SIX
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There was one thing you could say for the life of a bank robber. It honed your senses to a very fine point. One second's hesitation and you knew you could be captured.
Or worse.
Trock ran a hand through his thick black hair before placing his hat back on his head. He had followed the trail from the abandoned rig through the countryside and up into the hills. When he left prison – and before he joined Lee – he'd taken time to scout the surrounding territory around her place, looking for signs of trouble. He was no innocent. Most men were out for themselves and he knew it was now his job to protect her.
After all, look what happened when he first darkened her doorstep.
He'd come on the old cabin in the woods during that trip. It had showed signs of recent habitation, but been unoccupied at the time. Using one of his former...skills...he'd picked the padlock on the door and gone inside. There were indications that it had been occupied by a man and a woman. From what he'd seen, she was young and probably not the kind of girl Ben Cartwright would have wanted his youngest associating with. The clothes in the trunk in the corner were flashy and cut to show off everything a woman owned. There were other things as well, tricks of the trade – rouges and powders and perfumes.
That was one of the things he loved about Lee. She smelled clean.
Just...clean.
The man was harder to pin. Older, he would guess – at least older than the woman. Not a cowboy or ranch hand as the clothes were mostly naval in origin. Not rich either, though there was evidence of money. The whiskey bottles he'd found abandoned out back dated to the last century. At the time of his discovery, he'd thought little of it. Now, those particular labels sent a chill up his spine. 'Ahab', as his old partner called himself, out of some twisted sense of destiny and devil's humor, had a taste not only for doxies but for aged bourbon whiskey, and at least pretended to the life of an ex-sailor.
The former bank robber sighed as he urged his mount to move faster and headed for the cabin. He and old Ahab had had a grand time of it while it lasted. The man was a brute, but at the time a brute had been what was needed. Trock's lips curled with chagrin. Sometimes he missed the old days. There was an undeniable and illicit excitement to the criminal. Of course, as he had learned when he took a bullet during that last robbery, there was also a heavy price to be paid, and not only by him. Lee could have died. Joe Cartwright almost did.
He almost did.
No, he'd been right to abandon Ahab when he did. The man had gotten completely out of control. He'd joined up with the crimper for his strong arm and ended up with that arm around his neck – and almost as a noose. The powerful man who was the father of the boy Ahab killed vowed he would find them all and bring them all to justice. His kind of justice.
Trock snorted. Most likely, the noose would have been preferable.
Anyhow, he'd put all that behind him years ago. Or, so he thought. With Ahab's return, he was going to have to face what he'd done. Lee had no idea that he was wanted in another state for a murder he didn't commit. He'd hoped she would never have to know. If Ahab had left a trail the man could follow, then it might just be that his past was about to catch up to him. He couldn't drag her into it or take her down with him.
He loved her too much.
The trouble was, he didn't know what he could do to stop it that was legal. If he went to the local sheriff and confessed and led the man to Ahab, it might buy him a lighter sentence – and keep that noose from around his neck – but he was still going to serve time and that was the last thing he wanted to do. Four years in Hell had been more than enough.
Thank you.
He could kill him, of course. But then there was the woman and he didn't want to kill a woman. Unfortunately, he had no way of knowing whether she was with Ahab by choice or by force. Knowing his old partner, he imagined it was the latter, but the woman was an unknown quantity in the equation. She might help him or she might turn him in.
Or maybe just shoot him.
Who could have imagined that going straight would prove so complicated?
He'd reached the edge of the yard that fronted the cabin. Reining in his horse, Trock dismounted. He looked around until he found a vantage point from which to watch that he felt was not only safe but defensible, and then made his way over to it. It had a view of both the front and the eastern wall, plus a bit of the back where he could see a boarded up window. There were several small outbuildings – a shack and a privy and something else, maybe a chicken coop. They were pretty evenly spaced, so he could probably make his way from one to the other without being spotted. If Ahab was a man of habit – and by all means, he was – and he did have Joe Cartwright, then most likely the luckless young man was being kept in the room with the boarded up window. Ahab had a sadistic streak. He took great joy in breaking the unbreakable. That was part of the reason he targeted the poor young man he'd ended up killing. The boy's father was a self-made man, hard-nosed, a bit brutal, and almost disagreeably self-assured. The other part was that Sunders Haywood and his only son were close. That was another thing about Ahab. There was nothing that moved him more than the closeness between father and son.
