TEN

oooooooooo

"Hoss. Psst, Hoss. Are you awake?"

There was a sigh. "Pa, it sure is good to hear you. I thought that man done kilt you!"

"Keep your voice down, son." Ben cast his gaze to the side. Through the hide skin of the tent he could see the shadow of the man who guarded them.

"Sorry, Pa. Them men just done made me mad pickin' on someone twice their age!"

The older man hid his smile. 'Twice their age'. That would have made him about seventy-five! "I'm all right, son. I've been manhandled before."

"Yeah, but I ain't had to watch before." He heard his son shift his large frame. "If I could just get my hands free, them outlaws'd find out what's it's like to take on someone twice their size!"

"We have to consider your brothers. Anything we do could have repercussions. Adam –"

"Adam ain't here, Pa. That Haywood man took him away with him. He came to check on us afore he went. You was unconscious."

"So Adam is gone?" he asked.

"Yep."

"And they don't have Joe?"

"Not so's I know."

Ben rested his head on the ground. It was pounding just like about every other part of his body. Haywood had had him soundly thrashed and he knew now only a part of it had been about Joe and Dan Tollivar's son. Haywood had ordered his men to beat him, but stepped in at the end and made it personal. As he struck him, he spoke of the time when they had met – when Adam was just a lad. Haywood insanely held him responsible for what had happened to his son, Sawyer. The boy had been kidnapped and then his body dumped in the bay. Somehow the crooked businessman was convinced that he had had a hand in it – that the boy's death had been payment for a land deal that had gone sour.

The fact that Haywood believed it was possible for someone to so hate a man that he would kill his son to take revenge for losing a few thousand acres of ground chilled him .

It meant Haywood was capable of doing the same.

During the beating Sunders had mentioned Joe's name with loathing. Apparently Trock, the man Lee Bolden had recently married, had once been an associate of Malachi Tollivar. When Joseph's testimony set Trock free, Haywood assumed Joe was also one of Trock's 'gang' and therefore just as guilty as the other two men. He bragged about how he had used Adam to obtain information about the Ponderosa and them – especially Joseph – and how he intended to use that information to hurt his son. Haywood had gloated as he laid at his feet that it had been his intention all along to kill one of his boys – any of his boys – in retaliation.

In the end, it had been Joseph's good deed that had made him the target of Sunders' unreasonable hate.

"What are we gonna do, Pa?" Hoss asked in a whisper. "We cain't just lay here while that there madman goes after Joe and Adam."

He'd been thinking about it and he agreed.

"No, we can't."

"Well, sir. Them bad men done trussed me up like a Thanksgivin' turkey waitin' to be stuffed. I cain't get free."

Ben smiled at his son's...imaginative language. Yes, they'd been trussed up, the two of them, but he had one advantage his son did not have.

His hands were bleeding.

Ben gritted his teeth and made one more push. It cost him in pain, but he grunted with satisfaction as the blood-soaked rope slipped from his wrists and fell to the ground.

He sat up and looked at his son.

"Hot damn!" Hoss exclaimed when he saw his hands were free and then looked shame-faced. "Sorry, Pa."

The older man looked at his hands and then at the shadow of their guard as it headed for the entrance of the tent.

"Oh, I don't know, son," Ben said as he climbed to his knees and then worked his way over until he was crouching by the flap.

"I think 'Hot damn!' about says it all."

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Adam Cartwright looked ahead and fastened his eyes on the back of the man known as Trock. He wondered what his game was. From what Joe had told them, Trock had truly regretted his part in the bank robbery five years back and had been on his best behavior so that he could return and marry Lee Bolden and begin to live a normal life. They'd gotten notice when he was released due to the fact that Joe had testified on his behalf – and the warden of the prison was a friend of his father's. The warden said Trock's conduct while in prison had been exemplary.

Could it all have been a lie?

He'd known criminals to do that – behave as if they were model citizens just so they could obtain an early release. Still, from what he remembered, Lee was a shrewd woman and one who had been forced by her husband's death to fend for herself. Doing that in the West took a lot of nerve. There were more men willing to take advantage of a widow than ones wanting to help. Joe had been greeted by the business end of a rifle when he arrived the first time. It was hard to believe that Lee could be taken in.

Then again, she was a woman in love and love, as the poets said, was often blind.

Trock was riding at the head of their small party. Sunders Haywood trailed just behind him. Two of Haywood's men – Trent and Ed – came next, then him, and then the other pair the businessman had employed to watch the back of the house. They were none to happy when Haywood put Trock in charge. Seems the former bank robber had taken them both out before marching into the house. Both sported bruised faces to match their bruised egos and if anyone asked him, which no one had, Lee's new husband would be wise to watch his back where those two were concerned.

