Part 6

Adam rode over to Asia Clavell's about 11:30 in the morning; he wanted to be there when Harv Dyer showed up at Asia's door. He wanted to witness any business transaction or anything else that passed between Asia and Dyer. But when Adam rapped on the door, there was no answer. Adam rapped again and he heard a voice calling him. He turned around. The youngest Miller boy came out of the barn holding a pitchfork.

"Mrs. Clavell left about an hour ago, Mr. Carwtright," he said.

"Oh? Did she leave alone?"

"No, sir. A man rode up and told me to hitch up her carriage so I did and they rode off toward town together. Threw me a quarter. I don't know if that was where they was going, to town, but they headed that way."

Adam thanked him and remounted but before he rode away, Adam asked for a description of the man.

"Tall, dressed nice and wore a bowler. Mrs. Clavell, she didn't seem to like him too much but, well, he grabbed her and kissed her in front of me and my pa. She was embarrassed but he wasn't. He just kinda laughed about it and told her to get used to it and that she better learn to like it. Oh and he added that she better learn to like it if she knew what was good for her—and for you. Don't know why he said that about you."

"Thanks." Adam kicked his horse and galloped as far as his horse could before the animal had to recover by cantering for a stretch. Then Adam pushed his horse again and by the time he reached the Imperial Hotel in Virginal City, the horse was lathered and its chest heaving.

"What room is Dyer in?" Adam asked the desk clerk.

The desk clerk was flustered and stepped back; he didn't know how Adam would react. "He and his new wife took the bridal suite this morning."

"His wife? Who's his wife?" Adam asked but he knew—it could only be Asia.

"Mrs. Clavell only now she's Mrs. Dyer."

Adam took the stairs two at a time until he reached the room that was known as the "bridal suite." He hammered on it with his fist. He waited and then it was opened by Asia. She had wrapped a sheet about her, clutching it together. He was shocked at her appearance; she looked disheveled, her hair a mess, and her lips were swollen and bruised.

"Asia, are you all right? Did you marry Dyer?"

"Yes. I did—I married him. There was nothing else to be done—there was no other choice…"

"Asia, there's always a choice? If you needed money, I would have given it to you. Asia, anything you needed…" Adam stopped himself. He studied her pale face; she didn't look like a happy bride; she looked as if she was going to cry. And as he stood there, Dyer stepped out from behind the door, pushing Asia aside, and smiled at him.

"I asked Asia if you'd like to come to the wedding but she said no. Nevertheless, I hope that you won't begrudge us our happiness." Adam said nothing, just looked at Asia who dropped her eyes. "Now if you'll excuse me and my new bride, we're on our honeymoon and you know how newlyweds are just getting to know one another—in all the intimate ways that newlyweds do. I suppose that I know her as well by now as you do—every opening, every nerve on her—those that cause both pleasure and pain because I have been exploring her delightful flesh that you yourself have exploited for your own delight so many times in the past." Dyer grabbed Asia by the arm and jerked her back into the room. Adam could hear Asia fall against the furniture and he started to force his way in. Dyer pushed his foot against the door to keep it from opening any further.

"Mind your own business, Cartwright. Asia is my wife now and my business only." And he slammed the door shut, turning the key in the lock.

Adam had been sitting in the saloon for two hours nursing a beer; he wanted his head clear while he tried to make sense of what had happened but couldn't. He had to talk to Asia—had to see her no matter what. Adam went out onto the street to head for the hotel and saw Dyer walking in the opposite direction. Adam stopped and watched and decided that Dyer was on his way either to the bank or to a lawyer. But it didn't matter; Asia wasn't with him and that meant she was alone at the hotel.

She didn't want to let him in, tried to cover her face but he gently pushed the door open and then saw what she had been trying to hide. One side of her face was bruised as if being struck with the back of a hand and she pulled the sheet in which she had wrapped herself more tightly about but he could still see a bruise on her arm and a set of teeth marks on her shoulder.

"I'll kill him for this," Adam said quietly. He raised her chin and saw tears roll down her cheeks.

"No," she said. "That's what he wants. He was going to take me out to the Ponderosa looking like this so that you would see. He wants you to try to kill him—to call him out. I thought I had thwarted his plan but I didn't—he obviously had more than one scenario planned and I fell into it."

Adam helped her to the bed where she sat and he sat beside her. He put an arm around her but she pulled away, shrugging off his arm.

"Don't. I smell like him—I stink of him. You need to leave before he returns. He'll kill you, Adam. He's sworn to it and he will. And then he'll kill me. He promised me that and he also promised that it won't be a pretty death. I thought I was so clever, that I had outsmarted him but I hadn't. He's won if he finds you with 'his wife.' He'll be justified in shooting you. He'll have won."

