Disclaimer: I do NOT own Bonanza nor any of the original Cartwright characters.

A/N I can not promise the chapters to this story will be posted on any day but a weekend...as schoolwork has become top priority. (has to if I'm to pass the classes).

Also, while "Mariah" was not in 'His Father's Son'...she made it into this story. ;) (ookkkk LOL)

For Jacob's Sake

Chapter Two

Scene Two

The sun shone through the window and sent its yellow rays dancing upon Little Jacob's face. Slowly the young boy stirred, groaned then opened his eyes. It took a moment for him to remember where he was and then he sat straight up. His father and the others would be worried sick about him. He had to get home!

"Whoa, there youngin'," the old man laughed and grabbed him as he darted for the front door, "Ya have to eat breakfast and," he chuckled, "I dare say we need to mend those britches of yers before ya go runnin' off." He had no intention of letting the boy go anywhere by himself but he knew the lad would fight him if he knew that and, at his age, the old man didn't feel up to a fight with anyone.

Little Jacob looked at the holes in his brand new pair of pants and listened as his stomach growled slightly, "Grandma Mariah is always sayin' 'first things first'. Guess you are right. I will have to wait. Besides, come to think 'bout it. I do not even know where I am! We were on that horse of yours for quite a spell before getting here."

"This place has been in my family for years," the old man sat down across from his guest, "The Ponderosa actually connects to a part of it but it's a part that is barren and useless in my opinion. I have not been on that side in years; not until I found ya that is. Guess I know why I felt pulled to it." He said as he thought on the name the boy had thrown out. Mariah. Now there was a name he hadn't heard for many years. Not too many women seemed to have it; well, not the ones he knew anyway. "Yer grandma sounds like a wise woman too."

"I guess so, I only just met her a little while 'go. I will say this much; she sure does not look like a grandma to me-what with her pants and that gun of hers." Jacob answered as he watched the old man put breakfast in front of him. So intent was he on eating he did not see the look of shock that came upon the gentleman's face.

"Yer grandma wears pants and a gun?" he asked as the wheels in his mind began turning. Was it really possible? After all these years?

"Yes, sir," Little Jacob smiled as he finished, "Not as much as she used to from what my grandfather says only I still see her dress that way at least once a week."

"You are a no good low down liar and we both know it! It will be a cold day in hell before I ever speak to ya again! Get off this land and stay off! Yer kind is not wanted around here!" The words thrown at him twenty years before came sounding back in his ears. He sighed. He'd deserved every one of them and he knew it. The few who still knew him had been amazed at the change that had come over him since then but she didn't know-and if this boy's grandmother was the same Mariah..."She is yer father's stepmother?" he asked as he watched the boy finish his food.

"Yes, sir. How did you know that?" Little Jacob looked up at the stranger with his eyebrows turned down; clearly the child was confused.

'Ya have to get back to yer family and I am too old...' the man stopped himself. He may be 'too old' but the lad needed to get back to his family. They would not come this far out...not if Mariah was a Cartwright now. If anything she'd rightfully think she needed to warn them away from the place. Why had he waited so long to change? "Does not matter. Put yer plate over on the counter. We have a long trip ahead of us." What choice did he have?

Scene Three

Adam, Ben and Mariah rode their horses in and out of trees and over more than one path. "Jacob! Jacob!" Adam yelled hoping against hope to hear his son answer him back. The fear he felt in his heart could be seen in his eyes and heard in his voice.

Ben hated seeing his son hurt. He knew the pain. All the times he'd spent looking for one of his sons had flooded through his mind over the past few days. Naturally, the first memory that came to him was the one of Little Jacob being brought to his home by the Mexican fellow and having to go through the hell of trying to find Adam before it was too late. 'Dear Lord, help us find my grandson!' he sent the silent plea upwards.

Mariah pulled up on her reigns; her eyes caught on a shiny object. "What is it?" Ben asked as she dismounted her horse and hurried over to where the object lay next to a rock.

She knelt down and picked the tiny sheriff's badge up, "Adam, did ya say you gave Little Jacob yer old sheriff's badge years ago?"

Adam's heart jumped out of his chest as he flew off his horse and over to where Mariah was kneeling. He held out his hand as she handed him the rusted badge.

"He has been by this way," Adam started yelling again only this time louder and with more urgency than before, "JACOB!"

Mariah and Ben tied their horses to some nearby trees and began looking and calling themselves.

O0o

"So, sir, what is your name?" Little Jacob did not fight as the long silver haired gentleman helped him up onto the horse. Soon the old man was sitting behind him and, holding the rope secured to his only animal; a mule, they headed down the canyon.

'If I told ya what yer grandmother calls me I'd a have ta wash my mouth out with soap' he couldn't help but chuckle at the thought that ran through his mind, "Ya can just call me, Jim. It is the only name I go by anymore." Only name that didn't have mud attached to it and he didn't want that stuff back on the clean name he had worked so hard to get.

As they rode in silence Jim just prayed that if Mariah saw the two of them together she'd let him get a word in edge wise before she shot him.