TWO

They'd done it.

James T. Kirk breathed a sigh of relief when he felt the green grass of eighteen-seventy-six Nevada solidify underneath his boots. He glanced from one side to the other. They were all there – him, Scotty, Uhura, Sulu, and Bones – all whole and hearty in spite of their mode of transportation. At least for now. They'd put their necks in the rope for him and for Spock.

Now it was his job to knock down the gallows or, better yet, prevent them from ever being built.

It hadn't been easy. It had taken a complicated series of deceptions to break into the vault that held the bracelets, combining Scotty's unsung ability to over-ride just about any security protocol in existence with Sulu's martial arts skills, and dusting both of those off with Uhura's use of her more than apparent charms. Bones had supplied the anesthetizing gas, and he'd used his credentials to get them out of the facility before the alarm bells had gone off.

And boy, had they gone off!

He could still hear them ringing in his head even though the alarm was three-hundred and ninety-three years in the future.

They were all attired for the time, looking more like the cast of a musical set in a nineteenth century barroom than anything else. Bones was once again the crusty but benign frontier doctor with his black leather bag. He, well, he looked like a gambler in his silk vest and expensive suit. Scot had chosen to wear his clan's tartan. He hated to say it, but in his plaid kilt and socks, sash, and feathered hat, his chief engineer was a little hard to take seriously.

Hopefully that would work to their advantage.

Uhura and Sulu had presented the greatest challenge. Due to the primitive thinking on Earth at the time, neither of them would be accepted as full-fledged members of society. In the end Sulu had opted to present himself as a Chinese servant. There was, after all, one by the name of Hop Sing in the Cartwright household. Uhura, well, she was breathtaking. Apparently the men of the Wild West hadn't made any distinction when it came to using women. She had chosen to become a dance hall girl and was dressed to the nines, as they once said, in a skin-tight crimson gown with black bead trim that emphasized everything she had.

Everything.

She was the first to step up to him. "Orders, sir?" the Bantu woman asked in her husky voice.

They'd laid out a plan. Sulu would initiate contact with the Asian population in Virginia City by claiming to be one of the Cartwright's cook's cousins. From what the records said the Chinese man had...well...hundreds. Uhura and Scotty would go to Virginia City as well. The lieutenant was to learn all she could from the patrons at the Bucket of Blood, while Scotty used a cover story to introduce himself to the local constabulary. Once known, the engineer could then use that connection to discover what the sheriff knew.

He and McCoy were going back to the Ponderosa. He wasn't sure what kind of welcome they would receive. After twelve years they might not even be recognized. Still, he doubted that. Considering the measure he had taken of the man Ben Cartwright was, that keen mind would forget little – and maybe forgive less. After all, they had disappeared the same night as Adam and Joe.

It was possible the older man thought they were responsible.

Though his close-mouthed Vulcan friend had revealed little before vanishing for the second time, Kirk did know one thing for sure – Joe Cartwright's life was in danger and, somehow, it mattered to the world he came from just as much as it did to Cartwright's own that the young man survive. He was banking on Ben's love of his son to give them the proverbial foot in the door.

They just had to prove they were on his side.

Somehow.

"Well, pardner, you ready to mosey on down to the Ponderosa and see if anyone's home?"

Jim turned to find Leonard McCoy with one thumb stuck behind his gun belt and his hip thrown back, chewing on a piece of straw.

He was enjoying this entirely too much.

"Bones, this is serious business."

"Sure it is. Never said it wasn't," he drawled. "Doesn't mean a man can't enjoy himself. You know, I just might retire to some place like this in Georgia – sun, wind, the smell of pines..."

"No antibiotics, primitive anesthetics, amputations," Kirk countered.

"Hostile Indians, gunslingers, banditos," Sulu added with a flourish as he joined them.

"And ye have to remember, Doctor McCoy, it was very hard to find a fine bottle of Scotch."

It took a second and then they all burst into laughter.

For Kirk the moment was short-lived. There was an ominous silence where Spock's rejoinder should have been.

Bones caught his shoulder with his fingers. He didn't miss anything. "We'll find him, Jim. We'll bring him home, and somehow we'll manage to sort out the mess the pointy-eared bastard's gotten himself into."

"The doctor's rrrright, Captain," Scotty added, rolling his 'r's' with relish. "We've beat the odds before."

Yes, they had.

But every gambler, no matter how good, had to run out of luck some time.

