BEFORE:
Adam did not plan on heeding Roy Coffee's advice. He had no intention of acquiring new lodgings or speaking to his father. With the memory of their last interaction lingering in the forefront of his mind, he was determined to avoid his father completely. It was a silent resolution that was quickly challenged, for not long after his conversation with Coffee, Jamie came to call at the sheriff's office. With his fists clenched at his sides and his blue eyes narrowed with fury, he opened his mouth and spat an accusation that could not be ignored. Ben Cartwright was abusing him, that's what the boy assailed.
Waking Jamie early, Pa had taken the boy on a morning ride to witness the sunrise at the top of a bluff which had once been solely reserved for private conversations between Ben and his oldest son. Adam had felt a pang of jealousy, the slightest hint of childish resentment upon hearing that his father—or their father, rather—had dared take Jamie to such a sacred place. Then, as the seriousness of the boy's accusation seemed to sink in, merging with Adam's recently recollected and fragmented memories of the time he had spent at his uncle's home in Ohio as a small boy, he had been overtaken by a deep and disruptive fear. Though history would indicate that Ben and John Cartwright had taken vastly different outlooks when it came to rearing their sons, Adam could not help his apprehension. As a father, John had taken up a violent hand, and as the son of his own father, Adam knew that inside of Ben Cartwright lived a violent temper that could awaken when provoked. He didn't want to think that his father had lifted an unprovoked, injudicious hand to punish Jamie for insolence, but it was a difficult thought to avoid when confronted with such damning details, when thinking about what a trip to the place where Pa had taken Jamie was supposed to signify. The bluff was supposed to beget patience and understanding, not further frustration and pain. But for Pa and Jamie, it seemed, it had only provided the latter. And if the sense of duty generated from the allegiance of brotherhood wasn't enough to force Adam to broach the topic with his father, then the duty he had sworn to the badge Roy Coffee had pinned on his breast did. He promised Jamie he would talk to their father about the event and then he walked the boy to the schoolhouse.
When he returned to the sheriff's office, he found Pa waiting for him. The only planned topic of conversation was Jamie. Pa wanted to know how the boy and Adam knew each other, why his newly found youngest son had accused him of not knowing who his oldest son was. Adam wanted to know the truth about what happened on the bluff. They both walked away from the conversation with fewer answers than they had wanted to obtain. Or was it that the bits of information they had been provided about one another were a little too difficult to digest?
Pa had taken Jamie to the bluff, and he had tanned the boy for insolence atop it. Any notions Ben may have had about Adam's appointment as sheriff of Virginia City being the product of nepotism or Roy Coffee's myopic fondness were dashed in an instant when he finally summoned the courage to ask what he arguably should have been brave enough to question the evening Adam walked back into his life. He wanted to know who his oldest son was. What exactly it was that Jamie knew about him that he himself did not. Adam had come clean then, disclosing what little truth he could stomach to share. Upon hearing that his son had been working as a marshal, it was Pa who seemed unable to stomach the truth; he processed this new information like a punch to the gut, his expression slightly pained, a glint of fear lurking in the depths of his brown eyes.
"That's not a job of a family man," he had said.
Adam saw through the terse statement and inferred the underlying meaning of it. His father knew—hell, the whole damn town knew—he had taken Peggy. Now the only remaining questions seemed to be to where and for what? No, marshaling was not the profession of a family man, Adam had agreed, sullenly thinking to himself that he now had the fragmented family to prove it. A son who was buried in the ground over two hundred miles away. A wife who had run off. A teenage girl in his charge whose opinion of him was as fixed and fickle as a fall breeze. A silent son who he hoped would grow up to not recall such treacherous times. Adam had experienced his fair share of successes as a marshal; he had tracked, chased, and then caught all kinds of men, crossing off nearly every name on the list his predecessor had left behind with the exception of one. But his achievements had not come without cost, the brunt of which it seemed had fallen on his family to bear, because sustainable futures could never be had when they were built on the back of falsities and lies.
