ONE

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It never ceased to amaze him that a man could get more saddle sores riding in a stage coach than on the back of a horse.

Joseph Francis Cartwright, youngest and most charming – at least in his book – of Benjamin Cartwright's three handsome sons glanced at the coach window and blew out a sigh as the mountains bounced by. He'd done everything but grovel to get his pa to let him ride Cochise to Lee's house, but Pa wouldn't hear of it. Joe's gaze dropped to the waistband of his green corduroy coat. Underneath it he still wore a bandage. If it had been anything other than him being shot, Pa said, he would have considered it, but with the wound in his side just healed Pa didn't trust him on the road alone because of highway robbers, desperados, outlaws, plague, famine, pestilence, and just about anything and everything else Biblical the older man could conjure up out of that overly-protective, vexed, and highly imaginative mind of his.

Come to think of it, he had groveled.

So, here he was, making what would normally have been an enjoyably short jaunt on Cochise in a stifling, cramped coach smelling of smoke, sweat, and too many men. What the heck they were all doing heading to Platt City he had no idea.

Maybe the town was having a contest to see who could knock a man down at ten paces by sheer stink alone.

Joe sighed as he leaned back in his seat and pulled his Stetson down. He should have been there by now. Since Lee knew he was coming, she'd have prettied herself up. She'd probably be wearing deep red like she liked to in order to show off those big blue eyes of hers and that raven-black hair – and have a smile and a fine supper waiting on him. He looked forward to the time he would spend in her company. It had been kind of awkward at first since she wasn't quite old enough to be his ma and a little too old to be his sweetheart, but after a rough start five years back they'd become good friends. Joe chuckled at the thought of how he'd fought his pa the first time the older man sent him out to check on Lee, shortly after her first husband died. Here he was thinking she was gonna be some stuffy old lady with gray hair and at least one double chin. He had to admit he'd been mighty surprised when the door opened to reveal a beautiful, trim young woman –

Pointing a rifle straight at him.

Joe glanced again at the jostling scenery and then reached over the man sittin' next to him, who was dead- drunk and snoring, to pull the shade down against the light of the setting sun. Truth to tell since he'd taken that bullet, his head had ached just about as much as his side. He'd never be so happy in his life as when he got out of this bouncing, jiggling, torture chamber called a 'coach' and put his booted feet down on solid ground. Turning his head, Joe looked out of the window on the opposite side of the stage. The light was nearly gone. Nothing remained of it but a few blood-red streaks near the horizon. Stars were twinkling in a sky grown dark as his father's eyes and the moon was rising. All in all it was a pretty sight – 'sweet' as middle brother would say. The curly-haired man snorted as he adjusted his position again and elbowed the drunk into the corner of the coach. Older brother Adam would have pronounced it 'beautiful as the seraph's dream' or some other such nonsense.

The thought of Adam wiped the smile from his lips. Brother Adam had been gone for two full years and he'd found that, while he missed him, Adam's departure had – well – freed him to be himself. Pa had put a lot of trust in him, turnin' over the horses and all that went with them to him, letting him handle that part of the family business as he saw fit. Since Adam had come home for his 'visit', older brother had made it damn clear that he still saw him as a snot-nosed little kid who couldn't wipe his own back end. He didn't know what it was with the two of them. He'd talked to Hop Sing about it and the little man had said it was because the two of them were too alike.

He'd put out his hand and checked to make sure the little man didn't have a fever.

A disgruntled noise brought him out of his musing. He thought it might have been the stage driver, Charlie, cussing, and if it was, he wanted to know why. Leaning over the drunk, Joe snapped open the blind and stuck his head out the window.

"Hey, Charlie, what's going on?"

Charlie Martin was an old hand at stage runs. Heck, Charlie was an old hand at just about everything. The older man had worked for his pa when he was a little boy and been one of those hands who'd let him get by with way too many things, so they had been and still were good friends. After workin' on the Ponderosa, Charlie'd tried his hand at banking. Well, that wasn't quite right.

He'd robbed one actually.

