nowhere to be found.

They continued like this for days until, overcome by exhaustion, Ben hung his head. Seemingly feeling his despair, his horse hesitated in place, obediently waiting to be given orders to continue. Weary and grief-stricken, Ben couldn't conceive of ordering anyone to do anything. His thoughts were burdened with memories of Adam. He had become increasingly haunted by what was to become their final farewell, tortured by reappraisal of the decisions he couldn't take back.

He hadn't wanted Adam to travel to Eastgate because of his premonitory dream, so why on earth did he let him go?

And why had Adam followed him into the house and hugged him before he left?

It was such an odd thing for him to do. It was an indulgent action, odd in the most glaring way. Adam wasn't in the habit of hugging people; he was such a reserved man. He didn't necessarily shy away from physical affection, rather he preferred more moderate displays. A handshake or a hand on an arm, shoulder or back. Since he reached adulthood, Ben had never known Adam to initiate an embrace—at least not under normal circumstances.

Could the day Adam and Joe left the Ponderosa and set out for Eastgate be considered a normal one?

With his palpable fear about Adam's safety lingering, Ben had to admit it probably wasn't, and Adam was intuitive by nature. Ben was certain Adam had known he was nervous, just as he was certain Adam had wanted to conform to his wishes and return home on time, but his yearning for fresh air and open space was stronger than his desire to adhere to his father's direction.

Was that the reason for the gift of the hug? Had Adam known before he left home that he would leave Joe behind in Eastgate and venture into the wilderness alone under the guise of needing time in nature to hunt and then fish and enjoy what was left of summer before it was over too soon?

Adam had wanted to get away before the weather turned; it was how he had justified wanting to go in the first place. Ignoring his dream, Ben had allowed him to go, because he had had a premonition about Adam eventually leaving too, though death wasn't the way he had ever foreseen his eldest son disappearing from his life.

Adam wanted to get out, so he had, and now that he was gone, he was never coming home.

"Pa," Joe said quietly, finally summoning the courage to say the truth they all knew. "We're gonna have to face it, we're not going to find Adam."

"Pa," Hoss said. "It's been two weeks since he left Eastgate. He couldn't have survived."

The statement was devastating, achingly permanent, and unavoidably true. While Ben didn't want to give up, he could no longer keep going.

He glanced back, casting long looks at each of his remaining sons and saw his own internal anguish etched on their faces. The expressions of both his sons hinted at guilt. Joe was bound to feel responsible for agreeing to Adam's suggestion of taking a few days off and allowing him to head off alone. Ben knew Hoss felt guilty for agreeing with Joe about abandoning the search for Adam, as giving up on his older brother was nearly an impossible thing for Hoss to do.

Adam and Hoss were very close—all three of his boys were. They respected, protected, fought, and loved each other, but the bond between Adam and Hoss was different than that which either of them shared with Joe. Maybe it was due to a gap in their respective ages or the discrepancies in their childhoods.

Adam had come along when his father had still been a younger man than Joe currently was, Hoss had been born years after and Joe would come later. Much, much later, once the Ponderosa was already established and Ben was well on his way to becoming a wealthy man. Joe hadn't known a day of difficulty or poverty in his life. It was Adam and Hoss who had been forced to grow up rough and fast. It bonded them together in an incredible way, leaving their loyalties to one another nearly impenetrable.

Giving up Adam—for the first time in his life—was killing Hoss inside. Ben knew this because it was killing him too.

"Alright," he said gruffly. Sitting upon his horse on the top of a rocky hillside, Ben looked at the land below and willed himself not to give into the tears that felt so close. "Let's go on home."

The second he said the words he wanted to take them back. Soon he would, because eyes widening with surprise, Ben's gaze locked on a man stumbling across the earth below.

He blinked rapidly, struggling to believe his eyes, then lifted his hand, and bellowed, "Adam! ... Adam! ... Adam!"

With the words he was off, both sons following closely behind. Leaping off his horse, Ben reached Adam first, who had fallen to his knees on the ground and begun to crawl forward.

"Adam," Ben repeated, his stomach turning. His son was beaten and dirty and laughing of all things.

"Adam," he repeated. Grabbing hold beneath Adam's armpits, he began hoisting him back to his feet.

Joe stood opposite and assisted the best he could. "Adam," he echoed worriedly.

"Adam, Adam, Adam," Hoss said insistently. Coming to stand behind, he grasped Adam's upper arms, holding him upright and near his chest.

His feet and arms still moving weakly, Adam shook his head in an uncoordinated manner and continued laughing, a dry, haunting, maniacal sound. "There's no gold," he said, in-between laughs. "There's no gold."

Holding on to Adam's arm tightly, Ben was taken aback as a horrible reality was beginning to sink in. Hair slicked back with grime, Adam's clothes were torn, dirty and tattered; his skin was darkened, burned, and blistered by the hot sun. His eyes were a startling combination of bright and dull, wide and wild. The son who had disappeared into the desert nearly two weeks ago was gone; he was looking at the Adam from his dreams.

Do you think you can catch me? Adam's question from the dream circled Ben's mind. Pa, can you?

"There's no gold," Adam laughed. "There never was any damn—"

"ADAM!" Ben bellowed, suddenly unable to reconcile his unease. He was regretful about the volume of his voice, but if anything was going to snap Adam out of this state of madness then it would be the promise of becoming the focus of his father's fury.

Closing his eyes, Adam ceased laughing immediately. Body becoming rigid, he momentarily tried to stand up straight.

Hoss loosened his grip on his brother, hoping he was finally coming to.

Adam stood on shaking legs, his face crumbling with sheer devastation. "Oh, Papa!" he cried, his feet giving out beneath him as he dissolved into deep-chested sobs.

It was the word that told Ben everything and nothing at the same time. Whatever his son had endured had been bad, the details of which he couldn't begin to suppose.

Never being privy to Adam saying the word nor crying in adulthood, Joe was shocked, as was Hoss who, momentarily stunned, lost his grip on his older brother's arms.

No, Ben thought as Adam began to fall.

Can you catch me? The memory of Adam's voice echoed.

This time, Ben could, and he did.

Adam sobbed harder as Ben lowered him safely on the ground, then paused as Joe wiped a water covered hand across his mouth, trying to moisten his dry and cracked lips.

"He was dragging a dead man, Pa," Hoss said.

Ben didn't know what to say or think. So fervent was his worry for his son that he didn't realize Adam had been in the company of anyone else. Holding the canteen to Adam's lips, he helped him take a small drink.

As soon as the canteen left his mouth, Adam was crying again and weakly struggling to bridge the gap between himself and his father. Though Ben was shaken by the desperate action, he knew what to do—what he and Adam both needed for him to do. Pulling Adam close, he held and rocked him, rubbing slow circles on his back. He didn't say a word. Surely this was a moment he was destined to look back on with contrition, a bothersome feeling that for a man who always had such wise things to say to each of his sons, he should have been able to say something. At that moment, he found himself without any words at all.

It wasn't that Ben didn't want to comfort his crying son with reassurances. It was that he almost couldn't believe his eyes—or that the weight in his arms was real. Stumbling through the desert beneath the cliff where they had paused, Adam had appeared out of seemingly nowhere. One moment he hadn't been there, the next he was, and now he was in Ben's arms. Ben struggled to reconcile how any of it had come about. He had given up; they had abandoned their search. Only minutes ago, he had believed his son was dead, now Adam was here, his deliriousness demanding for Ben to hold him closer than what had been allowed in years.

Eventually, Adam quieted, his body growing completely lax. Feeling a jolt of panic, Ben finally loosened his embrace, struggling to crane his head to get a good look at Adam's face, just to verify that he was breathing, just to ensure he was indeed still alive.

Hoss's hand squeezed his shoulder. "He's fine, Pa," he reassured. "Just beat up and exhausted. He passed out." He cast a troublesome look at the sky. "We still got some daylight left. What do you reckon we ought to do?"

"Pa," Joe chimed in, his voice unusually serious. Seated cross-legged on the ground a few paces away, he rested his elbows on his knees, his chin on the tops of his fists. "We should get going."

"We shouldn't stay here," Hoss said. "Adam needs to see a doctor; he needs to have his wounds cleaned out. Ain't no telling how long some of them cuts have been festering and his clothes are nasty dirty. I'm sure I don't have to tell you this, seeing as you're the one holding him close, he smells something fierce; he needs to be cleaned up proper and we ain't equipped to deal with none of this."

"He's right," Joe said.

"Eastgate is three quarters of a day's journey from here," Ben said. He wondered how on earth Adam was going to cope with the ride. How were any of them going to cope with the memories of the last two weeks?

"Then we best get after it," Hoss said.

Xx

The ride back to Eastgate was pure misery.

They tied the unknown dead man's body over the rear of Joe's horse and, each on their respective horses, Hoss and Ben took turns holding Adam. Two grown men riding a horse double was difficult under ideal circumstances; given Adam's current state, it was an arduous task. Whatever recognition of safety had dawned upon him minutes after being found hadn't lasted; he was either unconscious, his body heavy, limp, and in danger of falling off, or he was semi-conscious, anxious, confused, and fighting their grip.

"I want to get away from you," Adam whispered desolately, over and over again. "I just... want to… get away."

"Don't I know it, older brother," Hoss responded after Adam had repeated the statement for what felt like a hundredth time. Holding Adam's back firmly against his chest, he grimaced and spoke to him as though he was negotiating with a small child. "I'll tell you what, Adam, you quit being so wriggly, let me get a good hold on you so you don't fall, then when we get where we're goin', I'll let you go."

Hoss's words placated Adam for the rest of the journey—or maybe it was that he had grown too weary or resigned to fight anymore.

They rode long past twilight, arriving in Eastgate before sunrise. The moon cast an eerie hue on the small town as they traveled the thoroughfare, illuminating the gallows which were being built in the center of the small town.

"I thought they weren't gonna hang Obadiah Johnson," Joe said quietly. "The judge only sentenced him to five years."

Shaking his head, Ben silently dismissed the statement; he didn't know what Joe was talking about.

"Is that the trial you stayed behind to take in?" Hoss asked.

Joe looked at Adam, who was still sitting in front of Hoss. "Yeah," he said.

Ben saw immense guilt reflected on his youngest son's face and anguish shining in his green eyes; he knew Joe needed a discussion to ease the pain and guilt he felt because of what happened to Adam. But at that moment, one son's need for his father's attention surpassed another; Joe would have to wait.

Halting his horse in front of the small boarding house, Ben dismounted and moved to stand by Hoss's, raising his tired arms to steady Adam's unconscious form as he began giving orders.

"Joe, see if you can fetch the doctor, send him our way and then go find the sheriff. Hoss, I'm going to see if I can get us a room."

Adam's face was pale, ashen against the contrast of Hoss's shirt.

"He's burnin' up, Pa," Hoss said. "Fever."

Pressing his palm against Adam's heated skin, Ben didn't need to be told how frightening of a prospect that was.

"Joe," he said as his youngest son jumped off his horse. "Hurry."

Xx

They obtained two rooms in the boarding house.

When the Eastgate doctor arrived, Ben ordered his two younger sons to converse with the sheriff regarding how they had come to find Adam and the strange man's body that had been in his possession. Neither Hoss nor Joe had wanted to leave Adam; they put forth a convincing argument in effort to be allowed to remain. Suddenly overtaken by the oddest of tempestuous feelings, a fervent need to protect his eldest's privacy, Ben wouldn't hear of them staying. Though had failed to protect Adam from whatever he had endured in the desert, he could shield him from future embarrassment.

Adam had always been such a private man, expressing pain, fear, and weakness in modest ways. He wasn't prone to overly emotional fits—save angry ones. While Hoss may have been privy to Adam's tears a handful of times in his life, Ben questioned whether Joe had. There was such a distance between their ages; it didn't seem likely Adam would have ever allowed such a thing. He had always been so careful to portray himself as inviolable in Joe's eyes with impenetrable wisdom and infallible strength. It was something Ben had always thought a little foolish, because no matter how hard a man tried to remain unbreakable, there always came an occasion when God and destiny saw fit to bring him to his knees.

Uncertain of the details, Ben was acutely aware Adam had been brought to his knees in the desert outside of Eastgate and not only had he seen the result of what had happened out there but Hoss and Joe had too. They had heard their older brother refer to their father as "Papa", they had watched him cling to Ben and sob, and they endured his desperate cries to be let go during their return to Eastgate. They had heard and seen it all and that was more than enough.

Enough is enough, Ben had thought while he firmly ordered Hoss and Joe to vacate the room. And in this case, it was already too much.

Adam was in rough shape; suffering from dehydration and heat exhaustion, it appeared as though he had been overworked and perhaps suffered more than one beating. The damage to his face seemed superficial; the swelling of his split-lip, inflamed cheekbone, and black eye would heal, as would the scratches and bruises marring his back, arms, and hands. To Ben, these were familiar injuries, some predictable outcomes of a fight and others more disquieting. If he didn't know better, from the shapes and placement of some of the cuts and the blisters covering the insides of Adam's hands, he would have thought that his son had been digging for a prolonged period of time. This was a deduction he struggled to make sense of.

Why would Adam do such a thing? Why would it be required? And for what gain? Ben's imagination wandered ceaselessly, torturing him with theories of how or why the injuries had been sustained. What was Adam digging? A hole? A shelter? A grave?

It wasn't until he absently recalled Adam's confused statements about gold that he began to consider a mine. Although that didn't make much sense either, because the landscape on which Adam had been found had no reputation of ever containing the precious and lucrative substance. Many men had tried over the years to mine the brutal land and, as far as he knew, none had succeeded.

Mining had always been a bit of a pet project for Adam. He had full control over the small operation on the Ponderosa because it interested him and he knew a lot about it. This was enough to make Ben wonder if, out in the wilderness and ensnared to a sudden fantastical notion,

Adam had decided to give the land a shot. Something about this theory seemed off, because while Ben knew searching for anything beneath the crust of the barren land was destined to be a fruitless fool's errand, Adam had too. Adam had known the land contained nothing of value, so why would he even try?

Along with all these questions there was something else to worry about. Deep, red, and angry, there were robe burns on both of Adam's wrists. Ben wasn't sure if he should attribute these injuries to men who had robbed his son or the dead one Adam had been dragging around.

"That dead man you found with your boy, have you ever seen him before?" the doctor asked. Filling a glass with water, he mixed a white powder in, his attention never waning from Ben.

The way the man was considering him was odd, even expression and dark eyes seemingly flickering with a fortitude Ben couldn't begin to understand.

"No."

"That's fortunate for you." The doctor sat on the edge of the bed where Adam lay. "Not so fortunate for your son, I'm afraid."

"What do you mean by that?" Ben asked. "Did you know that man?"

The doctor shook his head, his attention shifting to Adam. "Hello," he said.

Eyes clouded with feverish confusion, Adam glared at him in return.

"I'm here to help you," the doctor continued, his tone even and calm. "First, I need you to drink this, so you can relax, then me and your pa are going to clean you up. You're going to fall asleep at some point while we do, and, lord willing, when you wake up you won't remember any of it."

Ben thought the explanation a bit odd. He had never known a situation where a doctor took the time to explain anything to a patient who was as tired and confused as Adam was. Still, he appreciated the care the man was taking in allowing his normally poised son at least some illusion of control.

Adam, however, did not.

"Get away from me," he said, his voice tired and hoarse. Back pressed against the headboard, Adam assessed the strange man with an astounding level of hatred. He struggled to move away from him but his exhausted limbs and bewildered mind left him weak and uncoordinated and rooted to the bed. "I-I just want to get away."

"Well, you did," the doctor countered. Extending the glass, he moved to press it to Adam's broken lips. "You got away and now you're here with us."

Struggling to push the glass away, Adam's hand was uncoordinated and slow and no match for the doctor's sturdy one as he pulled it safely out of Adam's reach.

The doctor looked at Ben. "Is he always this skeptical of the intentions of strangers?" he asked.

Sometimes, Ben thought. But not like this. Never like this.

Kneeling next to the bed, Ben placed one hand on Adam's shoulder and the other on his son's chest. "Adam," he said gently, hoping his voice would be enough to calm his son's agitation. "It's alright."

Stirring uncomfortably beneath his father's hands, Adam refused to be soothed. "I just want to get away," he said, his voice cracking as his expression crumbled again. "I-I just want to g-get a-away."

"I already told you, you did," the doctor reminded.

Ben didn't appreciate the doctor's rebuttal. "He's confused," he said, his voice carrying a bit of a dangerous edge. "Don't you understand that?"

"Oh, I understand it," the doctor assured. "As much as I'd rather not."

Ben's anger was ignited. "If you don't want to care for my son then you just say so."

The doctor was neither intimidated nor impressed. "Here," he said, handing Ben the glass. "Get as much of this into him as you can, wait for him to fall asleep and then have one of your other boys fetch me again."

"How can you—!"

"Mister Cartwright, it is damn near dawn; I have no intention of starting off this day with a fight with either you or your boy. Trust me, it'll be easier on you and less traumatic for him if I go now and come back when he's not aware of my presence."

With that, the doctor left both the room and Ben wondering what kind of doctor the man really was. Good or bad, it probably didn't make much difference, because either way Adam needed tending. The retreating doctor was the only option they had.

It took time, a lot of coaxing, and eventually a little firmer tone than Ben would have liked to use to get Adam to drink what the doctor had left. During that time, he endured his son's chaotic behavior and words. One moment his son seemed to know he was there and the next he didn't.

Ben didn't know which was more agonizing, having Adam not recognize and fight him or having his identity distinguished only to watch Adam tearfully declare that his father wasn't real and just another game.

It was Adam's persistent tears that unsettled Ben the most. For a man—and boy—who had never been quick to cry, whatever Adam had endured had been bad enough to open a well inside of him that seemed bound to never run dry.

Eventually—thankfully—Adam did fall asleep. Overcome by exhaustion, Ben did too.

Once again, he dreamed of standing on the edge of the cliff. Their ominous surroundings and Adam's bedraggled appearance had remained the same. Holding his arms out wide, he stood on the edge; back turned from the horizon and what lay on the ground below, his eyes were focused solely on his father. He looked oddly stoic, strangely detached from the danger of where he stood and concern of the man in front of him.

"Adam," Ben tried. He watched in horror as Adam took a step back. "Stop, now."

Taking another step back, Adam refused to abide by his father's order.

"Adam!" Ben ordered as firmly as he could. "Don't take another step!"

Ignoring the command, Adam took another step back. Unable to support his weight, the thin edge of the cliff was beginning to crumble beneath the worn soles of his boots, but he didn't seem to notice. His only focus was on his father.

"Can you catch me?" Adam asked finally. His expression was suddenly eager and hopeful, making him appear younger than he had in years. "Pa, can you?"

Ben woke up with a start. Lying on an unfamiliar bed, he was momentarily disoriented, taken aback by the strange room. Emitting a painful grunt, he sat up, blinked, and then squinted his eyes against the faint sunlight filtering in from behind the lightly colored curtains. Casting his gaze upon the room, his attention focused on the bed opposite the one he occupied and he finally recalled the events that had brought him there.

Tucked beneath a thin blanket, Adam was sleeping soundly. He appeared much cleaner than he had last time Ben saw him. Hair slightly wet and wounds clean, he appeared to have been bathed before redressed in an unfamiliar nightshirt. He looked better, not fine but finally peaceful and relaxed.

Expelling a hearty sigh of relief, Ben's gaze shifted and he was surprised at what he saw.

Sitting vigil on the chair next to Adam's bed was Hoss. "Hi, Pa," he greeted quietly, his face set in an indecipherable expression.

"Son?"

"Adam's doing okay." Hoss neither looked away from Adam nor did his strange expression change. "Doctor came and went. I helped tend to Adam and kept Little Joe in the room like you wanted." Tilting his head, he scoffed thickly. "Not that that was too hard, anyway. You're gonna have to talk to Joe; he's not taking what happened to Adam too well. I suppose none of us are or will."

"Where is Joe?" Ben asked.

"Saloon."

Frowning, Ben suppressed the urge to order Hoss to fetch his youngest. He didn't approve of Joe spending his time drinking away his supposed self-condemnation and lingering guilt. He didn't like it but what was the purpose of pulling Joe away from the respite of the saloon back to the stagnancy of the boarding house?

Adam was asleep; there would be no information or reassurance to be gleaned from him—at least now. Try as Ben may to sooth his youngest son's self-imposed culpability the only person who could really do that was Adam. Ben knew Adam would never hold Joe responsible for what had happened, because, after all, according to Joe, the idea to take a few days off had been Adam's. Adam had always been as stubborn as he was strong; once he put his mind to something there was just no stopping him. Though Joe may have thought he agreed to allow his brother to venture off alone for a few days, he hadn't really had a choice.

"It might be best if I go join Joe," Hoss said, as though privy to his father's uneasy thoughts. "Now that you're awake and able to sit with Adam. With the way Joe's feeling, there ain't no telling what he may be getting into."

"I'd appreciate that." Ben nodded at Adam. "How did the doctor fare the second time around?"

"Fine. Like I said, I helped him. Adam slept through it all. We cleaned out his wounds, gave him as good of a bath as we could manage. Doc left some sleeping powder and a salve."

"Did he say anything else?"

"We gotta keep him as cool as possible until that fever breaks, pray that the warmth of his body is due to the sun and not infection. With some of those wounds, Doc said there's just no telling what's causing Adam's body to heat. We're to keep him quiet and calm and use the sleep powder if he keeps getting overly upset."

While it wasn't the best news, it was far from the worst. Still, Ben struggled with it. They may have been able to force Adam to sleep now but would come after his fever broke? What would happen when his confusion ebbed enough for him to become cognizant, aware of his body and words? Or worse, what if it never did? What were any of them supposed to say or do then?

Focusing his dark eyes in the bandages covering Adam's wrists, Ben was reminded of his son's wounds, the ones he had seen and the supposed others he hadn't.

"How bad were his injuries?" Ben asked. "Is there anything in particular I should know about?"

Unwilling to look at his father, Hoss didn't readily reply. "No, sir," he sighed after a few moments passed, his gaze now focused on the floorboards. "There is something else, though. Doc said that we oughta keep Adam quiet now and then later, when he starts to come out of it, we need to keep quiet about how we found him, what he said or did. He said certain experiences, certain injuries, have a way of eating away at a man if too many people are privy to them, especially his pride." He looked at Ben sadly. "That's the bit that worries me the most, Pa. You know Adam as well as I do; he don't act the way he's been since we found 'em. Whatever happened out in the desert, it hurt him. It cut him real deep."

Ben couldn't disagree. Never in Adam's life had he been witness to how his son was currently acting. No matter how sick, sad, hurt, angry, or afraid, Adam had never behaved the way he had since he'd been found.

"What's going to happen when he comes to?" Hoss asked, echoing Ben's silent fear. "What's gonna happen if he don't?"

