This story will be updated weekly.
Please be advised story rating and genre are subject to change as the plot deepens.
ROOTS:
We can't return. We can only look back from where we came. And go round and round and round in the circle game.
-Joni Mitchell
I know all about it, so you don't have to shout it. I'm gonna straighten it out somehow.
-Gillian Welch
NOW:
It was the crying that awoke him.
Loud, shrill, and harsh, a duo of wails circulated the home, filling up every available inch of the air with non-explanatory demands. The sheer volume of it was maddening, and the power of the two little chest cavities that were capable of generating such continuous force was downright astonishing. How could such tiny people be responsible for such a vehement disturbance?
Opening his eyes, Adam Cartwright rolled over and lay on his back, his foggy brain struggling to command his body to move. The blackness lurking behind the crack in the window curtains declared it was long before dawn, and the darkness encompassing the bedroom teased that only a few meager hours had passed since he had fallen asleep. He lay still for a while, hoping and praying that whatever Eddie was doing to soothe her infant children would finally miraculously work and they would grow quiet.
It wasn't to be.
The babies continued to scream; they were either too young or too stubborn to be capable of fulfilling such an ill-fated wish.
Groaning, he rose, reaching blindly for his pants and shirt. It took a few moments for him to locate them, finally realizing he had abandoned them on the floor rather than on top of the dresser as he normally did. Shoving his arms into his shirt sleeves, he stuck his foot through one single pant leg and then fumbled with the other. His exhaustion coupled with the surrounding darkness limited his spatial awareness and his ability to understand why, no matter how hard he tried to force his foot through the opening, the pant leg would not comply. Eventually, a little too slowly, he realized the material of the defiant opening had been pulled inside out, shoved inside of the seat of the pants, and balled to sit suspended somewhere between where the waist belt ended and the button fly began. By the time he sorted that out and the item of clothing had been properly donned, he could not summon the desire or patience to button his shirt. As the crying continued, somehow seeming to increase in density and pitch, he braced himself for yet another long night.
Sporadically lined with candle sconces, the hallway was more lit than the bedroom, but it was no easier to traverse. Stepping into it, he almost immediately bumped into Noah, who had been lingering outside the door. Incapable of contending with the sudden force, the tot fell backwards to sit heavily on the floor. With his gray security blanket hanging loosely from his shoulders, he stared up at his father accusingly. His lower lip quivered, and his brilliant blue eyes filled with quick tears.
"Oh, no," Adam said gently as he scooped the boy up into his arms. "No, no, no, no. Please, buddy, don't you start crying, too."
The plea did nothing to soothe the boy's smarting behind or hurt feelings. Erupting into a fit of silent sobs, he pressed his palms against his father's chest and kicked his legs, a clear demand to be put back down. Adam refused to obey the disgruntled tot. The only thing worse than standing idly by as his son cried was knowing he was the one who was responsible for his tears. He should have known better than to rush from the room; it was more common than not for the little boy to stray from his bed in the middle of the night.
Having been born a generally exceptional sleeper, at three years old, Noah had grown restless. He struggled to fall asleep and often woke up in the middle of the night in disarray. Whether it was the residual shock of having endured so many changes in such a short period of time, the surprise of becoming an older brother to not one but two tiny, clamorous siblings, or something else entirely that was agitating the boy, it remained to be seen. But Noah wasn't alone in his predicament; he wasn't the only member of the family who had grown unsettled.
Will Cartwright had not been dead for three days when Peggy began to act up. Although this was something he was not aware of by experience, rather from the events recounted to him by his wife, father, and mother-in-law, Embarking on a solitary trip to Ohio to lay his cousin to rest, Adam had not been around to witness what had taken place. In fact, he had not been around to see a lot of things. The family he eventually returned to was not the same one he had left behind. It had both grown and shrunken during the week he had been absent. Eddie had given birth to not one but two children, a boy and a girl she had named without her husband. Much to the surprise of everyone—or no one—Lil had taken up and then spontaneously married an old beau, Sam, the proprietor of the Silver Dollar Saloon; she now took great pride in lording over both. And, deeply disrupted by traumatic events—both new and old—Peggy had sought permanent respite at the Ponderosa.
Adam still remembered the way he had felt—the horrible sting that had encompassed his heart—when he stood at the bottom of his father's staircase with Peggy refusing to move from the top of it.
"Adam, I think you ought to give the girl time," his father had said, taking him by the arm and leading him away from Peggy and toward a deep pour of a steading drink. "As a matter of fact, why don't you give yourself some time, too?"
