Adam squinted against the sun's rays blinding his vision and snorted softly. It was early evening and the moon was already hovering over the far horizon as the sun set. It was about this time his stage was due to arrive at Virginia City. He knew his family would be there, and he could picture his father, tense, anxious, pacing on the sidewalk in anticipation of his return. Hoss and Joe would be larking around. That was their way of hiding any nervousness. They had no reason to be, but it had been six years. He shook his head. Damn his natural compunction to defend someone in need of help. If only he'd stayed out of it. But that wasn't his way. Heck, it wasn't any of the Cartwrights' way. There was no way he could have sat back in that restaurant and watched as Johanna and her daughter were hauled away to the waiting horses.
He lifted his bound hands to wipe the sweat from his forehead and cursed when the action nearly knocked the hat from his head. He tugged at his bindings in annoyance, ignoring the pain caused by prickly rope on raw flesh.
"I wouldn't bother, Cartwright," said a voice to his right. It was Cordell, who urged his horse up beside Adam. "My man here, Rance, knows how to tie a man so there is no means of escape." He looked at the stocky man ahead of them, his leather vest straining across the broad muscular back. "He prides himself on never having lost a prisoner yet."
Adam trained his vision on the track ahead. He was in no mood to talk to Cordell. For his mind was far away, on the streets of Virginia City, and his heart was heavy.
~8~
Ben Cartwright straightened up. The stage, not unusually, was late, and Ben had slumped against a roof support. At the first sign of the horses lunging around the bend towards the stage stop, Hoss yelled across the busy street to where Joe was glugging a beer outside the Silver Dollar. Joe took a last hasty gulp and was soon running across the street to meet the stage.
Hoss and Joe exchanged cheery glances and put an arm around each other's shoulders. The Cartwright boys were about to be reunited and they could not keep the joy from their faces. Ben, on the other hand, had whipped his hat from his head and was standing anxiously on the sidewalk. He unconsciously took a step back as the stage drove to a sudden noisy halt beside him. The carriage creaked and rattled as it settled, in chorus with the jangle of the horses bridles as they stamped their hooves in protest at the swift stop. The stage official ran from the office with a small stool and turned the handle to the door. Ben, unknowingly, ran the rim of his hat through his fingers, excited and nervous and afraid all at the same time.
Three passengers alighted from the stage.
None of them were Adam.
Ben stepped forward and peered into the vehicle, but there was no sign of his son.
"Jake?" He shouted up at the driver who was throwing parcels and baggage down to the waiting passengers. "Is this it? No one else?"
"That's all of 'em, Mr. Cartwright. You expectin' someone?"
Ben turned and looked at Hoss and Joe, who looked as bewildered as he did. "We got the right day, didn't we? His wire said Saturday the fourth, on the 6 o'clock stage."
"I must've read that telegram a hundred times, Pa, that's what it said," replied Joe.
Ben turned back to Jake. "I was expecting my eldest boy, Adam. He was breaking his journey in…" He shook his head, struggling to remember the name of the town Adam had named in his wire.
"Chia Springs, Pa."
"Yes, that's right, Chia Springs." Ben gazed up at Jake, hoping against hope the man would have an answer for him that wouldn't leave his gut in knots.
"Chia Springs, ya say?" The old man climbed down the side of the coach and jumped the last foot, scratching the back of his head as he approached the three men. "There was a bit of a to-do there few days back, so's I heard."
Ben frowned. "What do you mean, a 'to-do'?"
Jake looked down for a moment before squinting up at Ben. "Why, a kidnappin' o' course. Woman and her daughter. Way's I heard, a whole bunch of gun-slinging outlaws rode in ta town, shootin' the place up, and stole a woman and her kid right from under their noses. Townsfolk said they'd tried to stop 'em but they rode out, shootin' off their guns and such before anyone could."
"What's this got to do with my son?"
Jake scratched his head once more. "Why, they snatched another fella too. Guest, stayin' at the hotel." Jake twisted around to look at his stage. "I gotta get on, Mr. Cartwright, my team needs waterin' and stablin'." And before Ben could say another word, Jake was gone.
Hoss took a step closer to his father. "Are you thinkin' this fella that was took was Adam?"
Ben could only stare at the ground; his eyes moving from side to side.
"Pa?"
Hoss's voice was sharp and Ben started out of his reverie. "Unless your brother has dramatically altered character in the last six years then it's not like him to change his plans without telling us. He knows…" Ben sighed. "He knows to…"
"We know, Pa." Joe's voice was soft. "What are we going to do?"