"He'll be fine," Ben said firmly. "He always is." He wondered how many times and with how much force he would have to repeat the statement before it would be enough for either of them to truly believe it.

Xx

It took three days for Adam's fever to break and then another for him to finally become aware of what was going on around him.

Ordering Hoss and Joe to sleep in the other rented room, Ben was firm in his instruction that he be the only one to tend to Adam's wounds, change the thin nightshirt he wore or bedclothes when the inevitable happened and demanded such a thing be done. Captive to fever, slipping in and out of consciousness, Adam could hardly be expected to keep control over his bodily functions. The order was more easily accepted by his youngest son than by his middle one. Joe had looked slightly relieved, but Hoss had appeared mildly offended. Adam and Hoss held next to no secrets from one another, surely Adam wouldn't have minded if Hoss assisted their father with taking care of him. It was Ben who minded—and Adam, he was certain, would have minded too had he been in the right frame of mind to speak for himself.

Harboring guilt for the way he had fallen asleep, abandoning both Hoss and Adam when the doctor had returned, Ben was desperate to safeguard all his sons against any undesirable situations. He was their father, after all. If anyone should have been looking after Adam in such intimate ways then it should be him.

The sound of hammering outside, the unbearable noise of metal being pounded into wood as the sheriff and his deputy continued erecting the gallows for Obadiah Johnson's impending death, wore on Ben's nerves. The days that passed before his son woke up felt as though they were some of the longest of his life, which was shocking in comparison to some of the others he had managed to live through. He had lost three wives and endured too many difficulties to count, but this was somehow worse than any of that.

Adam slept fitfully at first, his slumber frequently and violently interrupted by nightmares, waking suddenly only to remain captive to a confusion so fervent that he refused to be calmed. Ben had been left with no other choice but to utilize the sleeping powder the doctor had left.

Imprisoned by deep induced sleep, Adam remained unconscious and quiet. Ben couldn't help feeling as though seeing his son drugged into extended peaceful sleep was somehow worse than being forced to watch him cry. It was worse than having his own recurring bad dreams, worse than having Adam lost in the desert for two weeks, worse than finding him on foot, dragging a dead man while completely captive to the disorientation of his own mind. It was worse than knowing the dead man's name, worse than seeing the swollen lacerations on the man's neck and immediately thinking he had been strangled, and it was worse than having the Eastgate Sheriff confirm his suspicions and fears.

"The dead man's name is Peter Kane," the sheriff had volunteered in an even tone. "Appears to me like he was strangled first, then maybe he succumbed to the injury while your boy was dragging him around the desert." He shrugged in an indifferent manner. "I won't be pressing any charges against your son. Kane was a devil of a man, consider yourself fortunate if you never crossed his path. If your son really did kill him then he probably deserved it."

Later the doctor confirmed what the sheriff believed. Kane had been strangled but the injury hadn't killed him; he had succumbed to the elements. This was something that Ben longed to tell Adam if he could just figure out how. There were so many things he wanted to ask his son if only his questions could be understood and properly answered, because his conversations with both the doctor and the sheriff had left him wondering how much more the people in the town Eastgate knew about the supposed evils of Peter Kane and how much Adam now knew himself. It was an unsettling prospect, as a father, to have not one but two respected pillars of the small community allude to Kane's abhorrent nature; their implications coupled with Adam's bedlam behavior awoke a trepidation so fervent Ben was certain it would never be calmed.

What had happened in the desert? How had Adam come to be in Kane's company? And what on earth had that man done to his son?

These were questions that seemed destined to remain without answers.

Waking on the fourth day, his eyes no longer glazed with fever or clouded with confusion, rather something else, Adam denied recalling anything that happened after being robbed. He didn't remember walking the desert, being found by his family, or anything about a man named Peter Kane.

Watching his son closely, noting the weakness of Adam's voice and how he wasn't keen on looking him in the eye, Ben suspected his son was lying. This was a suspicion he quickly silenced, immediately deciding if Adam was lying then it was something he would allow— at least for now— as the doctor had advised not to push for the truth. It was advice he torturously second-guessed, considered, and reconsidered, over and over again.

No good ever came from avoiding truth, no matter how traumatic or painful. There would come a time when it would need to be owned up to and dealt with, though the correct timing of such a thing remained to be foreseen. Adam had only just woken up, he had only just stopped yelling and crying, Ben was not eager to bring up topics that might encourage the alarming behaviors to resurface. That wasn't to say that Adam was acting normal. Still visibly exhausted and wounded, he was remarkably passive and agonizingly quiet. Too quiet for Ben to feel at ease.

Encouraging Adam to drink more water, Ben held the glass to his son's lips and tilted it back. He was only slightly disappointed when the helpful action was allowed. He had expected Adam to reassert his independence, making a loosely veiled sarcastic comment about having been capable of holding a drinking glass on his own for years. Adam accepted his assistance without comment.

"Was Hoss here or did I dream that part?" Adam asked. His voice was ragged and hoarse, left raspy and coarse by his extended sobs and screams. Avoiding looking at his father, he set tired eyes upon the room.

"Both of you brothers are here," Ben assured.

"A different room?" Adam slowly reasoned. "This room's big enough for all of us, isn't it?"

"It is, but you need quiet and you know how loud and rambunctious that youngest brother of yours can be."

"Hoss too, on occasion."

Pleased by the mild joke, Ben smiled.

"Pa?" Adam asked. His hands moved idly, clenching, and unclenching handfuls of the thin blanket which covered him. It was an odd action, trepidatious and compulsive; Ben noted it immediately.

"Yes," he said.

"When are we going home?"

It was a startling question from a man who had taken so much pleasure spending as much of the spring, summer and fall away from the ranch as he could. Ben felt his worry build, then he forced himself to dismiss the feeling and the oddness of his son's question. He had been hurt, of course Adam would be eager to return to the safety and familiarity of home.

"Oh, another few days or so," Ben said. "You've only just begun to feel better. I am not eager to see you on the back of your horse in the midday heat."

Brows knitting, Adam's face contorted sadly. "Pa?" he asked again.

"Yes."

"Sport's gone."

"No, he isn't," Ben assured. "Joe found him. He's being cared for by your brothers alongside the rest of our horses."

Adam was momentarily visibly relieved, then his expression became nervous once more. "Pa?" he asked for a third time, his tight fists clenching handfuls of the blanket.

"Yes, son."

"The money for the cattle is gone. Those men, they took it from me when they took Sport."

"I know. It's alright."

"How can it be? Five thousand dollars is a lot of money to lose."

"I don't care about the money. I'm grateful I didn't lose you."

The conflict of Adam's expression made it clear he didn't agree with his father's acceptance or gratitude. "I'm sorry," he whispered.

"You have nothing to be sorry for."

Adam didn't respond to his father's palliative statement. Turning away from Ben, he rolled on to his side and closed his eyes, his hands still clenching the blanket. It wasn't long until his feigned dozing became a reality.

Xx

They remained in Eastgate for nearly a week before Ben deemed Adam healthy enough for the trip home. It was an excessive requirement—Ben was aware of that. Adam could have survived the ride the day he woke up without a fever. But Ben didn't want Adam to merely survive, he wanted him to heal. He wanted all his sons to heal—something he was beginning to realize was being hindered a little more each day they remained in the small town of Eastgate.

The time he had allotted for Adam's body to mend hadn't served any of his sons well. Struggling with his own guilt and regret, Hoss had slowly become nearly as protective of Adam as Ben was. He spent more time at Adam's side than he did away from him, watching his older brother and waiting to provide even the slightest of assistance.

Little Joe, however, seemed determined to spend as much time as he could as far away from Adam as he could get. Much to Ben's aggravation, he had taken to warming a barstool with his behind in the saloon. Ben had tried to put an end to it early on, his fierce instruction was quickly ignored, surpassed by Joe's inability to tolerate their current reality. It was behavior that had been allowed to continue for the sole reason that Ben couldn't be in two places at the same time. Hoss did his best to collect his little brother when he strayed to the saloon but, with so much attention focused on Adam, it was difficult to always do.

And then there was Adam.

Quiet, stoic, equanimous Adam. Except he was no longer any of these things—at least not at the moment. He still was quiet, alright; he wasn't inclined to say much of anything. His tears had finally settled but his eyes had remained haunted, his body language heart-wrenchingly uncertain of everything around him. He didn't cope with strangers well—another reason for Hoss's extended attendance at his bedside.

Hoss had a way with Adam, he always had; he didn't have to say anything, his lingering presence was enough for Adam to appear ataractic, comforted by having his younger—and physically larger—brother serve as his bodyguard. They didn't talk, not that Adam seemed up to such a thing. Ben was reminded of how the two men had been as young boys, abiding tumultuous times by taking comfort in each other's steadfast companionship. Ben kept hoping Joe would join them, take up residence on the other side of Adam's bed, and allow his guilt and pain eased by the comfort of proximity rather than alcohol.

It wasn't to be, and besides the setting in the boarding house wasn't nearly as idyllic as Ben would have liked to believe it was.

Even with Hoss, Adam couldn't seem to contend with his apprehension where strangers were concerned. The doctor's initial visit had been the first testimony of Adam's excessive discomfort; the doctor's second and third visits had begun to suggest that the bothersome behavior was a change in disposition.

Adam's suspicion was palpable; he didn't trust anyone he didn't recognize, and he certainly didn't want them examining his body or behavior, giving him advice, or following their instruction—even if the doctor was a qualified man acting in his ultimate best interest. Enforcing the doctor's orders had fallen to Ben, not that that was a problem, because the only thing that rivaled Adam's distrust of strangers was his trust in and obedience of his father's instructions. Though, much to Ben's slight annoyance and relief, there was a limit to his requests too. He had yet to succeed in coaxing Adam out of the boarding room. Although, Ben had to admit that his son's hesitance may have been due to a different complication rather than any actual apprehension.

Except for his boots, the clothes Adam had been wearing when he was found were too dirty and disfigured to be salvaged. Torn and stained with his brother's blood, Hoss hadn't wanted to salvage them; he had ensured they were destroyed instead.

Leaving his eldest in the company of Hoss, Ben set about getting Adam some proper clothes. His walk to the Eastgate General Store, took him toward the gallows and led him to cross the sheriff's path.

"How's your boy?" the sheriff asked as he smoothed his palm over one of the supportive beams of the gallows.

"Doing well," Ben said.

"Glad to hear it. I suppose the four of you'll be heading home soon."

"We're planning to leave in the morning."

"Good deal." The sheriff looked between the gallows and Ben. "Hanging's tonight," he said. "We're finally gonna put old Obadiah out of his misery." He tilted his head. "Man, I tell you I do not understand some people. Obadiah up and kills his business partner and his wife, I'm sure I don't have to explain to you the kinds of suspicions that would lead a man to do that kind of thing."

Shaking his head, Ben didn't need further explanation in order to conceive of the most likely scenario which had led to Johnson killing the pair.

"Anyway," the sheriff continued, "the circuit judge came through; we had the trial and Obadiah ended up lucky. That judge took pity on him and gave him five years."

Ben frowned. "Then why are you hanging him?"

"You know, I've been thinkin' the same thing," the sheriff mused. "It didn't have to be this way. Obadiah had a second chance to do right, but he decided to do wrong instead. We were holding him in the cell, waiting for the prison men to come collect him, and old Obadiah decided he needed to kill someone else. I had two deputies and now I have one; the only thing Obadiah had to say for himself was that the judge got it wrong during his trial. He said he was a guilty man before he killed my deputy; he said couldn't live knowing what he'd done to his friend and his wife." He shook his head sadly. "A guilty conscience can sure make a man do asinine things."

Ben's lips formed a disapproving line.

"Glad to hear your boy's doing better," the sheriff continued. "Best thing you can do for him is get him home and put him back to work. It doesn't seem like a man has as many things to torture himself about when he's busy."

"Why would my son be tortured?"

The sheriff shook his head, his indifferent expression unchanging. "Mister Cartwright, if you think your boy is the first one who ever stumbled out of that wilderness with a crazy look in his eye and hatred for a man called Peter Kane, then you'd be dead wrong. He ain't the first. He's just the first one who decided to hold Kane accountable in a permanent way."

"I thought that was what the law was for. I thought the doctor said my son didn't kill Kane."

"I'm glad to see him finally dead either way. Devil of man that Kane. You know what they say about the devil, don't you? He only takes pleasure in pain."

Ben didn't like the implications of the sheriff's words. What he was supposing about Adam or suggesting about Kane. "My son didn't kill that man," he said firmly.

"Doesn't matter either way, and either way I'm glad Kane's dead. I wouldn't let it worry you too much. Like I told you before, in the eyes of the law your son didn't do anything wrong. He's an innocent man, caught in the crossfire of a man whose evil knew no bounds."

"Why didn't you do anything?" Ben accused.

"'Bout what?"

"If you knew Kane was trouble, if you knew he hurt others and that he had a history of wrongdoing, then why on earth didn't you stop him before? What about your responsibility as the sheriff of this town?"

"Well, the thing about that is, Kane was awful good at setting people up, worming his words into their minds and somehow getting them to do things they swore they'd never do. He never did anything wrong outright; he just set others up to. That's what made him dangerous. He was a damn devil of a man, sitting on peoples' shoulders and whispering things to them the way that he did. But as far as I know, talk ain't illegal. I could never arrest Kane because there was nothin' to really convict him of. There are just some types of men that are so crafty with their evildoing that they become ungovernable by law. You have to let them find their own demise."

"And that's what you think finally happened with my son?" Ben seethed. "You think Adam became Kane's demise."

"Like I said, the man was dangerous. I'm glad he's finally dead. Your son did what he had to do to protect himself. I did what I had to do to protect the people of this town. I banished Kane to the desert like the original Cain. You can't always punish evil, sometimes you just got to wait for it to find its own end."

Though it was more information than he thought he would ever glean about the man named Peter Kane, it was an explanation that didn't sit well with Ben. The sheriff may have protected his townsfolk but he had failed to protect or warn the people who came upon Kane outside of it.

And this new knowledge coupled with the lack of details surrounding Adam's time with Kane weighed on Ben's heart and mind for the remainder of the afternoon.

Xx

That evening Obadiah Johnson was hanged in front of the crowd of townsfolk who had congregated to watch.

In the boarding house room that Joe and Hoss shared, Ben watched his two youngest sons play cards and wondered about people who viewed death as a form of entertainment. It was a train of thought that was welcome at this point, serving as a momentary respite from what had been a taxing day. His nerves frayed by his conversation with the sheriff, Ben had returned to the boarding house with clothes for Adam only to discover his eldest son sleeping and his youngest absent once again.

Traveling swiftly to the saloon, Ben had unleashed his fury upon his youngest son, the sheer power of which had shocked them both. He hadn't yelled or made a scene, but his voice, low and dangerous, and his hand clenching Joe's arm as he pulled him out of his chair, we're both crystal clear warnings of what was to come if Joe didn't finally adhere to his instruction. Wisely, Joe complied and allowed his father to shepherd him back to the boarding house.

Upon retrieving his wayward youngest child, Ben had summoned Hoss from Adam's room, then deemed a few extra minutes of careful observation necessary in order to ensure Joe remained in place. He refused to tolerate his son drinking away their last night in the town; it wouldn't make for a pleasurable or productive morning. He was already anticipating Adam having some difficulty on the trail; he refused to allow his youngest child to engage in behavior that promised a morning—and day—full of self-imposed difficulty.

When Ben finally heard the floor of the gallows drop, he decided it was time to return to Adam.

Entrusting Hoss to keep track of Joe, he finally left his two younger sons to their own devices.

Opening the door to the room he shared with Adam, Ben set his eyes on an unsettling scene. No longer sleeping, Adam had gotten out of bed. Standing on shaking knees, he knelt before the window, each side of the curtains clutched in-between tight fists. Though he couldn't see his son's face from behind, Ben could hear Adam's breaths, thick, ragged, and panicked. Approaching him quickly, he cursed himself for daring to leave Adam alone. Of course, he was going to wake up. With all the ruckus in the thoroughfare, how could he not?

"Adam?" Placing his hands over his son's, he struggled to dislodge Adam's grip on the curtains.

Adam held strong, his knuckles slowly turning white.

"Adam," Ben said again, his voice a little firmer. "Come on, son. Let go. There's isn't anything outside that you haven't seen before or need to see again."

"That's going to be me out there," Adam whispered breathlessly as he watched Johnson's lifeless body sway back and forth.

"What?"

Hands falling to his sides, Ben was taken aback.

Devil of man that Kane, the sheriff's words echoed tortuously in Ben's ears. If your son really did kill him, then he probably deserved it.

"That's going to be me," Adam repeated. "Oh, God, Pa!" Letting go of the curtains, he sank to the floor, his body trembling as he began to weep. It was a different kind of crying than what he had done since being found. Born less from confusion and panic and more from heart-wrenching sadness. It was nearly hysterical, nonetheless. "I-it's gonna b-be me."

There it finally was, Ben thought, the reason for Adam's irregular behavior and savage nightmares.

Could it really be that simple? Could this really be the sole reason for Adam's anguish and distress. No. Because with Adam nothing was that easy. The pain he allowed others to perceive was usually just the smallest glimpse of something of mammoth proportions.

"That's not true," Ben countered, his voice softening as he knelt and pulled his son into his arms. "It could never be true."

"You don't know what happened out there, Pa. The things I let him do, or the things he e-expects from me now." Pressing the side of his head on Ben's shoulder, Adam clung to his father. "You don't know… You don't know... You don't know... You don't know!"

Adam's cries were frenzied and desperate; Ben hesitated in properly broaching the topic of the things Adam thought he didn't know about while his son was so upset. It was better to wait. Let Adam cry himself out and then have a calm, reasonable conversation later.

Kane was awful good at setting people up, worming his words into their minds and somehow getting them to do things they swore they'd never do, the sheriff's words circled Ben's mind, leaving him agonizing over all the possible things Kane could have implored Adam to do.

"Adam, do you want to tell me what happened?"

The gentle question left Ben's mouth despite his intentions otherwise. He was so eager to soothe his son's internal torment—and his own—that he briefly dismissed the doctor's foolhardy advice.

"You can tell me anything," Ben said gently as Adam continued to sob. "You know that. I'm certain whatever happened it isn't worth all this. Obadiah Johnson was a murder, son. You're not. I have known and loved you since before you were born. I know who you are, what you're made of and capable of, so you believe me when I tell you that there is nothing you could possibly do that would warrant being hung."

Adam's only response was to sob harder. And so, Ben held him close. In the moment, there was little else he could do. Still, he was silently haunted by the allegations about Kane by both the doctor and the sheriff and his son's own self-condemning pronouncement.

Your son did what he had to do to protect himself, the memory of the sheriff's words whispered. Doesn't matter either way, and either way I'm glad Kane's dead.

"You didn't kill that man, Adam," Ben said, hoping the knowledge would soothe some pain. Sheriff's placid suspicions be damned; his son was no murderer, regardless of circumstance. "I don't know what happened out there between you and him, but I do know that he died and I know you didn't kill him."

Adam made no indication that the words had been heard or believed. Eventually, when his violent sobs ebbed into sniffles and sporadically hitched breaths, he allowed his father to help him off the floor and tuck him back into bed.

Coaxing him into drinking another glass of water mixed with sleeping power, Ben remained at Adam's bedside, carefully watching over him while what was left of his difficult emotions were soothed away by the tranquilizing liquid.

"Can you hold on to me, Pa?" Adam asked, his eyelids drooping, his words slightly slurred. The effects of powder were starting to overtake him, leaving him calm and close to falling asleep.

The question made Ben uneasy; it was a little too similar to the question Adam asked him in his dreams.

"Of course," he said.

Extending his hand, he rested his open palm on Adam's chest. It was the same thing he had always done when such a request was made by his eldest son, when his hand, weighted and strong, was required to root Adam in place and appease arduous sentiments. It was a predictable response to a request for physical contact that wasn't made often. Adam wasn't Joe; he didn't seek physical reassurances when he was upset or ill, except for exceptionally dire situations—situations such as this. He was unsurprised when Adam covered his hand with his own and held tight. Adam's grip was weaker than it should have been, combined aftereffects of the medicine and his lingering exhaustion, no doubt.

"That's not what I meant," Adam whispered. "But I'll take it just the same."

"What did you mean?"

"Can you hold on to me?" Adam asked tiredly as though repeating the question would suddenly allow it to make more sense than it did.

"Son, I already am."

Adam's frown was a clear indication that his request still hadn't been understood. Too drowsy to repeat or explain it, his eyes closed and his grip on Ben's hand relaxed as he gave into the pull of unconsciousness.

Xx

On their last night in Eastgate, Adam slept peacefully, it was Ben's slumber that had once again become interrupted by bad dreams.

Standing on the cliff, he set his gaze upon Adam and Peter Kane who both stood too close to the edge. Adam was in front of Kane, his face solemn and his attention fixed on the ground below.

"Adam," Ben tried, watching in horror as Kane pushed his son closer and closer toward the crumbling edge of the cliff. "Son."

"Do you really think you can save him?" Kane sneered.

He didn't sound the way Ben had expected him to, or like anyone else he had ever heard before. His voice was deep and gravely, his tone downright jubilant and gleeful. Glistening with something akin to pure evil, the irises of Kane's eyes were an unsettling hue. Ben could have sworn the man's eyes were blue upon first look but seconds later they looked dark, blackened with the slightest hint of bright red.

Kane was an unsettling sight; chill crawling up his spine and stomach turning with a sudden sickness, Ben forced himself to break eye contact. He didn't like the way the man was looking at him or his son; he couldn't tolerate the trepidation born from being the extended focus of the man's lingering gaze. He shouldn't have been afraid of Kane, but somehow, he was.

It was a fear that didn't bode well with him; he had thought there were so few things left in life that could truly frighten him. This man, with his glowing eyes and buoyant smile, scared him more than he wanted to admit.

What was Kane doing? What did he want with Adam? What was he trying to prove?

Taking a step forward, Ben extended his hand. "Adam," he said insistently. He needed to get his son as far away from Kane as he possibly could. "Please, son."

Eyes downcast, Adam remained silent. He gave no indication he heard his father or knew he was there.

"Can you save him?" Kane taunted. He pushed Adam again, then again and again, inching him further away from his father and closer to the edge. "If he jumps, can you catch him? Can you make it in time? I bet you can't."

"You leave my son alone!"

Kane appraised Ben in a pleased manner as he looked him up and down. "It's a little late to be making demands, don't you think? I am dead, after all. You can't exactly go making demands of a dead man."

"Get away from him!"

"It's a little late for that too. I wonder what else it's too late for? You never answered my question. Do you think you can catch him?" Kane looked between the edge of the cliff and Ben. "How about we find out?"

Frozen in place, Ben watched in horror as Kane took a step forward and shoved Adam's back with both of his hands.