The marshal's badge he kept in his possession was a farce, falsely given and unrighteously claimed. It had led him to places he had not wanted, not intended to go, and Roy Coffee had led him back here, pinning his own silver colored star to his breast as though it would be enough to save him from all he was up against. As though it would be enough to keep him upright in the face of all that seemed intent on bringing him to his knees. The marshal's badge had been a twisted gift from Adam's cousin, Will, another illusionary cross for him to bear—or a mammoth, swindling push into a life that he had somehow been destined for all along. Pa had to understand that, Adam thought. Even if he didn't want to see his oldest son stand in Roy Coffee's place, he at least had to admit that it made sense he was there. He had always been a little too quick to draw the line which distinguished right from wrong; he had always been a little too eager to advocate for the underdog, to make a stand when circumstances demanded it. He simply had not been born the kind to walk away from conflict, easy, or ever at all. Pa knew that, because, despite the fear lurking in his eyes and the coolness of his voice, his demeanor had softened. It seemed Roy Coffee's worry over the tone of their future interactions had been for naught.
"With everything you think you're right about, there is one thing you remain very wrong about," Ben had gone on to say, the beginning of a veiled bid for reconciliation if Adam had ever heard one. "It's not my home, or my land. It's our home, ourland. Despite our differences, I would never withhold from you something you earned. The Ponderosa still belongs to you, too."
In their previous conversation both father and son had pushed each other, neither willing to back down, and now here Ben Cartwright was, standing before his oldest son, preparing to give should Adam take a mind to push. Their conflict could have been over then, Adam had known that at the time, if he would have just accepted his father's subtle offer of peace, if he would have just been the slightest bit open, ready to admit that the decision he had made six years ago—or even some he had made in the time period which had passed between then and now—had been not necessarily wrong but gone about the wrong way.
Taking a deep, clarifying breath, Adam held it, then expelled it, and hardened his expression, his attitude toward his father evening out to something more akin to indifference than anger or love. He neither pushed, nor pulled back. He did not concede to his father's tacit truth. They bickered a little, his father doing what he could to find some common understanding and ground, Adam refusing to provide him either, refusing to give him anything at all. Pa wanted him to come home, that much was clear by the things he was saying, the way he was looking at him, and the fact that he had dared come to the office at all.
You finally came home, those familiar brown eyes urged, so be here. Turn your back on whatever you've done. Whatever it is you've become. Let's put the past behind us now. Come back and be who you once were. Adam thought that if he had been exposed to such soundless solicitations the evening of his return then things might have been different than they were turning out to be. But they couldn't be different now—he knew that, just as he knew his father could never be allowed to know the reasons why.
Unable to ignore or properly respond to his father's pleading eyes, Adam needed Pa as far away from him as possible. He couldn't do all he needed to if foolish old men didn't leave him alone. He couldn't give and he couldn't cave, knowing damn well that if he lost himself in his father's love and understanding now, he would never summon the desire to step outside of it again. And he needed to be outside of it. He needed to stand on his own, shouldering the burden of all that he carried. He needed to think as a cogent father, not as a feckless son. Gathering all of his strength and stealing his nerves, in the moment, Adam resigned himself to acting as neither father nor son, rather as a lawman. He told Pa he intended to give him wide berth. He instructed him to apologize to Jamie for striking him atop the bluff. He advised that he himself would not stay away from the boy as his father eventually requested. With no option left but to adhere to his son's direction, Pa took his leave. Though Adam thought the interaction to be one of the most difficult he had endured in a long while, it was nothing in comparison to the one which followed it.
Entering the sheriff's office in the early evening hours, Hoss presented a bottle of hard liquor to be shared that his brother had never known him to drink. When he spoke, his voice was so saturated with seriousness that Adam thought it unbecoming of the Hoss he once knew. "What's happening here, Adam?" he asked.