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Shadowing Joe had proven easier than either of them thought it might. It seemed baby brother had mellowed with age. He'd spent the morning in the house doing paperwork and then headed out about noon for the north pastures. After checking in with the men, Joe had settled in and begun to repair the fence along the pasture line. Adam watched him hauling posts and pounding them into the ground, noting how Joe had gained bulk over the last twelve years. His youngest brother was still smaller in stature than a lot of other men. There were several working the fence farther down the line that appeared like giants in comparison. One looked like he might weigh in at three hundred pounds or more. Still, Joe was well-muscled and fit and probably had a meaner punch than he had as a kid.

And that was saying a lot.

Adam smiled and then grew sober as he thought of the lost years. While it was true he could travel back to the very moment when he had left, Spock had explained that it was dangerous. If he elected to return, it would have to be to this time stream where Joe was in his thirties and Hoss was...

Hoss was dead.

He'd blamed himself when the Vulcan first told him. He should have been there. There must have been something he could have done to prevent it. Spock had thrown his cool cold logic in the face of that, explaining that the records indicated his brother had died from a pulmonary embolism. The records also showed that Hoss had an enlarged heart. Spock explained that, with the medical knowledge of the era, there would have been no way to save him.

Hoss, with a heart that was too large...

Imagine that.

In the time they had traveled together the Vulcan had admitted to him that the human emotion he had the most trouble understanding was guilt. There seemed no reason or explanation for it. One did what one was called upon to do and there was no need to question the doing of it, as it was, in the end, the only logical thing one could do.

It made sense. Of course, that didn't stop the way he felt.

He'd asked Spock, one night, if the Vulcan had ever felt the tiniest spark of guilt. It had been a rare night when the twenty-third century man was in a rare mood. Spock told him about the time, during the Babel Conference, when his captain was injured and he had to leave his dying father – the father only his blood could save – in order to save the ship and its passenger load of dignitaries. His mother had confronted him, so angry she had slapped him and told him she never wanted to see him again. At that moment, Spock said, there had been something – regret for his choice, a feeling that he might have done differently...

Guilt.

It was most unpleasant, he had remarked casually, and then returned to his calculations.

Adam snorted. This must have been how Joe felt when he'd confront him about his emotions and force him to think.

"Do you find something amusing?" Spock asked.

Adam cast a glance at his brother where he worked across the field. Since his wife had gone, Joe had removed his jacket again and tossed it over the fence. He was taking a drink of water. It seemed safe to take an eye off of him for a minute. Crossing to where the Vulcan sat under a tree, his eyes closed and his hands balancing on his bent knees, he halted before him.

"Are you awake?" he asked.

The sigh was suppressed. "I do not talk in my sleep," Spock replied without opening his eyes.

"Well, you look like you're asleep."

Those near-black eyes opened. They fixed on him. "We have traveled together six-point-o-three months, Adam Cartwright, and you have not yet realized that I am meditating when in this position?"

Adam's lips quirked. "We've traveled together six-point-o-three months and you haven't yet learned to know when I'm kidding?"

"Kidding is illogical."

Adam snorted. "Yeah, but it's fun."

There is was again. That suppressed sigh.

After making certain they eliminated or accounted for all of the time manipulators they could, he and the Vulcan had used the two they had to come to eighteen-seventy-six to prevent Joe's kidnap and death in the Bodie Mine. Since the night he'd made contact with his little brother they had shadowed Joe, following close behind him, camping near him at night, and then watching him work during the day like they were doing now. Since time was fluid, they had no idea when the attempt to abduct him would be made or who would make it. They only knew that someone was going to take Joe at some point and stick him in that mine and leave him to die.

He took a step back and looked again to make sure Joe was alright. His brother was busy pounding posts.

Satisfied Adam returned to the Vulcan's side.

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After lunch Joe had gone back to mending fences. This kind of labor wasn't something he had to do – there were plenty of young men whom they employed that could perform such menial work – but there were a number of reasons he did it. First off, he liked it. Driving posts wasn't challenging like riding a bronco, or fast and furious like driving a herd. It wasn't grand as cutting lumber or dangerous like going down in a mine. It was, well, relaxing. He laughed to think what his two older brothers would have said if they'd heard him admit that he enjoyed something that was relaxing. But then, he wasn't that young man anymore who had shinnied out of every chore in any and every way possible in order to make a break for town and trouble.

He was going to be a father.

Joe pulled at his left glove, making sure it was tight. Another reason he continued to do this kind of work was those young men they hired. He'd heard one of them not too long ago refer to him as the 'prince of the Ponderosa'. The title'd made him laugh, but it had stung as well. The last thing he wanted anyone to think of him was that he was some kind of pampered rich boy. Those who knew him knew different.

