Chapter One – The Past

oooooooooo

Seventeen-year-old Adam Cartwright looked at the list he had just composed, then he pinched his nose and sighed.

"Let's see. Where do I start?" he groaned.

First there was the payroll, which was due in a few days. Then, there was the preparation for the cattle drive that was set to begin the next week. After that were listed the more mundane tasks Pa had left for him such as checking the fence on their perimeter and shoring up the outbuildings before the snow flew. Then came the business affairs, which included a contract that had to be renegotiated before the deadline that was three days away. Even farther down on the rumpled cream-colored piece of paper were the things Hop Sing had added before he left for Sacramento such as purchasing enough food and medicine to make it through the winter and – since they had no mother to sew their clothes, not that Marie's greatest gift had been sewing – picking up enough clothing to last until Spring, which was quite a lot considering there were two growing boys under the age of ten in the house. And then – then, there were the ordinary everyday things that had to be done like caring for the livestock and picking his brothers up after school. Little Joe still had a problem if he didn't. His baby brother was sure anytime anyone was out of his sight that they were dead. On top of nursemaiding Joe, he had to make sure the two boys ate, took their baths, did their homework, and actually went to bed when ordered. One time he found the two of them playing checkers on Joe' bed at two a.m.!

Adam dropped the list on his father's desk and ran a hand over his eyes. He was lucky if he got four hours of sleep a night. Hop Sing yelled at him about it, but by the time he got everything done, it tended to be the wee hours of the morning.

Which was just about the time Little Joe usually woke up screaming.

After that came an hour or two of sitting with the little boy and assuring him that though his mama couldn't come back – much as she wanted to – his papa would return soon.

Adam turned and looked out the window beyond the dining table. He hated lying to the little tyke, but what was he supposed to do? Four months had passed since Marie had died in a fall from her horse and in that time he might have seen his father twice as many times. Pa would come home to make sure they were all breathing and then go out again, God only knew where. He said he was attending to the Ponderosa's 'greater' business.

What he was doing was running away. Pa couldn't stand to be in the house with Marie's things and that, sadly, included Little Joe. The kid was a dead ringer for his mother.

Adam winced. Poor choice of words.

Moving across the great room, the tired teen dropped onto one of the dining room chairs and anchored his elbows on the wooden table. The last time Pa had come home, it had been late. He'd entered the house around midnight looking like a ghost. They'd chatted a bit and then the older man had gone upstairs. He found him later sitting in Little Joe's room, staring – just...staring at the boy. He'd wanted to shout at him – no, to scream, but the look on Pa's face – the utter devastation and raw naked grief – had silenced him.

It seemed the Cartwright way was to shut down in the face of inexplicable loss. And it wasn't like he was a stranger to it. It was how he had survived losing Hoss' mother.

Who was he to judge?

With a sigh, the teenager leaned forward and rested his head on his arms. Little Joe and Hoss were due home shortly. Even though Joe had just turned five, after Marie's death, Pa had enrolled him in school. He was a smart little kid. Probably too smart for his own good. Joe was already sure he was as good as Hoss at everything and should be allowed to do everything the ten-year-old – who was the size of a thirteen year old – could do. It had led to some pretty interesting moments, like the time Joe decided in the middle of the night that he could rope a steer and walked out of the house and into the corral wearing nothing but his birthday suit.

Shifting, Adam found a comfortable spot where his neck wasn't cricked. Just for a second, he thought, just for a second I'll close my eyes. He'd sent one of the hands to fetch his brothers. Dusty was a surly old thing except, funny enough, when it came to kids. He'd actually volunteered for the job and said he'd run the pair past the mercantile and buy them a peppermint stick each before he brought them home. One of the other hands told him that Dusty had lost his family early on to Indians. The old wrangler had grown hard to survive, but still had a soft spot for children due to the ones he'd lost. They were due to arrive any time. He was sure he'd hear the horses and wake up when they did.

Closing his eyes, Adam willed his mind to stop whirling.

It wasn't long before he was sound asleep.

oooooooooo

Dusty didn't bring them to the house. He dropped them off at the end of the yard and headed back out with another of Pa's hands to help a man who had got hurt. The older man had looked at him and said, "Hoss, now you be sure to tell your older brother where I went and why. I don't want him thinkin' I shirked my duty."

The oversized ten-year-old had nodded and said he would, even though he didn't know exactly what it meant for someone to 'shirk' somethin'. He was pretty sure it wasn't a good thing, but that was about as far as it went.

