Upon further consideration, knowledge of Adam and the cliff, Ben's and his son's respective bad feelings and dreams didn't make more sense than they previously had.

And so, retiring downstairs to nurse a glass of something strong and dark and sporadically chewing on the end of his pipe, Ben resigned himself to not thinking anymore about it. At least not then. Not that night. He needed at least one peaceful one, he thought. He was at the very least deserving of one night where he could let his worry for his eldest son go. When he could sit leisurely and relax, enjoying his tobacco and a few sips of something strong as he was warmed by the heat of the low-burning fire.

It wasn't to be—at least not that night.

The fire was warm as it ever was, as was the brandy as it slipped down his throat; and the tobacco tasted the way it always did, smooth, earthy, subtle, and comforting. It gave him something to do with his body; grounding and unconscious, the actions were completed idly—almost in the background—as his thoughts strayed further and further away from reason.

There didn't seem to be a logical reason for Adam to end up how he was. Though there were plenty of lunatic notions, ideas of which could be conceived of but never quite believed. Ideas that the devil had been in Ross Marquette and now was inside his son. Ideas that his dreams—and perhaps Adam's too— were premonitory, serving as both a warning and a gift. But if that was the case then he had wasted his opportunity. Nothing had been prevented. Too much had happened for his dreams to be looked upon with any other emotion than pain.

In his dreams he had seen Adam standing on the edge of a cliff. It had been such a bothersome, haunting sight. One which he knew now had actually taken place. Kane had taken such joy in torturing Ben with an image of the empty cliff, the steep jagged remains that somehow managed to stand unaffected after the evil man shoved Adam off the edge. He had asked Ben—once in his dreams and then over and over again in his silent tortured thoughts—what was the point of being gifted dreams if you didn't do anything with the knowledge? But Ben wondered if that was the real question.

What was the point of being gift images of something that had already taken place? How was one supposed to use knowledge of such a particular event to navigate the fall-out of the fragmented series of events that followed? How were his dreams of Adam on the cliff supposed to help him free his son from the intangible Kane?

He heard the approaching footsteps long before he turned around. He knew he would see his youngest son before he laid eyes on him. He knew his boys; he had always been able to identify each of his sons by the weight of their footsteps—no matter how quiet and careful they may try to be. Turning, he found Little Joe settling on the edge of the low-sitting table, warming himself by the flames of flickering fire. His shirt was untucked, and he was missing his belt and boots. He looked as though he had been readying himself for bed before abandoning the intention and seeking out his father instead.

Ben's stomach turned, slightly discomforted by why that would be. The only occasions Joe sought him out at such an hour was when he was struggling with something, when some secret truth weighing on his conscience demanding to be shared. Ben found himself hoping it wasn't either that brought Joe into his company but taking in his son's grave expression, he knew it was both.

"Pa," Little Joe said.

"Yes."

"Hoss and I had a long talk."

"About?"

"Adam, how he is now and how he was before."

Shoulders sinking, Ben heartily exhaled around the stem of his pipe, the darkened expelled breath lingering in front his face in a puff of smoke. He had no desire to repeat conversations; he hardly had any patience left where the topic was concerned. Joe had been a great advocate for his eldest brother and the miniscule possibility he would return to who he had been but it was time to let such thoughts go. Adam was who he was; they would accept him unconditionally—however each dawn presented him to be, however Adam presented himself to be. Ben frowned at the bothersome thought. He was ashamed for thinking it. It wasn't Adam who was doing anything—of that, he had always been certain. If Kane was real or imagined, his son wasn't actively choosing to do anything. His fear was. His fear dictated everything; it prompted every behavior, rendering him unable to make logical choices.

But Adam had finally made a logical choice. He had sat before Ben and weighed one choice against another when he had been told his options: to be brave in the face of his lingering fear of Kane or give into it. In the end, there was only one choice to be made—Ben knew that, but it didn't stop him from being overjoyed, hopeful, and relieved to finally hear Adam acknowledge it.