But not everyone knew him.

Like that new bunch Pa had hired while he and Anne had been away a few weeks back. The ones who were working up the fence from him now. The round-up was coming and he knew they needed extra hands, but there was just something about them. His father was a good judge of character, but when it came to the round-ups he sometimes hired men he knew could be trouble. They needed men who were willing to do the dirty work – rough, tough men who could wrassle a steer to the ground with one hand tied behind their back. Deets, Brewer, and Carter were certainly that. Deets was the oldest and the largest, weighing in somewhere around three hundred pounds. He looked to be around forty-five. His age didn't mean anything though. He'd seen the man tackle Brewer, who was also of a good size and closer to twenty, and take him down in five minutes flat. Deets hadn't even come up breathing hard. Deets was tall, with dark skin for a white man, and there was a slight upturn to his eyes like, somewhere in his past, one of Hop Sing's cousins might have snuck into the line. Brewer looked like he might be part Indian. The last of them, Aiden Carter, was slight-built like him, but not as well muscled. Carter had dark curly hair and today was wearing a light shirt and gray pants. The first day they'd worked, the trio had greeted him cordially enough, but he didn't like the way they looked at him. Deets treated him like a rival and Carter, well, Carter...

He looked at him like he was the mother lode or something.

Deets saw him looking now. Putting down the sledge hammer he held, the big man rolled down the sleeves of his checked shirt and started walking toward him. Carter and Brewer followed closely behind.

"Is there something you desire from me, Mister Cartwright?" Deets asked as he halted a few feet away, sweat glistening on his rolling muscles as he flexed them, showing off like a cock striking at the ground. "Perhaps you think I am not working hard enough?"

"Look, Deets," Joe said with a sigh. "You've had a chip on your shoulder since the day my Pa hired you. Why don't you give it a rest?"

Deets was seven inches taller than him. He leaned in menacingly, emphasizing that difference. "Why don't you make me, Little Joe?"

Hardly anyone called him that anymore. In fact, he preferred they didn't. It reminded him too much of his absent brothers.

"Maybe I will," he replied, completely unruffled.

The big man stared him down for another heartbeat or two and then leaned back and roared. A second later he slapped him on the shoulder so hard it nearly drove him to the ground.

"I like you, Cartwright! You have the heart of a warrior!"

Joe blinked. This was hardly the outcome he'd expected. "You...you don't want to fight me?"

"On the contrary, I would be honored to meet you in battle."

"Battle?"

"Unfortunately, I have been ordered to take the coward's path."

"Who are you calling a 'coward'?" Carter sniveled.

Joe looked from one to the other. "What is this all about?"

Brewer stepped between them and drew his gun. His lip curled with a sneer as he said, "This. It's time you come with us, Mister Cartwright."

Joe looked from one to the other. There were three of them and one of him, but only one was armed.

It was about even.

"Ah," Deets said, nodding. "You will not surrender without a fight."

"I sure as Hell won't!" Joe shouted.

And charged.

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Ben Cartwright shifted in his chair. He was seated behind his desk working on paperwork. It seemed he did more and more of this every day and spent less and less time in the saddle. Most of the hard work and rough-riding he'd been forced to turn over to Joe, not because his son insisted, but because the time had come at last to admit to himself that he simply could not do it anymore. When he felt like complaining, his thoughts turned to Dan Tolliver1. Dan had refused to admit he was getting old and that refusal had almost cost his son his life. Joe had been the one to tell Dan that a man had to move on, to find something he was capable of doing – maybe just sit back and pass on what he had learned. It was hard, but he was ready. His life had been good. He'd spent it carving out an empire – creating a legacy to leave to his sons – and it was time to pass it on.

Sadly, Joe was the only son he had left.

The irony was, of all of the boys, Joe was the one he had most feared would not live to see old age. Adam had always been so sensible, so steady, and Hoss... Ben choked to think of his gentle middle boy who had been taken from them so suddenly and so senselessly. Hoss, well, he had been as rock steady as the earth itself. Joe had always been reckless and impulsive, so full of anger, and impossible to control. Now, he was going to be a father himself. Ben shook his head as a smile chased away the aches and pains.

He was going to be a grandfather.

The thought of it was bittersweet as the reality of Joe's first child who lay buried in the same grave as his first wife. He'd loved Alice. He'd mourned her loss nearly as much as his son had. For a long time he believed Joe would never dare to love again, but then Anne had returned. They'd had a special bond, the two of them. Just like Joe had with Carrie. A bond that, with time, had turned to true love.