Adam appraised the bottle of whiskey sitting in the center of the desk and then looked at the glass of amber alcohol his brother had placed in front of him. It was yet another he was not willing to consume. He wondered how he would avoid drinking it without raising suspicion, how he would negotiate this conversation without doing the same. He had never known Hoss to pose such direct questions, at least not any that he himself was unwilling to provide an answer to.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"I mean, what are you doing?"
"I still don't follow."
"What did you come back for?" Hoss asked bluntly. "Are you meaning to just torture Pa indefinitely with your presence and your unwillingness to allow him to move past his knee-jerk reaction to you or do you have some semblance of a plan."
"For what?"
"For yourself while you sit in this office or the town outside of it who don't support you in the endeavor."
"I believe it was Pa who didn't support me in the endeavor."
"So, that's what it is. You're mad and intent on makin' him pay for standing against you when you thought he oughta stand next to you instead."
"I'm not upset with him over that," Adam said. "Not exactly."
"Well, you ain't exactly not upset with him about it neither." Hoss sipped at his drink, his blue eyes narrowing as he appraised Adam thoughtfully. "He's reeling, you know. Kicking himself something awful for the way he reacted to you the night you showed up, and then, with one knee-jerk decision leading to the other, the way he voted against you doing the very thing you're doing now. He hates himself for it, is that what you want to hear?"
"Not if it's not true." Adam shook his head. "Not even if it is true, I suppose."
"He's worried."
"So, I've heard. In fact, so did the all the members of the Town Council when he questioned the validity of Roy Coffee's faith in me."
"I'm worried, too."
"About my capabilities?"
"About the opinions of the folks who reside in this town. There's some ugly talk afoot."
"About?" Adam asked, feigning stupidity, and forcing an even tone.
Hoss appraised his brother dubiously. "Don't make me say it."
"Don't know how I'll ever understand what it is you're talking about if you don't."
"You'll understand because you're smart." Looking around their surroundings, Hoss shook his head. "Or at least, you used to be. You lied to Pa, Adam," he said, his gaze focusing on anything other than his older brother sitting across from him. "You told him that enough time had passed, that folks didn't recall the unkind things once said about you and Laura Dayton. You said the gossip had calmed down, but it hasn't. In fact, I reckon, it's worse now than it's ever been."
"What did Pa do?" Adam scoffed. "Run home like an affronted child and seek out your understanding ear the moment our conversation ended?" The accusatory slight hung in the air between them; acrid, headlong, and mean, it triggered within Adam a unique sense of shame; he was grateful when his brother did not respond to it. "I couldn't exactly tell him the truth," he conceded.
"No, sir, I suppose you couldn't, not without upsetting the delicate balance of that chip on your shoulder."
"I didn't tell him because it wouldn't have made a difference. He wouldn't benefit from knowing the truth."
"But you might benefit from telling it."
"I wouldn't."
"Then you're benefiting from keeping it a secret."
"Not exactly."
"Then what exactly is it, Adam? What is happening here?"
Adam shook his head. Longing for a distraction, he finally reached for his drink. Taking a hold of the glass, he lifted it toward his mouth; when the rim was nearly touching his lips, he thought better of the decision, pulled the glass away from his face, and placed it on the desk. Crossing his arms, he pressed his palms tightly to his sides beneath his armpits, in an effort to keep them from moving again. His behavior with the whiskey was strange and agitated, disquieting if Hoss chose to think about it a little too hard. Casting his younger brother an idle gaze, he found that he seemed to be. With all the ways he had always been able to hide himself from his father, he had never succeeded in hiding much of anything from Hoss. His little brother just knew him too damn well. The astounding difficulties of their earliest days together had forged a deep, galvanic, perspicacious bond.
"Have the passing years left you with an aversion to whiskey?" Hoss asked.
