Doubt That The Stars Are Fire
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PART ONE
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ONE
"Ben, you better come quick! It's happening again!"
Ben Cartwright dropped the ledger he was holding to his desk top and turned toward the office window. The shout had come from the front yard. It was late September. They were experiencing what was known as Indian summer and the air in the house was stifling. He had opened the window in the vain hope that some cool early evening air would make its way in.
Enormously vain.
Closing the ledger, the older man rose wearily from his chair. As he rounded the desk, he exchanged a glance with his youngest son, Jamie, who was settled on Marie's striped sofa with his nose in a book. The boy's love of reading was suddenly at war with another, deeper love. A love they shared.
One that had pushed them both close to the brink more than once over the last six months.
"Do you think Joe's hurt?" Jamie asked as he put the book down and rose to his feet.
No. He didn't think it.
He knew it.
Ben crossed to the front door and threw it open. His assistant foreman Jim Appleby, his grizzled face shining with sweat, was standing just outside in the yard.
"Joseph?" Ben asked even though he knew he didn't need to.
Jim gave him a sympathetic look. "Yep. I know you told me to call you if...well..." The ranch hand hesitated. "Seems Joe took exception to somethin' one of the new men said. He's in the bunkhouse yellin' at him."
Ben's gaze went in that direction. He could hear raised voices and see movement within the quarters where their men were housed. If Jim had called him, there was something more. Joseph could take care of himself.
"Which new hand?"
Jim winced. "Abel Ramsey.
A chill snaked down the older man's back.
"Good God..."
Abel Ramsey, along with a dozen or so other drifters, had been hired on in preparation for the fall cattle drive. Ramsey was a hard-living man. He was also a half-foot taller than Joe and weighed at least one hundred pounds more than his still slender son, and had a penchant for fighting that was legendary. At one time Abel Ramsey had been a bouncer in one of the houses of ill repute in Carson City. He'd also been known to prize fight from time to time. He was a powerfully built man with a strong musculature.
Trouble was, Candy said, Abel had even more muscle between his ears.
Jim moved closer and dropped his voice. With an eye to Jamie, who was standing in the open doorway, staring toward the bunkhouse, he muttered, "I tell you, Ben, it seems sometimes that youngest of your three is trying to get himself killed."
Ben nodded. Sadly, Joe had come close to succeeding several times in the past few months. There had been brawls in the saloon and brawls in the street, but that wasn't the worst of it. Joe was pushing himself beyond endurance and expecting the men to go with him. That had caused brawls at home.
Like this one.
As the argument within the wooden structure grew louder and more heated, the older man blanched.
"Jim, what's the date?"
The other man snorted. "Easy to lose track, ain't it? September 12th, I think."
How could he have missed it?
It was six months to the day since Joe's wife, Alice, and his unborn child had been murdered.
The signs had been there. He'd noticed how tense Joe had become over the last week or so. His son had barely eaten or slept for days. He'd often come down early in the morning to find him sitting, staring into the fire. Everyone in the household from Jamie to Hop Sing had felt Joe's baseless wrath. At first, the older man had felt nothing but sympathy for his son. Joe had been through so much and he felt he owed him time to come to grips with all he had suffered. As if the sudden death of his brother and the murder of his wife and the loss of his child had not been enough...
Then, there was Tanner.
A few days before, in spite of his best intentions, Ben's patience had run out. By his own admission, Joe had always been moody and prone to fly off the handle with little or no cause. Hard as that was to deal with, his son had also been just as prone to admit he was wrong and apologize. 'Sorry 'was a word Joseph Francis Cartwright knew all too well. This week, there had been no apologies. His son's anger had simmered and boiled over at the least provocation and he had stubbornly and sullenly refused to express any kind of regret. Several days before they had come to words. Joe had ripped into Hop Sing about something their cook and friend had shifted in his room, bringing the man from China near to tears. He'd taken his son aside and told him he was acting like a child.
There was an old phrase. 'If looks could kill'.
He had known its meaning that day.
Joe had slammed out of the house and gone to the barn and mounted and ridden away. He was gone three days without sending word. When his son returned, it was obvious he'd been drinking and had been in another brawl. Nothing was said. No questions were asked.
Joe knew it as well as he did. His actions had proven his father's point.
