Chapter Fifteen

Adam Cartwright lived. Dr. Sand received a rhubarb pie as payment for his efforts a week later.

Adam's recovery was slow and he had remained unconscious for almost two days but Adam's first thought when he returned to awareness, even before he was able to open his eyes, was that he was alive. He accepted it and then he felt the pain and knew for a fact he was alive. The pain wasn't as horrible as it had been before but whenever he tried to take a deep breath, there it was—stabbing through him again. He groaned and then he felt a cool hand like a gentle wind on his forehead and a voice, Rachel's voice, calling to him.

"Mr. Cartwright, I'm here with you. You need to drink. The doctor said that you need water to build up lost fluids."

Adam felt a small arm go about his shoulders, pulling him upright, and he lifted his head slightly but then his head dropped back again. He wanted to hold it up but couldn't. And he was so thirsty.

"Elias, come help me."

Adam felt a stronger arm lift him up to almost a sitting position and felt a hand on the back of his head and a glass at his mouth. It felt odd, the cool glass against his lips and he wanted to open his eyes, to look at Rachel and see her face but he couldn't force his eyes open. But he could drink. The water soothed his burning throat as it rolled back on his tongue and he swallowed. Slowly, sip by sip he was given water until the glass was taken away. He wanted more and tried to ask for more but only an odd sound came from his throat but Rachel must have understood because he felt her hand again to the back of his head and the glass placed at his lips. And then he had more water until he felt that his mouth wasn't dry anymore. Adam felt his head laid onto the pillows again and the large arm slipped out from under him and he heard her voice telling him to rest. Rachel said she would make broth for him and he could drink it that night. It would help build his blood.

A coverlet was gently pulled up to his chin and Adam felt his body relax; it reminded him of when he was a child and would be asleep and then feel the covers tucked around him again. Adam always knew it was his father even though he was too sleepy to look and thought that if he lived through this, he would thank his father when he saw him again, thank the man who always checked in to make sure that his sons were safe and warm before he turned in himself. Then Adam felt a soft kiss on his forehead and he wanted to cry at the tenderness he was receiving. "I think the worst is over now. You'll get better—more quickly if you eat. Now go back to sleep. I'll be back." Rachel's voice broke through to him and so Adam relaxed and slipped into soft darkness again.

The next day, Adam managed to open his eyes and Rachel was sitting in a rocking chair beside the bed crocheting doilies. He watched her, her brows furrowed as she worked at the circular pattern. The sun was streaming in the bedroom window and Adam smiled to himself as he watched her. He swallowed and managed to say, "Rachel?"

She stopped and then put down her needle work and went to him. "Yes?"

Adam again felt her cool hand on his forehead and then on his cheek.

"That's the first time you've called me by my first name, Mr. Cartwright, other than that night." She smiled and he smiled back at her, at least the best he could. "Would you like some water?" He nodded and Rachel poured a glass from a pitcher. She helped him sit up and he grimaced at the pain but managed. Then, she held the glass and Adam tentatively grasped it as well, his hand covering hers and raised it to his lips and gulped down the water, some of it dribbling down the sides of his mouth.

"There," she said, wiping his face with a handkerchief she kept in her waistband. "I'll get you some broth. The doctor said you need to eat."

Adam reached out for her and touched her arm. Rachel stopped and leaned over him. "What is it?"

Adam moistened his lips with his tongue; they were dry and a small crack in the flesh stung. "Thank you."

Her lip quivered and a few tears rolled down her cheeks. She wiped them away and then reached down and stroked one of his cheeks with the backs of her fingers. "You don't need to thank me. I know what happened, that Elias robbed you and left you there. I have all your money—all of it. When you're well enough, you can use it to go home."

"You'll come too-with me." he said and then swallowed deeply. He suffered a constant pain that became sharper when he spoke. Rachel noticed his grimace and she didn't know what to say about possibly leaving with him; it hadn't been something she had considered.

"You shouldn't talk. The doctor said that there'd be air trapped inside you—he said it's painful as it rises and it'll take a while to work its way out. He stitched up your lung—it collapsed from the wound you suffered. It may stay that way or not." She smiled gently down at him. "I'll get you some broth and I'll soak some hard tack in it—give you something to chew." Rachel left and Adam sank back into the pillow.

Adam was up and walking but Rachel wouldn't let him walk too much; she was worse than a jailer, Adam joked. During the day, he sat in the rocking chair and eventually, Rachel allowed Sonny in to see Adam. The boy would sit and talk and Adam would share stories of his youth. Sonny was impressed and considered that Adam had an exciting childhood and envied him. That struck Adam as odd because most of his memories were colored by loneliness and pain and loss. But then, when Adam told Sonny about some things such as the Indian attack, he didn't share how his second mother, Inger, had been killed, just the story of the Indians attacking the station to get the man they wanted.

"What did the Indians do to him once they got him?" Sonny asked.

"I don't really know," Adam replied. "I would've asked my father but he had—other things to handle."

"Think they killed him?"

"Probably but I'd like to think they didn't."

Sonny looked puzzled. "But he killed that Indian for nothing. If he had killed a white man, wouldn't he be hung for it?"

"More than likely. But hanging, if it's done right, is quick and painless. Revenge isn't quick and painless and that's what the Indians wanted—revenge. The law doesn't take 'revenge,' it provides justice. Justice is different and sometimes people feel that justice is weak—the culprit didn't get true justice, not an eye for an eye. But then the law isn't so much morality—it's what many learned men have decided is just. Men know what the consequences might be for their crimes and that will hopefully deter them. If a man is hanged, it's because what he did was so awful that his life should be taken and he should be removed from the body of man."

Sonny sat quietly. "I'm going to have to study on that for a while, Mr. Cartwright. My brother, Danny, was killed in a gunfight a few years ago and the man wasn't punished but my pa wanted to kill him. My ma had to talk him out of it. I remember that she cried and begged him not to go to town to kill the man. My ma died a short time after that. Pa said that the man who killed Danny killed her too and shoulda been hung."

Adam considered whether he should share the details of Inger's death with Danny, how it had almost destroyed his father-and him, but he heard Elias at the bedroom door.

"Sonny, go get ready for dinner. I want to talk to Mr. Cartwright."

"Okay, Pa." Sonny jumped off the bed where he had been sitting. "You coming to the table to eat tonight, Mr. Cartwright?"

"I don't know. Rachel is in charge and I do what she tells me." Sonny laughed and left the room and Adam and Elias were alone in an uncomfortable silence.