Moved him to murder.
As he lowered himself into a nest of branches, using them and the fallen trunk they sprang from as cover, Trock noticed movement at the other end of the yard. At first he thought it was Ahab, but then he realized the man couldn't have aged that much since he'd ended their association. The build was the same – square, solid, and a bit stout – and the man coming toward him had grizzled blondish gray, but the way he held himself said nothing of power or supreme confidence and everything of despair. Whoever it was walked with their head down; their steps slow and uncertain. He muttered as he went. Trock couldn't hear what he said, but it seemed the man was arguing with himself.
He snorted. Seemed like the thing to do today.
Settling back, the former bank robber set himself to watch hoping, but not in the least suspecting, that he was wrong about the pair that occupied the cabin.
And wondering what the Hell he was going to do to save that fool Cartwright if he was right.
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"Ahab, there's someone outside."
Hadley sucked in pain and put a finger to her mouth. Her lower lip was swollen to nearly twice its normal size. Once Ahab...finished with...Joe Cartwright, he had come for her and beaten her soundly. There were times when she was sure he was a mind-reader. She hadn't said anything or done anything different, but he knew.
Ahab knew what she was thinking.
It wasn't that she intended to free their captive. She was too afraid to do that. But she'd, well, for some reason she'd started to think of Joe Cartwright as a human being and wanted to do something – anything – to ease his suffering even if only a bit and that simply wasn't allowed.
Being human, that is, wasn't allowed.
"What do you mean, someone's outside?" Ahab growled. He was at the dry sink washing the blood from his knuckles. She hadn't looked in on the man she'd enticed and tormented.
She couldn't.
"There's an old man walking up the path," she replied.
Hadley squinted in concentration. It was hard to see with her eye swelling shut. The old man looked kind of familiar. She thought she might have seen him in Virginia City. Come to think of it, it had been the day after Joe became their mark . The day Ahab seemed to...well...go over the edge.
Turning she looked at Ahab's back. There was a definite resemblance between the man coming toward the cabin and the one at the sink.
Was this Ahab's father?
Ahab growled again as he threw the blood-stained towel into the basin and stormed across the room. Hadley moved quickly out of his way. She'd seen the signs before. He was at a fever pitch. One little thing could set him off.
She feared for Joe Cartwright's life as well as her own.
When he reached the window and pulled back the curtain to look out, Ahab did something that surprised her. He let out a mirthless chuckle.
"Well, what do you know?" he snorted. "It must be true that God favors the bold."
If he meant himself, Hadley doubted God had anything to do with it.
"Who is he?" she asked.
"I'll let you know once he tells me," her procurer snarled as he moved to the door. Before opening it, Ahab turned back. "Go in the back and see if the kid's still breathin'."
"Ahab, no. I don't..." Hadley's voice trailed off.
"What you don't do, my girl, is get any high-handed notions about rich boy back there. Don't fool yourself that Joe Cartwright sees you as anything other than a slut who betrayed him. He hates you." If Ahab had anything about him that was clean it was his teeth. Stark white flashed in a deeply tanned face, making him look like a predator. "He made that clear while we were having our little...discussion"
She opened her mouth to reply but nothing came out. Seconds later she closed it and nodded.
"That's my Jezebel. You might just live to see another day."
With that, he was out the door.
Hadley stared after Ahab for several heartbeats and then turned on her heel and walked woodenly toward the back room. At the door she paused, steeling herself for what she knew she would find. Ahab knew how and where to hit to inflict the most damage without putting a victim's life in danger. He would have done everything he could to reduce Joe Cartwright from the cocky, handsome, sure-of-himself man he was to a quivering mass of jelly.
Putting her hand to the latch, Hadley drew a breath and stepped in. She was immediately assaulted by the stale smell of sweat, vomit, and old blood. Her eyes darted about the room, noticing the spatter on the walls and then sought out the man she had betrayed.
She expected to find a corpse.
