Chapter

Monster

"Hoss…Hey, Hoss."

"Hoss. Look at me."

"Hey Hoss."

"Hoss. Coward."

"Hoss."

"What?" He snapped. They smirked in satisfaction, finally getting the response they were looking for.

"I know why your pa's an Indian lover. They're dirty and smelly and ugly, just like you."

"Ms. Harper." Leta, Malvet's younger sister, runs in. "Come quick. It's Hoss." She follows Leta out of the class, seeing a crowd of boys beating on another student. Hoss on his hands and knees as the boys beat at his back. Hoss wasn't moving he wasn't trying to protect himself. He was staring at the ground beneath him. He did nothing to ward off the blows. Between the mounds of kids, she noticed there was something underneath him, or rather someone. He was holding someone down. This person beneath him being his sole focus. He reacted none to the onslaught of blows. The children parted as she approached, giving her clear view of the child he held beneath him. Not held. Choked. His hands were around the kid's throat.

The boy beneath him was terror-stricken as he struggled to pry the large hands away, struggled to breathe; but Hoss's grip was unrelenting. Focus unmerciful.

He didn't even look like he was the same boy. The typically mild mannered boy wasn't there. His mind was absent. His body was acting outside the presence of his mind. Oh My God.

"Hoss!" She tried to snap him back. He couldn't hear her. "What are you doing?" There was fear and accusation in her voice. Fear and accusation he was deaf to. He heard nothing but his blood swooshing in his own ears with every pulse. "Get off of him! You're killing him." She pulled the other boys away so it was just the Cartwright and the boy in his grasp whose face was dangerous shades of purple. Eyes bulging as he stared wildly at his destroyer. She yanked at Hoss's arm and he didn't budge. She sured her footing and steadied her hold. With all her might she pulled Hoss's arm slowly away from the boy's neck. Hoss unwittingly relinquishing his grip.

Realizing he was losing his hold, he swung his body to shake off the intrusion. That's what he was trying to do. What happened though was much worse than he could ever imagine. Somehow his elbow made contact with his teacher's right eye. It was this connection that brought him back. He came to, as she stumbled backwards and hit the ground in a daze. She stared at him with the same hurt and fear as was in his little brothers eyes the night he'd lost his temper with him. Her eye watery and red and already beginning to swell.

His world came crashing down as the realization flooded in. The unthinkable just happened. He'd hit a girl. Not even one that was trying to do him any harm. He just hauled off and hit a woman. A hero woman, who was trying to save a life. The life of a boy he was trying to take. He looked at the boy convulsing at every cough beneath the weight of him as he struggled to pull in air. The marks where his fingers had encircled the boy's neck, remnant. Evidence of his offences. What kind of monster had I become? She saw it too. In the way she stared at him. They all saw it. They weren't looking at an innocent boy. They stared at a monster. Frankenstein's monster. They were frightened of him. They weren't looking at Hoss, that innocent boy too sweet to hurt a dragonfly. They were looking at Hoss, the monster, willing to take a boy's life. He was the same boy they knew yesterday. Except he wasn't. Something had changed. This place had turned him into something he didn't want to be. He sat back frightened, granting the injured boy his freedom. He was frightened of who he became and frightened of them, at what they'd do to him because of it. He just needed to get away. He jumped off the boy and bee-lined for the gape in the wooden fence.

"Hoss!" His teacher called to him. He never looked back. "Go get the Sheriff." Was the last thing he heard her say as he exited the schoolyard. A chill ran through him. Does this make him a criminal? A wanted fugitive. Oh, how one action had made him a bad guy. It wasn't enough for him to leave school. He had to leave town. He couldn't go home. The Sheriff would find him there. He didn't know where else to go. He could live in the mountains like a Wildman. One thing he knew about the law though, they would eventually catch up with him. A thirteen year old boy would never be a match for them. He wished he had a friend that could protect him. Hide him out for a while. Young Wolf. He thought. As quickly as he'd ever done in his life, he saddled his horse and bee-lined for the outskirts of town.

~.~

Kyle was sitting in the shade of the schoolhouse steps. The other students gathered around him. Ms. Harper sitting at his side with her arm around his back, offering him comfort. The boy held his own throat looking injured and shamed. When Roy arrived, upon realizing the basis for his beckoning, his first action was to get the injured child to the doc. He walked on one side, Ms. Harper on the other as they guided the boy there. The students followed behind. Marge ran on up ahead to inform the doc they were coming. The Doc met the small crowd outside his door and helped the child in.

Sherriff Coffee and Doctor Martin were both hard-pressed to believe Hoss was the aggressor, though the evidence was right before them, in the form of large purple fingerprints around the boy's neck, eye witness statements from the student's as well as the teacher and most damming of all, Hoss's departure.

Doctor Martin examines the boy as the excited children tell all of what had just happened. The picture they painted of Hoss, it was not looking very good for him at all. "Can I speak to you outside?" Doctor Martin had to say something. He had to step in on behalf of the sweet boy. His friend's son. He left the gathering altogether in the exam room and stepped out with the Sherriff.

"What is it? Is it serious?"

"No, no. I don't think so. It's about Hoss."

"What about?"

"I was summoned to the Ponderosa a week ago." Doc Martin told the story of Hoss's head injury and recapped all the marks he had seen on the boy. He even admitted as hard as it was the advice he'd given to the troubled father. With this new insight. Roy felt the best way to get any real information from the students was to separate them from the injured boy. He left the doctor alone to care for him and directed the small crowd to follow him down the street to the jailhouse. Once there he asked them directly. He wanted to hear from their mouths all they knew.

