Predicament, a bonanza fanfic

Quick Note:

This is an older story I finished years ago. It was pulled to be slightly re-worked, which is why you're seeing pop up as a new story now. If you enjoyed this story the first time around and were offended or saddened when it was removed, I am sorry. That being said, if you decide to revisit it (or if there are any new readers out there) I hope you still enjoy it.

Reviews are never expected but always appreciated.

"What are you plannin' to do with it?"

As we all stood on the side of the Virginia City thoroughfare, it was Joe who asked the question first. It was something that had been on the tips of our tongues for nearly an hour; if Joe hadn't asked it, then I woulda. Pa, on the other hand, I'm not sure would have, seeing as his face was set with a disapproving frown.

Looking at the deed in his hands, Adam shrugged. "Don't know yet," he said.

I doubted this explanation very much, and if his wrinkled brow was any indication, so did Pa. There was never a day or a decision my older brother didn't face without a plan. There was no doubt in my mind he had one; it was just he wasn't up to sharing quite yet.

I glanced at Pa, waiting to see what direction he wanted to take the conversation in, so I could follow his lead. He seemed determined not to address the obvious complication of the signed deed to the Silver Dollar Ranch in my older brother's hand.

The auction had taken place that morning; with no family or kin to speak of the powers that be of Virginia City had done what they always do, offered the property up to the highest bidder, auctioned it off in front of the whole town and anyone else who had traveled the distance to place their bids. I don't think anyone could have predicted who the buyer would be; I don't think anyone expected Adam to do what he had done. I know I didn't, and I'm sure my family didn't either. Though I did wonder after if we should have.

After all, Ross and Adam were close; they had been nearly inseparable when was kids. They were best friends from the very start; they always took care of one another. It made sense that with Ross and Del gone, Adam would want to make sure what once belonged to them was taken care of proper. That it was kept in the family, so to speak. As a man, I couldn't blame him for that; I think I respected him a little bit more for it. But as his brother, I was worried.

The Silver Dollar was a sprawling spread. It was more than a side-project, a leisurely pursuit, or something that could be left alone and ignored when the proprietor was too busy to look after it. It was a working ranch; a whole operation and demanding business and a whole new life for whoever's name was written on the deed.

"Are you gonna work it?" Joe asked, beating me to another question I was dying to ask.

Shrugging, Adam didn't say.

"Property like that is meant to be worked," Pa said tightly. I know he was trying hard not to be disapproving. He knew as well as the rest of us that disagreeing with Adam was a bit like rousing a sleeping bear as of late.

I don't want to say my older brother had become sensitive since Del and Ross died. Distant was more like it. Angry. As unpredictable as his name appearing on the deed he held in his hand in freshly dried ink. He and Pa had engaged in some hollerin' matches the likes of which I ain't never seen. They all were over normal things too; tasks and such Adam had never taken offense to doin' before. Talking to him was a bit of a tossup; you were never quite sure what you was gonna get. Pa said it was grief that was making Adam behave in such ways. Myself, I thought it was something else.

The time which followed the day Del and Ross died were always bound to be bad. A man simply couldn't live through the things Adam did without them affecting him, making act poorly more often than good. Adam seemed to hold the record lately for most days in a row spent in a foul mood.

Joe and I looked at each other, both of us nervous about how Adam would take our Pa's words.

"I know that," Adam scoffed.

"I know you know," Pa countered.

"Then why did you feel the need to say it?" Adam asked. There was a sharpness to his voice; the kind of rudeness that in our younger days would have guaranteed a talkin' to in the barn.

"Because I wanted to make clear what we both know," Pa said, his voice gruff enough to make me cringe. "We all know that's a working ranch, Adam; the only remaining question is what you're going to do with it now that it's yours."

"I said I don't know," Adam growled.

"Oh, I doubt that very much," Pa said. "You knew what you were getting yourself into when you bid, just like I'm sure you know exactly what you're going to do with it now."

"I said I didn't," Adam said.

"So, you did," Pa said.

I waited for Pa to say the obvious; the one thing I'm sure was burning in all our minds. If Adam intended to keep and work the Silver Dollar then he would no longer have time to attend to the Ponderosa. He wouldn't be remaining at home. Pa seemed intent on not stating such a fact. Nodding curtly, he turned around and headed toward his horse. By the very slight slump in his shoulders, I could tell he was disappointed and a little hurt.

Adam had bought the ranch without having a single conversation with Pa about it first. I don't think Pa expected him to ask for permission; I think he was sadder that Adam didn't ask for help. It was a big endeavor, an expensive one at that, and older brother didn't go to Pa for input or financial help. While he may have drained his bank account to do it, Adam had purchased the Silver Dollar alone.

There was a hint of remorse on Adam's face as he watched Pa walk away. Looking between them, I kept hoping the regret he seemed to be feeling would be enough for him to follow Pa and apologize, not for buying the ranch but for going about it the way he did and then talking to Pa how he had—and in the middle of town no less.

Pa always did teach us to have a respectful tongue in our mouth when talking, and when we couldn't do that then we was expected to at least remain civil. Now that didn't always happen between us brothers or even among us and Pa. Disagreements were to be expected between four grown men each with powerful opinions on how things ought to be. But Pa expected us to appear as a united front as a family in public and take care of our disagreements in private.

After Ross and Del died, Pa had decided to give Adam a wide berth with his grief. He allowed him to say and do things that I know he was against, because I think deep down Pa felt guilty. I think he felt as though he should have been the one to find Delphine and then face Ross after. He had tried to protect Adam when the situation finally soured, when we knew exactly what Ross had been doing and what needed to be done in response. Pa hadn't wanted Adam with us for that fight. He wanted him out of it. He knew however that day was destined to end that it would be hard. Hard on Del; hard on us, and especially hard on Adam given how the days leading up to that one had gone.

At the time, Pa sent Adam home because he wanted to protect him. He had no idea what Adam was gonna find there or what that would make him do in return. If he had known, I think he may have changed his mind, swapped orders, and told Adam to accompany us and gone home himself. But he hadn't known; he had sent Adam home, back to Del, to hold her while she died, to load his rifle after and track his best friend and follow him up those jagged cliffs.

Adam was always following Ross, especially when they was kids. I could tell you countless stories about the things they used to do, the trouble they used to get into together, instances that led to punishments and fierce words from Pa. My brother has always been smarter than most, but there were times and things he followed Ross into as a youngin' that left us all wondering if he had a brain in his head. Stupid things, dangerous things, things that once discovered left Pa's face was so distorted with anger and exasperation that there were times I wondered if it would freeze that way forever.

Time did right by both of them, though, something I think Pa was grateful for. Eventually they grew into fine young men. Adam went to college and Ross married Del. The years that passed in between calmed them, made them less impulsive and more responsible. Adam still had his moments of following Ross around but it was toward different things and outcomes. They shared the goals of grown men, helping each other with business endeavors and ranch work or finishing a bottle of something stiff.

The day Ross died Pa knew—I think we all knew—that if Adam followed him it was gonna be toward something bad. After everything that happened there was just no stopping what was meant to be. Though he tried, Pa couldn't protect Adam from the truth then and he couldn't protect him from his grief now. The deed to the Silver Dollar was proof of that of my older brother's refusal to allow such a thing.

It wasn't long after Pa mounted Buck that Adam walked away too. His strides took him in the opposite direction and into the saloon. Little Joe and I sighed in unison.

"Okay," Little Joe said. "Which one do you want to accompany this afternoon? Adam or Pa?"

"I'm shocked you're even askin', little brother," I said. "What with Pa in a mood and Adam in the saloon."

"I stuck with Adam the last time he went to the saloon." Joe grimaced in a painful sorta way. "I think it's your turn."

"Normally you avoid Pa when he's angry, and I thought you liked the saloon."

"I do. It's drinkin' alongside Adam when he's in a mood I don't particularly care for. He gets to being a rowdy drunk, belligerent, too. I'll ride next to moody Pa over that any day. Besides..." Joe paused, lookin' me up and down. "You're bigger than me."

It was a fact that couldn't be argued. I was bigger than him, able to hold my own against whatever ruffians our older brother took issue with and able to stomach the free-flowing liquor he would impose upon me. Fighting and drinking we're not among the list of Adam's favorite habits but had become so as of late. Truth be told, I wasn't lookin' forward to suffering through either thing. Usually, Adam was a formidable opponent in a brawl; recently his anger made him stupid, and the amount of liquor he drank left his reflexes too slow.

"Come on, Hoss," Joe urged. "You're better at dealing with Adam when he's mad anyhow. Anything I say is just going to make his mood decline. I get on his nerves when he drinks. Matter of fact, he gets on mine when I've been drinking, too. We're too different, liquor only seems to highlight that fact."

I wanted to say that the only things that he and Adam truly seemed to grind on each other about was the ways in which they were similar, not different. They were both stubborn as dadgum mules, each wanting so badly for their way to be correct.

"Fine," I said. I felt like I had drawn the shorter match stick. It was too early for a drink. There were other things to deal with outside of Adam. Errands to be completed in town, chores to be done at home, none of which would be attended to now. Another day would be wasted in the saloon, keepin' careful watch over my older brother.

"You see to our chores at home, Joe," I said. "Mine and Adam's both. You wanted Pa, then you get the chores, too."

"Fine," he agreed too easily as I left him standing in the thoroughfare.

Adam had settled into a far table in the very back corner of the saloon. It was slightly more private than any other he could have picked but not by much. He was still out in the open and easily picked out in the midmorning crowd. The deed of the land had been folded and placed on the table, next to a full bottle and a pair of whiskey glasses. He was already pouring himself a drink as he set eyes on me.

"I was hoping it'd be you," he said as I sat in the chair next to him. "I'm not in the mood to look after anybody."

"The way Joe tells it, the last time he and you drank together, he was the one lookin' after you."

"That is a huge exaggeration."

"Like you remember," I snorted. "I do recall you were the one with black eye and he was the one with the scratched-up knuckles, which would lead a man to believe his story over yours. You said something dumb to the wrong person and got yourself knocked out. It was Joe who came to your defense."

"I didn't need him to help me."

"Like you could have stopped him. That boy's a pistol, always itchin' for a fight. He wasn't gonna let nobody walk after hitting you like that."

"He could have. I was out of the fight. Nobody was going to bother me when I was unconscious."

"You couldn't have stopped him. Just 'cause you were knocked out that don't mean it was over for Joe. He's as protective over family as the rest of us. He won the fight you lost, bested those two guys after your words started the whole thing."

Empty glass leaving his lips, Adam shrugged and sighed. "Sometimes I get mad and say the wrong thing," he said.

This was not news to me. "You owe Pa an apology," I said.

"I know."

"You hurt him."

"I know that, too."

"That don't answer the question of why. Why did you need to buy that ranch? If you were planning such a thing, why on earth didn't you tell Pa?" I thought of the look of pure shock on Pa's face when Adam had stood next to him and declared the winning bid. "You made him look like a fool."

"I didn't mean to."

"Well, you did. Now what are you gonna do about it? And what in tarnation are you going to do with that land?"

"That seems to be the question of the hour." Pouring himself another drink, Adam lifted the bottle in offering.

"It's a little early for me." I watched him knock the glass back. "I remember a time when it was too early for you too. When's it gonna happen, Adam?"

