Hoss, My Son

Chapter 1

This is a continuation of my AU which started with "The School Marm". It takes place about six weeks after the marriage of Adam and Sally Ann.

All cannon characters belong to David Dortort and Paramount Pictures. I make no money from this work.

They had their horses, a milk cow and chickens, as well as a buckboard and a nice two-seater buggy, so they had a barn in addition to their house. With no herds of cattle or horses and no fields of hay or oats, there was no need for any other buildings. On the days when Adam Cartwright was needed at the sawmill, he arose with the dawn, but otherwise, considering that he and Sally Ann were enjoying a drawn-out honeymoon, they awakened when the sun was well up in the sky. That didn't mean that left their bed. It seemed that Adam never tired of loving his wife and she enjoyed his attentions whenever, wherever and, however. Considering how much time they spent in lovemaking, it was a little surprising that Sally Ann hadn't become pregnant yet. Still, there was time. There was plenty of time.

For Joseph, the youngest Cartwright son, the days almost always began early. It wasn't just the chores that needed to be done before breakfast, it was his sixteen-month-old son, Andrew. Like any toddler, the boy was ready to go from the moment the night sky began to turn morning-gray. Joe had decided when he brought the boy from his mother's house in Sacramento to the Ponderosa, that he would keep his crib in his own room. He justified the action by saying that Andy had experienced enough changes and difficulties in his short life. Born prematurely, he was still catching up to his peers. But, if truth be known, Joe needed his son just as close by as the boy needed him.

Just down the hallway, the patriarch of the clan stretched and contemplated the day ahead before the threw back the bedcovers. Ben's hadn't been an easy life; he had worked as hard as any man could, but he'd been rewarded amply, not merely in material wealth, but more than could be counted in his family. Although he had buried three wives, his three sons were strong, healthy men (now that Adam had overcome a near-devastating accident nearly a year ago), his two daughters-in-law were wonderful women (even if Joseph's ex-wife had nearly crushed his heart and spirit) and besides his grandson Andy, his middle son, Hoss, had presented him with a most winning granddaughter, Inger Marie six months before.

Closer to Virginia City, Hoss was already in the midst of his morning chores. He was responsible for developing the Ponderosa's herd of Clydesdales and from a beginning of one stallion and one mare, the corrals now held an additional two mares, a colt and three fillies. One of the mares was already carrying a second foal and one, possibly both of the other mares would be ready for breeding again in short order. The breakfast smells from the kitchen of the house enticed him mightily. His wife Prudence was a good cook and with her youngest sister and parents staying with them for the time being, there was always something on the stove. Probably Pru and Margaret, his mother-in-law were boiling coffee and making mashed potatoes, bacon and steaks with gravy. Little Inger would be in Auntie Gertie's lap, being fed some sort of hot cereal and his father-in-law John would be up and working on any number of papers. When his in-laws would move into their recently purchased house in Virginia City, it was going to seem mighty quiet with only Pru and Inger in the house. Of course, there was his foreman Peter Torkelson and his wife Rachel in their own cabin across the yard, but it wouldn't be the same. Gertie wanted to stay with her sister and Hoss. The one-room schoolhouse had nothing to teach her, even with her highly trained father taking over the teaching duties, and she'd spent much of the summer caring for both his little girl and Joseph's son. She wanted to continue to care for the children while she decided what she would do with her life, and it was a help to both families, especially Joseph. Not that it seemed that Joe minded having the young girl around. She was fifteen – that age where an adolescent girl looked like a woman, but really wasn't. Jail-bait, they called girls that age, but Hoss knew his brother was smart enough not to step into that trap. He liked her, and she liked him, but they both seemed to be keeping far from that precipice.

