NINE
"Mr. Cartwright?"
Ben Cartwright stirred and looked up from the bill of sale he had read at least a half dozen times. It was about an hour before supper. Adam and Hoss were still on the range. He had come home early troubled by the brief conversation he had had with his youngest son that morning. When he had gone up to talk to Joe, the boy had been so much on edge that he had only asked him one or two questions and then left. He'd met Phoebe in the hall and she said she would look after him. Tonight, when he returned, Joe was asleep and Phoebe was in her room, so he had come downstairs to catch up on paper work.
It was Phoebe who'd called him. The redhead stood with her hand on the lower newel post. She hesitated on the steps as if awaiting his permission to descend into the Great Room.
Ben put the paper down on the table before him. "Phoebe, please. Join me." As the young woman responded, he asked, "Would you like me to have Hop Sing fix you some tea, or maybe something to eat?"
She shook her head. "Though it's most kind of you to ask."
Phoebe Howath was dressed today in a gown cut from a lovely pale blue fabric with a deeper blue pattern worked over it. She had her hair in a ponytail. Golden-red curls cascaded from the ribbon that held it in place. As she took a seat opposite him on the settee, she spread her skirts wide. Then, as though nervous, her fingers began to pick at the folds of cloth and to arrange them in a pattern.
When she said nothing, Ben asked, "Is there something else I can do for you?"
The redhead straightened one more fold, pressing it on top of another, and then looked up. "I'd like to talk to you about Little Joe. I know it's presumptuous – "
He cut her off. "Nonsense. Your presence at the Ponderosa has been the one ray of light in this dark matter. May I ask? Are you planning on leaving us?"
Phoebe blinked. "Do you want me to?"
"No. But Joe is mending and I thought perhaps you had come to tell me you would like to get back to your own life."
Her face pinched. "That's part of why I wanted to talk to you." The young woman drew a deep, long breath. "Mr. Cartwright –"
"Ben , please."
"Ben. What do you think of me?"
He shrugged. "You're a beautiful compassionate young woman who has freely given of her time and talents to take care of my son. What do you think I think of you?"
Phoebe knitted her fingers together on top of her blue skirt. "You know what I am."
"I just said what you are."
Her mouth drew into a line. "You do know what I do for a living. Don't you?"
He considered being vague, working his way around it and so on, but in the end decided to be honest. "Yes, I know what you do."
"Upstairs as well as downstairs at the Bucket?"
"Yes. Phoebe, what is this?"
The young woman rose and walked to the hearth where she stood looking at the fire. "I was very young when I began to work at the saloon. Just over sixteen. At first I ran errands and helped with the upkeep. Sometimes I would deliver drinks to the tables." She looked back at him. "That all changed when I became nineteen. That's when I began to...pleasure men."
Why was she telling him this?
"Go on," Ben said.
"It's been two years and, in that time, I have known many terrible things...have seen many terrible things. A girl like me, there's no right to say 'no' to anything a man wants." She glanced at him from under lidded eyes. "It didn't seem so bad at the Bucket since, well, I'd been in the same position before. There was a man back where I came from – a rich man. I worked for him and he took a liking to me. At first, the attention was flattering but then, as the days went on and he grew more and more demanding, I began to be frightened of him. I ran, but only after he struck me and told me that was my one 'warning'."
"You were beaten?"
She looked up. "Yes. When I recovered, I told him I never wanted to see him again. When he didn't listen, I ran. He followed me from town to town and finally caught me." Phoebe wrapped her arms around her chest. Her voice grew still. "This time he did more than beat me."
The fire behind her cracked, the sound startling in the silence that followed her last statement. Ben was at a loss for words.
Phoebe crossed over to him and took a seat on the table in front of the settee. "It's that I wanted to talk to you about."
"I thought you wanted to talk about Joe."
"Mister Cartwright, I know this is going to be hard to hear, but I know what happened to Joe." When he started, she added, "I've seen it before."
"Seen it?"
"And experienced it as I said. That man, the rich one who couldn't get me to give him what he wanted?" Phoebe looked down. "He took it by force. He beat me and had his way with me and left me for dead."
"Good Lord!" Ben sighed.
"So, you see. I know what happened to Joe." The redhead paused. "And I know what it will do to him if he remembers, because I know what it did to me."
The older man sank back in his chair. "And what did it do to you?"
The redhead's fingers returned to working the fabric of her dress. Again, she didn't look at him. Ben noticed, as she recalled her terrible journey, that Phoebe's body language changed – she seemed to wither.
"At first I just couldn't believe it happened. There had been other men, some of them cruel, but this was...different. I couldn't talk about it, even to the other girls. I tried to go on normally, but then," her eyes flicked to his face, 'then I began to have nightmares and as I relived what happened, I began to blame myself. I shouldn't have looked so pretty that night. I should have been able to get away. Everything became my fault and not his and that made me sad and then guilty. I felt helpless, powerless, and that made me angry, and since there was no one to be angry with other than myself, I fell into a very dark place."
Ben had his elbow on the chair arm. His chin was on his hand. He looked over his fingers at her. "Why are you telling me this?"