"When's what gonna happen?"

"When is that chip on your shoulder going to get heavy enough that you finally decide to put it down?"

"Careful," he warned. "You start saying things like that I'm liable to confuse you for Pa."

"You didn't answer my question."

Adam poured and drank two more drinks before he spoke again. He was drinking too fast for the day to end well—or the morning, for that matter.

"I don't intend to," he said finally, a stubborn flicker in his newly glassed eyes.

"You better slow down. You're gonna end up drunker than a skunk by noon."

"Now you really are Pa," he scoffed.

"Yep," I agreed. "Do you mind tellin' me just exactly who you are? You can't be my older brother, not actin' the way you are."

"I won't tolerate you saying things like that to me. I don't need advice from the likes of you." The liquor was taking hold of him now, beginning to make him mean. "Who said it was your responsibility to look after me, anyhow? In case you're forgetting, I'm the older brother, therefore I resign the sole right to do the looking after."

"That don't even make sense."

"Doesn't. It doesn't make sense."

"That's what I said. We look after each other. That's the way it's always been; that's how it'll always be." I nodded at the deed on the table. "You plan on drinking the day away or are you going to check up on your new spread? It probably needs some attention."

Eyes widening, the glass slipped from Adam's fingertips and hit the table with a thud; its contents spilled across the tabletop and freckled the shirt covering his chest. I couldn't help thinking it was a good thing he favors black clothes; a dark color like that can hide a lot of things. It won't do nothing for the smell though, not that there was anything to be done about that anyway. There is no amount a man can drink that won't leave a smell behind.

"Shit," Adam swore, running his hands over the wetness on his shirt.

The noise had made us the primary focus of Sam, the bartender. I lifted a hand and nodded at him in what I hoped was a reassuring way as he watched us carefully from across the room.

"What's wrong with you?" I asked my brother. It was a question he didn't need to answer.

As far I knew, he hadn't been back to the Silver Dollar since the day he had discovered Ross was hurting Del. That was months ago now and I was sure the thought of returning was an intimidating one. Even though he had bought it, that didn't mean he was ready to set foot upon the land.

"I had to do it," Adam said quietly.

"I know," I assured. This was an emotional conversation we had shared more than once on occasion when he was over a handful of drinks in. He had said it before and he'd say it again. "Him or you, brother, that was how it went down."

"What?" Adam frowned. "No... not that."

"What then?"

"I had to buy it."

"The Silver Dollar."

"It couldn't go to anybody else. It had to be me. It's my responsibility. It has to be. You understand that, don't you?"

I did. And I think, despite his shock, even Pa understood it too. Ross and Adam were like brothers. He would take care of the land better than most; he would honor and respect it because of the love he had for the people who left it behind.

"Yeah, brother, I do," I said. "You let me know when you're ready to go out there. It shouldn't be something you do alone."

The property was bound to be in a state. It had been left abandoned for months now, the interior of the house was bound to be dust covered and stuffy. The exterior would be fine; both the barn and the bunkhouse had been ignored but not horribly so. I had collected the barn animals weeks ago, gathered them up and taken them to the Ponderosa, not for keeps, mind you. I just wanted to make sure they were cared for proper until the ranch was sold. The cattle had been left on the land. I wasn't sure what Pa intended to do about them, seeing as before his untimely death Ross had created the Silver Dollar brand in order to cover ours making his remaining stock rustled and stolen and therefore ours to begin with.

Pa never made any mention of repercussions or reparations, holdin' the new owners of the Silver Dollar responsible for the mistakes of the old. I think he figured that with both Delphine and Ross Marquette dead everyone had suffered enough for what had been done, and, besides that, I think he was slightly afraid of what mixin' that stock back into our own would do to Adam. How he would feel or what he would do if was forced to see a constant reminder of what Ross had done to us and what he done to him. I think Pa wanted to protect Adam from feeling more grief than he already did—something that was going to be impossible now, thanks to that damn deed sitting between us on the table. Pa hadn't wanted this, and looking at my older brother I wondered if he really did either.

"I won't be heading there today," Adam said, reaching for the bottle once more.

I didn't think he would be. The way he was drinking, I was sure we weren't going to be heading anywhere anytime soon. Still, home would be where we would go once Adam drank his fill, enough to get truly mean and start a fight or better: pass out. And with the questions about the Silver Dollar answered or not, when he finally sobered up, Adam was going to be on the receiving end of some harsh words from Pa about the evils of wasting a full day to liquorin'—again.

Much to my surprise, a conversation between Pa and Adam about my brother's drinking never came. Or if it did, it was completed between the two in private; neither I nor Joe had awareness of such a thing taking place.

Things between Adam and Pa remained slightly strained. I say slightly because it wasn't like they were avoiding each other; it was just that it seemed they didn't have much to say to one another. That is, until I returned from pasture one afternoon to find them bellowing at each other. I heard bits of the conversation long before I entered the house, though not enough to truly decipher what the topic was. Their tones were angry and formidable, their words loud and only slightly muffled by the walls of the house.

"I don't understand!"

It was Pa's fierce words that made me hesitate as I opened the door. I lingered for a moment, trying to decide if I really wanted to enter or turn around and walk to the barn. Pa and Adam were around the corner, arguing by the desk. I had not been seen or heard; I could have easily turned 'round, but something about Adam's answer to Pa made me stay.

"What's there to understand?" Adam shouted. He was angry. Too angry, past the point of listening; his fury was not going to allow the conversation to end well. He was gonna say something stupid—something that would make him do something stupid. "You told me to decide what I was doing. This is me making a decision."

"I didn't mean—!"

"I know! You didn't mean this, right? You don't want this, right? Do you think I want this?" Adam's voice was changing, becoming louder, more emotional, and uncontrolled with each word. "Do you think I want any of this? It should have all been different, Pa, but it's not, and now I gotta live with that for the rest of my life!"

"How long is that going to be? How long do you think the rest of your life is going to last if you continue down this path? Fighting anyone and everyone who looks at you the wrong way, drinking yourself into oblivion, not to mention the time you spend in the company of women of ill-repute. Ah!" Pa said, seemingly reacting to something I couldn't see. "You didn't think I knew about the women? How could I have not known about them, Adam? You've lost all discretion. There's talk about you and those gals all around town! Two days ago, Minster Joe came calling to pay me a visit about you and your activities. It seems he was once worried about the devil being in Ross Marquette and now he's worried about the devil being in you! Don't you understand? Running away isn't going to make you feel any better. It isn't going to calm the pain in your heart, and it isn't going to bring Ross or Del back. All it is going to do is hurt you further, and, son, don't you think you hurt enough?"

"I think you misunderstood me, Pa," Adam said, his voice was quiet but his tone was jagged and deep. "I'm not asking for permission to live my life the way I want to. I'm telling you how the future is going to be."

And that was the end of it. It was the end of everything.

I stood by the door as Adam turned the corner and approached. Packed saddle bag on his shoulder, he didn't bother to look at me as he passed and walked out the open door. I stood there for a second, watchin' him go, wantin' so badly to run after him, toss him over my shoulder and bring him back into the house. I would make both Pa and Adam talk. Pa would tell Adam how afraid for him he was, and Adam would tell Pa how much he hurt; and then maybe things could finally start feeling better than they had been as of late.

"Pa?" I asked, rounding the corner to join him by the desk. "What's going on?"

"Your brother has finally decided what he wants to do with the Silver Dollar," Pa said sadly. "He wants to work it, alone."

"What does that mean?"

"It means, he's decided to no longer remain on the Ponderosa. He's decided to live there instead."

I didn't see Adam for over a week. I wanted to ride over to the Silver Dollar a lot sooner than I eventually did but Pa had given me and Joe fierce direction to stay away. We were to give Adam room, time to cool off and come to his senses. I wanted to ask Pa if the room to cool he was speaking of was meant more for Adam or himself, but I didn't. I couldn't seem to work up the nerve or enough meanness to draw attention to such a thing. Their last conversation had upset him; though Pa tried to act as though it didn't, I knew it did, because he was an impatient cuss over the next few days. Quick to anger and hard to please. If'n you were ever questioning where my older brother inherited his temper and the lingering discontent that came after, it was somethin' he learned from our Pa.

With Adam away, Pa was difficult during the days but it was the evenings when he allowed his angry mask to slip ever-so-slightly and a glimpse of his sadness to show through. Smoking his pipe, he had taken to lookin' at the empty blue chair in a thoughtful kind of way, a longing kind of way. It was almost as if he thought if he looked at it long enough it would suddenly quit being empty and Adam would appear.

We all felt strange without having Adam around. It was odd not talking to him, distributing chores and ranch work. He wasn't terribly far away but something about the distance between the Ponderosa and Silver Dollar made him feel territories away. I missed him. I wondered what he was doing, if he was working or getting into trouble. There was no word of him gettin' rowdy in Virginia City; in fact, word was he was staying out of town completely, so I guess I took that as a good sign.

The afternoon I rode to the Silver Dollar, I didn't tell Joe or Pa I was going; I guess I didn't want them to talk me out of it or accompany me. I wanted to go alone; I figured it was my best chance of seeing things as they actually were and gettin' Adam to speak truthfully about how he was—that was if he was feeling agreeable.

If I would have told Joe where I was headed, then there would have been no keeping him from coming and I didn't want that. There was something about Adam being the oldest of us brothers and Joe being the youngest that didn't always make for the best serious conversations.

You see, Adam being so much older than Joe made for a kinda strange dynamic between the two; it was hard for them to have honest talks about feelings and weakness and such. Always tryin' to prove to Adam that he was as strong, brave, and smart as he was, a lot of the time Joe was too prideful to seek Adam out when he needed a shoulder or serious talk. And too preoccupied with being the oldest, Adam's pride wouldn't budge enough to allow him to do the same. Unless things were especially bad, it was hard for them to come together. Which is a funny to think about; you would think that if the very same prideful feelings were what was keeping them from talking in the first place, then they would at least be able to come together on that. But they can't. It's just as well, I suppose, because I figure that's what I'm here for.

I can talk to both of my brothers at any given time just fine without them gettin' uppity about it. Well, that ain't exactly true. Sometimes they get uppity, it's just that I'm better at bringin' them back down. Pa is pretty good at that too. He knows all of us boys better than anyone else. He knows when the push and pull back, when to hold on to us and when to let go, so that we eventually come back around in our own time. Right then, Pa was directing us to give Adam wide berth, a direction I finally decided I couldn't abide by.

I think I knew before I left that I wasn't gonna like what I was gonna find. I think maybe Pa knew that too and that's why he told us to stay away. And I think it was both these things put together that finally made me go. I don't know what I was expecting to see when I came upon the property but it was not what I found.

The Silver Dollar was as empty as it had been the day Adam bought it. The windows and doors of the house and the bunk-house had been boarded up, proof that he had been there at some point. The barn door had been left wide-open, an obvious invitation for wild critters and the like to take up residence in its hollow insides, or for a nosy passerby, such as myself, to help themselves to a closer look.

It wasn't until I made it to the far back of the building that I came upon anything of note. A blanket and bedroll lay disheveled and sprawling on top of a pile of straw. The makeshift bed was surrounded by a bunch of liquor bottles; some were full, some were empty, and others were somewhere in between, but they all silently spilled the truth of what my older brother had really been doing during his time away from home. He hadn't been working the ranch; he had been sleeping in the barn, drinking himself into hazy stupor.

