In the coming weeks, Ben's dream changed.
Still standing immobile on the top of the cliff, his eyes aimlessly searching the desolate land below for something he was destined to never find. Since being pushed over the edge by Kane, Adam was nowhere to be seen. He hadn't appeared in any of his father's dreams since, but that didn't mean Ben was alone. He was never alone in his dreams.
Peter Kane always loomed, blocking the only access point to the safety of the landscape behind them. Sometimes he spoke, others he only stared, his lips curled into an evil smile, his eyes glowing as he watched and waited for Ben to utter an accusation or make a move. This time Ben remained determined to do neither as he stood rooted in place, his fists clenched at his sides as he silently willed himself to wake up.
"Now, why would you want to wake up?" Kane asked. "You dream of me for a reason, you know. You may not think that is true, but it is. Deep down, you want to speak with me; deep down, you want me to tell you all the things I know. You want to talk to me because your son won't talk to you." He smiled, his eyes glistening with evil. "At all."
Ben was unsurprised by the statement; time had proven the Kane of his dreams was always privy to his thoughts. It was as infuriating as it was unsettling to have no secrets, no privacy from a man he despised so much.
"It's interesting, isn't it?" Kane asked. "How you allow yourself to hate someone you never met. How can you judge me so harshly, Mister Cartwright? You never spoke to me while I was alive; you didn't know what kind of man I really was. I could have been anyone, you know."
Scowling, Ben didn't appreciate the accusation. He didn't need to know Kane in order to despise or curse the man's name. He may not have seen or spoken to him while he was alive, but he knew enough to loathe him and be thankful for his death.
"How can you be so sure?" Kane laughed. "After all, you don't know the truth of what happened out there."
Ben didn't need details to be certain of such a thing. The indisputable changes in his eldest son's temperament were enough for Ben to appreciate Kane's death. Praise be to God for taking the man while Adam was stumbling around in the desert. Glory be that Hoss or Joe or Ben himself hadn't been responsible for first saving then subsequently taking the man's life. One of them would have done something regrettable had Kane survived—Ben was certain of that now.
"It's interesting you would give thanks to God for anything," Kane said. "A man like you, with all the things you've been given and then had taken away."
Kane's words gave voice to a thought—Ben was ashamed to admit—that had occurred to him before.
He had lost a great deal over the course of his life, people, places, and things he held near and dear to his heart. Some he had left behind by his own will and volition, others had been taken from him without warning. It was the loss of people that always seemed to hurt the most; enduring the pertinacious sting of continuing life without them was what generally led to such dissentious thoughts. Pain, physical or mental, had a way of strengthening a man's bond with God or breaking it. Ben had endured events which had left him with experience of both outcomes. Still, with age came wisdom, patience, strength, and faith. He wasn't the godliest of men, but he did his best and he had taught his sons to do their best too.
"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth," Kane said. "He created the darkness and the light; he created land, plants and animals, all living things. God created Adam. Cursed is the ground on which Adam walks because he sinned; he defied his father's instruction, and he became knowing of good and evil…"
Closing his eyes, Ben hung his head and groaned. He had heard this sermon too many times before. Kane took pleasure in likening Ben's son, Adam, to the first son of God. He enjoyed contrasting the mistakes of one Adam to another, torturing Ben with how parallel they could sometimes seem. And Kane took great satisfaction comparing his own life path to that of someone else.
"God created Cain," Kane continued. "Sin desired him and he was incapable of ruling over it. Sin is what led God to cast Cain out, making him a restless wanderer of the earth. Even so, God loved Cain and protected him; he marked him so that no one who found him in the desert would kill him, and anyone who dared would suffer vengeance seven times over. What happened in the desert, Mister Cartwright? Was God protecting me too? Is that why your son is destined to suffer so much now that I'm dead?"
"My son didn't kill you," Ben seethed. He refused to believe such a thing could be true. "God didn't cast you into that desert, the sheriff did."
"None of that changes the fact that your son did defy you. He went into the desert outside of Eastgate when you told him to come home, and he became aware of good and evil."
"I've told you before and I'll tell you again, my son is a grown man; he makes his own decisions, and besides that, Adam is thirty-four years old; I assure you, your evil wasn't the first he's ever encountered in his life."
"Yes," Kane agreed. "But what made mine so much worse than anything he's come across before? What did he do to me? What did I do to him?" He smiled broadly. "Is it true?"
"Is what true?"
"What the people of Eastgate said about me. Was I a man? Was I a demon? Or was I a devil in disguise?"
It was with this question echoing in his mind that Ben suddenly awoke.