"Asia, I'm not leaving you here with him. Here." Adam pulled her clothes off a chair over which they had been thrown. "Put them on. I'll help you."

"I…" she looked at the pile of polished cotton fabric and the lacy underthings, the things Dyer had pulled off and the manner in which he ripped apart the front of her dress and then helped himself to "the most beautiful breasts I've ever seen." And as he helped Asia dress, Adam saw red bite marks on her white flesh, slap marks on her breasts, and he became furious.

"Let's go, Asia. I'm going to take you back to the Ponderosa."

"I can't, Adam. I'm his wife. He'll find me and he'll kill you."

"Don't be so sure. Let's go."

"The front of my dress—the buttons have been torn—I can't keep it together."

Adam looked around and saw a long table runner. He pulled it off, knocking over the vase of flowers as he tugged it off in one movement. He wrapped it about her shoulders and told her to use it for a shawl. Then he walked her down the stairs and Asia, her hair falling loose from the style she had worn entering the hotel, hunched over so that the desk clerk wouldn't see her face and the bruise.

"Mrs. Dyer, do you want to leave a message for your husband? He asked me to send for him if you left."

"Where is he?" Adam asked.

"He said he was going over to Tyler Jacks, that new lawyer in town."

"You send a message and tell him that Mrs. Dyer is at the Ponderosa and that if he wants her, he can come get her."

"Yes, sir." The desk clerk recognized the table runner but decided to just keep his mouth shut; he wasn't fool enough to confront Adam Cartwright.

On the ride to the Ponderosa, Asia explained to Adam all that had transpired. She told him about the letter that she was sure Dyer had forced her friend, Frieda, to write and Asia said that she was as sure that Dyer had killed Frieda afterwards—thrown her from a window. Sam had always been concerned, Asia said, about Dyer's strong-arm tactics and his tendency to use physical force when persuasion didn't work and obviously, he was right.

The letter, she explained, was going to be used as proof that Adam and she planned and plotted to kill Sam and no one would be able to refute it since the author was dead. Asia told Adam that she had wanted to tell him until she realized that she would be setting up Adam to be killed. That was why she hadn't told him about Dyer and the whole truth about her past.

That morning, Asia explained, Dyer had come early to the farm. He said that he was sure that Adam Cartwright would be there at noon and he wanted to beat him to the punch. He also wanted to give Asia a choice; either Asia could marry him, Dyer, and he could hurt Cartwright that way, or Asia could refuse him and then Dyer would wait until the right time, when Adam Cartwright was riding on a lonely stretch of road and he would shoot Adam in the back—kill him without his even being given the last rites—"cut off in the blossoms of his sin which is his lust for you—unhouseled, disappointed, unaneled, no reckoning made, but sent to his account with all his imperfections on his head—straight to hell."

"What?" she had asked. Asia was confused but understood that Dyer was saying he was going to kill Adam before he had made peace with the world and with God and therefore, Dyer would send him straight to hell.

"You ignorant, little beauty." Dyer smiled at the fact that Asia didn't recognize Shakespeare. "Ah, Asia, that really only makes you lovelier. If you don't marry me, well, the demons will drag your beloved Adam to hell. Do you want that for him?"

Asia just stared at him, trying to think but with the threats to Adam's life, her mind froze. She thought she had outwitted him, that she had kept silent so that Adam would go after Dyer. And that had been his plan, to enrage Adam and have Adam call him out. But that hadn't worked since Asia kept her mouth shut, so he had to fall back on the other plan. And this one worked; Asia agreed to marry him. But Dyer wasn't completely satisfied—Adam wouldn't try to kill him for just marrying his darling Asia. No. But if he hit her, bruised her delicate loveliness, left bruises and marks on her pink and white flesh that was as delicately colored as the inside of a conch shell, then Adam would be infuriated and want to kill him. And Adam did.

Adam rented a carriage at the livery, and tying his horse to the back, took Asia to the Ponderosa and turned her over to his father's keeping; Hoss and Joe were out on the property.

"I'm going into town to have a little 'talk' with Dyer."

Asia reached out for him and clasped his arm. "Please, Adam. It's what he wants. Don't go!"

"And who am I to deny him that satisfaction?" Adam kissed her gently and then took her hands from his arm and kissed them. He checked his gun again to make sure it was loaded and in working order.

Asia tried again to get to Adam but Ben pulled her back. "Adam, please don't go! He'll kill you!' Ben held her tightly in his large arms and she sobbed against his chest.

Ben handed the sobbing woman over to Hop Sing who tried to comfort her, taking her into the kitchen. Ben followed Adam outside. It was about four in the afternoon and would be dark in two hours.

