Xx

The sun was hanging low on the horizon when Ben arrived home.

The ride from Virginia City had seemed to pass quickly; his visit with Doc Martin had given him a lot to think about. He had anticipated Adam and Hoss would have returned home long before he arrived. But leading Buck into the barn to stable him for the evening, he was surprised to find his sons' horses still absent. He was immediately worried, then thinking of the favorability of such a thing he dismissed it. The trip to the timber camp must have been a successful venture for Adam after all. What other explanation could there possibly be for his sons not yet returning home?

He couldn't help a smile as he took care of his horse, a pleased expression that only intensified as he finally heard the telltale sound of hooves approaching the barn. Adam and Hoss had finally returned.

Leaving Buck in his stall, Ben left the barn to greet his sons. He was eager to set eyes on Adam again and to hear from Hoss the details of their successful outing. Stepping outside of the door, he hesitated in place, his smile vanishing as his heartbeat began to quicken, pounding relentlessly in his chest as his worry was renewed.

Riding into the yard, Hoss was alone. "I'm sorry, Pa," he said, his expression pained. "Dadburn it, I am so sorry. You knew it was gonna be too much for Adam and I just had to push and push."

"What are you talking about?" Ben asked, his throat tightening. Hoss and Chubb were alone; Adam and Sport were nowhere to be seen.

"I thought he could handle it. I really thought he could."

"What happened?" Ben demanded. "Hoss, where is your brother?"

"I'm sorry, Pa. Adam took off. He got spooked and he fled into the mountains outside the timber camp. Pa, I swear, I was looking after him, watchin' him real close like you said. Adam was there one moment and the next he was just... gone."

"He took off by himself?"

The very notion didn't feel right. Adam couldn't tolerate being alone, why would he run? Where would he go?

"On foot," Hoss said gravely. "Joe and some of the men are out searching. It'll be dark soon. Those men are rough, Pa, and they're strangers to Adam. I think it'll be best if you're with them when he's finally found."

Xx

The search for Adam seemed a nightmarish task destined to never end.

Darkness had come, bringing a harsh drop in temperature, and inviting nocturnal predators to commence stalking prey as they hunted the land. Without his horse or a gun, Adam was alone and drastically unprepared to protect himself against wild animals or the elements. Survival in his current predicament seemed dismal; Ben's worry for his eldest son was abounding.

The mountain on the west side of the timber camp where Adam had allegedly run was foreboding. His supposed place of entry was steep and protected by a thicket of trees. The mountain itself was a jagged incline that extended for miles; its peak was so tall and monstrous it seemed to creep into the heavens. Boulders and trees—both standing and fallen—lined the land, making travel difficult, dangerous, and harrowing at best.

Ben wondered why Adam would have sought the protection of the mountain at all. What had happened? What had he seen or felt that prompted him to run into such rugged terrain? It was a glaring question—yet another that seemed destined to remain without an answer. Joe didn't know because he hadn't seen his brother leave, and Hoss, though watching Adam carefully, hadn't seen him go either.

Engaged in a conversation, both younger brothers had stood a far distance from the workers and a few short paces from their eldest brother. Adam had been visibly uncomfortable when faced with the task of approaching any of the men, something Hoss had said he made quick note of and adjusted plans accordingly. He had waived Joe over, removing him from the larger group and adding him to theirs. Adam had seemed accepting of that; he had seemed relieved and slightly less uncomfortable with both brothers in his company.

According to Hoss, it was one of the hired men who had watched Adam run towards the mountain and disappear into the trees. It was he who first alerted Hoss and Joe—though it wasn't worry for Adam rather confusion which had prompted the hand to do such a thing. No one dared enter the mountain's rugged landscape without reason to do so. Neither Hoss nor Joe nor Ben could understand why Adam would have decided to do such a thing. Nothing in recent history would have argued that Adam was capable or eager to be alone in such surroundings.

Upon realizing Adam was missing, Hoss and Joe burst up the mountain only to find he was nowhere to be seen. It was a startling realization, worrisome and curious. Once again, Adam was just gone. There was no trail to follow, no disrupted plants or rocks, no physical evidence on the terrain that suggested he had set foot on it at all. Hoss and Joe were baffled, as was Ben when Hoss recounted these events.

When he first arrived at the timber camp, Ben was appalled to find Joe and the hired hands back from their search. Joe was aggressively arguing with one of the men—a man who, when coming upon him, Ben didn't recognize and was sure he had never met.

"You're lying,' Frank!" Joe shouted, holding an accusing finger inches away from the man's weathered face.

"I ain't," Frank said, calmly standing his ground. "It happened just the way I told ya."

