The Protectors
I don’t want to find the boy.
Truth be told, I don’t even want to look for him. Hadn’t been for Little Joe hounding me, I’d be setting at home in front of the fire, playing checkers and pretending Joe wasn’t cheating. Instead, I’m out here in cold rain and mud, with my soggy little brother leading the way up a trail so narrow that it don’t even deserve the name. I don’t know what’s worse, Joe’s chatter on normal days or his quiet now. He ain’t said more’n three words since we left town.
He knows what’s gonna happen, if we find the boy. And I don’t want him there for it.
Everybody always knew that Amos Parker was mean as a snake. I’ve had occasion to tangle with him a few times myself. Had the bite marks on my hand to prove it. Danged if I know how Mary Beth Simpson got herself messed up with him. He was as ornery and ugly a man as I ever met, and she was right pretty when the light hit her just so. But I reckon a gal can do dumb things if she wants to, and this one was a doozy. Next thing everybody knew, there was a shotgun wedding and little Tommy Parker.
Tommy and Little Joe went to school together. That’s partly why Joe’s all het up about findin’ him now. Tommy was always a quiet kid, and he and Joe never played much together, but my little brother used to keep an eye out for Tommy. I recall a handful of times over the years when Little Joe came home, all bruised and bleeding, and he wouldn’t tell Pa why. He’d get in trouble, with Pa thinking he’d just been in another silly fight and lecturing him about learning to hold his temper. Wasn’t ’til today that Joe told me how he’d gotten so beat up all those times. Seems Tommy’d come to school looking near as bad as Joe did when he got home, and some of the kids made fun of him. My hotheaded little brother wasn’t ever gonna sit still for that. So, he’d jump in and try to stop it. Since he’s always been one of the littlest kids in his class, he never came out of it too well, but that didn’t stop him from trying.
I never knew about any of this until this morning. Joe never said a word. Tommy made him swear on the Bible that he wouldn’t tell anyone. He wanted to make Joe swear on his ma’s grave, but Joe would never do that, and I guess Tommy knew better than to press. Tommy told Joe that, if Joe talked, things’d be worse for Tommy. So, my little brother gave his word and never backed away from it, not even when Pa tanned his hide for fighting.
Me and Joe were in town when we heard the news. Ida Mae Wilson came runnin’ down the street, screaming and wailing. “She’s dead, she’s dead!” she kept yelling.
I grabbed her arms and made her face me. “Who’s dead?” My voice was harsh and loud. I don’t usually take that tone with ladies, but I needed her to hear me. Little Joe was crowding in beside me.
“Mary Beth Parker,” Mrs. Wilson managed.
My little brother whispered a word that I knew he’d never heard from Pa. If I hadn’t had my hands full with Mrs. Wilson, I’d have marched him right back to the wagon then and there, and that would have been the last time he’d have been sitting down for some time. Saying something like that—and in front of a lady, too. But before I could do more than start to turn his way, he was off like a jackrabbit, running down the street toward where Mrs. Wilson had come from. A crowd was starting to gather around us, and I lost sight of him, what with Mrs. Wilson crying and everybody jabbering and getting in the way.
It took a few minutes before Roy Coffee got there, and a few more before he had the story. By the time he got rid of the crowd and him and me was heading down the street to the Parker place, probably ten minutes had passed since we’d met up with Ida Mae Wilson. An important ten minutes, as it turned out, but we couldn’t have known it then.
The Parker place ain’t much to look at. Amos was always more interested in looking at the inside of a bottle than anything else. We stepped inside, and it was pretty clear that things had been a lot worse than anybody knew. There was practically no furniture. There was only one bed. I don’t know where Tommy slept, but it looked like probably the floor. I didn’t see any sign of any kind of food in the kitchen.
A broken whiskey bottle was lying in the middle of the room. It looked like somebody had smashed off the bottom, like they do when they’re making a weapon. They’d made a fine weapon in this case. There was blood everywhere. Mary Beth had been pretty much cut to ribbons. I closed my eyes.
Then, I heard a groan, and I opened them again. In the corner, looking for all the world like a bloody pile of rags, was Amos. A kitchen knife was sticking out of his gullet. He was bleeding like a stuck pig, but he was alive.
Roy hustled over to the corner. Amos’ eyes were barely open. “Amos! Amos!” Roy slapped his cheek to try to wake him up. Over his shoulder, he said to me, “Go get Doc Martin.” I ran out the door of that sad little house and up to Doc’s office as fast as I could.
