BEFORE:
The hallway was dark, full of shadows and voices that rose from the parlor downstairs to linger amongst the bedroom doorway in an unsettling and muttering hum.
"I don't want to talk about this, John," Ben said. "I don't even want to think about it."
"What is there to think about?" John asked. "We're the boy's family, aren't we? We're your family, too. Ben, you and I are brothers. Will and Adam, they'll be brothers, too."
"They were born cousins."
"They're both Cartwrights; they already share a last name, and they bear such a strong resemblance to each other that it will be easy for others to accept them as siblings. Think about it, Ben."
"I already told you I do not intend to."
"It'll be good for Adam to have Will, and it'll be just as good for Will to have Adam. No matter what happens to the rest of us, they'll always have each other."
"Adam will always have me."
"Don't be a fool, little brother. You know as well as I do that in a family such as ours, fathers and sons have a way of failing each other. The bond between father and son is always broken in the Cartwright line, but the bond between brothers will withstand anything."
"I won't do it, John. That boy is everything to me."
"Do I need to remind you what brought you here?" John asked, his voice carrying a resolute undertone. "The event that demanded you and that little boy to show up uninvited and unannounced on my doorstep?"
"Of course not."
"You said you were afraid. You said that you'd—"
"I said I was never going to speak of it again."
"Psst," came the hissing sound, leading the little boy to shift his attention away from the conversation downstairs to the bedroom doorway across the hall, where another little boy suddenly stood, his lips curling into an enthusiastic grin. "We're gonna be brothers, Adam," he whispered. "Daddy said."
Little Adam shook his head. He didn't want to be Will's brother. He didn't want to be in this house. The hallway was dark and scary. The conversation taking place downstairs was even more frightening than anything lurking in the surrounding darkness, though he could not fully understand why. Having just surpassed his fourth birthday—yet another that was not openly celebrated, rather quietly and mournfully acknowledged—there were certain things, certain behaviors he had grown accustomed to, even if he didn't comprehend the underlying emotions or intentions that forged them. Or that they could be forged from anything at all.
The voices downstairs continued, each becoming slightly louder as the conversation gave way to an argument.
"I won't do it," Ben gruffly said.
"You don't have a choice," John countered. "Not after what you told me."
"Come on," Will said. Now standing in front of Adam, he extended a friendly hand. "There's a special place I like to go when I'm afraid."
"I'm not afraid," Adam protested. He took his cousin's hand anyway and allowed the other boy to lead him through the darkened hallway toward an unseen destination.
"You should be," Will warned, the wooden planks of the staircase creaking beneath their weight. "You will be, given a little time."
"Time for what?"
"You'll see. Daddy wouldn't like it if I told you, and I don't want to spoil the surprise."
"A surprise?" Adam asked excitedly, his eyes widening over the alluring thought. Despite the bad feeling he had experienced upon first meeting the intimidating man, maybe Uncle John was kinder than he thought.
"Um," Will hedged uncertainly.
"Adam?" Ben called out suddenly, his incessant voice muffled by the distance between them.
Looking back, Adam squinted his eyes. He wanted to call out to his father to soothe the worry in his deep voice. He wanted to turn around and run back, returning to the hallway and the bedroom where he had been. But he couldn't let go of Will's hand because he couldn't see anything through the darkness, and he no longer knew where they were. Somewhere in the house, he was certain of that, but the stairwell they had climbed seemed to go on for ages, twisting and turning around corners that did not seem to align with the smallness of the house. Or maybe it was the darkness that was disguising their path, making it seem much more daunting and mysterious because it couldn't be seen and therefore understood.
"Adam!" Pa called again; the word was more panicked and insistent.
Still, Adam did not turn around, his childish curiosity about where his cousin was taking him suddenly superseding all other thoughts.
"This is where I hide when I'm afraid," Will said, opening the tiny door through which they would crawl. "Now that we're brothers, you can hide here, too."
"Adam!"
"I'm older than you," Will continued, "so that makes me your big brother. And I'm gonna protect you because that's what good big brothers do."
"From what?" Little Adam asked.
"Adam!"
"From the wrong kind of love," Will said.
"Love can be bad?" Little Adam asked innocently.
"Daddy says that love is really only real if it hurts."
"Adam!"
"Papa would never hurt me," Little Adam disagreed.