Ben pulled himself upright. "It looks like we're going to Chia Springs." He threw a stern glance at his boys and then began to stride to where their horses were tied. He stopped suddenly and spun around. "You know, for once, just once, I wish you boys would not get yourself into scrapes and mishaps. Just once." He turned on his heel and strode off, leaving Hoss and Joe staring at him with growing smiles on their faces.
Joe tapped his brother's chest with the back of a gloved hand. "Shall I remind him, or shall you, about the time he got himself into a fight with Josh Tatum, and all before breakfast?"
Hoss grinned. "Or how about when he got himself kidnapped and held to ransom?"
"Or those 'scrapes and mishaps' he got into trying to get a good night's sleep in town?" Joe's lips pursed in amusement. "Come on, we can laugh, but it looks like older brother has gotten himself into some sort of trouble. Some things never change, huh?"
~8~
That night as his father and brothers were sitting at the dining table picking at food they were too impatient to eat, Adam was also consuming a meal. But rather than the pork chops and mashed potatoes that Hop Sing had prepared, Adam had to make do with yet another slushy dish of lukewarm beans. He nudged the unappetising meal around the plate before discarding it next to the fire. Rising to his feet, he made to move to where Johanna was sitting, but the sound of several guns being cocked in unison stayed his course. Feeling an irritation he tried his best to hide, Adam turned to face Cordell and with a raised eyebrow lifted his untied arms. Cordell stared at him, then Johanna, then nodded at Rance. The big man seemed to take more pleasure than usual in roping Adam's wrists, causing Adam to flinch as the rope was tightened with gusto. With a last look at Cordell, Adam picked his way past the men's outstretched legs and sat down next to Johanna. Clara was already asleep by her mother's side.
"How did you end up in Chia Springs?" Adam asked in a low voice.
Johanna sighed. "It is a long story, Mr. Cartwright."
"I'm not going anywhere," said Adam holding up his bound wrists. Johanna stared at him as though deliberating whether to trust him. She must have seen something in his expression, because after a glance at her sleeping daughter, and tenderly stroking a lock of stray hair back from the girl's brow, she began to speak.
"We were living in New York City and were happy there. I had a job as a governess to two small boys. My employers allowed Clara to live in the house with me, and to be educated at the same time as their children.
"One day I met a man, a very charming man. He had a mystery around him that I found...compelling. It was a, how do you say, a, er, whirl, um, whirly—"
Adam smiled. "A whirlwind romance."
"Yes, that is it. I only knew him for two weeks. He would meet me in the park when I took the boys out to play, and once he took me to a cafe when I had my afternoon off. He was always attentive, and I…" She paused and looked down at her hands which she had begun to wring together in her lap. "I fell in love." She blinked several times and shook her head. "It was stupid. I was stupid."
Adam frowned. "Why?"
"He asked me to marry him and I said yes. He knew I had a daughter, though he had never met her, and he also knew I was married, but he said he did not care and that we could elope and no one would ever know. He laughed and said we would have to escape in the night like I had done all those years ago with Clara."
Johanna paused and swallowed her lips. Her eyes were starting to glisten with unshed tears. Adam leaned over with his bound wrists to take her hand, but she crossed her arms to stop him.
"Please don't. If you comfort me, I will cry." She abruptly brushed the tears from her eyes. "And I do not want to cry." She took a long breath.
"I had never told him Clara's name, or the circumstances of my leaving Friedrich. It was all a lie, all those words of love, his declaration of marriage. He had not meant a word of it."
She drew herself up. "I knew then he was a spy for my husband. That he was working for him, to get me and Clara back to Hanover. I don't know how I did it, but I hid my suspicions and pretended nothing was different and we arranged a time for when we would next meet.
"But I knew we had to leave New York. The next morning Clara and I took the train to Philadelphia and from there to Baltimore and on to St Louis."
"And you've been running ever since?"
Johanna nodded. And so did Adam. He knew the life: an endless succession of anonymous towns, nameless faces and rootlessness. At least Adam had a home to go back to; Johanna had nowhere.
"And that's how you ended up in Chia Springs?"
"Yes. We were going to San Francisco and from there, I don't know. I wrongly believed I would not be found in the middle of the desert."
Adam looked down at his feet and asked the question he already knew the answer to. "What was his name, the man in New York?"
Johanna looked at him and then turned to stare through the fire at the white-coated man seated opposite.
"Jefferson Cordell. And he's been pursuing me every day ever since."
~8~
Ben doubted he got any sleep that night. He seemed to wake every hour, throwing his quilt from his body and sighing heavily in worry. A father never stopped worrying about his sons, no matter their age.
