PART THREE - 1964

ONE

"Hey, Mike! You still got that hare-brained notion to go up to Lake Tahoe and scout out tomorrow's shoot?"

The man who portrayed Little Joe Cartwright stared out of the tight cramped location space he laughingly called his dressing room at the mountain of a man blocking the light that might have made it possible for him to find his shirt. He was bare-chested, having just shed the last remnants of the man he pretended to be most days of the week. Little Joe lay in a heap of tan, brown, and green clothes discarded on the floor.

"Wardrobe lady's gonna have your head, short shanks, if you leave those there."

The wardrobe lady was nearly as old as his grandmother. "Maybe I'll give her a roll in them, just to mollify her," he said, his face and voice deadpan.

"If you aren't the orneriest little cuss ever to come to Hollywood," his friend and co-worker sighed. Then with a wink the big man added, "And I do mean 'little'."

It was a long-standing joke between them – the difference in their stature. Dan stood six foot four to his five foot nine and at 300 pounds, outweighed him by about the weight of a gorilla.

"Yeah, but I got size where it counts," he replied.

Dan stared at him and then burst into laughter. As he did, a tall dark figure paused behind him.

"Are you two still at it?" Pernell asked..

"Just some unscripted fun between brothers," Dan remarked. "Want to join in?"

The man who portrayed their older brother Adam shook his head. "Heading home. I advise you two do so as well."

Dan looked at him. "Mike wants to take a look at the shoot area at Incline Village for tomorrow."

The other man frowned. "Whatever for? It's trees and grass."

"Yeah, but I'm the one who has to take a spill in those trees and on that grass," he protested. "I want to check it out. The last fall I did I nearly broke my collar bone."

Pernell's eyebrows rose. "You could let the stunt men do their job, Mike. It's what they get paid for."

They didn't understand. Either of them. He didn't just want to act. He wanted to do it all, experience it all – understand it all.

Michael Landon's lips curled in one of his most devilish smiles. "And I get paid to look handsome and make the ladies swoon. No better way to do that than to fall off a horse and suffer. I want to make sure I do it right."

Pernell was perusing his script. He waved his hand as he walked away. "It's your neck," he sighed.

"You do take a lot of risks, Mike," Dan said quietly. "You sure you want to do your own stunt work?"

It was hard to explain. He didn't want to do it, he had to. There was something in him that drove him to succeed, to prove himself. He snorted as he closed his dressing room door.

In that way, he was much like the youngest Cartwright he portrayed.

Shinnying into his leather jacket, which he wore over a tan shirt and a pair of jeans, he turned and looked at Dan. "Look, you don't have to come with me. Lynn's away with the kids. I have nothing else to do. Dolphia's at home waiting on you."

"I don't want you going out there alone. It's way out on the lot, another fifty miles or so. Something might happen."

Mike made a face and waved his hands in the air while singing the theme to the Twilight Zone. "You're right. A spaceship is going to land and little green men are going to abduct me and take me away with them into outer space." He laughed. "You worry too much."

Dan circled his shoulders with his arm. He cocked his head and favored him with a smile.

"That's what big brothers are for."

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It took about an hour and a half to drive the dusty roads and was dusk by the time they arrived. As usual it took the big man more time to get out of the car than the spunky little fellow who played his kid brother. Mike was a dynamo. He was energy personified and was driven by a need to be accepted and approved of that he figured stemmed from his terrible childhood. Sometimes it made him want to knock some sense into that thick curly-brown head of his. Other times, well, it made him want to cry. He had his own kids. He couldn't imagine treating them the way Mike had been treated.

It was a wonder he'd come through the years of mental and physical abuse without turning into some sort of a monster himself.

They were going to shoot an outdoor scene the next day, where Little Joe came riding in and was shot off his horse. Mike had to fall and roll to a stop. Of course, he insisted on doing it himself. At first the producers had balked at him taking on more and more stunt work – they were worried about that handsome face that had women all across the world swooning getting damaged – but he'd talked them into it and soon had been fighting and falling with the best of the men who made it their profession. The grips had erected a facade of the house nearby as another scene they were going to shoot tomorrow had Joe stumbling up to the house and dropping to the ground before they ran out and found him. It was funny, seeing the Cartwright's ranch house sitting there where it might really have been, the false front looking all too real in the meager light.