"My brother didn't climb that mountain!" Joe insisted. "If he did, we would have found him by now! We would have seen him when we looked! He ain't up there!"

"I stand by my actions and words," Frank said. "I saw what I saw."

Pushing Joe's finger out of his face, he took a step forward, his chest lingering next to Joe's. He was a rough man, at least twice Adam's age. His face was tanned and wrinkled; his graying hair was short beneath his hat; and his beard was long. He wasn't much taller than Joe, but what he lacked in height he made up for with hostility. He would be a formidable opponent in a brawl—if their conversation was allowed to devolve further.

Gripping his son's upper arm, Ben pulled Joe a few paces away from Frank. "What's going on here?" he demanded. His grip remained tight on his son's arm as he looked between the pair. "Why are you standing here arguing instead of looking for Adam?"

Shrugging indifferently, Frank remained unaffected by his harsh words and stare. "Sorry, Mister Cartwright," he said. "I didn't mean to argue with your boy; it's just that he don't seem eager to believe the truth."

"Which is what?" Ben asked.

"Adam went up the mountain," Frank said. "I watched him go. Ain't my problem if Joe don't want to believe me."

"You're lying!" Joe shouted. "There's no proof he went up there! If he's not up there then that means he's somewhere else!" Hands clenched into tight fists, he took a step forward, trying and failing to lunge at Frank as his father's grip did not falter. Ben held him in place, preventing the threatening motion. Writhing beneath his father's firm grip, he cast Frank a furious look. "Tell me where my brother really went!" he demanded. "Tell me now!"

"Joe," Ben chastised.

"I already did," Frank said evenly. "Just because you don't want to hear what I'm saying,' just because you can't find your brother, that don't make what happened any less true."

"What did happen?" Ben asked impatiently.

Shoulders sinking, Joe's anger vanished. "He was right there, Pa," he said, fear and guilt shining in his emerald eyes as he looked at Ben and repeated what Hoss had already shared. "Adam was right next to me and Hoss one second and the next he was just gone. I don't know what happened. How he could disappear like that without either of us seeing or hearing him go."

"He went up the mountain," Frank said. "Like I told you."

"You saw him go?" Ben asked, looking at Frank skeptically. He didn't recognize this man; he didn't know if Frank had a reputation of truth-telling or penchant for telling lies. He was unsure if he should mirror Joe's doubt or trust what was being said. He had no real reason to doubt Frank or believe him. It was an awful predicament, one which was only intensifying his worry and wasting precious time.

"I did," Frank said.

"How did Adam leave?" Ben probed. "Tell me what you already told my sons."

"Well," Frank sighed. "Joe and Hoss and Adam were over there." He nodded, indicating at the area just before the base of the steep mountain. "Hoss and Joe were standing next to each other; Adam was behind them. They were talkin,' and he was just standing there. He looked nervous, kept looking over his shoulder staring at that mountain. In fact, that's what made me take note of him in the first place. Why I started watching him so closely. It was weird, the way he was looking at it, like somebody or something was there. I didn't see nobody, but I think maybe he did."

"That ain't true," Joe said. "There wasn't anybody there. We would have heard them if there had been. The crest of the mountain is steep, covered with rocks and deadfall. There would have been some kind of indication, some kind of noise or rustling to let us know somebody was there."

"Are you tellin' this story, or am I?" Frank frowned at Joe.

"So, you admit it's a story," Joe countered. His annoyance, frustration, and worry were clear. "Not the truth. We searched that area. My brother didn't go up there. We would have seen proof of it if he did. So, where did he really go, Frank? And why are you lying about it?"

"Joe, let the man finish," Ben instructed firmly. Though he shared Joe's skepticism, he wanted to hear the rest. There was nothing else to go on. No other clues to follow in order to find his missing son.

Looking at the mountain, he found Hoss emerging from the location where Adam had supposedly disappeared. Upon returning to the camp, Hoss had taken a few of the men and ventured up its steep thickness for another look. His eyes finding those of his middle son, Ben was overcome by nervousness as Hoss pursed his lips and shook his head forlornly. It had been another unfruitful search.

"Not a lot more to tell. Adam went up the mountain," Frank said. "He had the strangest look on his face when he did. One second, he was standing behind the two of you, looking between the mountain and the camp. Then the next, his lips curled into a…" He paused, shaking his head as he expelled a deep breath, his face settling into an expression of discomfort. "Well…" he continued, seemingly unsettled by what he intended to say. "You see, he got the oddest look on his face, like, nothin' I'd ever seen before. It made me uncomfortable if I'm being honest. I was standing a fair distance from him, but he caught my gaze, looked me right in the eye. His eyes, they were gleaming, glistening with something akin to evil. When he smirked at me, it made me feel an awful kind of way. It was so powerful that I had to look away, and when I looked back, I watched him begin to climb that mountain and disappear into the trees."