Phoebe moved to sit beside him on the settee. "Ben, what happened to Joe had nothing to do with pleasure. It was about power and control. The man who did this wants to own Joe, just like the man who took advantage of me wants to own me." She paused. "I am telling you this for two reasons. First of all, the man who assaulted me is still making threats. He intends to finish what he began."
"And you're worried it might be the same with Joseph."
"Yes."
"You said two reasons."
"Ben, you have no reason to trust me. I'm practically a stranger. But, well, I think I can help Little Joe." She hesitated, as if unsure of her words. "Maybe I can help him when none of you can. Partly because I am a stranger, but mostly because I have felt everything he is feeling."
"And because you are a woman. That's why Paul wanted you here."
Her smile was wan. "That too."
Ben sighed again. "I know, Joe. It won't be easy to get him to take help from anyone."
"That's part of what I wanted to talk to you about too. If Little Joe thinks I am here just for him, he'll turn me away. I was wondering..."
"Yes?"
"Maybe you could hire me, temporarily? To help in the kitchen or some such thing? That way I could remain, but Joe wouldn't think it was for him."
He nodded. "There's a cattle drive coming up and I was going to send Hop Sing with the men."
The young woman struggled to hide her surprise. "You're thinking of it?"
The older man straightened up. He took her by the hand. "Why wouldn't I?"
"Because of what I am!" she blurted out. The redhead looked down. "I'm unclean, Ben. I don't deserve to be around your son. I just hoped... Well, maybe I could help."
Ben took a finger and raised her chin. "That's not what you are."
She sniffed and a tear trailed down her cheek. "No?"
"No. Let me tell you what you are, Phoebe Howath. You are a beautiful and intelligent young woman who has had more thrown at her than most and you have survived." When she started to protest, he said, "You listen to me, you are not a victim – you are a survivor."
Ben smiled.
"And the perfect teacher for my son."
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Joe wasn't supposed to be up and out of bed, but he was. He'd actually thought of locking the door to his room to keep everyone out but decided against it, as he knew it would only make his father and brothers all the more determined to come in and that was the last thing he wanted them to do. He was standing, staring at his bedside table and the objects on it, his knuckles white on the table's edge. He didn't want to see anybody. Joe stirred and then turned and looked across the room, noting his blurred reflection in the dresser mirror.
He didn't even want to see himself.
Outside it was dark and that suited his mood, since it was dark too. As the night masked the harsh realities of the day, the darkness within him was hard at work at the same thing – trying to swallow whatever it was that had happened to him and failing. He still didn't know exactly what it was. He'd been hit over the head and they said he'd been robbed. He didn't remember the robbery. He really didn't remember much. But what he did remember...
Joe swallowed hard over a lump in his throat the size of Nevada.
What he did remember was disturbing.
Joe crossed over to his bed and sat on its edge. Up until the time Roy Coffee had come, everything had been a blank. He'd tried so hard to remember – to see what had happened. He'd never thought about using his other senses, scent and sound and...touch. When the Sheriff's question awakened them he'd been flooded with all kinds of impressions – the smell of whiskey mixed with sweat, the pressure on his backside, rough fingers on his throat... But worst of all were the words. They echoed in his mind, repeating, never stopping, never going away.
'I want you, pretty boy.'
Joe shuddered. 'Pretty boy'.
No. He...couldn't go there. Not now.
Maybe not ever.
Rising, Joe began to pace the room, seeking in the confined space to escape his thoughts. He walked it from one end to the other a dozen times counting the paces, filling his brain with numbers, driving out the 'maybes' and the 'could have beens, as well as the 'No way in Hells!' His wandering took him to the other side of the room where his dresser was. He stopped and looked at his reflection. He hardly recognized himself. His skin was pale from lack of sun and his cheeks were hollow, sunken from days of pain and lack of food. But it was his eyes that bothered him the most.
They were haunted by a kind of dread.
A knock on the door jolted him and Joe jumped. A second later a voice asked, "Joe, can I come in?"
It was Adam.
Joe drew a deep breath and held it. Maybe if he kept quiet Adam would go away.
"Joe?"
But no, that wouldn't work. Adam would come in to check on him and he'd be forced to talk. It took only a second for him to decide that retreat was the wisest course. Flying across the room, Joe dove into his bed and pulled the sheets up to his chin, wincing as he landed. Slamming his eyes shut, he pretended to sleep.
A second later the door opened. "Joe, are you awake?"
No, I'm not, he thought. Not if it means I have to talk to you.
Joe heard Adam's intake of breath, followed by the release of it in a sigh. Seconds later he felt his eldest brother's presence beside him. Then, to his chagrin, Adam sat on the side of the bed and reached out and touched his shoulder.
"Joe?"
He had to choose – face his brother or pretend to sleep.
He chose the latter.
Adam sighed again. He didn't lift his hand. Speaking quietly, his brother began to talk as if he could hear him – not knowing, of course, that he did.
"Joe," he said softly, "I know you can't hear me, but maybe somehow you'll know what I say. I wanted to... I'm sorry for not being there for you the last few days. It's hard to explain."
Joe winced. He felt like a lout.