Okay, that was what Adam had said. He hadn't said anything after; he didn't need to. The singular word was enough—it said everything his father wanted him to. But that had been before. Before Hoss had taken hold of him in the hallway before he told the truth about the cliff. Before his son's admission had prompted Ben to remember a few hidden truths of his own. Before he recalled Adam's actions and words and his own.

I think I dream of the devil, that was what Adam had once said—not with those specific words, of course, but something to that effect. Adam had said it and Ben had dismissed it, and then his son never said it again. But he had said other things—things Ben was certain hadn't been said properly or interpreted correctly at the time.

Do you think this is what I want? It was a question Adam had asked long ago, after he had purchased the Silver Dollar, on the day he decided to leave home and live upon the property alone.

You tell me what I oughta do, Adam had bellowed the next time Ben saw him, standing drunkenly under the cover of darkness in the Silver Dollar's barn.

I need to get out while I still can, Adam had eventually said, sitting on the edge of Ben's desk making his plea to be allowed to go to Eastgate. He had to go to Eastgate; it didn't matter how much Ben wanted to keep him home.

"Hoss said that if I know anything more about Adam then I should tell you," Joe said. "He said if I'm keeping any secrets for him then I need to come clean. As of late, Adam hasn't really been in the habit of keepin' secrets. I reckon' there isn't much of anything that goes on with him that the three of us don't know about, well, four of us, I guess, counting Hop Sing. But that's now, and Hoss told me I need to talk to you about before."

"When is before?" Ben asked. The context of what this son was saying was something he was determined to properly understand.

"Before, when Adam was still Adam," Joe said. "When he and I were still in each other's company on the drive, before we delivered those cattle and split up and he lost himself in that desert."

"And what do you want to tell me about that time?"

Breaking eye contact, Joe looked at his hands, his expression changing. "Pa," he said tightly, "I know you and Hoss don't exactly appreciate my determination not to treat Adam differently, but the problem with accepting Adam the way he is now is that you have to assume he was acting right before, and he wasn't. He hadn't been for a long time."

"What makes you think that?"

"I don't think it. I know it. I know a lot of things. Like how the desert and man he met in it isn't what gave Adam his nightmares. He was having them before he and I went on that drive. He's been having them for a long time. Of course, he was better at controlling himself after a bad dream back then. He didn't scream after waking up, and he didn't cry, although sometimes I think he wanted to."

"How do you know he had nightmares?"

"I used to hear him cry out in the middle of the night. He wasn't loud, but I heard him. At first, I thought you and Hoss knew about them too and you were just being kind and letting him be. Then later, I knew the two of you didn't know, because I was the one waking Adam up before he really got loud."

Looking at Ben, Joe's eyes shone with regret, his face contorting with the kind of shame that always accompanied sharing a brother's secret with someone it had been carefully hidden from.

"I'm sorry, Pa. I wanted to tell you, but I couldn't. Adam didn't want you to know. He didn't want me to know, of course that couldn't be helped. I think he was ashamed at first, then I think he was relieved. If I knew about his nightmares, then I could help him when he found himself trapped inside of one. I could help him keep them secret by making sure no one else ever found out."

"When did these dreams start?"

"I don't for sure," Joe admitted. "It was after Ross and Del, and after that fever almost killed him that I found out. Even then, I suspected he had been having them for a while. When I woke him that first time, he didn't seem particularly surprised he had been having a nightmare; he only seemed surprised that I was the one leaning over him when he woke up. I think he was expecting you." He shook his head sadly. "I think he wanted me to be you. But it was me and because it was me, he wouldn't talk about what he was dreaming of. I tried to get him to talk about it. Lord, he got so furious whenever I tried to bring it up. I wanted to do for him what he always did for me; I wanted to be able to listen and help him move past whatever was bothering him so much. He wouldn't allow it. I am the youngest brother, and he is the oldest. The nature of our relationship is defined by those roles, that was what he said to me. It wasn't right for him to need me to ease his worries the way I sometimes needed him to ease mine."

"But you could keep his secret?" Ben challenged simply.

Joe frowned. "Pa, you have to understand what it felt like to overhear him. Those dreams were so bad, I could tell by the way he acted when he woke up. He didn't want me to know he was having nightmares, and he sure wasn't gonna let me help him. Keeping his nightmares secret was how I could help him. And I wanted to help him. I wanted to do that more than anything I had ever wanted before."