Adam shifted in the saddle and turned to look back. The names of the men following them were Josh and Tempest. The latter of them met his gaze and deliberately dropped his hand to the pistol he carried on his left hip. Adam gave him a smile before facing forward again.

There would be no help in that direction.

As his eyes returned to the enigma riding in front of Sunders Haywood, Adam' thoughts flew elsewhere. He'd noted Tempest was left-handed. There was nothing else about the man to remind him of Joe, but one didn't see too many men with their holster tied down to their left leg and the sight sent his thoughts flying back to Lee's house and his missing brother. He'd managed to catch a moment with her before they left. Haywood had ordered her to feed them all and sent him to bring in the firewood. While they were in the kitchen, he asked her about Joe. His brother was hurt. She didn't know how bad. She admitted that it had surprised her to find him gone – that she thought Joe was wounded badly enough it would have kept him in bed. Funny how little she knew about his brother, even after spending days in his company.

He doubted anything this side of the grave could keep that boy still for long.

To his horror, Lee had gone on to rattle off a long list of injuries with clinical precision. There was a blow to the head that had left a three inch gash and bled a lot. Joe'd been beaten with precision too, Lee said. Whoever had done it had known just where to strike to cause the maximum pain. But that wasn't what troubled him the most. What troubled him most was the fact that Joe had been cut.

A lot of times.

From her rather graphic description, it sounded like Indian torture, but there were no Indians involved. Just Dan Tollivar's immoral son and a slender young girl who went by the name of Jezebel, but was named Hadley. Lee didn't say much about her, but what she did say troubled him. Apparently the girl was an...intimate of Malachi Tollivar and had been partially responsible for the torment Joe had suffered. She'd also helped his brother escape.

As first dates went, that was definitely giving mixed signals.

Adam looked up and winced. The autumn sun was high in the sky, but it did little to heat the day. They were in the middle of a cold snap that threatened to turn into an early winter. He hated to think of Joe – wounded, injured – out in it in nothing but his shirt sleeves. Joe and the girl had fled through the upstairs window. He'd hoped maybe that his brother had had the presence of mind to grab one of Lee's late husband's jackets on the way out, but she checked and no such luck. Adam snorted. It was Joe to a 'T'.

Leap before looking and when you leap, never look back.

Still, physically, Little Joe was about as tough as it came. Though his youngest brother had been born to wealth, and Joe's childhood had been a walk in the park compared to his own, the West demanded a special kind of strength and Joe had it. His brother had survived more than any other man he knew and come out stronger and more determined each time. This time would be no different. he and Hadley would elude Ahab - even though, it seemed from the tracks they had spotted, that Ahab was on their trail.

Yeah.

He'd just keep telling himself that.

Without warning, Trock held a hand up and drew his mount to a halt. He pivoted in the saddle and looked back, and then turned and said a word to Haywood. The crooked businessman made a noise low in his throat like he was disgusted and then slid from his saddle and began to shout orders.

Trock had done the same and was walking toward him.

The former bank robber came to his side and reached out to grasp his horse's bridle. "I told Haywood I needed your help," he said without preamble.

"Me? What do you want from me?"

"I told him you're the best tracker in Nevada." Trock hesitated and then a slow smile curled his lips. "Did I lie?"

"That depends on who you ask," Adam replied.

"I'm asking you."

"Well then," he said with a hint of a smile, "I am definitely the best."

Trock lifted a hand to shade his eyes as he turned back to look at Sunders Haywood, who was sitting in the shade of a large willow still shouting orders. The dark-haired man scowled. "He's sending Tempest and Josh with us."

"I take it you didn't make much of a first impression."

The other man laughed. "Oh, I made one all right – just not a good one."

Adam turned to look at the pair. They were watching them closely.

Neither was smiling.

"You think maybe he thinks the pair of them will make you tell him where Ahab has Joe?"

"I would have told him already if I knew," Trock said. "That kid brother of yours, he can take care of himself."

"I'm counting on it." Carefully, making no sudden moves, Adam dismounted. Once on the ground, he asked, "Now what?"

Trock smiled. "We start walking."

They did. Josh and Tempest trailed them by some four or five yards, weapons drawn. After they had walked for a few minutes, Trock knelt and signaled him.

Adam knelt too. "You find something?"

"Sure. They went thataway." He pointed to the south.

"They? Joe and Hadley?"

Trock looked troubled. "I thought they were headed for the old cabin, but they veered off. There's an abandoned house up this way. Belonged to the people who owned the land."

Adam's eyes grew round. "So you were working with him?"