"An aversion," Adam commented, hoping it would be enough to shift the tone of their conversation toward a more palatable direction. The Hoss he knew had no need to employ such words. Had the passing years rendered him more of an apt word slinger than his older brother recalled him to be? Or had they atrophied Adam's memories, made him recall others in a different way than they actually were?
"Yes, an aversion," Hoss said. "You didn't want to drink Roy Coffee's whiskey the evening you came back, and now you don't want to drink mine. You used to love whiskey back in the day, and now you won't drink it at all."
"So, you think I have an aversion. It couldn't just be that maybe I'm not in the mood, or that I have responsibilities that demand I maintain control over my faculties, a town to look after that has no intention of looking after me."
Brows knitting, Hoss looked at him as though he was beginning to take note of something better left unseen. "It could be that," he agreed. "But it ain't, is it?"
Adam thought of Peggy then, the morning he had spent drinking himself into oblivion on the front stoop of their house in San Francisco. That morning had been just one of many, the only differences between it and all the others were the teenage girl's direful warning and Roy Coffee's extraordinary appearance. Peggy had warned him to be careful with his sudden fondness for the assuaging numbness that spirits would provide; she had advised him, in her own careful way, that if he continued on, one day he would arise from his drunken stupor and find himself resembling Will. What the girl didn't know—what Adam would move hell and earth alike to ensure she never knew—was that he already had. It wasn't the drinking which had precipitated such an unfavorable outcome, rather the decisions he had made prior to struggling to silence his conscience by drowning it in whiskey.
Adam looked at Hoss, the memory of that morning and Peggy's words sitting a little too heavily on his heart. "My grandfather has a staggering fondness for drink," he said, the beginning of an explanation that he knew wasn't quite the whole truth but would be enough to appease them both. "He often falls into a bottle of spirits when he can't make peace with his own. Recently, it was brought to my attention that maybe that's a habit that I've taken to as well."
"The power of hard times," Hoss deduced, nodding as though he understood.
Adam prayed that his brother did not. "I didn't say that."
"You didn't have to. After all, you are here." Placing his glass on the desk, Hoss adjusted himself in his seat, then leaned back and cast his brother a knowing gaze. "Six years gone without so much of a letter or telegraph and then you come walking back like not a minute had passed between that night and the day you left. And now that you've pinned a target to your chest in the form of that badge you're wearin', you're really gonna sit there and summon the gall to act surprised when Pa don't leap to your side to support you. Come on, brother, it ain't like you came back here expecting things to be easy. The only person in this world you know better than me is our pa. You knew he wouldn't support you in your endeavor as sheriff."
"Endeavor."
"Just like you knew he was going to be mad the night you came back. Just like you knew when he showed up here to talk to you this morning that you could not tell him how difficult things really were for you in this town, because you knew damn well that, his anger, shock, and knee-jerk behavior aside, if he knew how badly folks were treating you, then he would never give you the thing you seem to want the most. He wouldn't abandon you in this town, and he wouldn't give you the wide berth you have your heart set on. I already asked you my questions to no avail, but I reckon I may as well ask them again: What's going on here, Adam? What's all this about? Did you come back just to torture Pa, or are you just dead set on torturing yourself instead?"
Hoss's tone was as calm and steady as the expression on his face, but Adam still felt rebuked by both. Even so, he would neither allow himself to think about his brother's questions nor would he dare answer them.