"No!" Ben screamed as his son was propelled off the cliff. "Adam!"

Leaping to the edge, he scanned the air and ground below for his son, first in horror, then confusion as he remained unable to locate Adam's body. The air and the ground were empty; seemingly disappearing, Adam had vanished as though he had never been there at all.

"What happened to him?" Ben asked, looking between Kane and ground. "What did you do to him?"

Kane laughed in return.

"Tell me what you did!" Ben bellowed.

"I can't," Kane chuckled. "I'm dead, remember? Dead men don't talk, at least not in normal ways. That, Mister Cartwright, puts you at the mercy of your son. I wonder what kind of story he's going to tell. Is your son a moral man? I mean, really deep down. Is he willing to take responsibility for what he's done or is he going to try to hide it? Is he going to favor truth over lies and own up to what's really going on?"

"My son didn't kill you!"

"How can you possibly know that? You weren't there."

"Because I know my son!"

Ben was furious; hands clenched into fists at his sides, he advanced on Kane quickly, intent on silencing his torturous words. He was stopped suddenly when Kane grasped his upper-arms and held him in place. He was shocked by the man's strength, taken aback by the unsettling dread growing in the pit of his stomach.

"Now I know where your son inherited his temper," Kane said gleefully, holding Ben's arms painfully tight. "Do you think he was right about me?"

"Who?"

"The sheriff." Kane shrugged. "Or the doctor, it doesn't matter which, I suppose. They both seemed to know things about me that you didn't. I wonder what your son knows about me that you don't."

"Let me go!"

"That's funny. That's the same thing your son said when I tied him down. But back to the question at hand, do you think the sheriff was right about me being a devil? What are you going to do if he is?"

Shaken by the question, Ben found himself without words.

"How do you save your son from the devil, Mister Cartwright?" Kane asked. "Do you really think you can protect him from himself?"

Ben didn't know. The situation was new territory. He had never encountered such a mysterious dire situation—at least not with regards to any of his sons. And Adam had never needed much in the way of saving. If it were Joe, it would be different. The boy would cry himself out and admit everything, then accept his father's soothing words and follow his advice word for word. Adam, however, Ben was agonizingly certain, would not do that. He would suffer in silence, fervently holding on to whatever it was he thought he knew.

"I didn't have to push him off that cliff, you know," Kane continued. "With or without me, he would have jumped eventually. You knew that because you were dreaming of this long before your boy ever met me. Now you tell me, what's the point of being gifted dreams if you aren't going to heed their warnings? What is the point of knowing something bad is on the horizon if you don't do anything to stop it?"

"I tried to keep him home. I tried to protect him."

"Not nearly hard enough. Awfully manipulative, that son of yours. He played you right into his hand, Papa."

"Don't you dare speak ill of my son!"

"He did that when he wanted to see the windmills too, remember?" Kane grinned. "Oh, you remember the windmills. How could you ever forget? Of course, he didn't call you Papa then because he didn't need to. His childish tantrum was enough, just like he knew it would be. That's the thing about your son, he's always been intuitive and smart; he figured out your weakness and he uses it to manipulate you."

"That's not true. Adam would never—"

"He does," Kane laughed. "He's such a capable man, strong, self-sufficient, and independent. He doesn't need you for much. In fact, he doesn't really need you for anything at all. That's why his specific type of manipulation works. It works because it's inane and juvenile. If your youngest son tried to pull the same behavior to get his way, you wouldn't tolerate it. You tolerate, no you indulge, the behavior when your oldest son demonstrates it because it makes you feel needed. It makes you feel less obsolete in his life."

"That's a lie!"

"That's the truth. Do you think your son cared about what you instructed him to do the second after you agreed to let him go? He couldn't have cared that much because once in Eastgate, he disrespected your direction and he implored your younger son to disrespect it too."

"My sons are men," Ben said. "They make their own choices. I harbor no anger against them for what they chose to do."

"Oh, but you wanted to, didn't you? Admit it. If Adam wouldn't have gotten hurt, if he hadn't run into me and they had come home, safe and sound and all on their own, your fury would have been waiting for them. Where was that fury when your son was manipulating you? You were gifted the dreams of Adam and the cliff. They were sent to you so you could acknowledge and heed them, and you ignored them instead. What happened to your son was just as much your fault as his."

"My son—"

"Can make his own choices," Kane said. "Yeah, that's what you said, and in the desert, that's exactly what he did. Does it frighten you not to know what I did to your son to transform him into the mess of a man that you found? Does it worry you to know what happened between him and I is something he doesn't want to share with you? You know why, don't you? He doesn't want to fail you. He doesn't want you to know the truth."

"My son didn't kill you."

"Then why does he think needs to be hanged? If he didn't kill me then what could have happened to make him feel as though he would rather die than live?"

Ben woke with a gasp; sitting up quickly, he blinked his eyes blearily against the darkness of the quiet room. It took a few moments for the unsettling images of the dream to fade; the sight of Adam, safe and sound, sleeping peacefully on the bed on the other side of the small room, helped ease some of the lingering alarm he felt.

He felt like such a weary fool, gullible and old. He had allowed his conversation with the sheriff to weigh too heavily on his heart, leaving him so tortured that his subconscious mind had concocted an image of Kane to haunt him in his dreams. It was what the man was rumored to do, wasn't it? Act as a devil on a man's shoulder and whisper terrible things?

In the case of his dream, it seemed that his version of Kane was intent on drawing attention to what one could perceive as Ben's faults as a father and the vast differences in behavior he tolerated from each of his sons. There were differences because his sons were different people with different personalities, strengths, and weaknesses—he didn't need a dream to tell him that, just as he didn't need an illusory version of Kane to remind him of his guilt or his worry for his eldest son.

Although Adam had emerged from his confusion, there were still so many questions remaining about what he had endured in the desert and no satisfactory answers to be gleaned. Only two people knew for certain what had happened; Peter Kane was dead and Adam wasn't talking—at least in not any satisfactory ways. His nervous behavior and subsequent declarations begged more questions than it provided answers.

What had Adam really meant when he declared that he should be hung? What on earth had happened in the desert that was too terrible to speak about? What had Kane done to Adam? And what had Adam done to Kane?

Unsettled by these questions and the strangeness of his dream, Ben was too preoccupied to give sleep further thought.

Xx

When morning came, getting Adam out of the boarding house wasn't the ordeal Ben had anticipated it would be.

Adam had been unnerved by the prospect of leaving, there was no doubt about that; however, he made it out of the room and down the staircase of the boarding house with little problem. It wasn't until he came upon the doorway which would lead him out and on to the thoroughfare that he hesitated.

"Come on, son," Ben said. Standing a few paces in front of Adam, he nodded at the few stairs leading to the street. "You wanted to go home, so let's go." He smiled. "Little Joe is waiting with the horses; you know how impatient he can be."

Clenching his fists as his sides, Adam remained rooted in place. Brows furrowing, he frowned and looked upon the scattered townsfolk in a fretful manner. None of the passing people paid him any mind; no one seemed to care about him, his father, or his brother as they quietly, discreetly, prompted him to take another step.

Coming to stop behind him, Hoss grasped Adam's upper arms; Ben tried to ignore how Adam had jumped, startled by his brother's gentle touch.

"Come on," Hoss said. "I'm right here, brother. I swear, I ain't going nowhere."

Adam glanced back, his eyes seemingly searching for verification of the claim.

"You know I haven't ever broken my word to you before," Hoss added. "I ain't fixing to start now."

Adam paused a moment longer, then nodded in agreement and allowed Hoss to gently propel him toward the steps. He walked slowly; his strides were noticeably shorter than they had ever been before. With his listless pace, agitated expression, missing gun belt, and foreign clothes, Ben was taken aback by how unfamiliar Adam appeared. He had tried to obtain the darkest outfit he could; procuring dark pants had been easy, it was getting a dark colored shirt that remained impossible; he had been forced to buy a blue shirt, which, in turn, he had forced upon his oldest son's back. Adam hadn't wanted to put on the shirt; he had cited no logical reason for not being agreeable to such a thing.

"I don't like it, Pa," Adam had whispered, his brows furrowed with discomfort as he pulled anxiously at the hems of the long sleeves.

Fingers proficiently fastening the buttons lining the front of Adam's shirt, Ben dismissed the words with a shake of his head. "It's only for a few days," he said. "When we get home, you can wear whatever you feel like; you'll make due for now."

"It's not right," Adam protested weakly. "I don't like it."

Ben didn't like it either—though that was a thought he deemed best kept to himself at the time. Watching Hoss push Adam through the thoroughfare, he couldn't help noticing that the color of Adam's shirt wasn't the only thing that wasn't right. It was an observation that smarted, even though the proof of such a thing had been glaring since the day they found Adam in the desert.

Even if Adam wasn't responsible for Kane's death that didn't mean that whatever he had endured hadn't hurt. As Hoss had already said, it had cut him deep and left a gaping wound. Still, with time and proper care, if not terminal, wounds could heal. It was the scars the experience would leave behind that worried Ben the most.

Hoss removed his hands from Adam's shoulders as soon as they approached the livery. Looking between their horses who were tied to the hitching rail and his oldest son, Ben was grateful that even without Hoss's force Adam kept walking toward the building. When Joe emerged from behind their horses, Ben couldn't help but wonder if he was the reason Hoss had finally let go of Adam, if his middle son wasn't somehow trying to preserve Adam's pride in front of their youngest brother. It was an odd thought, ridiculous and foolish. There was no hiding the changes in Adam from Joe. They were too obvious and notable, knowledge of them was the very reason Joe had been driven to the saloon.

"Ready?" Joe asked.

"Ready," Hoss said.

Eyes locked on Sport, Adam hesitated once again.

Glancing between Adam and the horse, Ben braced himself for a negative reaction, preparing to intercede should the moment turn sour. Though he didn't know what he was anticipating, it wasn't what he eventually watched his older son do.

Striding to the horse, Adam looked upon Sport with wonder in his eyes. "Hey, Buddy," he whispered, extending an open palm to stroke the white hair between the animal's forehead and muzzle. "I thought I'd never see you again."

The horse, it seemed, shared Adam's relief. Tilting his head from beneath Adam's hand, Sport shuffled in place, extending his neck to nuzzle Adam's cheek. It was a heartwarming reunion; an uplifting moment amongst so many others that had been so cruel. Neither Ben, nor Hoss, nor Joe made a move to interrupt it. Ben was certain they all knew whatever had happened—however Adam and Sport had been separated by the men who had thrust Adam into the desert alone—it was a biting memory for both Adam and his loyal horse.

"Thank you," Adam said eventually. Pulling away from Sport, his eyes were locked on Little Joe. "For finding and bringing him back to me."

Pursing his lips, Joe nodded curtly. Ben knew Adam's relief over the safe return of the beloved animal didn't need to be fully explained to be understood.

Xx

Over the next few days, they took their time heading home; the land was rough and there was little point in inviting further disaster by foolishly rushing through it.

Sitting atop Sport, Adam was noticeably quiet. He spoke only when spoken to directly, and even then his responses were brief, absent, and lackluster. His attention, it seemed, was focused on the landscape; his eyes, dull and owlish, endlessly scanned the distance for something that couldn't be seen. Ben noted his eldest's peripatetic gaze early on, because it was behavior he recognized. It was the same thing he had done prior to finding Adam, his own eyes ceaselessly searching the distance for something he was both dreading and hoping to find. Dreading because he hadn't wanted to come across his son's lifeless body and hoping because, dead or alive, he wasn't sure how he could ever return to the Ponderosa without his eldest child.

Never far from the protective presences of his younger brothers and father, Adam was silent during their days on the trail, but during the nights he screamed. Unwilling to allow his son to consume the sleeping powder while in the unpredictable wilderness, Ben held himself accountable for the brutality of Adam's nightmares.

Beneath the cover of a star-speckled sky, surrounded by a still silence, interrupted by the occasional chorus of coyotes, sleeping close to the low embers of their fading campfire, Adam was surrounded by his family members. His slumber was fitful and sparse, so theirs was too. It seemed to Ben that they had all just drifted off once more before Adam began tossing and turning again, first mumbling, then, eventually, screaming about games. He woke swiftly when any one of them touched him, springing to a seated position, his breaths coming in gasps as he looked at them with wild, wide eyes. It took a few minutes for him to calm down, for him to regain his bearings, for relief and recognition to become etched on his face as reality dawned upon him once more. He may not have been safe in his dream but he was safe now.

Despite all of this, there was one small mercy. Adam may have been suffering from intense, persistent nightmares, but at least he didn't cry when he awoke.

In fact, after crying when Obadiah Johnson had been hung, Adam hadn't shed another tear, confused or otherwise, and, for that, Ben was endlessly grateful. He never had been good at watching his sons cry over pain that couldn't be eased or helped; it was a horrendous thing to stomach when they were young and somehow infinitely worse to endure when they were adults. He was used to fixing things, providing wisdom, medicine, or protection to ease whatever ailed his children. But this situation was unlike any he had experienced before; he couldn't help Adam if his son remained insistent that he didn't remember what he was dreaming about. He couldn't provide any wisdom if his son remained adamant that he didn't remember what had happened to him.

Despite his last emotional outburst, mysteriously likening the punishment for Obadiah Johnson's crimes to what he perceived as his own, Adam remained resolute in the face of Ben's probing questions. Once again, he insisted he didn't remember being robbed, the desert, or Peter Kane. He was lying, of course, Ben reasoned that right away, as Adam had already mentioned losing Sport and the money he had been carrying when he had been robbed. He had said something else too, though he hadn't provided certain context. The justification Adam had used to win his comparative argument of Johnson and himself had left Ben uneasy.

Adam had told Ben that Ben didn't know what had happened to him, suggesting that Adam, in fact, did remember something. The anguish in his son's voice when he had made the claim was verification enough for Ben to be convinced that Adam remembered much more than he wanted to recall or disclose. Even so, Ben wasn't eager to press Adam for more information; he wouldn't pull the details out of him one by one, because the years he had spent raising his son had proven that such a thing was nearly impossible to do. He would have to wait until Adam was ready and willing to talk.

In the meantime, Ben intended to take his son home. Once there, he would keep Adam close for a long while. Requiring him to cease his lonely wandering, he would limit him to the ranch house, barn, and closer pasture. Heeding the doctor's advice, he wouldn't force his son to speak about what happened in the desert; keeping Adam's pride intact, he would give him privacy, space, and time to work through his emotions on his own time, in his own way and under careful supervision. Eventually, the nightmares and memories would fade; whatever had happened would become an event so distant that the details wouldn't be readily recalled; and Ben would stubbornly heed whatever premonitions he was gifted in the future. Heaven and earth would have to be moved before he discarded their warning again.

It all seemed uncomplicated when he thought about it, during those long days on the trail. Straightforward and logical. Adam was such a logical man; he was bound to agree with his father should they ever discuss it.

It was the nights on the trail when Ben had trouble reconciling his foolish thoughts. When he heard Adam's screams and yells, when he grasped his son's arm and startled him awake only to stare into his eyes, wide and tormented. It was what Ben saw in his son's eyes that shook his faith in his previously conceived plan; they declared a truth that couldn't be denied. It wasn't wise for Adam to ignore what happened. While silence was the best way to preserve a man's pride, it usually came at the cost of his soul.

How do you save your son from the devil, Mister Cartwright?

Kane's words from his dream echoed in Ben's mind as Adam woke once again. Holding his son's arm tightly, Ben waited for Adam's breathing to calm, for recognition of reality to dawn upon him once more.

"You're fine," Ben whispered when his son's confusion finally seemed to settle. "I'm here; your brothers are here. Everything is okay, Adam."

Nodding once, Adam pursed his lips and laid back down. Pulling the blanket tight around Adam's shoulders, Ben tried to not worry about his son's haunted expression as Adam fixed his attention on the dying flames of the campfire. Shaking his head, he tried to dismiss the memory of Kane's words and the haunting apprehension they awoke and his gaze found his youngest son.

Sitting upright, Joe's knees were bent as he hugged his legs to his chest. He had carefully arranged his bedroll on the opposite side of the campfire. To Ben, it seemed as though Joe was both as close to Adam as he could tolerate being and as far away as he could possibly be given their current surroundings. It saddened him to think of such things, to look at Joe mirroring Adam's pain only to reflect it in a different way. Joe had always been the most sensitive of his boys, a quality that made him fiery and impulsive and had also allowed him to grow into an empathetic young man. As much as the events of the past few weeks had affected Adam, they had affected Joe too. Like Adam, Joe's eyes were haunted, his attention focused on the dying embers of the fire.

Casting another look at Adam, Ben was satisfied to find him asleep. He nudged Hoss, waiting for his middle son to look at him before nodding silently at Adam. Hoss nodded in return and Ben stood, moving to sit next to his youngest child.

Joe looked upon him in shock. "Pa," he protested, his voice no more than a whisper. "Adam—"

"Is fine at the moment," Ben assured softly.

"Is he? I'm sorry, Pa; I don't believe you."

"I don't want you to be sorry," Ben whispered. It was as good of an opportunity as any to parlay the conversation toward easing Joe's contrition. "There isn't anything for you to be sorry for." He hoped the mollifying statement would be more easily accepted by his youngest son than his oldest.

"I don't believe that either," Joe whispered.

"Why?"

"Because..." Pausing, Joe seemed hesitant to give words to his thoughts. "Because I let Adam leave Eastgate alone," he continued, lowering his voice to a nearly inaudible tone so he wasn't in danger of being overheard. "You asked us to take care of each other, Pa, and I... I didn't do that. I let Adam head out alone. He got robbed and he got lost and then he got mixed up with that dead man, and when we found him, he cried."

"That's not something you've ever seen him do before."

"No." Joe shook his head, immediately refuting his own answer. "I mean… yeah, I have but not like that."

"When did you ever see your brother cry?"

Joe shook his head again. "Doesn't matter."

"Then what matters?" Ben probed.

"What matters is... I heard him before and I know why he was crying that time, so I can tell the difference between genuine grief and somethin' else. A man doesn't cry and carry on the way Adam has been when something truly horrible hasn't happened to him. I was talking to some of the people in the saloon and I heard all sorts of stories about that dead man, Pa. The terrible things he somehow got people to do to each other. They called him evil; the sheriff called him a devil."

"I know."

"You told us to look after each other," Joe repeated sadly. "And I didn't do that, because when Adam said he wanted to head out of Eastgate alone, I let him go. I hate myself for doing that because I should have known better; I should have listened to you and not him. I let him go into the desert; I let him walk right into that devil's hand."

"Joe—"

"See, Pa, it could have been different had I not agreed, but I did, so it wasn't. It's my fault for being so... so used to Adam always being the one to protect me. I didn't think anything could happen to him, because the thought of my older brother not being able to protect himself has never crossed my mind. It's foolish that it didn't, because look what happened all because I let him go off alone."

"None of this is your fault, Joe."

"Then whose fault is it?" Joe asked. "Who can I blame? Pa, it has to be somebody's fault."

"It's mine," a soft voice interjected.

Startled by the sudden admission, Ben and Joe looked past the declining fire and found Adam, sitting upright, his absent gaze locked on the darkness behind them. Ben hadn't realized Adam was still awake; with Hoss snoring softly, he hadn't anticipated their conversation was loud enough to be overheard.

"If you need somebody to blame, then blame me," Adam continued. His voice was quiet, feeble in comparison to the compelling strength of his usual timbre. "Because what happened was my fault. It… it was all my fault."

Joe frowned. "I could never blame you. You're the one who got hurt. I'm the one who let you go alone. I should have been with you. I should have gone too."

"I didn't want you to come with me," Adam said. "I wanted to be alone. It was my decision to go; it was my mistake. I was arrogant, imperious, and indecorous; I'm the one who's responsible for carrying the burden of what happened. If you can't blame me for my own mistake, then you're going to have to let it go."

"But if I would have been there—" Joe began.

"Then it would have been the both of us," Adam said. "And you would have had to die out in the desert too. Be thankful I was alone; be grateful that it was only me, Joe. I am."

Though taken aback, Ben was comforted by Adam's words. Leave it to Joe to be the one to force Adam to set aside his own pain in order to play the role of wise older brother and soothe his younger brother's fear. It was a role Adam slipped into easily; it was what he had always done and would always do; and it was a welcome development. It wasn't much, but it was something. The slightest hints of more favorable things to come.

Palming Joe's neck, Ben pulled him close and smiled. Dismissing Adam's absent tone and vacant stare, he convinced himself to hold tight to Adam's words rather than his haggard appearance. These words, the first few real sentences Adam had said since being found, were a gift. A solid ray of hope shining through the storm clouds. Adam had survived the wilderness; he had endured seemingly incomprehensible difficulty to do so. He had struggled but he had survived; surrounded by his family, he was safe and he would heal.

Still, his certainty in the moment wasn't enough to soothe the sliver of doubt awoken by Kane's words from Ben's dream.

I wonder what kind of story he's going to tell? the memory hissed. Is he willing to take responsibility for the truth or is he going to try to hide it?

Watching Adam sob uncontrollably after watching Obadiah Johnson be hung, Ben figured, was as good of an admission of guilt as any. But the problem with Adam holding himself responsible for Peter Kane's death was that he didn't actually kill the man.

I was arrogant, imperious, and indecorous. Ben frowned, unsettled by the self-deprecating remarks Adam used to characterize himself and his behavior.

Is your son a moral man? Kane had asked gleefully in his dream.

Ben knew that Adam was. His eldest child had a moral compass that could rival that of the most righteous of men. Persevering and unyielding, Adam's beliefs never changed. Things were either right or they were wrong, actions were acceptable or punishable. There were no exceptions, and no in-between when it came accepting consequences demanded by unacceptable, illicit actions. It was a conviction that, under normal circumstances, Ben was extraordinarily proud of, but he would be lying if he said it didn't frighten him now, because though Ben was certain Adam hadn't killed Kane, it was a belief that Adam didn't seem to share.

Ben couldn't dismiss a glaring fact—one which Adam had previously declared—he didn't know what happened in the desert between Kane and his son; he didn't know what had preceded Kane's death or Adam's mental anguish and confusion. He didn't know, but he suspected Kane's actions had been decidedly wrong and Adam's, he feared, could be interpreted as betwixt. And if that was the case then where did that leave his son whose moral compass left no room for exceptions or in-between actions which lingered somewhere between good and bad? Ben wasn't certain of that either. He had his suspicions and fears and he had the memory of Kane's horrifying question, looping endlessly in his mind.

Do you really think you can save him from himself?

Ben wasn't sure. How could he possibly begin to contend with his son's fervent beliefs?

Watching Adam stare absently at the dark horizon, Ben's worry was renewed—not that it was ever really silenced. How could it? With Adam's worrisome behavior, his persistent confusion, and nightmares? With his eyes, wide and wild and staring into the darkness, gleaming

in a bedeviled fashion? With everything he didn't know about what happened to his son and the few things he did, how could Ben possibly silence all his worry?

