Waiting to see if this story will find an audience or not. I appreciate the guest review it received but I delete all guest reviews as standard practice. I am also not receiving any notifications.

Two

Sibella stood next to Adam at the graveside along with his family offering mute support in his grief. Esther Graham, Morgan's widow, clung to Adam while weeping into her handkerchief as the pastor spoke in somber tones about God's mercy and his peace "which surpasses all understanding"; there was no mention of the manner of Morgan's death and since Sibella had only been to one funeral, that of her grandfather, she wondered if that was the way of funerals, to avoid unpleasant things. But then death was unpleasant enough. Adam needed to support Esther with a strong arm about her torso to keep her upright during the service and then to the buggy, helping her into the front seat while Sibella was relegated to the back as they headed to the Graham's little yellow house on the edge of town with the long front porch holding four rocking chairs. Sibella felt ignored although she chided herself for such selfish thoughts. Esther has lost her husband and worst of all, had found his body when she had gone downstairs to prepare breakfast. He had been slumped over in his favorite easy chair, his crutch on the floor beside him and the drained bottle of laudanum sitting atop a note on the table beside him that simply read, "Forgive me, Esther. I had to."

Roy Coffee had ridden to Adam's who had been at breakfast with Sibella and Noah, and unable to believe it, he had rushed to the Graham's. The note Morgan had left, bothered Adam but with comforting the distraught Esther, Adam was forced to put it aside but it rose up again later "I had to," Morgan had written. What did that mean? Why did he "have" to take a lethal dose of laudanum? Esther interpreted that he had been in such awful pain, "phantom" pain, Dr. Martin called it, that he felt death was his only way out. But Adam, not truly satisfied, offered comforting words to Esther and then helped the doctor to place Morgan's body in a blanket and then into the back of the buggy to be taken to the doctor's surgery for a complete examination.

Roy Coffee stood outside with Adam while Esther, tears still falling, gathered a few belongings; Adam had insisted she stay with him and Sibella for a few days. Esther had declined; Adam shouldn't make such an offer without consulting Sibella first, she protested, but Adam had insisted and so Esther accepted the invitation. "The house will be so empty. So empty," she had said. "Thank you, Adam."

"I won't even pretend I understand what Morgan went through," Roy said, "but I just…there wasn't anything going on in his life Esther didn't know about, was there, Adam? Something he might've asked you to keep secret?"

"Not that I know. But the note he left…" Adam shook his head. "I can't make any sense of it. I know Morgan was usually in some type of pain and often said how strange it was when he'd go to touch his leg and it wasn't there; he said he always felt it was. He also couldn't…he couldn't have sex anymore due to the complications of the rampant infection—there was such poor medical care in the camp that it was only when the gangrene from his thigh wound became so bad and the stench was so overpowering that as captain, I demanded the medical staff treat him. Along with his leg, and he didn't want this known so I'm counting on your discretion, Roy, they also removed a testicle, the infection was that bad, and the blood vessels, they…things just didn't work right after that. He'd told me afterwards he wished I'd just let him die since he could never enjoy his wife or any woman again; death was preferable to living like that. But it's been three years and for him to kill himself now, it just doesn't make sense to me."

Roy pursed his lips and looked down. Then raised his head to look at Adam. To Roy, Adam had always been Ben Cartwright's oldest, lanky boy with wavy black hair and a winning smile. But for the first time, Roy actually saw standing before him a big, powerful man in his late 30's who had suffered more than Roy could imagine, not only the war itself, but half a year in a notorious prison camp known for its horrid conditions. This Adam, this formidable man was really a stranger. "Well, I best get back to town and the waiting paperwork. Give my best to your family." Roy clapped Adam's shoulder and then turned and left while Adam watched him ride away. Adam wondered then about Sibella and her reaction to unexpected company. And Miss Pear at the office when he didn't arrive by 9:00. What would she think and do? Women brought nothing but complications into a man's life but also so much pleasure. Would the loss of that ability make him want to blow himself away? And suddenly the thought of Sibella, naked and lying open to him made his desire rise up, even at a time like that.