"I know there are certain things your pride won't allow you to ask about," Hoss said, continuing on when it became obvious Adam was not going to reply. "But that don't mean you don't need to hear about them. I think you have it stuck in your mind that because Pa didn't look for you, that because he reached for anger to steady himself the moment you came back, then that means he didn't miss you while you were gone. I think you think that just because you didn't find him sitting outside of the house, praying for the opportunity to be able to greet you again, then that means he didn't sit, wait, and pray you'd make your way back here. He waited, Adam. For six long years, he did. The evening of the day when you took that little girl and your leave, he didn't yet know what happened. None of us did. He was concerned when you didn't show for dinner. After dark, when you didn't come waltzing into the house like you were often known to do, his concern gave way to worry. He paced the front of that fireplace like a cat stalking prey, and when the first light of morning came and you still hadn't shown, that worry became full-blown fear. Later that day, when Will finally came 'round telling the tale of what had actually happened, that you had scooped up Peggy and ran, Pa's concern and worry turned to fury, but his fear remained. He gave that boy a tongue lashing that would rival any he ever saw fit to give you. He said things to Will that are staggering in comparison to any that he ever dared say to you."
"With the way you're talking, it's like you don't recall that I tried to come back previously," Adam said. "I took Peggy, and then I spent some weeks away, but I did go back, and he said some pretty horrible things to me, too."
"Then you left again, and we didn't see hide nor hair of you for six years. Every day that passed in between then and now, that old man spent waiting for you, wanting so badly to look for you but not knowing how such a thing would be received, wanting to respect the reason you left but needing to honor his own reason for disagreeing with it. It took him four years to summon up enough nerve or desperation to head out East, to New England to see your grandfather. He was so certain you had gone back there, then he arrived and found that you hadn't. When he finally came back home, he was sure he had lost you for good. Even so, he still waited. Brother, that man longed for you in a way I don't think you quite understand. With every letter, every telegraph we received, every stranger who stumbled upon the Ponderosa or waltzed into this town, a tall, sturdy, dark-haired fella that might resemble you even just slightly, there'd for a second exist this hopeful gleam in Pa's eyes that maybe it might be you, that the letter or the telegraph might finally be word from you. And each time it wasn't and each time, I swear, I saw a little more of something inside our pa die out."
"Well, maybe his hope died, but his anger remained."
"So did yours, apparently," Hoss surmised. "I've asked you twice now and even though you've avoided the question both times, I'm going to ask you again. What's happening here, Adam?" He nodded at the badge on his brother's breast. "Is that really what you came back here for? To fill Roy Coffee's boots as you ignore the ones your father's blood, sweat, and tears once provided you?"
"Those kinds of boots don't fit me anymore. I didn't come back here to be the man I was before."
"That's making the assumption that the kind of man you are now is different than the one you was before."
Eyes narrowing, Adam wondered how such an assessment could possibly have been reached and why it had been said aloud. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Hoss shook his head. "Nothing if you don't want it to."
"What do you want it to mean?"
"Nothing that you don't want it to."
They stared at each other momentarily, knowing blue eyes locked on uncertain hazel. If Adam had thought that finding himself the primary focus of his father's gaze was bad, then becoming the center of Hoss's attention was worse. Even after all this time, they still knew how to read each other too well. After all, here Hoss was, saying a whole mess of things he knew sounded one way but would be heard another.
Unable to tolerate his brother's familiar, assessing gaze any longer, Adam looked away. "Things aren't the same as they once were, Hoss," he said, hoping that the words would be enough to put an end to the conversation—at least for now. "There are some things that have changed that cannot be changed back."
Hoss considered him for a moment longer, then seeming to reach some unknown silent conclusion, he tilted his head, and grinned. "Don't I know it," he said, his voice taking on a jovial intonation. "Jamie came along and made Little Joe a big brother. If'n you can even imagine such a thing. He's a good one, too, which is probably just as difficult of a thing to picture."
"Of course, he is. How could he not be given the examples he had?"
"We were two of the best. Although, I don't think Joe often saw it that way. Poor, Jamie, though. Here that kid was thinkin' he only had to put up with two older brothers only to suddenly find he has three." He grew thoughtful. "He sure took a shining to you, though. So, I reckon that'll help ease some of that pain."
"The pain felt by Jamie for finding himself in such a situation? Or the pain felt by you and Joe for finding yourselves with a feisty teenage brother to shepherd?"