"You should have said something; you should have told me."

"Why? So, you could ask him about his dreams, and he could deny having them? It wouldn't have mattered, Pa. If Adam doesn't ask for help himself, he isn't one to take it. Although..." Joe paused thoughtfully. "It's different with you. He's more inclined to admit he needs you than me or even Hoss. You know, it's funny, a lot of people think that because I'm the youngest and Adam's the oldest that I need you more than he does. But that's not true, because he doesn't have an older brother to go to when he needs to talk something out, or when he feels like things are getting too tough to handle on his own. I'm the youngest," he said emphatically. "I have two older brothers and father to go when things are particularly rough. Sometimes Adam feels like he only has you."

Ben couldn't disagree.

"The nature of our relationship is bound by our roles, even now," Joe continued. "I'm not the one whose bed he's crawling into when he can't stand being alone, and I'm not the person who he lets hug him when everything gets to be too much. It's you and sometimes it's Hoss, but it's never me, and that's why I can't see him the way you and Hoss do. Seeing him how I always have is what he expects from me. It's what he's comfortable with."

"You help him by not bringing attention to how he's changed," Ben said, finally understanding Joe's determination not to accept Adam's change in demeanor. "You help him by not helping him."

"And I help him by telling you the truth about his nightmares." Joe cast Ben's serious look. "I help him by finally telling you the truth of what happened on the way to Eastgate."

"What happened?"

"Nothing that bothered me enough to take note of at the time, but now…" Joe paused, his brows knitting with concern. "Well, now I can see so clearly what I missed then. Like I said, he had been having nightmares for a while; he continued to have them on the way to Eastgate. At the time, I thought they were the same dreams he was having at home, but now I think they were different. They affected him differently."

"How so?"

"Adam was so quiet on that drive, Pa. Looking back, it seems like he didn't talk at all; he kept his attention focused on the horizon. When the land began to change, when the mountains and pine trees began to become sparse and the ground became dry and dust covered as it transformed into desert, Adam changed too. He became agitated, nervous; he kept looking in the distance, like he expected to see something he was dreading finding. I don't know if I ever saw anything when he and I were still together." Joe shrugged. "I never saw anything, but I guess that doesn't really make much of a difference, because we all know Adam sees things we don't."

"We know he sees things we can't see now," Ben corrected. "We don't know when that began."

"Like I said, I never saw anything out there," Joe repeated seriously. "I don't know what Adam did or didn't see. He was quiet during the day but at night he screamed."

"Screamed?"

"I never heard anything like it, at least not then. After we found him, maybe, but even the nightmares he had in Eastgate or on the way home seemed different. On the way to Eastgate Adam's nightmares seemed... more intense. He didn't sleep much and when he did, his slumber didn't stay peaceful for long before he woke both of us up with his screams." Expelling a deep breath, Joe shuttered, seemingly bothered by the haunting nature of the memory. "I have never heard a man yell like that. He wasn't saying words, Pa; he was screaming from the pit of his belly. Just screaming, like he was being tortured, like someone was hurting him. When I heard him that first night, I thought for sure something was going wrong for us. I sprung up from my bedroll with my gun drawn, so convinced I was gonna find an intruder in our camp. I was convinced somebody had to be there, doing something horrible to get Adam to sound like he did."

"He screamed on the way back from Eastgate too," Ben reminded softly, reminded of those nights, how Adam had screamed, rousing them all from their slumber, and how Joe hadn't seemed to sleep much at all. He had taken to watching the dying embers of the campfire with haunted eyes. At the time, Ben hadn't placed much weight on Joe's actions or words. He had been too preoccupied with Adam's. But now he knew he should have listened better. He should have paid more heed to both the things Joe had said and how he had looked when saying them.

Joe had told his father what happened to Adam was his fault because he had allowed Adam to head into the desert alone. He had told Ben he should have known better than to allow his brother to venture off alone.