Since his son's return tensions had run high but, for the most part, they'd gotten along amicably enough. It was time to get ready for the cattle drive and, like every man on the ranch, Joe had more than enough work to do. They had a record number of beeves this year and it would take all of them to get them to winter pasture. On top of that, they'd secured a new contract with the army and there were a dozen horses to be busted and broken. Ben chewed his lip thoughtfully. The horses were Joe's area of expertise and – usually – his salvation. When his son was with his horses it seemed he could forget – for just a moment – the life that had almost been.
Almost.
"Do you know what Ramsey said to upset Joseph?" Ben asked Jim as the shouting grew louder still.
Jim looked slightly sick. The other man touched his temple with two fingers. "Had somethin' to do with Joe not bein' right up here."
"Not right?"
The ranch hand looked apologetic. "Cause of what happened with Tanner." At his look Jim added, his voice pitched low once again, "It's all over town, Ben. Some say Tanner broke Joe just like he's been breaking those high-spirited horses all these years. Sorry to say, there's men a plenty who have been waitin' for somethin' to take Joe Cartwright down."
"Pa!"
Jamie – who was still on the porch – had shouted. His call came just as a man barreled backwards out of the bunkhouse door. It took a second to realize it was Candy Canaday. His current foreman rolled over twice and landed on his feet. Candy's chest was heaving. His chiseled features were set in anger. Ben expected to see Abel Ramsey come flying out of the bunkhouse after him.
Instead it was Joe.
Joseph Francis was thirty-one years old now. He'd gained some bulk over the last five years, adding muscle so his lithe frame filled out. As a boy and young man, Joe had been deceptively thin. Larger, powerful men thought of him as an easy mark and were often surprised by how long it took them to defeat him – if they defeated him at all. The one thing they didn't understand was the boy's determination.
He looked very determined now.
Joe was between Candy and the bunkhouse. His lower lip was split and bleeding, and there was a deep gash over his right eye. He was breathing quickly, drawing air in through flared nostrils and snorting it out just as quickly. His son's mouth, which had once been so quick to smile, was a thin line drawn in rage.
Joe stormed up to Candy and jabbed a finger in his chest. "I told you to keep out of this and I meant it!"
Candy was wiping blood from his own lip with his thumb. "You want me to listen to you, Joe? Make sense and I will!" he countered. "Ramsey could have killed you!"
"I can fight my own battles!" Joe shot back.
"Well, pardon me!" their foreman snapped. "The fact that you were on the ground with a boot in your spleen kind of seemed to me a pretty good indication that you can't!"
His son's jaw tightened. "I would have taken him down."
"Down with you, you mean? Into the grave?" Candy shook his head. He reached out with one hand. "Joe, admit it. If I hadn't stepped in you'd be dead!"
Ben's gaze went to Jamie. The boy had left the porch and was standing in the yard to the side. His adopted son was ghostly pale. Jamie adored Joe. He looked up to him. Unfortunately, like the rest of them, the newest Cartwright had been forced to come to terms with his older brother's current penchant to attract trouble like the proverbial moth to the flame.
Realizing it was time, the older man moved toward Marie's son.
"Joe, that's enough," he said.
His son started and then pivoted on his heel. Ben had seen many looks out of those green eyes in a little over thirty years – anger, sadness, humility and humiliation. The face his son turned toward him now held a new one.
Fear.
"Pa..." he stuttered. "Pa, I...can't..."
There was a noise.
The roar of a bull elephant couldn't have been louder.
Joe swung around just as Abel Ramsey exploded out of the bunkhouse turning the air blue with curses. Ben winced as the behemoth that was Ramsey charged and his son's body took the full brunt of the man's anger. Before anyone could do anything, the powerful drifter drove Joe to his knees and then to the ground and then, as his son lay there supine, began to pound him.
For one stunned second they all remained where they were. Then Candy and Jim Appleby were on the move. Ben remained where he was and drew his gun. He didn't want to shoot the man, but he would if it meant saving his son's life. Raising the gun, he fired two rounds into the air. Then he pointed the barrel at Ramsey's chest.
"Abel! Abel Ramsey! Stop! Stop it now!"
Ben had seen rabid animals before. The look out of Ramsey's eyes was the same. His hands were on Joseph's throat and his fingers were closing.
"Think man! Is it worth your life?" he shouted.
"Abel!" It was Candy this time. "You kill Joe, you kill yourself. Let him go! Do you hear me? Let him go!"
Joe's face was crimson and his chest rose and fell unevenly as he struggled for air.
Was he going to watch his son die before his eyes?
Ben's finger tightened on the trigger. Candy was pulling at the big man now. He was still shouting; trying to reason with him.