"Ah!" I groaned disappointedly, shoving one of the empty bottles with the tip of my boot. It slid lazily across the straw only to be stopped when it hit the wall. The thud echoed around me as the glass splintered on the base of the bottle, blemishing it with a series of spiderweb cracks. I glared at it for a second, then turned around and left the damaged bottle as proof to my older brother that someone had come to check up on him while he was gone.

I think I hoped he would think it was Pa and that the idea of havin' Pa see how he'd been living would be enough to make him correct his ways. Somehow, I knew Adam would know I had been the one who had come by.

Pa caught me in the barn when I came home. Nodding at him, I pulled my saddle off Chubb and pretended I didn't notice how irritated he looked. Hands on his hips, Pa didn't talk as he stood paces away, watchin' me take care of my horse.

It wasn't until I finally finished and set my sights on the barn door that he spoke. Grabbing me by the upper-arm, he stopped me mid-stride and expectantly looked me up and down.

"Well?" he asked.

"Well, what?"

"How was he?"

"How was who?"

Pa frowned. We both knew where I had gone and what he was expectin' me to say. I don't know why I didn't just come right out and tell him that I hadn't seen Adam. I was tryin' to protect them both, I suppose. Adam wouldn't want me tellin' Pa anything about what I had found and Pa didn't need to worry any more about Adam than he already did.

"You know who," Pa said.

Pulling my arm from his grasp, I shrugged. I couldn't tell him what I didn't know.

"How can you not know? You went to the Silver Dollar, didn't you?"

"I did, Adam wasn't there."

"Oh."

"He's staying there," I said quickly, needing to say something to ease the lines of worry on Pa's face. I couldn't stand the way things had changed and how it was shifting things between all of us. I didn't like havin' to be the one to break it to Pa that Adam wasn't doing what he had said he would do. He wasn't working his ranch, and he was drinking a lot more—something I suspected was the true reason he had left home to begin with. "He just didn't happen to be around when I showed up."

"He has been there," Pa said, his pinched expression betraying his even tone. He was worried. He needed more information than I was able to give.

"Yes, sir. I believe so."

"But you didn't see him."

"No."

"So, you can't be sure."

"I'm sure."

"Hoss," Pa said. He grasped my arm again, his touch and expression inviting me to share anything I might be holdin' back from him.

That's the thing about being able to talk to both my brothers at any given time, it makes me privy to their secrets and struggles and things that for whatever reason they ain't comfortable enough to share with Pa. Now, Adam and Joe don't know this, or maybe they really do and act like they don't, but I'm bad at keeping secrets from Pa. It's hard for me to keep quiet about especially important or worrisome secrets, secrets that might get either of my brothers in deeper trouble if they were to be kept.

"He's staying there," I said. "He boarded up the house and bunkhouse. He's sleeping in the barn."

"The barn," Pa carefully repeated.

We both knew the information wasn't a promising sign. It wasn't a great time of year to be doin' such a thing. The nights got awfully cold when the sun went down, something I wondered if Adam even noticed. It didn't take a lot for a man to reason that he was drinking a fair amount to get himself to sleep through the night. I suppose, he was drinking a fair amount to get through the day too. Truth be told either thing would have left me plenty worried and suspecting both was more troublesome than I want to admit. I couldn't help but think about Adam being alone in that barn in the cold, drunk as a skunk, his reflexes too slow to properly react if trouble happened upon him.

"Why is he staying in the barn when he has the house at his disposal?" Pa asked.

"Don't ask me why, because I don't know."

"Is he working?"

"He does not appear to be."

"Then what is he doing?"

"If empty bottles are any indication, I would say drinking... a lot."

"Wonderful."

"What do you want to do?"

"What can I do? Adam's not a child or a disobedient youth; he's a grown man."

"He needs help, Pa. He needs you to set him straight."

"And how exactly do you propose I do that? I tried to set him straight after he bought that land, it only pushed him further away."

"He already left home. How much further can he really get?"

"I'm not inclined to find out. He wanted to leave because he wanted space. I don't like it but I'm going to respect his wishes."

I opened my mouth to disagree. If it were me or Little Joe acting in such a way, I don't believe Pa would be as hesitant to correct either of us. I couldn't understand why Adam was so different from us. Maybe it was because he was the oldest. Maybe it was because he was less inclined to talk about his feelings and pain until the very moment they became too much for him to bear on his own. Or maybe it was because Pa's guilt over Ross's death was creeping in again, leaving him too tolerant of bad behavior where my older brother was concerned.

"I'm not going to do anything, yet." Pa pointed his index finger at my chest. "You, however, are not me. You have a way with your brother, Hoss; you always have and you always will. I want you to go back to the Silver Dollar tomorrow and get a good look at him. If you see anything—and I do mean anything—concerning then I expect you to tell me. Giving berth with grief is one thing, I have no intention of allowing any son of mine to turn into a drunkard."

"Okay, Pa,"

"I mean it. This is too serious of a situation to ignore truths at the expense of loyalty and pride."

"I know." I wondered what was stopping Pa from takin' his own advice.

Adam wasn't at the Silver Dollar when I came calling the next day, nor was he around when I came the day after or the one after that. When I arrived for my fourth visit in so many days, I was as worried about him as I had ever been.

I wasn't sure if he and I had been missing each other or if he really had been missing from the ranch for four days. Each day his bedroll lay unkempt in the back of the barn; the liquor bottles didn't seem to move from where they had laid when I found them. But there were so many, it was hard to be sure. The cracked bottle I had kicked against the wall had remained in its place, making me wonder if it had been seen by anyone other than myself. Though I didn't make any mention of it to Pa, I was startin' to really think a lot about that trouble that could happened upon my older brother.

Dismounting Chubb, I looked at the open barn door and sighed, steeling myself for another empty-handed visit. If Adam was still nowhere to be seen then there would be no holdin' me back from searching the territory for him. With the way he had been acting, there was no telling what kind of trouble he could have found.

Tying Chubb to the hitching rail, I looked back at the barn and found Adam standing in the middle of the doorway. He was disheveled, his dusty clothes stained with mud and grime; his shirt was untucked; he was missing his belt and boots, but he was there.

"Well, hello stranger," I said.

"Did you come back to break something else of mine?" he asked flatly.

The broken bottle had been seen after all. "Where you been?" I asked as I approached him. It wasn't until I got close that I noticed the dark circles beneath his eyes, the bruising hiding beneath the short beard growth covering his cheeks, and the scratches marking his knuckles and neck. He'd been fighting again, that much was certain. I was unsure how long it had been since he last slept.

"Around."

His eyes were shining, glistening with a brightness I associated with someone who had already drowned his sorrows in a bottle. I looked up at the afternoon sky. It wasn't much past noon, too early for a respectable man's eyes to be gleaming the way my brother's were. I wanted to be disappointed, but I wasn't. The recent occasions I had spent beside him in the saloon had left me accustomed to seeing him this way.

"'Round where?" I asked.

Adam shrugged.

"Where's that?" I pressed. I wasn't going to let him off that easily, not with all the worry I'd been feeling over him. "And who'd you fight when you were there?"

"Who says I was in a fight?"

"Recent history. Brother, either you've been in a fight, or you took one helluva fall from Sport."

"I didn't fall."

"Then you did fight. Where?"

Adam looked at me for a second or two, then took a deep breath and cleared his throat. "Carson," he finally said.

This was not something I was expecting to hear. "City?"

Adam rolled his eyes. "Yes, city. What kind of asinine question is that, anyhow?"

"There's no need to get smart. You haven't been around in days; I think I'm entitled to ask where you've been."

"That's some misplaced entitlement. I don't recall asking you to look after me."

"No. You didn't. Pa did. He's worried."

"Pa always worries," Adam scoffed.

"I'm worried too."

"What do you have to be worried about?"

"Dunno." I tilted my head. Hard liquorin', sleeping in a barn, and disappearing for days, how would I ever choose? "Whatcha been doin' in Carson?"

Pursing his lips, Adam shook his head. "There's no need for any of you to worry."

"So, you say." I pointed at the mess of liquor bottles in the back of the barn. "Your surroundings tell a different story. And you know what Pa says about talk anyway."

Adam frowned, the words hitting him in the opposite way I had intended. "Yeah, well," he seethed deeply, "sometimes Pa isn't as smart as he thinks he is."

"Careful," I warned, my voice just as deep. "You keep a civil tongue in your mouth when you talk about our Pa. He only wants to help, that's all any of us want to do."

"Then leave me alone."

"No, sir. I can't do that."

"Can't or won't?"

"Can't, won't, if I ain't leaving you alone what's the difference why anyhow? What have you been up to, Adam?"

"Who says I've been up to anything at all?" he countered, continuing our stubborn game of spoken push and shove. I was gonna see how far I could push him in hopes of getting him to cave and admit a little truth, and he was gonna keep shoving me in hopes I would cave and leave things well enough alone. Wouldn't happen. Not that day, at least. My worry for him had both somehow eased and increased the moment I finally laid eyes on him.

"I've come by here four times in as many days, and this is the first time you've been 'round to talk to. That leads a man to believe you've been doing something somewhere else. You mind tellin' me who bruised your face?" I nodded at his bare feet. "Or what happened to your boots? It ain't the time of year to be goin' barefoot; you're liable to catch a cold."

"That another regurgitated lesson from Pa?"

"No, sir. That's straight from me."

There were so many questions I wanted to ask him, so many things I wanted to know the answers to. Like why he was staying in the barn over the house, or why he felt the need to stay on the property at all. Surely, he'd be more comfortable, safer and warmer, his own bed, in his own bedroom, and in his own house. Pa wouldn't take kindly to him lining the floor of his bedroom with liquor bottles, but he's been known to turn a blind eye to a single bottle on a side-stand especially in dire situations. And given the situation, how Adam was feeling about his loss, a bottle in a bedroom was not something Pa would fault him for. A handful or bottles or as many as Adam was hoarding in the barn, on the other hand, wouldn't be tolerated or accepted.

"Don't tell me you left home just so you could drown your sorrows in a never-ending stream of liquor," I said sadly. "You're smart. There's a lot of things in this world you're suited to be. You could do anything you want but you ain't gonna become a drunkard. It ain't gonna be allowed. Now that," I pointed my index finger at him before he had time to speak, "is a message from Pa."

Crossing his arms stubbornly, his frown deepened. "That he couldn't be bothered to tell me himself."

"You said you wanted space. He's just giving you what you asked for."

"That's a first."

"What in tarnation is your problem with Pa? He didn't do nothin' to you. He's been nothing short of a saint when it comes to dealin' with you as of late."

Uncrossing his arms, Adam looked away from me and pretended to be real interested in the doorframe of the barn. Extending his index finger, he smoothed the tip of it up and down the woodgrain. I found myself cringing, his action inviting a sliver to pierce his skin.

"What happened to Del and Ross ain't Pa's fault," I said. "It ain't your fault neither."

"Then whose fault is it?"

"What?"

Adam pulled his index finger away abruptly, moving his thumb to caress the small dot of blood sitting on top of his fingertip. He had to have known he was inviting pain when he was touching that damn wood, but he had done it anyhow. I couldn't seem to understand why.