Having Esther stay with them for two days was awkward for Sibella as she and Esther had little in common except their husbands' friendship although Esther seemed very comfortable in the home. She and Mrs. George got along famously and Esther helped with the food preparation, sitting at the kitchen table and snapping beans or peeling vegetables while the two women chatted like old friends. Noah delighted in Esther's attention, and his attempts to say her name made them all laugh. At dinner, Adam seemed more talkative and let Esther know about the funeral arrangements for that Saturday morning. He had also submitted Morgan's obituary to the Territorial Enterprise and ordered a marble headstone with the inscription Esther had wanted; unfortunately, it wouldn't be ready until a week after the funeral, but it was of the best material.

"Oh, I can't afford that, Adam," Esther had said. "Morgan made enough money from his carpentry and leather tooling so we lacked for nothing, but…"

"It's from me, Esther, from us," Adam gently said, laying a hand on Esther's as she rested it on the tablecloth. Then he had glanced at Sibella who added that they wanted to do it. But Sibella hadn't known anything about it and that night in the privacy of their bedroom, she asked Adam about his "lie".

"It wasn't a lie, Sibella. It is from both of us. I just didn't mention it to you." He sighed with fatigue, and with his back to her, sat on the side of the bed before lying down. Sibella realized Adam didn't need a fit of pique from her. After all, he was grieving for his friend, dealing with the funeral arrangements and still running the family business while also dreading the upcoming loss of Miss Pear, but he wasn't considering her in these things.

"I'm sorry I called it a lie, I shouldn't have used that word, but it's not only that. You invited Esther to stay with us without asking me and now you've bought a gravestone without consulting me and…"

Adam turned and he suddenly seemed a bit dangerous to her. He was rarely angry with her-more frustrated at times than angry-and Sibella suddenly regretted saying what she had.

"Do I have to ask your permission to take a shit too?" And with that, he grabbed his robe off the hook on the back of the door and pulling it on, left the bedroom. Sibella slid down in the bed, tears stinging her eyes. One more day. Esther was staying only one more day and was then returning to her own house to prepare for the reception after the funeral. And Mrs. George was going to help her.

~0~

Over the past two years, the two couples had spent many evenings together although it was for the sake of Adam and Morgan's friendship, the two bound not only by their youthful friendship and shenanigans but what truly bound them was riding out to join the Union Army together and then, after their decimated regiment was captured by the Confederates, they survived Camp Sumter, better known as Andersonville. While the Confederate soldiers marched the seven survivors of Captain Cartwright's 1st battalion of Nevada Volunteers across the ravaged landscape to a cattle car waiting to deliver them to the prison camp, Adam had carried his wounded and bleeding friend over his shoulders. But it wasn't just because Morgan Graham was his friend that Adam watched over him, but because as brevet captain, he was responsible for all his men and especially the few who had survived their last bloody battle, all of them injured in some way or another.

Back in Nevada that had achieved statehood, Adam and Morgan took back their civilian lives although Adam had left no wife behind unlike Morgan. Esther received her broken husband with open arms and kept a brave face as she endured her husband's pain as if it were her own which in a way, it was. On warm evenings, Adam and Morgan often sat on the porch of either house, smoking a cigar and enjoying a brandy and talked in low, intimate tones. But sometimes laughter came through the open windows at a private joke; the two men shared experiences that excluded all others except perhaps Esther. Sibella couldn't help feeling jealous of the three people who shared such intimate matters as Adam rarely spoke of his time in the army, telling her he wished he had never experienced such matters and certainly didn't want her to know what it had been like; he would spare her details as much as he could and wished he could forget them himself. But often times, while Adam held her after lovemaking, Sibella would feel the indentations of a bullet's scar on his shoulder and the long, pale one on his back he said was from a bayonet. And some evenings, as Adam sat thinking, his guitar suddenly going silent or his book closed, Sibella wondered what unseen scars her husband bore. And there was no way she could ever understand. Not the way Esther did.