John Whitman waited patiently for his coffee as his wife and oldest daughter moved about the kitchen. Hoss ate as much as any man he'd ever seen, but Prudence's husband seemed to do the work of four men before breakfast and then was out the door with Torkelson to plow the hay or train the horses or go up to his father's house to do some work there. But most of all, he mused, he loved his wife and daughter tenderly and there was nothing he wouldn't do for them. Whitman turned his attention to the papers in front of them. The old house in Cincinnati was sold and their furniture would be arriving in a few days if there were no problems on the way. Their new home in Virginia City would soon be ready, although the question of young Gertie's situation had yet to be settled. His work for the Virginia City School was coming along nicely; he'd be able to step in smoothly on the first day.

Hop Sing had been up as early as Hoss. There was breakfast to make, clothes to be washed, the house to be cleaned and straightened up. Most likely Missy Gertie would come by a little after breakfast to help watch little Mr. Andy. He had already told Mr. Joe how good she was with the boy. She kept him from being underfoot when he was working hard, but always knew just when to bring the boy into the kitchen for milk and cookies warm from the oven. Mr. Joe didn't say much about her, but since Hop Sing had known him since he was a little boy, he didn't need the words said out loud. He knew that the young father thought a lot of her.

That left the two youngest Whitman's starting their day on the Ponderosa. Ted would be returning to Boston for his sophomore year at Harvard shortly. Like the year before, he'd spent the summer as a ranch hand for Ben and working with Adam on prototypes for freight wagons fitted to the Clydesdales' size and strength. So far the harnesses and the purpose-built wagon had passed all their tests, but the new wagon tongue wasn't quite living up to their expectations. They had designed the tongue to be articulated. It would reduce the turning radius of the wagon and could take a theoretically endless number of additional tongue attachments. At first they found that the tongues flexed too much at the point where they were hitched together when turning, but this was easily fixed with an underplate extending past the attachment point. Then they found that if they hitched more than two sets of horses to the wagon, the articulation of the tongue so essential for the reduced turning radius, could cause the whole assemblage to jack-knife. And in order to prevent the hitching point from being bent out of true, it had to be forged out of iron, which added weight. They'd been working on the dynamics of the new tongue for weeks and the only solution the two could come up with was to limit the functional movement of joints.

Gertie had taken to borrowing a horse to ride up to the big house to take care of Andy. The ride back and forth was a good time for trying to feel her way forward. She had thought she'd become a teacher like her father, sisters, and older brother, but for some time now it hadn't felt like it would be a satisfying path. She contemplated studying mathematics, but whenever she had mentioned it to anyone outside of the family, they assumed that she meant to work as a bookkeeper for a shopkeeper or, if she were lucky, a banker. She also considered studying medicine. Elizabeth Blackwell had earned a medical degree decades earlier, but women were still largely discouraged from pursuing it and tuition and board were extremely expensive. Prudence had suggested obtaining an education as a midwife. Gertie looked at it as a stepping stone toward further medical knowledge; it was the only reason for her to consider it. Still, she had no clear sense of how to move forward and that seemed to confuse her family. The only one who appeared to understand her interest in something other than teaching was Joseph and when they could catch a few moments to talk, he always encouraged her, in a detached sort of way, to express what she was feeling. Unfortunately, what she felt around him was confusion. He had kissed her, albeit on the cheek at Sally Ann and Adam's wedding, but then seemed to have forgotten all about it. The last thing she wanted to do was discuss it with anybody. It had obviously been a mistake, something that had happened with the excitement of the day. That's all it was and that's all it would ever be.

For Andy, Gertie's arrival was always an exciting time. She was so much more warm and friendly than his grandmother Hood had been, and she was much more interested in him as an individual than his mother. Seeing her arrive, he slipped his hand from Hop Sing's and ran toward his favorite. Each time she came, he was full to bursting with words to tell her what had happened since he'd awakened. Day by day, his speech became more intelligible, but when the torrent of words flowed out, like it did today, it took someone who was well acquainted with him to understand.