"That was different," Joe said, emancipating his father from his thoughts. "It was a different kind of scream. Adam was different after we found him; he was haunted and afraid. Before, when it was me and him surrounded by cattle and desert, he wasn't afraid. He was angry. He didn't want to talk about anything when he woke up from his nightmares. He dismissed any question I asked. He told me to go back to sleep; he told me he was okay; and I told myself I believed him because he was my older brother and that was what I was used to. He had never given me reason not to trust and believe what he had to say."

"And now?"

"I still trust and believe him," Joe said. "If says he sees things, then the things he sees are real. I think they were real before Adam met that man in the desert and I think they're real now. I think Adam knew that desert held bad things for him; after we delivered that stock, I don't think he wanted to go into that land alone, but I don't think he had a choice. If I would have had my choice, then he never would have gone." His face contorted with a mixture of pain and regret. "I told him I didn't want him to go, Pa," he whispered, his quiet voice cracking with emotion. Bottom lip trembling, he looked at the flames of the fire, unable or unwilling to continue.

Sitting next to him, Ben placed a comforting hand on Joe's shoulder and squeezed. "Tell me more, Joe," he prompted when it seemed as though his youngest son may never speak again. This was an opportunity he was certain would not come again. "Don't stop telling this story now that you've finally begun."

Clearing his throat and wiping his hands over his face, Joe was silent for a few moments more. "When arrived at Eastgate with the stock," he finally began, his voice low and haunted, "Adam stayed back to observe the count and get payment. I went to the saloon, and he joined me later and that was when he told me what he intended to do. We're gonna take a couple of days off, that's what he said. I told him that you weren't going to be happy about that and he said he didn't care. I was hot and tired and dirty from the trail. I was not looking forward to sleeping on the ground again; I wanted to take a bath, eat a good meal, and have a good night's rest, so I agreed with him. Of course, I didn't know exactly what I agreed to. I shouldn't have done that, Pa. I'm sorry. You gave us orders to come back as quickly as we arrived, and I ignored them."

"It's okay," Ben soothed. There were enough things to feel bad about, Joe didn't need to harbor guilt over this one.

"It isn't, and now it never will be, because I agreed. I wish I never would have agreed to split up. I didn't want to. Adam said he intended to venture East for some peace and quiet, do some hunting and then fishing at Pyramid Lake. I told him I wanted to go with him, but there was no getting Adam to agree with that. He said he didn't want me to go. He said I wasn't invited. He wanted to be alone; he needed some time alone. All I could think about was him being alone with his nightmares with nobody to wake him up when he started to scream. I didn't like the idea of him being alone with whatever was haunting him in his dreams at night, but then I thought maybe that was the point. Maybe he had had enough of me hearing him. Maybe he needed some time alone to protect his pride. He's the oldest and I'm the youngest, there's always going to be a limit to how much he's willing to allow me to see or do when he's hurting."

"Adam sets a limit for all of us," Ben said. "Or at least he used to."

"I agreed to let Adam go," Joe continued. "He joined me at the bathhouse before he left. It's so damn odd to think about now. While we were cleaning up, I kept trying to talk to him about Obadiah Johnson's trial and Adam kept saying Obadiah would hang because he was guilty. A man is responsible for what he does, he said. If he loses control of himself then he has to be punished for it. I keep thinking about those words now, Pa; I hear Adam saying them over and over again in my mind. I can't help but wonder if there's something Adam thinks he did, something he's determined to punish himself for. If that's why he doesn't seem interested in allowing anyone to help him now. I should have been strong enough to help him back then. I shouldn't have agreed to let him go. I should have insisted on coming back home, like you told us to."

"It wouldn't have mattered," Ben said sadly. "It isn't easy to change Adam's mind when it's made up."

"That's what scares me the most now. If he has his mind made up about what he's doing now, supposedly listening to the ghost he sees, how are we going to help him? How do you protect somebody from themselves? How do you win against an enemy you can't see?"

Ben thought about the question, considering all the things he was now privy to as he carefully crafted his reply. Hoss had said Adam had stood on the edge of a cliff preparing himself to jump; he had confirmed Ben's worst fear. Joe had said Adam was suffering from nightmares long before they rescued him from the desert; something had been disturbing him before he came across Peter Kane. Adam had said he didn't want to be how he was; he had agreed to finally fight, to try to change—meekly, of course, but when Ben had told Adam he needed to either break Kane's hold or learn to live with it, Adam had agreed.