"Feisty is putting it kindly. That boy is… a lot to handle on his best day, and dang-near impossible to tolerate on his worst."
"He's got a lot to work through. Taking a boy like that and putting him in a family like this, there's bound to be problems."
"You don't know the half of 'em. I know you've gathered that he and Pa have their fair share of grievances with each other, but don't you go taking any of them the wrong way. Recent events notwithstanding, Pa is far more lenient with that boy than he ever was with you, me, or Joe."
"He's out of practice, that's all."
"No, sir, I do believe the years have mellowed him, softened his edges just a bit. If'n you ever find yourself in a mind to soften your own, then you might just find that to be true. In the interim, I would be mindful of how you deal with that Jamie. He's made no secret outta the fact that he holds you in high regard, but you be wary of that pedestal he's shoved beneath your feet. He don't deal with conflict and people well in the long run. That boy will worship you today, then hate you tomorrow, and then meet you with indifference the day after that. With the way he's been carrying on as of late, I reckon, it would be a little too easy for someone to get the wrong idea of how or why he came to be a Cartwright in the first place. It wasn't as though Pa took it upon himself to force the boy into our family, and the decision to formally adopt him was not made easily or lightly. Jamie wanted our last name as much as Pa eventually decided he wanted to give it to him. That boy wasn't a Cartwright for more than three days before he decided he didn't want to be one anymore, because of the more formal liberties it provides Pa to adjust his behavior and such. Even now, his liking of it comes in waves."
"He's a teenager. He likes things when they suit him."
"Don't we all." Hoss's eyes shone with a knowing gleam. "You be careful with that boy," he warned. "And you be careful with this town, too. I know folks 'round here have been playing you rough, but if'n you find yourself in need and in a mind to try visiting Will Cass's store again, then you might find him a little more tolerant of your presence this time around."
Adam was unexpectedly grateful for the ferocious loyalty of younger and larger brothers. "What did you do?"
"Nothing you haven't ever seen fit to do for somebody else in your time. I did not say that Cass would be amiable, mind you; I said tolerant. He won't deny you service, but he ain't gonna like providing it either. You keep a hold of your temper. You mind yourself around him and Sally, and, while you're at it, you mind yourself around Billy Buckley, too."
Adam thought the comment a little too like the one he had already heard spill from Roy Coffee's mouth. "Why did you say that about Buckley?"
"Because I'm worried."
"Because you've been talking to Roy Coffee."
"No, because I got ears."
Adam's apprehension was sudden and palpable. "What did Buckley say to you?" he asked. And who else was the man talking to?
Hoss shook his head. "Nothing that bears repeating in polite conversations," he said. "By me, or Buckley."
"Am I to gather you told him not to repeat it?"
"Let's just say, he might be thinking a little bit longer and harder about what he intends to say before he opens his mouth again."
"You threatened him."
"No, I merely counseled him…"
"Counseled."
"… on the importance of keeping a civil tongue in his mouth. Even so, you need to be careful; the guff between you and him is the real deal. Nobody could have ever accused you and Buckley of being friends, even before Ed Payson hit town. The two of you were just too different to ever get along, which is perfectly fine when you can ignore each other."
"An impossible feat at the moment, it seems."
"That's why I reckon you oughta at least try to keep your distance from him for a while. Just until the gossip floating around town about you and Laura Dayton dies down again, and the sheen of your new badge stops interfering with Buckley's head and he focuses his attention on something else."
"That could take a very long time, knowing Buckley."
"Knowing you. It's the chip on your shoulder that worries me the most, Adam. It worries me because I know Buckley is carrying one, too. He hates you."
"I don't see why he should. After he killed Ed Payson, he got what he wanted. Sheriff Coffee deemed the gunfight fair; I left him alone; and Sally Cass married him."
"You're talking about before. I'm trying to have a conversation with you about right now. Buckley didn't hate you before. He sure didn't like you, but his feelings toward you were a far cry from hate. A deadly combination of ancient foolish gossip and recent indecencies were what changed that."