A soft footfall alerted him to the fact that his daughter-in-law had come into the room. She was carrying a bouquet of autumn flowers. Hop Sing came out of the kitchen to take them from her and the two of them laughed as they exchanged a few words. Anne, though forceful and quixotic at times as Joe's mother had been, was a welcome addition to their home. She loved his son and that was all that mattered.

With a familiar and long missed swish of skirts, Joe's wife came to his side. "How are you this evening, Pa?" she asked.

Pa. Joe had insisted. He had a daughter now in the place of two sons.

"I'm fine, Anne. How are you?"

She sighed. "Waiting on Joe. You know, I think he'd work twenty hours a day if you let him."

"There's little I do or do not 'let' Joseph do anymore." He smiled. "It's your job now to rein him in."

She turned and looked out the window above the dining table. "He's like a stallion, isn't he? With that mane of silver hair blowing wild in the wind and his muscles rippling in the sun."

While he had never considered describing his son in quite that way, he could appreciate the image. "You've tamed him."'

Anne pivoted toward him. She looked ill. "Have I?"

Ben rose and went to stand beside her. "I meant that as a compliment."

"It's just, I would never want to change Joe. I hope you know that."

He leaned down and kissed the top of her head. "Life and time change us all. Now, why don't you go up and get ready for supper? I'm sure Joe will be home shortly."

He watched until she had mounted the stairs and headed toward the wing he had given to the pair. After what happened to Alice, Joe had decided to stay in the ranch house rather than build his own. Here, there were eyes and ears other than his to guard his wife and child-to-be.

Rising from his seat, the older man crossed to the door and opened it and looked out, half expecting to see a man clothed all in black walking his way. He was too old to wait like Joe by the fence post.

But he never stopped hoping.

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Joe Cartwright swayed on his feet, but he didn't go down. His lip was bleeding. Hell, just about everything on him was bleeding from his forehead where Deets had just landed a good punch to his knees where they'd scraped the ground when he fell, cutting through the fabric of his gray trousers.

"This is pointless," he heard Carter say. "End it!"

Deets spat on the ground. "I would not expect you to know anything of honor, worm. You who work in Intelligence spend your days in the dark like the gagh, cowering beneath the belly of a rock!"

Joe's eyes went from one man to the other. He hated to side with the big guy, but it seemed doing so might make his life longer.

Raising his fists again, Joe tried to look fierce. "Come on," he demanded. "It's not...over until it's over."

Carter looked at him with disdain. "Oh, it will be over soon for you, Cartwright. You'll be dead."

If that was their goal, why not kill him now? "You're bluffing."

A strange weapon appeared as if by magic in Carter's pale hand. It resembled a gun but was too compact. And there was no barrel. As the man with the dark blond hair spoke, he aimed it at him. "Try me."

"He cannot die now," Brewer stated, speaking for the first time. "Neither the time nor place are right. Our orders are to deliver him to Bodie alive, and then to collect our fee."

The name sent chills shivering through him. Bodie. Adam had warned him about it – if the figure he had seen in his dreams was Adam.

"I see you've heard of it," Carter said, his upper lip twitching.

"I have and I'm not going there."

"Deets."

Before Joe could think to move the giant of a man had hold of him. He pinned his arms to his back even as Carter swooped in like a carrion bird scouting out supper to come. "You have a choice, Mister Cartwright. You can come with us willingly, or I will order Brewer to give you some incentive. Perhaps that pale thing you have taken for a mate..."

Joe froze. Visions of his home, his wife, his child going up in flames swam before his blood-shot eyes. A woman was at the window of the burning house looking out at him, pleading for him to save her. It was Alice. And behind her was Anne.

"No," he said simply. "No."

Carter's pale eyes flicked to the powerfully built man. A challenge passed between them. "Deets, stand down," he ordered.

Deets bristled. Then he nodded. "It is my regret," he said, seeking Joe's gaze and holding it, "that you will not die in battle as you deserve. You are a man of honor."

'Thank you' just did not seem the right thing to say.

"Bind him!" Carter ordered. Brewer was the one who complied, roughly taking his hands and drawing them up behind his back where he bound them with some sort of twine. When he was done, the small man ordered, "Get the wagon and put him in the back."

Joe knew once he was in the back of that wagon he'd lost any hope of escape.

"Pa will be looking for me," he warned. "And Sheriff Coffee."

