EIGHT

"I suppose," Jeffers said, in his whiskey-smooth, southern manner, "that you're staring at me, at us, and wondering why such a beautiful woman would marry a scarred-up blind man? It's like beauty and the beast, isn't it?" He chuckled.

Adam pushed his hat back from his eyes and glanced back and forth at the Jefferses. Piper's face was pale and set in an expression that had obviously become ingrained over the past few years, an expression of suffering-whether physical or mental suffering, Adam didn't know.

"Oh, no," Hoss said, and cleared his throat because he had been staring. "I wasn't wonderin' that at all. But how d'you know that she's such a beauty? I mean, she is, if you don't mind my sayin' so, ma'am, but I was just wonderin' how you know it."

Jeffers laughed. "She told me she was a beauty-I believed her but I guess she could've been lying." And by his grin, Hoss knew that the man was joking. He laughed and even Adam grinned slightly. And then he glanced at Piper; she wasn't smiling.

"Don't be a boor," Piper interrupted sharply. "I doubt these other passengers want to hear your relation of the events of our lives." She noticed that even the two men in the back seats were listening. The more disheveled of the two had even stopped his spitting of tobacco juice out the stage window in order to hear the conversation.

Hoss shifted uncomfortably. He wasn't as cerebral as Adam so Hoss usually went more by instinct and his gut told him that there was a subtext between the Jefferses-much suffering and pain and he didn't want to bring it out. Adam watched intently; this was what he had been wondering, how Piper had come to marry this blind, scarred man.

"Now, Piper, you don't want these men to think that you're a fishwife, do you? You're coming off a mite shrill." Even though Jeffers had a soft voice with the cadence of his southern accent, the words came off as cruel, as if he had called her a fishwife many times before.

"Let them think what they choose," Piper said and her eyes met Adam's briefly and then she continued to look out at the passing scenery, the coach jostling them all. Adam watched Piper, hoping she would turn her head and look at him so that through a look, an expression, he could convey his feelings for her, that she would know that he had never forgotten her, that he still loved her, but she never looked at him and Adam, as well as all the other passengers, listened to Jeffers.

"Don't be peevish, Piper. It is unbecoming. Are you or your brother married, Mr. Cartwright?"

"Um, no sir," Hoss said.

Adam was tempted to jump to Piper's defense and tell Jeffers that he was a cruel son-of-a-bitch and that Piper had once been his wife and he still loved her. Adam even went so far as to lean forward slightly and open his mouth, but he caught himself and sat back against the leather straps that supported his back none too well.

"You see, Mr. Cartwright…" Jeffers started.

"Call me Hoss. Everyone does."

"All right, Hoss, then," Jeffers said. "Please call me Nash. I was on the battlefield and my musket exploded in my face-blinded me-burned me. I imagine that my scars are shocking but I can't see people's reactions and my wife, in an attempt to be kind, I suppose, underplays others' revulsion whenever they see me for the first time. I wasn't even able to see my wife's face when she first saw me like this. I expected her to run screaming from the monster I had become, to divorce me but she stayed. You see, my doctor was honest when I asked him about my appearance and I well know how beautiful my wife is since we knew each other and married long before I became this horror. My lovely wife wants me to wear dark glasses but I want everyone to see what the Union Army did to me-especially for her. I hope people will ask what happened so I can explain. Let them know how the North is determined to destroy those of us in the South."

Hoss glanced over at Adam. He knew how his brother felt about the war, about the South and what he considered its barbaric system of relying on slave labor to support their way of life. But Adam also knew that the North's industries, their textiles and clothing manufacturing relied on southern cotton. And although Adam was also aware that state's rights were another issue as well as economic issues, Adam still wholeheartedly backed the Union. He had often engaged in debates with townsfolk about whether Nevada should lean toward the South or the North and Hoss hoped that Adam wouldn't engage a blind man in a heated debate. Hoss didn't think that Adam would but then, Adam would argue with a fence post if he disagreed with it. Hoss just hoped that Adam would remain silent.

"But I thought you said that it was your musket? What's the Union have to do with that?"

"It was my musket. I was issued an older, smoothbore musket-the barrel was badly fouled. The North, well, they manufactured the newer 58 Springfield but we couldn't get any. We had to manage with the mainly antiquated weapons we had. Many soldiers, most of them mere boys, brought the weapons they had at their homes-their grandfather's rifles or squirrel rifles. Most of us would go steal rifles from Union dead or wounded-those were much coveted. But I hadn't yet pulled a rifle from the still warm fingers of a dead man-couldn't bring myself to do it-to cannibalize the dead but the blockades, the barriers, the Union forced us to even steal ammunition from the dead on both sides-even our own men. But I couldn't. But I should have. I damn well should've.

"It was a small skirmish but I was always in fear. I was reloading as quickly as I could-the Yanks were approaching, shooting and reloading, shooting and reloading but there was so much gunfire smoke that I could barely see what I was doing. And they were pressing down on us. We could hear them but could barely see-it was as if a whole barrage of ghosts were coming for us and there was no killing them. I suppose I fumbled in my panic or my rifle was faulty as they said later-it doesn't really matter. But when I put the rifle to my shoulder and pulled the trigger, the whole thing just exploded and I lay there on the battlefield for hours until someone was able to brave the darkness for they said that it was night, to drag me off for medical care without being shot themselves.

"So I was bandaged as well as a battlefield hospital might and sent home to my wife who tended me and now, she insists that we travel out here where there is peace."

Hoss sat and looked at Jeffers, his face filled with sympathy. "Yeah, I guess that would be somethin' awful to have to go through. So where you two headin'?"