"Two people are dead, Hoss," Adam said. "Maybe I didn't kill Del but I did shoot Ross. It was my bullet that came out of my gun that killed him. How can anyone say that isn't my fault?"

"You or him, remember, brother? That's how it went down. If'n you wouldn't have killed him then he would have killed you and we woulda killed him and then neither of you would be standing here today."

"The ends don't really justify the means," he said. It was an odd statement that took me off-guard.

"What are you talkin' about?"

He set his sights on me again, his glistening eyes seeming to look right through me. At first, I thought it was the alcohol still makin' his eyes gleam the way they were, then I realized it was tears. It was odd thing to be allowed to see. I couldn't remember the last time I'd seen my older brother cry. Oh, I knew he'd shed tears after Ross, when he was still up on those cliffs and alone with his best friend's body, but all that remained when we met him comin' down the trail was the clean streaks of proof lining his dust covered face. His eyes had been clear then. Sad but dry.

"Boy, you got a lot to learn for someone who's already so old," Adam said, his voice a mite thicker than it was before. "Just because something is justifiable that don't make it right."

"Doesn't," I said softly, hoping the correction would be enough to lighten the mood. It wasn't right for Adam to feel so guilty over something he had been forced to do. He hadn't had a choice—we all knew that. Ross had forced his hand and then he had gone and died and all he left behind for my brother were questions and pain. "Adam, you didn't do no wrong."

I had said the words over and over again in the time between the day Ross had died and that one, but I think this was the first time I realized Adam didn't believe them. That maybe there was nothing I could ever say to make him believe the truth. I didn't know what to do with this new information. I didn't know how to help in a way that Adam would accept it, or how to phrase my words in a way that he could hear them.

"But I had to do it," Adam said as though he hadn't heard me. His expression was pained, his tone soft and haunted. "I just had to be the one. It was my decision. It was my mistake."

"You need a long talk with Pa. Not a tense disagreement or argument but an honest-to-God heart-to-heart. Maybe he can make you see the truth, and then maybe you can start moving past that day."

"There is no moving past it. Not anymore. Don't you understand? I'm the only one left, that makes me the one who's responsible for carrying the truth of what happened."

"You're wrong. It's only hurt and guilt that's makin' you feel such a way. I know it and Pa knows it too and that's why we're worried. Brother, you're trying so hard to run away from how you feel that I don't think you know how far away you've really gotten. You're trying so hard to drown yourself in alcohol that I don't think you even realize how much you've started to sink. It's about time you finally came up for air."

He didn't say nothing in response to any of that, and I figured that was okay, because I had run out of things to say anyway.

I rode home quickly. Leaving Chubb at the hitching post in front of the ranch house, I walked deliberately toward the front door. I wasn't planning on staying long. I was itching to talk to Pa and let him in the conversation I had with Adam. I was gonna insist he join me for a return trip to the Silver Dollar, then maybe together he and I could finally bring Adam home.

The front door opened when I was a few paces away, Little Joe slipped out of the house and closed the door quietly behind him. Hesitating in place, I nodded. He didn't nod back or say anything in the way of a proper greeting. His face was set with a seriousness I was not accustomed to seeing from him.

"You seen Adam?" he asked.

"Sure did."

"What did he have to say for himself?"

"Nothin' much."

"He tell you where he's been?"

"Carson City."

Scoffing, Joe shook his head, his seriousness transforming into disappointment. His expression made me wonder what he knew that I didn't and how he had come about the information.

"Out with it, Joe," I said.

"He was in Carson City," Joe said, "in jail."

"Jail?"

"He finally picked a fight with the wrong person, or, I don't know, maybe the wrong person picked a fight with him. You remember Frank Mitchell?"

The name I recognized; it was the particular fellow it belonged to that I couldn't seem to place. "Nope."

"He was a hand at Silver Dollar, remember?" Joe asked. "He's a wanderer. He came every year for roundup and then left right after. He's been doing that for years. Leaving, coming back, leaving again. I think Ross's Pa was the one who originally hired him and I think that's why Ross kept him on year after year."

"Older dude?" I asked, the sparse description sparking my memory. "Fond of the drink, hard livin' and the like?"

"Yep."

"What about him?"

"That's who Adam fought in Carson," Joe said.

"Who told you?"

"Sheriff Coffee caught me in town today, asked me if Adam made it back okay. I couldn't pretend I knew what he was talking about."

"How did he know?" I asked, wondering why we didn't.

"Sheriff in Carson sent Roy a telegraph askin' him to vouch for both Adam and Frank. Seems neither of them were up to talkin' to anyone about anything when they were both sitting in jail."

"What were they fightin' about?"

"I don't know for sure, but I know Frank was pretty fond of both the Silver Dollar and Ross, and I know he and Adam never really got along. Sheriff Coffee said Frank came rolling through Virginia City not long after Ross and Del were buried. He was upset, angry over the way Ross was killed. He said Adam should have conducted himself differently. That Adam shouldn't have done what he did. I can imagine some of the things that were said between him and Adam in Carson, and I'm sure you can too."

I could, and the thought of someone accusing Adam of the very same thing he seemed dead-set on holdin' himself responsible for made my heart hurt. "Does Pa know about the fight and the time Adam spent in jail?" I asked.

Joe shook his head. "No."

"You gonna tell him?"

"No, I was kinda hopin' you'd do that."

"I suppose you're hopin' I'm the one who's gonna tell Adam we know the truth too."

"Ah, Hoss." Pursuing his lips, Joe stared at the ground. "You're better at talking to Adam than I am. I'm the youngest, he's the oldest; it ain't right for me to be holding him accountable for his behavior."

"I ain't as good at takin' to him as you think."

He looked up at me. "What does that mean?"

"I tried talkin' to him, Joe. It didn't do a whole lot of good. Adam's real stubborn when he wants to be, and he's dead-set on continuing his ways."

"He still drinking?"

"He is."

"More or less than he was when he still allowed us around?"

"I would say more. A lot more."

Joe stifled a groan. "I can't imagine living on that property is easy for him. It figures that staying in that house, surrounded by the memory of Ross and Del, would make him drink more."

"He ain't staying in the house. He's bunked out in the barn."

"The barn," Joe repeated carefully.

He looked and sounded so much like our Pa then, unknowingly repeating the very same thing Pa had said days earlier when presented with the same odd news, that I found myself repeating what I had said before. "Don't ask me why, because I don't know."

"Why didn't you ask him?"

It was a question I was ashamed to admit I didn't have an answer to. I hadn't asked Adam why he chose to stay in the barn over the house. Finally faced with him, drunk and bootless, standing in the doorway of the barn and looking at me as though he wanted nothing more than for me to turn right around and leave him alone, it just hadn't seemed like such an important question at the time. But it sure seemed like an important one now. I felt guilty for not taking the time to ask it. I felt guilty for a lot of things, I suppose. Like not being able to ease Adam's pain the way it seemed I was somehow always able to do, or not knowing the right thing to say to get him to talk to Pa. And besides all that, I couldn't seem to stop thinking about Adam in that barn, alone and drunk, so unprepared if trouble came upon him.

Then I thought about Frank Mitchell, if he could be the face of the trouble I was so worried about. If he and Adam fought once they could do so again. Considering Frank seemed to be fond of the Silver Dollar, it did seem likely for him to show up out there.

"What did you and Adam talk about?" Joe asked.

"His drinking. His mood with Pa. I told him we wasn't gonna let him become a drunkard, then I told him I wanted him to come home. He didn't take kindly to either thing. There wasn't nothin' I said that seemed to be getting through. That's why I'm here. I was coming to get Pa."

Joe looked uncomfortable. "Do you really think putting the two of them together is going to do any good? Adam's been a little bristly toward Pa as of late."

"A little," I snorted. "Brother you and me must have different understandings of what constitutes a little."

"Okay, Adam has been very bristly toward Pa, but that just proves my point. If Adam ain't listening to you, then he isn't going to take kindly to a visit from Pa. You know, there was a time when I thought there wasn't anything in this world that could drive a wedge between Adam and Pa, or Adam and you for that matter. I can't believe this is the thing that did it. I don't understand how Ross and Del's deaths could result in Adam doing what he is."

"He's hurtin', Joe. You know how close he and Ross were. You can't blame a man for grieving people he loved," I said. "Or for mourning something terrible that had to be done."

"I would never blame Adam for what he did. It's what he's doing now that I fault him for. He's supposed to be stronger than this, wiser and better too."

"This is a real sorry state of affairs." Standing in the far back corner of the Silver Dollar's barn, Pa crouched, reaching for one empty liquor bottle after another, collecting them in a small pile which lay before his feet. Coming across a half-full bottle, he pulled the cork and proceeded to empty the amber contents on the dirt floor. "A sorry state of affairs, indeed," he quietly added.

Adam had left by the time I returned with both Pa and Joe. Where he had gone was anyone's guess. Back to Carson or Virginia City or someplace new. What he would do when he got there was no great mystery to any of us. He would drown himself in a bottle, maybe get himself drunk enough so he couldn't feel his grief. Or maybe he would get himself too drunk, something which would only intensify his pain, and he'd start another fight to distract himself. And then maybe he'd end up in jail again or someplace worse.

Having emptied all the bottles, Pa set his sights on shaking out Adam's blanket and bedroll. At first, I thought he was searching for any other bottles that could have been hidden away, then, as he began shoving more straw toward the sparsely covered area where Adam seemed to be sleepin', I realized he wasn't lookin' for alcohol at all.

Satisfied with the amount of straw he had added, Pa laid the blankets back down and remade my brother's make-shift bed. When he was done with that, he walked outside without a word, then he silently returned a few moments later. He had removed his own bedroll from Buck, an item he carefully unfolded and laid on top of the rest. I didn't know what to think about watching Pa do such a thoughtful thing. I felt like maybe I shouldn't have been allowed to see it. Lookin' at Joe, I knew my younger brother felt the same way.

Pa hadn't taken kindly to news of Adam's time in the Carson City jail; despite his anger and frustration he was still tryin' to make sure Adam was taken care of, comfortable and warm at least, despite the other troubles he seemed to be intent on inviting upon himself.

Crossing his arms, Joe pressed his palms to his sides and shuffled his weight from one foot to the other. He was nervous, awaiting Pa's eventual declaration of anger and disappointment over Adam's behavior. A frustrated lecture aimed toward us for seeming to keep it secret for so long. Neither a declaration nor lecture ever escaped Pa's mouth; nodding his head at the barn door, he indicated for me and Joe to follow him, and the three of us rode home.

I couldn't sleep that night. I was too worried about Adam to allow myself any rest. I kept thinking about him in that barn, cold, alone, and drunk. I had the worst feeling that night; a horrible sense of wrongness that I just couldn't seem to shake. I laid awake for a long time, imagining one terrible scene after another, until my thoughts became too much to handle.

Rising from bed, I dressed quietly and quickly. Grabbing my boots, I decided upon carrying them and putting them on once I made it downstairs. I didn't want to be overheard; I didn't want Joe or Pa to stop me from doing what I intended to do. Night sky be damned; there was no amount of cold night air or darkness that would keep me from traveling the distance between the Silver Dollar and home to check on my older brother myself.