The students looked about each other. A few seemed eager to speak but none wanted to break the unspoken pact. It was 14 year old, Sally, that stepped forward. When she broke the ice the other students followed suit. They described the constant bullying that Hoss was subjected to. How long he's been dealing with it and how bad it's gotten this year. The other boys pointed to Kyle and Travis as the main aggressors. Travis who was in the room with them stood guiltily with his arms crossed and head low.

He's heard about all he's needed to hear. One thing was for sure, Roy knew he had to find the boy. First things first. He had to retrieve the father of the injured child. It's been long enough, the father would want to be there for his son. He left Deputy Williams in charge of taking official witness statements and directed Deputy Brown to ride from house to house and inform the other parents to retrieve their children.

~.~

Kyle's father lived just on the outskirts of town, just off the same lonely stretch of road that it took to get to the Cartwright's ranch house. There were heavy prints in the ground appearing to be from a running steed. He imagined it was Hoss's. It troubled him not to continue on following them. He wanted to get started finding Hoss right away, but his first priority had to be to get the father of the injured boy to his son. He turned his horse off the road and guided it down Steep Pine Road. Kyle's father stood in the doorway wiping the dirt from his face and arms with a damp cloth, appearing scruffy and worn assumingly from a hard day's labor in the sun. McCabe was none too pleased to learn about his sons attack and followed Sherriff Coffee into town to his son's bedside.

The Sherriff stopped back into the jailhouse before continuing out. Jim was still out riding from house to house informing the parents of the incident that took place so they could retrieve their children from the jailhouse. Most of the kids had gone home. A few were left behind, including Harriet, still writing her statements. Ms. Harper though finished with hers, vowed to remain until the last student was gone. His young deputy was handling his part well. It was time to leave him and ride out to the Ponderosa.

Doc Martin stood back allowing the father to be with his son. His temper was brewing, getting hotter and hotter with each passing minute, regardless of the doctors attempts to inform the father of how inconsequential his son's injuries actually were. Finally the father asserted.

"I'm going to have a talk with Mr. Cartwright."

"Pa no." The boy grabbed at his father's arm.

"That boy's trouble."

"Please pa don't. It's my fault. I started it." Martin was astounded at the boy's declaration of guilt. The boy took responsibility over his own actions. He didn't expect him to do that. It seemed the boy was more concerned with keeping his father out of trouble than himself. The father who was renowned for his temper.

"Son, I don't care what you did." He disregarded his son's guilt. "He had no right to put his hands around your throat like that. That boy's a menace. He's got to be stopped."

"Mister McCabe." Doc. Martin tried to intervene. "Your sons hurting right now. He really needs you to be here for him."

"He's hurting because of that menace of a boy."

"Sir. The Sherriff is out there. Why don't you just let him handle it?"

"The Sherriff. You expect me to believe he'll actually do something. Him and Cartwright are best buds. Don't you know? He'd let anyone of them get away with murder." Now was probably not the time to mention his own close friendship with the Cartwright's. "Well, I'm not going to stand by and let that happen. No, that boy is going to pay for what he did to my son."

"Pa wait." The boy's pleas fell short as his father stormed out. Doctor Martin was at a cross roads. He hated to leave the boy alone but he had to get word out to the Sherriff somehow. He felt this could only mean trouble for the Cartwright's.

"Kyle." He knelt to him. "What do you think your pa meant when he said he was going to make Hoss pay?" Kyle couldn't answer. He didn't know himself just how far his father was capable of going. His pa wasn't like other pa's. He knew his pa got angry sometimes. Angrier sometimes than it seemed other pa's got. Sometimes it seemed he got angry over nothing. Like the smallest things would set him off. His pa rarely hit him though. Sometimes he would but every pa does that. Mostly he would just be subjugated to his demeaning words. When this would happen it wouldn't take long for his pa to apologize. He'd hug him and tell him it wasn't his fault and even admit to him the real source of his anger. Sometimes it would be the ranch hands he was mad at. Sometimes the weather or the critters eating their yield. Lately the source of his anger were the Cartwright's who were taking the land right out from under him. If his yield had been greater it would have been him buying that land by the lake, not Ben Cartwright. They've been a regular source of his pa's anger a lot lately. That boy Hoss, as stupid as he was, was one day going to be better than him. He was going to be richer and have more land than he'd know what to do with. His father fumed at the thought that one day his own boy might have to work under them. Even if not directly, they would always be crushed by them. The doc asked just one more question.

"Kyle, do you think that Hoss deserves punishment?" He considered his own part in this. Hoss's final blowup and everything he did to him that led him to this. How bad he'd actually allowed himself to get. He never saw himself as a monster before, but he was just waiting for Hoss to stand up and defend himself. He never did. All this time, he let him do this. It got worse and worse because he never stood up for himself. Until today. The kid lowered his eyes remorseful. He shook his head. No. He couldn't honestly say Hoss did deserve this. He didn't deserve what all he'd done to him and he certainly wouldn't deserve what his father might do. What that was he still didn't know. What his father might be capable of. "Kyle. I need you to wait here. Can you do that?"

"Where are you going?" It pained him to tell the boy.

"I have to let the Sherriff know what your father is doing."

"Please don't hurt him."

"Roy's not going to want to hurt him. If we don't try to intervene, your father might get hurt. Do you understand?" He thought about it and nodded. "I have to go." He gave him silent permission. "I need you to wait here. Don't go anywhere. I won't be gone long." He nodded obediently.