Can you catch me? Adam had asked in a dream. Pa, can you?

The repetitious question eventually awoke the memory of another conversation and a bothersome indifferent statement the Eastgate sheriff had offered in passing.

A guilty conscience can sure make a man do asinine things.

Can you hold on to me, Pa? Adam had asked a few days prior. It was a request Ben hadn't fully understood at the time.

Ben felt a coldness envelop him as Joe finally pulled away and settled back down on his bedroll. Eyes locked on Adam, he felt a shiver creep through his body as Kane's words returned to haunt him once more.

If he jumps, can you catch him? I bet you can't. How about we find out?

While Ben had no interest in pursuing such an experiment, he was overtaken by a harrowing feeling. He wasn't interested in pursuing such thoughts, but what was Adam interested in doing?

What had Kane influenced his son to do in the desert? What kind of imprint had the dead man's assumed mind games left on Adam and what would they implore him to do?

Returning to Adam's side, Ben silently indicated for Adam to lay back down, then he settled in a very small distance away. He would have preferred to be closer, to envelope his son into his arms and hold him the way he had when they had been so many years younger. When the discrepancies between their physical sizes and timbres of their voices had been so vast and distinct. When Ben's very presence was enough to soothe his son's discomfort and fear. It wasn't to be. After all, Adam was a man now, deeming such a sleeping arrangement wildly inappropriate.

Ben settled for the next best thing. Extending his arm, he placed a comforting palm on Adam's chest. "I'm going to hold on to you," he whispered the quiet vow for only the two of them to hear. He was uncertain if the assurance was meant to soothe Adam's lingering distress or his own. "You asked me if I could hold on to you and I want you to know that I can. We found you and I have you, son. I'm not letting go. I'll never let go."

Stirring uncomfortably beneath his father's hand, Adam didn't reply.

Though both his and Adam's slumber would continue to be disturbed by unsettling nightmares and dreams, it was his son's persistent silence that would come to haunt Ben the most in the forthcoming weeks.

Xx

In the coming weeks, Ben's dream changed.

Still standing immobile on the top of the cliff, his eyes aimlessly searching the desolate land below for something he was destined to never find. Since being pushed over the edge by Kane, Adam was nowhere to be seen. He hadn't appeared in any of his father's dreams since, but that didn't mean Ben was alone. He was never alone in his dreams.

Peter Kane always loomed, blocking the only access point to the safety of the landscape behind them. Sometimes he spoke, others he only stared, his lips curled into an evil smile, his eyes glowing as he watched and waited for Ben to utter an accusation or make a move. This time Ben remained determined to do neither as he stood rooted in place, his fists clenched at his sides as he silently willed himself to wake up.

"Now, why would you want to wake up?" Kane asked. "You dream of me for a reason, you know. You may not think that is true, but it is. Deep down, you want to speak with me; deep down, you want me to tell you all the things I know. You want to talk to me because your son won't talk to you." He smiled, his eyes glistening with evil. "At all."

Ben was unsurprised by the statement; time had proven the Kane of his dreams was always privy to his thoughts. It was as infuriating as it was unsettling to have no secrets, no privacy from a man he despised so much.

"It's interesting, isn't it?" Kane asked. "How you allow yourself to hate someone you never met. How can you judge me so harshly, Mister Cartwright? You never spoke to me while I was alive; you didn't know what kind of man I really was. I could have been anyone, you know."

Scowling, Ben didn't appreciate the accusation. He didn't need to know Kane in order to despise or curse the man's name. He may not have seen or spoken to him while he was alive, but he knew enough to loathe him and be thankful for his death.

"How can you be so sure?" Kane laughed. "After all, you don't know the truth of what happened out there."

Ben didn't need details to be certain of such a thing. The indisputable changes in his eldest son's temperament were enough for Ben to appreciate Kane's death. Praise be to God for taking the man while Adam was stumbling around in the desert. Glory be that Hoss or Joe or Ben himself hadn't been responsible for first saving then subsequently taking the man's life. One of them would have done something regrettable had Kane survived—Ben was certain of that now.

"It's interesting you would give thanks to God for anything," Kane said. "A man like you, with all the things you've been given and then had taken away."

Kane's words gave voice to a thought—Ben was ashamed to admit—that had occurred to him before.

He had lost a great deal over the course of his life, people, places, and things he held near and dear to his heart. Some he had left behind by his own will and volition, others had been taken from him without warning. It was the loss of people that always seemed to hurt the most; enduring the pertinacious sting of continuing life without them was what generally led to such dissentious thoughts. Pain, physical or mental, had a way of strengthening a man's bond with God or breaking it. Ben had endured events which had left him with experience of both outcomes. Still, with age came wisdom, patience, strength, and faith. He wasn't the godliest of men but he did his best and he had taught his sons to do their best too.

"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth," Kane said. "He created the darkness and the light; he created land, plants and animals, all living things. God created Adam. Cursed is the ground on which Adam walks because he sinned; he defied his father's instruction and he became knowing of good and evil…"

Closing his eyes, Ben hung his head and groaned. He had heard this sermon too many times before. Kane took pleasure in likening Ben's son, Adam, to the first son of God. He enjoyed contrasting the mistakes of one Adam to another, torturing Ben with how parallel they could sometimes seem. And Kane took great satisfaction comparing his own life path to that of someone else.

"God created Cain," Kane continued. "Sin desired him and he was incapable of ruling over it. Sin is what led God to cast Cain out, making him a restless wanderer of the earth. Even so, God loved Cain and protected him; he marked him so that no one who found him in the desert would kill him, and anyone who dared would suffer vengeance seven times over. What happened in the desert, Mister Cartwright? Was God protecting me too? Is that why your son is destined to suffer so much now that I'm dead?"

"My son didn't kill you," Ben seethed. He refused to believe such a thing could be true. "God didn't cast you into that desert, the sheriff did."

"None of that changes the fact that your son did defy you. He went into the desert outside of Eastgate when you told him to come home and he became aware of good and evil."

"I've told you before and I'll tell you again, my son is a grown man; he makes his own decisions, and besides that, Adam is thirty-four years old; I assure you, your evil wasn't the first he's ever encountered in his life."

"Yes," Kane agreed. "But what made mine so much worse than anything he's come across before? What did he do to me? What did I do to him?" He smiled broadly. "Is it true?"

"Is what true?"

"What the people of Eastgate said about me. Was I a man? Was I a demon? Or was I a devil in disguise?"

It was with this question echoing in his mind that Ben suddenly awoke.

It was early, judging by the steadily brightening sky. He slept less and less these days, it seemed, waking each dawn earlier than the one before. It was just as well; he didn't feel as though he needed more sleep than what he obtained, and having his dreams consistently infiltrated by Peter Kane was as good of a reason as any not to extend his slumber for any longer than needed.

He dressed quickly, then quietly exited his bedroom. He made it a few paces down the hallway, his careful gaze evaluating the entries to his son's respective bedrooms, looking for anything worrisome or out of place. It was an old habit, unconscious yet unnecessary as all his sons had reached adulthood. It had been years since either Hoss or Joe had required their father's attention in the early moments of dawn or in the middle of the night, to protect or soothe or reassure, and it had been even longer since Adam had needed such a thing. Of course, that had been before and this was now; before being a normal version of what Ben recognized as the life he had built and shared with his sons, and now being some alternate time period that they had been drawn into after finding Adam wandering the desert.

Finding the door to Adam's bedroom open, Ben couldn't stifle the sigh which escaped him; deep and defeated, the sheer strength of it was enough to make his shoulders slump. He didn't need to appraise the bedroom to know what he would find—or who he wouldn't find rather—because his eldest son's absences from bed had become habitual.

Adam had been aimlessly wandering the desert when they finally found him and though he was safe at home, nearly six weeks after the day he had been found, Ben's eldest son was still aimlessly wandering in so many ways.

Since returning home, Adam's behavior had become increasingly unsettling and strange. He seemed to long for physical verification of safeness, unconsciously standing or sitting with very little proximity between whoever he was next to. On the quiet evenings when the family congregated around the fireplace, Adam had abandoned his favored blue chair, choosing instead to sit on the settee; his vacant gaze focused on the flames of the fire, his arm extended absently to grasp Ben's forearm and hold it tightly. While maintaining contact, Adam seemed oddly unaware he had initiated or allowed such a thing; the moment he realized what he was doing, however, he would pull away immediately. Though Adam did similar things with Hoss, he never sought contact with Joe. Occasionally, Ben found himself wondering why such a thing would be, and others he avoided considering it at all, reminding himself that he should take solace in the fact that Hoss was such a comfort to Adam.

He should be grateful his eldest son, normally so stoic and restrained, hadn't chosen to isolate himself completely while he wrestled with his internal torment. It was hard to be appreciative of such a thing, because once so adaptable and autonomous, it was obvious Adam no longer liked being alone. There was something especially intolerable about solitary silence or darkness, it seemed. His days were spent in the company of at least one of his family members, and he had taken to sleeping with his bedroom illuminated with the soft glow of an oil lamp burning low.

The door to Hoss's bedroom was slightly ajar. Hesitating in front of it, Ben clutched the doorknob and paused, uncertain if he intended to peer inside or pull the door closed. In the end, he did neither. He didn't need to look inside to know what he would find; if the crack in the door wasn't evidence enough then Adam's open bedroom door was.

Still haunted by nightmares Adam often woke in the middle of the night; unable to return to sleep or bear being alone, he had taken to seeking respite in Hoss's room. It was an unsettling development; Ben didn't like it. Under normal circumstances, such a thing would have been immediately deemed indecorous. But these were not normal circumstances, a saddening fact that became more and more glaring with each sunrise and sunset as nothing about Adam seemed destined to become what his family would define as normal ever again.

Ben remained quiet about the sleeping arrangement. He didn't want to draw attention to it, transforming it into a larger problem than it already seemed. If Adam needed security, if proximity to Hoss was what allowed him to get through the night, then Ben wouldn't put an end to it. After all, who was he to say one way or another? If Hoss was accepting of it, then who was he to put a stop to it?

Ben did want it to stop; his silence didn't automatically equate to acceptance. He would have preferred to have each of his sons in their respective beds. He would have preferred having never heard or dreamed of a man named Peter Kane. He would have preferred for Adam to suddenly return to the person he had once been. He would have much preferred to wake up from this extended nightmare that had become their life to find everything normal once more. With each passing day, it seemed like such a thing was less and less likely to ever be.

Adam wasn't talking about what happened in the desert. In fact, these days, he wasn't talking about anything at all. He had ceased speaking completely. It had been a surreptitious decline, not immediately worrisome or notable because Adam hadn't been particularly garrulous since being found. It was Little Joe who had first brought attention to his eldest brother's prolonged silence, posing a question to Hoss one evening after Adam had retired upstairs to bed.

"When's the last time you heard Adam say anything?" he had asked. Dislodging his gaze from the grand fireplace, he looked at Hoss, his face settling into a worried expression.

"Dunno." Hoss shrugged. "Haven't really thought about it, I guess."

"You don't know?" Joe pressed.

"He's quiet these days," Hoss said. "That ain't new. Older Brother has always been more of the thoughtful type."

"There's thoughtful and then there's mute."

Chewing absently on the end of his pipe, Ben frowned. "Mute?"

"Yeah, mute," Joe said, looking at his father. "You know, Pa, I don't think I heard him say one word today, and that got me thinking about yesterday and the day before and I don't think he's said anything for at least the past three days."

"Three days?" Hoss asked, clearly not sharing his brother's worry. "Come on, Joe, don't be silly. If Adam had gone three days without talkin' one of us would have noticed."

"One of us did notice," Joe said. "That's what I'm telling you right now."

"Three days is a long time not to notice someone not speaking," Ben said. "You've been busy, Joe. With Adam doing less work away from the house and you doing more, you haven't spent a lot of time with him. Like Hoss said, he doesn't talk much. Maybe he has spoken; maybe you just haven't been around to hear him."

"I don't believe that," Joe refuted softly.

Silently, Ben wondered if he disbelieved the explanation too.

Though Joe had conceded the argument, it wasn't a complete loss, because after the conversation Ben had made a concerted effort to take note of how much Adam spoke. It didn't take long for him to discover that Joe had been right or for his eternal worry over Adam's wellbeing to proliferate.

It wasn't long after that when Doctor Paul Martin had come around. The people of Virginia City had heard about Adam's disappearance; his subsequent extended absence from town had given birth to rumors too numerous to count—some were outlandish and others carried a little more truth than Ben wanted to admit. At their core they could all be condensed to the same unavoidable theory: robbed and set astray in the desert outside of Eastgate, Adam had been lost for weeks before being found, and the Adam who had been pulled from the desert wasn't the same man who entered it. Something bad had happened—the complications and details of which were wildly exaggerated and passionately speculated about by the townsfolk. And so, one afternoon, seemingly prompted by exaggerated speculation, Doc Martin had come under the guise of a friendly visit.

"I know you didn't fetch me, but I heard what happened to Adam," he had said. "It's been a while since he's been around town. I won't lie to you, Ben, there's some nasty talk floating about. I thought a visit might be prudent, see if there's any truth to some of those claims."

Ben thought the only thing more prudent than an impromptu visit would have been for the doctor to not have come in the first place.

"I am by nature a curious man," Martin continued. "I assure you this visit was facilitated by genuine concern."

"Concern," Ben repeated sharply; he had doubts about such things where anyone outside of his immediate family was concerned.

"Concern." Martin punctuated the word with a nod. "Is Adam around?"

"He is."

"Will you allow me to speak with him?"

Appraising the doctor skeptically, Ben didn't immediately reply. "You can try," he finally agreed.

And Doc Martin did try to converse with Adam with no apparent success. Appearing in acceptable physical health, it was Adam's mind that seemed to be in poor condition—Ben hadn't needed the doctor to tell him that, though the man had anyway. The only helpful information Martin had offered after examining and observing Adam for just over an hour were his parting words.

"You're walking a very fine line where his behavior is concerned," Martin said. "What you allow will set a precedent and most likely continue. The more convenient you make it for him to act strangely, the less reason he has to correct his behavior."

Ben was appalled both by the advice and Martin's clinical tone. "How dare you?" he growled. "I didn't ask you here. I didn't seek your advice about my son's behavior or health."

"Ben," Martin said calmly, "I meant no disrespect. You know I didn't. I'm merely offering my educated opinion—"

"Which I did not ask you for!"

"I came because I was concerned..."

"You came because you were curious!"

"...about the things I had heard. I was concerned before I came, Ben," Martin said evenly. "But I do feel obligated to tell you, I'm a bit beyond that now."

Ben snapped his mouth shut. What feelings preceded concern? Unease? Alarm? Fear? Surely, he knew the answer though he found himself incapable of deciding upon it now.

"Are you worried?" Martin asked. Shaking his head, he didn't wait for a reply. "If you aren't then you should be. The changes in Adam are startling to say the least."

"I know," Ben quietly conceded. There was no point in denying what could be easily seen.

Adam was different. He had lost weight since the desert. While it wasn't a worrisome amount—at least not yet—the difference in his physique was obvious. His clothes, always dark and black, hung on him with a looseness they hadn't had before. He was uncharacteristically unconcerned with his appearance. He had stopped shaving and his hair was left uncut and uncombed; rising off his head in a thick, dark mass, it succeeded in somehow making him appear both younger and older at the same time. It was his absent stare that bothered Ben the most; dull and lifeless, Adam's hazel eyes often glistened with a worrisome glint of an emotion so foreign Ben struggled to define it. He was fearful to admit he recognized it, however, for he had seen it over and over, displayed overtly by the Adam of his dreams.

"I have never known your son to decline a scholastic conversation," Martin said. "I asked him a plethora of analytical questions, trying to encourage him to speak. All I was able to get out of him was a nod, a shake of his head, or a shrug."

"Those seem to be his preferred responses as of late," Ben said. Physically present, Adam's thoughts often appeared somewhere else. He didn't seem to actually listen to the things that were being said.

"Not a word," Martin said. "I cannot believe that boy did not say one word."

Ben flinched. Slightly—oddly—stung by the label Martin had used to refer to his son. Adam wasn't a boy; he was a grown man and as such he couldn't be told what to do or be forced to speak when he so clearly did not want to. Independent and sovereign, he was reasonably free to make his own choices and do whatever he pleased, making their current predicament much more difficult to navigate than it would be if he were much younger.

If Adam were younger then Ben would know what to do, this was a bothersome notion that he seemed unable to dismiss. Highlighting and intensifying his worry and fear, it awakened a truth that refused to be ignored. He was Adam's father and as such he had loved and protected him the entirety of his life; he knew him better than anyone else. He should have been able to help him more than he was; he should have been able to think of the right thing to say or do in order to ease the crippling burden that was slowly pushing Adam into the ground.

"He's lost weight," Martin said. "His complexion is fine, but there are dark circles beneath his eyes. He doesn't appear to be sleeping well."

"He doesn't sleep well. It takes an act of God to get him to eat these days."

"Picky?"

"No. More adverse."

"Opposed to eating," Martin mused. "That's an interesting symptom."

"Of what?"

The doctor appeared thoughtful. "I don't know," he said. "Tell me, Ben, what exactly did happen to Adam in that desert?"

Ben shook his head. He wouldn't answer because he didn't know. He could have told Doc Martin about Peter Kane, what the Eastgate sheriff and doctor alluded to about the man and how his body had been found in Adam's possession. But he decided against it. The fewer people aware of the evil man's existence the better. Though Doc Martin had always seemed trustworthy enough, he had no intentions of disclosing information that could be used to further the rumors about Adam swirling around Virginia City.

"Be mindful of your son, Ben," Martin said. "It is obvious he has become unbalanced. I am sure I don't need to remind you of analogies of mind sickness, locked dark gates to which there are no keys. I suppose I do not need to remind you of what happened to Ross Marquette either."

With this warning, Doc Martin had left behind more sleeping powder and a promise of a return visit in the following weeks. Ben wasn't sure if he should be concerned or relieved. He was both, he supposed. Concerned over Adam and relieved to have Martin at their disposal to offer an educated opinion and advice—as unsolicited as it had been at first.

And at first, with the memory of Ross Marquette's unsettling decline into madness and eventual death lingering in the forefront of his mind, Ben tried to heed the doctor's instruction. He had tried to set boundaries; he had tried his best to pull his son further back from the edge of that preverbal cliff, the fine line of behavior he had been warned about. He had been understanding and gentle until he had been forced to become stern and firm, neither approach ever seemed to work. Adam was nothing if not stubborn. Ben supposed he would have been annoyed if his son's obstinance was not a relief; given the circumstances, it was a comfort. A very small one but a comfort nonetheless.

Still eating meekly, Adam's sleep continued to be sparse as he refused to talk. The chores he was directed to do by his father were completed silently and amicably. Following the advice of Eastgate sheriff, Ben had put Adam back to work; he filled his eldest son's days with menial tasks around the barn, tending to the horses and various animals they kept close to the house, and any arcane pursuits he could conceive of. Adam was more accepting of the former tasks than the latter, preferring physically laborious tasks over intellectual ones. It was an odd development, a sudden change in preference or disposition that was too foreign for Ben to accept.

Who was Adam without curiosity or a deep love for erudite pursuits? Who was his son without his voice? The one he had used to satisfy his thirst for knowledge by posing questions or challenging opinions? Who was Adam now? Ben wasn't sure he knew.

Can you hang on to me, Pa?

It was Adam's question that haunted Ben ceaselessly as did the evening around the campfire when Adam had soothed Joe's guilt. It was with great sorrow that he recalled the memory of that night because now he could see so clearly what he had missed. Finding Adam in the desert they had saved him from nothing; the real struggle had only just begun, the fight for the retention of the Adam they knew and recognized. Ben had vowed to hold on to his son but with each passing day it seemed like Adam was slipping more and more from his grasp.

The sun was rising when he finally made his way downstairs. Casting his gaze outside the unshuttered windows at the head of the table, he paused and watched the sky begin to fill with promising rays of light. It was the dawn of yet another day; he wondered what kind of unwelcome changes this one would bring.

Xx

Breakfast was a quiet affair.

Even with Adam's silence, this was not often the case. There were always things to discuss about the ranch, plans to be deliberated, chores and tasks to be assigned—the details of which on good days were easily accepted and on others could dissolve any polite conversation into a debate, the battle of wills amongst sons. A steady stream of banter, good or bad, between the brothers was a given. As of late, it had fallen to Joe and Hoss to continue such a thing, which they did with no hesitation and little thought. However, this morning Joe's absence from the table was glaring, serving to somehow highlight how quiet Adam had really become.

Sitting at the head of the table, Ben sipped his coffee and looked thoughtfully between his two present sons. Engaged in the meal before him, Hoss paid his father's attention no heed as his knife and fork scratched sporadically against his plate. It was a common noise to accompany eating, certainly not one which was unique to his middle son; it did not bother Ben in the slightest. Adam, on the other hand, seemed to become more and more troubled each time it was repeated. Teeth clenched, he flinched each time his brother's cutlery touched the plate.

Attention focused on the meal before him, Hoss was either oblivious to his brother's discomfort or he was ignoring it outright. The second option was more likely than the first, as Hoss had become quite apt at silently accepting whatever odd behavior Adam presented. It was something Ben was grateful for most of the time; not drawing attention to his older brother's seemingly uncontrollable reactions was an incredibly kind hearted—albeit difficult—thing to do. It was not something Ben or Joe had quite mastered yet.

When Adam did something uncharacteristic, Joe's expression often gave him away as his face contorted with surprise, sadness, or sometimes a combination of the two; tearing his gaze away from his eldest brother, he would do everything he could not to look at him again. This was another form of ignoring for Adam's assumed benefit, Ben knew, but if only Joe could master some control over his expression prior to focusing his attention elsewhere.

Ben struggled to ignore Adam's startling behavior too. He was often taken aback, deeply saddened to see his eldest begin to display palpable discomfort or an inappropriate facial expression that was more fitting of a young boy than a man. He struggled with disapproval over such things; as Adam's father, he agonized over ignoring and silently accepting, or drawing attention to in order to soothe or correct disagreeable manners. There was always a bit of fear when deciding to correct behavior, apprehension about how instructions would be received and what kind of reaction they would prompt from Adam.

"You headin' to town today, Pa?" Hoss asked, finally taking control over their extended silence.

"I was planning on it," Ben said. "Why do you ask?"

"I was thinking of heading over to join Joe at the timber camp. I wanted to make sure he was fairing okay with those men. We got more than a few rowdy ones on the payroll; I want to make sure Joe's handling 'em okay."

"I'm sure he's doing just fine," Ben assured. "If he wasn't, we would have heard something by now."