"You don't have a papa anymore. He doesn't want you. He doesn't love you, not like my Daddy will."
"Adam?" A new voice drawled, breaking through his subconscious to rouse and liberate him from his dream.
Adam felt a hand take hold of his shoulder, and then another gently slapped his cheek. "Adam," the familiar voice repeated.
"Pa?" Adam asked, his voice quiet and croaking. He opened his eyes and closed them again, the harshness of the afternoon light enveloping his head in a thunderous ache. He was sitting against something firm and cool. A man was crouched in front of him, taking stock of the situation.
"Not exactly," Roy Coffee chuckled. "Although, with how hard you seemed to have gotten your bell rung, I'm not surprised you would think so." Taking hold of Adam's chin, he titled his head, thoughtfully investigating the blood seeping down Adam's cheek from the deep gash on his forehead. "Yes, sir," he drawled. "You got a real humdinger of a wound here. A real humdinger, indeed. I ain't no doc, but even I can see you're gonna need stitches. Still, judging by your hand, you gave as good as you got."
"My hand?"
Something about the information didn't feel right. It didn't track with the truth. Not that Adam recalled that. Head aching, he squinted his eyes and peered down at his hands, resting limp in his lap. His left hand was uninjured; his right hand, conversely, was not. Fresh, deep scratches marked his skin, their puckered redness somehow minimizing the presence of his bruised and swollen knuckles. Had he been in a fight? No, that didn't seem right. But he had no information or recollection to dispute it.
"Uh, huh," Coffee affirmed. "Do you think you can stand?"
"Stand?" Adam scoffed. The idea seemed downright ludicrous. How could he stand? Lord, he was confused. Dizzy, too. With the way his ears were ringing, he wondered if he had just misheard the other man. With the way his legs felt sprawled out in front of him, he questioned whether they belonged to him anymore. His skin felt like it was tingling. No, not tingling, buzzing with an embosoming numbness he was certain he had never experienced before.
"Yes, sir, we gotta get your legs up beneath you so that we can get you to the doc, or…maybe we ought to just take you to the sheriff's office and let Doc come to you. That's a mite closer than Marten's place. Less work for you and me both."
"Wait…" Adam tried, his brain latching on the one detail he thought he recalled. "Aren't we next to the saloon?"
"The saloon? Heck, no, Adam. We're on the outskirts of town."
"The outskirts?"
Appraising his surroundings through slitted eyes, he was not able to discern their exact whereabouts. He was leaning against a makeshift wall of some sort, a loosely stacked pile of thick and linear rock that would be some day claimed by the town's mason to craft headstones. Nothing about his location was familiar to him—or at least it was not familiar at this specific time. Although that was not something he was worried about, nothing about anything felt particularly familiar to him at the moment. Not with the wound on his head still bleeding so profusely, the long, thick crimson line trailing down the side of his cheek to drip and stain his shirt. Not with the way his body felt as Coffee planted his wrinkled and weathered hands beneath his armpits and hoisted him up off the ground.
Adam's legs wobbled, his ankles and feet nearly refusing to withstand his weight. With Coffee's diligent aid, he was able to remain upright. Walking proved to be a completely different challenge entirely, and unable to endure the bright rays of the sun, he closed his eyes and allowed the older man to half lead, half carry him toward their destination.
"Sorry I had to leave you alone back there," Coffee said. "But I didn't want the guys who got a jump on you to get too far away."
"Guys?"
"Three, to be exact. A pack of wily newcomers, if I ever did see one. When I came upon the situation, the three of them were standing over you while you was lying on the ground, each asking the other what they ought to do with you."
"They were?" It was just yet another detail that didn't seem right.
"They were. One of them had a broken bottle in his hand. I reckon that's the thing they used on your head."
Entering the sheriff's office, Coffee sat Adam down on the side of the desk and appraised him briefly before walking toward the door. "You wait right there," he instructed, his firm tone carrying an authoritative edge. "Don't try to move or walk. You just sit right there until I come back with the doc."
Clenching the wrist of his injured hand in that of his uninjured one, Adam was alone to consider his truant recollection of recent events and his dream about far more distant ones.