Adam had been tempted to say that he didn't want to do that because, in his experience, there were just some things that time never helped. He had still been holding the untouched glass of liquor in his hand when he heard the door of the bedroom which had once been his but was now to be considered that of his surrogate daughter slam closed. In the wake of the aggressive noise seemingly reverberating through the grand house, the only thing that rivaled his frustration was his sense of loss. It was clear that plans that had been made during his absence would not be negated by his presence. Still, Adam had not been outright amiable to allowing Peggy to remain in his father's home. Given that she was still a teenager—and with his own recollections of his father's obstinate strictness when he himself had been a teen springing a little too easily to mind—he was surprised Ben had dared to suggest Peggy stay at the Ponderosa. With the exception of circumstances that were truly vile, the older man had always believed so fervently that no outsider, family member or otherwise, had the right to interfere in a relationship between parent and child. But interfere he had, rendering it near impossible for Adam to do anything other than leave the girl in his father's care.
Time marched on, weeks flew by, and not a single day that passed between now and then did what Ben Cartwright had foolishly once thought it would. Adam and Peggy were still not on good terms—if the nature of relationships could be defined as having any real terms at all. They saw each other once a week. Sitting awkwardly on opposite sides of the dinner table every Sunday at the Ponderosa, Adam avoided asking her questions in front of his extended family, and she refused to speak to him. If he were benighted, he might have allowed himself to believe he didn't understand why things between them were so strained. But he was not.
The truth of the matter was that, despite the way they had once clung to and loved one another, the secrets they had kept had shattered them both. Peggy was devastated by his treatment of Will, and Adam was devastated by Will's treatment of her. Neither one of them knew how to handle the other now. They didn't know how to talk about the past in a way that would bring either of them any comfort or closure; they didn't know how to build a future that would not someday be toppled by the pain associated with the events that had led them to it. There were so many things Adam would change, given the chance, and so many more he wished he could have protected Peggy from.
Noah was still wriggling and weeping in his arms when Adam finally joined Eddie in the sitting room. Though odd and inconvenient, the area had become her preferred location to sit or endlessly pace when the infants fussed extendedly. Holding the wailing babies in the crooks of her arms, she sat in the rocking chair, moving it slowly and rhythmically with pale, boney ankles connected to her bare feet. The braid meant to restrain her long, blond locks had come half undone at the bottom; there were deep, dark circles carved in the sunken space beneath her eyes; and the buttons lining the top of her nightgown lay open and wet, evidence of yet another attempted feeding that had gone awry.
"What took you so long?" she asked, her voice quiet yet pleading. It was a question that was difficult to hear over her children's enduring cries.
Adam nodded at the boy in his arms. "Accident in the hallway."
"You ran into him again?"
"If you kept those children in our room instead of bringing them down here, I wouldn't have run into him at all," Adam said. Though the statement could have been perceived as sharp, his tone was flat. "I told you I'd bring the rocking chair upstairs if you really think it helps."
"And I told you I didn't want it there," Eddie said blandly. And she hadn't. The only thing she had allowed to be placed in the bedroom the couple shared was a cradle that Adam was certain had never been used. Shortly after the twin's birth, Hoss and Joe had gifted them two. One had gone upstairs, and the other had been left in the sitting room, mere paces away from the rocking chair.
"It'd make things a whole lot easier. It'd be less of a walk between there and here."
"Sometimes the walk helps."
"I don't like the idea of you walking down that staircase in the middle of the night with both babies in your arms," he said, knowing most nights Eddie was not traveling between the upstairs bedroom and the sitting room at all.
"You don't like stairs anyhow. Not anymore." Moving one side of her unbuttoned nightshirt aside, she offered her wailing daughter her exposed bosom. It was swiftly rejected as the infant continued to howl in tandem with her twin. She looked at Adam exasperatedly, her face laden with exhaustion. "I think," she said, her voice sounding slightly manic, "that these children entered the world with the sole intent of driving slowly insane."
Adam appraised the little boy in his arms, disgruntled and squirming, inhaling yet another sputtering breath. "Trade me," he said. "You take this one back upstairs, and I'll take those two, and maybe we all can manage to get some rest before sunrise."
Looking between Adam and the infants she held, Eddie was decidedly wary. "No," she said. "You're the one who upset Noah; you should be the one who calms him down. Besides you… you're not properly equipped to deal with these two."
"You just said they weren't interested in eating."
"They will be."
"Noah's the easy one. When he cries, it's quiet."
"Yeah, but he kicks when he's mad and hits sometimes."
"Only because you tolerate it."
Eddie looked at her son, kicking and hitting his father who held him. "Who's tolerating it right now? Just put him down already. He'll quit acting out once you give him what he wants."
"He shouldn't be acting out at all."
"If he were a normal child, I'd agree with you, but he's not. Without words to express himself, his feet and hands are all he has."
"That doesn't mean he uses them to hit." Adam gave his son a disgruntled stare.