When we got back, Roy was shaking his head. “Too late,” he said.
“Did he say who done this?” I asked.
“Nope,” said Roy. “Jest kept askin’ for his boy.”
When Roy said that, I suddenly remembered Little Joe. I had no idea where he’d gone in such an all-fired hurry. Wherever it was, I was glad he was there. I wouldn’t have wanted him to see this. He might be all of fourteen and doing a man’s work on the ranch, but there’s still some things he ain’t old enough to see. Sometimes, I don’t know if I’m quite old enough for some of what I see. I don’t know if anybody can be.
The undertaker went into the Parker house, and Roy and I went out. “Reckon you’re gonna have to get a posse together?” I asked.
“What for?”
“Gotta find whoever killed the Parkers.”
“What makes you think they didn’t kill each other?” Roy asked. I allowed as how it made sense to me. I figured that he knew a lot more about what went on in that house than I did, anyway. “Thing I wanna know is, where’s the boy?” he added.
I shrugged. I was ready to say I didn’t know anything about that when it dawned on me that I just might. So, I got myself away from Roy and started combing the town for Little Joe.
I found him at the livery stable, currying one of the horses. No surprise there. If you can’t find Joe, look for the nearest horse. In a few years, it might be the nearest beer, or the nearest pretty gal, but for now, it’s still horses. “Where in tarnation you been?” I put on my roughest voice. He looked up, and right away I wished I hadn’t. The kid was trembling. He looked like he’d been scared half to death. I could see the tears in his eyes. “What the…” I started. He moved toward me, into the light, and I saw all that blood on him. I knew in that second that he knew more about what I’d just seen than I did. A lot more.
I pushed the horse to one side of the stall and guided Joe back in beside him. I wrapped my arms around my little brother in a too-late effort to protect him from knowing such hurtful things. I felt him shudder. I held him tight, stroking his hair and whispering to him as he sobbed in the darkness of a horse stall, away from the prying eyes of anybody who might happen into the stable. I knew I was going to have ask him some hard questions, and I was going to have to make him answer, but not yet. I needed to know about Tommy Parker, but my brother came first.
Finally, when Joe was all cried out, I took him into an empty stall and sat him down. I closed the stable door so we’d hear if anybody came in. Then, I sat down across from him. He didn’t look up. I reached over and lifted his chin so he had to look at me. “Are you all right?” I asked. He nodded as best he could with me holding his face. “Then we need to talk.” I let go of him, and his eyes slid back down to the floor. Pa would have made him look up to show respect. I wasn’t worried about that right then. I was more worried that I wouldn’t get a straight answer out of him.
I figured I’d start with the obvious. “Where’d all the blood come from?”
“Parkers’.”
I could barely hear him. I slid over next to him and put my arm around his shoulder. He leaned into me and closed his eyes. I shook him ever so slightly, and he opened them and looked up at me in that way he has that just breaks my heart. I didn’t want to, but I made myself be tough. “Now you listen,” I said. “I’m right here, and everything’s gonna be all right, but you gotta talk to me. You gotta tell me what happened. All of it.” He started trembling again, and I held him close.
After a minute, he started to talk. He told me about Tommy and his pa, and about the fights at school and how Tommy’d made him swear on the Bible not to tell anybody. “I came close to telling Pa once, but I couldn’t,” he said. “I gave my word.” I was torn between being proud of him for keeping his word even when it meant he got in trouble, and being mad at all of us—me, Pa and Adam—for doing too good a job at teaching him how important that was. I don’t think it ever crossed any of our minds to tell him that there might come a time when he should break his word.
“When Mrs. Wilson said Mrs. Parker was dead—where did you go?” I asked.
“Parkers’,” he said.
“Why?”
“’Cause—I was afraid.”
“Afraid of what?”
“I was afraid of what he might do to him,” Little Joe whispered.
“Was Tommy there when you got there?” Joe nodded. “What happened?”
“It was all happening so fast—he had that big knife—and she was lying there, and there was blood everywhere, and he said he was gonna kill him…” I held the boy tight. He was shaking so hard. “They fought—and he stabbed him—I saw him do it…” His breathing got faster and harder, and I held him closer.