Closing the car door behind him, he followed his fellow actor and friend to the field. Mike was walking it, looking at the ground, kneeling every now and then to check a rock or odd bit of raised up ground.

"So what do you think?" he asked as he halted nearby.

"Looks good," he said, rising to his feet. "No rocks so far."

"Only in your head."

Mike looked up at him and then he laughed – that laugh that engaged any and everyone who heard it and made them laugh with him. It was almost a giggle, but not quite. Sometimes it reminded him of the nicker of the high-spirited horses that were such a part of his current world.

"You ready to go then?"

"Almost. I want to check the ground near the house facade as well. Why don't you get back in the car?" he suggested as he rose and pulled his jacket close about his throat. "No point in both of us freezing to death."

It was Autumn and the nights were turning cold. "Okay. But don't be long."

"Oh, right," Mike grinned, "gotta watch out for those little green men." He rolled his eyes. "I'm sure they'll let me send a postcard when we get to Alpha Centauri."

"Why don't you just shut up and do what you're going to do so we can get home?" he grumbled.

Mike waved. "Be there in a minute."

It was the last Dan saw of him.

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As the man with the curly brown hair tramped the uneven ground of the Incline Village location, headed for the false front of the Cartwright's home, all sorts of things were flying through his head. He missed his wife and his kids. They'd gone off to visit with Lynn's family and left him alone to rattle around in their empty house. He didn't like being alone. It left him too much time to think. Though the demons of his past had been imprisoned by the man he'd become, they still rattled at the bars of his childhood prison and shrieked to be set free. He knew he was hotheaded, and impatient, and that he played too hard and drank too much. Lynn was trying to change him and he welcomed it, though sometimes he felt it wasn't fair to her. In some ways she had to be the mother he had never had and that bothered him. He'd done that with Dodie and it hadn't worked.

It was going to work with Lynn.

As he arrived at the facade, Mike turned and looked back toward the car. He could hear the radio blasting away and see Dan rocking inside. It made him smile. They were close, all of them, even if Pernell – well, he was a good choice for Adam. Pernell could be aloof and at times a bit of a pain, but they still had some great times.

After casting around, looking at the ground, he headed for the false front door. Acting was a funny profession. You had to see it all in your head, you had to believe it. There were times when he thought, if he opened that door at just the right time, Little Joe Cartwright might be there waiting for him. Crossing to it, he put his hand on the knob and laughed as he began to open it.

The laughter died when a man stepped out of the shadows beside him.

Falling back, he asked, "Who? Who are you?"

The man was lean, with dark hair and dark intense eyes. He was dressed like one of their extras in a tattered long black duster and other worn Western clothes. Extending a trembling hand, he said, "You must come with me."

Mike fell back. He held up his hands even as he glanced toward the car to see if Dan had taken note. "Whoa. I'm not going anywhere with you." He squinted, sizing the other man up and recognizing his symptoms from personal experience. "Friend, you look like you need to go home and sleep it off."

"I have not partaken of any fermented or distilled liquids." The man's voice was flat, his words spoken as if he were reading from a freshly produced script. "The threat is real. You must come with me, Joseph Cartwright."

"Joe? Hey, man, I'm not Joe. My name is –"

The man gripped his arm with unexpectedly strong fingers and for the first time he felt real fear. Struggling against him, Mike turned to call out to Dan.

It was then he felt fingers on his shoulder.

"It is for your own good," the stranger said.

And everything went black.

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"I tell you, he was there one minute and gone the next!" Dan Blocker declared. He'd not gone to the police since he wasn't entirely sure Mike wasn't just pranking him. Instead, he'd driven to Lorne's house to get the older man's take on things.

Lorne seemed to be considering everything he had told him. "It does seem a little out of character. I mean, Mike can be a prankster, but his pranks are seldom hurtful."