"Pa?" Jamie called, his voice quaking. "Ain't you gonna shoot him? He's gonna kill Joe!
He was going to. But God was gracious.
Abel Ramsey let go.
Later, when he considered what had happened, there was little Ben could recall about the next few moments. Men pouring out of the bunkhouse. Ramsey's beefy hands opening as he rose. Joseph's battered form dropping to the earth like a sack of meal. Candy shouting at the men, rallying them. One of them finding a rope and binding Abel's hand with it.
Jamie, in the dirt, kneeling by Joe, shaking him and calling him by name.
He'd run to Joe's side. His son's skin was livid and his lips were tinged with blue. Almost as soon as he felt panic overwhelm him, Joe coughed and drew in a great gasp of air and began to breathe.
It seemed it was over.
Seemed.
Sadly, the older man knew better. He'd sailed the seas for many years. During that time he'd often seen young lads, new to the sailor's life, rest easy after they weathered a storm, not realizing what was yet to come. Looking at his son now as he staggered to his feet and leaned heavily on his younger brother, he – a seasoned sailor – recognized the moment for was it was.
The calm before the storm.
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Supper that night was quiet.
Very, very quiet.
As soon as he could, Joe dismissed himself from the table and headed out to the barn. Candy had eaten with them and, when his friend followed him out the door, he was afraid he would try to talk to him. Instead, sensing his mood, Candy had merely bid him goodnight and headed for the bunkhouse.
His 'mood'. That was all it seemed he had lately – moods. Joe snorted and then winced at how much it made his head hurt. His fingers explored the gash over his eye. It had required two quick stitches, which Candy had obliged him to do, saving him a trip into town to see the doctor. It might not be the prettiest job – and who knew if it would leave a scar – but he had long since gotten over his vanity.
'Long since' being six months ago.
Joe drew a deep slow breath in through his nostrils and let it out through his lips. Involuntarily his hand went to his throat. He'd tied a kerchief around it for supper. The sight of himself in the mirror as he left his room had made him feel like he was seventeen again, but it hid the bruises left by Abel Ramsey's fingers. That didn't stop Pa's eyes from going to his neck. Time and time again. He knew he'd scared his father, taking on a giant like Ramsey. He'd scared himself.
Mostly because he couldn't stop himself.
Yeah, Ramsey had made him damn angry, saying what he did in front of the men. Still, it wasn't like he hadn't heard it half of his life.
Look, there's Joe Cartwright, old Ben's mollycoddled son.
You see Joe Cartwright over there? Pretty boy ain't got a brain in his head. Good thing that ain't the part the ladies are interested in.
Joe Cartwright? Ain't you heard? Since his wife died, he ain't right in the head.
Joe laughed again as he reached up and untied the kerchief.
Well, he couldn't argue with that last one.
He'd been managing – at least as well as a man can 'manage' when dealing with a horror that went beyond belief. Oh, he'd had his bad days. Hell, he'd had days when all he could do was sit in a corner and cry. But that was to be expected. After all, his whole life was a train wreck where everybody died but him. There were moments when he didn't want to go on. But that's what they were – moments. With each passing day, everyday life had seemed a little more possible to endure. After all, he had his work and still had Pa and Jamie. Thinking of the boy his father had adopted, Joe shook his head. How he wished he could apologize to his two big brothers. He'd had no idea what they had to put up with! He loved Jamie, but there were times when the boy's enthusiasm and energy were enough to drive him...
Bad choice of words.
Arriving at the barn, Joe opened the smaller door and entered through the workshop area. Moving quietly, so as not to frighten the horses, he went to where Cochise was stabled and slipped into the slat-wood box that was his friend's home. Picking up a brush, he began the rhythmic motion that was grooming Cooch's coat. It was something he did – groom Cooch – when his nerves had him jumping higher than a kite. He'd done it so often over the years, it was a wonder the poor horse had any hair left! He kept it up for about five minutes while the animal shifted, wrinkling his back muscles in delight or disdain, he wasn't sure which. Eventually, he gave up and returned the brush to its housing.
It wasn't working tonight. That kite was still flying high.