It was early, judging by the steadily brightening sky. He slept less and less these days, it seemed, waking each dawn earlier than the one before. It was just as well; he didn't feel as though he needed more sleep than what he obtained, and having his dreams consistently infiltrated by Peter Kane was as good of a reason as any not to extend his slumber for any longer than needed.
He dressed quickly, then quietly exited his bedroom. He made it a few paces down the hallway, his careful gaze evaluating the entries to his son's respective bedrooms, looking for anything worrisome or out of place. It was an old habit, unconscious yet unnecessary as all his sons had reached adulthood. It had been years since either Hoss or Joe had required their father's attention in the early moments of dawn or in the middle of the night, to protect or soothe or reassure, and it had been even longer since Adam had needed such a thing. Of course, that had been before and this was now; before being a normal version of what Ben recognized as the life he had built and shared with his sons, and now being some alternate time period that they had been drawn into after finding Adam wandering the desert.
Finding the door to Adam's bedroom open, Ben couldn't stifle the sigh which escaped him; deep and defeated, the sheer strength of it was enough to make his shoulders slump. He didn't need to appraise the bedroom to know what he would find—or who he wouldn't find rather—because his eldest son's absences from bed had become habitual.
Adam had been aimlessly wandering the desert when they finally found him and though he was safe at home, nearly six weeks after the day he had been found, Ben's eldest son was still aimlessly wandering in so many ways.
Since returning home, Adam's behavior had become increasingly unsettling and strange. He seemed to long for physical verification of safeness, unconsciously standing or sitting with very little proximity between whoever he was next to. On the quiet evenings when the family congregated around the fireplace, Adam had abandoned his favored blue chair, choosing instead to sit on the settee; his vacant gaze focused on the flames of the fire, his arm extended absently to grasp Ben's forearm and hold it tightly. While maintaining contact, Adam seemed oddly unaware he had initiated or allowed such a thing; the moment he realized what he was doing, however, he would pull away immediately. Though Adam did similar things with Hoss, he never sought contact with Joe. Occasionally, Ben found himself wondering why such a thing would be, and others he avoided considering it at all, reminding himself that he should take solace in the fact that Hoss was such a comfort to Adam.
He should be grateful his eldest son, normally so stoic and restrained, hadn't chosen to isolate himself completely while he wrestled with his internal torment. It was hard to be appreciative of such a thing, because once so adaptable and autonomous, it was obvious Adam no longer liked being alone. There was something especially intolerable about solitary silence or darkness, it seemed. His days were spent in the company of at least one of his family members, and he had taken to sleeping with his bedroom illuminated with the soft glow of an oil lamp burning low.
The door to Hoss's bedroom was slightly ajar. Hesitating in front of it, Ben clutched the doorknob and paused, uncertain if he intended to peer inside or pull the door closed. In the end, he did neither. He didn't need to look inside to know what he would find; if the crack in the door wasn't evidence enough then Adam's open bedroom door was.
Still haunted by nightmares Adam often woke in the middle of the night; unable to return to sleep or bear being alone, he had taken to seeking respite in Hoss's room. It was an unsettling development; Ben didn't like it. Under normal circumstances, such a thing would have been immediately deemed indecorous. But these were not normal circumstances, a saddening fact that became more and more glaring with each sunrise and sunset as nothing about Adam seemed destined to become what his family would define as normal ever again.
Ben remained quiet about the sleeping arrangement. He didn't want to draw attention to it, transforming it into a larger problem than it already seemed. If Adam needed security, if proximity to Hoss was what allowed him to get through the night, then Ben wouldn't put an end to it. After all, who was he to say one way or another? If Hoss was accepting of it, then who was he to put a stop to it?
Ben did want it to stop; his silence didn't automatically equate to acceptance. He would have preferred to have each of his sons in their respective beds. He would have preferred having never heard or dreamed of a man named Peter Kane. He would have preferred for Adam to suddenly return to the person he had once been. He would have much preferred to wake up from this extended nightmare that had become their life to find everything normal once more. With each passing day, it seemed like such a thing was less and less likely to ever be.
Adam wasn't talking about what happened in the desert. In fact, these days, he wasn't talking about anything at all. He had ceased speaking completely. It had been a surreptitious decline, not immediately worrisome or notable because Adam hadn't been particularly garrulous since being found. It was Little Joe who had first brought attention to his eldest brother's prolonged silence, posing a question to Hoss one evening after Adam had retired upstairs to bed.
"When's the last time you heard Adam say anything?" he had asked. Dislodging his gaze from the grand fireplace, he looked at Hoss, his face settling into a worried expression.
"Dunno." Hoss shrugged. "Haven't really thought about it, I guess."
"You don't know?" Joe pressed.