Hoss shook his head. "I dunno, Pa. Joe's stubborn. He ain't never been one to ask for help until it's almost too late. If it's just the same to you, I'd like to go anyway. I wasn't planning on staying long, maybe just a few hours or so, just long enough to check up on Joe without him getting suspicious and thinkin' that I came to check up on him."

Smiling, Ben nodded. Joe wouldn't like it, but there was little point in disagreeing and no reason to stop Hoss from following through on what he intended.

Clearing his plate, Hoss set his attention on his coffee. The edge of the mug had only just left his lips as both he and Ben watched Adam push Hoss's empty plate towards the center of the table, replacing it with his untouched one.

Adam forcing his food upon Hoss was an ongoing habit, one which bothered Ben and Hop Sing to no end. Worry over Adam's weight and health were the underlying motivation for their respective concern, though neither man cited their true reasons for being bothered by such a thing. Hop Sing would readily declare self-deprecating statements about his food not being good. Ben had come to rely on a directive he had last used when Joe was a youth.

"Clean your plate," he often found himself saying. Firm and direct, it was an order that felt foreign and incredibly wrong directed at his oldest son; they were both much too old for such instruction to be uttered over meals even though it was never obeyed. Sometimes Adam ignored the command completely; others he set his attention on Ben, his eyes narrowing stubbornly, glistening defiantly with a supposed question: What are you going to do if I don't?

And in response to this, Ben would do nothing, because the few times that he had done something hadn't ended well. When asked to do most things, Adam was companionable and compliant, but if firmly directed to do something he didn't want to do he would become disorderly, erratic, anxious and furious, or worse despondent.

The first time Ben had directed Adam to eat, Adam had responded by pushing his plate on the floor. Hoss and Joe had looked between their father and older brother and Ben had seen his own emotions etched on both of their faces, shock, alarm, and horror. Adam, on the other hand, had been displaying an emotion so powerful it had left Ben speechless. Potent and thunderous, there was hatred shining in his hazel eyes, the level of which Ben had never seen his son direct at anyone, much less himself. It frightened him in a way he couldn't explain. There was a palpable threat lingering behind in the darkness of Adam's expression that made Ben think of things better left alone.

It reminded him of the way Adam had looked at the doctor in Eastgate and that led him to think about the Eastgate Sheriff's disinterest about whether his son had killed Peter Kane or not. The Sheriff had said that if Adam had killed Kane, then Kane had probably deserved it. Ben didn't believe his son was capable of such a thing but something about Adam's menacing stare awakened other long buried memories and gave birth to a tiny horrifying sliver of doubt.

The pushing of the plate off the table was the first occasion Ben became properly acquainted with his eldest son's fervent need to be in control and this awakened recollection of how the Eastgate doctor had spoken to his son. He had talked to Adam in a manner that suggested he was in complete control and when that hadn't worked, he had made the swift decision to put Adam to sleep. The doctor had known quickly he wasn't going to get anywhere favorable with Adam; he had known exactly how to approach the situation from the very beginning. Now, Ben wondered what else the doctor had known and why he couldn't have shared the knowledge.

Unnerved by Adam's anger, Ben had done nothing in response to his son's childish behavior the first time or the second; by the third time, his own anger over his son's blatant insolence had reached a tipping point. He had ordered Adam to his room; it was the gravest punishment he could think of for a man who didn't like being alone.

Shepherding Adam to his bedroom, Ben had ushered him inside, told him to think about what he'd done, then ordered him not to emerge until he could hold himself to a higher standard of behavior. Though he couldn't have known it at the time, this was another decision he would come to look back on with abounding grief and deep regret.

He had thought he was doing the right thing. Finally drawing firm lines between what was appropriate and intolerable. He had thought he was doing what was best. And when Adam had remained in his bedroom, quiet and alone, for nearly two hours, Ben had taken that as a good sign too. Perhaps this was the firm push Adam had needed to begin his journey in the right direction.

It was creeping up on the third hour of isolation when he decided to check on his son. What he found left him as horrified as he had been when they found Adam wandering the desert.

Adam had removed his clothes, discarding them in a haphazard trail which began at the door and led around the opposite side of his bed. Ben followed boot after boot, sock after sock, shirt, belt, and pants before he found Adam. The very state of his son took his breath away.

The chest of drawers had been pushed away from the corner to make room for Adam, who sat naked and trembling, body shoved between the side of the dresser and the wall. He had rubbed both his wrists and ankles raw; red, angry, and close to bleeding, they reminded Ben of other wounds he had once seen marring his son's body; they reminded him of his foolish instructions.

Think about what you did, that was what Ben had ordered Adam to do.

Legs bent, his hands placed limply on his knees, Adam stared aimlessly out the bedroom window and appeared to be incapable of thinking about anything. He had thought about something, Ben was certain of that. During the three hours he had forced his son to sit alone, Adam had had thoughts. Thoughts that had implored him to take off his clothes; thoughts that had forced him to hurt himself; thoughts that had made him crawl into the smallest safe space he could find.

Oh, dear Lord. What happened in the desert? What had he ordered his son to think about?

The memory of the rest of that day had become a blur, and the memory of the few days after were a blur too. Still, Ben recalled a few things. Like how Adam hadn't fought as he pulled him from the corner and into his arms; how his body had felt heavy, limp, and cold. He remembered bellowing for someone to fetch Doc Martin and he remembered Martin's diagnosis of Adam's condition. An interesting sort of psychosis, that was what the doctor had said and Ben remembered thinking interesting wasn't the word he would have chosen. Terrifying, gut-wrenching maybe, never interesting.

Staring absently, Adam was catatonic; it took four days and three nights for his condition to change and during this time Ben was forced to care for his son as he had in the boarding house in Eastgate.

Rising in the early hours on the fifth day to check on him, Ben found Adam's bed empty and panic engulfed him. It was an all-encompassing feeling, fear of not knowing where his son was coupled mixed with deep dread of what he would find; throughout these overpowering emotions a new question emerged, one which he would become achingly familiar with. What has Adam done to himself now?

He found Adam when he burst into Hoss's bedroom, intent on rallying him for a search.

"Pa!" Hoss had hissed. Laying on his back, he held finger to his lips and glanced at Adam who lay still, sleeping behind him in the bed. "He just fell asleep," he mouthed, looking at his father once more.

Ben was flabbergasted. Emerging from his psychosis as quickly as he had sunken into it, that became the first occasion Adam slept in Hoss's bed. Ben had wanted to say something; he had wanted to tell Hoss not to allow it. But his guilt and his fear over Adam returning to his previous unresponsive state prevented him from saying a word.

Looking at Adam now, sitting next to him at the table, Ben sighed as the lackluster order fell from his mouth, "Clean your plate, Adam."

The direction was neglected by Adam, but it was Hoss who had other plans. "No, sir," he said as he pushed the plate back in front of Adam. "Not today. Eat up, older brother; you're gonna need it."

Adam frowned. His obvious objection was ignored by Hoss just as Ben knew it would be. While Hoss was the best at weathering Adam's capricious behavior, he was also the most successful at gently molding his defiance into compliance. Ben wasn't completely certain why this would be, but he had his theories, the most convincing of which was their closeness in age. Adam was older than Hoss and had never been in a position to take orders from him. Hoss had never had any authority over Adam, therefore there was no reason to react negatively to any of his wishes. Even from Ben's point of view, Hoss's directions to Adam were more wishes than demands.

"Don't scowl at me," Hoss said as he held his brother's gaze. "It's the truth. It ain't my fault there's been a choice set before you today, one you haven't had to make in quite a while."

Forehead wrinkling, Adam's brows furrowed, a clear indication he wasn't following Hoss's train of thought.

"You're gonna need to eat breakfast on a day like today, what with me heading to see Joe at the timber camp and Pa going to town."

Looking between Ben and Hoss, Adam shrugged indifferently. What does that matter? His expression seemed to ask.

Absently, Ben found himself wondering the same thing.

"Seeing as how we don't like thinkin' of you at home all alone, it seems to me that you have a choice to make," Hoss continued. "You can either join Pa in town, or you can head over to the timber camp with me and either way you're gonna need good meal inside your belly."

Adam looked at Ben with wide eyes. Any displeasure he had been feeling had been chased away by apprehension. Mouth hanging slightly agape, he shook his head in an overwhelmed manner, his eyes pleading for Ben to dismiss the choice Hoss was presenting. The choice itself was another firm push of sorts in a positive direction, but the past had left Ben wary of pushes and directions that seemed right at certain times.

Papa, please.

Ben saw the silent plea glistening in his son's eyes, reawakening a crystal-clear memory of Adam's words. Last spoken months ago now, they often reasserted themselves in moments like this, occasions when he knew he should expect more from Adam than Adam seemed willing or able to give. Right now, they reminded him of Adam's third option—the one which Hoss had conveniently forgotten to offer.

"Or," Ben began.

"Pa," Hoss objected.

"...you can stay home with Hop Sing."

Ben felt a sting of regret as Adam's face fell; a deep pool of guilt settled in the pit of his stomach as he watched his son shift nervously in his seat. He's not the same, Ben imagined him saying. He's not like Hoss or you.

This was a glaring fact. Though Hop Sing loved Adam—he cared about his health and wellbeing as much as the rest of them—he couldn't offer the kind of physical protection, strength, and support that either Hoss or Ben could provide. Ben knew—as he was sure Hoss did—Adam wouldn't choose remaining at the ranch house with Hop Sing. Perhaps that was why Hoss hadn't suggested it. The decision was difficult enough without adding a third option, one that would only serve to highlight Adam's fear of being left alone in the wrong company. Still, as far as choices went, the one Hoss had presented seemed insurmountable. A trip to either town or the timber camp both promised unpredictably and encounters with strangers; they both would take Adam away from the carefully cultivated comfort and safety of home.

Looking at Adam, noting his anxiety and fear, Ben struggled with enforcing the choice. He didn't really need to go to town today, did he? Perhaps he could postpone it for another day. Or maybe he and Hoss could stagger their respective trips, allowing Adam to remain home with one of them at a time.

"Pa," Hoss prompted, casting his father a serious look, imploring him to stand by what had been said.

It was with this that Ben knew why the trip had been suggested and what needed to be done. Hoss wasn't worried about Joe, he was concerned about Adam; the proposed visit to the timber camp was merely ceremonial, a carefully constructed ruse meant to force Adam in choosing one uncomfortable option over another. But at least Hoss had given Adam the choice, control over how the day would unfold.

Looking at Adam again, Ben found himself assaulted by his son's palpable unease.

Papa, please.

The plea emerged once more, bringing other memories with it. The image of what had happened the last time he had forced Adam to do something he hadn't wanted to do. He had found him conscious and unresponsive in his bedroom; his psychosis had lasted for days. Could that happen again if pushed too far? If required to make a decision he wasn't prepared to follow through on?

Doc Martin had seemed to believe it could. "If it happened once, it is likely it will happen again," he had said. "If that's reason enough not to expect him to ever do anything he doesn't want to is for you to decide. Adam might just be a changed man. What he experienced might have been horrible enough that he may never recover from it. There's a possibility he may never be who he once was, and if that is the case then it begs the question of who he is going to be now. If he never changes from how he currently is then the question becomes how he fits into your life and how you fit into his."

At the time, Ben hadn't looked upon Martin's words favorably. He didn't like what the man was suggesting, about his son, himself, or his other sons. If Adam was irrevocably changed by what he had experienced, if he was destined to spend the rest of his life silent and afraid, clinging to Hoss and the predictability that only his immediate surroundings could offer, of course he would still fit into their lives. Expectations would be adjusted, allotments with odd behaviors would be made, Ben would love and take care of Adam for the remainder of his life and after, when he was gone and buried and no longer able, he was certain that Hoss and Joe would do the same. It wasn't a question of how any of them fit into the lives of one another. They were family; their love for one another was never something to be questioned.

But the real questions were these: If the Adam they knew was gone, how would they ever know what this Adam was capable of if they never tried to do anything other than what he was comfortable with? Was he going to exist like this forever? Or was he going to regain some of the independence the desert had stolen from him? How far could they push him in what he perceived as frightening directions? How would they ever know if they didn't try?

Despite his apprehension, the fear born from past experiences, Ben knew they had to try.

He smiled encouragingly at his eldest son. "Those seem to be the options today, Adam," he said gently. "If you don't want to stay behind with Hop Sing, then that only leaves two other choices. Hoss is heading to the timber camp and I'm going to town. You're going to have to accompany one of us."

Shaking his head vigorously, Adam pursed his lips with such force that they slowly turned white.

"No ain't an option, brother," Hoss said softly. "Not today. You think about which of us you'd rather go with while you eat and after you can decide what you want to do. Take your time; me and Pa'll wait.

Staring stubbornly at the plate of food before him, Adam made no effort to commence eating. His hands remained at his sides, his fork and knife untouched on the table as he shook his head again.

Ben didn't know what Adam was refusing, eating the food, making the choice, or perhaps both. He found himself holding his breath, anxiously waiting, and watching for Adam to finally make a move. A few minutes passed with all three of them locked in some strange stalemate, Adam staring at the food before him as Ben and Hoss looked on.

Chewing his bottom lip, Adam seemed to be thinking about something; Ben hoped he wasn't gearing up for another violent tantrum. He prayed for the strength to remain steadfast in enforcing choice and that Adam's response both before and after being forced to venture outside the safety of the immediate ranch yard would be a positive one.

"Adam," Ben said softly as he willed the correct words to come to mind. "Son… Only you can decide what to do today, but I don't want you to forget you have a choice. It is your decision to leave or stay, and no matter what you choose—no matter what you decide—you aren't alone. You are never alone. I'm here, and Hoss and Joe, they're here too. We're all here beside you and we're not going to let anything bad happen to you, no matter what you choose."

Reaching over, he picked up Adam's fork and extended it, a silent offering for his son to summon enough courage to take a first step. Adam stared at the utensil for a moment, his eyes clouding over with some emotion Ben couldn't decipher. It wasn't anger or fear, hesitance, or repudiation or any of the other emotions he had become accustomed to seeing. This was different; new, stubborn, strange but dark and a bit unnerving, he couldn't begin to define it. Then as quickly as it appeared it was gone, replaced by something else, a familiar abiding glint that allowed Ben a momentary glimpse of the old Adam. It served as the beacon of hope Ben had been waiting for. It gave birth to a tiny spark of optimism, a feeling that only grew as Adam finally nodded and took the fork from his hand.

"There's a great big world out there, you know," Hoss said softly as Adam began to push the food around his plate. "It's been missing you. It's high time you started finding your place in it again."

Eating at a glacial pace, Adam didn't come close to clearing his plate. He didn't eat nearly as much as Ben wanted or hoped but at least he tried. His effort was appreciated, the difficulty of such a thing understood. He had gone so long without eating in the morning, his stomach simply wasn't accustomed to it anymore.

Adam chose to accompany Hoss. The decision itself wasn't a surprise, but Ben's immediate disappointment was. He didn't realize he was hoping Adam would choose town, his company over that of his middle son. Even though he knew Adam was in good hands he still harbored unease. He would have liked to have been present should any complications arise.

The weather was turning, as were the colors of the landscape surrounding them. There was a chill in the air. A bit blistery and biting, it promised to linger the remainder of the day. Fall had come and winter was well on its way. The change in temperature wasn't new, however, it had gone unnoticed by Adam today. Ben had to remind his son to put on his coat and his hat, something that did nothing to ease his building apprehension over his sons' impending trip. Adam's waist remained unadorned by a gun belt—another thing that added to Ben's unease. Neither he nor Hoss had believed handing a pistol to Adam was a good idea. This wasn't something that had been discussed rather silently decided upon and accepted. They didn't need to explain to one another why such a thing would be worrisome; Adam had been known to hurt himself before.

Shoving his hands into his coat pockets, Ben watched Adam and Hoss prepare their horses from a distance. Having completed saddling Sport, Adam stood beside the animal, his right hand extended, his fingers burrowed in-between the hair on the horse's neck. He looked uncertain and afraid, his tightening grip on Sport's coat slight proof of the overbearing emotions he was struggling to contain.

Moving to stand beside him, Ben wanted to hug Adam; but he forced himself to refrain. If physical displays of affection had been verboten before Adam's time in the desert, then they were downright criminal now—that was unless, of course, the action was initiated by Adam. Adam neither moved nor showed any indication that a hug or touch was needed or would be well-received. Ben stayed inches away as his son refused to look him in the eye. He wondered if this was due to anger and resentment over the trip, or fear of losing the sliver of nerve Adam had somehow managed to produce.

Ben wanted to tell him that it was going to be okay. He wanted to say that a trip to the timber camp wasn't anything to be concerned over. It didn't warrant this much worry and apprehension. It was commonplace. Adam had been numerous times before and now he was going again. And besides that, Hoss was going too. Mighty, unfailing jovial Hoss. Adam couldn't have picked a better man to accompany him if he tried. The only other person who could possibly defend and shield him better was his father—and perhaps Little Joe.

Adam's troubled gaze was locked on the brown wood of the barn wall and Ben felt a rush of guilt over what he was asking him to do. He wanted to say something—anything—to ease his son's trepidation—and his own—but he wasn't allotted the chance.

Grabbing Ben's arm, Hoss pulled him toward the barn door. "Pa, please don't fuss," he requested, his voice a low hiss. "Adam's already nervous. You'll only make it harder on him if you start acting worried-like."

Looking over Hoss's shoulder, Ben cast Adam a worried look. He hadn't moved; he didn't show any interest in what his brother and father were discussing as he remained in place, his hand burrowed in Sport's hair, his eyes, wide and vacant, frozen on the wall.

He's not ready for this, Ben thought, somehow already knowing the trip was destined to fail.

What was going to happen to Adam when the day went south? When what should have been an easy excursion catapulted them further and further into this nightmare that had become their life? What then? What would Adam do? And would Ben say to justify forcing him to make the decision that led to his downfall?

"I don't think this is a good idea," Ben whispered. "Son, I think that—"

"Pa," Hoss whispered seriously. "He's gotta try some time, you know that as well I do."

"Maybe now is too soon. It's cold today. Maybe we should wait for the weather to improve."

"That ain't going to happen any day soon. It's only going to get colder from here on out; it'll be spring before the weather turns nice again."

Ben knew Hoss was right though the knowledge did nothing to ease the feeling of overwhelming wrongness that was overtaking him as he was reminded of what Adam had said months ago when making the argument to travel to Eastgate.

Summer goes awfully fast around here. Spring and Fall pass by a man before he even knows they've truly arrived. It'll be winter soon and then there won't be going much of anywhere at all, except for maybe the barn and some of the closer pasture. I need to get out while I still can.

And even now, despite all the changes they had endured, Ben knew—as Hoss did too—Adam's words rang true. If they didn't try now, if they didn't take advantage of the last few weeks of fall weather, then they would be waiting months before any of them would feel comfortable trying again. And what would happen to Adam in the interim? His fear and avoidance would probably intensify, consuming him and rendering the very idea of venturing outside of his comfort zone impossible forever.

Despite all of this, the sad irony of their current predicament wasn't lost on Ben. There was a time when it seemed as though he wouldn't be able to keep Adam home and now he struggled to encourage him enough to ever leave. Oh, lord how that hurt; it cut deeper than he could have ever imagined to have his son's determined adventurous flame snuffed out so suddenly only to be replaced by such overpowering uncertainty and distress.

Adam had been born a wanderer; it didn't seem right to accept him any other way. Ben would—of course, he would—still his acceptance of such things seemed wrong somehow. Though there was a time when he would have rejoiced the day Adam decided to stay home permanently, he didn't rejoice in this. He couldn't and he wouldn't. He would love his son unconditionally however he appeared before him, but he would forever mourn the determined, efficacious, and independent man that had been lost.

"It's gonna be okay, Pa," Hoss said, unknowingly voicing the reassurance father had longed to say to Adam. "He'll be fine. I'll take care of him; I'll bring him home safe and sound, I promise."

Though he didn't want to, Ben found himself nodding in return. "Keep him close."

"I will."

"Watch him carefully."

"I will."

"And stay away from cliffs."

"Cliffs?" Hoss asked, his nose scrunched with confusion.

"Promise me," Ben urged.

Hoss shrugged, still not understanding why such a vow needed to be made. "I promise," he said easily.

Ben prayed it wasn't another oath destined to be broken.

Xx

Ben spent the afternoon in Virginia City.

Watching Adam and Hoss leave, he had almost pitched the idea of the trip. It took every amount of control he had to follow through on what he had originally planned for the day and not follow his sons. Standing just outside the barn, he had taken a deep breath and held it before finally expelling both it and the idea of trailing behind his sons.

Adam was in good hands; Hoss was quite capable of safely negotiating any complication that could arise—from either the land they were traveling or his older brother. Everything would be fine; Adam would be fine. In a handful of hours both of his sons would return home, safe and sound as promised, and Ben and Hoss and Adam would finally rejoice in a day gone well. A much-needed beacon of hope in the dark horizon of the future.

Adam would be fine. With Hoss at his side, watching and protecting him, how could he not be?

Forcing a tight smile, Ben silently posed this question to himself over and over on his way into town, like a mantra of positivity whose repetition would eventually soothe his worry away. It didn't work. If anything, it only added to his unease. He couldn't help feeling something was bound to go wrong, that the decision he had forced Adam to make was destined to become another mistake. He had made so many mistakes where Adam was concerned, bad decisions which spanned decades now, beginning at his son's birth and continuing through the present. He didn't know how he would bear another.

As a young man, Ben hadn't been a keen listener. He was companionable and jovial but he had a temper that carried a dangerous edge. None of this seemed to be too much of a problem before he was a father or even when he was merely a husband for the first time. Elizabeth had had a way about her, a warmth and graciousness that could navigate and dismantle his anger, soothing the dangerous discontent which lurked below the surface into peace. She had been an asset to him, her presence the only thing he needed to keep his fear of impending fatherhood at bay. He would be a fine father because of her ability to steer his anger toward peace. Their baby would be happy and healthy, forever safe, and unharmed because of her equalizing and stabilizing warmth. Or so Ben had thought. Then Elizabeth had died and nothing which followed seemed to ever unfold according to plan.

That was not to say that Ben thought he was a terrible father; he had come across more than a few of those types of men over his lifetime to see the differences between himself and them. Terrible fathers were either too hard or too soft; they either demanded too much or too little, and through their actions they taught their children to fear or disrespect them. Ben knew he wasn't like that. He knew that on an imaginary scale of fatherhood he had landed somewhere safely in-between good and bad.

His sons loved and respected him; with his guidance they had grown into strong, capable, and beneficent men. He hadn't been alone in shaping Adam and Hoss into young men; before her death, Marie had been a great help with this, and after she was gone, Adam and Hoss had been gracious enough to help Little Joe along, modeling their patience and compassion in such a way that Joe had no choice but to conform. And before Marie, there had been Inger, Hoss's mother and the woman Ben knew Adam would forever hold as his mama in his heart; the day they had met her had changed everything, because before there had been Inger, it had just been Adam and Ben.