Since his fateful trip to Ohio with Eddie, he experienced his fair share of dreams about the past, Will, and his Uncle John, but they never included his father. Ben Cartwright had remained oddly absent from his oldest son's nocturnal recollections; the troublesome dreams that Ed Payson had once sadly confirmed were more repressed memories than vivid images born from an unconscious, overactive imagination. Recalling the conversation between John and Ben, the dark hallway, and Will, Adam wondered if this specific dream was a memory. As a small boy, had he overheard a private conversation between his father and his uncle before being pulled into the darkness by Will?
"Yes," a familiar, deep voice suddenly affirmed.
Looking up, Adam found his father standing in front of the office door. He stared at Ben in bewildered awe, wondering where he had come from, when he had arrived, and what he was talking about. Looking back at this interaction, he would never remember a word he had spoken in response, how he had summoned the strength or mental clarity to speak, or anything the two of them had spoken about. The only things that were destined to live in his memory were Ben's parting declaration and the expression on his face as he opened his mouth, penitent with the slightest hint of pride.
"You're a grown man, Adam," his father said. "And the sheriff of this town. I believe you are quite capable of making the right decisions for yourself and those around you."
Ben had left him then, disappearing as quickly as he had appeared. And once again, Adam was alone to contend with his headache and lingering stupefaction, the recurrent and insistent images of his dream, and the anger, pain, and guilt his father's words awoke. Where had Ben's certainty about his oldest son's character been the evening Adam had returned? Where had his faith been the afternoon Adam donned his sheriff's badge? What had given birth to this change, this sudden clarity that his father seemed to be experiencing? Why couldn't he have found the desire to summon such sentiments years ago? If only Ben had been wise enough to make such a firm declaration years ago—if only he could have understood what such a thing could have meant.
And if only Adam was wise enough to understand the significance of his dream. If only he could discern if the events had been wholly real or partly imagined. If only he could remember all that Roy Coffee seemed so certain of. Then maybe he would be able to calm the building sense of wrongness overwhelming him. Something about Coffee's account of things wasn't right. Something about how the older man had come upon him, unconscious and beaten, on the outskirts of town was downright incorrect.
Leaning over, he collected the keys to the jail cells with a groan. Standing up slowly, he walked on slightly shaky legs toward the room in the back, which housed the building's twin cells. He had to stop once and then twice to take a series of short breaths, certain both times that he was going to be ill. His stomach turned violently, a symptom he attributed more to his head wound than either his dream or his father. He opened the door and then nearly dropped the ring of iron clavises on the floor.
Roy Coffee had apprehended three men—a trio of newcomers, as he had advised. Much to Adam's surprise, there was not a familiar face among them. With the way he had been beaten, not recognizing them troubled Adam deeply. Wily or not, what reason did these strangers have to assault him? And why didn't he recall anything if they had?
Doc Marten had come and gone, wrapping a bandage around his freshly stitched head wound and declaring him concussed before instructing him to take it easy for the rest of the day. And while Adam knew that some of his confusion could be attributed to the diagnosis, he doubted that his ignorance of the men before him could be blamed on such a thing. Even if he had been ganged up on and had a bottle broken over his head, a man was bound to recognize those who had done him harm. Wasn't he?
Coffee had split the group up, housing two of the men in one cell and the third man in the remaining cell alone. They were a ragtag bunch, much younger than Adam and Coffee both; their clothing worn by lives spent wandering and enduring the elements. None of them wore a gun belt from which a weapon would have been seized. None of them looked near as wily as Coffee alleged. To Adam, they looked afraid, as uncertain of him as he was of them.
"Do you know me?" he asked.
The singular man averted his gaze while the other two shared a worried glance.
"Should I know you?" he pressed, his voice deepening with frustration.
Their attention was firmly rooted on each other, the two men's discomfort was as palpable as their apparent distrust. Whether they were skeptical of his intentions or their own, Adam was not sure. The third man remained quiet, his eyes and attention fixed on the flooring between his worn boots.
"Roy Coffee," Adam said, "the man who brought the three of you in, he says you assaulted me." Looking among them, he awaited a reply. The trio remained silent, each stubbornly unwilling to speak. "Judging by the fact that I don't recognize you, I'm assuming the three of you are new to town. I'm also assuming that Virginia City isn't different from any other settlement you've passed through. Assaulting a lawman is a felony, punishable by a few days in jail as the very least and hanging at the very most."