Instead – battered and bruised; his expensive clothing stained with blood, sweat, and the contents of yesterday's breakfast – Joe Cartwright lifted his head from the floor and looked right at her. He blinked as he focused on her face – on the bruises and the blood – and noted she looked much the same.
Joe's green eyes widened. Those full lips parted. No sound came out, but she could read the words.
"I'm sorry," he mouthed.
Just before his head hit the floor.
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Dan Tollivar halted in his tracks as the door to the rundown cabin opened emitting a ghost. It had been decades, but there was no mistaking the boy the man had been. It was like looking in a mirror – except for Mal's eyes.
They were all Beryl.
"Son," he said.
"You lost the right to call me that a long time ago, old man," Malachi Tollivar growled.
He nodded. It was true. "Mal, then."
His son snorted. "I haven't used that name since I was fifteen. You can call me 'Ahab' like the rest."
"Ahab?" There'd been one of them fancy women – a friend of Beryl's – had read to the boy out of the Bible. Ahab had been one of Israel's wickedest kings who'd led the land and its people away from God and to destruction.
The name defined the man.
His son took a step toward him. "You got the money, old man? You better or my life ain't worth a plugged nickel."
Dan cleared his throat. He looked into those cold, lifeless eyes. "No, I don't. I...couldn't go through with it."
"Couldn't go through with what?" Mal, or Ahab demanded. "Kidnappin' Joe Cartwright, you mean?"
"Temple and Sand didn't want to kidnap the boy. They was gonna kill him! I couldn't let them do that to Ben Cartwright or his boy. It weren't right!"
"But lettin' me die is?" His son's face grew dark. Thunder sat on his brow and lightning flashed in those empty eyes. "You care more about those high-and-mighty Cartwrights than you do me."
"That ain't true. If you'd of let me, I'd of taken care of –"
"Stow it, old man! You're only fooling yourself. Old man Cartwright took you in so he could take from you what he needed and then let you fall." His son had moved to stand before him. He jabbed a finger into his chest to emphasize his point. "I asked around Virginia City. I know all about it – how you had the kid and the money and you turned yellow and let them both go!"
"But they would have killed him! They would have killed Little Joe!"
The man before him who had been his child, but was now a monster sneered. "Would have saved me the trouble then."
Dan paled. His eyes shot past his son to the cabin behind him. "Joe's safe at Lee Throckmorton's place," he said, his voice hushed with fear.
"Is he?"
"You mean you got him here? Why, Mal? Why would you hurt him?" Tears filled the older man's eyes. "He's just a boy barely begun his life."
His son's body was rigid; his face became granite. "Why, old man? I'll tell you why. Because you chose that snot-nosed prissy son of a rich man over me. You chose to save his life when you knew it would cost mine!"
"No! I knew you had a chance. Together, I thought, you and me...we'd find a way out!"
"That's a lie and you know it," his son breathed. "You think he's better than me. More worth livin' than me. You wrote me off all those years ago and you ain't given me a thought since!"
Dan was shaking his head. "No. No! I'm tellin' you, that ain't true!"
Without warning, his son's hand shot out and caught him by the collar of his coat. He reeled him in closely – so closely he could smell the whiskey on his breath. "You're coming with me, old man. I'm gonna show you what's left of your precious Joe Cartwright and then...
"I'm gonna kill you both."
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Hadley stood for a full minute, staring at the door to the back room, and then reached out and closed it and turned the key, locking it. She'd listened long enough to realize she'd guessed right about who the old man was who had come to call. She knew Ahab had asked his father for money on the pretense that someone was after him who would kill him if he didn't get it. That was just another of his schemes, formed to hurt the old man. There was no one pursuing him, unless it was the father of that boy he had killed and Haywood had no idea where to find him. She'd seen how infuriated Ahab grew once he realized his father had chosen to save Joe Cartwright rather than do as he asked. She had no doubt he would kill the old man, but not before he forced him to watch him murder the boy he loved. Hadley glanced at Joe where he lay semi-conscious on the floor, just beneath the boarded up window. There had to be something special about him for so many people to care so deeply about his fate.
She had no idea what she could do to save him, but she had to try.