"I know we're brothers, but, well, I've always felt, in a way, that you were my kid as much as Pa's. Those first years, when Hoss was little and Pa was away all the time, it was my job to keep both of you safe. Hoss was big as me by five but you, Joe, you were like your mother, small-boned and, I thought, fragile." His brother laughed. "You proved me wrong on that one fast enough." Adam shifted and lifted his hand. "I don't know what I'm trying to tell you, Joe. I guess it's just that most of the time when you think I don't trust you, when you think I think of you as a child and won't give you responsibility or accept the fact that you can take it, I'm really, well, afraid that something will happen to you and it will be my fault." He heard his brother draw in a deep breath. "Like it is now."
Joe was caught in a strange place. He knew he should shift, moan, do something to indicate to Adam that he was awake or waking, so his brother wouldn't say something he would regret. But, at the same time, he wanted to stay still.
He wanted this window into Adam's soul.
Adam shifted and then fell silent. Joe cracked one eyelid to see if he could tell what he was doing. His brother remained on the bed. Adam had his head in his hands.
Just as he decided he should say something, Adam turned and looked at him again.
"I'm so sorry, Joe. I'm sorry for not being strong enough to say 'no'. For not ordering you to come home that night. You know, sometimes you think when you love someone that means you should give in to what they want. Pa never does. He's got it right. I gave in and look" – his brother's voice broke – "look what I've done." Adam got suddenly to his feet. Joe peeked again and saw him walk over to the window. Once there, his brother leaned on the sash and looked out. A few seconds later, to his astonishment, he watched Adam strike away a tear.
Still a coward, Joe closed his eyes again as his brother returned to the side of the bed.
"One thing more, Joe, and then I'll go," Adam said, his voice shaking with emotion. "I swear on the love I bear you that – no matter how long it takes – I will find the man who did this to you and I will break him. If I have to, I will end his life with my bare hands." His brother paused. "I know that won't undo the damage, but maybe, just maybe, it will bring you peace.
"Something I doubt I will ever know again."
Seconds later Joe heard the door close. He waited a few more and then rolled over. A heartbeat later he climbed out of bed and went to the door where he listened before opening it. Stepping out into the hall he listened again. He heard Adam and Pa exchange a few words and then the front door of the house open and close.
Returning to his bed, Joe sat on the side of it again. He was not quite certain what to make of his brother's words. He understood that Adam was nearly bent in half under the weight of what had happened to him, but he still wasn't sure exactly why. He'd been beaten badly, but he'd been beaten before and Adam knew he'd be fine. What else could it be? Joe closed his eyes and concentrated on the memories Roy's questions had evoked. He smelled the whiskey mixed with sweat again, felt the pressure on his backside, began to choke with the fingers on his throat, and heard the words. Those damn words.
'I want you, pretty boy'.
Joe grew still as the words collided with the smell and the sound and the touch and he was propelled back to that night.
He was in the dark, circling Pointer's Arch. He saw Beck's pale face flash in the darkness and the moon glint off the barrel of the gun his friend carried. With a nod he entered the space between the towering rocks. It was even blacker than the night. There was a sound – a sigh, a shifting in the dark, and then something hard came down on the back of his neck. Consciousness fled and he fell prone to the ground.
That should have been all he could remember. It was all he had been able to remember for a week now.
But there was more.
Joe remembered swimming up out of the darkness and clawing at wakefulness, though it was hard. His head pounded and rang like someone was laying on the front porch bell, pulling the string over and over and over again. The world around him was a watercolor blur that wouldn't keep still and kept winking in and out like a shuttered light on a stormy night. He tried to lift his body up but couldn't. That was when he became aware of two men. One was standing before him. The other was behind and on top of him. A hand found his neck and pressed his head down, making him eat dirt. Then, whoever it was, leaned in. He felt the brush of whiskers on his cheek and then he heard those words.
'I want you, pretty boy.'
Joe's knuckles were white where they gripped the bedclothes, twisting the fabric like it was the man's neck. In the stillness of the room he could hear his heartbeat. It was rapid. He was breathing hard, like he was in the middle of a fight. His body tensed, awaiting the next blow.
The hand that held his neck shifted to his arm. Another one joined it. Together they took hold of his sleeve and roughly peeled off his suit coat. Next the hands caught hold of his dress shirt and ripped it in half, leaving the remnants lying beneath him. He'd winked out again then, but when he woke up he could feel the wind on his backside and knew he was near naked. Close by one of the men was pacing, walking back and forth, muttering under his breath. He heard the sound of a man's fist slapping his palm and then, once again, the stink of whiskey and sweat, the pressure on his back, and the words...
Only they were different this time.
'Don't worry, Joe, everything's gonna be all right.'
Joe gasped and began to shake uncontrollably. He knew what had been done to him, but worse than that.
It had been done by someone he knew.
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Phoebe stepped outside after her conversation with Ben. She'd forgotten a shawl so she sat on the porch with her arms wrapped tightly around her body, trying to keep warm. She hadn't been there ten minutes when the front door opened and Adam Cartwright stepped out. Even though Adam was the one who had suggested she come to the Ponderosa, of all of the Cartwrights he was the one she had had the least dealings with since her arrival. The handsome black-haired man was often away, but more than that, seemed to have no interest in conversing with her the few times he had come home.