"You're a liar," Joe said again. "My brother wouldn't look at you, and he sure as hell wouldn't smirk."

"I stand with my little brother on that one," Hoss said as he stood beside his father. "I don't believe my older brother would look at you in such a way, especially now. Besides, there ain't no proof Adam went up there, Frank. No indication in the deadfall that somebody went barreling through it. No tracks at all."

"I saw what I saw." Frank shrugged. "Like I said, it ain't my problem if you don't want to believe it."

Ben wanted to say it wasn't Frank's problem if they didn't believe his account, but it would be his problem if he lied about what he saw—or didn't see. A part of him wanted to agree with Joe and demand Frank admit to his lies and tell the truth. But an even larger part of himself was unnerved by the man's description of Adam. He was ashamed to admit where his mind had gone when Frank described Adam's eyes and smirk; he was guilt-ridden by how alike the description of his son had seemed to the Kane of his dreams.

It was Kane's eyes which shined with pure evil; it was he who often displayed a smile so vile it caused a chill to crawl up Ben's spine and made his stomach turn. He didn't like how Kane looked at him in his dreams; he couldn't tolerate the trepidation born from being the extended focus of the man's lingering gaze.

Do you really think you can save him?

Ben shook his head as Kane's words rose from his memory. It didn't work; if anything, the motion only seemed to dislodge more of Kane's haunting questions.

What happened in the desert, Mister Cartwright?

What did he do to me? What did I do to him?

Was I a man? Was I a demon? Or was I a devil in disguise?

How do you save your son from the devil, Mister Cartwright?

"Pa," Hoss said, his face contorting with worry. "What do you think we ought to do? Even if Adam didn't go up that mountain, he did go somewhere."

"What do we do, Pa?" Joe asked anxiously.

Glancing between his sons, Ben was overcome by how similar this situation felt to one they had already endured. They had once searched the desert for Adam and now they would search the mountains. They would look for as long as they needed to; they would travel every inch of the land if necessary. They would do whatever it took to bring Adam home.

Their search separated the family further. They composed three small groups each led by a Cartwright in the hope that Adam would have a familiar and trusted face to focus upon when he was finally found. Their respective searches scattered them and took Ben further away from the mountain Adam may or may not have climbed, toward flatter earth more reminiscent of the desert he had once searched.

He had an overwhelming need to examine cliffs; it was an unignorable notion that led him and the few men who had accompanied him to the Eagle's Nest. Steep, jagged, and tall, it was the most formidable cliff he knew of on his property; knowledge of it coupled with the haunting details of his dreams gave birth to a foreboding fear so powerful it refused to be ignored. He had been dreaming of Adam and cliffs for months now, the horrifying memories of which unearthed yet another thing Kane had said.

What's the point of being gifted dreams if you aren't going to heed their warnings? What is the point of knowing something bad is on the horizon if you don't do anything to stop it?

Both questions echoed relentlessly through Ben's mind as he traveled the distance between the timber camp and Eagle's Nest, overwhelming any other thought he could conceive of and distracting him from anything the men surrounding him said.

It was Frank's low voice that eventually distracted Ben from his tortuous thoughts; it was the man's genuine curiosity made obvious in his tone that was enough to allow Ben to momentarily ignore his fear in exchange for a surge of protective anger. He had grown weary of tolerating the curiosity of others where his eldest son was concerned.

"Do you really think your son coulda made it this far?" Frank asked. "If he started out in the mountains, it seems nothing short of impossible that he would turn up out here."

Ignoring the man's words, Ben kept his attention focused on the task at hand. Guided by the light of a half-moon, he could see Eagle's Nest standing tall in the distant horizon. Its jagged outline was illuminated by the moonlight shining brightly among the cascading stars. Stomach turning, he realized he was both dreading and anxious to reach the landmark. He wanted so badly to locate his missing son, but he hoped Adam would not be found here.

"It don't make sense to me," Frank said, lowering his voice further. "There ain't no way your son could travel this distance in the time he had. He won't be here. This is a wasted trip."

Silently, Ben prayed Frank was right.

"Of course," Frank continued, "none of this really makes sense to me, not to say that's a notable thing because it is not. There are a great many things in this life that don't make sense to me. I am not the most intelligent of men, but I am an honest one, no matter what others may say or think."