I made it out of the house and through the yard before my determination left me. I hesitated when I came upon Pa and Buck in the barn. Pulling his saddle off his horse, it appeared to me Pa had already gone where I had been headed and returned.

"You coming or going?" I asked.

This was a question Pa left unanswered. He smoothed his hand over Buck's neck in an absent kind of way.

"What are we going to do?" I asked.

Pa shook his head. "His need for space I can reconcile," he said softly. "I can understand and respect the notion that he wants to care for Ross's land. His sudden need for the drink frightens me. I don't want to think I raised a son who can only tolerate pain if he drinks himself to death."

"You didn't. Adam's never handled himself this way before. It's just there's something about this pain that cuts him particularly deep."

"That boy's whole life has been composed of loss. Out of all the people he's ever loved, he's had more taken away from him than he's been allowed to keep. I knew losing Ross and Del would be difficult for him. I never anticipated he would react like this."

"None of us did."

"I know he's hurting. I know there's nothing to be said or done that will change that."

"He drinks too much," I warned seriously. "It's makes him stupid. He's already got himself thrown into jail; I'm afraid of what else he could do."

"Me too," Pa admitted.

"So, what are we going to do?"

Pa's expression became stern. "It's time to toughen up," he said. "Adam can have tonight, because come morning I'm going to find him, and one way or another, I'm going to bring him home."

The next morning, we rose with the sun. I think we all anticipated the day to be long, for the search for Adam to go on for longer than it did. Finding the Silver Dollar empty, we traveled to Virginia City. We found Sport tied to the hitching post in front of the saloon and we found Adam inside of the building. He was sitting at his normal table in the back, a half-empty bottle resting on the table in-between his flattened palms. He didn't acknowledge any of us as we approached. He didn't so much as flinch as Pa pulled out a chair and sat next to him. He did, however, protest when Pa reached for the bottle and pulled it away.

"Hey," Adam said, his voice deep and cracking with strain. His cheeks were flushed and his eyes were bright; he wasn't quite drunk yet but he was well on his way. "That's mine."

"Not anymore," Pa said. "You've had your fill."

"Give it back," Adam said.

"No," Pa said.

"Yes," Adam said.

"No."

"If you don't give it back, then I'll—"

"You'll what?" Pa asked, his voice dangerously low.

They were becoming the focus of everyone now. Every man at the bar or table had their eyes set curiously on my brother and Pa, watching, and waiting to see whose stubbornness would win.

Shaking his head, Adam finally seemed to realize who he was really talking to and thought better of his words. "Why don't you go on and say it," he said, his voice still carrying a stubborn edge.

"Say what?" Pa asked.

"What you're thinking about me right now."

"Does it matter to you?" Pa countered.

Adam shrugged. "I don't care what you think."

"What do you care about?"

"You giving me that bottle back."

"I already told you, you've had your fill."

"What makes you think you get to decide?"

"Because I'm your father."

"What difference does that make?"

"What difference?" Pa asked. "You listen to me and you listen good. I will not tolerate this behavior any longer. I'm taking you home. You're gonna get dried out and you're going to stay that way. I will not allow you to—"

"I don't need your advice or lectures, Pa," Adam interrupted as he pushed back his chair and stood. "I don't believe I need anything from you anymore. You keep that bottle. I'll find myself another."

He headed toward the swinging doors, Pa, Joe, and me on his heels. He had only stepped upon the dirt of the thoroughfare when Pa grabbed him by the arm and spun him around.

"And just exactly what do you need?" Pa asked.

Adam pulled his arm from Pa's grasp. "For you to leave me alone."

"You can't have that. Not anymore."

"What makes you think you get to decide?" Adam demanded. "You don't get a say, Pa, not this time!"

They were the focus of everyone in the thoroughfare, the anger and frustration in their voices too loud to be ignored. Some of the folk in the saloon had left their seats and crowded around on the inside of the door. Joe and I looked at each other, both of us wanting so badly to put an end to the argument, or to somehow put it on hold until we could get Adam and Pa out of town and somewhere private, where the things they had to say to each other couldn't be overheard. It didn't seem possible, at least not then. Not with how Pa was staring Adam down or with the way Adam was looking at Pa, his eyes shining with so much anger I was tempted to label it as hate.

It didn't seem possible that Adam could ever hate Pa. It had to be the liquor makin' him feel such a way. It had to be his pain confusing him, making him talk without giving his words any thought at all. It had to be something, because my older brother didn't act like he was. His eyes were gleaming with detest, his skin glistening with a thin layer of sweat.

Brows furrowing, Pa's face seemed to soften as he suddenly noticed something about Adam that I couldn't see. "Adam," he said. "Son." Taking a step forward, he extended his hands, resting one palm on my brother's forehead and the other one on the back of his neck. "Something is wrong with you. I can see it now."

"Leave me alone!" Adam said, struggling and failing to push Pa's hands away. "Let go of me!"

"Adam—"

"What's going on here, fellas?" It was Sheriff Coffee who suddenly appeared out of nowhere and asked the question that finally silenced their argument. Standing in between me and Joe, he looked between my older brother and Pa. "What's with all the commotion?"

"Roy," Pa nodded. His attention focused on the sheriff, his grip finally loosened enough for Adam to break free. "We're having a private family discussion."

"Seems to me that's the opposite of what you're doing," Roy said, "seein' as how you're yelling at each other in the middle of town. I have to say, I am surprised at you, Ben." He looked at Adam. "I suppose I don't expect a whole lot more from you, given your behavior as of late. You've been warned about the fightin'. I'm sure I don't need to remind you what I told you the last time you got into a scuffle."

"He started it!" Adam pointed an accusing finger at Pa.

I was so shocked my mouth fell open. I never would have expected Adam to say such a thing or to sound so childish when he did.

"I don't believe I care much who started it," Roy mused. "I'm the one ending it. You know what I told you last time, Adam. If I caught you fightin' again then I was gonna throw your butt in jail."

"I didn't hit him!" Adam said.

"Don't suppose I care much if you did or didn't this time," Roy said. "You were being disruptive just the same, and as such the choice I said you were gonna have is the same as I said it would be. What is it gonna be, Adam? You gonna sit in my jail until you sober up enough to start thinking straight or you gonna go home so your Pa can deal with you?"

Adam didn't hesitate. "Jail."

"Son," Pa said.

Expelling a sigh, Roy looped his thumbs on his gun belt and set his attention on the crowd that had gathered around us. "Move along, folks," he said lazily. "There's nothing to see here." He didn't speak again until the crowd moved, leaving Pa the only focus of me and Joe and Adam the only focus of Pa. Looking at Adam, Roy nodded. "Seems to me, you're too drunk to be expected to make a decision for yourself." He tilted his head at Pa. "What'll it be, Ben? You want him in jail, or you want to deal with him at home?"

Pa didn't hesitate. "I'm taking him home."

"Alright," Roy said. "Adam, I know you got your own place now, but I expect you to stay at the Ponderosa for at least the next couple of days or so."

"Couple of days!" Adam exclaimed.

"Same amount of time I would have kept you in jail," Roy said. "If'n I hear at any point that you left before that, then I really will put you in jail cell; I'll charge you too. Boy, I will put a fine so large on your head that you'll be working for your Pa the rest of your life to pay it off."

Adam paced. Fists clenched at his sides, his strides were purposeful and tight as he walked the distance between the staircase and the kitchen table, his path taking him in front of the fireplace and passed Joe and me as we sat around it. Attention set on the door as he restlessly walked from one end of the room to the other, he reminded me of a trapped animal.

After watching him for a bit, I began to believe that at any moment he would rush toward the door, escape into the darkness outside, and never come back. He didn't want to be there; I had known that from the start, but I think it was only when I was watching him walk back and forth that I really understood how much he hadn't wanted to come back home.

"Adam," Little Joe tried, his eyes tracking our older brother as he moved. "Will you please sit down? You're grinding on my nerves."

Looking between my oldest and youngest brothers it seemed to me that Adam's behavior wasn't grinding on Joe's nerves as much as he was making him nervous. It was making me nervous too. My stomach was aflutter with butterflies the strength of which I had not experienced for a long while.

Ignoring Joe's request, Adam continued to walk from one end of the room to the other.

Turning in my seat, I glanced at Pa, hoping he would follow up Joe's request with an order. But sitting behind his desk, his pipe in his mouth, his eyes locked on something before him as he pretended not to watch Adam out of the tops of his eyes, he said nothing.

He and Adam hadn't spoken since we returned home. Though they both entered the house at the same time, they had headed in different directions. Wordlessly, Pa settled behind his desk and Adam had begun stalking the length of the room. Both of their silent actions promised trouble; they were both seething, the pain and frustration of their perceived differences festering something fierce, filling the air with a tension that we could all feel. It was no bet whether another fight between the two was brewing; it was just a matter of which one of them would start it.

"Come on, Adam," I tried.

I wanted him to sit down, take a deep breath, and calm his anger and nerves. He didn't have to let all his frustration go, at least not then. I just wanted him to be calm enough so he wouldn't get into it with Pa. Truth be told, I wanted both him and Pa to do that. Pa's temper needed to cool and Adam needed to sober up. There was nothing to be gained by continuing the fight, at least not then, but it still seemed as though there was an awful lot left to lose.

"You're making me dizzy with all the pacin'!" Joe said. "Can you sit down already?"

Reaching the railing of the staircase, Adam turned around and began heading toward the dining table. Face shifting with anxiety, Joe lifted his hands, then dropped them helplessly on his lap and sighed.

As Adam passed the face of the fireplace, I glanced back at Pa. He wasn't even pretending not to watch Adam now; jaw clenched, and lips pressed tightly around the end of his pipe, his attention was set on my older brother.

The weight of Adam's footsteps seemed to echo around us, the soles of his boots thumping against the floor with an odd kind of force that was not typical of him. Dull and heavy, there seemed to be a threat lingering behind his footsteps, a warning of trouble if he wasn't allowed his way. I wondered if he was deliberately making the noise, or if it was accidental, the result of frustration he wasn't expressing with his voice.

I wondered how long he planned to pace. How long he could go on for if he never planned to stop. Never seemed like such a long while; it seemed reasonable he would tucker himself out long before that. And even if he didn't, then I was sure he'd wear the floorboards out or the rest of us would grow weary of listening to his footsteps. I found myself flinching with each and every one, my own patience dwindling, my worry growing with each thud I had to endure. And just when I thought I couldn't handle the noise anymore, it stopped.

I looked at Adam immediately and found him frowning at Pa. "You can't keep me here forever," he said. "Just because I'm here right now that doesn't mean you can make me stay."

Lips closed around his pipe, Pa inhaled a deep breath, held it and then breathed out a puff of smoke. He didn't respond to the challenge of the statement.

But Adam refused to be ignored. Approaching the front of the desk, he planted his palms on the top of it, leaned over and looked Pa in the eye. "Did you hear me?" he asked. "I said, you can't keep me here."

"And yet here you are," Pa said.

"Not for long."

"Roy ordered you to stay here for a minimum of two days if I correctly recall."

"Maximum," Adam corrected. "That's the sentence. I won't be here a second after it ends."

"We'll see," Pa countered deeply.

"About what?"

"What comes after the two days."