Dan nodded his head. "I can't really imagine him taking off on foot either. You don't think, well... There are crazy people out there. You know, most fans are great, but there are some..."

"I'm sure he's all right. After all, this is reality and not a television show. I'd give it until morning. See if he shows for work." Lorne snorted. "You know that kid. He could have had a car hidden in the trees."

Dan nodded. And then a shy smile lifted the corner of his lips. "I wonder what Ben and Hoss Cartwright would do if Little Joe just up and disappeared like that right from under their noses?"

Lorne smiled. "There's no need to wonder. They'd ride out with guns blazing."

"It's something, isn't it? What David wants to show – four men, loving each other, protecting each other, and without worrying about what anyone thinks."

"It's something our country needs desperately right now. It only takes a look at the paper, or a half hour watching the news." Behind Lorne, on the television screen, yet another riot was breaking out. He shook his head. "Sometimes I wonder if we will survive as a nation."

Dan was silent a minute. "You think old Ben Cartwright would wonder?"

Lorne's dark eyes fastened on his. "Thank you, Dan."

The big man headed for the door. When he'd reached it and had his hand on the knob, he turned back and said, "You know, I do feel like Hoss. I'm just busting to see that little scamp show up in the morning. But when I do, I'm like to break his neck."

He left to the sound of Lorne's laughter.

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Wherever he was, it was cold. And dark.

Dark without stars or light.

Dark, like the inside of a cave.

He wrinkled his nose. Maybe that was it. He was in a cave. He could smell the earth and feel the dampness seeping through his trousers.

What was he doing in a cave? He'd been scouting out the wooded clearing where he was going to take a fall...

Michael drew in a sharp breath of air. He remembered.

He'd been kidnapped!

"You must remain still," someone said.

He felt like a little kid, waiting on the bogey man to jump out. His heart was pounding and his breath came in short, soft gasps.

"Where am I?"

"You are safe."

Mike's brown brows danced toward the unruly curls layering his forehead. "Safe? How can I be safe?" he asked, his voice rising with his temper. "You kidnapped me!"

"You must modulate your tone. If you do not do so, I shall be forced to render you silent once again."

He swallowed over his fear – and dropped his voice. "Why?"

"I am familiar with your boisterous personality and tendency toward quick unexpected motion. In our current circumstances, neither would be wise to exercise."

He frowned. How come his kidnapper sounded like a Harvard don?

"Who are you?" he asked quietly. "Why did you take me? Why are we here?"

"Are you attempting to outstrip your earlier record for the number of inquiries it is possible to make within the space of a sixty second period?"

Was that...a smile he heard in that question?

"As to your second query," the man went on, "I am attempting to protect you from outside forces which wish you harm. As to why we are here – in this cave – I..." He stopped. Michael heard a sharp intact of breath. "...I have to...must...keep you safe. This was the only approximate locale I could find."

He waited. "And my first question?"

There was a pause. As if the man was truly confused. "You do not know me?"

"I can't see you!" he spat back.

He heard the man rise. Heard him walk across the cave floor and felt him at his side. A moment later a light appeared. He blinked it away at first it hurt his eyes so much, but then a few seconds later looked up and into the man's face.

Michael gasped.

He'd found his little green man.

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James T. Kirk found solid ground suddenly under his feet. He glanced around, noting the inky night sky with its crystal clear stars and the tall whispering Ponderosa pines and sighed. He was more than ready to get back to the steady sure method of transport he was used to – and to cease traveling through time. This was the last stop. Well, he hoped it was the last stop.

The Guardian said it was.

Sometimes he had a hard time remembering what time he was or had been in. While he hadn't joined Spock one his initial trip to eighteen-seventy six, he'd been to eighteen-sixty four, back to twenty-two-sixty-eight, then to eighteen-seventy-six, finally arriving here, on Earth, in nineteen-sixty-four. He'd been surprised when the Guardian's images had run past the lives and deaths of the Cartwrights and their children and continued right on up to the same time period he had visited with Major John Christopher. He'd been even more surprised to find that – in one of those inexplicable eddies of time – the idea and ideals of the Cartwrights had transcended time and still existed in a TV show, of all things, depicting their extraordinary lives. The producer, a man named Dortort, must have read the historical record and fashioned the show on what information and antique photos he found there. The images the Guardian showed him were remarkable. The resemblance of the cast members to the actual men was uncanny. Oh, they were not nearly so rugged or, in reality, weather-beaten and worn as the actual Cartwright clan, but – if one didn't know better – they could easily be mistaken one for the other.