"He wouldn't be hitting you if you had heeded what he originally tried to communicate in the first place," Eddie scolded. "Don't stand there and act like you don't know why he's carrying on. He wants you to put him down. In fact, he probably wanted you to put him down the moment you picked him up. Take note of what's going on and why. Be wise enough to take note of what your son is trying to tell you."
Growing a little too exasperated with everyone in the room, Adam finally set his son down.
Noah stood on shaking legs and stomped his feet. He thrust his arms forward fruitlessly, his hands flying through the air and hitting nothing before he pulled them back and repeated the violent motion. The blanket around his shoulders was dislodged, sent careening through the air to lay in a heap on the floor.
"That wasn't the problem," Adam said flatly.
"Then what is it?"
"I don't know."
"He's probably just overly tired. I told you he wasn't the easy one. Given the choice, always pick comforting the children that scream."
As Noah continued to tantrum and the infants continued to wail, Adam was not sure if, given a choice, he would have picked any of them—not in this moment, at least. It couldn't be denied, the infants were too fussy and loud, and Noah was not the cuddly, pliable toddler he had once been. Since the birth of his siblings, he had proven himself to be an independent soul, stubborn, and as hard-headed as he was to understand at times. If Noah had been born a normal child, Adam might have been proud, but he hadn't been born a normal child. A fact that was becoming more unnerving each day as Adam found himself incrementally uncertain of how to handle such volatile and unsavory displays of bad behavior or what kind of repercussions would be wrought by handling them the wrong way. He could not help wondering how many of Noah's tantrums could have been avoided if the boy could talk. How many displays of poor behavior had been born from the inability to garner his parents' full attention without the use of words? How many challenges would Adam and Eddie be confronted with as parents because of Noah's muteness? What challenges would their son face as he grew older because of his inability?
Staring at the furious little boy in front of him, Adam could not help but think of Charlie and how folks in the Nevada territory had come to know Noah as his first-born son. It was a coveted title by some, and it was a burden, too. Firstborn was a role that promised to be infinitely more challenging and wearisome for a boy who could not speak out loud. People would judge Noah for his inability to speak—some already did. They would underestimate him, interpret his voicelessness as small-mindedness, and treat him poorly as a result. Noah was different, and all too often, being different was never perceived as good. So, what would eventually come of Adam Cartwright's voiceless son, who no longer had an older brother to protect and shepherd him through life? The boy still had Peggy; that much was true, and older sisters were fine and good, but a woman could not look after a man the way a brother could. The only thing more powerful than Adam's grief over Charlie was his worry for Noah.
"What are you going to do?" Eddie prompted.
Adam did the only thing he could think of. Kneeling in front of his son, he grasped Noah's wrists and held them steady in front of his son's chest. "Stop, now," he instructed evenly. Absently, he noted how much he sounded like his father in this moment. Though the deepness of his voice would never quite reach Ben Cartwright's baritone, it was weighty in its own right. When pushed to the limit, he could be every bit as formidable as his father—more, if presented with the proper circumstances. "That's enough."
It was more than enough. It was a little too much. But as Eddie had said, the boy was overly tired. More than that, Noah missed Peggy; the little boy was as unsettled by the ceaseless crying reverberating through the house as his father was.
"I'm sorry I knocked you down." The apology came easily. "I'm sorry I didn't watch you carefully enough to take heed of what you were trying to say, and I'm sorry I held on to you a bit too long."
Bottom lip trembling, Noah's tears began anew. Still, the apology appeased him; he stood still as his father continued.
"Even so, kicking and hitting people is no way to act. It's not the right way to get what you want."
Adam let go of Noah's wrists, certain now that the boy was going to remain calm. Picking the blanket off the floor, he carefully wrapped it around Noah's shoulders again, then picked up the bottom corner and wiped a fresh trail of tears streaking his son's face. "Do you understand?"
Hands gripping his blanket, his fingertips digging into the worn material, Noah considered the question and nodded meekly.
"Good." Adam smiled wearily, grateful for the understanding they had found. Palming the back of his son's head, he placed a forgiving kiss on Noah's forehead. "Now, Mommy is going to take you upstairs and tuck you into bed, where you will stay until morning."
Looking between the calmed tot next to her husband and the wailing duo in her arms, Eddie was not amiable to the suggestion. "You take him," she said. "The second these two stop crying, they're going to be hungry, and I'll just have to attend to them again."
The explanation was only part of the problem. The other half was something Adam had yet to discern. For Eddie, there seemed to be an odd kind of satisfaction to be gleaned from not relinquishing the infants to his care. An unsettling peace was found by keeping the cradle and rocking chair downstairs, seeking respite in its rigid seat night after night, and holding her two youngest children as they refused to be calmed. It was as far away from Adam's side as she could possibly get while still remaining in the house. She had not wanted to move to Virginia City; that much was true. She had despised the house on Kay Street from the moment she laid eyes on it. It wasn't her decision to come here, but that didn't mean the choice was necessarily something Adam had made. Unlike Peggy, who was comforted by the Ponderosa's sprawling spread and the grandiose, palliative, and secure house that was built upon it, neither Eddie nor Adam had found those surroundings mollifying. For her, they had been much too alien. To him, they had been all too familiar. Staying there had not been an option, and with his appointment as Sheriff rooting him in town, there was nowhere else for them to go other than where they currently were.