As he came abreast her, Ben's oldest son paused. "Aren't you cold?" he asked.
She stifled a shiver. "I'm all right."
Phoebe had noticed that Adam had a funny little thing he did with his lips, where the ends pulled up like a bow. He'd tilt his head then and raise one eyebrow as if whatever it was he looked at puzzled him.
He was doing it now.
"I'll go get you a wrap," he said, surprising her. A moment later when he returned with a small throw and draped it around her shoulders, Ben's eldest said, "Now we can't have the nurse needing nursing, can we?"
She caught the throw in her fingers and pulled it tightly about her throat. The warmth was wonderful. "No, I guess not," she said. "Thank you."
Adam nodded and then stepped off of the porch. Instead of walking on, he turned his face up and looked at the stars. "One pay-off for a frosty November day is a clear night sky. Look at those stars."
They were beautiful and brilliant, but stars had always seemed cold to her – distant and dispassionate. It seemed they looked on humanity with its triumphs and tragedies with indifference. "They are amazing to look at out here," she admitted. "When I was little I lived in a city. You couldn't see them there like you can here."
"I know," Adam said, surprising her with the conversation. "When I went to school back East, it was one of the things I missed."
Emboldened, Phoebe echoed, "One of the things?"
"That, and Hop Sing's cooking," he quipped.
The redhead laughed. "Well, Hop Sing's cooking is remarkable."
Adam went to the table and took a seat. "Pa just told me you will be filling in for Hop Sing in a few days when the hands hit the trail."
"Little Joe is getting better. I don't think it will be very long before he doesn't need me. I've only been checking in on him a few times a day as it is." She met that curious gaze. "It's time I pulled my weight around here or went back home."
"And you don't want to go home?"
Phoebe ducked her head. "Adam, to be truthful, I have no home. The Bucket is certainly not that, and my mother, well, she doesn't want me living with her and my younger sister and brother. Not...not with what I do for a living."
"You mean, being a saloon girl?"
She looked at her hands. "And all that goes with it," Phoebe said quietly.
Adam remained silent a moment. "You know, Phoebe, when you first offered to come here, I wondered about your motives. It's pretty obvious what your feelings are for Joe."
"And you worried I hoped to make him dependent on me by making him grateful for what I had done?"
Adam shrugged. "I considered it."
"Well, Joe's big brother, you needn't worry," she said softly as she rose. "Even if Joe cared for me in that way, I know I would never be accepted as a Cartwright, and after what I have seen – experienced here, there is no way I would do anything to drive a wedge between Joe and his family. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll be going inside."
The man in black stopped her with a hand on her arm. "What do you mean, 'never be accepted as a Cartwright'?"
She met his puzzled gaze. "Oh, Adam, don't be naive. You know what I am."
"No," he said, "tell me what you are."
The skin around Phoebe's blue eyes pinched. "You're being cruel."
"No, I'm not. You know, slapping a label on something limits its possibilities. If I pick up a bottle and its labeled 'rot gut', I know I'm not getting champagne. However, if the bottle has no label, well then, I have to test it to know what it's made of." Adam paused. "You've been tested this past week, Phoebe, and we know what you're made of."
Tears filled her eyes and spilled over onto her cheeks. The oldest of the Cartwright boys looked nonplussed.
"What did I say?" he asked.
Phoebe lifted a hand, struck the tears away, and shook her head.
Adam waited until she looked up at him. "Thank you," he said simply. "Thank you for what you have done for Joe. I can't begin to tell you how grateful I am for everything."
She shook her head. "It's nothing. Joe was kind to me – "
"Even though you didn't deserve it?"
There was an edge to his voice. Startled, she looked at him. Then she realized what Adam was doing. He was giving word to her thoughts.
"Yes," she answered.
Adam withdrew his hand. "Phoebe, a wise friend once told me that we cannot achieve more in life than what we believe in our heart of hearts we deserve to have. You'll never escape that saloon, or the life you've led, until you believe that you can."
Another tear fell. "Why are you being so kind?"
He caught her chin in his fingers and lifted her head so she could look at him. "Because, after the care you have given my brother, expecting nothing in return, you do deserve it."
Behind them the door opened. As the interior light spilled out into the night, Ben Cartwright's tall broad form filled the door. Phoebe turned toward him and immediately knew something was wrong.
"Adam," Ben asked, "is your brother with you?"
"You mean Hoss? You know he's still out on the range, Pa."
The silver-haired man shook his head. "Not Hoss. Joe."
Phoebe watched the man in black go rigid. "Joe's not in his room?"
Ben shook his head. "I just went up to check in on him. Joseph's not in his bed and he's not anywhere else in the house. I was hoping he was out here with you."
"Sorry to say it, Pa, but he's not."
The older man sighed. "I should never have let Roy question him."
"You couldn't have stopped it. Roy's the law."
"And I am Joe's father." The older man turned and, building up a head of steam, headed for the house. "Adam, saddle our horses. We're going after him." Ben threw his hands up in the air. "By God! What am I going to do with that boy?"
"Pa, I think we should leave Joe alone."
Ben spun back. Phoebe felt his fear and fury as he demanded, "You what?"