Charlie got five years for the crime, but it was reduced to two for good behavior. When the state let him out, he came back to the ranch and asked for his job back. Pa hired him again, but after that it seemed like they were never alone. Adam or Hoss or one of the other trustworthy hands was always around to see that neither of them got into any trouble. Charlie was older than Adam and younger than Pa. Probably somewhere around forty. It was hard to tell exactly how old he was due to the time he'd spent in prison and the fact that he currently spent most of his days bein' baked by the sun. In prison they'd cut Charlie's pale yellow hair short and he found he liked it that way. The older man looked like he'd been scalped and survived it. A knife fight or two since he'd been released had added scars to his thin face that made him look – at least, according to Maggie at the Bucket – slightly rakish.

Yeah, he knew what that word meant too.

"I ain't sure, Joe!" Charlie called back. He liked the fact that the older man never called him 'Little Joe' even though he'd known him since he was a spud. "There's somethin' in the road."

"You want me to come up top?"

There was a pause.

"Yeah. I'm thinkin' that might be a good idea."

Charlie had slowed the coach but not brought it to a stop. Joe disentangled his boots from those of the inebriated man next to the window and stepped over him to catch the handle of the door.

"You're just plain stupid for going out there, kid," one of the passengers – a man in a dark gray business suit with a black string tie and matching bowler hat – growled. "They aren't paying you to put yourself in danger."

Joe paused to tip his tan hat. "No need. That's somethin' I do for free," he answered with tight grin.

The man studied him a moment before pronouncing, "You're an idiot."

The curly-haired man bit back his anger and his desire to say, 'It takes one to know one.' "Guilty as charged," he said instead and then swung out into the night.

Charlie was waiting for him when he dropped down onto the weathered seat next to the older man. Turning his face forward Joe squinted into the night.

"I don't see anything."

"It's a ways off yet. When you do this for a livin' you gotta have vision sharp as a hawk's." Charlie's profile was clear against the risen moon. His jaw was set and his lips tight. "You got that pretty pearl-handled lady with you?"

Joe patted his hip, reassured by the feel of his revolver beneath his fingers. "Sure do."

The lean man's pale eyes rolled over to meet his puzzled gaze. "I'd be wakin' her up and gettin' her out of bed if I were you."

"What do you think it is?" Joe asked, squinting harder as he drew his pistol.

The older man turned toward him. His white teeth gleamed in the moonlight.

"Just what you ordered, boy," he said with a grin. "Trouble."

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"Pa."

Ben Cartwright dropped his newspaper to the top of the rugged wooden table he sat behind and looked up at his oldest son, still not quite believing he was there. Adam had only recently returned. Two years before, at the age of thirty-five, his eldest had declared the need to find himself and made it clear that he felt he had to leave the Ponderosa to do so. Though he had written faithfully, chronicling their day to day lives as well as anything out of the ordinary and sending the letters to Adam's various ports of call, his son's replies had been sporadic at best. So it had come as quite a shock when he opened the front door and found the boy standing there with his hand raised as if he had hesitated to knock. He'd just left Joseph's room where he'd been sitting at his youngest's side, praying for the fever that wracked his ravished form to abate. He'd been expecting Paul Martin. The physician's visits had been regular as clockwork since the debacle with Dan Tollivar that had left Joseph gravely wounded.

Adam explained that he had been in California working when he'd received the letter telling him of Dan's betrayal and Joseph's close brush with death. At the time he wrote he hadn't known that the wound would become infected and threaten Joe's life. In spite of that, Adam had headed straight home, driven by some inner demon he had yet to explain.

Ben's dark eyes went to his eldest child. Adam was standing on the other side of the table, facing into the yard. Perhaps he was being too harsh. Perhaps there were no demons.

It was possible Adam had been driven home by love.

His eldest's strong form blocked his view of the barn. Still, he knew it's interior was lit. Dan Tollivar was working late.

Making amends.

Leaning back in his chair, Ben acknowledged his son with a nod.

Adam's full lips were pursed. "Pa," he repeated. "Are you sure you know what you're doing?"

Never one to beat about the bush, that was Elizabeth's son.

"About what?" the older man inquired, though he knew full well.

"About Dan."

Ben sucked in the sigh that sought to escape. "You know what your brother said."

"Yes, and I know another thing. Dan Tollivar almost got Joe killed. If you ask me – and neither of you have – I don't think either of you are thinking straight where Dan's concerned."

The rancher hesitated and then said, "Son, I would have expected more of you."