The other man sighed. "No. Not now. We were partners years back."

"So how did you know he had Joe?" Trock looked surprised. "Lee told me. She said you knew instantly."

"Because of his modus operandi," Trock said. "It's how he caught Haywood's son – and your brother." The other man shrugged. "A pretty face."

Adam sighed. "Launched a thousand ships and brought down an empire." As t hey began to walk again, he asked, "Who is this girl? This Hadley?"

"Ahab always has a new one. No one asks where the old ones have gone. He calls them all 'Jezebel."

"Ahab and Jezebel?" Adam snorted. "Has he read his Bible?"

Trock's brows shot up. "I doubt it."

He had. Jezebel had, in time, brought about King Ahab's ruin.

"Lee said Hadley saved Joe – got him away from Ahab."

"She did."

"After..."

Trock halted. He turned to look at him. "Ahab's girls are talented in certain...arts. It's why he chooses them. Most of them come from Chinatown and since you have a Chinese housekeeper, I imagine you know what that means."

He did. Hop Sing had been trained, just as Doctor Kam Lee had been, to use his hands to heal. But Hop Sing had told him about other Chinese men – and women – who used their hands to bring not only pleasure, but pain.

Exquisite pain.

"What about this girl?"

Trock was kneeling. "Never met her before. She's young – younger than most he chooses."

"You two need to stop gabbin' like old ladies and get to it!" Tempest called from close behind them.

Trock eyed the thug. "Adam, take a look at this," he said, indicating the ground.

He sounded like he meant it.

Dropping beside the other man, he looked. There were two sets of footprints – a large man's and a small girl's. The man's prints were driven into the ground like he weighed as much if not more than Hoss. The thought of his gentle giant of a brother brought to Adam's mind some of the things he had learned at his younger brother's side. Hoss had a way about him – almost a sixth sense that allowed him to read and interpret the faintest of signs. Adam looked at the track with that in mind.

"Seems deeper on one side."

Trock nodded.

"He's carrying someone," Adam went on. Then he drew a breath. "Joe!"

"He must have caught up with them." Lee's husband rose to his feet. Trock glanced at the thugs watching them. "We've only got a minute or two before that pair or losers lose their patience and drags us back to Haywood. We've got to make a decision. I know you want to rescue your brother, but if we lead Haywood to him, we're all dead."

And if they didn't, Joe was dead.

"I can't leave Joe with Ahab and that...woman."

"She saved him before."

"I know, but..." Adam gnawed his lip. "Okay. I agree. We lead them away from Ahab – and then double back."

Trock's smile was grim. "Any idea how?"

Adam looked at Tempest. Haywood was yelling and the left-handed man was heading for them with his weapon drawn.

"Pa says I have quite an imagination," he said, tipping his hat back. "I'll think of something."

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Ben Cartwright nodded to his middle son as the two of them headed for the corral that held two handsome horses and a pack mule. Behind them, trussed up like a pair of prize steers, Sunders Haywood's goons lay bound and gagged in the tent they had just vacated.

"You get the horses, Pa. I'm gonna see if I can figure out what way they went," Hoss said as he moved into the trees, his crystal clear blue eyes fastened on the ground.

"I imagine they headed for Lee's," Ben said.

"You think they found Little Joe?"

He looked at his son. The big man's frame was silhouetted against the rising light. "Adam will take care of Joe if he's there."

"Yeah, big brother won't let nothin' happen to that little scamp." Hoss turned to go, but then pivoted back. "What if Joe ain't there? Where do you think he could be?"

"I don't know, son. I'd like to think your brother is sitting somewhere sipping tea with a lovely young lady, completely oblivious to the fact that we are all worried out of our minds." The older man sighed. "But knowing your brother – "

"It ain't likely."

Ben sighed. Like his mother, his youngest son was truly blessed. God had gifted Joseph with good looks, a quick mind, and a winning personality.

He supposed the Almighty had to include something in his makeup to keep him humble.

"You still want me to look, or you just want to head to Miz Throckmorton's?"

Ben considered it. If Haywood had gone to Lee's and found Joseph there, he feared the worst. Still, Adam was with Joe and he knew his oldest would do whatever it took to protect his brother. It seemed to him that the thing they needed to do was find Dan Tollivar's son.

Find him and stop his evil.

"Pa?"

"I think, son, that there is another path we have to take. Your older brother will look after Joe. If we go to Lee's, we will waste precious time."

"But Pa," Hoss said, coming back toward him. "What if Little Joe needs us?"

The older man looked toward the rising sun. "He does. Joe needs us to stop Ahab. Until we do, your brother – and Lee and her new husband – will never be safe."