"Did he happen to expand upon these indecencies?" Adam probed. "Were they mine or his?"
Hoss shook his head. "I already told you the things he said weren't seemly to repeat."
"For whom? Him or me?"
"Does it matter?"
"Does it matter to you?"
"Of course, it don't matter to me."
"But you think it'll matter to Pa," Adam postulated. He wasn't certain he cared about such a thing, rather he was trying to discern what he would be dealing with in the coming days—from Billy Buckley, the townsfolk, Roy Coffee, and his father. "I hate to break it to you, brother, but if such things reached your ears, then they're bound to reach his, too. After all, Will Cass's place is where Buckley said whatever it was that he did, so it is reasonable to think that old man Cass heard it, too. I know he and Pa aren't exactly close, but they're not strangers either. They still talk, I'm sure."
"Will Cass won't be telling Pa anything."
"Because you threatened him, too?"
"Because Pa isn't around to be spoken to. He came home this afternoon, apologized to Jamie, then packed his saddlebags and set his sights on sequestering…"
"Sequestering."
"…himself in the wilderness where, I suppose, he's going spend the next few days slipping pulls of something strong into his coffee and staring at the flames of a campfire thinking about all the ways he's going to be a better father."
"To Jamie."
"To you," Hoss said. "Like I said before, the man is reeling, and judging by the information I heard from Billy Buckley earlier today, so are you."
"Because I kicked Buckley out of a working gal's room," Adam said, finally growing weary of carefully dancing around what he was now certain they both already knew. Roy Coffee's worry and warning aside, it was nothing to be this avoidant of or worried about. He wasn't Buckley, after all. He wasn't the one who had paid Eileen Terry for her companionship, or to do such repugnant things.
Hoss blinked, clearly dumbfounded. "That's not…" he began, then hesitated.
"What?" Adam pressed. "That isn't what Buckley said?"
Hoss shook his head and opened his mouth only to hesitate once more.
Adam was uneasy. What could be so terrible, so libelous, that his brother wouldn't dare speak it aloud? "Then what did he say?"
Shaking his head again, Hoss remained unwilling to disclose the apparent, abhorrent truth. "Nothing he's going to dare repeat. Like I said, he has a chip on his shoulder. He hates you, and I'm afraid it's only gonna be a matter of time before you start hating him back. You listen to me, brother, and you listen good, stay away from Billy Buckley. No good is going to come from the two of you chasing after each other, digging up old disputes or creating new ones. There is already enough bad blood between you; whether you decide to acknowledge it or not, that doesn't change the fact that it's there. Stay away from him, Adam."
Pursing his lips, Adam was stunned into silence, taken aback by the hint of desperation that was tugging at Hoss's facial expression and had seeped into his tone. There was fear lurking in his familiar blue eyes, a sentiment that Adam did not know what to make of. Was Hoss concerned about what Buckley would and could do, or was he afraid of what Adam would or would not?
"Promise me," Hoss urged.
Adam nodded, ending a conversation he was no longer certain he was prepared to continue.
Later, alone in his rented room, surrounded by the muffled groaning and whimpering which accompanied deeds better left hidden by darkness, he sat awake in bed, considering the photograph of the slain prostitute he held in his hands as he silently disputed his brother's claim. Surely, he did not—simply could not—hate Buckley; no matter what the man said or did, it would never be enough to requisition such overpowering opinions or emotions. Not anymore. Not now that Adam had become acutely aware of devious men with lurid appetites, such as Will, who had shown themselves to be true monsters, so freely demanding such sentiments. As he stared at the photograph in the darkness, a haunting black and white image of a woman laying naked, her face fragmented and fractured, transformed into a bloody, hollow heap, it occurred to him that, despite all the horrors his cousin was responsible for, all the difficulties and challenges he had wrought, he didn't hate Will. Though he desperately wanted to, he did not. And with everything that had happened, all that he had heard the evening before or even that day, this was the thing that disturbed him the most.