Ben thought this statement to be a veiled reference of Joe's previous accusation and it made him liken the steepness of the cliff in the distance to the mountainside Frank claimed Adam had climbed. It was impossible to ignore how both notions seemed unlikely, preposterous in similar ways. The distance between Eagle's Nest and the timber camp was too vast to travel on foot in the time that had passed since his son had disappeared; the thought of Adam venturing anywhere on his own was an impractical one. Adam hadn't wanted to leave home that morning; he had been nearly too afraid to decide who he wanted to accompany and where.

How could a day which had begun like that end like this? How could Adam have been so anxious and fearful when faced with making a simple decision and then suddenly decide to embark into the wilderness alone?

Perhaps it was Adam's fearful nature and anxious demeanor that had prompted him to run. Maybe he had seen or heard and become so startled by something he felt as though he had no other choice but to flee.

"I stand by my actions and words," Frank said. "And for what it is worth, I am saddened by the changes in Adam's demeanor."

Startled, Ben cast Frank a wary look. He wondered what memories of the old Adam the hand had to compare this changed version of Adam against. "What makes you say that?" he asked.

"He's different than he was. He ain't the same. The other men at the camp, they didn't notice him the way I did. Adam looked skittish, frightened, and lost when he and his brother first arrived. I think the crowd of us bothered him. He didn't come talk to me the way I expected him to."

"What would make you expect such a thing?"

"I stand by my actions and words." Frank shrugged as though the repeated statement should have more than answered the question.

It didn't. If anything, it only ignited Ben's anger.

"Those were Adam's words," Frank explained. "His assessment of my character, not mine. Although, in the time that has passed between when he first spoke to me and today, I have come to believe in their truth. It was Adam who hired me, Mister Cartwright. He came upon me one night when I was drowning my sorrows at the saloon, mourning the life of a woman that God had seen fit to take from me. It was Adam who found me then. We had a long conversation and he told me what he thought about me. He said I was honest, that I stand by my actions and words, then he took a chance on me and gave me a job at the camp, and that is the very thing that has led me to search for him beside you tonight."

"That sounds like something he would do," Ben said, his anger dissipating as quickly as it overtook him. Frank's experience of Adam's kindness was an occurrence not unique to him. Endlessly intuitive, Adam had always seemed to collect people. He advocated for underdogs and tried to help seemingly lost souls and causes in whatever way he could.

"He saved me from myself that day," Frank said after a few moments had passed. "It is a favor I would like to be able to return."

Arriving at Eagle's Nest, they stopped their horses at the bottom of the cliff amongst the fallen rocks nestled upon where the land began to slope. Gazing up at the peak, Ben was overcome by an odd combination of relief and concern. The cliff was empty; Adam was nowhere to be seen.

"Did Adam really look you in the eye today?" Ben asked.

Had Adam really done that? Always overcome by apprehension when presented with strangers, was he still capable of such cordial simplicities? Though Frank wasn't a stranger if the details of how he was hired were to be believed, so maybe that was what made him different in Adam's eyes.

Adam's eyes, Ben thought, briefly closing his own.

Had Adam's eyes really glistened with evil? And had Frank become uncomfortable beneath his gaze? Just as Ben had when Kane looked upon him in his dreams?

"He did," Frank said.

"Did he really smirk at you?"

"He did."

"And you stand by your actions and words?"

"I do. He saw something up that mountain, Mister Cartwright. He followed something the rest of us couldn't see into the darkness of those trees, of that, I am sure. I would be obliged if you allowed me to stay with you until Adam is found. Like I said before, I have a favor to return."

Ben nodded. He wouldn't refuse the help, not tonight, not if his son was still missing. Turning in his saddle, he cast his gaze on the other hands who had accompanied them to the peak. They were scattered among the landscape a short distance away, their eyes squinting through the darkness as they searched for any sign of Adam. He found himself grateful for Frank's kindness, the attention he had paid to Adam when he and Hoss arrived at the timber camp and his determination to find him now.

"What do you think?" Frank asked. "Where do you wanna go next?"

Where would Adam go? Ben thought worriedly. He didn't like to be alone. If he wasn't standing on top of the cliff, then where was he? Where did he go? And what did he do once he arrived?

"I think we oughta search the lake," Frank said thoughtfully.

Ben snorted. If Adam turning up at Eagle's Nest was improbable then finding him at Lake Tahoe at this hour seemed nearly impossible. The distance between where Adam had begun and the body of water was possible on foot, but the direction of travel would have brought him across the path of the search parties long before now. He couldn't have gone there unseen, and even if he had, he wouldn't have remained unseen for very long as the lake was where Joe had led his group to search.

"I got a feelin' about Tahoe," Frank said. "I don't know why but I do."

"Alright," Ben conceded easily. He was not one to deny the pull of intuitive feelings—at least not anymore.