Kirk sighed again and then scowled. It was getting to be a habit.

Unfortunately, at the moment, Spock wasn't capable of knowing which was which.

The blond man ran a hand over his face. The last image the Guardian had shown him – one that had altered the historical record – was of a newspaper detailing the kidnapping and death of one of the lead characters on Bonanza. The bright young star with so much potential had mysteriously vanished from a shooting location one night and been found the next morning at the bottom of a cliff near Lake Tahoe.

It was Michael Landon, who played Little Joe.

While Landon's passing did not change the historical timeline in large ways, it seemed to in small ones that were significant. Apparently the man, when older, had been a force for good. Also apparent was his love of ladies so like the character he portrayed. Kirk smiled. Nine kids! Not all of them biologically his, but all of them reared with his unique idea of what a man or woman's place was in the world. Those kids and their kids had contributed after his untimely death from cancer at age 54.

They had contributed a lot.

Kirk drew a breath and then turned to the kit he carried. This time, Prime Directive be damned, he'd brought a phaser, a communicator, and a tricorder altered to work on radio waves. He also had a pack McCoy had supplied him with that contained medical equipment, including bandages and other items plus the remedy for Spock's madness. It was the same as the inoculation against the time manipulator's venom that Bones had injected him with before he left. It rendered the poison harmless.

The Guardian had set him down the day before the body was discovered, which meant he had less than twenty-four hours to find Spock and the actor and somehow convince his out-of-his-mind Vulcan friend that Michael Landon wasn't Little Joe Cartwright – that he'd already saved Cartwright back in eighteen-seventy-six and he should let the actor go.

The fact that Landon's broken body had been found at the bottom of a cliff suggested that his death had been an accident. They'd discussed it in the briefing room before he went down to Gateway and the others had agreed. Like the real man who'd inspired his character, Landon was reputed to be quick-tempered and a bit reckless. The fall suggested Spock was holding the young man somewhere high in the hills, maybe in a cave. Something had happened. Something that had made him fall.

Something he had to stop.

Kirk glanced about, making sure he was alone, and then opened the tricorder and scanned the area, looking for a non-human signature.

There were two.

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"So what are you going to do with me?"

The light was gone and they were in the dark again. It was easier that way. Looking at the man who held him had been like watching an episode of Outer Limits. Odd. Unnerving.

Frightening.

"I will...protect you."

"You keep sayin that. What do I need protected from?" Other than you, he thought.

"Theron...he... He is still out there."

He'd mentioned that name before. "Who's Theron?"

There was the sound of boots turning sharply on dirt. So he was standing. "I...do not understand."

Mike rolled his eyes. That made two of them! Still, slowly, his fear of anything happening to him was fading. It was obvious the man wasn't right in the head. Maybe he was a fan who had escaped from a mental institute.

"I don't know who Theron is," he said, keeping his tone even. "I don't know you and I don't know why you think you have to protect me. The only one threatening me is you."

Again, a pause. "I do not threaten. I...guard. It is...my duty."

That was a new wrinkle. "Are you army or something?"

"Federation," he said as if that explained it all.

"Okay." Mike sucked in air. "How about a name? What's your name?"

"You do not recall it?"

It came out slowly in a sigh. "No. No, I don't." After a second he asked, "How about you do something for me."

"Yes?"

"You tell me my name."

The man shifted again, almost as if he was uneasy.

"You do not know who you are?"

"Yes, I know who I am," he huffed. "I want you to tell me who you think I am."

"You are the man upon whom the future world depends," his kidnapper said, his voice even but his words reviving those fears, "you are Joseph Francis Cartwright of the Ponderosa and it is my mission to save you – whether you desire it or not."