"If this has to do with Roy questioning Joe, Pa – if Joe's remembered something more – then he may need to be alone."
"Your brother needs his family around him."
When Adam saw he was not going to persuade his father, he changed tactics. "All right then, let me go. Alone."
"Adam, no – "
"Pa, listen to me, if one of us goes, I think it should be me. You know how Joe is, he'll talk to Hoss or me before he does you." At his father's look, he added with a shrug, "It's just the way we are."
The older man considered it. "All right." Lifting a finger, he pointed it at the man in black. "But if you are not back here – with your brother – in four hours time, I am coming to find you both. Do you understand?"
Adam nodded.
After his father had gone back inside, Phoebe asked, "Where do you think Joe went?"
The man in black turned toward her. "I don't think, I know," he said. "Just like Pa knows, because it's where we would have gone."
"And where is that?"
He looked to the north.
"Back to the scene of the crime."
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TEN
Joe was exhausted by the time he reached Pointer's Arch. Not only was he plain worn out, but each step Cochise took was a jolt of agony to a body that had had too much.
Everything hurt.
But he wasn't going to let that stop him. It was there – close – like a word on the tip of his tongue, the memory of all that had happened. He knew now that he had to find the monster who had done this to him before his brother did – before Adam peered into the darkness so long that it looked back into him. He had never heard such words come out of his cool, calm brother. Adam was a man of action, but it was well-thought out action. Unlike him, Adam didn't act on impulse.
Or at least he never had before.
Joe shivered and pulled the collar of his nightshirt closer about his throat. What his brother had expressed tonight when he thought he was asleep was pure raw emotion. It frightened him, not for himself, but for Adam. He realized now that his older brother was hurting nearly as much as he was. Adam was bent under a load of guilt bigger than a man could bear. He blamed himself.
Now Joe knew for what.
A wave of nausea washed over him as he carefully dismounted and tethered Cochise to a tree. Joe stood for a moment, leaning his head on the saddle, and then turned to face what lay before him. There, silhouetted against the risen moon, was the Arch. It's piled stones loomed over him like the tower in the Brothers' Grimm fairy tale his brother Hoss used to read him, the one called, 'The Pink', in which a woman, unjustly accused, is imprisoned in a high stone tower where neither sun nor moon could be seen. The space within the stones of Pointer's Arch was like that. It was black as the Devil's heart.
It both terrified and called to him.
Joe steeled himself. If he was going to free his brother from deep guilt and himself from the deeper, rising tide of shame and disgrace that threatened to overwhelm him – if he was ever going to be able to call himself a 'man' again, ever to look at his brothers and his father without feeling that same shame, then this was something he had to do.
He had to face the monster head-on.
Drawing a deep breath, the man with the curly brown hair held it and then let it out slowly.
Then Joe stepped into the Arch.
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Adam saddled Sport and flew out of the ranch, pushing both the horse and himself as hard as he could. Though he still believed it would have been better to give Joe some room, he knew his father meant what he said and the older man would follow hard on his heels as soon as the four hour limit had expired. As he galloped toward Virginia City and Pointer's Arch, the man in black considered what he would do when he got there if that was indeed where his little brother had gone. If Joe's memory had returned, what would he say to him? How would he help him?
How could he make Joe understand it made no difference?
Pointer's Arch was about four miles outside of town, so he knew – pushing Sport as he was – that he could make it in under an hour. That would give him an hour or so to find and talk to his brother before they would need to head back. Considering the subject, that was probably far too little or far too much time in which to do so. He wondered now, since Joe had left the house so soon after his visit, if his little brother had been awake for a part of it. Maybe, as he'd feared, something he'd said in that unguarded moment had served as a trigger, bringing back more detail of that horrible night. Adam's jaw clenched and tightened as he swallowed over a wave of nausea. A man never truly knew what he was made of until he was taken to the end of his mental and spiritual rope, and then driven to the place where his hands reached for it, but found nothing.
Nothing but what was already in him.
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Joe was in the Arch. It was completely dark where he stood but that didn't mean the darkness was empty. It was filled with hazy indistinguishable shadows that moved with a life of their own. The shadows shifted, moving around him, leaning in, towering over him like whoever it had been who had straddled him and ridden him like an animal. Again he smelled that scent – whiskey and sweat – and heard the hateful words ring in his ears. Closing his eyes, Joe listened this time, searching for something in the voice – a certain accent, a turn of phrase, anything that might lead him to recognize who the man was.
'I want you, pretty boy.'
'Don't worry, Joe, everything's gonna be all right.'
Whoever it was knew him by name. That meant the attack hadn't been a random act or one of opportunity, but had been well thought out and planned.
Joe sickened. He thought he was going to vomit. Planned.
Who planned on destroying a man?
As he continued to press for more, as he went over and over and over the attack again in his mind, Joe's heart began to pound fast and hard as a spooked herd dashing across the baked earth of the desert. It pounded so hard and rushed so fast he was afraid it might just burst out of his chest. Lightheaded, he dropped to his knees. His knuckles went white where he gripped the grass and for a moment he was overwhelmed by the deepest, most desperate rage he had ever known. All too quickly, though, the rage betrayed him. Like a sudden storm it passed, leaving guilt and grief and shame and despair – oh, God, the despair! – in its wake. He fought it, but he lost.