Moving over to a bale of hay, Joe plunked his weary body down and lowered his head into his hands. Since the fire he'd been plagued by nightly terrors that left him bathed in sweat and trembling from head to toe. There was never any sound. Like a magic picture show, the images went round and round in his head. He was driving the wagon. He saw the flames and realized what was happening. Jumping from the wagon, he'd run toward the house and try to pound the door in. In real life he hadn't seen her, but in his dreams Alice was always standing in the window, in the midst of a rain of fire, calling out to him. Calling with no sound. As his pa grabbed him and dragged him back, a man's hands circled her waist, reminding him of, well, of what he was sure happened before she was murdered. He'd end up laying on the ground with the pain in his fried hands pounding, almost too great to bear, and then she'd reappear. Alice would walk out the door bearing before her the shriveled and burnt corpse of their child, and offer it to him.
As if the responsibility for their deaths was his.
Joe sighed. Just when he thought it couldn't get any worse, it did. Recently, the nightmares had intensified. They were no longer silent. Now they were accompanied by that song. The one Bill Tanner had whistled incessantly.
That damn song.
Joe lifted his tear-streaked face and ran the back of his hand across his eyes. He sniffed as he looked toward the house where his pa and Jamie were, waiting for him to show. His house with the comfortable, warm bed he'd slept in for over thirty years. There was many a man would kill to sleep in a bed like that.
Not him. He'd decided to give up sleeping.
It was wearing him down and he knew it. His frayed nerves were close to breaking. He didn't know where that was going to lead him, but he had a notion – either that mad house Ramsey'd said he needed, or to that place by the lake where his mama lay resting.
Rest.
God, he needed to rest.
It was why he'd taken Ramsey on, even though he was twice his size and three times as mean.
He wanted to die.
"Joe?"
His green eyes closed. Not now. Not...
Joe drew a breath and forced a half-smile as he turned. "Shouldn't you be in bed?"
Jamie shrugged. "It ain't that late. I'm sixteen, you know? I ain't a kid anymore."
How familiar that sounded.
"I don't know," he replied with a ghost of a smile. "If Pa heard you say 'ain't', he might just treat you like one."
"You say it."
He snorted. "Yeah, I do. Don't I?"
Jamie was kicking at some old straw on the barn floor. It took a second, but he asked what Joe knew he was going to ask. "Can I talk to you?"
"Look, Jamie, if Pa sent you out here to scold me –"
The redhead glanced toward the house. "Pa don't...doesn't know I'm here." He looked a little embarrassed. "In fact, he told me to leave you alone."
Joe's brows peaked toward the tangle of silver curls on his forehead. "Oh?"
"He said you needed time by yourself." Jamie looked straight at him. "I think he's wrong. I think...you spend too much time alone."
Sage wisdom from a sixteen year old kid.
Joe patted the hay bale beside him. Jamie hesitated only a moment before joining him. Then the two of them sat there in silence.
"Well?" he asked a minute later.
"I'm right sorry about everything you've been through, Joe. You know that, don't you?"
How could Jamie wonder about that? Then, with sudden insight, he realized the boy was taking the distance he had put between them personally, just like he had always done as a kid. Jamie didn't think he wanted to be alone. Jamie thought he didn't want to be with him.
Moved, Joe sniffed back another stream of tears. "I know."
"Then why..." The boy paused. He did that thing, where he pursed his lips and wrinkled his brow, looking for all the world like a kid working a sum. "How come you don't want me around?"
Joe chuckled. "It's not that I don't want you around. I don't want anyone around."
"How come?"
He looked at his hands. How did he explain it? He didn't want the stares, the concern or the pity. Didn't want to have to think about what it was that caused his family to feel they had to give those things to him. Because every time he looked up and found one of them watching him, he had to wonder why. Then he had to remember. He had to remember the brother that was no more. Had to remember Alice. Remember the child he had lost.
Remember Bill Tanner and the torture he had suffered at a madman's hands.
He felt Jamie's hand on his arm. "Are you all right, Joe?"
He couldn't stop them. The tears began to flow. He managed for a moment and then a great sob escaped him and suddenly, he couldn't breathe.
Finally, he managed to choke something out. It was one word, but it was everything.
"No."
He thought for sure Jamie would panic and go running for their pa. Instead, the pressure from his hand increased and then his little brother slid in closer to him and circled his shoulder with his arm. For a moment they sat there, saying nothing. Then...
"Joe, don't give up. Please, don't give up." Jamie drew a breath. "I know you want to. I saw it... I saw it in your eyes today. Joe, you think no one would care. That we'd be better off without you like you are. It ain't true."
He turned his head. Jamie was so earnest, it almost made him smile. "It ain't, huh?"
