SIX

Ben heard it before he saw it – an explosion of sorts and then orange flames rising up into the sky to become one with the pale fire of the morning. It was just about where he guessed the Gable mine to be. If he hadn't known better, he would have wondered at the silence, at the lack of the alarm sounding to alert the men to a collapse. But the Gable mine was a working mine no longer. He had closed it down years before. In fact, no one should be there unless it was some poor lost soul who had taken up residence in one of the vacant buildings. As his horse brought him closer to the mine, the fear that had ridden with him from Eagle Station outpaced him.

If Adam and Little Joe were there...

Hoss had put a name to the terror this night held. Lark Miller. A man he'd hired on and shook hands with, but paid little attention to. Miller was just another cowboy who stayed on after a drive, and just as likely to drift away without a word when the mood took him. He'd seen dozens of them in the time it took to build the Ponderosa. Now, from what Hoss had told him, this particular drifter had some sinister motive for taking the job, one that involved not only Little Joe, but Adam. The rancher cast his mind back, trying to remember if the man had done anything unseemly – anything that might have pointed him out as something other than what he claimed to be.

He could think of nothing.

Lark Miller seemed affable enough. Tough and gruff like most cowboys, he remained a bit of a loner, but not so much that the other men worried about it. He was an excellent horseman and had appeared to fit in. His talents lay with the horses. Of course, that had put Miller within Adam's scope and Joe was often at the corral. Had the man been watching his sons all along, making plans?

Ben's gaze returned to the orange glow on the horizon. The closer Buck brought him, the larger the fire became. He could feel the heat of it as he rode, pushing aside the cool morning air. As they approached, his mount grew uneasy. The buckskin snorted and reared, stamping his feet, and then turned in a tight circle.

He had no time. He was close enough.

Without a thought, Ben leapt from the saddle and began to run.

"God! No!"

"God..."

His energy spent, his heart in ruin, Adam fell to his knees. He fought back the urge to retch and denied his tears, but they came anyway, bringing insane joy to the man who stood watching him.

The man who had just killed his baby brother.

The shack was ablaze.

Lark Miller...no...Levings McNaughton stood before him, with his head thrown back, laughing. No. Laughing was what...Little Joe did. This man's laugh was an insane cackle, such as a witch made while dancing around a hellish fire.

Adam's jaw grew tight.

Hell's fires would be to good for him!

Striking the tears from his cheeks, Adam rose slowly to his feet. His gun lay a few feet away where he had dropped it when Levings ordered him out of the shadows. For a moment he couldn't move – not because he feared Levings, or because he knew what he was about to do was wrong – but because his gaze had fallen on the shack. Sickened, he watched the roof cave and fall in. Voracious flames leapt high into the night sky as they greedily consumed the rotten wood. It was as if they were reaching for the stars.

His baby brother's spirit was reaching for those stars too.

Little Joe was dead.

A shudder ran through him, nearly unmanning him. It took everything that was left in him to take the first step and then the second – everything he had to tear his eyes away from his young brother's funeral pyre. But he did it. He took a third step and then he ran. As he neared the barn, Adam dropped and rolled and came up holding the gun. Levings had turned to watch him. The blond man stood there, backlit by the flames.

He just...stood there.

"Go ahead, Cartwright," he said, as tears ran down his cheeks. "Go ahead and kill me."

That was what he had been about to do – with premeditation, cold-blooded, taking the law into his own hands. Now, he hesitated.

"You want me to." It wasn't a question.

"You shoot me down or I hang. Makes no difference to me." The blond man shrugged. "Might to you, I guess."

"It does to me. Son, put the gun down."

The voice was both a bullet and a balm.

He turned toward it. "Pa...?"

"Yes, son. It's me," his father said as he appeared out of the shadows that lined the yard. "Put your gun down."

Adam remained as he was, his hand shaking. He considered carefully what he had been ready to do. Levings was right. Even if he ran, the wrath of Benjamin Cartwright would not let him live. Pa would hunt him down, bring him to justice...

Justice. It was a bad taste in his mouth.

"Pa, I can't. He..." Adam swallowed hard. Could he say it? Could he be the one to do...that to his father? He sucked in air as he blinked back tears. "Pa, Joe... He was in..." The sound of his own voice startled him. It was breathless, lost.

No.

He wasn't lost. He knew what he had to do.

A second later his father was beside him. Pa placed a hand on his shoulder and then stepped in front of him, putting his large frame between Levings and his blind fury. Pa's dark eyes blazed with both compassion and pain.