The tears flowed.
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Adam spotted Cochise tethered to a tree before he got to Pointer's Arch. He halted where he was and dismounted. Leaving Sport behind, the man in black continued forward on foot.
The night was black. The stars he and Phoebe had been looking at had winked out, hidden by clouds that hinted at an approaching storm. The air was chill and there was a touch of rain in it – a cold wet rain that was enough to darken a man's thoughts, even if he had no other provocation. Pulling his coat up around his throat, Adam squared his shoulders and moved into it.
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Joe hadn't moved. He sat hunched over, still gripping the grass, his fingers numb. Sobs wracked his slender frame, making him feel even less of a man and even more the rightful victim of someone who was stronger than him both in determination and daring. Had he done something to give this man – whoever he was – the wrong impression? He knew there were men who liked men. He'd been around enough drifters and ranch hands and miners to be aware of it. There'd been a boy who had hung around him in school. He thought he was a friend until one day he realized the boy was interested in more than that. He'd decked him with a single punch.
Still, this was different. There was something this monster, whoever he was, had taken from him that had nothing to do with the man's sick desire or need for pleasure – and everything to do with breaking him, with stealing his strength and confidence – with having power over him.
He'd come to Pointer's Rock to slay the dragon and, in the end, it was him who ended up burned.
Joe stifled a sob. Stop crying, he ordered himself. Stop. Crying. As another wave of despair washed over him, he held his breath. His only reward was a heaving chest and the feeling that he was going to pass out. Dropping his head between his hands where they still clutched the grass, he tried to prevent it. He didn't want to pass out – not here – not where it happened.
Abruptly, Joe straightened up. The man could still be here. Watching. Waiting. His head turned from side to side rapidly examining the shadows, sniffing for that scent and listening for that voice – that unfamiliar familiar voice that he should have known – had to know.
Needed to know.
He'd put on his gun before he left the house. Rising quickly, Joe palmed it and cocked the trigger, ready to shoot at the first thing that moved.
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Adam was making his way toward the Arch. From within its dark recesses came the sound of heartbreaking cries and he supposed it was Little Joe. That presented him with a dilemma. He didn't want to embarrass his brother, but at the same time, if Joe was in pain then he needed him and he couldn't retreat. The man in black halted just within a circle of trees that surrounded the tall stack of rocks and listened again. The sounds were those of a soul on the edge of being lost.
Damning sense and reason to Hell, he ran toward the Arch.
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Joe turned in a circle like a caged animal. He'd heard a noise – the whinny of a horse nearby – and knew someone was coming. His pa had always taught him to shout out a warning if he wasn't sure, but if this was the fiend who had assaulted him before he didn't deserve a warning.
He deserved to die.
As the sound grew closer Joe stepped out of the arch. His finger closed on the trigger and he fired.
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Adam saw Joe, standing like a pale white fury with a gun in his hand about three seconds before the gunpowder ignited, lighting his little brother's terrified face before propelling the metal cylinder down the scored barrel and out at a speed it would be hard to avoid at this distance. The man in black twisted violently and reared back almost in time.
But not quite.
Seconds later the bullet struck the flesh of Adam's forehead, spinning him and dropping him to the ground.
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Hoss returned to find his father seated outside in the chair Joe had occupied the night before. The older man was so quiet he almost missed him. It wasn't until he stepped onto the porch and opened the front door to go in, allowing the light to escape, that he saw him.
He hadn't seen his pa look that way since Marie died.
"Pa?"
The older man didn't move. "Yes, son?"
"How come you're sitting out here in the dark?"
"I'm waiting on your brothers," he answered.
It took a second. "Brothers? You mean 'two'?"
His father stirred. "Yes. I discovered Joe was gone. Adam went to find him."
"Gone? Joe?" Hoss closed the door and went to his father's side. "Little brother ain't well enough to be running around."
"No. No, he's not." The older man rose to his feet. He pulled a pocket watch out and checked it. "Fifteen minutes more and I go after them."
Hoss puzzled over it for a minute. "How will you know where to go?"
"I think Adam thought the same as me, that your brother would be headed for...for the place where all of this began."
"Pa, we gotta go help him!"
"I gave your older brother four hours. It's not up yet."
"Why'd Adam want to go alone?"
Hoss didn't realize how much his question would hurt the older man. "Adam thought Joe would talk to him." That implied, of course, that Joe would not talk to him.
"Pa, you know how it is," he tried. "You had a brother. You can tell your brother things you just...well..that you couldn't tell your pa."
His father nodded. "I know that, son, but it doesn't make it hurt any less. You boys, you're," the older man's voice cracked under the strain, "you're my life."
"Joe knows that Pa," the big man said softly. "So does Adam."
The older man nodded. He looked at his watch again and then snapped the gold case shut with a click. "Saddle Buck for me, son. I'll let Phoebe know what we're doing, and then we're going to find your brothers."
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Adam frowned. He shifted and moaned and then blinked, trying to find a focus. It ended up being the very concerned and contrite face of his little brother.
"Hey, big brother," Joe said sheepishly. "I thought I killed you."
"No such luck."