"Joe, I..." His adopted brother cleared his throat. "I know you lost who you loved, but, well, I love you." A different light entered the boy's eyes, reflecting, perhaps, a bit of his own anger. "You just ain't thinkin' straight. Do you really want to do to your pa and me the same thing those bad men did to you?"
There were no words.
He was struck to the core.
Joe caught his little brother's shoulder with his fingers and squeezed it. Unburdening himself to a teenage boy seemed unfair, but – suddenly – he needed to talk to someone.
"Jamie, I..." He sniffed and swallowed. "I don't...know what's wrong. It's like I'm in a dark place where there's no light and no way to find any. I know there's something there in the dark with me, waiting to pounce, waiting to...devour me. I fight it." He looked at the boy, who was staring at him wide-eyed. "I fight it for all I'm worth, but there's no winning. No amount of grit or guts can put me on top and...it's beginning to pull me down."
Joe stopped himself. He'd been about to say, 'And I know when I reach bottom, that's the end. There'll be nothing left – nothing left of me.'
How had that Shakespeare fellow Adam liked so much put it? For some morbid reason the passage from Macbeth was one of the ones his brother had read that stuck with him.
Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
"You wanted to die today, didn't you? You wanted Abel Ramsey to kill you"
The question came at him like a bullet from a Colt. He couldn't dodge it.
Maybe he didn't want to.
"Yeah," Joe admitted with a sigh. "But he didn't."
He didn't know what reaction he expected, but it wasn't what he got. Jamie shot to his feet. The boy's jaw was tight and he was snortin' air like a bull ready to charge.
"You know what you are? You're selfish! You ain't thinkin' about anybody but yourself! Do you think this is what Alice would have wanted? You behavin' like a baby?" Tears of anger streamed down the boy's face. He threw his hand out and pointed toward the door. "You want your pa to lose all of his sons? You want to kill him too?"
He should have felt shame.
Instead, he felt rage.
"What do you know? You're a child! You haven't lost –"
"Oh, I don't know 'cause I ain't lost anything important? What about my ma dying when I was little? And what about my pa? What about me watching him being tarred and feathered, and then watching him waste away and die?" Jamie was furious. His anger made him bold. "I know your pa's ashamed of you. I think Alice would be too!"
He didn't mean it.
The sound of the back of his hand contacting Jamie's cheek echoed through the barn along with the boy's sobs.
"I hate you!" he screamed.
And was gone.
Joe stood unmoving. He wasn't angry with the boy.
He hated himself too.
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Ben's head came up from the book he was reading as the front door flew open and Jamie ran up the stairs. He didn't even have time to ask what was wrong or scold the boy for leaving the door open before he disappeared. Seconds later there was another slam as Jamie's bedroom door was closed, apparently with vigor. At the sound Hop Sing came out of the kitchen, a dishcloth in his hands.
"Which boy make so much noise?"
Ben had to smile in spite of everything. Hop Sing refused to stop referring to Joe as a 'boy'.
"Jamie," he said.
The man from China frowned. "Where Little Joe?"
He was also the only one who could still get by calling Joe that as well.
"In the barn, I think." Unfortunately, he was fairly certain that was the place Jamie had fled.
Hop Sing tucked the dishcloth behind the waistband of his apron. A determined look settled on his face. "Hop Sing go to barn and tell Little Joe to come in and stop worrying father."
"Hop Sing, no." He put the book down and rose. "I'll go talk to Joseph, that is, if he hasn't saddled Cochise and ridden off again."
"When boy get better," his old friend breathed. It was more of a question than a statement.
Ben placed a hand on Hop Sing's shoulder and for a moment they stood there, united in their concern for this man they had reared and loved from a child. Then, with a shake of his head, he turned and walked out the door.
As soon as he entered the yard, Ben saw that the smaller door to the barn was open. In all likelihood Joe was still within, as he would have had to open the larger one in order to ride out. Quietly, the older man crossed the yard and stepped in. Joe had his hip anchored on the edge of the table they kept in the area that served as a sort of office.
There was a whiskey bottle in his hand.
As he watched, his son placed something in his mouth and then he lifted the bottle and took a long, drawn out swig. Curious – in truth, frightened – Ben cleared his throat, making it apparent he was there.
Joe looked at him, his expression as sheepish as it had been when, as a boy, he'd caught him kissing a girl in the church closet.
"Hey, Pa," he said, his voice feeble.
"Hey, yourself." The older man crossed to the table. Taking one of the chairs from its side, he pulled it back and sat in it.
He said nothing.
Joe remained silent for several heartbeats and then asked, "Is Jamie okay?"