"Sacramento."

"You have family there?" Hoss asked. To him it made no sense to move someplace where there was no family or at least good friends near. Hoss enjoyed his family and those he counted as friends; he felt the support they gave was invaluable and couldn't imagine just taking off and leaving all he loved behind. And that was what he couldn't understand about Adam. Hoss knew that if the right opportunity appeared, Adam would leave and not look behind him.

"No," Nash answered, "we have no family there-or anywhere else. My wife's family has passed…" Adam looked at Piper who finally met his eye. He wanted to say he was sorry; he had been fond of her father and was sincerely grieved that he had passed. "I just agreed to go along with my wife. And man and wife are to cleave to one another, aren't they, my dear?"

"Yes," Piper quietly said and went back to looking off into the distance as if trying to remove herself from the situation, from the coach, from everything around her. And Adam examined her profile, the elegance of her throat where it curved into her neck, the softness of her rounded cheek and the cast of her eyes. He felt himself choke up with emotion at the knowledge that she would never be his, that life had played some cruel trick on them both.

Earlier, Adam had wondered if perhaps God had punished him and Piper for their hubris-Adam in particular. Hop Sing had once told him that a man should never consider himself happy, consider himself well off and take personal credit for it. The gods Hop Sing worshipped punished hubris-severely. A proud parent lost their child; a man proud of his beautiful wife lost her to another man or to death in childbirth. It didn't really matter how a man was punished, just that he was. So a man should always remain humble and grateful that his household gods had seen fit to grant him some joy, any joy for sources of pride or ungratefulness were swiftly obliterated.

Applying Hop Sing's philosophy, Adam decided that he had been too happy when it had come to him and Piper. Hop Sing would have said that his singing with happiness called the gods' attentions to him and so he had to be humbled. And although Adam had shown disdain at Hop Sing's ancient beliefs, in the back of his brain was the basic fear that he had drawn the punishment onto himself and that if he ever again had the chance for happiness, he wouldn't jinx it by being too certain of its permanence.

Hoss and Nash Jeffers settled into conversation, discussing Indian wars and how the Bannocks and Paiutes around Nevada had finally reached a tentative peace but a peace that could easily be disturbed, could easily disrupt into terror. And then Nash asked about the lumber side of the Cartwright business and Hoss, dragged Adam into the conversation and although reluctant, Adam talked about the Ponderosa pines that made up a good part of the forests. Adam explained that there was a great difference in the topography of the Nevada territory depending on whether one was in the North, south, east or west. They had sycamores and maple trees as well as agave plants because their property was expansive and held various terrains.

Hoss told how Hop Sing would search for agave plants so that he could boil down the base of the stalks to get the sweet syrup that he used instead of sugar or maple syrup when money was tight. Hoss also told how, when he and Adam were children, they would have to trek after Hop Sing on the southern side of their property with baskets and collect the stalks before they bloomed. Hop Sing would roast them and they were a snack, tasting sweet and crispy when chewed. And then in the spring, the boys would collect the leaves and Hop Sing would serve them as a side dish for dinner.

Adam noticed that Piper was listening, her attention focused on Hoss and his stories of the Cartwright family. Her face had fallen into softer lines and once again, Adam recognized the seventeen year old girl she was once. And Adam felt a painful sadness rise within him at his loss of her.

The coach began to decelerate and then it came to a stop. Adam opened the door, stepped out and then held out his hands to Piper.

"It's a swing station. C'mon and stretch your legs."

Piper stared at him, barely breathing and then put out her gloved hands and Adam took them and helped her down. She wouldn't look up at him despite the fact that he murmured her name, "Piper. Please." Then Adam turned and helped Mr. Jeffers out of the narrow stage door. Piper went to help her husband but he told her he could manage and didn't need her assistance and for her to go and do what she needed.

Piper saw the station master who stepped out on the porch where there was a long wooden table with chairs. He held a large coffee pot and a stack of tin cups and Piper asked him where she could wash up. He sent her to his kitchen and told her that she could relieve herself in the outhouse behind the house. She was just to go out the back door. And as Piper walked into the stationmaster's small house, she heard him tell the men there was a pump they could use and asked if they wanted any coffee. He warned them that there wouldn't be a rest stop for another three hours.

It wasn't long before they were all back on the stage and rocking off to head further west.

"So, Mr. Jeffers," Adam said, "why did you choose Sacramento?"

"That was my wife's choice. She researches everything, wrote letters, set up a house for us to rent, everything. And then, she transferred the money from the sale of her father's house in Boston…"

"Oh," Hoss said, grinning, "You from Boston, Mrs. Jeffers?"

"Not really. My father, he…" She sat with her mouth slightly open and Adam knew that she was thinking quickly, trying to find a way out.

"My wife's father was a professor at Harvard. Architecture, wasn't it, Piper, my dear?"

"Yes, architecture. And engineering."

"Hey, Adam, you know him? Adam here done gone to Harvard," Hoss explained to Nash Jeffers.

"Yes. He was a brilliant professor and a good man. I'm sorry to hear of his passing, Mrs. Jeffers."

"Thank you, Mr. Cartwright."

"What a small world," Hoss said, smiling broadly.

"Smaller than you'd think, Hoss, but only because you take up so much room in it that you make the rest of us crowd together," Adam said. And he noticed that Nash Jeffers had his head cocked at an angle, his brows drawn, as if he was considering something that was puzzling him. And Adam knew then that Nash was aware that there was something between him, Adam Cartwright, and Nash's own wife.