"Adam, don't josh about such a thing."
He could hear both the concern and guilt in his brother's voice. After another groan, the man in black reached up and touched his head. It was bandaged, but he could feel warm blood staining the rags.
"I got you good," Joe winced.
"You certainly did." He reached out then. "Joe, help me sit up."
"Do you think you should?"
Adam scowled. "Well, I'm going to whether I should or not. You can help me or sit and watch me fall on my face."
Instantly, Joe's arm was around his shoulders. Once he was in position, his little brother caught a canteen up from the ground and offered it to him. "You want some water?"
He took the canteen even as he nodded. Once he was finished, he let Joe take it and put it to the side. Leaning back against the large stone his brother had propped him against, Adam fought nausea and dizziness to focus on the kid who sat beside him.
"How are you?"
Joe blinked. "You're the one who got shot. Shouldn't I be asking you?"
Adam sighed. "I'm fine. How are you?"
His little brother screwed up his face in that way he had since he was a little boy. It was something like the look you gave a parent when they found your hand in the jar of sweets. "I'm okay for a man who nearly killed his brother."
"Joe, you're avoiding the question." Adam hesitated, but then went on. "I heard you as I was walking up to the Arch. Do you need me to spell out what I heard?" As Joe ducked his head, he asked again. "How are you?"
His brother sighed. "I don't know."
"How don't you know? Tell me." Adam waited. After a second he added, "You have to tell someone."
His head remained down. "I don't know that I can, Adam. Not you."
He stared at Joe, thinking. "You were awake the other night when I came into your room, weren't you?"
Joe said nothing, but he nodded.
Adam tried to remember everything he had said. He was being honest – probably more honest than he should have been if he had known Joe could hear him. "I meant what I said."
Joe's curly brown head came up. The look out of his green eyes was intense. "I know that, Adam. That's why I can't tell you."
A short silence fell between them.
"Is it so bad?" he asked softly.
A shudder ran the length of his baby brother's slender frame. "It's my fault," he said at last.
"What's your fault?"
Joe's eyes flicked to his face and then away again. When he spoke, the word was as small as his voice. "Everything."
"Joe, what happened to you – "
His brother's anger broke like waves crashing on the shore. "Adam, you know I'm right! If I'd a listened to you, if I hadn't insisted on staying for the poker game – if I hadn't had so much to drink – it never would've happened!"
"You don't know that," he said firmly.
Joe jumped to his feet and began to pace. "Yes, I do! I had so much to drink that my head wasn't straight. I could've been faster, could've stopped him from...what he did."
'What he did' hung between them as an unspoken horror for which neither of them had words.
"Even if you had been completely sober, that blow to the head would have incapacitated you," Adam said in his most calm, most rational voice, even though the voice in his head was screaming that, for the bastard who had done this to his brother, death was too good a fate. Confident Joe. Cocky Joe. Ornery-to-the-bone and so-sure-of-himself you wanted to smack him Joe.
How dare that monster turn his brother into this?
"I don't know Adam. I – "
"I do."
Joe looked at him. For a moment, his expression didn't change. Then he half-smiled. "That's a lot of confidence in me coming from a man I just nearly killed by accident."
A little smile quirked the edges of his lips. "Thank God you couldn't hit a bucket sitting on a fence at two feet."
Joe's nose wrinkled. "You just try me," he said quietly.
Adam held his gaze. "I mean to."
"What?"
Adam reached up and touched his forehead. "I'd say we're even now, wouldn't you?"
"What do you mean?"
He winced as his fingers came away bloody. "I did something stupid by letting you stay in town for that poker game, and you did something stupid by nearly killing me. I'd say that makes us square."
Joe scratched his head. "Sorry about that."
He held his brother's gaze. "I'm sorry too."
His little brother stared at him a moment longer and then, taking a seat beside him, leaned his head back against the wall of stone. "I don't blame you, big brother."
"Don't blame yourself either."
Joe leaned forward and rested his locked hands on his raised knee. "Adam, why do things like this happen? I mean...we go to church most Sundays and the Good Book promises God will watch over us..." Joe's face grew haunted. "I don't... I can't..." His brother's voice trailed off to next to nothing. "...why?"
Adam drew deep breath and looked at the sky. Really, he thought, really?
Straightening up, the man in black reached out and placed a hand on his brother's shoulder. Joe was trembling. It was only then that he noted how poorly he was dressed. Joe was still in his nightshirt and had simply pulled on a pair of boots and pants and tucked the tail of the thin garment into it. Adam hesitated and then he shifted and placed his arm around his brother's shoulders. He felt Joe tense and then relax in the embrace.
"I'm going to be honest with you, Joe. Since what...happened, I've asked the same questions and I can't say I've been entirely content with the answers." Adam shifted and drew his brother in a little closer, seeking to warm him. "When Marie – when your mother died – I watched Pa struggle with it. I was about to go East to school, Hoss was barely old enough to be on his own, and you were just a little boy. It seemed to me that Pa should break. He'd lost my mother, Inger, and now yours. But Pa never wavered. He never doubted God. He told me one time that life was like a woman's needlework. If you looked at it from the underside, it was a tangled mess, but when you turned it over and you realized the time and the skill and the knowledge that went into making the beautiful art you saw there, you had to know the one making it knew what she was doing. Pa said, 'Adam, it's like that with God. You have to trust the Maker's hand.'"