“It’s all right, it’s over now,” I said, real quiet, like he was wild thing. Watching his friend get stabbed—I couldn’t even imagine it. Eventually, he quieted down. We sat there for a while, not saying anything. Then, I had a thought. If Tommy’d been stabbed, why wasn’t he at the house? “Joe?” The boy barely looked up at me. He was so worn out, he’d almost fallen asleep. “Joe? Where’s Tommy?”
That woke him right up. He sat up straight and moved away from me. I don’t swear, but at that moment, I wanted to. I knew that whatever I heard was gonna be bad. I asked again, “Where’s Tommy?”
“I can’t tell you,” Little Joe whispered.
“Little Brother, you gotta tell me,” I said. “I know he’s your friend, but this is a whole lot bigger now. He’s hidin’ somewhere bleedin’, we gotta find him.”
“Bleeding? Why? What happened to him?”
I was confused. “You said he stabbed him.” Then, as Joe shook his head, I understood.
“It was Tommy who stabbed his pa,” Joe said.
Oh, sweet Lord, no. I hadn’t thought things could be worse. “Joe, you gotta tell me where he is,” I said. “They’re gonna need to be lookin’ for him. Where is he?”
“No,” said Little Joe. “I can’t tell you. If anybody finds him and brings him back, his pa’ll beat the daylights out of him. His pa already killed his ma ’cause he found out she was gonna leave. He’ll tell them Tommy did that, and if Tommy doesn’t hang, he’ll do the same thing to Tommy he did to Tommy’s ma.”
That was when I realized that Joe and Tommy had left that house too early. They didn’t know how things had turned out. I placed both hands on Joe’s shoulders to hold him steady. “Joe, Tommy’s pa died,” I said, as gentle as I could.
Joe turned sickly white. He bolted from under my hands and didn’t get quite to the door before he was on his knees getting sick. I came up behind him and held his shoulders until he was done. Then, I helped him to his feet and back to the empty stall. We sat in the hay for a while, Joe leaning against me, neither of us saying anything. Finally, I said, “We should get going. Pa’s gonna be wondering where we are.”
Little Joe looked at me like I was crazy. “We can’t go home,” he said. “We gotta go after Tommy.”
“What?”
“Hoss, we gotta go after him.” Joe was getting frantic. “There’s gonna be a posse out lookin’ for him. We have to get there first. We have to help him get away.”
“Whoa, Little Brother, slow down,” I said. I didn’t tell him what Roy had said about the Parkers killing each other. There wasn’t going to be any posse looking for a killer. What there might be was a group of people searching Virginia City for a missing boy. As soon as I had that thought, I saw the problem. If Tommy had half as much blood on him as Joe did, somebody was bound to start asking questions. I knew Tommy was good at keeping his mouth shut—he’d been doing it for years—but I also knew that Pa wasn’t going to stand by and do nothing, not after his boy had seen a man get murdered. Pa has a powerful strong belief in law and justice. Even if that belief was gonna have to do fierce battle with the part of him that has his own fourteen-year-old boy now and already raised two others, I couldn’t see him not following the law. I didn’t know how much of a choice he’d get, anyway. Once they found Tommy and slapped a murder charge on him, I didn’t know if being a kid would keep him from the noose or not.
“Hoss, please, we have to go after him, we have to help him, we just have to, I promised him that it would be all right, we have to help him, please, Hoss, please.” Little Joe was panicking. Oh, Lordy. There was something else I didn’t know. I could just feel it. And I knew I wasn’t gonna like it.
I took the boy by both arms. “Stop,” I said. “Just stop.” Joe stopped talking, but he was still trembling. I looked him straight in the eye. “Joseph,” I said, deliberately using Pa’s strict voice. “What did you do?”
Joe’s eyes widened. He seemed almost scared of me. Everything in me wanted to hug him again, but I didn’t. I needed him to be worried enough to tell me the truth, not some Joe-version of the truth. He looked around the empty stall we were sitting in. At first, I thought he was trying to avoid telling me. Then, I knew.
“Did you get him a horse?” Nodding. “A horse from here?” Nodding again. “How did you pay for it?” He shook his head.
I closed my eyes. Tommy was a murderer. And he was nowhere in town. He stole a horse, and my little brother had helped—or maybe Joe had stolen it for him. I didn’t know if that would matter. I knew there was some fancy name for what Joe did, helping out with a crime. Adam would know the word. I wished Adam were here. He’d know what to do. Pa would know what to do. I was the only one who didn’t know what to do. This wasn’t some kid prank. This was as serious as serious gets.