"I wouldn't know. He ran straight up the stairs to his room and locked his door." Ben paused. "Do you know anything about that?"
His son hesitated. "I guess he was angry with me."
"I see." He studied Marie's boy. The beating Joe had taken earlier was evident in his split lip and the bruising on his face and neck. But there was something else. Something...indefinable.
Something wrong.
"And did Jamie have a reason to be angry?"
Joe looked straight at him. It seemed he had aged a decade in the last few hours.
"Pa, I need to go away."
Ben steeled himself. He'd seen this coming.
"You're a grown man. I can't stop you."
Joe's expressive eyebrows danced. "That's it? No argument, just goodbye? It's been nice to know you?"
The older man spread his hands wide. "Obviously, I don't want you to go."
"It might be nice to hear it," his son said quietly.
"And if I had said 'no', you would have acquiesced and gone docilely back into the house?" Ben shifted. "If you want to go, there's nothing I can do to keep you from it. I can tell you, though, that it won't work. Joseph, what's wrong is inside you. You'll take it with you wherever you go."
His son stood and walked over to look out the window that fronted on the house. "You're speakin' from experience, I suppose."
"Yes."
Joe looked over his shoulder. "I'm not you, Pa. I don't know if... If I've got in me what you had in you to make it through."
Ben rose and walked to his son's side. He placed a hand on his shoulder. Joe was trembling like a leaf. "You may not know, but I do."
His son was silent for a second. "Did Candy tell you what Abel Ramsey said to me?"
The older man shook his head and lied. "No."
"Ramsey said Bill Tanner broke me, Pa. Broke me like a wild mustang." Joe's jaw grew tight even as tears appeared in his eyes. "And you know what? He's right."
His fingers tightened on his son's shoulder. "So what if it is? Joseph, you know why we tame horses. It's not about breaking them. It's about teaching them to bend. It's about taking something that is wild and reckless, something that might injure itself or others, and turning it into something positive that has a purpose. Joseph," he paused, "do you understand?"
His son crumpled before his eyes. Ben caught him just as he hit his knees and circled him with his arms. Together they knelt in the dirt and debris of the barn. Joe's fingers gripped his pale blue shirt, digging into the fabric as he desperately clung to him.
His face pressed into his shoulder, his son breathed, "Pa, help me. I'm so alone. I can't find my way back."
"You're not alone, Joseph. You'll never be alone." Tears streamed down his face. "I'm here and I'll help you find your way back. Son," his voice grew stern, "look at me."
Joe did as he was told. His face was that of the child he had been.
"Do you trust me?"
It took a second, but he nodded.
Ben forced a smile. "Remember that time when you were five and climbed Eagle's Nest?" He knew he did, and so he continued. "It was night by the time I found you. I could hear you crying. I was coming to get you, but you couldn't see me. You thought you were all alone. That no one was coming. That you would never make it home." He placed his hand over his son's trembling one. "Am I right?"
Joe nodded again.
"But you did make it home. Someone did come. You were not alone." Ben drew a breath. "Son, you're not alone this time either. We'll make it through this. You'll make it through this."
Joe sniffed. "Are you sure, Pa?"
He ran his hand through his son's curly locks, marveling as the light streaming through the window turned them to pure silver.
"I'm sure."
Joe remained still for a moment and then he said, "I need to apologize to Jamie."
"I imagine you do."
His son rose to his feet. Joe ran the back of his sleeve over his face, wincing when he hit his sore lip. Then he smiled.
"Thanks, Pa."
With a shy grin, Joe disentangled himself and headed out of the barn.
Ben remained behind for some time, thinking. Joseph had always been a study in contradictions. Vibrant and alive one moment, optimistic and enthusiastic, and then just as suddenly sullen and depressed and given to dark moods that at times frightened him. The thing that saved Marie's boy was that there had always been a balance, as many good days as bad, as much laughter as anger.
It had been many weeks since he had heard his son laugh.
Rising slowly, Ben made for the door. As he walked, his foot encountered something laying on the floor. Reaching down, he realized it was the liquor bottle Joe had been holding. With the memory of his son guzzling the whiskey came another. What was it Joe had swallowed just as he came in the barn, or was it only his imagination that he had? Maybe his split lip was hurting him? Perhaps, he had been wiping away a trickle of blood.
Relegating his concern over what he had seen to the back of his mind, Ben Cartwright concentrated on the needs of the moment as he headed toward the house, leaving that question for another time.
It was a mistake.