Okay, Adam had said, his voice carrying the slightest edge of stubborn determination that had been absent for so long. They both knew Adam couldn't fight alone, but he wasn't alone. He had never really been alone.

"We are winning," Ben said.

Joe cast him a confused look. "How?"

"Because we are talking to each other about things that should have been disclosed a long time ago. We're keeping close watch on Adam, ensuring he is safe. Adam spoke again today, Joe. He's ready to change; he wants to overcome the fear that has been consuming and holding him down. And we're all ready to help him with that."

"How do we do that?"

"We don't have to know how," Ben said. "We take each day as it comes. We take each moment for what it is; when the opportunity presents itself to help him, we will know what to do, Joseph. We've all always known that giving up on him was the wrong thing to do. It was wrong to give up on him when he was lost in the desert, and it's wrong to abandon this fight. We have gone back and forth on this subject so many times, debating, discussing, and even arguing about what Adam's future holds and what he needs us to do for him. What he needs us to do is agree; he needs us to stop being consumed by guilt over our own actions, the things we think we should or could have done to change what happened, so that we can begin to help him contend with his own. There's a reason Adam is acting the way he is. There is always a belief that propels every decision he makes. Right now, it's his belief in and fear of Kane's ghost."

"It can't just be that," Joe disagreed. "Adam was having nightmares long before he met that man. He hadn't been acting right for a long time before he went into that desert."

"That's because Adam went into that desert looking for Kane. He knew what he was going to find."

Joe was appalled. "How do you know that?"

"You said yourself, there was no preventing him from leaving you behind in Eastgate. I was unable to stop him from going on that drive. He was going to go into that desert, Joe. He went looking for that man, I'm sure of it."

"How can you be?"

"Because Adam's nightmares were about Kane. He once told me he thought he dreamed of the devil, I'm certain now he was talking about Kane."

"Adam talked about the devil," a voice said from across the room.

Ben and Joe looked at the staircase in unison and found Hoss lingering on the bottom stair. Ben wondered how long his middle son had been there, how much of the conversation with Joe had been overheard. He hoped Hoss had heard all of it. They were no longer in the business of keeping secrets from one another.

"Adam said if the devil wants to find you can," Hoss finished. "He said that to me when he was standing on the edge of a cliff, fixin' to jump."

"I dreamed of Adam standing on the edge of a cliff," Ben explained to Joe. "That's why I didn't want him to go on the drive to Eastgate. I've dreamed of Kane sporadically since. I am inclined to agree with what Adam previously said."

"You think Kane is the devil?" Joe asked, his eyes widening with fear as glanced between his father and brother.

"Kane was evil, Joe," Hoss said. "Don't you remember what the Eastgate townsfolk said about him?"

"I'll never forget," Joe said. "They said he was a devil of a man, exiled to the desert not because of what he did to anyone himself but because of what he was able to convince others to do to each other."

"Adam dreamed of him," Hoss said. "Pa too. Even though the man's dead that don't stop him from torturing Adam."

"The only question which remains is why," Ben said. What did Kane want with Adam? What was the purpose of luring him into the desert and haunting him?"

As Joe shook his head and Hoss shrugged, Ben quickly realized he had posed the question to the wrong son. The only one who could answer the question was Adam. And it was a question Adam would finally answer. Ben would make sure of it.

"It's late, you boys get on up to bed," Ben said. "We've thought enough of this tonight. It's time to get some rest and look at it with clear eyes and minds tomorrow."

"What about you?" Hoss challenged softly.

"What about me?" Ben asked.

"Are you going to stay down here alone, thinkin' on all of this for the rest of the night?" Joe asked.

Ben smiled, comforted by the knowledge it was possible for sons to know their father so well. "No," he said. "I am going to retire upstairs too."

And, following Joe and Hoss up the staircase, he did. First to his own bedroom as his two younger sons entered their own, then to Adam's room to watch over him as he slept.