Except for maybe San Francisco.
Adam frowned. The thought was unsettling. Needling. Lord, he had suffered through that particular discussion and endured the resulting argument too many times to be torturing himself with it now. Returning to the city was simply not an option. There was just nothing left for them there, save for memories wrought with pain and a whole mess of grief.
Standing, he offered Noah his hand; he was only slightly surprised when the boy lifted his arms, a silent, familiar request to be picked up that his father was happy to abide by. Slowly retreating from the sitting room, Adam reached the threshold where the room gave way to the small area that led to the staircase and lingered, unnerved by an unsolicited notion that would be dismissed.
"Eddie," he said, turning to cast her a guarded look. "Do you really believe things were that much easier in San Francisco?"
It was a foolish question to ask. If he hadn't been so tired, he probably wouldn't have. And if he thought she would listen to him, he would have insisted that she hand over the infants and take Noah upstairs. But what did he know about babies, anyway? He wasn't his father. He hadn't anxiously stood by as a single one of his children had entered this world; he had never been tasked by fate to look after any of them alone while they were a little too delicate and small. And what could he do to comfort those who refused to be appeased? If they were foals or calves, he'd know how to help them. If they were mouthy outlaws, he would have already silenced them. And if they were like Charlie had been or Noah was, then things might have been a lot different than they were turning out to be. Things hadn't been good since long before those children were born. Sometimes, Adam wondered if they would ever really be good again. His beard was gone. Eddie's wedding band was still absent from her finger. He did not want to set aside the time to think about what either of those things really meant. He hadn't thought about them before, and he wouldn't think about them now. The morning promised to be difficult enough without borrowing troubles meant to be endured on other days.
Adjusting her grip on her disgruntled infants, Eddie continued to push the chair steadily back and forth. "It wasn't really easier," she said morosely. "You were just never around."
With his son held firmly and protectively in his arms, Adam climbed the staircase. He tucked Noah back into bed and then returned to his own.
The morning came too soon. The sun rose, caring little if anyone in the house on Kay Street was prepared to face another day. When daylight began spilling into the bedroom, it became obvious that Eddie had not returned to their bed—not that she had been there in the first place.
"Why did you bring up San Francisco last night?" Eddie asked, peering blearily at him over the rim of her coffee cup.
Shrugging, Adam rubbed his hands over his face to soothe his burning eyes.
"That's not an answer," Eddie said. "You're not Noah; you have words at your disposal. Please use them to formulate an answer."
"I don't have one."
"You don't have one, or you don't have a good one?"
"I don't have one I'm willing to share."
"Why not?"
He reached for his coffee cup, found it empty, pushed his chair back from the breakfast table, and stood. Striding the coffee pot on the stove, he discovered it was empty, too.
"Adam?" Eddie pressed.
Flinching, he was grateful his back was turned, allowing the compulsive action to go unseen. She never called him "Buddy" anymore, and he never reached for the appellation either. The deep sense of loss he felt over this fact was as difficult to comprehend as his reaction when she called him by his first name. She had never done that in San Francisco. Of course, in San Francisco, he had not often been around to hear her call him much of anything.
"Can we…?" he began, then paused. Resting his hands on the counter, he hung his head, his shoulders sinking beneath the weight of his frustration and fatigue. If his mention of San Francisco was to be considered the beginning of his conversation, then he already knew it was going to end in a fight. He was up against enough today. The last thing he needed was to allow himself to say something that would sit on his conscience and compound his uneasiness. "Can we just... not?" he said eventually, forcing a slight and bitter smile. "At least not right now, okay?"
Eddie ignored the request. "We still have a house in San Francisco."
"What you mean to say is that your mother still has a house in San Francisco. I do believe it is her name on the deed."
"It was my father's home. When he died, it became just as much mine as it is hers."
Adam inhaled an exasperated breath. Lord, he did not want to have this conversation. Right now. Again. "Your mother is married now. She's firmly rooted in Virginia City."
"So?"
"So, how do you expect to care for three children without her help?"
"I'll hire a governess to look after Noah."
"He's a little young for that yet."
"Then I'll take on a wet nurse."
"And he's much too old for that." Adam turned, leaned against the counter, and crossed his arms. "How do you expect to pay for such a thing? I don't have a job in San Francisco."
"Adam," Eddie snorted humorlessly, "come noon, you don't have a job here."