"Adam, what are you going to do?"

"Well, I've made Asia a widow once—I can do it again."

"Adam, don't be a fool. Go to Roy, Tell him what Asia told you. He can use the law.."

Adam held on to his saddle horn and his reins with one hand, the other on the cantle. "How? It's not against the law for a man to 'discipline' his wife. And if it comes to threats, well, it's Dyer's word against hers." Adam mounted up and held back his horse who was eager to go again. "Make sure Asia stays here. Let her have a hot bath and then put her to bed with some of Hop Sing's tea. I'll be home soon." And Adam rode off while Ben watched, his heart filled with fear that this would be the last time he would see his son alive. Damn Asia Clavell, Ben thought.

"You have my woman, don't you?" Dyer asked. Adam was standing at the bar in the Sazarac, one foot propped on the rail, waiting for Adam to show up. He hadn't had to wait long.

Adam glanced at Dyer who stood braced, his right hand hovering over his gun holster. Adam took another sip of whiskey and then reached for the bottle and poured himself more.

"Yes. I have Asia at the Ponderosa. I plan to keep her there too."

"Cartwright! I have every right to call you out for abducting my wife—you took her right out of our marriage bed. She's mine now—not yours."

"Well, actually—she's not yours and as for you calling me out, well, I've had a few drinks and I don't think my hand's steady enough to draw. Matter of fact…" Adam reached across his hips with his left hand and pulled out his gun, placing it gently on the counter and then sent it sliding down the bar where a man at the end stopped it. Then Adam quickly lifted his hands. "…I'm unarmed."

"Take your gun back."

"No, no, I don't think so. But if you want to get her back, if you really want her then we can go at it."

Dyer smiled. "Fisticuffs, huh?" Dyer thought that Adam was more of a fool than he thought; he had quite a bit of experience in bare-fisted boxing, having been a fan for quite a while before he became involved in the sport.

Adam grinned. "If you say so, fisticuffs, it is." Adam unbuckled his gun belt, carefully watching Dyer as he did the same; Adam didn't want to be taken by surprise.

"Marquis of Queensbury rules? At least as far as knock-outs and such—fair play and all."

"Whatever you say," Adam said.

Dyer crouched and motioned with his hands, urging Adam to come at him. "Come on, Cartwright. It's going to be a great pleasure to beat your face to an unrecognizable pulp."

Adam stepped into Dyer's swing space and as Dyer shot out a fist to jab at Adam, Adam dropped below the fist and swung up, catching Dyer in the throat. Dyer's eyes widened and he clutched at his throat, dropping to his knees and trying desperately to breathe.

"Damn the Marquis of Queensbury, damn his rules and damn you!" Adam said. And with Dyer still trying to breathe, his mouth working wordlessly, Adam swung down and knocked Dyer over. Then Adam straddled Dyer's chest, grabbed him by his shirtfront, pulled him up and hit him again, and again, the sound of cartilage cracking as Adam smashed Dyer's nose, blood spurting out.

"Adam, Adam, stop—that's enough." Both Hoss and Joe were behind Adam, pulling him off Dyer who was basically just trying for every breath he could, the blood bubbling out of his nose as he finally exhaled and inhaled, gasping air through his mouth, the upper lip split. Adam looked at his hand; one of Dyer's teeth was stuck in his knuckle.

Adam's chest heaved with anger and his murderous rage at Dyer began to slowly subside. Hoss held Adam's shoulders. "Dang, Adam, you almost killed that bastard with your own hands. Settle down, boy, c'mon."

Hoss pushed Adam into a chair and put three fingers in the air for the bartender to bring him three beers, one for each brother. In the meantime, Joe and a few of the other men in the bar tended to Dyer and one man went to fetch the doctor.

"What the hell is going on?" Sheriff Coffee asked when he arrived, his gun drawn to stop any trouble. He looked at Dyer who now lay still on the floor, his face swollen and disfigured. Then he looked at Adam who just stared at Dyer and rubbed his hand. "Hoss, what happened?"

"I ain't quite sure, Roy. Looks to me though, as if this Dyer here and Adam got in a fight. Ain't neither one got a gun on 'em."

"Get Adam home. I'll take statements and there isn't any saying that I won't ride out tomorrow and arrest Adam. But get him home before I toss his ass in jail for starting trouble—got it?"

"Yeah, Roy. I got it. Don't worry none. I got it. Just let us drink our beers here and…"

"Get out now, Hoss."

"Dang, Roy." But Adam reached down and picked up his beer mug that had just arrived and downed half of it.

"That's a good beer," Adam said. "I guess we can go home now, Hoss. Get Joe. I have to soak this hand—put some sulfa powder on it."