"Adam, you are not a murderer."

His teeth clenched. He could barely spit it out. "I may not be, but he is!"

"If you take justice into your own hands, you will be." His father's voice was impossibly calm. "Son, do you think Little Joe would want you to throw your life away?"

Adam's eyes were locked on Levings. The man hadn't moved. He just stood there, like a casual observer.

It infuriated him.

As his finger closed on the trigger, his father reached out to take hold of his gun hand. "Adam, I don't know what drove this man to do what...he did. But he will have won two times over if you do this."

The black-haired man blinked. He met his father's even stare and then looked down. "It was...me, Pa. I'm what drove him to it. I let his..." He drew in a shuddering breath. "I killed his little brother that day at the mine."

"His little brother?" His father pivoted and then gasped. "Levings? No!"

His eyes were clouded with tears. Adam swept them away with a filthy sleeve so he could look. It took a moment for his mind to accept what it was seeing.

Levings McNaughton was walking straight into the fire.

His father started for him. That was Pa all over. The man had just killed his baby and he was going to risk his own life to save him. Adam looked at the gun and then dropped it. A second later he was running. His father was going to hate him, he knew it. He did it anyhow. He tackled his pa and took him to the ground with him.

By the time they looked up, Levings was immersed in flame.

For several minutes, the two of them just sat there, numb beyond shock and belief. Before them the funeral pyre's flames licked high into the night sky, sending his irascible, irritating, devil-may-care brother off like the hero he was. Neither of them stirred until they heard the sound of horse's hooves striking the desert floor.

"That will be Paul," his father said. "I don't know...how I'm going to tell him. Paul loves that...boy..."

Pa's words were soft as the cool breeze that had resurfaced. He watched as his father turned and looked at the ruins.

Then, he shattered.

When Paul came on them several minutes later they were holding onto each other and sobbing.

"Ben, I came on Hoss in the desert. He sent word that he's all right and will be waiting." The older man lost his voice when he saw them; saw the fire. "Dear Lord!" he cried out, finding it at last. "What happened here? Where's Little Joe?"

Adam caught the doctor's eye and shook his head.

"Joe...Joe didn't make it out."

Paul, of course, had brought Joe into the world. He had a lot invested in that boy. He loved him. Plain and simple. For a moment the physician was too stunned to say anything. Finally, he managed to cough up, "Are you sure?"

His father's hand braced him as he instead replied. "A man – he worked for us – he took Little Joe. Joseph was...in the shack."

Paul's gaze went to the ruin. He shook his head slowly. Then, after touching Pa's shoulder, he walked toward the haphazard collection of blackened beams as if mesmerized.

For a moment the two of them sat there in silence, mourning an insurmountable loss. Then Pa tried to speak. "What...are..." His father drew in a gulp of air. "How...how can we go on? Your brother –"

"Ben!"

It was Paul. Both he and his father turned toward the shack, but it seemed the older man had disappeared. Then he found him. Paul was crouching near the remnants of a small tool shed that had been blackened on the side facing the fire. He was absurdly riffling through a stack of debris.

When they didn't move, Paul looked right at them. "Ben, get over here! It's Little Joe!"

One of his favorite writers had once said, 'Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tunes without words and never stops at all.'

Pa's fingers gripped his shoulder. He felt it too.

Hope.

Still, Paul hadn't said whether Joe was alive.

Shaky feet took Ben to his old friend's side. The light was rising. The new day was at hand. Still, the sun's beams did little to illuminate the patch of sandy ground his youngest son occupied. Paul was in the way. His old friend's shadow all but swallowed Joe. All that was visible of his boy was one pale arm thrust out to the side. The rancher's gaze fixed on it for a moment, noticing the chafed wrists; the red rings written in his baby's blood. He'd been brave before. He'd had to stop Adam from making a mistake that would ruin his life. Even as he feared he'd lost his youngest, he'd continued to fight to save his older brother.

The fight was out of him now.

Falling to his knees, Ben reached out to touch the boy's pallid arm. It was bloodied and slightly singed. Ash and soot covered it more than the tattered cloth that remained. Paul was saying something to Little Joe. He couldn't hear it. All he could hear was the blood rushing through his veins; the pounding of fear in his heart. Joseph hadn't moved. Joseph, his blithe, beautiful, bouncing boy hadn't moved at all. Joseph was...

"He's alive, Ben. Do you hear me!"

Paul's shout awakened him like a prince's kiss. "Alive...?"

Someone was beside him. A hand clasped his shoulder. Then he heard Adam speak. One word. One word with a thousand questions in it.