Crossing over to the wounded man, she knelt and fingered his sweat-soaked curls. When Joe Cartwright mouthed those words – 'I'm sorry' – something in her had shattered. After what she had done he felt...compassion for her. It was misplaced. She knew that. She'd seen the road to Hell her choices had paved and accepted the fact that there was nothing that could be done to stop her descent into the pit. Like the other fancy women Ahab had bought and used and discarded, she was doomed.
Still. Maybe – just, maybe – if she committed one selfless act...
Then again, if she thought of it that way, was it truly selfless?
Rising, she moved to the window and began to pry the rough boards loose with her fingers. Blood dripped from their tips as she did, adding to the pool of red slowly spreading out from Joe Cartwright's slender form. She didn't know what Ahab had done to him. Since Joe had regained consciousness – briefly – she prayed the amount of blood was due to the gash on the side of his head. She knew how scalp wounds could bleed. As she dropped the first board to the floor, Hadley's lips opened and she voiced a prayer.
"Please, God. Please, listen! I'm not asking for myself this time..." She looked down at Joe's pale face. "Please, God, save this man. He's a good man. He's done nothing wrong."
Another of the boards came loose. Startled, Hadley let out a little yelp as it did and then cast her gaze toward the door. She could hear raised voices. For the moment Ahab was occupied with his father, but soon he'd realize where she was – and then, know what she'd done. And then, like the obsessed seaman in Melville's tale, Ahab's compulsion would be to find and kill her.
She didn't care.
A third board came loose. This time to a small cry of triumph. When the fourth was out, the opening was large enough to allow her to escape. She glanced at the man lying on the floor. Joe was slender, but thicker than she was; his form well-muscled – not a son of wealth, but of hard work and honest living. Knowing she had to make the opening wider, she reached for the remaining board.
When her hand found not a board but another hand, she let out a distressed cry.
Outside the window a black-haired man stared at her as if she was out of her mind. He leaned in and used his hand to cover her mouth. He shook his head and then, with pain in his eyes, inclined his head toward Joe.
'Help me," he mouthed.
Hadley nodded and then turned back toward the entry to the room. She'd heard the front door open and knew, any second, Ahab would be coming.
They were out of time.
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Dan Tollivar halted on the threshold of the cabin his wayward son occupied and refused to move.
"Tell me what you've done to the boy," he demanded.
Ahab snorted as he continued on toward the back room. "I'll show you. You know what they say? A picture is worth a thousand words."
"If all you want to do is get away, Mal," Dan said, deliberately using his boy's given name, "you can do that on less than ten thousand. Run to Mexico, boy. There's no jurisdiction there. That man can't follow you."
"You gullible old fool!" his son spat. "Do you think I actually needed that money to pay off a debt? It was a test, old man. A test to see just how much you loved your Malachi – and you failed!" He shook his head. "You don't get it, do you, Pa?" He nearly spit the word. "Life means nothing to me except that every day I breathe is another day to take what I want and get what is owed me."
Tears kissed the older man's eyes. "Boy, is there nothing of me in you?"
"You? Of course, there is something of you in me! After all, didn't you jump at the chance to betray your best friend? And for what reason? Because his son wounded your pride?" Mal moved closer. "I asked around in town. You let everyone know how much you hated Joe Cartwright for demeaning you; for making you feel worthless. Well, you know what, old man? Cartwright was right. You are worthless. Worthless to him, to Ben Cartwright, and to me! You deserve to die!"
Dan hung his head. He was right. His boy was right. Looking up, the old man fixed his long-lost son with a look that spoke of despair and determination.
The only thing left now was to make sure his death counted for something.
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"Pa, no! Wait! We can't just go charging in there! We don't know if there's any more of them and we don't know where Joe is."
Ben Cartwright glared at the hand that restrained him. He was right. Adam was right.
Adam had been right about everything.
They'd followed the signs from the abandoned carriage. About one third of the way along, they encountered two sets of tracks. One rider did nothing to hide his presence while the other was more secretive. He made several feints and then his trail disappeared. Hoss was the best tracker he knew, but whoever it was outfoxed even him. In the end they abandoned their pursuit of the unknown horseman and returned to the point of origin and took off after the other one.