He nearly flinched again, his stomach flipping, as she finally drew attention to the topic he had been carefully avoiding speaking about for weeks. Oh, his father had tried to talk to him about it; Lil and his brothers had, too. But Eddie hadn't. Up until now, she had not broached it, and he hadn't dared bring it up for fear that the sheer stress of the notion would push her further toward the edge of the invisible cliff she seemed to be so determined to thrust herself off of.
"Yeah, well," he said, slightly annoyed. "We do have family here. People to lean on if things get lean. Help when we need it." Should either of them ever allow themselves to actually accept it.
"We have family in San Francisco, too," she said hastily, her tone becoming slightly desperate.
Hanging his head, Adam closed his eyes. Don't say it, he pleaded silently. Don't you dare say it.Not now. Not again.
"Charlie is there."
He felt a surge of grief, chasmic, and besetting as Eddie stated what he dreaded she would. She had said it before, and he was certain she would say it again, torturing them both with something that could not be fixed or changed. Charlie's grave could be found in San Francisco, but the boy was gone. The pain his parents felt over losing him was yet another thing that time would do nothing to help. He didn't know what to say and couldn't begin to comprehend if there was the right way to respond to his wife. There were plenty of wrong ways—this he had become acutely aware of as of late, in the weeks that had followed since Eddie's two youngest children were born. Though he didn't often say much, every word he did utter was often met with annoyance, impatience, or, worse: an endless stream of silent tears. He didn't know how to help any of that, so he had taken to speaking as little as possible.
And when he finally looked at her again, finding her deep blue eyes pain-filled and pleading, he said nothing at all.
Xx
Adam strode Virginia City's bustling thoroughfare, snaking through the cumulations of people the late morning hour had solicited. It was not lost on him how folks took great care in averting their gazes as he walked past them. Sometimes it felt as though it had been years since anyone had dared look him in the eye.
"There isn't a single soul in Virginia City who you could claim as a friend," Will once declared. "Lucky for you, I've decided to stick around."
Though Adam had vehemently denied the declaration at the time, it hadn't made it any less true. When he returned after six years away, the townsfolk of Virginia City had not welcomed him warmly. Still believing he was responsible for Laura Dayton-Cartwright's death, they were furious he had been entrusted with a coveted position of authority and disgusted he had dared to accept it. Folks had come at him hard back then, played him rough, and said things about him that were cruel enough to make even the most hardened man flinch. They hadn't made things easy; in fact, some days, they had made things a little too hard. Back then they hated him. Now they feared him.
Their fear had been his own doing. After all, he was the one who had erected gallows in the center of town and voiced an ominous warning: The next person who takes a shot at me is going to find themselves hanging from the end of this rope. The display had done what he intended it to. People around him seemed to be as unsure of him as he was of himself. Something had begun to change then; the tension that had hung heavy in the air since the day of his return surged and expanded. It became not a question of what the folks around him would say about him but rather what he himself would do to those who dare open their mouths. Then Will's captivity at the Running D had been exposed, Adam's secret viciousness was shared openly and freely alongside the truth of Will's own abominable actions toward Laura Dayton's daughter, and the tone of the town shifted again.
A circuit judge came. A trial was held. It took less than a day for Will to be convicted of his crimes, while Adam reamined silently haunted by his own. When the time came for Will to be hung, it was Adam who had marched his cousin atop the gallows. It was he who had placed the noose around his cousin's neck as Will begged, pleaded, and cried. And it was he who stood stone-faced as he released the trapdoor. It seemed so callous when he remembered it now. Still, the memory was biting. The act itself had not come easily. It left traces of its own ghosts behind. Even now, each time he passed the gallows, he would be taken by the visage of Will's body, lifeless but not still, as it swayed back and forth. When faced with the haunting hallucination this morning, he cleared his throat reflexively and shifted his attention to the other side of the street.
Coming upon the sheriff's office, he fought the urge to turn around and walk away. If he didn't go inside, he could avoid facing the truth for another day. Oh, the event would still take place in his absence, but he wouldn't have to be there to witness it, standing idly by as he was unceremoniously stripped of the thing that had brought him back to the territory to begin with.
Will had not been buried in Ohio for more than a month when Roy Coffee came to call on Adam one quiet evening at his lawman's post. Pulling up a chair, the older man sat opposite the younger one and appraised him guardedly over the desk separating them. "Adam," he had drawled. "You and I are due for a talk."
"About?"
"The future of this town, your family, and you. There just ain't no good way to go about sayin' what it is I came to, so I'm just going to spill it outright. The time has come for you to step aside. When the Town Council comes callin' on you in the next few days, askin' if you intend to maintain your post, I'm expecting you to tell them you're relinquishing it. Don't look so mad," Coffee added as Adam's expression darkened. "And don't feign surprise. After all, you and I both know that a second term was never part of my original proposition."