"I already told you. I'm leaving."

"And I said we would see."

"And I said you can't keep me here."

"So, you did."

"You don't believe me?" Adam challenged.

Pa looked upon Adam for a moment, his dark eyes seeming to appraise every detail of his appearance. The pinkness of his cheeks hiding behind the beginning of a beard, the sweat clinging to his forehead, and his bloodshot eyes. There was a hint of stale whiskey still on his breath, and every so often, he cringed as though he was sobering up just enough for stomach to start turnin' and his head to begin to pound.

To be honest, I was surprised Adam had remained downstairs and among the rest of us for as long as he had. I thought for sure he woulda retired to his bedroom the second we got home. Given how he had been forced to come with us, I figured he would have been eager to hide himself away from me and Joe's attention and Pa's lingering stare.

"Do you believe yourself?" Pa asked, his voice softening as he stared Adam down. "I think you and I both know that's not really what you want. Someday, sure, but not now. You know that's not what you want right now."

"How do you know what I want?"

"Because I know you," Pa said. "I know what's in your heart and I know the kind of thoughts you entertain in your mind. You don't want this. Isn't that you told me the last time you stood where you are and spoke to me?"

Pa's words seemed to hit the nerve he was aiming for because Adam hung his head. I couldn't see what his expression was from behind, but I imagined it was one of regret or at least remorse. Though Pa thought I had a way with my older brother, he had a way too, because when things were seemin' particularly bad, he always seemed to be able to think of the one thing that each of us needed to hear to turn everything around.

Adam didn't say nothing in response; he didn't move either. He stayed like that for a while, leaned over the desk, his head hung in a shameful kind of way. At least it thought it was his shame making him stand like that. I guess I won't ever be sure because I never did see his face. But I heard his words, the ones which came after his silence.

"You're wrong, Pa," Adam said quietly. Any hint of anger had left his voice; he sounded sad and resigned. Like he didn't want to be tellin' the truth that he was. "You think you know the truth but you don't, because I've been careful not to tell you."

Standing up straight, he didn't wait for Pa to reply. He retired to his bedroom without another word.

The next two days were uneventful. Adam sobered up and stayed that way. Pa and he didn't talk much. In fact, Adam didn't talk to any of us much. He did his normal chores and anything else the rest of us asked, but it didn't seem as though he was actually there. Though he worked and sat among us, his mind was elsewhere. I knew, as I was sure both Pa and Joe did too, that after the two days Sheriff Coffee had ordered him to stay on the Ponderosa had passed, he would leave. He would go back to the Silver Dollar, the barn and drinking.

Now, I can't say one way or another if Pa and Adam had private conversations that I was unaware of. I will say that I can't see Pa letting him, or any of us boys for that matter, come to any kind of real decision without makin' us talk through it with him first. And I will say, that even though Adam didn't seem willing to talk, Pa didn't seem to let Adam wander too far from his side. Though I think there was another reason for that, because in the middle of that first night Adam started to cough.

It was an occasional kind of thing to start. If you didn't pay too much attention to it, you could almost believe he only needed to wet his throat or clear it. After a while, it became obvious that it wasn't just those things. It was the beginning of something else. Adam's cough continued into the first day of his sentence on the Ponderosa. By the second night, it had become thick and deep; it wracked his body with such force that it seemed like he would spit out one of his lungs. It changed his voice, making it scratchy and ragged, and tuckered him out, leaving him quiet and weary. He went to bed early the second night, leaving the rest of us to worry about what the morning would bring.

"Adam can't go back to the Silver Dollar, Pa," Little Joe said. Sitting on the ledge of Pa's desk, he spoke first, beating me by mere seconds. "He's sick. We can't let him leave."

"Joe's right," I said.

Pa looked between us. "He's not going anywhere."

"He's gonna try," Joe said.

"Well, he's not going to succeed," Pa said. "Your brother is in a state, leaving is the last thing I'm going to allow. If he tries to leave then I'll stop him. If he does leave then I will bring him back."

Now, I wanted to believe Pa. And believe me, I had complete faith he could make Adam remain in place forever if he truly wanted him to. But given how he had handled the time prior to Sheriff Coffee forcing Adam to come home, I hope you can understand how I had my doubts. Looking at Joe, I could tell he had his doubts too.

"Pa," Joe said hesitantly. "Are you gonna make him stay?"

Glancing up from the ledger he was pretending to work on, Pa's face became stern. He looked at Joe; then he looked at me; and then he looked back at Joe again. "Are you challenging my word?"

"No," Joe said. He shrugged sheepishly, realizing the ground we were treading on required carefully placed steps. Out of all the things you could ask or challenge Pa about, his love for or the way he chose to deal with any of his sons was not a topic of conversation he took kindly to. "I mean…"

"He means," I said then paused, realizing I knew the worry that had made Joe ask the question but not how to phrase it proper, in a way that wouldn't make Pa mad. It seemed like a difficult thing to accomplish seeing as how Joe had already begun to rile him up. "Ah, dadgum it, Pa!" I exclaimed as I gave up on the pursuit. If I couldn't soften the words then I could at least be direct. "After the way things have been around here, you can't fault us for being nervous about Adam leaving again. Sick or not, he has his mind made up and I don't think he's changing it anytime soon."

"Nervous," Pa said.

Joe looked at me through the corners of his eyes. "What Hoss means," he said, "is that you couldn't stop Adam from leaving before…"

"What Joe means," I tried, returning my younger brother's glance, "is that you didn't stop Adam before—"

"So, what makes this time different?" Joe demanded.

I cringed. I wasn't too crazy about the tone my younger brother had settled on. Brows furrowing and frown deepening, neither was Pa.

"Okay, so now he's sick," Joe continued. He was either unaware of Pa's building anger and my discomfort or he straight up didn't care, because his tone of voice didn't soften. If anything, it became more frustrated with each poorly chosen word he spit out. "But he was making himself sick day-after-day with liquor before, and you still didn't step in. You let him leave, Pa, and then you allowed him to stay away."

"That was different than this," Pa said firmly.

"Why?" Joe pressed. "Why did you wait so long to stop him? You wouldn't have waited that long with Hoss or me. If he or I were carrying on the way Adam was then you wouldn't have allowed a single day to pass with us away from home. Not a single day, Pa," he repeated the sentence firmly as though hearing it again would make Pa understand it more than he already did. "You let Adam go. You let him run himself ragged and wild, fighting and drinking until the law intervened. How could you do that? What makes him so different than us?"

Pressing his lips firmly together, Pa set his attention on the top of the desk. Abandoning his pen, he closed the ledger, then pushed it to the far end of the desk and rose from his chair. Standing tall, he seemed to tower over Joe who remained seated, his behind assumedly frozen in place on the edge of the desk, his face flickering with a mixture of shock and worry as he slowly began to realize how his words had challenged Pa's judgement.

"You ask me how Adam is different than you," Pa said. "Joseph, your brother held Delphine in his arms while she passed." He pointed at the area in front of the fireplace. "Right over there she died. Then he tracked his best friend and was forced to kill him. At the moment, those are the most glaring ways he is different than you, so I am sure you can understand why he had been allotted a certain leeway up until now.

I hadn't thought of a particular reason why Adam didn't want to remain home. I had been too busy thinking of ways to get him to come back. But the answer of why he had left and wanted to stay away was obvious. Pa had seen it all along and I was sure I should have too.

"He doesn't want to be home because of her," I whispered, the knowledge making my heart sting. "He can't stand being here because of what Ross did to Delphine. She died in this house. Adam brought her to the house to protect her, but then he left. He joined us on the range and he wasn't there when she needed him the most. And now he can't stay here because he's reminded when, how and why she passed. He can't remain home because of what it reminds him of but the trouble is that being at the Silver Dollar is only reminding him of the very same thing."

"Adam left Del alone because I told him there wasn't anything to worry about," Pa said, his tone softening with guilt as he stared vacantly at the flames of the fire flickering in the fireplace. "He came to me after Ross pulled a gun on him and accused him of being inappropriate with Delphine. Adam told me then he was worried. He said he felt like something bad was going to happen. I told him it was okay; I told him it would all work out." He shook his head in disgust. "It all worked out, alright. Ross killed Del and then Adam killed Ross."

"You did your best, Pa," Joe said. "You couldn't have known what was going to happen."

"I should have known," Pa said. "I should have listened to Adam. He came to me and I didn't listen. I dismissed him. Like a fool I told him it would work itself out, that it would all be alright, and now it isn't alright. Delphine and Ross are dead and Adam is adrift, searching for something he's never going to find."

Though the source of Pa's guilt was not a surprise to me, the last bit of what he said was. Who was to say Adam was searching for anything at all? And what was he expecting to find if the only places he seemed to be looking were in the bottoms of empty bottles and arguments with strangers?

These were both questions I couldn't seem to answer, but by thinking of them, I thought of something else. Me and Joe, we thought we knew how Adam felt. We assumed we knew the reasons he was acting how he was, but it wasn't until then that I realized maybe Pa knew a little more than the rest of us.

"You haven't been giving Adam space," I said, speaking the thought the second it came to mind, the idea of Pa not trying to help my older brother suddenly seemin' like the most outlandish thing in the world. "The other night when I caught you in our barn, that wasn't the first time you rode out in the middle of the night to check up on him."

"Of course, it wasn't the first time," Pa said. "Do you really think I wasn't going to look in on him, especially after you told me he was staying in Silver Dollar's barn. There are a great many terrible things that can happen upon a man who chooses to stay alone on a property that has been as neglected as that one has. Trouble always seems to find a man who decides to drown himself in drink."

"Then why didn't you talk to him?" Joe asked.

"He did," I said. I doubt I had been any surer of anything else in my life. "He tried to make him see that the memories of Del that are haunting him at home aren't nearly as powerful as the ones which have taken hold of him at that ranch."

"I spoke to him," Pa said. "I asked him to leave the Silver Dollar. I told him he didn't have to come home but that he needed to get away from that property and that's when he decided to go to Carson."

I suddenly recalled an old lesson Pa had been so careful to teach: Don't assume the details of anything you don't know for sure. Over time, I suppose it had kinda become Adam's lesson too. He was always warning Joe against jumping to conclusions; he was always saying people shouldn't believe they know every side of a story unless they're sure they do. Just because I wasn't privy to conversations between my oldest brother and Pa, that didn't mean they hadn't taken place. Just because Pa wasn't keen on checking up on Adam when the rest of us were around that didn't mean he wasn't. And just because I thought I knew how my Pa was handling my older brother that didn't mean I really did.

I thought about the day Adam had left home and the argument between him and Pa that I had overheard. I thought about the details of the conversation because I had assumed I knew what it had been about. I thought Pa was trying to make him stay; I never for a second considered that what he was really doing was letting him go. He hadn't tried to make Adam stay; he was trying to get Adam to go somewhere other than the Silver Dollar Ranch.

"You headed to the Silver Dollar the night I told you Adam was sleeping in the barn," I said. "You were intent on bringing him home."

"I was going to assess the situation," Pa said. "Only Adam was gone and there wasn't really a situation to assess. I hoped for the best; I prayed he had finally decided upon a ride, a few nights under the stars to really clear his head. I never expected he would end up in Carson, in jail. I know that boy like the back of my hand. I never expected it to come to this."