They had risen as a mist infused the dawn in a purple haze. And now they were on their way. Wearing their coats to combat the chill which still lingered in the air, the three riders were headed east towards the last place Adam was reported to have been. Ben's mind was far away, his body acting on impulse as he rode. The golden hue stretching across the land was nothing more than a blur; Ben was too distracted by circumstances to appreciate the beauty of his own land.
It wasn't supposed to be this way. He and his three sons should be making their way to the dining table for breakfast. His three sons. For six years he had longed for all three of his boys to be eating together, and he had believed he would wake this morning to a reunited family. But fate, divine intervention—call it what you will—had once more stepped in and prevented them from being together. They should have been rejoicing at Adam's return, hearing his stories, finding out at last what he had actually been doing. Hoss and Joe would have worn grins as wide as Hoss's expanding girth; there would have been questions, laughter, smiles. His three sons. Together.
But again it wasn't to be. Once more he was riding out in search of a lost boy. His mind couldn't help but remember previous times when one of them had been missing. There had been an occasion when Joe was barely out of boyhood and missing in the Arizona Badlands. Ben, Adam and Hoss had scouted through country heavy with Apaches and Comancheros in an attempt to find him. In desperation, Ben had given Hoss and Adam the slip and ridden hell for leather to save his boy. And he had. He would never forget cradling an exhausted Joe in his arms; battered and dehydrated, but alive.
Another time, Ben had had to use all his gifts of persuasion on an angry, grief-stricken boy to find Hoss and prevent his murder at the hands of a desperate jailbird. As it turned out, Hoss was the survivor in a bitter fight to the death. He was found bruised and bleeding, but still able to ride a horse.
And then there was Adam in the desert...Ben shook his head to dismiss the image of his delirious son staggering on trembling legs and babbling mindlessly. Those memories were too painful to be revived.
And so Ben rode. And prayed.
~8~
On the fourth day out of Chia Springs Adam woke to the realisation that he could see out of both eyes for the first time in days. He put his fingers to his battered eye socket and winced at the still tender flesh, but at least he could easily look at what was to the side of him rather than having to crane his head around to see. He immediately felt more alert and thoughts of escape began to formulate in his mind.
Adam was to wonder later if the Fates had been listening to the plans he had begun to devise, for during the early hour preparations to move out, Cordell made a decision he would come to regret.
He gave Adam control of his horse.
"I trust you won't try to escape, Cartwright," he said to a bemused Adam. "But I ain't gonna take too many chances. Rance will still tie your wrists."
Cordell watched as Rance bound Adam's hands together. "Try anything, and you'll have seven bullets in you before you've had a chance to blink. Just remember that."
He turned his back, clapping his hands together to hurry the group along; if they pushed hard they would arrive within thirty miles of Virginia City by nightfall, and the following morning one of the men would be dispatched with a ransom note for big Ben Cartwright—Adam's attempt to dissuade Cordell from his plan having fallen on deaf ears. They had a lot of miles to make up though, and Cordell wanted the camp cleared, the team mounted up and the company on the move before the sun had fully crested the horizon.
And then, several hours into their journey, Corky Wood fell off his horse.
Corky was the gang's wrangler. His natural ability with horses had impressed Cordell so much the young lad had been assigned the task of looking after the remuda. However, the uncanny way he had of communicating with the horses made the rest of the men uneasy around him. It was though he could read an animal's mind, knowing when it was about to start limping, or when it was distressed. He would ride up beside the afflicted animal, gesticulating wildly at its rider that he needed to dismount there and then and change horses. How he could know such things when he had been riding a ways behind the rest of them unnerved the rest of the company, so they avoided him wherever possible. Not that Corky appeared bothered by this. He spent most of his time with his horses, even sleeping amongst them, and stayed away from the rest of the gang and their prisoners. And if anyone but Cordell spoke to him, he would duck his head down with his eyes fixed on the ground as though seeking an escape from the unwanted contact.
"Something happened to the kid that screwed with his mind," said Cordell in one of his nightly chats with Adam. "Won't talk to no one. Just the horses. And that damn bottle."
For despite not yet reaching the grand old age of eighteen, Corky would lose himself in the depths of a whiskey bottle at every opportunity. Cordell left him to it, as long as the horses in the remuda were well cared for. And they were. It was only himself Corky abused. On the one occasion when he had been sober, Adam had seen an expression in those bloodshot eyes that spoke of a deep, searing pain. Corky needed the oblivion caused by strong mind-numbing alcohol.