A second later he felt sticky fingers slip into his own.

"I want to go inside," Joe announced.

Hoss' lips twitched when he looked down at his brother. Little Joe's nose was white and his lips were about as red as Mancey's. Mancey was a saloon girl in Eagle Station that Adam talked to when he thought no one was watchin'. It looked like Joe'd run his sticky fingers through his hair too 'cause them curls of his was clumped together like they was wet. And worst of all, the front of his white shirt weren't white anymore, it were pink.

Adam was gonna have himself a conniption fit.

At that thought, Hoss realized older brother hadn't come out to greet them like he usually did. For a second Hoss was afraid, but then he told himself he was too big for that. Hadn't Dusty told him just the day before that he was gonna talk to Adam about him goin' huntin' with him and lettin' him take a rifle? His chest puffed out at that. He was nearly all growed up. Why, he knew of a couple of boys in the settlement no older than him had been left without a pa or ma and they was takin' care of themselves, workin' their farm and huntin' for food and the like. Adam would know that too. He'd let him go. He was sure of it.

Well, almost sure. Pa and Adam was kind of funny about guns.

"Hoss, come on!" Little Joe said, tugging at his hand. "I want to tell Adam what that teacher lady said."

"Teacher lady?" He frowned. "You mean Miss Jones?"

Joe's curly head was bobbin'. He sure was a cute little cuss when he did that.

"Little Joe, now you just settle down. What'd she say that's got you in such an all-fired hurry?"

His curls flew the other way. "She said I had to tell Adam. You ain't Adam."

"No, but I'm bigger than you and I can pick you up and throw you in that horse trough if'n you don't," he countered.

"I don't need a bath," Joe declared.

"You sure do," Hoss said as he scooped his brother up off the ground. "I can tell you, you don't want to go talkin' to Adam 'til we got you all cleaned up."

"But I gotta tell him!" Joe wailed. "The teacher lady told me I would be a good boy if I did. Pa told me I should be a good boy." Little Joe sniffed and his voice trailed off. "Maybe if she tells him I was good then Pa will come home..."

They were just outside the front door. Hoss jerked to a stop. He didn't understand why their pa had gone away, but he knew for sure it had nothin' to do with Little Joe.

The things kids got in their heads!

Hoss dropped his brother and then knelt before him. "How about this? You and me will sneak upstairs and get you all cleaned up and in a new shirt and then we'll tell Adam what Miss Jones said."

Little Joe was scowling. You could almost see the wheels turning behind those great big green puppy dog eyes of his.

"It'll count the same if we wait?"

"Sure it will. It'll be more of a...surprise. Yeah, a surprise." He had a pretty good idea what Miss Jones had said.

Joe was amazin'. He could turn from shadow to sunshine faster than anyone he'd ever knowed. A brilliant smile lit his baby brother's face. "I love surprises! I bet Adam does too."

Hoss smirked. "Kind of depends on what the surprise is, little brother."

Little Joe looked from side to side and then leaned in and said in a whisper, "Miss Jones said to tell Adam she needs him to help her with the older boys 'cause he's so inte...inte...intefectual." Joe paused and then pronounced his five-year-old judgment. "I think she likes him."

The ten-year-old shook his head. "That Miss Jones," he snorted. "She's gotta be old enough to be Adam's ma."

There went the sunshine again. Joe sniffed. "I miss my ma."

Of all the stupid lunk-headed things! Why'd he have to go and say somethin' so stupid?

"I'm sorry, Little Joe," Hoss said, wrapping his arms around his brother. "I didn't mean to make you cry."

"Who's cryin'?" Joe stuck out his lip. "Big boys don't cry."

"That's right. So you just suck it in and button your lip and we'll go in real quiet-like and get up that staircase for Adam knows we're home." Hoss stuck his hand out. "Deal?"

Little Joe took it and shook it hard, transferring the last remnants of his peppermint stick to his fingers.

Hoss looked at them and sighed.

And then stuck them in his mouth.

oooooooooo

Adam stirred. He blinked sleep from his eyes and sat up – and then realized the sun had gone down. With a start, he stood so quickly he tipped his chair over. A distressed gasp made him look up – and was met with a gasp of his own.

Hoss was reaching for the gun rack. On the floor beside him, Little Joe was playing with the carved horses his mother had given him on that last Christmas.