"And which are you leanin' toward?" the singular man asked. Though he had finally found his voice, he refused to allow his attention to stray from his boots.
"I don't know. Which one do you think fits the crime? Breaking a bottle over a man's head could be construed as attempted murder, I suppose. Or it could be dismissed as something else, depending."
"Depending on what?"
"Whether you actually did it or not."
"Are you gonna believe me if I say we didn't?"
"I don't know. Why don't you tell me your side of the story, and then I'll decide."
"Decide what?"
"If I believe you or not, and what I think ought to happen either way."
"We don't want any trouble," the singular man said. "We never wanted any trouble. I tried to tell that other guy that when he locked us up, but he wouldn't listen. He took one look at you and that damn bottle and decided upon his own truth."
"And what would yours be?"
"We didn't do it."
"How are you going to prove that?"
The singular man finally looked up, and Adam saw that he was boy than man. He was at least half the age of the other two men in his company. He couldn't have been more than seventeen, a young-looking nineteen at best. "I don't think we need to," he said, his stately, emerald-colored eyes sparking with seriousness. "If you were sure, then you wouldn't be asking for our account. You wouldn't be talking to us at all."
Adam couldn't dispute the claim. He wouldn't even try. "Put your hands out," he said. He was growing weary of the situation. With the way his head was pounding, he was in no condition to stand around and probe for more information than he had already received. With the way his legs were feeling, he wondered how long they would support his weight. Summoning his stubbornness, he had rallied while Roy Coffee, Doc Marten, and his father were present. Now that they were gone, he felt some of his determination fade. He needed to take Doc Marten's parting instructions seriously and heed them sooner rather than later. "Go on, let me see 'em."
"If you were assaulted with a glass bottle, what evidence do you expect to find on our hands?"
Adam lifted his injured hand, putting his own scratched and bruised knuckles on display. "Apparently, I fought somebody."
"Okay," the singular man said. "And do you see any marks on our faces? Do you see any visible evidence that you hit one of us?"
"No. That's why I want to see your hands."
"To verify what? Something you already know?"
"Look," Adam said gruffly, impatiently. "I'm the sheriff, not you. You are the ones in there, and I am the one out here. I am trying to give you an opportunity to prove that you also belong out here, but if you don't want to take it, if you would much rather stay put than prove you're innocent, that's your problem, not mine."
Assessing Adam, the singular man's expression was indecipherable as he seemed to not be looking at but through him. "Why do you care?" he asked eventually.
"What?"
"Do you have any idea how many towns I've passed through over the years? How many lawmen I've come across? Or how many things I've been accused of, valid or otherwise? Not a single lawman ever took the time to talk to me the way you do. Which leads me to wonder why you care so much about presenting options to those who have been accused of harming you."
"Because I don't think you did it."
The man tilted his head thoughtfully. "But you ain't sure."
"No."
"And you think that seeing our hands is going to make you more certain of us?"
Adam shook his head. No, he thought. But it just might make him more certain of himself. He didn't recall what happened. He didn't trust Roy Coffee knew half of what he claimed to. He didn't like that two out of the three men in the cells refused to speak or look at him directly. But he liked—and wanted to believe—the one who had summoned enough courage to speak.
"Just show me your hands," he said as he looked among the scattered group.
The two men in the same cell cast each other one last tentative glance before following through on the instruction. Adam blinked, his lips curling into a deep frown as he looked at their uninjured hands. He took a tottering step forward, shoved the key into the first cell's lock, swung the skeletal door open, and jetted a thumb toward the front of the building.
"Get out," he ordered the pair.
"If this is a trick—" the singular man objected. He had not offered up his hands; therefore, Adam had not unlocked his cell. Still, he felt compelled to act as a voice for the men who had been arrested beside him.
"It's not a trick," Adam said. "Go," he instructed the pair firmly. "Before I think better of it and change my mind."
The men did not need more convincing to adhere to the order. Rising quickly, they exited the jail cell, the room, and the office in what seemed like record time. When he heard the front door open and then close, he moved to the cell that housed the remaining man, shoved the key into the lock, and swung open the door.
"But you didn't see my hands," the man objected, appearing far more interested than afraid.
"I don't need to."
The man was perplexed. "Just what kind of lawman are you?"
"A different kind than you've come across before. Go on," Adam said. "Hit the road like your friends."
"Am I to interpret that as a warning to leave town?"