"A lot of things have changed since then."
"Don't I know it? Given that change and the events that led to it, I'm sure you can understand why other things need to change, too."
"If I'm not going to run for sheriff, then who is? You?"
"No."
"Who then?"
"Billy Buckley."
Adam could not repress his disapproval. "If that's meant to be a joke, then it isn't very funny."
"It's no joke."
"Billy Buckley shot down Ed Payson in cold blood."
"It wasn't cold blood. Both Payson and Buckley were armed when they engaged themselves in that gunfight; you and Sally Cass both testified to that fact."
"Just because facts can render something legally dismissible doesn't mean the situation is not morally reprehensible."
"I know," Coffee said seriously. "In fact, I know you know that, too." And Adam did. Though Coffee avoided saying certain things outright, what he was talking about was obvious. "I take no pleasure in knowin' that Buckley took the life of a man you considered your friend, but Ed Payson died years ago now. What happened between him and Buckley has been all but forgotten. Given all that's happened as of late, I would think that you, of all people, would not be eager to continue judging a man based on his past mistakes. I'm sorry, Adam. I wanted things to be different, and I did. But given the way folks around here see you now, it just isn't seemly for things to continue on the way they are. A man can't govern a town by fear; folks have to know their sheriff is someone they can turn to for help and trust. It's breaking my heart to be the one to say these things to you. I don't want you to think for a single second that this decision was one that came easy."
"It couldn't have been that hard." Snorting disgustedly, Adam shook his head. "Out of all the people in this town, you chose him?"
"No, I chose you." Coffee had looked at him then, his eyes bright with the disappointment Adam knew the older man had been trying so hard to conceal. "Look," Coffee added. "You and I both know you ain't often fond of things somebody else has decided should be yours. I reckon, if that was the case, then you never would have left the Ponderosa in the first place."
"Don't you dare lecture me about what could have been."
"Then don't sit there and pretend you don't see things as they currently are. You never wanted to be the sheriff of this town, not really. You took the job because at the time it served a purpose. Now, that purpose is gone, and, I reckon, that badge you wear has already caused you enough pain."
"And you don't think that handing it over to Billy Buckley isn't going to cause me pain?"
"No, I reckon that will, too. It'll be a pain of a lesser kind, of course. It might hurt you a little at first, but at least it won't take anything else away from you or take you away from the people who love you. I know I don't have to tell you that being a lawman is dangerous; it's even more dangerous for you, given all that's happened over the years. You have things worth sticking around for: a family, a wife, and young kids that need their father alive and well to look after them as they grow up. Buckley doesn't have any of that, well, at least not anymore."
"He doesn't have a lot of other things either."
"You can sit there and spit thinly veiled disparagements of Buckley's character if you really think that's going to make you feel better. But it ain't going to do much to change what's already been said or done. It ain't going to make walking the path you've been presented with any easier; it ain't gonna change the way things are or how they need to be. Now, Adam, I've said and done my part. I've asked Buckley to run, and I've asked you to step aside and allow him to. You don't have to like it, but it's just the way that things have to be. The decision is made. I'm sorry, son, but that's just the way it's got to be."
There had been no purpose in fighting it. No amending the past in the hope of a better future. Coffee was right: A lawman could not govern a town by fear. Folks had to know they could trust the man who had been tasked with protecting them; they needed to be comfortable and willing to seek him out for help. The people residing in Virginia City were neither. They didn't trust Adam any more than he trusted them; the past had wounded and shaped them all. If only it really were that simple, then maybe it would have been a little bit easier to live with than it was.
Adam had felt Roy Coffee's faith in him waver long before Will's captivity had been discovered. He had seen the glint in the older man's eyes change, shifting away from something that might have been defined as love and pride to something else completely. To say the older man had been disappointed in Adam would have been an understatement. To pretend he didn't know why Coffee was abandoning him would have been a disservice to them both. The circuit judge who had overseen Will's trial had conveniently overlooked the details he had not wanted to see. Blinded by the sheen of the badge upon Adam's breast and the clout of the one he had held before it, the man ignored how Will had come to be held captive in the Running D's farmhouse and the treatment he had withstood while he was there. But Roy Coffee could not see past these things, and neither could Adam—in the ever-odd moment they sprung unbidden to his mind. Like Will, he was not an innocent man. He had made decisions he was not proud of; he had chosen to do things he did not want to think about. His actions toward Will had proven him untrustworthy and unfit to hold a position of power. He had failed to uphold the authority of his office in an honorable way. He had used his badge to protect himself. And he had let his predecessor down. But, then again, maybe Roy Coffee had let him down, too. It wasn't as though Adam hadn't been honest when Coffee invited him to take up his sheriff's post. The day the older man had come calling on with his ill-fated plan, he had told Roy Coffee that he was a different man than he recalled him to be. He had said he had changed. Coffee had refused to hear it, and then he refused to see it. And now, he was washing his hands of the situation entirely, picking Billy Buckley to stand in Adam's place.
