I do NOT own Bonanza or any of the original Cartwright characters.

Star's Hope

Chapter Thirteen

Jason and his friends were just standing up to leave when Ben came barreling into the room with his sons and Foster on his heels. One look at the fury filled faces looking at Mitchell and his guests and every one of the other patrons hightailed it out the door. The bartender wanted to, but he figured he'd have a mess to clean up. He was right. When Jason's friends tried to run Hoss and Little Joe blocked their path, while Ben went after Mitchell. Foster knew it wasn't according to the law, but he hopped up on the bar and watched. He figured Mr. Mitchell and his men had it coming. If things got too out of hand, he still had his pistol.

Scott lunged at Hoss only to have the man's fist send him half way across the room and into a table. When he tried to get up, Hoss knocked him out cold, and then dragged him over to where Foster was sitting. By that time Little Joe had, in spite of taking several punches to either his face or abdomen, succeeded in subduing Jeffery and forcing him to walk over by the sheriff.

Ben, who had been knocked down came up swinging, Jason found himself stumbling backwards. Before he could get a hold of his balance, Ben had him by the collar and was pushing him up against the wall. "WHERE'S MY WIFE!"

Jason shook his head and started laughing insanely, "Ain't right for a white man to marry an Indian; they cause a man nothing but grief! I should know!" Ben had shock waves go through him as he remembered that when the man had come to Virginia City he had merely said he'd been married once, but he'd never talked about it. So that's where the real trouble lay, just because Jason had a bad experience the man had decided that everyone with Indian blood in them was bad. What a hypocrite! Ben jerked him forward and slammed him up against the wall once more. The man was knocked out. Ben turned his rage towards the men with the sheriff's deputy. Jeffery was wiser than Jason had been. After all, he'd do time behind bars, but not as much if he spilled the beans.

"He hired us," Jeffery started talking, Scott tried to get to him, but Hoss held both his arms tightly, "He said he couldn't stand having any kind of Indian married to a white man."

Little Joe stared at Jeffery. In between Jason's words and Jeffery's, Little Joe an old memory came to the front of his mind. The memory was of an Indian woman yelling at her soldier husband, Jason, in her native tongue. He hadn't understood the words, but he had understood the words their First Lieutenant had said to the man after the woman had stormed off. "You brought this upon yourself. You took her for granted and lost her." Little Joe was both dumbfounded and furious. Jason screwed up and was blaming everyone else, especially anyone who shared anything in common with his first wife! "Where is she?" He grabbed Jeffery before Ben could. The man shook his head, "I don't rightly know now. We took her to a cabin up in the mountains and met a Luke Cunningham, a friend's of Jason's. He needed a squaw…" he never got another word out as Little Joe doubled up his fist and planted it into the man's abdomen and then across his face.

"That's enough, Joe," Ben, who had seemed to come to his senses after seeing the rage inside of his son. Ben was realizing how close he'd came to killing Jason. He grabbed a hold of his son's arm, "We need to find Brooke!"

Foster finally got off the bar. "Help me get these men down to the jail. If they're wise," he said as he looked at Scott, who was scowling at them, "they'll give us an exact location, and we can get to looking for your wife, Ben! We need to save our energy for that."

Saving energy was a luxury Jamie and Brooke did not have. They pushed their horses in the direction Brooke was leading them. The two did not dare slow down. Not knowing how long Mr. Cunningham would be out, they were doing their best to put as much distance between the three of them. "Why you with bad man?" Brooke asked as she and Jamie rode down yet another path.

Jamie sighed. "A while back I needed some money desperately, medical bills on my pa; he's dead now, and Mr. Cunningham paid the bill after I promised to work for him for a spell. I'd have left long ago, if it weren't for that promise. But this, taking anyone against their will and forcing them to work for you, that's wrong." He couldn't have lived with himself if he had just stood by and did nothing. That, being silent, was the same as saying he agreed with it.

"Where you go when I home?" Brooke was concerned as, in her eyes; the boy was too young to have to fend for himself. Oh, sure, a lot of men had been taking care of themselves at his age, some boys still did; she just didn't like it.

Jamie shrugged his shoulders as the sun began to set. He didn't know, and he wasn't thinking about it at that moment. He knew if he took the time to dwell on that he would grow careless. "Let's not worry about that for now. Let's hurry up and find a good place to camp, a place that is not easily seen."