"I don't care if you hang around town, but you can't stay here."
The explanation seemed to appease the man, but it wasn't enough to stifle his curiosity. "You're a very strange, sheriff," he said as he finally stood, exited the cell, and began making his way toward the front of the office.
Finally presented with the empty room, Adam's shoulders sank. Vision swimming, he was no longer able to remain upright. Staggering toward the empty cot behind the iron bars, he sat heavily and planted his elbows on his knees. Trying to rest his forehead in his hands, he was quickly reacquainted with the wound on his forehead as a jolt of pain superseded the numbness, sending a shooting pain from the top of his head through his neck to run the length of his spine.
"I know you didn't ask, but, just so you know, nobody beat you on the edge of town."
Adam looked up abruptly, squinting at the doorway that separated the holding cells from the office, and found the man had returned. Or, perhaps, he had never left to begin with. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, whatever fight you were in happened someplace else. You were unconscious when you dumped on the outskirts."
"By you and your friends?" Adam asked, slightly skeptical now. Who was this man, and why did he care about anything other than his own interests?
The man smiled. "No," he said. "There was another guy. He took off running when the three of us came upon the situation. And for the record, those two guys aren't my friends."
"Then what are they?"
"I don't know, strangers. I have never seen them before today."
"And what brought you together?"
"You," the man said simply.
"What?"
"The two of them were together, and I was alone, and we were all on the edge of town. When that other guy came along with you and left you laying in the dirt to die, those other two approached you first."
"But you advocated for them."
"Like I said, I've had a bad run-in or two with the wrong kind of lawmen, and, judging by how troubled they were when your friend locked us up, those fellas have too. I suppose I couldn't have lived with myself had you been a different kind of man than you turned out to be, and had I not spoken for them when they were too frightened to speak for themselves."
Adam could not have volunteered a better explanation had he conceived of it himself. "What did he look like?" he asked.
"Who?"
"The other guy. The one who left me for dead."
The man shook his head. "Didn't get close enough to really see."
"Which way did he go?"
"Outta town. He had a horse waiting for him and a woman from the looks of it." He nodded at the breast pocket of Adam's bloodstained shirt. "I hope you didn't have anything important in there. It seemed like he took whatever you did have."
Adam's hand found his pocket, his fingers confirming that the man was right. It was empty. Everything he had been keeping there was gone. Then, all at once, he remembered. The telegraph from Lil. The gossip from the ladies in town. The unkind things the Bonner Brothers had said. And Billy Buckley, their almost-gun fight, the alleyway, and...
"Oh, shit," he swore. His eyes widened with fear as his hand found his other pocket as empty as the first. The photograph of the bludgeoned prostitute was gone. Not lost somewhere in the world but taken and now in someone else's possession. "Oh, shit." This could mean terrible things for him. Terrible things for his father and brothers, too.
The man nodded as though he had been expecting such a reaction. "I thought you might want to know sooner rather than later," he said.
"You said the man was headed out of town?" Adam asked insistently.
"Yes."
"What direction?"
"West."
West. Adam groaned. Goddamn it. It had to be west. Toward the Ponderosa and his family's home. Toward the property line that separated his family's acreage from that of the now-defunct Running D. Toward everything he wanted so desperately to pretend no longer existed.
West.
The direction, inclination, and dream that started it all.
"'I'm going to continue West, John," Ben's aged declaration rose from the depths of Adam's subconscious to resound in his ears. His dream had been a memory; he knew that now.
"All the more reason for Adam to remain here," John had said, the reply coming a little too quickly.
"I don't want to do this."
"Which is exactly the reason why you must."
"Come on, Adam," Will had whispered, taking him by the hand to drag him through the darkness. "I'm real good at hiding. We'll go to a place where no one will find us."
"West," Adam said, looking at the singular man. There was something odd lurking in the man's emerald eyes. Something unsettling. Something bleak. Was it curiosity? Pity? Was the glint itself unsettling and bleak? Or was it his own interpretation of it that was leading him to identify it as such sentiments?
"West," the man affirmed. "What do you reckon?"
"About what?"
"Are you going to need help?"