"None of us did," Joe said. "I guess that's the trouble with Adam, he's so used to taking care of himself that he's forgotten how to ask for help."

"Or a shoulder when he needs it," I added.

"Or direction when he's lost," Joe said.

"This is a very complicated situation," Pa said. "Directing a man is different than directing a boy. Someday when you're both older, fathers of grown sons yourselves, you'll understand how difficult it can be."

"Especially with Adam," I said. "In trying to pull him closer you always run the risk of pushing him further away."

I wanted to tell Pa I understood why he had given Adam the space he had. That I knew he had done his best up until this point. That he couldn't have done anymore. But I didn't, because I wasn't sure it would have been the truth. I couldn't help feeling as though he could have done more. That he should have grabbed ahold of Adam the day he left home and held him in place until he started accepting the pain he felt. Nothing could ever get better if all you did was run away. I wish Pa would have told Adam that; heck, I don't know, maybe he did and Adam wasn't up to listening to the advice when it had been said.

They had a different relationship, Adam and Pa, rapport that allowed them certain leeway with each other. They always talked, and most of their more serious conversations took place in private. They never had any of their real bouts where anyone else could see or hear.

I wondered what they had been talking about in secret, why it hadn't been enough to soothe Adam's guilt and pain and get him to quit drinking and come home. Then I wondered what I had really expected Pa to do before Sheriff Coffee intervened. Drag Adam home? Lock him in his bedroom until he decided to behave?

It didn't seem appropriate when I really thought about it. After all, Pa was right; Adam was a grown man. He wasn't a young'un or a rowdy youth, a boy lingering before the beginning of adulthood trying and failing to act like a man. Adam was already a man. Stubborn and bull-headed when he wanted something to be his way, or when he believed something had to be a certain way, and when he believes the latter, let me tell you, there ain't nothing in heaven or on earth that can change his mind.

Right then, we all knew Adam had made up his mind. He was hurting something fierce, held hostage by a pain he refused to allow anyone to help him with. He wanted what he wanted; he was going to push and push until he finally decided we were all far enough away, and then, well, I'm not sure any of us really knew what he would do. It wouldn't be good, we all suspected that; although, I am not sure any of us, not me or Joe or even Pa, could have ever predicted what he eventually did or what that night or the morning or the days which came after would eventually bring.

Adam's bedroom was empty come morning.

He had kept his word, done exactly what he had told Pa he would do. He hadn't stayed home one minute after he had to. As far as I could gather, he left long before dawn. Before the sun rose and shined on a new day, before any of us had a chance to talk him out of going or about anything at all.

Pa, Me, and Joe saddled our horses in silence and headed in the direction of the Silver Dollar Ranch, all of us knowing but not daring to speak a word of what we intended to do.

Pa was quiet on the ride. We were all worried. It wasn't easy to convince Adam of anything under the best of circumstances; now that he was feeling sick, his emotions lingering a little too close to the surface, intensifying his anger and his stubbornness, it was going to be a fight to get him to come home. I was dreading what was going to come next, what Adam would say and do.

Gazing upon the Silver's Dollar's log archway in the distance, I was so lost in my worry that I was slow to notice something was wrong. There was smoke billowing up to the sky, gathering into a dark black cloud that extended the distance between the barn and the ranch house. It took me a second to realize why such a thing would be and then another for my fear to really hit.

"That's fire," Pa said. "Boys, the barn is on fire!"

"The house, too!" Joe yelled.

We rode toward the property in quick tandem. Pa dismounted first and ran toward the barn, Joe and me tight on his heels.

"Adam!" he shouted. His expression was panicked, his yells the most instant I had ever heard in my life. "Adam!"

"Adam!" Joe called out.

I don't know for sure but I don't believe I yelled for my older brother. It is a regretful thing to think about now. I was just too horrified by the flames engulfing the barn to utter a word. I prayed Adam wasn't in the barn. Oh, God, I hoped and prayed and begged the Lord that my brother wasn't passed out drunk inside of the belly of that inferno. Flames had consumed the whole building; there would be no going inside to rescue anybody or anything. There would be no going inside ever again.

"ADAM!"

The power behind Pa's scream forced me to look at him again. Eyes wide, he was rushing toward the blazing barn door.

"Pa, no!" Joe yelled.

Joe and I sprung forward at the same time, each of us grabbing one of Pa's arms. We held him in place as he fought our grip, his terrified yells rising above the fierce crackling of the flames.

"No! No! NO! I must go in there, boys. If Adam is in there then we have to get him out!"

"Pa, if Adam is in there then he's already gone," I said tightly.

"I have to get him out!" Pa shouted again.

"If you go in there then you'll be gone too," I said.

It was a horrible thing to have to say; I felt guilty even lettin' the words leave my mouth. But I had to say it. I had to be the one to make my Pa believe the truth, because overcome by emotion, Joe wasn't up to saying anything.

Glancing between the flames and my younger brother, I remember thinking it odd that I could see the sheen of the tears streaming down his cheeks so clearly despite barely being able to see beyond the tears gathering in my own eyes. I could see the talks that would come after this sparking in those streaks. Eventually, this conversation would be repeated, and I would have to help him as he struggled with what he didn't do—what we all couldn't do as we watched the barn burn up before our eyes. I had to be strong, because it was what Adam would do. And if he was gone then it was all up to me now, to find a way to make Joe and Pa and myself accept what we could and couldn't do to help him.

"We have to help him!" Pa screamed, his voice breaking with strain. "I have to save…!" His shoulders sank and I felt his legs become limp beneath him as he failed to finish his sentence, suddenly realizing what me and Joe already knew.

We stood in silence, Joe and me holding Pa upright on his feet, as we watched the fire burn the barn and the life we had always known to the ground.

It seems like such a quick reaction now. A hard lesson learned about not assuming things you were sure they were true. All that grief and pain could have been avoided if we woulda just kept our heads. But we didn't. We couldn't, because we knew Adam and time had taught us to believe his word.

He had said he was going back to the Silver Dollar. He had said it over and over again, angrily at first, then kinda resigned like. Like it wasn't necessarily something he was looking forward to doing but that he had no other choice but to do. I know that sounds funny; at the time, it felt kinda funny too. Though it was hard to pay any mind to that because there were all kinds of funny things going on back then. Not funny as in humorous, funny as in strange. Adam's drinking, his anger at Pa, his need to run away and his insistence to stay gone, and the place he had run to.

Starting at the barn, a certain kind of pain started to overcome me, an odd sting I had not had the misfortune to feel in years.

I looked at Pa, judging by his expression, he was feeling numb. The shock was sinking in then, protectin' him from the pain of what of had happened. It was numbness I recognized and likened to how he had been after we lost Marie. I wanted to pull him and my brother toward me, hug and hold them close until the pain we felt went away. Instead, I pulled them both away from fire; there was no use in doing the other. We'd be standing in that spot until the end of eternity if we waited for the pain to leave us.

"Somebody's got to go to town," I said. Why I said this and for what purpose, I do not know. What was anyone in town going to do? Stand next to us watch until the flames died and all that was left of the structures were heaps of ash? I think I said it because I wanted to escape the moment I had become stuck in; I couldn't stand watching that barn burn any longer; and I knew that neither Joe nor Pa were up to a trip.

Making sure Pa was steady on his feet, I loosened my grip on his arm and stepped out of reach. I mounted Chubb and rode away. I was just beyond sight when I finally gave into my sobs. They wracked my body with such force that I felt as though they would never stop.

Ears quivering, Chubb was alarmed, though he did not break stride. I gave him no indication of what direction I wanted to go; walking on, his pace gradually became slower, something I suspected he was doing on purpose, allowing me more time to sob myself out and get under control before I made it town. This was something that only made me cry harder; my vision became blurred with tears and I lost all wherewithal of where we were headed.

I couldn't believe Adam was gone. I didn't want to imagine what life was going to like without him. I didn't know how I was going to get past the pain of such a thing, or even if I could get past it enough to help Pa and Joe deal with their grief. Time seemed to cease to matter then as I screamed, cursing Ross Marquette for going crazy forcing Adam's hand and my older brother for his terminal stubbornness.

I don't know how long I carried on for but when I finally came back to myself, my sobs easing up to a sniffle, I realized that Chubb had stopped in place. I looked around in confusion, struggling to understand where he had brought me. We weren't nowhere close to town; we were even further from it than where we had begun. It took me a moment to recognize where we were and then another to stop myself from breaking down again.

The trail was surrounded by cliffs. Tall and white, I recognized them as the place where Adam had killed Ross; the trail we were on was the very same one where me and Pa and Joe had come upon him as he was bringing Ross's body back down.

Inhaling a shaky breath, I wiped at my cheeks and shook my head, wondering why Chubb would bring me back there. I was close to crying again when Chubb whinnied, nodding his head at something in the distance. There, at the base of one of the cliffs, was Sport. He wasn't tied to nothing as he stood, loyally waiting for my brother. I looked at him in confusion as Chubb closed the distance between us and him, questions circling in my mind.

Out of all the places he could have gone, why had Sport come back here? If Adam had been in the barn when it caught flame why hadn't Sport been with him? It didn't make any sense. I looked around, a desperate kind of hope building in my chest.

I didn't see nothing at first, not until Sport pranced in place, whinnying, and jerking his head in upright motion. I looked up, focusing my attention on the top of the towering cliff and my eyes widened as I found Adam standing on its edge.

"Adam," I whispered, not trusting what I was seeing.

I dismounted Chubb and set about scaling the face of the cliff with little thought. It wasn't until I came upon Adam that I realized the truth of what I was seeing. My brother was alive, standing so close to the edge of that cliff.

"Adam," I said softly. I didn't want to scare him, for fear he would be startled by the sound of my voice. He was too close to falling for me to feel comfortable, his body swaying dangerously as he looked on the land below. "What are you doin', brother?"

"Trying to work up my nerve." Adam's voice was so calm it was eerie. He didn't sound nothing how I expected him to or how I thought he should. "Do you have any idea how many times I've stood on the edge of this cliff?" he asked. "Hesitating… letting my fear of dying overpower my fear of what's going to happen if I don't?"

It was a confession that took my breath away. "You planning to jump?"

I couldn't begin to understand why he would want to do such a thing. I knew his guilt over Ross and Del were eatin' him up, driving him to drink and fight, but never for a second did I believe he wanted to get himself hurt or hurt himself badly enough to die.

"You can't understand," Adam said. "You'll never understand, so don't even try. Trust me, you don't want to."

"I wanna try." Talking to him gently, I was gonna do or say whatever I needed to get him away from that edge.

Back still turned, he shook his head, a fierce motion that nearly knocked him off his feet. "No, you don't."

"Yes, I do." Holding my hands up, I approached him slowly, fixin' to get close enough to grab ahold and pull him back toward me and safety. I had already failed to save him once that day; there was nothing that was going to prevent me doing it again. "Adam, when have I ever lied to you?"

"Never."

"Never," I repeated.

"When have I lied to you?"

Coming to a stop behind him, I lifted my hands to grasp him. "Never," I said.

He turned 'round just in time for me to get a firm hold on his upper arms. My worry eased for the slightest of seconds, then I felt the heat of his skin beneath his shirt and my fear was renewed. His body was too hot, his face flushed, his eyes wide and wild. He was drunk with fever; I doubted his mind was still his own.