Adam lifted his hand, his fingertips tracing the outline of his star pinned to his breast. Dented and cold, the tin edges felt strangely sharp and volatile as he ran his fingertips over them one by one. His boots felt heavy, his feet rooted to the ground. His hand lingered over his badge, his fingers drawn to it by some unseen magnetic force. He didn't want to pull his hand away; he couldn't seem to command his feet to move. How was he going to open the door to the sheriff's office? How would he face what lay behind it?
Roy Coffee was in the office, as was Billy Buckley and most, if not all, of the Virginia Town Council. While the star Adam wore was to play a fateful part in the day's events, his presence did not serve any real purpose. It was purely ceremonious. No longer required, needed, or wanted. Coffee had abandoned him and picked Buckley instead. Adam wished he was surprised by Coffee's faltering faith in him, but he wasn't. After all, the man wasn't his father. He would never understand why things between Adam and Will had devolved to such a point. He wasn't aware of the heinous secrets lurking in the Cartwright family's past—the terrible, lingering violence that had shattered son after son, pushing them further away from fathers who had dared rear them with unsympathetic hands. Coffee would never fathom the past Ben Cartwright had left behind when he made the decision to set out westward with his infant son in tow; he would never become privy to the heart wrenching decisions the journey had demanded be made. He would never know the whole truth.
Pulling his hand away from the badge, his fingertips brushed the scar lining one side of his upper lip, running up and down the slender, linear patch of pale and puckered skin. The scar had been with him for as long as he could remember. There had once been a time when he didn't recall how he had come by the marking. His memory of a specific event had always been elusive, a little too far out of reach to grasp and fully comprehend. He had known occasions when he had been tempted to ask his father where the scar had come from, but something had always stopped him. Now he knew that even if he had found the words to formulate the question, he would not have been provided with an answer. His father simply couldn't explain what he didn't know. He couldn't share the details of events he had not been present to witness.
It wasn't until his trip with Eddie to Ohio that Adam was finally confronted with the memory and the truth. Standing on the bank of a river near a house that had once belonged to John Cartwright, he stared at the rough and choppy waters in front of him, suddenly and viciously overwhelmed by a mass of haunting memories he hadn't known he had suppressed. The scar on his face was a gift from his uncle, John. A brutal, permanent reminder of what kind of horrible things happened to little boys if they didn't sit quietly and still, if they didn't behave.
Lord, there were so many things he and his father should summon the courage to speak about, and so many others that Adam prayed they would remain forever disinclined to discuss. Oh, they had spoken about Will's reasoning for keeping his cousin holed up and hidden at the Running D. But they hadn't talked about Ohio, the things Adam now remembered, or the ones he was certain his father remained unaware of.
"Son." Ben's voice came from behind.
With his hand falling to his side, Adam did not turn around. He shook his head slightly to dismiss the memory and cleared his throat to dislodge the tightness it had wrought. What he would not have given for some peace and privacy. If one of his younger brothers was not meandering about, then Pa often was. Sometimes, he wondered if the other four Cartwrights had engaged themselves in a secret pact, vowing to each other never to leave him alone and never allowing him proper space to fully gather himself or his thoughts.
"Pa," he stoically said. "I thought I told you I didn't need you to show up for this."
"I'm on the town council," Ben said. Though the answer was simple, it wasn't straightforward. Duty may have brought the older man to town, but it wasn't the reason he had come.
"And?"
"And what?"
"And so you decided to ignore my request." Turning, Adam cast his father a disgruntled stare.
"Was it a request?" Ben regarded him carefully. "I'm sorry, son; I didn't realize. When you said you didn't need me to come, I suppose I thought you were suggesting rather than requesting my absence."
It wasn't his fault—they both knew that. A man could hardly be held responsible for the things not clearly communicated to him. Communicating clearly was one of the things they had recently agreed to do, each silently understanding that the delicate nature of their tenuous relationship may not be strong enough to withstand the vicious arguments they once had. There would be no push, no pull, and no invisible tug of war taking place between them. They were to speak peacefully and directly, and they were not to make assumptions when the other chose not to say anything at all. They were to have a relationship of equals, of two grown men who just happened to be father and son. They were to respect each other, and Ben was to honor Adam's independence and autonomy.
Adam's frustration was brief. Maybe Pa's presence wasn't an imposition. "Don't be sorry," he said. Who was he to harbor anger toward a father whose only sin was daring to stand next to his son when no one else would? "It's my fault, really. I should have been clearer."
"I could have listened better."