His middle boy was troubled, he could tell. He wanted to ride to the rescue. Ben did as well, but life had taught him that sometimes you had to set aside what you wanted for what you needed to do.

Hoss lowered his head. He shoved his hand in his pockets as was his habit, and then looked up. "If you think it's best, sir, then I'm with you. You know that."

Ben considered his choice. He had to trust God – and his eldest son.

"I do, Hoss. Let's mount up and go."

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They were on their way. Haywood's goons had ushered them back to the camp and then practically sat on them as they ate and did what was necessary. The day was pushing toward noon and the crooked businessman was eager to get on their way. Trock was playing a dangerous game. He'd seen some tracks leading in the opposite way – away from the house he suspected Ahab had made for – and he'd drawn Haywood's attention to them. They probably belonged to some innocent traveler who was going to be mighty surprised when the crooked businessman and his cronies descended on them like the hounds of Hell. Adam let out a sigh as he worked his horse around a branch that had fallen across the road. He'd felt a twinge of guilt, knowing full well that – by complying – he was aiming trouble at some unsuspecting stranger just to save his kid brother. Of course, he intended to derail Haywood's plans before they came to fruition.

Unfortunately, the opportunity to do so had yet to present itself.

Trock was in front again, riding with his head to one side and his eyes glued to the ground. He had his eyes glued to Trock. The other man was waiting. Waiting...for something.

He just wished he knew what.

They'd entered an area of dense forest. Adam thought he recognized it from one of his exploratory expeditions with his father. The trees were all fairly young and had been planted after a brushfire that had swept through the area when he was a boy. Pa had been looking at it with an eye to the future as the land butted up against the Ponderosa. The reminder of home made him long to be there. Though it had only been a few days, it felt like forever since he'd sat by the fire and strummed his guitar or looked at one of the books he'd left behind in his room. He'd told himself that he'd left the West behind because, in part, it was brutal. So far nothing had happened to dispel that notion. And yet, if he was honest, locality had nothing to do with it. Sunders Haywood's son had been kidnapped and held for ransom and then killed in one of the most civilized cities in the United States.

Monsters, it seemed, were everywhere.

But so were good men, like his father – like his brothers – and, likely or not, like Lee Bolden's reformed lover who was doing everything he could to keep her and Joe safe.

It was risky. Sunders Haywood was growing uneasy. Adam could tell it by the way the crooked businessman shifted in his saddle and kept looking at Trock. They'd have to make their move soon – whatever it was going to be. At the pace they were going, it was going to take at least half a day to get to the house Trock believed Ahab was headed for. Pa was counting on him to keep his little brother safe and he couldn't do that if he was headed in the opposite direction.

Adam closed his eyes and opened his lips. "God," he whispered, "Little Joe needs me. Something has to give. Make it soon."

Later, he would recall the moment with astonishment. Never in his thirty-seven years had a prayer been answered so quickly or completely.

The road they were on ran through those young trees – fledgling trees with shallow roots that had been loosened by the recent deluge. Trock turned back and looked directly at him as he moved his mount to the left, toward the edge of the rough path. Adam followed without hesitation. As he did, the right side of the road began to crumble. Sunders shouted out his fear as his horse stumbled and then listed toward the edge. Driven by their desire to make sure the man who lined their pockets didn't perish in a tumble down the hill, Haywood's goons headed straight for him. Lee's husband continued to hold his gaze and then nodded, indicating the steep slope behind him. It was a ravine and its bottom was filled with shadows, cast by the sun that was slanting toward the west. There was little hope that a bullet wouldn't find them, but that hope was better than continuing on as prisoners.

Adam nodded.

Trock flashed a grin.

Turning their horses' noses toward the unknown...

They plunged in.

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It was early afternoon. They'd just arrived at the place where Dan Tollivar's body lay in a shallow grave. The cabin his son had been tortured in was nearby. Hoss was at the stream refilling their canteens. His son had grown very quiet as they searched the house for a clue as to where Malachi Tollivar had gone and he had sent him to the stream to give the big man a few moments alone. The reality of that back room and what it meant was disturbing to him as well. It was his intention to buy the land the cabin was on and burn it to the ground.

Not a very mature reaction but...

As he waited on his son to return, Ben had made his way to Dan's last resting place. He stood now, thinking about his friend. He'd never seen the shadow Dan's past had cast. He wondered now how he could have missed it. His eldest son had been right. There had to have been something – some deep flaw in the man – that caused him to snap when Joseph refused to let him go on the drive. He was shamed now that he'd taken Dan's part and argued with his son. He recognized that it was not really Dan he had been fighting for, but himself. Though Dan was older, it would not be long before they were of an age and it was a real fear that – one day – he would not be able to hold his own. Though he intended the Ponderosa as a legacy for his sons, he had not considered that – in order for them to claim it – he would have to relinquish his hold. He would have to surrender..to...step down.