"He's quiet these days," Hoss said. "That ain't new. Older Brother has always been more of the thoughtful type."
"There's thoughtful and then there's mute."
Chewing absently on the end of his pipe, Ben frowned. "Mute?"
"Yeah, mute," Joe said, looking at his father. "You know, Pa, I don't think I heard him say one word today, and that got me thinking about yesterday and the day before and I don't think he's said anything for at least the past three days."
"Three days?" Hoss asked, clearly not sharing his brother's worry. "Come on, Joe, don't be silly. If Adam had gone three days without talkin' one of us would have noticed."
"One of us did notice," Joe said. "That's what I'm telling you right now."
"Three days is a long time not to notice someone not speaking," Ben said. "You've been busy, Joe. With Adam doing less work away from the house and you doing more, you haven't spent a lot of time with him. Like Hoss said, he doesn't talk much. Maybe he has spoken; maybe you just haven't been around to hear him."
"I don't believe that," Joe refuted softly.
Silently, Ben wondered if he disbelieved the explanation too.
Though Joe had conceded the argument, it wasn't a complete loss, because after the conversation Ben had made a concerted effort to take note of how much Adam spoke. It didn't take long for him to discover that Joe had been right or for his eternal worry over Adam's well-being to proliferate.
It wasn't long after that when Doctor Paul Martin came around. The people of Virginia City had heard about Adam's disappearance; his subsequent extended absence from town had given birth to rumors too numerous to count—some were outlandish, and others carried a little more truth than Ben wanted to admit. At their core they could all be condensed to the same unavoidable theory: robbed and set astray in the desert outside of Eastgate, Adam had been lost for weeks before being found, and the Adam who had been pulled from the desert wasn't the same man who entered it. Something bad had happened—the complications and details of which were wildly exaggerated and passionately speculated about by the townsfolk. And so, one afternoon, seemingly prompted by exaggerated speculation, Doc Martin had come under the guise of a friendly visit.
"I know you didn't fetch me, but I heard what happened to Adam," he had said. "It's been a while since he's been around town. I won't lie to you, Ben, there's some nasty talk floating about. I thought a visit might be prudent, see if there's any truth to some of those claims."
Ben thought the only thing more prudent than an impromptu visit would have been for the doctor to not have come in the first place.
"I am by nature a curious man," Martin continued. "I assure you this visit was facilitated by genuine concern."
"Concern," Ben repeated sharply; he had doubts about such things where anyone outside of his immediate family was concerned.
"Concern." Martin punctuated the word with a nod. "Is Adam around?"
"He is."
"Will you allow me to speak with him?"
Appraising the doctor skeptically, Ben didn't immediately reply. "You can try," he finally agreed.
And Doc Martin did try to converse with Adam with no apparent success. Appearing in acceptable physical health, it was Adam's mind that seemed to be in poor condition—Ben hadn't needed the doctor to tell him that, though the man had anyway. The only helpful information Martin had offered after examining and observing Adam for just over an hour were his parting words.
"You're walking a very fine line where his behavior is concerned," Martin said. "What you allow will set a precedent and most likely continue. The more convenient you make it for him to act strangely, the less reason he has to correct his behavior."
Ben was appalled both by the advice and Martin's clinical tone. "How dare you?" he growled. "I didn't ask you here. I didn't seek your advice about my son's behavior or health."
"Ben," Martin said calmly, "I meant no disrespect. You know I didn't. I'm merely offering my educated opinion—"
"Which I did not ask you for!"
"I came because I was concerned..."
"You came because you were curious!"
"...about the things I had heard. I was concerned before I came, Ben," Martin said evenly. "But I do feel obligated to tell you, I'm a bit beyond that now."
Ben snapped his mouth shut. What feelings preceded concern? Unease? Alarm? Fear? Surely, he knew the answer though he found himself incapable of deciding upon it now.
"Are you worried?" Martin asked. Shaking his head, he didn't wait for a reply. "If you aren't then you should be. The changes in Adam are startling to say the least."
"I know," Ben quietly conceded. There was no point in denying what could be easily seen.
Adam was different. He had lost weight since the desert. While it wasn't a worrisome amount—at least not yet—the difference in his physique was obvious. His clothes, always dark and black, hung on him with a looseness they hadn't had before. He was uncharacteristically unconcerned with his appearance. He had stopped shaving, and his hair was left uncut and uncombed; rising off his head in a thick, dark mass, it succeeded in somehow making him appear both younger and older at the same time. It was his absent stare that bothered Ben the most; dull and lifeless, Adam's hazel eyes often glistened with a worrisome glint of an emotion so foreign Ben struggled to define it. He was fearful to admit he recognized it, however, for he had seen it over and over, displayed overtly by the Adam of his dreams.
