THREE

oooooooooo

He blamed himself.

John C. Regan's final words rang in Ben Cartwright's ears even as he sat at the side of his youngest son, holding his hand and staring at Joseph's once angelic face that was now no more than a Hellish battlefield.

'I will settle this, Cartwright, my way.'

'I hope you know what you're doing.'

The guests in the hotel lobby were giving them a wide berth, unwilling or unable to enter into the drama that was unfolding before their eyes. The wealthy patrons hurried by, pretending they did not see the young boy who lay bleeding on the horsehair sofa; acting as if his labored breathing was as common a sound as the clink of glasses and the chink of silverware against china plates. He'd thought of sending for Adah – of shoving into her face the brutal reality of this man she loved – but decided against it. Adah was an actress. He would never know if her penitence was real. Anyhow, Adah didn't matter.

What mattered was Little Joe.

Ben shifted and lifted his hand to touch his son's curls, but hesitated, unsure of whether or not the gesture would bring the boy additional pain. He was no innocent; no novice to the evils of the world, but this…. The anguished father sucked in a breath and held it against his rising anger. Regan did this to his boy because of him; because he had dared to love Adah and to offer her a life lived free of fear. John C. Regan had considered his actions and with cold calculation decided the price he would pay.

The rancher moved that hand to his face to strike back the tears that had formed, but then he let them fall on his boy's pallid flesh. Little Joe was alive. He thanked his maker for that! But the boy was so broken. Shortly after he'd sent Hoss to find a doctor, he'd gingerly pried his son's shirt tail free of his trousers so he could examine him. There didn't appear to be a square inch of Joseph's torso that was not bruised. The contusions were the deepest and darkest on the back of his neck and on the boy's lower back just above his kidneys.

Two places where a single blow could kill.

Yes, John C. Regan had decided what payment he would exact.

His son's life.

Someone cleared their throat. Ben looked up. It was the mustached man who had been behind the desk. The manager of the hotel was in his middle years. His pale blue eyes shone with unmasked sympathy.

"Mister Cartwright, is there anything I can do to help?"

This stranger's compassion nearly unmanned him.

Ben swallowed over a lump in his throat. "My other son…Hoss…he went to fetch the doctor. Perhaps you could see what's taking him so long?"

"Certainly." The man took a step. "Mister Cartwright. Here he is now."

Without loosing Joseph's hand, Ben turned and looked toward the door. Another man had preceded Hoss through it. He was on the short side, and wore a gray suit with a white shirt and black string tie. His gray hair was thinning on the top. The newcomer had the look of a man who has witnessed tragedy and become numb to it. His movements were slow and sure – too slow for an anxious father who had feared for twenty long minutes that each breath his young son took would be his last.

"I couldn't find Doc Martin," Hoss said by way of apology. "Seems he's out of town. This here is Doc Fields."

Paul was not the official town doctor yet – there were others – but he was his friend and the best.

Ben's nod was curt.

Doctor Field's gaze landed on Joseph where he lay on the settee. There was a softening of the taut line of his mouth and a deepening of the already profound furrows on his brow.

"How old?" he asked.

It had not been the question Ben expected. It took him a few seconds to respond.

"Seventeen."

"Savage," the man said as he came to his side.

Ben looked at his boy, at Joseph's battered body; at his bruised and bloody face.

"Yes."

oooooooooo

Adam Cartwright was enjoying a whiskey in the hotel saloon. He'd decided to wait for his kid brother to finish his pointless attempt at wooing the sophisticate that was Adah Menken by throwing one back and watching the world go by. Adah was quite a woman. He could understand why Pa was attracted to her. She had wit, sophistication, and a keen intelligence – and was a beauty to boot. The problem was, she was also an actress and actresses tended to be, to put it politely, a bit 'lively'. Generally, they were the kind that had traded the normal affections of a woman for the bright allure of acclaim and applause. Not that he had anything against them. He'd loved a few. But, generally speaking, they were not the type of woman to settle down on a spread in the middle of nowhere and content themselves by running a household and rearing children.

Adam almost spit out his beer.

Egad! Little Joe was seventeen. He was hard enough to cope with. What if Pa remarried and there was a new little brother?

Or little sister?

Adam took another sip and let the liquid slide down his throat. He'd already made his mind up that marriage, if it happened for him, was far in the future. He'd raised one kid and barely made it through that. Every day he looked for the gray hairs. He was sure they were there.

Or maybe they had been and he'd plucked them out along with the rest of his hair that last time Little Joe had decided he was old enough to come to town on his own.

Or that time Joe'd ridden that horse that was too big for Hoss.

Or maybe it had been the second – or was it third? – time he'd had to take a shotgun away from an irate father while his baby brother hung his curly head and gave him that 'who me?' look.

Adam sighed, looked at his drink, and tossed the rest of it back.

They'd be lucky if the kid made it to eighteen.

The black-haired man looked at the door, and then at his glass, and then held up two fingers to signal one of the saloon girls – a pretty one named Jenny – that he wanted a refill.

"What's your poison?" Jenny asked after sashaying over to the table.

He thought a moment and then handed her the glass. "How about a beer this time?"

"And here I thought you were more of a man than that little brother of yours," she said with a wink. "You Cartwrights and your beer."

Pa preferred beer. If the truth was known, he did too. Beer was a pleasure. Whiskey was an exercise.

"Now, you don't want me to fall off my horse on the way out to the Ponderosa, do I?" he asked playfully. When Jenny laughed, he added, "So did Little Joe behave himself?"

"I wasn't talking about Joe. I meant Hoss."

The fact that Jenny had referred to Hoss as his 'little' brother did not escape him.

But it did amuse him.

"So Hoss was here." It only made sense. "Was he waiting for Little Joe?"

"He was," the pretty girl remarked as she placed the empty whiskey glass on her tray. "And he was."

"Huh?"

Jenny laughed again. "It was the funniest thing. Hoss was standing here, minding his own business, when your little little brother," she grinned, "came in and popped him on the chin."

"Joe did what?"

"Popped Hoss right on the chin!"

"Did he say why?"

She shrugged. "I was busy, but I heard Little Joe tell Hoss not to say anything 'else' about Adah somebody." Her eyes brightened in the way a woman's did when someone has just handed her a new hat. "Oh! That's that actress who's in town, isn't it?"

Adam was reeling a bit. "So, let me get this straight. Hoss was drinking a beer and Little Joe just walked up to him and punched him because Hoss said something about Adah Menken?"

Jenny scowled at him. "No, silly. Little Joe popped him because Hoss didn't say anything." She cocked her head. "It's a good thing you didn't order another whiskey, sweetie. I would have told Sam not to pour it!"

And with that, Jenny sashayed away.

Leaving Adam blinking.

He sat there a moment and then rose to his feet. "Never mind," he called out, stopping Jenny from pouring the beer.

"Good luck finding those brothers of yours," she called out. "Your pa ain't gonna be happy if you lose them."

Adam let out a sigh and stepped out of the door.

Only to come close to being run down by the Paris Opera hotel manager. The man had a wild-eyed look.

"Are you looking for someone?" Adam asked.

The mustached man looked him in the face. His gaze shifted to his shirt and pants before returning. "Are you Adam Cartwright?"

"Who wants to…?" The black-haired man paused. "What's this about?"

"If you are Adam Cartwright, your father sent me to find you. Your younger brother…."

Adam felt it this time. It was about a dozen.

Hairs that went gray, that is.

oooooooooo