"Paul?"

The physician straightened up and shook his head. "I don't know how he did it, but he did it, Ben. Little Joe's escaped being burnt for the most part..."

Adam voiced the question before he could. "But?"

Paul sighed. "But, he's one sick boy."

Ben couldn't tear his eyes off his son. It felt ridiculous to ask, after all Joe was his boy, but he did. "Is it all right if I...hold him?"

"Gently, old friend." Paul said as he moved to help him, carefully lifting Joe so he could slip in under him. Then the physician rose and turned to Adam. "Let's you and me see if we can find somewhere clean and safe to take your brother. Little Joe's in need of care and I don't want to do it out here and risk the chance of further infection."

It took Adam a moment. His oldest looked up at Paul and then at his brother. Leaning in, Adam drew close. As tears slipped from his hazel eyes, he caught his brother's hand and squeezed it. Then he rose to his feet and followed Paul.

Joe never moved.

As he sat there, holding Little Joe and waiting for Paul's return, Ben noticed his son's hands. He reached down and caught hold of the left one and sucked in air when he saw how the skin was torn and bleeding, both on the top and bottom. Joseph's nails were broken; blood, dirt and splinters of wood were caked beneath them. It looked like the boy had clawed his way out. At that thought, the older man's gaze returned to the burnt-out shack. No doubt its boards had become brittle with age.

Thank God!

Ben shivered as he imagined his young son trapped in the shack, desperately seeking a way out. From what Adam had told him, Levings had set the shack ablaze from the front, lighting a trail of oil that led to the porch, which he must have soaked thoroughly beforehand. Joe would have been forced back by the flames and billowing smoke. He'd taught his boys to keep close to the ground. He could see Joseph dropping to all fours, crawling along the floor, seeking a loose board in the wall.

The image took his breath away.

It returned when he felt the tentative touch of fingers on his chin.

"...Pa..."

Ben caught his young son's fingers in his own. They were cold and Joseph was shivering. Drawing him closer, he opened the sides of his jacket, using it both to warm and shield the boy from the remnants of the chill night air. It pained him to look at him. Beyond the ash and soot, past the crimson cheeks and neck that looked like the boy had been left to bake in the sun, Joe's face was swollen. It was a struggle just to open his eyes.

"Shh. Joseph, don't fight it. I'm here now. You're safe and you need rest."

Little Joe scowled. He shifted, almost as if he would get up. "Adam...have to help...Adam."

"Adam's fine, son, He's okay. You're the one we need to – "

"No!" His son's voice was weak but insistent. "Gonna...hurt him..."

He'd opened his mouth to say something more, but closed it as a shadow eclipsed them both. A second later Adam knelt before them. He reached out to place a hand on his brother's curly head.

"I'm here, Joe. I'm all right. You worry about yourself."

It seemed agony, but the boy shifted his head so he could look at his brother. There was a pause and then Little Joe said, "You look...funny."

Adam glanced at him and then laughed. "Well, that makes two of us."

"Adam?"

"Yes, buddy?"

"You...didn't kill...him? Did you?"

Joe must have seen something before he collapsed. Perhaps his brother pointing the gun at Levings.

"No, buddy, I wanted to, but I didn't."

Joe closed his eyes for a moment. They both thought he had fallen asleep or unconscious. Then his eyes shot open.

"Hoss!"

"Hoss is fine, Joe. Paul checked on him on his way here," Ben answered. "He'll be wanting to see you. One of us will ride out to fetch him."

The outburst seemed to have tired the boy out. Tears ran down his cheeks, mingling with the ash and soot.

"Ben. We need to get Joe inside. I found a fairly clean sheet and cobbled together a kind of bed," Paul Martin said as he appeared. "Fortunately, I found some medical supplies as well. They're old, but there's salve and pain powders. Along with what I brought in my bag, they should prove enough to get us through until we can get this young man stabilized and home."

Joe had been listening. He rolled his eyes over as a shade of the familiar grin they all knew and loved touched his lips.

"Hey, Doc."

Paul crouched beside them. "Hey, yourself, young man. Now what do you mean getting me out of my nice comfortable bed to come all the way out here to treat you?"

The boy was fading. "...day in..." he mumbled.

He and Paul exchanged a glance.

"What was that, Joseph?" he asked his son.

Little Joe's hand snaked up toward his chin, gripping his shirt collar and holding onto it for all he was worth "...told Doc...last time I...saw him...it'd be a cold day in Hell before he...worked me over again..."

Leave it to Little Joe to have the last word.