Hoss believed it to be Dan Tollivar.
Hoss had, of course, tended to Dan's horse from time to time when the older man came to visit before...before Dan made the choice he made and caused a rift to open up between them. Hoss was sure the tracks they were following were his as he knew the cast of the black's shoes and its gait. His middle son admitted he'd been surprised when they came across Dan's tracks, though Hoss – with his trusting nature – tried to explain it away, suggesting that, perhaps, Dan was seeking Joseph too. Adam had agreed, though the two brothers differed in what they believed the end of that seeking was. Hoss wanted to believe Dan was trying to help Joseph.
Adam believed he had been in on it all along.
His eldest believed that, after his scheme to take Little Joe and hold him for ransom the first time failed, Dan had found a new partner and begun the whole thing again. A rider had overtaken them on the way. A young man who carried a note, written by Joseph and sealed in his young son's blood. Ben glanced at Hoss who stood stone-faced at his side. The big man had all but taken the boy apart before he and Adam were able to make him see that the young man was just a messenger and that killing the messenger would do nothing to bring Joseph back to them.
Alive. He prayed he came back alive.
They had come across Dan's trail shortly after that and followed to see where he would lead them. They were not that far out from Lee Throckmorton's place. Adam remembered an old abandoned cabin in this neck of the woods and suggested they head for it. Sure enough that was where they found Dan. They'd watched him dismount and approach the cabin, and continued to watch as another man – he could have been Dan's twin in size and coloring – came out to confront him. The pair got into a heated discussion, which they had just moved inside.
From the sound of it, they were still arguing.
Ben turned to look at his eldest son. "Adam, I can't just sit here while your brother – while Joe may be in danger."
"I know that, Pa. I'm just saying, we need a plan." Adam looked at his brother. "The cabin has a back room, right? With a boarded up window?"
Hoss nodded. "Leastwise it did when the Kelly's lived here." He turned to him. "You remember, don't you, Pa? We stopped there for water once when we were heading to Doc Bolden's."
They'd been on their way home. – him and Adam and Hoss. Joseph was a baby and had remained at home with Marie. Adam had fallen ill on the trail and they'd stopped to care for him before pressing on to Tom's home. Cabins had been few and far between in those days and it was always wise to note where help, if needed, could be found.
"I remember." Ben thought a moment. "I'll head around the back. You boys wait for my signal and then go in from the front."
Adam's hand caught his arm. "Pa, Dan may be caught in the crossfire."
He drew in a breath. If Dan was innocent, God would preserve him. If not...
"I know, but your brother comes first."
"Pa?"
"Yes, Adam?"
"I'm sorry. I wish I had been wrong. I know what Dan means to –"
He stopped him. "No one means more to me than you or your brothers. Do what you have to do to protect Joseph – and yourself. Do you understand?"
Adam held his gaze for a moment and then nodded.
What Ben found when he reached the back of the house confused him. The window of the room at the back had been boarded up, but the boards had been torn away – and recently it seemed. Blood still dripped from some of the exposed nails. Kneeling, he fingered the grass and found it blood-stained as well.
There was a mystery here. One he didn't have time to solve.
The rancher turned and glanced at the woods behind him. He sensed no movement, though it was dark and the shadows had shadows. Deciding he had not time to ponder it, the rancher levered himself up and into the room, passing through the broken out window.
What he found inside brought terror to his father's heart.
The floor was covered in blood. Laying in a pool off it to one side, was his son's ruined green corduroy jacket. He'd just bent to pick it up when there was a violent attack on the door. The wood groaned as the lock held. Even as his mind raced to decipher this new mystery; why the door to a torture chamber would have been locked from within – and with no one inside – something hit the door again. At the same instant someone shouted. There was a harsh outcry. A shot rang out – and then a second one.
The second time the bullet passed through the door, barely missing him.
A moment later Hoss' face appeared in the open window. "Pa! Pa! You okay? Adam just..." His son's voice trailed off as he noted the blood on the floor. "Lordy, Pa," he breathed, 'is that Joe's?"
Ben's gaze returned to the coat. "I think so, Hoss, though I can't be sure. The room was empty when I came in." Something in his son's demeanor caught his attention. He looked...sick. "Hoss, what is it? Is it Adam? Was he hurt..."