"They will not find you."

"Why not?" he asked.

Joe watched as Carter caught his green coat from the fence and then came to stand before him. "Because you will be buried so deep in the bowels of the Earth that no one will find you. Your fleshly form will be left to rot until you are nothing but a pile of bones and a story to be told to an audience that has no interest in the tale."

Joe's eyes misted even as his jaw grew tight. "Why? Tell me why."

The thin pale-skinned man looked directly at him. "I suppose you deserve to know. Your death and burial in the Bodie Mine will serve as a catalyst, It will echo down the centuries until it reaches one man, a man who – thanks to your capture today – will be reborn."

They were mad. The lot of them. But that meant little. Mad or not, his death was the only thing that would satisfy them.

Joe bit his lip and considered his options. Finally he decided that if he was going to die, it would be on his own terms. Bracing himself, he called upon his waning strength for one more attempt – one more chance to break free and smell the open air. One more –

Deets was there, looming over him again. There was a pistol in his hand, poised to slap him in the side of the head. Regret filled the big man's eyes, not for what he was doing, but for the way he was being forced to do it.

Deet's hand moved. Joe felt steel contact flesh even as Carter uttered words he would only half-hear.

"Good night, sweet prince."

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Adam stopped at Spock's side. The Vulcan was rising to his feet. "I have been considering the circumstances in which we find ourselves and have come to a conclusion concerning our proper course of action."

"Yes?"

"I believe it best we advise your brother as to the threat facing him."

Adam's black brows shot up. "Tell Joe? About me? About you, and where you come from?"

Spock nodded. "He is already aware of me through the link, and while the truth has not entered his conscious thinking, it is locked in his subconscious and should render the shock...acceptable."

Well, that was encouraging.

"Why?"

The Vulcan's eyes flicked to the field where Joe was working. "It would be well if one of us traveled ahead to Bodie. I believe it should be you."

"Why me?"

Spock hesitated. "You have a working knowledge of mines, do you not? And are an architect?"

"Yes."

"You will, therefore, have a better grasp of the layout of the mine. If you brother is taken and ends there, it is imperative that we have a better way to reach him. Before..." The Vulcan paused. His black eyes narrowed.

"Before?" Adam drew in a sharp breath. He was still wrapping his brain around time travel, but one thing he understood was that this man – this alien – had been moving through it for some time. "Spock, have you been here before? In this place? At this time?"

The Vulcan did sigh this time. "It was not my intention to indicate that."

"Meaning 'yes'." Adam bristled. "By all that's holy, why didn't you tell me?"

"The knowledge would have served no purpose other than to confuse you."

The dark-haired man was putting it together. "So you were here before, in eighteen-seventy-six, in Bodie – with Joe?"

Those dark eyes held his. "Yes."

"You said he was kidnapped and left at the bottom of the mine, and that we had to stop him from going there. Which means you weren't able to stop him before." A chill ran the length of his spine. "What happened the first time? What happened to Joe?"

Spock's voice was quiet. "I made a miscalculation. Your brother died."

Adam stumbled back. What did that mean? Joe died? Joe was alive now, in the next field, hammering away at fence posts. His brother hadn't yet been to Bodie, but he'd already died in Bodie? Adam pressed his hands to his head and moaned.

Again, the Vulcan's voice was quiet. "I can take it all away. If it is too much for you. Adam," Spock waited until he looked, "even with our travels, this may be too much for you to bear."

He was shaking. "But you need me, right? That's why you pulled me out of my own time and took me with you? You need me to save Joe."

"You are the random element. The past has not been repeated, it is renewed." Spock pursed his lips. "I was in the mine. I was not able to reach your brother in time. There was a moment, a window when he might have come to me, but he would not. He did not trust me."

Adam nodded. "And you knew he would trust me, no matter what."

Spock hesitated. "I do not have a biological brother, Adam, but I understand the bond. It is the same with James Kirk and me."

The admission had taken something out of him.

Adam shook himself, trying to forget what he'd just heard, or at least pushing it away until he had time to process it. The only thing that was important was that Joe was in danger and this man – this alien – for whatever motivation of his own, was Hell-bent on saving him.

"Well," he said at last, "if we keep close enough watch on Joe my knowledge of that mine will be unnecessary. This time we'll keep him from ending up there. I say we stick together..." Adam broke off what he had been about to say. Spock had moved toward the field where Joe was working. The Vulcan rarely showed any emotion. He was showing it now.

Adam looked.

Joe was gone.

1 A Time to Step Down