It was a sobering thought.

When he'd met Dan, he'd been younger than his son, Adam, was now. Where had the years gone? Each succeeding one seemed to pass faster than the one before, and before long he would be an old man. He knew Dan had felt that – the fact that he was being passed by. He'd thought that was what spurred the older man to take such drastic action, to join up with two thugs who were willing to do whatever it took to get what they wanted – including kidnapping his son. Now he knew there was more to it. As Adam said, there were nearly four decades of Dan's life he knew nothing about.

It was unsettling to face the fact that he had made such a monumental mistake.

A rustle of leaves informed him that his middle son had returned.

"Hey there, Pa," Hoss said as he appeared.

"Are you all right, son?" he prodded gently.

Hoss ran a sleeve over his eyes, wiping away the last of the tears he had shed. "I'm okay, Pa. It just...hit me, bein' in there agin and seein'... Well, you know."

He knew all too well.

"While you were away and, before I came here, I went back in." The rancher pulled a piece of crumpled paper out of his pocket. "What do you make of this?"

Hoss took it. He winced as he noted the blood along the edge. "You find this in that back room?"

Ben nodded. "Looks like it fell out of someone's pocket. It was laying on the floor in the corner of the room."

"You think it's a map of some kind?" his son asked, hope lighting his voice.

"I do." The rancher paused. "I've been trying to recall this area. It's been a few years, but I doubt things have changed much. This cabin belonged to the Kelly's. If I remember right, Mr. Kelly's mother lived nearby. She had a modest house."

"Old Missus Kelly's dead now, ain't she, Pa? I think I heard that in town."

"Yes, she died a year or so ago. That's why I am wondering..." He held his hand out for the map. His finger traced a faint line running from Platt City, up into the hill country. "I think her home laid along this line. It was in a little valley. Sort of a pocket of farmland."

"How come you know so much, Pa?"

He smiled at the memory. "Your mother and I came to visit Tom and Lee Bolden. I think Joe was, maybe, three. We'd left you at home with Adam and Hop Sing and gone on a short..." Ben paused and laughed. "Well, Marie called it a shopping trip. I tell you that wagon was so loaded down I was afraid we were going to get stuck!" As his son joined in his laughter, he went on. "Jake Kelly's wife was from New Orleans. I took Marie to visit her after we left the Bolden's."

His son was shaking his head. "I don't know, Pa. Life seldom works out that way. You really think Dan's son's there, and Little Joe?"

He crossed over to the big man and placed a hand on his shoulder. "What I think, Hoss, is that we have to have a direction and as unlikely as it is, we've been handed one."

"Pa?"

"Yes, son?"

"Seems to me mighty strange that a man who's willin' to do what it takes to have everythin' he wants, ends up with nothin'. I mean, Ahab don't even have his own place to lay his head. Where'd all that money he got for takin' Haywood's kid go?"

"Squandered, Hoss, on wild living, gambling and women, no doubt." He sighed, "That's why it never ends. One fortune gone means another needed."

Hoss shook his head. "You'd think a man who can swindle another and get away with it ought to be smart enough to do somethin', well, constructive 'stead of tryin' to take what another man's earned."

"You think that because you are an honest man, son, satisfied to do an honest day's work. There is something wrong deep down inside a man like Malachi Tollivar – greed and a hunger for power are like a cancer that gnaws a man away from within."

"You mean he's empty...even when he's full?"

The rancher nodded. "A man like Malachi Tollivar is a bottomless pit. Nothing satisfies. He feels life has done him wrong and owes him, and he is willing to do whatever it takes to have what he wants."

"There's somethin' you said before, Pa, that's botherin' me."

"Well, out with it, son."

"You don't think Dan's son took Joe just for the money, do you?"

The thought that he had would, in a way, be a comfort. "No, son, I don't. I am afraid your brother's abduction was more about revenge."

"Revenge? Pa, Malachi Tollivar ain't never even met little brother."

He had been thinking about it – long and hard. What Dan had done – kidnapping Joe and demanding thousands of dollars was so completely out of character for the man he knew, he had to wonder why he had done it. Could it have been for his son? And when Dan chose to save Joe instead of keeping the money, had his son seen it as a betrayal?

Sadly, it made all too much sense.

"The Good Book tells us not to borrow trouble, Hoss. Each day has enough of its own. Let' just concentrate on finding Malachi and pray we find your younger brother with him – "

"Alive."