"More of me? What 'more'? You mean you expect me to forgive and forget and put my trust in a man who kidnapped my brother, betrayed my father, and then stood by while Joe was shot!?" His son paused to contain his temper. "Perhaps you would care to explain to me just what is wrong with my having a slight...problem with that?"

"Son, the Bible teaches us to forgive –"

"It also says to be of sober spirit and on the alert," Adam snapped, "for our adversary prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour!"

Ben rose to his feet and planted his hands on the table. "I didn't teach you to bend the scriptures to suit your own prejudices, boy!"

Adam's jaw grew tight. Rage was written into every line of his lean form. "This is why I left! I'm not a boy, Pa, but you seem to be unable to accept that. I'm nearly forty. Older than you were when you and I headed west!" His son's voice had risen with his temper. He stopped, sucked in air, and visibly struggled to rein it in. "I happen to love my brother and I for one don't believe a leper can change his spots."

The rancher shook his head. "I thought I taught you better."

Adam snorted. "Pa, you taught me that family comes first. I'm sorry, sir, but I think your friendship with Dan Tollivar blinds you to the obvious."

"Do you think your brother is blind too? Joe has forgiven Dan –"

"Has he? Has he really?"Adam snorted. "Have you asked him? Or have you just assumed Joe thinks like you do?"

Ben opened his mouth to reply, but shut it just as quickly. Had he? Had his decades-long friendship with Dan blinded him to the obvious?

No. Joe had gone with him a few days before. The two of them sat on their horses and watched while Dan taught one of the younger hands the ABCs of roping and wrangling. He could see his youngest laughing, encouraging the older man.

"Of course he does."

"Pa," Adam's tone softened, "Joe loves you. No, he worships you. He'd do anything to make you happy." A flicker of something – it might have been fear – colored Adam's hazel eyes darkening them to brown. "Even forgive a man who tried to kill him."

It wasn't true – at least not technically. Joe insisted Dan had saved him.

After he had allowed him to be kidnapped, brutalized, and shot.

Ben fought to still his indignation; to listen to his son. So far as he knew Dan Tollivar had been a model hand for the last month since...the incident. Perhaps Adam knew different.

"Has Dan done something to arouse your suspicions?"

Elizabeth had done the same thing, pursed her lips and given him that 'look' when she knew something and knew it for sure, but had no idea how she knew.

"...no." Adam glanced toward the barn again. "But I don't like the way he watches Joe."

This was news to him. "What do you mean, 'watches' your brother?"

"It's hard to say, Pa, but you know how it can be," his son replied as he turned back to face him. "When a man's done something wrong – and his conscious pricks him – sometimes he comes to resent the...reminder."

"The 'reminder' being your brother?" Ben frowned. "Are you sure?"

"No, Pa, I'm not sure. I wish I was. It's just that I'm..." His son shrugged and his lips curled up on the ends with chagrin. "I'm scared. Joe... Well, he could have died and I wouldn't have been..."

Adam had a right to be scared. They had almost lost Joe.

When Joe and Dan rolled into the yard in that wagon and his son debarked, Joseph had been on his feet and talking. Joe explained what had happened and insisted he was 'fine' as he walked him up the stairs and put him to bed. The boy had pleaded that he let Hop Sing attend him and not call in Paul Martin in, since doing so would spread the tale all over town. He had reluctantly agreed. At first, it seemed the wound was just a glancing one, more blood than bite, but two days later – in the middle of the night – he had heard his son crying out. When he went in to check on Joe, he found him nearly delirious with fever. By the time Paul Martin arrived his youngest was the color of the sheets and barely conscious. From the time he had been a little boy, Joe had been a healthy, robust child – when he was healthy. But when the boy was sick, he was sick. For someone only a few years over twenty, Joseph had tread the path between life and death more times than he cared to count.

This last time it had been very close.

"All right, son," he said at last. "I'm not dismissing your concerns, but I would like to know what your other brother thinks. Have you asked Hoss if he's noticed anything odd about Dan's behavior where it concerns Joseph?"

Hoss had been away handling some business in Carson City and only returned the night before.

"You know Hoss, Pa," Adam said.

Yes, he did. Where his eldest was wary, his giant of a middle son was willing to see the best in any man.