"Auntie G'rTee! Auntie G'rTee! I seed 'a b'rdy. Hop Hop say iz R'bin. Iz biiiiig b'rdy." He held his hands wide apart to show her how big the robin was. If his measurement was correct, it was as big as a chicken.

"And did the robin say anything to you?" she asked.

"He go 'tee-tee-tee!"

"Indeed?! That sounds very interesting. Did Baba see the birdie?"

"No. He go work. G'ba go work, too."

"It's too bad that they didn't get to see the birdy. How about you draw a picture of it for them?"

"Then cookie?" Somehow, the little boy seemed to have inherited his Uncle Hoss's appetite. The completion of any task seemed to him to be an excellent occasion for cake or a cookie.

"Would you like an apple instead?"

"NO! Cookie, Cookie, Cookie!" the little boy insisted, stamping his foot. The Cartwright men were known to have tempers; when Ben yelled, it was as if the wrath of God filled the house. Adam's temper was cold, calculating and intensely chilling. Hoss, bless him, rarely lost his temper, but when he did, he just quietly went about using whatever method was best to settle the situation, be it his fists or something else. Joseph was the most apt to flare up. Not as sarcastic as Adam, nor as liable to quickly end an argument with his strength as Hoss could, he was the scrapper of the family. When he took offense, he looked like a grown-up version of his son. He could verbally stomp his feet with the best of them.

Nevertheless, Gertie wasn't one to allow the little boy to have his way constantly. Both she and Hop Sing agreed that the boy could too easily become spoiled and in the loving arms of his extended family it was becoming all too possible. Everyone felt sorry and even somewhat guilty, for what Andy and Joseph had endured during his difficult first year. But letting him have all the sweets his heart desired, she realized, was hardly what he needed.

"Let's get started on the picture and then we'll see what else we can do, alright?"

Andy had quickly scribbled on the piece of paper that Gertie had given him and then handed it to her. "Horsies?" he asked. It was clear that he had the same affinity for the animals that his father had. Almost every day he would say, "Me bi' boy. Horsie now?" Gertie would put him on her hip, and they would go to the corral and stroke the nose of one of the horses there and she would hand Andy a carrot to offer the animal. Hoss had carved him a rocking horse, but most of the time the boy rejected it. He knew well enough that it was a toy and the only time he liked it was when a large group of men were expected to ride into the yard. Then he would sit on the toy on the porch and rock on it while the crowd of men and animals cantered in, pretending he was riding in with them.

This morning the only one who rode in was Adam. It was all Gertie could do to keep the child from rocketing out of her grip while Sport was still on the move.

"K'l A'am!"

Adam strode over and lifted the wiggling child from Gertie's arms. "Well, good morning to you both. Are you being a good boy and listening to Auntie?"

"Yes! Goo' boy!"

"Well, that makes me very happy, Andy." Adam gave him a kiss on the curly, dark hair on top of his head and leaned over Gertie and kissed her cheek as well. He was not one to give out hugs and kisses willy-nilly and she was very happy to be the recipient of his regard.

"Where are Pa and Joe?" he asked.

"They're out looking at a herd of wild horses that the men sighted in the open desert scrub to the north," she replied. She saw Adam''s face lose color a bit and she didn't blame him one bit. She'd heard the story of his gruesome injury; if it had been her, she never would have gotten back on a horse, not if her life depended on it.

As it was, Adam could no longer participate in breaking horses, even if he wanted to. There had been several wild herds that they had captured in the past half year; he hadn't been sufficiently healed to even contemplate joining the riders, but now he was. Of course, his father would insist that he not join in rounding up this group, and Sally Ann would agree. But should he take the easy, safe way out?