Little Adam, who had been early to walk, late to talk, and eternally small for his age. With big, hazel eyes, dark hair, and deep dimples, he had been such a stunning child. Like Elizabeth before them, women had often remarked on his beauty—first as an infant, then as a boy, and even now as an adult. Ben knew that as a grown man his son was revered and swooned over by the opposite sex. He had been a beautiful boy and he had grown into a handsome man.

When Ben looked at his son, he saw hints of Elizabeth —he always had and he supposed he always would. She was in his eyes, mannerisms, and evil half-smirk. She was in his patience and kindness, his ability to remain resolute in his beliefs even if he was alone; she was in his willingness to stand up for others no matter the cost to himself. She was in his laughter and his smile and any other attribute he had that would ever be defined as good.

For Adam's anger, however, Ben blamed himself.

Adam was such a fine man, poised, reasonable, astute, but there was a darkness lurking beneath the surface of his demeanor. Ben knew this because he had seen it before; what he saw in his son he recognized in himself.

Ben's anger had always been with him; it was a gift from his father, he supposed, a characteristic that seemed to be hereditary in the Cartwright line. His grandfather had been a brutal man, his father less so, and Ben and his brother, John, even less than him. Still, there was an anger that lived inside of them, one which—in Ben's younger days—left him quick to react and slow to think. His anger had always been there, lurking, but it was his travels West with Adam that had caused it to aspirate.

There had been nothing romantic about the traveling West with an infant. It was intensely challenging, eternally difficult, and all-too-often terrifying. A lot of people they had come across were companionable, supportive, and kind. Others were hazardous, violent, and sinister. Men—and occasionally women—whose only goal in life was to survive, to have what they desired by whatever means necessary. They had come across men who had robbed them, barren women who were intent on having Adam and raising him as their own. Traveling West, Ben had anticipated coming across Natives of the land, but he was unprepared for the level of savagery displayed by his own kind. There is a certain type of fury intense fear can give birth to, especially the fear turned fury of a widowed man who would do anything in his power to protect his child.

Adam saw things Ben wished he wouldn't have. He heard him bellow dangerous warnings and he watched him fight. It couldn't have been helped; the things Adam was exposed to were symptomatic of their surroundings. Protecting him from the knowledge of the brutality of people was a luxury Ben had never had. Shielding his son from being exposed to his father's own formability, furious and dangerous when pushed, was an option Ben was never presented with.

He wasn't an abusive man. He adored his son; he never hurt him outside of punishing him for his own good. This was a resolute fact that was difficult for a young child to understand—or reconcile with the violence he had seen. Toddlers couldn't understand context, how his father could hurt someone who threatened their safety but would never dare raise a hand to him to do the same.

Adam was nearly two before Ben realized how much his voice could genuinely terrify his child. He was nearly three when he began palpably fearing his father's responses to even the most minor of accidents and bad behavior. And Adam was five before Ben made any solid strides toward improvement. With Inger by his side, he was no longer alone in minding and protecting Adam; he had a wife and partner, someone whom he loved and trusted indefinitely. It was her love, her faith in the goodness of humanity, which had begun to soften some of the edges Ben hadn't realized had begun to grow coarse. Adam had seemed wary of the changes in his father at first. He didn't trust the longevity of such a thing, and in response to this distrust, the boy did what he always did—what he would always do—he became quiet.

And time marched on. Hoss was born and Inger died but her influence lingered. Ben tapered his anger, reigning it in when need be; he was determined that Hoss would never come to fear him in the way that Adam once had. Life moved on, some could even argue it improved; Hoss grew at a steady rate and Adam learned not to fear his father's anger rather to respect it instead.

Adam was eleven the first time he exhibited the same uncontrollable rage his father had once displayed—something that even now Ben still believed wasn't entirely his son's fault. After all, he was a boy protecting his little brother; he was just doing what Ben hadn't realized he had taught his son to do.

It was shortly after Marie and he had been married and she was newly pregnant with Joe. Meeting in Louisiana, their courtship had been quick, the conception of their baby even more so, and the weeks which followed their return from New Orleans all proved to be an incredibly rough transition for Adam. He wasn't used to having a stepmother; he wasn't keen on having this stranger live in their home.

Marie was nothing short of a saint, weathering Adam's skepticism and distrust. Her personality was warm; she was patient; and she was kind. But at the time, she had also been with child which left her occasionally captive to certain types of moods.

If Ben closed his eyes, he could recall with appalling clarity the details of that morning. The four of them had been gathered around the breakfast table. Usually so jovial, Hoss had awoken with a sour outlook; he was fussing over his pancakes not being cut properly.

It wasn't the way Pa did it, that was what Hoss had said to Marie as she stood behind his chair.

Marie was short on patience that day—something that even later she readily admitted to. She told Hoss to eat them anyway, and Hoss responded with shrill whining and tears. It was a grinding combination to endure that early in the morning. Ben had every intention of putting a stop to it, but Marie got there first. Grabbing Hoss's arm, she ordered him to either eat quietly or retire to his bedroom for some alone time. Hoss, being the sensitive young boy he was, didn't follow the order Marie had given; he looked at Marie's hand still clutching his arm and screamed instead.

"You're hurting me!"

And then it happened. The one thing Ben never anticipated ever would.

Leaping out of his chair, Adam grabbed a knife from the table. Springing to stand next to Marie, he held the blade of the knife to the veins on her wrist. His expression was dark, a threat lurked in his eyes, and then came the words, low and daggerous, "You let my brother go."

Ben had always considered himself a man of action, however, in that moment, his shock had rendered him unable to move. He and Marie looked at one another, their horrified expressions mirroring one another. Absently, Marie let go of Hoss and only then did Adam seem truly aware of what he had done. He was horrified; the knife clattered the floor as he looked at his father and burst into tears. And only then did Ben finally move.

Leading a sobbing Adam to the barn, Ben was overcome by guilt and shame. It was he who had taught Adam to react like that. Still, such a thing couldn't go unpunished—they both knew that.

But in that moment, Ben immediately knew he would not do what his father did; this was not something he would try and fail to beat out of his son. Instead, he would teach his son to use words to express what was causing such powerful emotion.

He sat Adam on a hay bale, then crouched down and looked him in the eye. "Use your words, Adam," he had said. "There is a difference between bravery and violence born from fear. When you feel fear that controls you like that, you use your words; you speak wisely and directly or you try to walk away."

This was an instruction he would never need to repeat to his first-born son. It was a lesson learned, so frightening and painful for both, the first time.

Though Adam would heed his father's instruction a part of Ben would always worry about his eldest son. If Adam had felt the kind of fear that translated to violence before, he could feel it again. It was a worry that over time Ben found himself dismissing and burying deep, because as Adam grew, he became a thoughtful young man, purposeful and reasonable, quite apt at controlling his emotions.

Still, the smallest hints of the familiar anger would pop up from time to time; dangerous and volatile, it would rear its ugly head in moments when Adam became particularly outraged or frustrated—when some threat or injustice seemed more than he could navigate or bear. Even though Adam never acted physically on such feelings, each time they were displayed Ben would be reacquainted with shame and guilt; he would be reminded of not what was, but what could have been had Adam not learned composure.

Ben had seen a hint of this anger the day he and Adam had spoken about windmills; overly frustrated over not obtaining his father's consent, Adam had heeded his father's long since given advice about walking away but not before throwing his hat on the floor. Ben had become overcome by guilt in that moment too, which was why he allowed his son to go.

The Peter Kane of Ben's dreams had said Adam was manipulative for acting in such ways. Ben didn't agree. In his eyes, Adam was only displaying what he had been taught by his father when they were both too young to know how such things would complicate the future.

He didn't know as a young man what he knew now. He didn't know how susceptible children were, how they watched, retained, and eventually modeled every action and every habit, good and bad, absorbing words and details like a sponge. He didn't know how anger could shape a child. How they could become angry themselves. He didn't know how Adam's fear as a toddler would linger too. How, even in his thirties, he would sometimes still struggle becoming the focus of his father's disapproval.

Most of the time, Adam could remain unaffected by Ben harsher tones and he would bellow right back, others he would flinch or cringe, his face set with uncontrolled nervousness. You're shouting, he would say, a quiet reminder—and plea—for Ben to stop. And Ben would stop, then he would take his own advice.

It was the knowledge of how the past had shaped the present coupled with all the unknowns that worried Ben now. It was the occasional harshness he saw in Adam's eyes since finding him wandering the desert that reminded him the Cartwright fury lived on. Infamous and hereditary, it was in Adam and it was in Joe though there were distinct differences between the two. Adam's anger was a different kind of volatility than Joe displayed. It was a grown man's anger, fury that could only be cultivated in response to the most terrible of things. It was serious, threatening, and dark. It promised pain—both for whoever was on the receiving end of it and Adam once he calmed down enough to realize his mistakes.

Was that what Adam was doing now? Realizing his mistakes? Was that the reason for the silence, sleepless nights, and drastic changes in behavior? Was Adam holding himself responsible for his actions because he knew no one else would?

What had happened in the desert? Had Adam tried to use his words with Kane and when that hadn't worked had he tried to walk away? If so, then why on earth had such a thing not been allowed? And if walking away hadn't been allowed, had Kane taunted, abused, and pushed Adam into making a mistake?

Adam was a moral man, and, judging by the knowledge of others, Peter Kane wasn't. Kane was a devil of a man—or so Ben had heard. If Adam had acted out of anger in order to protect himself, then did that not make the action defensible? He had done what he needed to survive an assumed monster. How could any of it be perceived as wrong?

The Eastgate Sheriff hadn't deemed Kane's death wrong. It was the educated opinion of law—something which Adam had always held in such high regard—that Adam was innocent of any crime. Who was Ben or Adam or anyone else to disagree with what the lawman had decreed?

All Ben had were questions, haunting memories, and bad dreams. He felt culpable for the intense anger he had seen Adam display only once as a child. He felt guilty over recalling the memory now, using it to question and theorize about his son's actions in the desert. How could he dare think of such a thing?

Adam was alive and Peter Kane wasn't. Ben didn't want to believe his son killed the man, but there had been strangulation marks on Kane's neck. He didn't want to believe Adam capable of taking a life in such a way, but he knew there was a fury that lived deep inside of his son that could be unearthed if he became fearful enough. If Kane had done something, if he and Adam had come across each other in the desert and Kane had been truly horrible or he hadn't allowed Adam to escape him, then there was no telling what could have happened between the two.

The one person who could explain what happened wasn't talking. Adam had taken to acting strangely instead. If only they could have a conversation. If only Adam would talk to him, use his words, and allow him to know what had happened in order to understand why it was affecting him so much. Ben only wanted to understand, then maybe he would know what to do; he would finally be able to give Adam what he needed to overcome what he had endured. He could help shoulder some of the blame of whatever it was Adam had done that was so wrong. Wasn't it the responsibility of fathers to carry some blame and responsibility for the mistakes of their sons?

Entering Virginia City, Ben made quick work of his errands, then he stopped by the saloon for a drink to calm his nerves. He tried hard to ignore the curious stares and officious—downright rude—questions about Adam from the people surrounding him. He reminded himself curiosity was one thing he could understand. Adam hadn't been to town in months, people were bound to be interested as to why, and judging by how he was received, it was a trip that Ben would not allow his son to make anytime soon. He is grateful for Hoss and the decision Adam had made to accompany his brother. There were just some occasions when curiosity did more harm than good. There were a whole heap of things Ben couldn't protect his son from now, but he could shelter him from this.

He finished his drink and left the saloon, intent on returning home to wait for his sons. Walking down the thoroughfare, his feet didn't lead him to his horse; it wasn't long until he found himself entering Doc Martin's office instead.

Lingering just inside the doorway, he didn't know why he had come or what it was he wanted to say. Nothing, he supposed, because there was no reason for him to seek out the doctor, nothing he wanted to ask or share or any information to be gleaned from a conversation with yet another curious party. He had decided upon shielding Adam from the curiosity of others, so what the devil was he doing here? He should turn around, exit the building, return home, and wait as he had intended. He shouldn't have been there at all.

"Ben?"

Doc Martin's voice broke through his thoughts and Ben found the man accessing him from the doorway to the back room.

Martin nodded in greeting. "Something I can help you with today?"

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

Martin appeared skeptical. "Everything alright with Adam?" he asked.

For a few terrible seconds, Ben wasn't certain how to respond. He shouldn't be here; he shouldn't have come. He should turn around, return home, and wait for his sons.

"I suppose," he said eventually, the low response escaping him despite his determination otherwise. "Hoss took him to the timber camp today. It's the first time he's been away from the house since we brought him home."

Martin's face softened with a smile. "Well, that is a pleasant development."

Nodding, Ben didn't trust himself to reply. He shouldn't have stopped at the saloon; he only partook in one drink, not nearly enough to leave him inebriated or soothe his unease, but it had led him here and he feared it would loosen his tongue. He didn't want to talk about Adam with the doctor; he didn't want to betray his son's privacy that way. Whatever was going on with his son was a family matter; it demanded caution and discretion.

"It is normal for you to fret over such a thing," Martin said as though privy to Ben's thoughts. "With your ferocity over those boys, I would be concerned about your current state of health if you did not feel, at the very least, a little alarmed over Adam's first trip since he was found."

"Hoss is with him," Ben said. He didn't know if the statement was meant to appease Martin or himself. "And Joe too, once they arrive. They won't be staying all day, just a couple hours or so."

"Then I am certain the excursion will be a successful one."

Feigning assurance, Ben nodded once more. He had a horrific feeling about this day and the trip. A nagging concern that refused to calm. The last time he had allowed his son to leave hadn't ended well and Adam had been acting normally then. Now he was so changed, so impacted. What made Ben believe this trip could be any different than the last? How could he know anything when everything he did not was so glaring?

"We found Adam with a dead man," Ben said, the soft admission escaping him before he could silence it. Once the statement came, it was impossible to cease talking, or calm his stifling concern for his son. "He was dragging the body around, laughing and mumbling about gold and games. And when I came upon him, when I first grasped his shoulders and struggled to look him in the eye, he didn't even know I was there."

Martin was visibly perplexed. "But he did recognize you eventually?"

"He did and then he didn't and then he did again. He was... agitated...angry... confused." Ben shook his head mournfully. "Afraid."

"Of you?"

"Of everything… He was out in the desert when we found him; he was in the middle of nowhere, wandering as he pulled that man's body around. He was beaten, exhausted, dehydrated, and starved. The ride to Eastgate was challenging, and when we arrived, the challenges only seemed to become worse. Adam didn't want the doctor to examine him. He—I— had to coax him into drinking powder to make him sleep before such a thing was possible. He was..." Ben paused, exhaling heartily, and feeling impossibly old. "He was in such a state, Paul. I've never seen him act like that before. He screamed and cried and when he did it was like he was never going to stop."

"I see."

Do you? Ben wanted to ask. Was there something to see? Some telling hint that made everything make more sense than it did? Had a detail gone ignored at the time and was now forgotten? Dismissed by the horrible reality of their everyday life.

"I take it Adam calmed eventually," Martin said.

"He did."

Even then, Adam wasn't the same as before. Looking back now, Ben could understand that something inside of Adam was already starting to shift. Something had changed.

"He wasn't the same," Ben said. "He was... different. He's been different since."

"And the nature of his injuries when you found him were what exactly?"

Startled by the question, it took a moment for Ben to remember that the state of Adam's body upon being found had never been shared with the Virginia City doctor. Doc Martin had come to the Ponderosa weeks after, looking in upon Adam by his own volition, any physical proof of Adam's difficulty—save for the weight he had lost and his visual tiredness—had since healed.

Bruises, scratches, split lip, and black eye had all healed; his body had harbored no explicit evidence of what he had endured. And exactly what Adam had endured was still a mystery. One which weighed on all of them, a situation that showed no indications of ever changing.

"Ben?" Martin prompted.

"He was exhausted, beaten, dehydrated and starved," Ben said, unknowingly repeating his words from only moments ago.

"So, you just said, but I'm talking about what the Eastgate doctor said. What he found when examining your son."

Ben hesitated. What had the Eastgate doctor found? It was such an obvious question to ask. One which, he suddenly realized, he couldn't provide an answer to.

Though he had been there when the doctor returned to examine Adam, neither Ben nor Adam had been awake. Adam had been rendered unconscious by medication and Ben had finally given into his own exhaustion. Both had slept through the doctor's subsequent visit and departure. It was Hoss who had assisted the man. Hoss who saw the state of his brother in appalling detail, helping the doctor clean and treat his brother's wounds. It was Hoss who had sat vigil at Adam's bedside, protecting him until Ben finally awoke. And it was Hoss who, when asked by Ben if there was anything he should know about, hadn't immediately answered, or looked at his father when he replied. In fact, his gaze had been locked on the floor when he finally passed on the Eastgate Doctor's advice.

We need to keep quiet about how we found him, what he said or did, Hoss had said. He said certain experiences, certain injuries, have a way of eating away at a man if too many people are privy to them, especially his pride.

"Who was the dead man you found him with?" Martin asked, seemingly deciding his previous question was destined to remain unanswered.

"Peter Kane," Ben said. His shame was renewed as he was unable to stop himself from disclosing the man's name. He had been so good at following the Eastgate doctor's until today. There was something about today, about the worry, nagging and bothersome, that refused to be calmed. "He was an evil man by the local's account. Though they didn't go into specifics with me, both the doctor and the sheriff made certain I knew he was a troublesome man. The sheriff said Kane was a devil, that he had a way of influencing people, winding them up to hurt each other or themselves. The sheriff couldn't hold him accountable for anything he had done in the town, so he exiled him from it instead."

"A man named Kane exiled to the desert," Martin said thoughtfully. "That sounds awfully familiar, doesn't it?"

Ben didn't need to be reminded of what the Peter Kane of his dreams had been certain he knew. It did sound like an excerpt from the Bible, something that with the details of Adam's own disobedience when choosing to venture into the desert alone, he was not eager to dwell on. Kane had likened Adam's disobedience to sin; he had implied that, because Adam had disregarded his father's instruction, he deserved what he had found.

"I take it Adam came across this Kane after he was robbed," Martin said.

Ben was acutely aware that this was a presumed fact he had no verification of. "I assume," he said.

"And you have no idea as to what took place out there between the two?"

"No. Adam was not much for talking after he was found, and now... well, you know he's given up talk completely."

Nodding, Martin crossed his arms, seemingly waiting for Ben to continue.

Finally managing to silence his treacherous words, Ben didn't continue. He hadn't come to town to talk to the doctor. He hadn't intended on sharing what he had. "Well," he said, expectantly dreading Martin's eventual assessment of what he'd been told. It was foolhardy not to expect him to voice his clinical opinion on the events Adam had endured. Ben had told himself that he wasn't seeking such a thing from the doctor, but only now did he realize that maybe—subconsciously—he was.

"Well, what?" Martin asked.

"What do you think?"

"I think it sounds like Adam was failed by the very law he holds in such high esteem. That sheriff ought to be ashamed of himself for sending a dangerous man into the wilderness so that he could be stumbled upon by someone who was unaware of his capabilities."

"And?"

"And what?" Martin asked evenly. "Ben, what exactly is it that you expect me to say?"

"I expect you to express your educated opinion on the matter," Ben said tersely. "I expect you to tell me what to do."

"Oh, Ben," Martin groaned, his lips curling into a small, knowing smile. "It isn't for me to tell you what to do—not that I would entertain doing so under normal circumstances. God help the man who thinks he can tell Ben Cartwright what to do with one of his sons. Adam isn't terminal; he isn't suffering from something I can ease or cure. It isn't his body that's sick; it's his mind. I know a great deal about healing bodies and not nearly enough about healing minds."

"Then what good are you?" Ben asked.

Shaking his head, Martin's smile disappeared as he cast Ben a serious look. "As a doctor, I am plenty good, and for the record, as a father, so are you. You're doing well, my friend. Is that what you need to hear? You have weathered every storm that boy has thrown at you, and you will continue to do so, because that is what you always do. Adam is fortunate to have you as a father; there are a great many men who wouldn't be willing to give their sons what you offer so freely to yours."

"Which is what?"

"Your support, acceptance, and absolute love. You may never know what happened to Adam in the desert, Ben. He may never decide to talk again. Like I've told you before, what he experienced may have left him permanently changed, and if he is then I have ample faith in you, as a man and a father, to successfully guide him through life. Don't make the mistake of comparing the Adam of the present or future on who he was in the past. Love and support him, and learn to accept what you can't change."

Ben thought the advice a little too simplistic. Easily given by an outsider but much more difficult to enact and implement by members of his family.

"I have faith this afternoon will be a pleasant one for your sons," Martin said. "I hope Adam's excursion will be successful and that it will become the first of many."

Nodding, Ben hoped the doctor was right about the afternoon, Adam, and himself.

Xx

The sun was hanging low in the horizon when Ben arrived home.

The ride from Virginia City had seemed to pass quickly; his visit with Doc Martin had given him a lot to think about. He had anticipated Adam and Hoss would have returned home long before he arrived. But leading Buck into the barn to stable him for the evening, he was surprised to find his sons' horses still absent. He was immediately worried, then thinking of the favorability of such a thing he dismissed it. The trip to the timber camp must have been a successful venture for Adam after all. What other explanation could there possibly be for his sons not yet returning home?

He couldn't help a smile as he took care of his horse, a pleased expression that only intensified as he finally heard the telltale sound of hooves approaching the barn. Adam and Hoss had finally returned.

Leaving Buck in his stall, Ben left the barn to greet his sons. He was eager to set eyes on Adam again and to hear from Hoss the details of their successful outing. Stepping outside of the door, he hesitated in place, his smile vanishing as his heartbeat began to quicken, pounding relentlessly in his chest as his worry was renewed.

Riding into the yard, Hoss was alone. "I'm sorry, Pa," he said, his expression pained. "Dadburn it, I am so sorry. You knew it was gonna be too much for Adam and I just had to push and push."

"What are you talking about?" Ben asked, his throat tightening. Hoss and Chubb were alone; Adam and Sport were nowhere to be seen.

"I thought he could handle it. I really thought he could."

"What happened?" Ben demanded. "Hoss, where is your brother?"

"I'm sorry, Pa. Adam took off. He got spooked and he fled into the mountains outside the timber camp. Pa, I swear, I was looking after him, watchin' him real close like you said. Adam was there one moment and the next he was just... gone."

"He took off by himself?"

The very notion didn't feel right. Adam couldn't tolerate being alone, why would he run? Where would he go?

"On foot," Hoss said gravely. "Joe and some of the men are out searching. It'll be dark soon. Those men are rough, Pa, and they're strangers to Adam. I think it'll be best if you're with them when he's finally found."