Still, if it meant Joseph was threatened...

"Where is Hoss?"

Adam shrugged a look over his shoulder. "In the barn...with Dan."

Ben moved out from behind the table. As he passed his son, he placed a hand on his arm. "Adam, I want you to know that I am not dismissing your concerns and," he drew in a breath, "I do see you as a man – a man I had no idea how much I had come to rely on until he was gone." As he lifted his hand, Ben looked at the barn. "Maybe I'll just go pay the two of them a visit. Oh, and Adam?"

"Yeah, Pa?"

"Forgive me?"

They had been through everything together – feast and famine, hardship and danger, loss, grief, and more things than he could name. They were, in some ways, two halves of a whole – him and his eldest. One day, he knew, his son would leave again and he knew as well that it would tear him apart.

He just hoped it wasn't today.

Adam's callused hand closed over his. "There's nothing to forgive, Pa."

Ben stared into his son's eyes, nodded his head, and then began the short walk to the barn.

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They were rolling forward...slowly. The wheels of the stage coach squeaked as they moved, marking off the yards toward...

What?

The moon was high in the diamond-pierced sky now, but a bank of clouds had drifted in, masking it and tossing shadows across the road. Whatever was in the middle of it – or right beside it – was small. About the size of a deer, or maybe a young steer. Joe squinted his eyes as he mentally ticked off the distance they'd traveled. Charlie had fallen silent. The life of a stagecoach driver was straightforward. When a ride went well, it was easy money in his pocket.

When it didn't, well...

It didn't.

"Can you tell what it is?"he asked, his voice breathy with anticipation.

Charlie was squinting. He was chewing his lip too. "Don't look like nothin' I've ever see'd afore. Funny kind of shape."

"Like a steer?"

Suddenly, Charlie reared up and snorted.

"Or maybe a filly!"

Joe looked. A beam of moonlight had broken through the clouds. It shone down on a small bedraggled figure sitting at the side of the road in the midst of a pile of suitcases. It was a woman all right, or more likely a girl. He couldn't tell for sure. Joe started to call out, but Charlie's hand on his knee stopped him.

"Could be a trap. I seen somethin' like it before."

He hadn't thought of that.

"You think so?"

"No, but it don't hurt to be careful."

As his friend spoke, the stage coach rolled to a stop. The woman didn't move.

"You want me to go check on her?" Joe offered.

Charlie's eyes were roaming the land before, behind, and to each side of the coach. There wasn't much cover, but there was enough to mask a man on a horse – or two.

"You, or me," his friend said.

Joe put his hand on the older man's shoulder. "Charlie, no offense, but one look at you and, whoever she is, she's gonna think an Indian looks good."

Charlie was still laughing when Joe jumped off, landed on his feet, and headed for the figure beside the road.

At first, she didn't seem to notice him. In fact, it seemed she hadn't heard the coach at all. Then, as she lifted a tear-streaked face and looked at him, he saw that she just didn't care. He couldn't really tell how old she was since the moon was still playin' hide and seek, and he only got a glimpse of her face before she turned away, but she was pale, dark-haired, young, and...

Lost.

Joe stopped about five feet out. "Hey, there," he said. "You look like you could use a friend."

For a moment she said nothing. Then, only, "Go away."

The curly-haired man blinked. "I don't think I can do that."

"Look," she snapped, "I didn't ask for your help. Leave me alone."

Joe glanced over his shoulder at Charlie where he sat in the driver's seat. He gave his friend a shrug and then turned back. "Well, I hate to tell you, but you sitting here beside the road in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night... Well, it ain't such a smart thing to do."

The girl shot him a look.

It could have killed a cougar.

Joe took his hat off, ran a hand through his hair, and then along the back of his neck before trying again. "Look, Miss...?"

"Missus.!"

"Okay..." He sucked in a breath and a bit of temper along with it. "Look here, Missus...?"

"For the record it's Mrs. Jones, and thank you very much for your concern, but I'm just fine." She sniffed again s she looked him up and down. "And pardon me, but I don't need Sir Galahad riding in on a horse to save me!"

His temper was straining the reins to the point of snapping. "Well, pardon me, but if you'd paid attention you'd know I don't have a dang horse!"