The big man shook his head. "It ain't Adam, Pa. It's Dan. You better come quick." His gentle giant of a son let out a sigh. "I think he's bleeding out."
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With Joe's bloodied coat in hand, Ben left the cabin through the window. He rounded it to find his friend of nearly forty years lying on the ground. There was a growing pool of red beneath him and another spreading out over Dan's stomach. Adam was leaning over him, his hand on the older man's shoulder. It was then he realized Hoss had not been entirely truthful with him.
There was red on Adam's shoulder as well.
"Son! You're hurt!"
"It's nothing, Pa," he replied, grim-faced. "Just a scratch."
Ben sensed something in Adam's demeanor; something of guilt.
"We were wrong, Pa," he went on. "I was wrong."
"No...no, you...weren't, boy," Dan wheezed. The older man's eyelids fluttered and then his eyes opened with remarkable clarity for a dying man. They fastened on him. "I...failed you, Ben. I failed you all."
Ben took hold of his friend's hand and squeezed it. "No, Dan, it was you who saved Little Joe –"
"And put the boy in danger...again." Dan's eyes rolled up toward Adam. "That man – the one who shot at you, boy – that was my son, Malachi." The older man drew in a shuddering breath as he turned his head and looked at him again. "Ben, that money I took..."
"Don't worry about it, Dan."
"You...gotta understand. It was for Mal. I thought..." The older man sighed and his eyes closed. "I was hopin' I could...buy...his love..."
Adam's eyes met his as he placed his fingers at the base of the older man's neck. A second later he shook his head.
Ben rocked back on his heels, overtaken with unexpected grief. Then it hit him. "Joe," he breathed. "Your brother. Did Mal have him with him when he escaped?"
Hoss' hand came down on his shoulder. "No, Pa. Joe weren't with him. Dan told us Joe was in..." The big man cleared his throat, obviously moved by the carnage he had seen in that room. "Dan said Malachi told him what was...left of Joe was in that back room."
It was more than he could take in. "What kind of a monster...?"
Adam had risen to his feet. He was staring off into the distance. "The kind of monster it seems any of us could be."
"Adam?"
His son looked exhausted. "How could I have been so wrong about him? Dan..gave his life to save mine. His son had me dead in his sights. Dan...stepped in the way."
So, Heaven had not moved to save an innocent man – but it had set a guilty one free.
Ben rose to his feet and looked toward the cabin, the image of all that blood still fresh in his mind. "Dan believed Joseph was still inside. Poor man. He had no idea your brother had escaped."
Adam looked like he might faint dead away. "Joe...escaped? I thought...because you came back alone that..."
Hoss caught his brother as his legs gave way and led Adam over to the porch. Once there his eldest son sat on its edge and leaned forward, placing his head in his hands.
"Goldarnit, Adam! I plumb forgot to tell you about Joe, what with Dan dyin'..." Hoss looked mortified. "Can you forgive me?"
Adam looked up and gave him a small smile.
"Pa?" Hoss called out.
"Yes, son?"
"Where do you think Joe is? Do you think? I mean all that blood... Could he have gotten away on his own?"
From the amount of blood he had seen on the floor – if it all was his son's – he would have to say 'no'. Obviously Joe had help. He'd spent only a few minutes in the room, but he'd noted a woman's shoeprints on the floor.
There were mysteries within mysteries here.
"Pa."
He looked at his eldest.
"Yes, son?"
"Lee's place is close. If Joe got away, I imagine he would make for there."
Yes. Why hadn't he thought of that?
"I'll take care of Adam's shoulder and then go look outside that window, Pa, and see if I can fix a direction," Hoss offered.
Ben nodded his agreement and then pivoted on his heel to look at the cabin; his mind's eye filled with the horrific image of what he had found in that back room. His heart ached for his youngest and he feared what Joe had suffered at Malachi Tollivar's hands. A moment later, the rancher turned to look at the woods. While Dan Tollivar lay dead at his feet, the man his old friend had given life to remained at large. A brute of a man who wanted his son dead.
It was not over by a long shot.