Xx

The search for Adam seemed a nightmarish task destined to never end.

Darkness had come, bringing a harsh drop in temperature, and inviting nocturnal predators to commence stalking prey as they hunted the land. Without his horse or a gun, Adam was alone and drastically unprepared to protect himself against wild animals or the elements. Survival in his current predicament seemed dismal; Ben's worry for his eldest son was abounding.

The mountain on the west side of the timber camp where Adam had allegedly run was foreboding. His supposed place of entry was steep and protected by a thicket of trees. The mountain itself was a jagged incline that extended for miles; its peak was so tall and monstrous it seemed to creep into the heavens. Boulders and trees—both standing and fallen—lined the land, making travel difficult, dangerous, and harrowing at best.

Ben wondered why Adam would have sought the protection of the mountain at all. What had happened? What had he seen or felt that prompted him to run into such rugged terrain? It was a glaring question—yet another that seemed destined to remain without an answer. Joe didn't know because he hadn't seen his brother leave, and Hoss, though watching Adam carefully, hadn't seen him go either.

Engaged in a conversation, both younger brothers had stood a far distance from the workers and a few short paces from their eldest brother. Adam had been visibly uncomfortable when faced with the task of approaching any of the men, something Hoss had said he made quick note of and adjusted plans accordingly. He had waived Joe over, removing him from the larger group and adding him theirs. Adam had seemed accepting of that; he had seemed relieved and slightly less uncomfortable with both brothers in his company.

According to Hoss, it was one of the hired men who had watched Adam run towards the mountain and disappear into the trees. It was he who first alerted Hoss and Joe—though it wasn't worry for Adam rather confusion which had prompted the hand to do such a thing. No one dared enter the mountain's rugged landscape without reason to do so. Neither Hoss nor Joe nor Ben could understand why Adam would have decided to do such a thing. Nothing in recent history would have argued that Adam was capable or eager to be alone in such surroundings.

Upon realizing Adam was missing, Hoss and Joe burst up the mountain only to find he was nowhere to be seen. It was a startling realization, worrisome and curious. Once again, Adam was just gone. There was no trail to follow, no disrupted plants or rocks, no physical evidence on the terrain that suggested he had set foot on it at all. Hoss and Joe were baffled, as was Ben when Hoss recounted these events.

When he first arrived at the timber camp, Ben was appalled to find Joe and the hired hands back from their search. Joe was aggressively arguing with one of the men—a man who, when coming upon him, Ben didn't recognize and was sure he had never met.

"You're lying', Frank!" Joe shouted, holding an accusing finger inches away from the man's weathered face.

"I ain't," Frank said, calmly standing his ground. "It happened just the way I told ya."

"My brother didn't climb that mountain!" Joe insisted. "If he did, we woulda found him by now! We would have seen him when we looked! He ain't up there!"

"I stand by my actions and words," Frank said. "I saw what I saw."

Pushing Joe's finger out of his face, he took a step forward, his chest lingering next to Joe's. He was a rough man, at least twice Adam's age. His face was tanned and wrinkled; his graying hair was short beneath his hat; and his beard was long. He wasn't much taller than Joe, but what he lacked in height he made up for with hostility. He would be a formidable opponent in a brawl—if their conversation was allowed to devolve further.

Gripping his son's upper-arm, Ben pulled Joe a few paces away from Frank. "What's going on here?" he demanded. His grip remained tight on his son's arm as he looked between the pair. "Why are you standing here arguing instead of looking for Adam?"

Shrugging indifferently, Frank remained unaffected by his harsh words and stare. "Sorry, Mister Cartwright," he said. "I didn't mean to argue with your boy; it's just that he don't seem eager to believe the truth."

"Which is what?" Ben asked.

"Adam went up the mountain," Frank said. "I watched him go. Ain't my problem if Joe don't want to believe me."

"You're lying!" Joe shouted. "There's no proof he went up there! If he's not up there then that means he's somewhere else!" Hands clenched into tight fists, he took a step forward, trying and failing to lunge at Frank as his father's grip did not falter. Ben held him in place, preventing the threatening motion. Writhing beneath his father's firm grip, he cast Frank a furious look. "Tell me where my brother really went!" he demanded. "Tell me now!"

"Joe," Ben chastised.

"I already did," Frank said evenly. "Just because you don't want to hear what I'm saying', just because you can't find your brother, that don't make what happened any less true."

"What did happen?" Ben asked impatiently.

Shoulders sinking, Joe's anger vanished. "He was right there, Pa," he said, fear and guilt shining in his emerald eyes as he looked at Ben and repeated what Hoss had already shared. "Adam was right next to me and Hoss one second and the next he was just gone. I don't know what happened. How he could disappear like that without either of us seeing or hearing him go."

"He went up the mountain," Frank said. "Like I told you."

"You saw him go?" Ben asked, looking at Frank skeptically. He didn't recognize this man; he didn't know if Frank had a reputation of truth-telling or penchant for telling lies. He was unsure if he should mirror Joe's doubt or trust what was being said. He had no real reason to doubt Frank or believe him. It was an awful predicament, one which was only intensifying his worry and wasting precious time.

"I did," Frank said.

"How did Adam leave?" Ben probed. "Tell me what you already told my sons."

"Well," Frank sighed. "Joe and Hoss and Adam were over there." He nodded, indicating at the area just before the base of the steep mountain. "Hoss and Joe were standing next to each other; Adam was behind them. They were talkin' and he was just standing there. He looked nervous, kept looking over his shoulder staring at that mountain. In fact, that's what made me take note of him in the first place. Why I started watching him so closely. It was weird, the way he was looking at it, like somebody or something was there. I didn't see nobody, but I think maybe he did."

"That ain't true," Joe said. "There wasn't anybody there. We would have heard them if there had been. The crest of the mountain is steep, covered with rocks and deadfall. There would have been some kind of indication, some kind of noise or rustling to let us know somebody was there."

"Are you tellin' this story, or am I?" Frank frowned at Joe.

"So, you admit it's a story," Joe countered. His annoyance, frustration, and worry were clear. "Not the truth. We searched that area. My brother didn't go up there. We would have seen proof of it if he did. So, where did he really go, Frank? And why are you lying about it?"

"Joe, let the man finish," Ben instructed firmly. Though he shared Joe's skepticism, he wanted to hear the rest. There was nothing else to go on. No other clues to follow in order to find his missing son.

Looking at the mountain, he found Hoss emerging from the location where Adam had supposedly disappeared. Upon returning to the camp, Hoss had taken a few of the men and ventured up its steep thickness for another look. His eyes finding those of his middle son, Ben was overcome by nervousness as Hoss pursed his lips and shook his head forlornly. It had been another unfruitful search.

"Not a lot more to tell. Adam went up the mountain," Frank said. "He had the strangest look on his face when he did. One second, he was standing behind the two of you, looking between the mountain and the camp. Then the next, his lips curled into a…" He paused, shaking his head as he expelled a deep breath, his face settling into an expression of discomfort. "Well…" he continued, seemingly unsettled by what he intended to say. "You see, he got the oddest look on his face, like, nothin' I'd ever seen before. It made me uncomfortable, if I'm being honest. I was standing a fair distance from him, but he caught my gaze, looked me right in the eye. His eyes, they were gleaming, glistening with something akin to evil. When he smirked at me, it made me feel an awful kind of way. It was so powerful that I had to look away, and when I looked back, I watched him begin to climb that mountain and disappear into the trees."

"You're a liar," Joe said again. "My brother wouldn't look at you, and he sure as hell wouldn't smirk."

"I stand with my little brother on that one," Hoss said as he stood beside his father. "I don't believe my older brother would look at you in such a way, especially now. Besides, there ain't no proof Adam went up there, Frank. No indication in the deadfall that somebody went barreling through it. No tracks at all."

"I saw what I saw." Frank shrugged. "Like I said, it ain't my problem if you don't want to believe it."

Ben wanted to say it wasn't Frank's problem if they didn't believe his account, but it would be his problem if he lied about what he saw—or didn't see. A part of him wanted to agree with Joe and demand Frank admit to his lies and tell the truth. But an even larger part of himself was unnerved by the man's description of Adam. He was ashamed to admit where his mind had gone when Frank described Adam's eyes and smirk; he was guilt-ridden by how alike the description of his son had seemed to the Kane of his dreams.

It was Kane's eyes that shined with pure evil; it was he who often displayed a smile so vile it caused a chill to crawl up Ben's spine and made his stomach turn. He didn't like how Kane looked at him in his dreams; he couldn't tolerate the trepidation born from being the extended focus of the man's lingering gaze.

Do you really think you can save him?

Ben shook his head as Kane's words rose from his memory. It didn't work; if anything, the motion only seemed to dislodge more of Kane's haunting questions.

What happened in the desert, Mister Cartwright?

What did he do to me? What did I do to him?

Was I a man? Was I a demon? Or was I a devil in disguise?

How do you save your son from the devil, Mister Cartwright?

"Pa," Hoss said, his face contorting with worry. "What do you think we ought to do? Even if Adam didn't go up that mountain, he did go somewhere."

"What do we do, Pa?" Joe asked anxiously.

Glancing between his sons, Ben was overcome by how similar this situation felt to one they had already endured. They had once searched the desert for Adam and now they would search the mountains. They would look for as long as they needed to; they would travel every inch of the land if necessary. They would do whatever it took to bring Adam home.

Their search separated the family further. They composed three small groups each led by a Cartwright in the hope that Adam would have a familiar and trusted face to focus upon when he was finally found. Their respective searches scattered them and took Ben further away from the mountain Adam may or may not have climbed, toward flatter earth more reminiscent of the desert he had once searched.

He had an overwhelming need to examine cliffs; it was an unignorable notion that led him and the few men who had accompanied him to the Eagle's Nest. Steep, jagged, and tall, it was the most formidable cliff he knew of on his property; knowledge of it coupled with the haunting details of his dreams gave birth to a foreboding fear so powerful it refused to be ignored. He had been dreaming of Adam and cliffs for months now, the horrifying memories of which unearthed yet another thing Kane had said.

What's the point of being gifted dreams if you aren't going to heed their warnings? What is the point of knowing something bad is on the horizon if you don't do anything to stop it?

Both questions echoed relentlessly through Ben's mind as he traveled the distance between the timber camp and Eagle's Nest, overwhelming any other thought he could conceive of and distracting him from anything the men surrounding him said.

It was Frank's low voice that eventually distracted Ben from his tortuous thoughts; it was the man's genuine curiosity made obvious in his tone that was enough to allow Ben to momentarily ignore his fear in exchange for a surge of protective anger. He had grown weary of tolerating the curiosity of others where his eldest son was concerned.

"Do you really think your son coulda made it this far?" Frank asked. "If he started out in the mountains, it seems nothing short of impossible that he would turn up out here."

Ignoring the man's words, Ben kept his attention focused on the task at hand. Guided by the light of a half moon, he could see Eagle's Nest standing tall in the distant horizon. Its jagged outline was illuminated by the moonlight shining brightly among the cascading stars. Stomach turning, he realized he was both dreading and anxious to reach the landmark. He wanted so badly to locate his missing son, but he hoped Adam would not be found here.

"It don't make sense to me," Frank said, lowering his voice further. "There ain't no way your son could travel this distance in the time he had. He won't be here. This is a wasted trip."

Silently, Ben prayed Frank was right.

"Of course," Frank continued, "none of this really makes sense to me, not to say that's a notable thing because it is not. There are a great many things in this life that don't make sense to me. I am not the most intelligent of men but I am an honest one, no matter what others may say or think."

Ben thought this statement to be a veiled reference of Joe's previous accusation and it made him liken the steepness of the cliff in the distance to the mountainside Frank claimed Adam had climbed. It was impossible to ignore how both notions seemed unlikely, preposterous in similar ways. The distance between Eagle's Nest and the timber camp was too vast to travel by foot in the time that had passed since his son had disappeared; the thought of Adam venturing anywhere on his own was an impractical one. Adam hadn't wanted to leave home that morning; he had been nearly too afraid to decide who he wanted to accompany and where.

How could a day which had begun like that end like this? How could Adam have been so anxious and fearful when faced with making a simple decision and then suddenly decide to embark into the wilderness alone?

Perhaps it was Adam's fearful nature and anxious demeanor that had prompted him to run. Maybe he had seen or heard and become so startled by something he felt as though he had no other choice but to flee.

"I stand by my actions and words," Frank said. "And for what it is worth, I am saddened by the changes in Adam's demeanor."

Startled, Ben cast Frank a wary look. He wondered what memories of the old Adam the hand had to compare this changed version of Adam against. "What makes you say that?" he asked.

"He's different than he was. He ain't the same. The other men at the camp, they didn't notice him the way I did. Adam looked skittish, frightened, and lost when he and his brother first arrived. I think the crowd of us bothered him. He didn't come talk to me the way I expected him to."

"What would make you expect such a thing?"

"I stand by my actions and words." Frank shrugged as though the repeated statement should have more than answered the question.

It didn't. If anything, it only ignited Ben's anger.

"Those were Adam's words," Frank explained. "His assessment of my character, not mine. Although, in the time that has passed between when he first spoke to me and today, I have come to believe in their truth. It was Adam who hired me, Mister Cartwright. He came upon me one night when I was drowning my sorrows at the saloon, mourning the life of a woman that God had seen fit to take from me. It was Adam who found me then. We had a long conversation and he told me what he thought about me. He said I was honest, that I stand by my actions and words, then he took a chance on me and gave me a job at the camp, and that is the very thing that has led me to search for him beside you tonight."

"That sounds like something he would do," Ben said, his anger dissipating as quickly as it overtook him. Frank's experience of Adam's kindness was an occurrence not unique to him. Endlessly intuitive, Adam had always seemed to collect people. He advocated for underdogs and tried to help seemingly lost souls and causes in whatever way he could.

"He saved me from myself that day," Frank said after a few moments had passed. "It is a favor I would like to be able to return."

Arriving at Eagle's Nest, they stopped their horses at the bottom of the cliff amongst the fallen rocks nestled upon where the land began to slope. Gazing up at the peak, Ben was overcome by an odd combination of relief and concern. The cliff was empty; Adam was nowhere to be seen.

"Did Adam really look you in the eye today?" Ben asked, the question surprising even himself.

Did Adam really do that? Always overcome by apprehension when presented with strangers, was he still capable of such cordial simplicities? Though Frank wasn't a stranger if the details of how he was hired were to be believed, so maybe that was what made him different in Adam's eyes.

Adam's eyes, Ben thought, briefly closing his own.

Had Adam's eyes really glistened with evil? And had Frank become uncomfortable beneath his gaze? Just as Ben had when Kane looked upon him in his dreams?

"He did," Frank said.

"Did he really smirk at you?"

"He did."

"And you stand by your actions and words?"

"I do. He saw something up that mountain, Mister Cartwright. He followed something the rest of us couldn't see into the darkness of those trees, of that, I am sure. I would be obliged if you allowed me to stay with you until Adam is found. Like I said before, I have a favor to return."

Ben nodded. He wouldn't refuse the help, not tonight, not if his son was still missing. Turning in his saddle, he cast his gaze on the other hands who had accompanied them to the peak. They were scattered among the landscape a short distance away, their eyes squinting through the darkness as they searched for any sign of Adam. He found himself grateful for Frank's kindness, the attention he had paid to Adam when he and Hoss arrived at the timber camp and his determination to find him now.

"What do you think?" Frank asked. "Where do you wanna go next?"

Where would Adam go? Ben thought worriedly. If he didn't like to be alone and he found darkness intolerable, if he ascended the bottom of the mountain only to change his mind and path and detour someplace else. If he wasn't standing on top of the cliff then where was he? Where did he go? And what did he do once he arrived?

"I think we oughta search the lake," Frank said thoughtfully.

Ben snorted. If Adam turning up at Eagle's Nest was improbable then finding him at Lake Tahoe at this hour seemed nearly impossible. The distance between where Adam had begun and the body of water was possible on foot, but the direction of travel would have brought him across the path of the search parties long before now. He couldn't have gone there unseen, and even if he had, he wouldn't have remained unseen for very long as the lake was where Joe had led his group to search.

"I got a feelin' about Tahoe," Frank said. "I don't know why but I do."

"Alright," Ben conceded easily. He was not one to deny the pull of intuitive feelings—at least not anymore.

Xx

They crossed paths with Hoss and his search party on the way to Lake Tahoe. The sudden hunch about the body of water was one Frank and Ben's middle son shared.

"I know it don't make sense," Hoss said. Sitting upon Chubb, he shook his head in a bewildered manner. "If Adam's there, then I'll be dadburned as to how he made it without being seen, or how he wasn't found before now, because Joe and his group headed that direction hours ago."

"You just have a feeling about it," Ben said flatly, glancing back at Frank through the corner of his eyes.

"Yeah," Hoss said. He appeared visibly grateful his father understood immaterial motivations. "I think Adam's there, Pa. Don't ask me how or why, but I think that's where we'll find him." He glanced at the group of men around them, then looked at his father and lowered his voice. "I think maybe we oughta search with a smaller group too. I'd rather not overwhelm Adam with a bunch of unfamiliar faces when we do find him. There ain't no tellin' how he'd react to that. There ain't no tellin' a lot of things right now."

Ben understood what Hoss had left unsaid. They were both worried about the state in which Adam would be found, what he would do if propelled into a group of strangers or what kind things—what kind of stories—the hands would share later about Adam. There were enough nasty rumors floating around town—talk that suggested Adam's mental capabilities had been impacted, that he had become wildly unhinged—Ben was not eager to substantiate any of them. He thought about the behavior Adam had displayed at home, the occasion when he was found unresponsive in his room, and looking at Hoss, he knew his son was recalling it too. If it happened before it could happen again, and neither Ben nor Hoss were eager to subject Adam to an audience.

But what if Adam wasn't at the lake? What if they sent the search party in an opposite direction and they found him instead? What if he was found by a group of strange men without a single member of his family to insulate, protect and reassure him? There was no telling what Adam would do, but Ben was certain he would no longer be able to protect his son's pride.

"He's there, Pa," Hoss said, seemingly understanding Ben's hesitation. "I'm sure of it."

Ben nodded. He wasn't certain but his son was and that would have to be enough for now. "Hoss and I will go alone," he said, projecting the firm order toward the group. Adam's confusion was a family matter and that was how it would remain. "The rest of you circle back to the timber camp, see if you can hook up Joe."

All the men looked agreeable, save for Frank who frowned. Directing his horse to stand beside Buck, he looked at Ben and opened his mouth to object.

"You can repay my son's favor another day," Ben said curtly. "You'll have to leave it be for now."

"Favor?" Hoss asked, his nose scrunched with confusion.

Ben dismissed the question with a shake of his head. "Let's go find your brother," he said. "And bring him home."

Xx

Arriving at Lake Tahoe, their search for Adam came to a sudden end.

A haphazard trail of Adam's discarded clothes, hat, jacket, boots, shirt, belt, and pants led Ben to a shallow shoreline. He wasn't shocked his son had removed his clothes; it had happened before, leaving him half expecting such a thing, though it didn't make the situation any less worrisome or dire. The air night was bitter and numbing, much too cold to be faced without any clothes.

Eyes squinting through the darkness, casting his gaze on the large, reflective body of water, it was Hoss who saw Adam first.

"Oh, dear God in heaven," he said, expelling the shocked words beneath his breath as he lifted his arm and pointed an index finger at the lake. "Pa," he said, his voice becoming frantic and insistent. "Adam's in the water, Pa!"

Locking his gaze on a foreign mound in the distance, Ben's stomach dropped. Adam was in the water, not floating, swimming or drowned, but sitting in the shallows, his knees pulled tight to his chest.

"Adam!" Ben yelled, rushing into the lake to retrieve his son.

The water was frigid and jolting. A chill ran up his spine as his boots filled with water, leaving his skin covered in goose flesh. Though if either reaction was due to the coldness of the water or finding his son in such odd conditions, Ben didn't know.

How had Adam gotten here? How had he traveled the distance between the timber camp and the lake without coming across someone who was looking for him? It simply wasn't plausible he could do so without being seen. It should have been impossible, but somehow it was, because Adam was here, sitting naked in the waters of Lake Tahoe, his stare vacant, his lips and skin a horrifying shade of blue.

Hands setting beneath Adam's armpits, Ben hoisted him up. Seemingly disinterested in standing or moving at all, Adam's legs remained limp and lifeless beneath his body. His skin was cold to the touch. Eager to remove him from the water, Ben hoisted his son high and carried him to shore. Adam was lighter than he should have been; his legs and torso felt sparse and bone-filled, and, despite being loose, dead weight in his arms, Ben carried him with appalling ease.

In the moment, he realized Adam was too thin and too cold. They needed to take him home quickly, warm him up, view his body under light and assess any damage that had been done. In the best of circumstances, he would try to get Adam to eat too. This was not the best of circumstances; however, it was teetering between bad and worse.

Having retrieved his brother's clothes, Hoss was waiting on shore. He helped his father redress his brother, wiping his frigid skin with a rolled blanket he had untied from the back of his saddle. When he was dressed, they wrapped the blanket around his shoulders and Hoss scooped Adam up, holding him protectively to his chest.

Ben half expected Adam to scream or cry or even laugh maniacally as he had in the desert. But the sound of his teeth chattering behind his blue-tinged lips was the only sound Adam emitted. His eyes were glazed, narrow hazel pools which seemed to be looking at everything and nothing at the same time. He didn't acknowledge his father or brother; he didn't show any signs of registering their presence at all.

Traveling home, Hoss held Adam as he had when they found in the desert. It was an easier task this time, as Adam didn't fight squirm in his brother's tight hold.

Ben found himself wishing that this Adam, the one they had rescued from water, could have been a bit more like the one they found in the desert. At least that one had spoken. At least that one had fought and yelled, laughed, and cried. It was a horrible thing to hope for as a father, to wish for a son to display one set of crazed behaviors over another; Ben felt his guilt renewed.

They came across Joe after a while. Traveling the trail in the opposite direction, he was on his way to join the search at the lake. He nodded at Ben, then Hoss, and as his gaze froze on Adam's still form, he cringed sadly, his jaw tightening as he fought tears. It was difficult for Joe to see his oldest brother in such disarray; it was painful for all of them to be assaulted with glaring, irrefutable proof of how much Adam had truly changed.

On the ride home, none of them spoke. There was nothing left to say.

Xx

Upon their return to the ranch house, Ben ordered Joe to fetch the doctor and Hop Sing to fill the bath.

Despite their efforts, and the startling, stinging he had to have felt when his cold body was immersed in the pool of hot water, Adam remained silent. His eyes were vacant and glazed. His body was lax, his posture loose; even his very bones seemed to be weak, unable, or unwilling to support his weight. Hoss had to hold his older brother's torso upright in the bath; sitting on the exterior of the tub behind him, he threaded his hands beneath Adam's armpits, wrapping his arms around his chest to keep his head above the water.