"No amount of listening would have excused you from your duty. Like you said, you're on council; therefore, your presence is required."
"Even so, I wouldn't want you to think that I came here to... well, to make you feel whatever way Roy Coffee may or may not be intending you to."
"You say that like you believe he means to insult me or force me to kowtow to Billy Buckley."
"I don't know what I believe," Ben said uneasily. "Although I will admit, I don't understand the need for the display. You could have just as easily relinquished your badge to myself or another council member. There's no real reason for you to be present while Buckley's sworn in. I suppose there's no real reason for Roy Coffee to be present either."
"Other than the obvious, he cares deeply about this town and the kind of man who holds it. He looked after it too long and sacrificed too much to keep it safe not to interfere. Billy Buckley will discover that in his own time. He might have a star pinned to his chest, but he's not going to be as free to use it as he thinks he will be."
"What do you know about how Buckley thinks?"
Adam shook his head. "I know there isn't going to be any kowtowing. At least not where he and I are concerned."
There wouldn't be any peace, either. No kind actions or words to be found. Buckley hated Adam. Which was just fine most days because Adam hated him too. Though he had not returned to Virginia City with the intention of harboring such feelings about a man that the passing years had rendered decidedly inconsequential to his life, he harbored them now. Too much had happened between the day he had become Virginia City's sheriff and this one. He and Buckley had gone too hard after each other during the interim to hope for any sort of amicability or reconciliation now. Too much had stayed the same, and too much had changed for things to be any other way than tense. Though his father stood next to him now, Ben Cartwright wasn't privy to half the bad blood lingering between Adam and Buckley. Roy Coffee was aware of damn near all of it, and that was why he had chosen Buckley as his new man. Adam didn't want to be wounded by the endorsement, but he was.
"Adam, I need you to know I didn't want this," Ben said. "I want you to understand that I fought against it. When Roy Coffee stood in front of the Town Council and voiced his support for Buckley, I made it clear I wasn't in agreement with the nomination. I didn't vote to swear him in."
"You were never in favor of my appointment. I'm sure when Roy shared the details of his new plan, you were more than a little relieved. After all, the whole damn territory knows you didn't raise your sons to live by a gun."
"I did not. Even so, I would not want you to think this was a decision I had a hand in making."
Snorting, Adam was not so certain Ben had not. His father's prominence had saved his job before; it stood to reason that his influence could take it away. "I don't know what I think," he admitted. "Not yet, at least."
"About what I just said?"
"About anything."
"Do you want to know what I think?"
Adam shrugged.
"Given the choice between you and Buckley, I'd choose you. You're the better man, son. The strongest one I have ever had the pleasure to know."
Adam didn't immediately reply. "No, I'm not," he said. "What's happening today is proof of that."
"No, I do believe that today is a testament to something entirely different," Ben said cynically. He nodded at the door. "You don't have to go in there if you don't want to. If you'd prefer to unpin your badge and hand it over to me, I'd understand. There's really no reason for you to be here while the council swears Buckley in. I don't see the purpose in putting yourself through more than you've already been through."
It was an alluring prospect. Adam's fingertips danced over the points of the badge again. He could take it off right here, right now. Then he wouldn't have to face the men lurking inside, feign indifference, or force a phlegmatic stare. He wouldn't have to pretend there was anything other than goodwill lingering between him and Buckley. He could unpin the star, hand it to his father, and simply walk away. He could take a long ride to clear his thoughts and bring clarity to the worries that refused to stray too far from his mind. He could convince himself that he was as done with this town as it was with him. Pretend that relinquishing his post was something he had chosen, something he wanted to.
He could walk away. He could.
If only his fingers would comply, moving in any other way than how the passing seconds had left them accustomed to. It was as though they knew something his heart didn't want to accept. His pride would never allow him to do it. There was nothing to be gained and too much to be lost by not showing his face, not standing tall, and holding his head high as he did what Roy Coffee had told him in no uncertain terms he was expected to.
"Well?" Ben prompted.
"I can't do it, Pa," Adam said. "I'm not going to run away from a man like Billy Buckley."
And maybe that was why Roy Coffee had requested his presence. To set the tone between the old sheriff and the new. To make them look upon each other once and for all as he cast them both purposeful looks, a strict, silent warning that they were to get along. But if Roy Coffee really wanted that, he should not have brought Adam back to Virginia City. He should have left things alone.
Adam entered the office with Ben trailing behind him. He refused to look at Roy Coffee and tried his best to ignore Billy Buckley's satisfaction, the arrogant smile tugging at his lips, and the pleased gleam in his eyes. Standing next to his father and in front of the council, Adam commanded his fingers to unpin the badge. As he relinquished it, he silently vowed to never take up another.
He had left this town as a rancher; he had returned as a lawman; and now he was neither.
TBC