On this morning Corky was hanging back, riding the black Morgan he favoured whenever Cordell was not making his own use of the impressive steed. Slight in build, Corky sat with his legs curled around the animal's sides, riding bareback as was his want. He led the team of horses which brought up the rear and it was only the sound of glass smashing against a rock that told the rest of the company he had come to the end of his current bottle. And the sun was not even halfway to its highest point in the sky.
The group was skirting the side of a valley, following a track that ascended ever-upwards to where the path reached its highest point and then dipped down out of sight on the other side of a bluff. To one side a wide, wet valley spread out below them. A river snaked along the valley floor, bleeding tiny tributaries that sparkled in the morning sunlight.
As they approached the top of the ridge, there was the sound of a thump and a groan as a body hit the ground. Three of the men turned their heads to see what had happened and a muttering of fiery expletives lit the air. They cursed and wheeled their horses around to retrieve the fallen wrangler who lay on his back dazed and kicking at the dust with his heels.
It was the first time since they had been taken that Adam, Johanna and her daughter were left unguarded. A lone gang member behind them watched his comrades deal with the drunken lad, and ahead of them, Cordell and Nate stood waiting a short way down a cutaway leading to the valley below. Adam drew himself upwards and carefully looked around. Was this the chance he had been waiting for? Behind him the remuda was blocking the rear, and up ahead, the track ascended steeply to the pass. Too steeply. It would be a slow business reaching the top. Adam relaxed back into the saddle. Their time would come, but it wasn't now.
But then he looked at Johanna, and knew instantly she had been having the same thoughts. She was staring up the empty track ahead of them, her eyes wide and her tongue snaking over suddenly dry lips. He saw her turn to see the men occupied with hauling Corky to his feet and the remuda behind them. And then she looked back up the steep track ahead and Adam knew she had made her decision. He cried out her name to stop, but it was too late. She had already kicked her heels forcefully into the side of her horse, leaned over Clara and with a shout forced the animal into a gallop.
Adam knew it was a lost cause. The track was too steep for her to make a clean getaway and her horse was struggling to claw its way up the sheer slope with two riders on its back. Dust billowed into the air as the animal's hooves dug into the dry earth causing a torrent of gravel to tumble down the track behind them. Johanna shouted to urge the horse up, up, up, past a started Cordell and Nate, up towards the top where the ground should level out and the horse could fly.
Adam drove his horse into action behind her. He had hardly covered any ground at all when the sound of a gunshot tore through the air. He pulled back hard, his animal's head rising vertically as its movements were so abruptly curtailed.
Johanna slowed and came to a stop. For several long moments she didn't move, but sat staring ahead of her. But then a dark mark formed and spread across the back of her dress. Toppling sideways out of the saddle, she fell to the ground.
Nobody moved. Adam watched in shock as a sheet of dust settled on Johanna's body. But then the sound of hooves drew his gaze to Cordell who had spurred his horse towards her and dismounted, dropping to one knee by her side. With a tenderness Adam found surprising, Cordell gently turned the woman onto her back and rested her head on his knee. He leaned low over her and placed his palm on her chest. No one breathed. But then Cordell's head dropped and after a moment's pause he looked up at Clara. The girl was staring down at the lifeless body of her mother. Adam knew what she was thinking; he could see it in her eyes: she was waiting for her mother to stand up, brush herself off, straighten her clothing and proudly thrust her chin in the air. Clara met Cordell's look and at the slight shake of his head, the blood drained from her skin. White-faced, she looked back at the body of her mother, her mouth gaping open.
Cordell rose to his feet and turned towards Nate who had followed his boss to the scene.
"Get off your horse."
Nate hesitated for a moment and then complied. He fingered the reins which trailed through his hands. "Boss, she was getting away."
Cordell moved his gaze to the dead woman. "Get over here."
"Boss, I—"
His remark was cut off by the steely gaze that met his. "I said, get over here."
Nate dropped the reins of his horse and the animal stood docilely on the track as Nate moved with slow steps to where his boss stood. Cordell was looking down at Johanna, but with a suddenness that made Adam's mount rear its head in alarm, Cordell slammed his fist into Nate's face. His punch sent the youngster tumbling backwards to the ground. Cordell reached down and hauled him to his feet only to punch him across the jaw once more. Nate stayed where he fell, nursing his bruised flesh, sprawled in the dust. Cordell staggered backwards and once more dropped to his knees beside Johanna. He pulled her into his arms and looked up at Clara.
"I'm sorry," was all he could say.
Clara stared unblinking at the tableau at her feet. Her mother was dead, cradled in the arms of her captor. And as the truth of what had happened hit her, she collapsed over the horse's neck, squeezed her eyes closed, and screamed.
And her horse bolted.