"I have never known your son to decline a scholastic conversation," Martin said. "I asked him a plethora of analytical questions, trying to encourage him to speak. All I was able to get out of him was a nod, a shake of his head, or a shrug."
"Those seem to be his preferred responses as of late," Ben said. Physically present, Adam's thoughts often appeared somewhere else. He didn't seem to actually listen to the things that were being said.
"Not a word," Martin said. "I cannot believe that boy did not say one word."
Ben flinched. Slightly—oddly—stung by the label Martin had used to refer to his son. Adam wasn't a boy; he was a grown man and as such he couldn't be told what to do or be forced to speak when he so clearly did not want to. Independent and sovereign, he was reasonably free to make his own choices and do whatever he pleased, making their current predicament much more difficult to navigate than it would be if he were much younger.
If Adam were younger then Ben would know what to do, this was a bothersome notion that he seemed unable to dismiss. Highlighting and intensifying his worry and fear, it awakened a truth that refused to be ignored. He was Adam's father and as such he had loved and protected him the entirety of his life; he knew him better than anyone else. He should have been able to help him more than he was; he should have been able to think of the right thing to say or do in order to ease the crippling burden that was slowly pushing Adam to the ground.
"He's lost weight," Martin said. "His complexion is fine, but there are dark circles beneath his eyes. He doesn't appear to be sleeping well."
"He doesn't sleep well. It takes an act of God to get him to eat these days."
"Picky?"
"No. More adverse."
"Opposed to eating," Martin mused. "That's an interesting symptom."
"Of what?"
The doctor appeared thoughtful. "I don't know," he said. "Tell me, Ben, what exactly did happen to Adam in that desert?"
Ben shook his head. He wouldn't answer because he didn't know. He could have told Doc Martin about Peter Kane, what the Eastgate sheriff and doctor alluded to about the man and how his body had been found in Adam's possession. But he decided against it. The fewer people aware of the evil man's existence the better. Though Doc Martin had always seemed trustworthy enough, he had no intentions of disclosing information that could be used to further the rumors about Adam swirling around Virginia City.
"Be mindful of your son, Ben," Martin said. "It is obvious he has become unbalanced. I am sure I don't need to remind you of analogies of mind sickness, locked dark gates to which there are no keys. I suppose I do not need to remind you of what happened to Ross Marquette either."
With this warning, Doc Martin had left behind more sleeping powder and a promise of a return visit in the following weeks. Ben wasn't sure if he should be concerned or relieved. He was both, he supposed. Concerned over Adam and relieved to have Martin at their disposal to offer an educated opinion and advice—as unsolicited as it had been at first.
And at first, with the memory of Ross Marquette's unsettling decline into madness and eventual death lingering in the forefront of his mind, Ben tried to heed the doctor's instruction. He had tried to set boundaries; he had tried his best to pull his son further back from the edge of that preverbal cliff, the fine line of behavior he had been warned about. He had been understanding and gentle until he had been forced to become stern and firm, neither approach ever seemed to work. Adam was nothing if not stubborn. Ben supposed he would have been annoyed if his son's obstinance was not a relief; given the circumstances, it was a comfort. A very small one but a comfort, nonetheless.
Adam ate meekly. His sleep remained interrupted and sparse, And he refused to speak. The chores he was directed to do by his father were completed silently and amicably. Following the advice of Eastgate sheriff, Ben had put Adam back to work; he filled his eldest son's days with menial tasks around the barn, tending to the horses and various animals they kept close to the house, and any arcane pursuits he could conceive of. Adam was more accepting of the former tasks than the latter, preferring physically laborious tasks over intellectual ones. It was an odd development, a sudden change in preference or disposition that was too foreign for Ben to accept.
Who was Adam without curiosity or a deep love for erudite pursuits? Who was his son without his voice? The one he had used to satisfy his thirst for knowledge by posing questions or challenging opinions? Who was Adam now? Ben wasn't sure he knew.
Can you hang on to me, Pa?
It was Adam's question that haunted Ben ceaselessly as did the evening around the campfire when Adam had soothed Joe's guilt. It was with great sorrow that he recalled the memory of that night because now he could see so clearly what he had missed. Finding Adam in the desert they had saved him from nothing; the real struggle had only just begun, the fight for the retention of the Adam they knew and recognized. Ben had vowed to hold on to his son but with each passing day it seemed like Adam was slipping more and more from his grasp.
The sun was rising when he finally made his way downstairs. Casting his gaze outside the unshuttered windows at the head of the table, he paused and watched the sky begin to fill with promising rays of light. It was the dawn of yet another day; he wondered what kind of unwelcome changes this one would bring.