"No," he said. "That's not true. I've lied to you plenty, you just don't want to see it is all."

"Are you going to lie to me now?" Holding him tight, I began to pull him away from the edge. He didn't fight my grip but that was not to say that he was comfortable with moving.

"No," he said, glancing back at the ground below. He looked nervous, afraid that he was being pulled further and further away from where he had intended to end up. "You have to let me go. You don't understand. This is how it has to be."

"I think I understand better than you think," I said, not breaking my slow, backwards stride. I was going to get him off that cliff. One way or another, I was taking him home alive.

"No, you don't," he insisted. "You can't. I'm happy you can't. You can't see it and that's fine. I wouldn't want you to. There are some things in this world that aren't meant for everyone to understand."

"Like what?"

He shook his head at that, his stubborn nature shining through. I thought about Pa and Joe then, still thinking Adam was dead as they stood in front of the Silver Dollar's barn, watching it burn. It didn't seem right they would still be doing that, not with my older brother still very much alive. It suddenly didn't seem likely that the house and barn would set fire to themselves. Somebody would have had to do it.

"Did you set fire to the Silver Dollar?" I asked as the ground began to slope beneath our feet. We were coming upon the backside of the cliff, where the steepness would demand I turn around and quit looking at my brother's face. Still holding his arms, I squeezed tightly. I'm ashamed to admit I was hoping my grip would hurt him, just a bit. Just enough for him to feel sorry for leaving the Silver Dollar while it was aflame, enough for him to snap out of his sickness for a moment and become responsible again.

Adam stopped walking, so I did too, and he looked upon me, his eyes glimmering seriously. "I did it," he admitted. "It had to be done, so I did it."

I tilted my head, his words not hitting me right. An odd kind of feeling was gathering in the pit of my belly. Turning my insides, it made me feel sick and left me full of fear. Fear for my brother, his obvious sickness and state-of-mind, and how he was going to feel later, when his fever passed and he could truly understand what he had done.

"Why, Adam?" I asked. "You cared so much about that property. Why burn it down?"

"It had to be done," Adam said. "There never really was a choice. Ross…" Pausing, he looked upon me in a way that I could almost swear he was looking right through me. "He knew that," he added in a low whisper. "And now I know it too. People, they don't understand the things he understood then… what I'm beginning to understand now. Sometimes there's no stopping what's meant to be. If a bad thing wants to happen it will. If the devil wants to find you, he can. There's no stopping him. No changing what's meant to be."

I couldn't make sense of his words at the time. Even now, I'm not sure there even is any to be made at all. He was so sick he was outside of himself, talkin' about everything and nothing at the same time.

"You have to let me go, Hoss," he said, his quiet voice becoming desperate. "Don't you understand? You can't stop what's meant to be. Ross couldn't stop it and neither can I."

"What do you know about what's meant to be?"

"This is a mistake. You need to let me go. I need to do what I came for."

"It's not a mistake."

"You don't understand."

"I understand. You're sick. You ain't thinking right."

"I'm thinking just fine. I've never had more clearer thought in all my life."

"You think that now, but just wait until you feel better, then you'll know how wrong you are."

"I am not wrong, not about this."

"You're wrong about that too," I said.

"Let me go, Hoss."

"No way."

Letting go of his upper arms, I moved beside him, took a hold of his hand, and began shepherding him toward the land below.

"Hoss—"

"You hush up now, ya hear? It's gonna be okay. You'll see. We're gonna go home and you're going to go to bed until you feel better, and I'm gonna go get Pa and Joe and they're gonna be so damned happy to see you, you're not going to know what to do. We're gonna talk about all this later, you and me and maybe Pa. When you're thinking straight and feeling better, we can talk about all of this and you can explain why you did what you did and why you feel how you do."

I don't know how we did it, but we eventually made it to the bottom of that cliff. I was able to get him up in Sport's saddle, and, after a few firm words, I was able to convince him to remain there. I didn't trust him to make it home on his own, so I kept hold of Sport's reins, leading him alongside Chubb as we made our way back.

Adam stopped talking nonsense at some point in the trip, though I don't think it was by choice. His cough had started up again, wracking his shaking body with such force that he nearly fell from the back of his horse. I extended my hand to steady him, then kept it in place for my own benefit. After thinking he was dead and then finding him alive, I didn't want to let go of him. I told myself I would never let go of him again.

I don't remember arriving home or putting Adam to bed, or even who told Pa and Joe that I had found Adam alive. But I remember sitting next to my older brother as Joe burst into the bedroom, knelt, and threw his arms around me and held on to me with such force that the air was pushed from my lungs. And I remember the look on Pa's face as he sat on the edge of Adam's bed. He gazed upon my unconscious older brother like he was a miracle, like he was the answer to so many pleading prayers.

Resting one of his open palms on Adam's chest, Pa felt his forehead with the other. "He's too hot," he said as he frowned.

"I know," I said.

"Somebody needs to ride for the doctor," Pa said.

Pulling away from me, Joe sat on his knees and looked between me and Pa. "I can go."

"No," I said. "I already sent one of the hands. You need to stay here. We all need to stay here. Ain't none of leaving this house for a long, long while."

Doc Martin came and went, leaving nothing but worrisome news behind. He said there was nothing he could do to help Adam. It seemed my older brother was on his own, though not quite, because Pa stayed with him. Joe and I tried to get Pa to agree to let us take turns sitting with Adam, but he wouldn't hear of it. He had given Adam space for long enough; he wasn't going to leave him now.

That was the longest night I can remember enduring in my life. Joe and I spent it in the hallway, waiting for something to change for better or worse. It didn't seem right that we would be allowed to have Adam back only to lose him again, but time had taught me that sometimes the things that felt the most right were the ones deemed not meant to be.

I thought about Adam and finding him on the edge of that cliff a lot. The strangeness of most of what he had said and the odd truth of one statement which couldn't be ignored: you couldn't stop what was meant to be. I spent hours dreading what the morning would bring and pleading with God over what was and wasn't to be.

Adam's fever broke the next morning, and he woke up early in the afternoon. Joe and I peered through his open bedroom door and listened as he talked to Pa as though the last few weeks hadn't existed. He didn't get into particulars, but he spoke of memories mixed up in a dream of storms and ships sailing through darkness and then watching the sun come up. I wondered if the storm he was talking about was his pain about Ross and Delphine, then I wondered who or what the sun was, and then I dismissed the whole thing. It didn't matter what Adam had dreamed about. All that really mattered was that he woke up.

As time passed, Adam claimed he didn't have any recollection of the time before or during his sickness. He recalled buying the Silver Dollar at auction but nothing much of the days that came after. Considering the amount of liquor he had been drinking and the fierceness of his sickness, it was a believable claim. Still, I couldn't forget the strange things he said the day I found him on the edge of that cliff and I wondered if he was really telling the truth.

Neither Joe nor me spoke to Adam about the Silver Dollar; it just didn't seem all that important. The buildings which once stood on the property were gone; except for their charred remains and the log archway, there was no real proof of what it had once been. The acreage and once stolen stock that grazed upon it had been quietly added to the Ponderosa, increasing our headcount, and extending our property line. It was a decision that wasn't spoken about among us rather just accepted. I wasn't sure if it was a decision Adam made on his own or if it was one he allowed Pa to make for him.

After everything, the expansion of our family's land wasn't the only thing that changed. In some ways, Adam changed too. Slow to recover from the sickness that had overcome him, he took his time getting back on his feet. With the Silver Dollar gone, he no longer had a place to run away to, not that seemed to make much of a difference, because he no longer seemed interested in leaving our ranch. He lived and worked beside the rest of us with no complaint. He quit drinking altogether for a while; he wouldn't even imbibe on the occasional sip of brandy or wine at home. He avoided town for even longer than he did the drink. I knew, as I'm sure Joe and Pa did too, it was his way of making up for all the runnin' and hard livin' he had done. The only acceptable penitence for makin' us worry about him as much as we had was making sure we had nothing left to worry about.

And for a while it worked. I had nearly quit worrying about him completely. But ever-so-often, I would think about that day at the cliff, how I had found him, what he had intended to do and what he had said. My worry would be renewed. That worry did what bad feelings do when they're not dealt with proper. It grew and it grew, until, I reckon, I didn't have no choice but to ask Adam about that day.

He looked at me oddly when I finally asked the question, like he hadn't expected me to remember or work up enough nerve to talk about it. He didn't answer for a long time and he didn't say nothing of value when he finally did. He danced around the question and said he couldn't remember why he had gone to the cliff or what he had said. I left the topic alone after that; there was no point in leaning on him, pressing him to talk about something he never intended to share.

I never told Pa about the cliff or what Adam had said when I found him standing on the edge. If you asked me why, I would have to say I don't know. I guess it just didn't seem all that important anymore. There didn't seem to be a point to bringing it back up just so Adam could feel bad about it all over again. Besides, I had never really needed anything in the way of spoken apologies from him before; I wasn't gonna start expecting such a thing from him now. His actions were enough to show me how sorry he was.

Adam was agreeable most days and seemed to stay quiet on the days when he found himself in a mood. Still, he was quieter than I ever remembered him being before. More and more he began to favor time alone. Pa said it was a predictable thing for him to do, seein' as he was still grieving the loss of our friends.

Adam always was one to do his mourning in private. Adverse to spending much time around the fireplace, being reminded of how and where Del had died, he took to spending his evenings outside. Traveling to the very edges of the ranch yard, where the land began change from homesteaded and open into the vast sprawling, unsettled acreage we all loved so much, he was careful to stay in clear view. You could barely see him if you stood looking out the front door of the house when it was still light out, and when it got dark, he couldn't be seen from a far at all. But I knew he was there, sitting on the old, worn bench he had drug out there, thinking about all the things he didn't feel like talkin' about.

I knew he wasn't okay, at least not yet. He still had a fair amount of grieving to do and things to make up for, but he was getting better. I had faith he would get better, because even though he didn't seem up to talking much about how he felt, he was no longer alone.

Each night, when darkness settled around him and the stars began to peek out of the sky and shine, Pa joined Adam on that bench. They sat together gazing up at a sky that somehow managed to look the same as it hung over a world that always seemed to be in such a big hurry to change.

This may sound funny but I thought about that constancy and change, likening it to both the past and the future, all the ways we as a family had changed and stayed the same. I wondered what kind of things the future would expect from us, what we would lose or gain, the changes that would be forced upon us and the ones we would ask for ourselves. After everything, I wasn't ready to endure anymore change myself; I was hoping things could stay as they were for a while.

Standing just beyond the porch, I squinted through the darkness and Adam and Pa came into view. I watched Pa put his arm around Adam and pull him closer. I couldn't help thinkin' that if I were offered one wish then I would wish that we never had to experience more change. Time would stop in this very moment like this, and we would remain in it, together forever, the stars shining so brightly above us, the past and the future both seeming unimportant and far away. I found myself wishing for the night to last longer, for Adam to allow Pa to comfort and lead him toward a better place of forgiveness and peace.

And seeing Adam lean into Pa, finally accepting his protection and warmth, I was sure my wish was about to come true.

END

This storyline continues in the next installment of the series: Premonitions