Joe's slender form slumped against his even as a soft rain began to fall outside the Arch. His brother's words were slurred with fatigue. "Do you, Adam?" he asked. "Do you trust the Maker's hand?"
Adam sat there, feeling the weight and the warmth of his brother's form against his own. Joe could have been dead, but he wasn't. He was here. In his arms.
Safe.
Adam settled back and braced his head on the stone as well.
"Yes, Joe. I do."
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"Pa! I see Sport!" Hoss said in a tense whisper.
"And there's Cochise," the older man breathed as he checked his horse's progress, obviously relieved.
Hoss turned Chubb's nose toward him. "Where do you suppose Adam and Joe are?"
His father nodded toward Pointer's Arch. "I imagine we'll find them in there."
The big man frowned. "Why do you suppose Joe'd want to come here of all places?"
"You know your brother," he said. "Joe's a scrapper. I've never known him to run from a fight." His father's face set in sadness. "Even when the fight is with himself."
Hoss looked toward the Arch, trying, but trying not to think about what happened there near a week before. "You think Joe's gonna be all right?"
The older man nodded. "He's not alone. A man can survive anything if he's surrounded by those he loves. Come on."
The two of them nudged their mounts forward. When they came abreast Adam's horse, they tethered their own and dismounted and continued on foot.
He was the one who spotted them, sitting together within the Arch. Adam had his arm wrapped protectively around Joe. Joe's head rested on Adam's chest.
Both were asleep.
"Hoss." His father caught his arm and held him back. Then he indicated with a nod that they should retreat.
The big man was puzzled. "Pa, didn't you see Adam's head? He's hurt."
"I know, but it seems to be under control. I think, Hoss, that maybe it's important we let the two of them come home on their own rather than waking them and dragging them there." The older man sighed. "There seems to be no danger and your older brother is just as much in need of healing as your younger one."
"I know Adam sure does blame himself for what happened to Joe," Hoss acknowledged quietly. "But I don't feel right leavin' them out here, with both of them hurting."
"I understand that, son." His father thought a moment. "Why don't you keep watch during the night, and then ride out before they become aware that you're here?"
Hoss nodded his thanks. "I can do that, Pa. What're you goin' to do?"
" I think, since we've come so far, that I am going to ride into town and see if Roy has found out anything new about Joe's attack or about that other tragic young man who was killed."
The big man looked at the sleeping pair again. "We was lucky, weren't we? We coulda lost Joe."
His father nodded. "Lucky, and blessed."
Hoss removed his hat and scratched his head. "God's ways sure are mysterious, ain't they, Pa?"
"As above ours as ours are above an ant's."
"Why'd you suppose God would have let somethin' like this happen to Joe?"
The older man shook his head. "Why did God let your mother die? Why Elizabeth, or Marie? The Good Book doesn't promise Heaven here, son, just that there is something better after this life, and that Heaven is real."
The big man nodded. "Well, if you ask me, God's gotta have a special spot for Little Joe. He done rescued him enough times already for a man twice his age."
"I think, no, I know God has a special path for your brother – for each of you. The trials we face are what make us the men we become. God tries those hardest whom He loves the most."
Hoss snorted. "Well, then, he sure does love Little Joe!"
It was good to hear his father laugh.
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Joe was weak and shivering when they woke up. Adam wrapped his coat around him and placed his brother before him on Sport and then, with Cochise tethered behind, started for home just as the sun broke over the horizon and the world began to wake. As they rode Joe's head lulled and from that point on he was in and out of consciousness until they reached the house. In spite of everything Adam had to smile as they began their journey. He'd awakened and gone to fill the canteen he'd brought before they did so. Hoss had done his best to disappear into the foliage, but he caught a glimpse of him. As he returned to Joe, he'd heard his middle brother ride away. Hoss would be there on the porch waiting to greet them with arms wide open and no questions asked.
As he had said to their father earlier, it was how they were.
Joe moaned and shifted beneath his arm. Adam drew him in more tightly to his chest. He didn't think his brother was sick, just worn out. The strain of facing what had happened to him would have been more than enough, let alone the ride to Pointer's Arch when Joe had barely been able to walk on his own two days before and now, the ride back. He could only hope this night would bring a kind of new beginning and that they both could let go of their guilt and move on.
It would be harder for Joe, he knew. Somewhere out there was a man who had taken terrible advantage of him. The fact that he had, and that the man remained free, was bound to leave scars. But, hopefully, now that they all knew and could all pull together, the love that they shared would be enough to bring his brother through.
As they entered the yard and he called on Sport to slow, Joe stirred beneath his hand and looked up. "Adam," he murmured dreamily. "Where are we?"
On the porch Adam saw someone shift and rise from the chair. A moment later Hoss stepped off the deck and headed for them. Behind him, Hop Sing emerged from the house to watch. Phoebe was there too, and though there was no sign of their Pa, Adam knew he was there in spirit.
"I'll tell you where we are, Joe," he said, giving his brother a little squeeze.
"We're home."