He saw the edge of one lip quirk. The smile was brief.

"Please, go away."

Joe plopped the hat back on his head and then plopped right down on the ground beside her.

"What do you think you're doing?" she asked as she scooted back and away from him.

He crossed his legs Indian fashion as he settled in. "You know a law says I can't sit here?"

The young woman had cocked her head and was looking at him. The moon was shining again and he was thinkin' maybe she wasn't tellin' the truth about being married.

"How old are you?" he asked.

"Didn't anyone ever tell you that you're not supposed to ask a lady her age?" She scowled. "How old are you?"

"Twenty-five," he said. "You next."

"Twenty," she replied with a roll of her dark eyes.

He looked her up and down. "Try that again?"

"Almost twenty."

It might have been the truth, though he doubted it.

"And I really am married," she went on. "Well, I was...for about a month."

Joe eyed the suitcases. "He leave you here?"

"That's just like a man!" Mrs. Maybe Jones snapped. "You're all alike! No, he didn't leave me. I left him!"

Joe hid his smile. "Right here? In the middle of nowhere?"

She turned away so the shadows masked her face. "I packed up and left. He came...after me. I told him I didn't want to go home, and he..."

"He left you here. In the middle of nowhere."

Tears entered her eyes.

A second later, a voice came out of night. "Hey Joe, I know you're one for the ladies, but do you think we could get a move on it?"

The young woman's eyes went to the coach. "You better go back to your friends."

Joe snorted. "Friends? That bunch? You know, I'm surprised you let me sit next to you. You gotta be upwind. I ain't never nosed me a sorrier bunch of drunken cowpokes and pomaded dandies than that lot."

A small smiled curled her lips. "You do kind of...reek."

He looked mightily offended – and half meant it. "That's what a man gets for being turned into a pillow for a two ton soused louse."

"Joe?"

Rising to his feet, he took a couple of steps toward the coach. Then he looked back. "You got any sort of transportation?"

Joe was sure she'd call him an idiot again, but instead she nodded. "My carriage. It's back there a ways. My husband, he said he'd take me to town, but a wheel came off and so he left me."

"Carriage got a horse?"

"My husband unhitched one and took it. The other is still there. I left him tied to a tree," she replied. "I walked to the road because I figured someone would come by...eventually."

He looked at her luggage, which was about enough to contain an entire house. "You carry all this by yourself?"

"Of course, I did!" she answered, indignant. "What do you think? My husband deserted me and then politely agreed to help me tote my bags?"

This was going to prove interesting.

"You stay here," he said. "Now, I mean it. Don't you go anywhere."

Her eyes rolled again. Then she saluted. "Yes, sir!"

Joe did some eye rolling himself as he walked back to the coach and then mounted the rungs to talk to Charlie.

After he'd explained everything, the older man said with a shake of his head, "I don't know, Joe. You're pa ain't gonna be happy with me if he hears I let you go off in the middle of the night with a strange woman without so much as a by your leave."

Joe suppressed a sigh. "Charlie, I'm twenty-five. I can make my own decisions. No one will blame you."

The older man eyed him. "Your pa won't blame me. He'll just take it out of my hide if somethin' happens to you."

"What can happen? I fix a wheel, I get Mrs. Maybe Jones and her luggage in the carriage, and I take her home and see if I can help straighten things out."

"Where's home?"

He ran a hand along the back of his neck. "Uh, I forgot to ask."

"What about Miz Bolden? Wait, that ain't her name anymore, is it?"

Lee had married again. Her name was Throckmorton now – a fact he had a tendency to forget himself.

"Can you take her a message? Tell her I've been delayed and should be along tomorrow?"

"After you deliver Mrs. Maybe Jones who is married to 'you don't-know-who' but isn't. to 'you-don't-know-where'?"

"Well, then, tell Lee I'll be along...sometime," he growled. "I was plannin' on stayin' a week or so. Pa won't know any different if I take a little...detour."

Charlie was staring at him – just like Adam did when he thought he was hare-brained. "Just make sure it's a 'little' detour, okay, Joe? I wouldn't want anythin' to happen to you."

"You know me, Charlie," Joe answered with a smile as he grabbed his bag and began to descend.

This time he got the look that Pa always gave him.

The one that said Charlie knew him only too well.