Adam shook his head and immediately regretted the action. A sharp pang vibrated through his skull; the sheer power of it was enough to prompt his stomach to sickly turn. Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath and silently willed the pain to wane. Opening his eyes, he found that it had not. His vision had doubled; instead of one man lingering in the doorway, he was now seeing two. But there was not something quite right about the person standing next to the man whom he had freed. He wasn't nearly as tall, and instead of sandy blond hair, the mop atop his head was a fiery orange.
"Boy," Jamie said, "Pa wasn't kiddin' around when he said you wasn't feeling too good."
Closing his eyes once more, Adam groaned. "Jamie." Lord, he was in no condition or mind to look after the boy.
Jamie appraised the man. "Who are you?"
The man offered the boy an introductory hand. "My name's Todd Wyatt," he said as his outstretched hand was ignored. "And I'm guessing you're Jamie. You got a last name to go with your first?"
"Hunter," Jamie said.
"Cartwright," Adam corrected, the word escaping his lips as a grunt.
Wyatt looked at Adam and then back at Jamie. "Which one is it?"
Jamie and Adam spoke in unison.
"Hunter," Jamie said.
"Both," Adam said. "He was Hunter and now he's a Cartwright."
"Okay," Wyatt said. "And which one are you?"
"What?" Adam asked.
"Hunter or Cartwright?"
"He's a marshal," Jamie said.
"He has a different last name?"
"No, I mean, he is a marshal," Jamie said proudly.
"I was a marshal," Adam said, then, blinking blearily, he wondered why he had corrected the claim. Why was he bothering to volunteer any information to this new man at all? Given the circumstances and the suspicion that facilitated their introduction, it wasn't proper for such things to be quickly or easily shared. "Look," he said, peering at Wyatt through slitted eyes, "none of this is really your business."
"That you're a marshal," Wyatt said. "And sheriff, apparently." He shook his head. "I didn't know it was lawful for a man to be both at the same time."
"It isn't. And I'm not."
"Unless, of course, a marshal decides to arrest a sheriff and govern the town himself," Jamie said. "That'd make it legal." He cast Adam a questioning gaze. "Wouldn't it?"
"Only in the correct circumstances," Adam said.
"Which I'm guessing this wasn't," Wyatt said. "What happened? Did you grow weary of chasing and decide it was time to take up a post where such lawbreakers wandered into town and toward you?"
"Man, why are you so interested in me?" Adam asked, annoyed. While his headache had initiated his building fowl mood, Wyatt's questions were not helping matters, and neither was the information he had volunteered. "Why are you still here?"
West.
Wyatt had said the man who assaulted him had gone west. The one direction Adam did not want to go.
"I don't trust myself," Ben had admitted. "Not now. Not anymore."
"Then trust me," John had said.
"Come on, Adam," Will's voice whispered. "Follow me. I know where we can hide."
"I'm still waiting for an answer to my question," Wyatt said.
"What question was that?" Jamie asked.
"The question I asked before you showed up." Wyatt looked at Adam. "So, what do you think?" He tilted his head at Jamie. "Given his age, the kid ain't going to be able to help you. Not the way I can."
"Help with what?" Jamie asked.
Wyatt ignored the boy's inquiry. "What do you think, marshal—I mean, sheriff, do you need help going after the dude who wronged you?"
With the pain in his head and neck still palpating, Adam thought about the missing photograph, how his terse interaction with Billy Buckley had facilitated such a grievous outcome. He thought about the repressed memory that had come to him disguised as a dream, his father, John, and the man whom Wyatt had advised headed west.
He considered Wyatt vaguely before formulating an answer. This time, however, he did not dare shake his head. "No," he said. Taking a deep, steadying breath, he stood and willed his weakened legs not to shake beneath his weight. "Go home, Jamie," he instructed the youth.
"But Pa told me to—"
"I don't care what Pa told you. I'm telling you something else. Go home. You and I will visit another day." He looked at Wyatt, his hazel eyes sparkling with an ominous gleam. "I expect you to get on your way," he said authoritatively. "While I appreciate your willingness to help and your aid this morning, I won't take kindly to your meddling in my affairs, official or otherwise. Like I said before, you don't have to leave town, but you can't stay here."
Did he need help? Of course, he did. But not the kind Wyatt, Jamie, or anyone else could provide. If he was headed west, toward his family's property and the Running D to retrieve his missing photograph and seek justice for how he had been harmed, it was a journey that fate and circumstance demanded he take alone.
TBC