"He's too skinny, Pa," Hoss said, holding on to Adam so gently it was as though he thought he could break. "Oh, lord, how couldn't we have known he was this bad?"

Shaking his head, Ben couldn't conceive of a reasonable explanation of how or why the glaring detail had been missed. It didn't seem acceptable for such a dangerous thing to have gone unknown. "It isn't your fault," he said.

Washcloth covering his palm, his hand moved idly over Adam's body, cleaning the layer of dirt and grim the afternoon had left behind. Deep, swollen, and red, there were curious scratches on Adam's hands and forearms, wounds which could have come from running through a thicket of trees at top speed. Curiously, his face and neck were unblemished and his clothes showed no evidence of such wear.

Ben grasped his son's hands and feet one at a time, counting his fingers and toes before moving each digit, carefully ensuring the range of motion was intact. Everything seemed to be in order, and when Adam's teeth finally stopped chattering and his skin transformed from a sickly blue hue to a reassuring shade of pink, he allowed himself a sigh of relief.

The feeling was short-lived. Chased away by sadness as Adam was lifted from the bath a little too easily. He was incredibly thin; any defined muscles or sparse fat had been eaten away, dissolved by his fierce determination not to eat. Ben longed to understand why Adam feel such a deep need to torture himself in this way. There had to be a reason for it. For his vacant stare and listless state. For the extended silence of his voice. There had to be a reason, an action or a moment which could be gleaned and defined. Though Ben didn't know what had happened in the desert between Kane and Adam, he had known his son before the trip and he knew him after. Something had happened which caused things to devolve to this; something had been said or done to fundamentally change Adam, how he perceived the world around him and felt about himself.

Sitting behind Adam on the bed, Hoss held his brother upright as Ben negotiated his eldest son's body unto long underwear. A nightshirt followed, before Hoss moved and the pair tucked Adam tightly beneath a thick quilt. Ben lingered at the bedside as Hoss stood and began moving absently around the room.

Ben's fingers slowly stroked Adam's wet hair as the tip of Hoss's own hovered over his brother's books, laying sprawled and abandoned on top of the grafting desk. The cabinet had been a quick addition to the bedroom after Adam's return from college. He had said—no, had insisted—upon having such a desk in his room. He needed somewhere quiet to work; someplace solitary and private to think and draft his plans before they could be shared. He always had been so protective of his thoughts and dreams, never wanting to share them until he felt the timing was right.

Did Adam consider the future at all anymore? Was he even capable of such things?

"These books don't see much use these days," Hoss said quietly, his voice tight with emotion. "Sometimes I wonder if they'll ever see any use again. I'm sorry, Pa. I'm responsible for what happened today. You tried to allow Adam to stay home; I was the one intent on not listening. I didn't listen and I pushed you both. I pushed you to make him choose; I pushed him to go when you knew he wasn't ready."

"It's alright," Ben said. "None of what happened today is your fault."

"But it is, because I had to push until Adam accompanied me. I thought a ride might do him good. I thought if he went back to the timber camp, looked upon what he had once overseen and the men he had hired, that it would awaken something in him and he would somehow become my older brother again. It awakened something in him alright," Hoss snorted sadly. Inhaling a deep breath, he pulled his hand away from the books and hung it loosely at his side. "I want you to know I'm through pushing where Adam's concerned. I will follow whatever set of rules you think appropriate and I will make sure Joe follows them, too. You tell us what to do, Pa, and we'll do it."

"Shhh," Ben chastised. Looking at Hoss, he nodded at Adam. "Your brother is right here and able to hear you."

Eyes gleaming with sadness, Hoss didn't answer at first. "No, Pa," he said. "I don't believe he can. His body is with us but his mind is... elsewhere. If you can't see that then I reckon you're as confused as he is. The rules got to be changed, Pa. We got to stop pretending like Adam ain't sick. We got to stop hoping he's gonna be like he was."

"Don't you hope for such a thing?"

"Of course, I hope for it, and I pray for it, too but that don't mean it'll ever happen. I learned a long time ago there are just some prayers God don't see fit to answer and it's up to us to figure a way to live without."

Ben was appalled. "You're saying God wants us to find a way to live without your brother?"

"No. I'm saying we need to find a way to live with him. It's been months. We need to stop expecting him to get better. We need to find a way to stop letting the old Adam cloud the person he's become. He's not gonna be the same as he was, something we can't begin to see clearly because we're holding on so tightly to who he was. It ain't fair to him. We're holding on to the Adam of the past so tightly that the Adam of right now is slipping through our grasp."

"No." Ben viciously shook his head. He wouldn't do that; he couldn't do that. He had told Adam he could hold on to him; he had promised he wouldn't let go "I can't believe you would even suggest such a thing. I can't believe— "

"If Adam were capable of conversation, he would tell you the same. Think about it. You know he would. He's spent his whole life challenging your firmly held opinions; oftentimes he would be the one who convinced you to change your mind or action when a situation demanded such a thing. This situation demands change. If Adam can't make his own decisions, ain't it our job as his family to make sure he's taken care of and safe? I just want him to be safe. I want to stop asking things of him that he can't give. He tried today and it was too much, but at least now we know where things stand."

"Where do you think things stand?"

"Now we know what he's capable of and what he ain't, what we can expect from him and what we can't. Something happened in the desert," Hoss said, repeating his father's most torturous thoughts. "And it changed him. Don't you think it's time we change too?"

Looking at Adam, Ben found him asleep. He couldn't help wondering how long his son's peace would last tonight before his slumber became ravaged by nightmares. Something had happened in the desert, something horribly bad—of that they were certain, but they had no inclination of what. Or Ben had no inclination of what rather, because he hadn't been with Adam when the Eastgate doctor examined his body and cleaned his wounds.

But Hoss had been there. Did he know something his father didn't? Was that the reason for his opinion now? Was Hoss privy to what was causing Adam so much emotional pain?

"What did the doctor find?" Ben asked, the insistent question escaping him with no predictability or thought.

Had there been something else to find? An injury that would explain everything, gracefully allowing him to finally know what to do. Adam had been beaten, worked to the bone, seemingly tortured, and starved. Had he endured something else? Had there been some other injury which explained all this?

"What?" Hoss asked. "Doc ain't been here yet."

"What did the Eastgate doctor find?"

Face contorting oddly, Hoss fixed his gaze on the floorboards and shrugged.

It was his son's reaction that truly gave birth to Ben's fear and it sat in the bottom of his stomach like a boulder as he was reminded of the question he had been so careful not to voice. It had always been there, lingering between them unasked. It had always been there, he supposed, with the way the doctor had looked at Adam and then spoke of protecting his pride, how could it not? He hadn't wanted to think about it, so he dismissed it instead. If it was the brutal violation of Adam's body and pride which had led them to this moment in time, he hadn't wanted to know.

But that was before all this talk of the old Adam and the new, of letting go and moving on, of the changes in Adam which required them to change. Ben didn't want any of them to change any further. He wanted his son back. If there was a definable reason for Adam's new demeanor and behavior, then there had to be a way to help him; there had to be a road on which they could travel that would finally bring the old Adam home.

"That man in the desert, did he...?" Ben couldn't bring himself to finish the question. An odd silence settled around them, stagnate and thick.

"Did the man in the desert what?" Hoss asked eventually. Looking at his father once more, there was a mixture of deep sadness and disappointment etched on his face. "You're the bravest man I know, Pa, at least have enough courage to be direct with your words."

Ben hesitated for a moment more, then opened his mouth and finally voiced his fear. "Did that man touch your brother inappropriately?" he asked quietly.

"No, Pa," Hoss said. "He did not. Believe me, the doctor was sure to check. Why are you asking me something you already know? You're the one who insisted on caring for Adam back then. If he had such wounds then you would have seen them. Are you so eager for something to blame Adam's behavior on that you would convince yourself to think the worst? Both about what happened to Adam and myself. Don't you think I would have told you if something like that had happened? Don't you think, given how hard things have been recently, I would have shared anything of importance I knew? I don't know any more than you do, and I'm sorry but I take offense to you thinkin' different."

Ben realized it had been such a foolish notion and a horrendous hope. So desperate for a reason and explanation to allow him to save the old Adam from the new, he had allowed himself to believe the worst. He had known it wasn't true—all along he had, because Hoss was right. He had cared for Adam after finding him in the desert, such intimate injuries wouldn't have gone unnoticed.

Sitting in the stillness of the room, he was reminded of the past, the words he had said to Adam after it had been discovered Ross Marquette had been violent toward his wife: Sometimes people just change, Adam, and there are no discernible reasons why.

Adam hadn't accepted the explanation then and Ben didn't want to accept it now. It was foolish, dismissive, and wildly untrue. Quick, drastic change was always prompted by something; it never evolved out of nothing. With Ross they were never able to explain exactly what had happened, before or after his death. He had been normal and then suddenly he changed; for most, there had not been any evidence of what prompted his decline left to gather and interpret after he was gone.

"What difference does it all make, anyhow?" Hoss said quietly. "What that man did or didn't do. We all know he hurt Adam's body; it's what he did to his mind we have trouble bringing ourselves to accept. God-damn that man. I ain't never hated anyone in life the way I hate that dead man. I hope the devil's havin' fun with him. I hope he is burning... I hope his very soul is consumed by fire for what he did to Adam, for what his actions made of my brother. He took Adam away from us. He shattered his mind." Brown knitting, his face contorted painfully, his eyes set on the books once more. "Adam always had such a beautiful mind."

The sound of someone clearing their throat interrupted his thoughts. Both Ben and Hoss looked to the doorway and found Little Joe standing just outside the room.

"Doc's here," Joe said quietly. He stood for a moment more, avoiding looking at them, then turned around and left. The sound of his boots echoed in the hallway as he descended the stairs.

Ben wondered how much of the conversation had been overheard. Then he wondered how he could have ever asked Hoss the question he had. The thought process that had once been born from doubt, uncertainty, and intense fear felt obscene now. It felt like a betrayal—towards both his older sons. How could he have ever doubted Hoss that way?

Hoss had always been so loyal to Adam. A trusted confidant and devout keeper of his brother's most delicate secrets. But unbeknownst to Adam, Hoss had always shared with Ben the secrets that were too dangerous to keep. He had always shared with his father things which were important to know.

"You stay with Adam," Hoss said, passing Doctor Martin on the way out of the room. "I wouldn't want you to think I was hiding anything from you this time around."

Wanting to follow his middle son and apologize, Ben couldn't seem to bring himself to stray from Adam's side.

Martin's examination was completed quickly and without complication. Adam made no effort to move beneath the doctor's hands, nor did he show any signs of being aware of his surroundings or himself.

Pulling the blankets back into place, Martin cast Ben a questioning glance. "I know you've been anxious about him becoming dependent on medicine but after such a trying day. Do you oppose me giving Adam powder to induce sleep?"

Ben shook his head; he wouldn't dare oppose such a thing, not after today. Not anymore.

Retrieving a glass of water, Martin mixed the power in and handed it over to Ben to administer. "I left some more powder on the bureau if needed in the future. I assume you want to stay with him until he falls asleep."

Ben nodded, the glass feeling too cold and too familiar in hand. How many times since Adam had been found had he sat on the edge of the bed and forced him to drink? How many more times would the future demand the action be repeated?

"Stay with him for as long as you need to," Martin said. "I will wait for you downstairs. I was optimistic this afternoon; however, I do believe another conversation is in order now."

Martin closed the bedroom door behind him; Ben didn't know what the man was protecting them from. There were no secrets and little discretion needed where Adam and his immediate family were concerned. There were no secrets between Ben and Hoss and Joe; they all seemed to have the same information regarding how Adam had been lost and then found; it was Adam who seemed intent on not sharing the truth.

Leaning forward, he placed his hand behind his son's head, lifting it slightly as pressed the glass of water to Adam's lips.

Eyes staring absently, Adam didn't reject the glass. He opened his mouth slightly and in very small sips drank the liquid his father was enforcing. He couldn't stomach the whole glass—he never could. Still, he drank nearly half before Ben finally pulled it away and placed it on the side table. It was then he noticed Adam's gaze had shifted; his son was staring at him, his hazel eyes slightly clearer than they had been before.

"Where do you go?" Ben asked quietly. "When your body is still with us but you're nowhere to be seen, where does your mind go for safety? And why do you need such a thing? I have protected you since the very day you were born. I know I wasn't with you in the desert, or when you met that man, but I am here now. Have you so little faith in my ability to help you? Do you not believe I can protect you from whatever complications you are facing now?"

Adam didn't answer, not that Ben anticipated he would.

"Oh, I wish you would speak, Adam," he whispered forlornly. "I never once thought a day would dawn when you wouldn't be able to talk to me about your troubles, when I wouldn't be able to soothe whatever pain was consuming you. This is consuming you, son, there is no denying that. There's no denying I failed you either. I could go into detail of the many ways I failed you when you were a boy, but that no longer seems to be important considering all this. I failed you when I allowed you to accompany Joe on the drive to Eastgate, and I failed you today. Both occasions I had strong feelings something bad was going to happen, both of which I ignored. I am sorry for that. I am."

Watching Adam's eyelids begin to droop, he placed his hand on his son's chest and took solace in the feeling of his heart beating steadily against his palm. They found him; he was safe and Ben would do whatever was required to keep him that way.

"I'm done failing you, Adam," he vowed. "I will never give up on you and I will never let you go, but Hoss is right. The time has come for me to adjust my grip. I won't fail you again, and I refuse to lose you to this. I don't care what it takes to keep you with me. I will not lose you again."

He watched Adam sleep for a while, his hand not wavering from his son's chest. When he finally left, he purposely left the bedroom door open; he would no longer tolerate the door to be closed, hiding his son away where he could not be readily seen.

Xx

"You were wrong," Ben said sharply as he sat opposite of Doctor Martin at his desk. "My sons' afternoon excursion was not a successful one."

The room was mostly dark around them. Joe and Hoss had retired to their respective bedrooms; their conversation was not in danger of being overheard. Despite the fire burning in the fireplace, there was a chill in the night, a determined coldness which seemed intent on burrowing itself into Ben's bones. A thickness had settled in his throat, a tightness in his chest. It felt as though someone was cradling this heart in their hand, holding it gently only to sporadically begin to clench and squeeze, awakening a certain kind of pain which couldn't be helped or calmed. In his memories, he recalled this pain and easily defined it as grief; he was not certain; however, he had ever experienced this particular type of grief before—a deep, stinging sadness that seemed destined to never ebb or cease.

Reaching for the decanter of brandy on the desktop, he filled both of their glasses, then emptied his own, swallowing the dark liquid in one large gulp. He refilled the glass again; he would take his time with one and the next, nursing them until the pain in his heart finally began to ease.

"I'm sorry, Ben," Doc Martin said sadly, his glass remaining full and untouched before him. "I truly am."

Ben wished he could say the statement changed how he felt; he wished the apology, no matter how irrelevant, could heal his son or change Adam's behavior or suddenly make him talk. Oh, how he missed Adam's voice, deep and familiar, sometimes determined and sometimes soft. He missed his dry wit and sarcasm, the sound of his laughter. He missed their arguments, the heated debates they would sometimes have. He missed losing those arguments, easily beaten by the power of just one word. Papa.

"Adam's body will recover from his time in the lake," Martin said. "You and your boys retrieved him in time, warmed him appropriately. I am certain the coldness of the temperature he was exposed to will have no lasting damage on his extremities or skin."

This was not information Ben needed confirmation of.

"As you know, it is his mind which remains confused at best," Martin said.

Ben wanted to ask if this could be considered best than what was worse, but he didn't have to. He had enough memories of Ross Marquette to be reminded of how bad things could truly be. Adam may have been unresponsive and confused but he wasn't violent—at least not toward anyone other than himself. During his examination, Martin had noted the skin beneath Adam's fingernails, connecting the odd scratches on Adam's arms and declaring the wounds self-inflicted.

"I'm certain I do not need to draw your attention to this glaring fact," Martin continued. "But I will anyway. Adam is much too thin. You will need to watch him closely in the following days; if he develops a cold or a fever as a result of his actions today, I am not confident in his body's ability to fight it off."

"I know."

"You need to devise an alluring argument in order to convince him to eat. Do not intimidate him with large meals, push small portions of fatty foods often. Do not be taken by surprise if he becomes sick after eating; his stomach will almost certainly remain intolerable at first."

"He ate this morning," Ben said.

Nodding, Martin's expression remained serious. "That is favorable news."

"Hoss was able to convince him of the importance of such a thing, for this morning at least."

"Do you believe Hoss could continue to be convincing on the subject?"

"I don't know," Ben admitted. "This morning was... out of the ordinary, as was the afternoon."

"Because it was Adam's first venture out since you brought him home."

Ben was momentarily taken aback by how readily Martin recalled his visit to Virginia City earlier in the afternoon. Had that really taken place today? It seemed so long ago now. Days at least, maybe even weeks. The search for his missing son had taken precedence over the other events of the day, rendering them useless somehow.

"Normally we don't push him the way we did today," Ben said absently. "Or at least Hoss doesn't."

He didn't know the usefulness of the detail or why he was offering it so easily. It felt good to talk. To seek the wisdom of someone else rather than depend on his own. He was out of his depth with this—something he was certain he had realized long ago and chosen to ignore.

"It was Hoss who insisted Adam eat?" Martin asked.

"It was Hoss who insisted he choose," Ben clarified. He wasn't placing blame upon any one for how the day had unfolded. He wouldn't dare; he had told Hoss it wasn't his fault and he meant it. He was merely recounting the details. "Either the timber camp or town, accompanied by he or I. I stood by Hoss's instance and required Adam to decide upon one option over another."

"You were worried about the decision he made," Martin reminded. "It was the reason for our earlier visit."

"I would have worried regardless. Whether Adam decided to accompany Hoss or I or even if he had taken the third option of remaining home. My worry for that boy is not determined by any one choice or outcome." Ben sipped his brandy. "Or at least not of late," he qualified.

"Or ever. A father's worry never rests, or so I am told. Even so, I can clearly see how taxing recent days have been. Adam must improve from where he is now. His muteness and avoidance of people and places can be adapted to; the state of his body cannot be. If you cannot coax him into maintaining his most basic needs then maybe you ought to consider others who can. There are places meant for people like him. Where he can go— "

"I will not send my son away," Ben snapped. He had visions of the types of places being referred to and the horrors they contained. "I don't take kindly to the suggestion that I abandon my son by sending him away to be dealt with by strangers, people who would lock him away in some room after taking away his clothes." Shaking his head, he snorted humorlessly. "Although he may prefer the latter over remaining dressed."

"I meant no disrespect. My only thought in making the suggestion was to magnify the seriousness of the current situation."

"It is plenty magnified. Believe me, I understand the seriousness, especially after today. Adam is my son, Paul, my flesh, and blood. He is as familiar to me as the back of my hand, recent events, and behavior notwithstanding. I am willing and able to take care of him whether he ever improves. Furthermore, he has brothers to look after him; it isn't as if he's alone."

"He is not, but that does not mean things can remain as they are. When Adam experienced his first non-responsive state, I was not completely certain it would happen again. However, now that it has, I am confident it will occur again, especially if it has become a favored coping mechanism as I suspect it has."

"Coping mechanism?"

"A way for Adam to deal with his surroundings without having to deal with them. When faced with something he is unable to contend with, he chooses not to contend with it at all."

"He just... leaves," Ben said. "Physically he is present, mentally he is somewhere else entirely."

"His last spell lasted for days; it is important to note how long this one lasts and what prompts him to come out of it, if anything. A firm knowledge of the past will only help you better assist him in the future."

"Hoss said we ought to let go of the past," Ben said flatly. He did not know what response he was seeking by stating such a thing. "He said Adam has changed and it's time we did too."

Martin nodded. "That is wise."

"We've been so busy holding our breath, waiting, and willing him to suddenly wake up and be who he once was that we've made no effort to adjust to who he's become. We—I—haven't been looking at the situation clearly."

He had been allowing guilt and fear cloud his judgment; had been too concerned with the past to give the present appropriate thought. He had been too haunted by bad dreams and bad feelings, the dread attached to all things he didn't know; these feelings had consumed him, rendering incapable of seeing and properly dealing with the situation at hand.

Hoss was right; he had been right this morning in forcing Adam to try an excursion and he had been right after. They wouldn't have known then what they knew now if Adam hadn't gone to the timber camp. They wouldn't have been forced to see how bad things truly were and they wouldn't have been implored to change anything. They would have existed in some Godforsaken limbo forever, endlessly anticipating a day that would never come.

Adam wasn't going to get better, not like this. He couldn't if those around him remained intent on remaining as they were.

"What kind of adjustments do you propose?" Martin asked. "What are your plans to prevent further decline?"

Ben shook his head. He hadn't had time to consider options or form any plans. He could no longer allow his memories of the Adam of the past to affect his choices regarding the Adam of the present, and he could not allow his hopes for his son's future to do the same. He wanted him to get better but what did Adam want? What was he capable of achieving now that had become so changed?

"May I propose a few?" Martin asked.

Ben nodded.

"No more excursions," Martin said. "At least for the foreseeable future. Keep Adam home, where his environment is controlled and he is safe. Supervise him. Do not allow him to be alone, allotting him opportunities to harm himself."

"I do not believe Adam would do any real harm—"

"Ben," Martin interrupted seriously. "The scratches on his arms were self-inflicted. You found him sitting naked in the frigid lake waters. Do neither of those things occur to you as occasions your son meant to harm himself? And what about the time before this? When he experienced his prior unresponsive state, he rubbed his wrists and ankles raw. It may not seem like much now but these types of behaviors can escalate. I think it is appropriate at this time to liken his behavior to that of Ross Marquette."

Inhaling sharply, Ben finished his drink. He didn't need to be reminded of the past. "Adam is nothing like Ross Marquette."

"I don't believe that. I hope you don't believe it either. Mental sickness is mental sickness, Ben; I don't believe there are such great distinctions to be made between its symptoms. You know, Adam came to me before Ross's death; he wanted to know what to do. He asked for help; he said that somebody ought to be able to do something for Ross before it became too late."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"They were close like brothers. In fact, I recall a time when people used to call them twins. As adolescents they followed each other like shadows. If one was in trouble the other wasn't far behind. Adam is a very sick boy, Ben. My best advice is for you to keep him very close. Do for him what we couldn't do for Ross."

"What exactly is that?" Ben asked. "What do you think should have been done for him?"

"I do believe we should have at least tried to save him from himself." Martin nodded. "I will call again in a few days to see how things are progressing, or not progressing, I suppose. Send word if you need anything before then."

With that the doctor excused himself, leaving his drink untouched and Ben struggling to silence his thoughts.