"What do you think you are doing?!" the teen shouted as he worked his way through the cobwebs of sleep and headed for the area near the stair.

Hoss jumped and turned around faster than a cat with his tail on fire. In his haste, he stepped on one of Joe's horses. Adam winced as he heard the wooden animal snap.

And then the wail.

"Hoss...broked...my...pony!"

Good God.

In ten steps he'd reached the little boy and scooped him up. Joe threw his arms around his neck and took hold so tightly it was all he could do to manage to squeak out, "The horse, Hoss? Can it be mended?"

It was hard to hear above Little Joe's sobs, but his middle brother's shake of the head was all he needed.

"Joe. I'll get you another horse, okay? Even prettier," he said.

"But...mama... gave...me...that horse. You...ain't mama!"

Yes. I am, Adam thought. I definitely am.

The teen fixed his middle brother with his most serious stare. "You wait here for me. I'm going to take Little Joe up and put him to bed. And you stay away from that gun case! Do you understand?"

Hoss met his serious stare with a somewhat defiant look and then dropped his head. "I hear ya."

Tomorrow, he swore, tomorrow he was going to go into town and hire some woman to come out and deal with these two until their pa got back. He had no time for this. That list as long as his arm was waiting for him and he hadn't gotten one single thing done.

Not one!

ooooooooo

An hour passed before Adam managed to make it downstairs. He'd had to let Little Joe cry himself out. His brother had been inconsolable about the broken horse. Of course, it wasn't really the horse, it was the fact that his baby brother had witnessed his mother's accident, watched her die in his father's arms, and then 'lost' his father as well all within a period of weeks. As his boot struck the ground floor, the teen tossed a look at the tall case clock. It was well past both of his brothers' bedtimes. Past his too.

And he was sure Little Joe was not going to let him sleep through the night.

It took Adam a moment to find Hoss. He was sitting at the dining table with his head in his hands. The older boy crossed over to the table and sat down and waited for his brother to look up.

"Do you understand why I was angry?" Adam asked.

"Dusty said – "

"I don't care what Dusty said. You answer to me."

Reluctantly, the ten-year-old nodded. "I understand. But Adam, I can handle a gun – "

"And you would know that because?"

Dear Lord, he sounded like his father!

Hoss winced. "Cause Dusty let me shoot his rifle."

"Oh, he did, did he? Well, I'll just have to have a talk with Dusty about that in the morning."

"Adam, I ain't a kid. I'm near eleven years old! Tom and Jack Sanders are my age and they carry rifles and use them too!"

Adam drew a breath. When he'd been Hoss' age, he'd known how to shoot a rifle. He'd had too. He had to protect Hoss.

But that had been a different world.

"Hoss, don't you realize that what you did tonight – doing something you know you have been told not to do – proves you aren't ready?"

Hoss was silent a moment. "I'm sorry, Adam," he said at last. "I wanted to look at that rifle of Pa's. The one Ma got him last Christmas with the silver 'C' in the handle." His little brother swallowed hard. "I wanted to hold it. I didn't think you'd mind."

"You didn't think I'd know since I was asleep."

There was a trace of a grin. "That too."

Pa had left the rifle behind when he took off. It, like the house and Little Joe, reminded him of Marie. She'd had it made special for him.

Adam leaned back in his chair and studied his brother. Hoss wasn't a bad kid. He was just...a kid. The trouble was, in the West, it took nothing for a kid to end up dead.

"Look. We'll forget it this time, but don't do it again. For one thing, Little Joe was watching. What if he decided to climb up on a chair and get a rifle from the rack?"

"It wouldn't be loaded."

Adam rolled his eyes. "Most likely not, but you never know. Sometimes Pa leaves one loaded so he or I can grab it quick if trouble comes. You can't take that chance."

Hoss' eyes were the most crystal clear blue he had ever seen, like a mountain spring. They hid nothing. He could see his brother was truly repentant for what he had done.

"I'm sorry, Adam. I won't do it again."

The teen smiled as he rose and pushed off from the table. "Okay. Now, I think both you and I should try to get some sleep. Marie's alarm clock is set to go off about three a.m."

Hoss was on his feet too. "Marie's alarm clock?"

His step-mother had one. It had been a gift from a French admirer and was the latest fad in New Orleans. But that wasn't what he was talking about.

"Little Joe. I imagine that's about the time he'll start yelling."