All his life he'd been the one to see trouble coming before anyone else. He'd had to. Life had been, and still was, so fragile, so difficult. Coming across the plains, his father clothed in his determination, purposely blinding himself to all the difficulties so that he could make his dream come true. Purposely forging forward to forget first one wife, then another. Oh, Adam knew well enough that Pa hadn't really forgotten his mother or Inger, but as a child, it had seemed to him that he had. Sometimes, it seemed that he had forgotten also, that his eldest son was still a child. He'd raised Hoss as much as his father had, caring for the infant by imitating the way the young mothers of the wagon train cared for their babies. The other children in the caravan might have to help out with the animals or walk long miles during the day but come sunset they could spend some time playing. But not Adam. Pa was always talking with the wagon-master or the other men of the company. Like as not, Adam would get supper started, make a thin gruel that Hoss could suck down in a bottle, change him, wash out his diaper and get him to sleep. And he watched the adults. If he had to be an adult at seven years of age, he needed a primer. Watching them was his primer. It taught him to know when things were alright, and they could be more at ease. He learned from their anxiety when there was trouble. He learned from their own internal dissensions to judge a man's character and sense of right and wrong. And he learned also, that too quick a judgement could be just as dangerous as one taken too late.

The times when Ben was able to spare his older son some attention was precious to the boy. His father was his first teacher and instilled a love of learning in Adam. He rarely talked about the recent past, but his stories of his life on the sea fascinated the child and sowed the seeds of his interest in architectural engineering. And when Ben's attention was present enough to see all that Adam carried on his shoulders, he praised him and slowly their relationship became not just father and son, but equal partners on the difficult journey.

Even once they got to Nevada, Adam had little time for childhood pursuits. There was the beginning of a school, but there were plenty of times that the teacher had to work in the family store or attend to her own sick children. If Pa couldn't find someone to watch Hoss, Adam had to stay home himself. Then there were the times that they were too poor to hire a man to help cut down lumber or work on building their cabin so that they wouldn't have to face a winter sheltered only by a tent. At those times Adam was the only other one who could provide any help at all. And once Hoss started walking, they'd have to tie a rope around his waist and then tie the rope to a tree to keep him safe. Unfortunately, even as a young child, his brother was strong enough to pull apart almost any knot or even shred the rope to pieces. Adam had to watch and be wary. And when things finally seemed to be settled nicely, once the ranch was a going concern and he and Hoss could go to school on a regular basis and finally be just young boys, Pa had left them to go to New Orleans. Traveling by ship around the horn and back took more than a year. He wrote when he could, long letters telling about his adventures and eventually about Marie, but Adam felt abandoned. Even though Ben had hired Hop Sing who cared for them like a substitute parent, it was a betrayal. It hardened Adam even more and made him less trusting. Softness was vulnerability and vulnerability inevitably led to loss. And he wasn't going to allow himself to lose anything or anyone ever again. He would be the one to pick and choose who was in his life and who wasn't. He would never allow anyone to ever inflict that soul-searing pain on him again.

The only person whom he didn't hold at arm's length during that time was Hoss. It was impossible to push his brother away from him. The child was just too pure of soul, too loving not to hold onto with all of his might. Years later, Adam would come to realize that it was Hoss who kept his heart from turning into a cinder with his own uncomplicated love. Oh, he might tease his mountain of a brother, he might chide him for letting Joseph talk him into yet another hare-brained scheme, but Hoss was the one person he was never angry or at odds with.

As Adam quickly contemplated his life, one foot on the rail of the corral, he thought of his father and youngest brother investigating the wild herd of horses. A younger him would have said he had to rise to the challenge of another round up, to prove to himself and his father that he was whole again. It would have been a point of pride to show Ben Cartwright that he, his eldest son, held his destiny in his own hands once and for all. It would have been a statement that no matter how much his father felt that they, the Ponderosa, and everything about their lives were inextricably linked, he kept his liberty regardless. But this Adam Cartwright, this man who was married and wished for children of his own, did he really need to do that? Did he truly believe that he could divorce himself from his family? Somehow since the time he had been away in Europe, he'd changed. His heart wasn't a dead piece of charcoal. He could finally admit that he loved and loved deeply. Not just his wife or his brothers, but his father too. Perhaps his father most of all.