Hoss's statements had left him moody and off-kilter, leading him to question everything he was doing and why. He knew he had been born a sympathetic soul and he had grown into an understanding man, but how could anyone dare make allowances for people like Will? Why would he want to? And what would it mean for any of them if he did?
Up until this point, he had looked at Will as a mephitic inconvenience, a problem to be solved. But what if he couldn't solve it? What if he didn't want to? What if he wanted to put it down, his knowledge of the history of violence in the Cartwright line, this burden of truth he carried about his cousin, his uncle, his father, and his father's father? What if he were to heed Hoss's chiding and take his advice, make peace with Pa, and just go home? He could bend—he could if he wanted to—and apologize for leaving so abruptly, for remaining away for as long as he had. Getting what Adam had been told he so desperately wanted, Pa would accept his words at face value; he wouldn't dig, and he wouldn't pry. He would be a little too eager for things to go back to the way they once were. But they wouldn't, Adam knew that. They couldn't, because too much had happened, too much had changed. He knew too much about the past now to ever find peace in a future that would require him to pretend. He couldn't pretend. That was the thing that frightened him the most.
How was he going to bring Noah here? How was he going to deal with Will? How was he going to ever right all the wrongs he now felt so obligated to fix? How was he going to fix anything when he himself remained so broken, so alone with the truth that no one around him could ever know or see? The truth about the violence his father and uncle had suffered at the hands of their father. The truth about the violence Will had suffered at the hands of John, and the monster he had become because of it. The truth about Adam's own memories of a childhood stint spent in Ohio, so haunting, painful, and bleak, and the grief and pain Pa had to be carrying himself because of it all. It was so much to be tasked with fixing, such a heavy load to bear alone. But he had to be alone with it. It was bad enough he had come back here in the first place, only to remain distant, placing himself well outside of Pa's reach, understanding, and command. It was bad enough he would not apologize for the things he knew he had done wrong and that he wouldn't allow Pa to do the same. He wouldn't torture his father further by exhuming the past. He wouldn't dare speak of such things because to do so would be to place the burden upon someone else. He would keep his father's secrets; he would find a way to deal with Will. Keeping his brothers and his father at bay, he would find a way to stand alone as he wrestled with himself and the truth. He had to be alone. That was the thing that grieved him the most.
The door to his room was thrust open without so much as a proceeding knock. Jumping, Adam dropped the photograph and reached for his gun, shoved in his holster hanging from the bedpost above his head. Grasping the weapon, he trained it on the doorway.
Her form backlit by the dim candle sconces lining the hallway, Eileen Terry peered at him through squinted eyes. She hadn't recognized him before when he had forced himself into her room, and it was not clear whether she recognized him now that she stood in the entry of his own. "You're going to pay," she rasped, her shaking body swaying and shifting drunkenly.
"For what?" Adam asked, breathless and stunned. He was certain he had locked the door. How had she managed to gain entry so easily?
"What you did."
"What did I do?"
"If you don't know now, in time, you will."
And with that she was gone, slamming the door behind her as she staggered back to the place from which she had appeared. Lowering his weapon, Adam found he had no desire to relinquish it. Wrapping his holster around his waist, he strode to the door and fiddled with the doorknob, locking, then testing its hold, unlocking, and then locking and testing it again. It held every time. He could not figure how Eileen had managed to thwart it so easily, especially in her inebriated state. Sleep did not come easily to him after that. He lay restless and fitful until exhaustion finally claimed him. When he dreamed, he was presented with nothing but darkness and Ed Payson's voice resounding around him.
"It's not too late, Adam," he ethereally urged. "You can still change your mind, turn around, leave this place, and decide to take a different path. It's not too late just quite yet but pretty soon it will be."
TBC