“Little Joe, listen to me. Did Tommy say where he was going?” Little Joe bit his lower lip. He looked at me, then down at his boots. I shook him, and he looked up again. “Where was he going?”
“I promised I wouldn’t tell,” he whispered.
I let go of him. I tried to explain to my little brother about how sometimes, the kindest, the safest, the best thing you can do for somebody is to break your promise to them. He kept nodding while I was talking, so I knew he heard me. But then, he said, “So, was I wrong to keep Tommy’s secret all this time?”
I didn’t know how to answer him. If I said he was, he’d take it as me saying that the whole awful day was his fault, and if he’d spoken up sooner, maybe somebody could have done something so that two people wouldn’t be dead. Maybe that was true, and maybe it wasn’t. There was no way to know. But if I said he wasn’t wrong then, how could I convince him to break his word now?
“You did the best you could, Little Brother,” I said at last. “But now, you need to tell me where he is.”
Joe shook his head. “I said I wouldn’t tell,” he said. Just as I was about to grab him and shake him hard, he added, “But I didn’t say I wouldn’t show anybody.”
I breathed a big sigh of relief. “All right, then. Let’s go get Roy, and…”
“No!”
“Joe, he’s the sheriff, he’s gotta go…”
“No! Just you an’ me, nobody else!”
I dropped my head in my hands and took a big breath. “You ain’t goin’ nowhere but home, Little Brother,” I said.
Joe shook his head. “I said I’d show you,” he said. “If you don’t take me, how’m I gonna show you?”
My head was pounding by this time. “All right,” I said. “Let’s just head out to the Ponderosa and get some supplies and Pa and Adam, and…”
“No!” It was almost a scream. “Just you and me! Nobody else! They won’t understand!”
He wasn’t making any sense. I was almost afraid to take him out of there. He’d had such a terrible, terrible day. Part of me wanted to leave Tommy Parker to his own devices and take my little brother home to sit in front of the fire so that Pa could make everything all right. I could hear the rain that had started up while we were sitting in here. I didn’t know how I’d ever explain it to Pa if I took Joe out looking for Tommy with Joe in such a state.
For just a moment, I hated the whole Parker family, and Amos Parker most of all. It ain’t like me even to think such a thing, much less say it, but right then, for just a second, it was true. Just seeing what they’d done to my little brother, with all their secrets and their beatings and their bloodshed—if Little Joe hadn’t been so desperate, I think at that moment I just might have wished Tommy luck and taken my brother home where he belonged.
“Hoss.” His voice was so quiet. Those big green eyes were shiny with tears. “Please.”
It went against everything I knew I should do, but I couldn’t say “no” to him. He’d been through so much, today and for years before today. He needed to finish what he’d started, or it would haunt him forever.
“All right, here’s what we’re gonna do,” I began. “I’m gonna tell Roy what we’re doin ’—yes, I am,” I said, staring him down as he was about to fight me on that. I’d let Roy take care of telling Pa where we were. “I’m gonna get us some supplies, including some clean clothes for you. Meantime, I’m gonna check you into the hotel, and you’re gonna get something to eat, and you’re gonna get some sleep. I ain’t gonna have you tumblin’ out of your saddle ’cause you’re fallin’ asleep on me.”
“I ain’t sleepy,” Little Joe protested. I ignored him. The boy was plumb worn out, and we both knew it. I’d have left him to sleep right there in the horse stall if I’d been convinced that nobody would come by in the next couple hours, but it was too chancy to leave him there while I was gone. I didn’t want anybody thinking of Joe when they were trying to figure out what happened to one of the horses.
“Come here,” I said, standing up. I rolled up his sleeves and put my vest on him. It wasn’t much, but at least it covered most of the blood. Good thing the blood had been mostly dried by the time I got here. Otherwise, we’d be figuring out what to do about it on me, too.
As we started to leave the stall, I had a thought. I fished a bill out of the vest pocket and laid it on the divider between this stall and the next one, and put a horseshoe on top of it to anchor it. At Joe’s look, I said, “That’s for Tommy’s horse.”
“Thanks, Big Brother,” he whispered.
I laid my arm around his shoulders. “It’s gonna be all right,” I said, just like I had any reason in the world to believe that I was telling him the truth.
**********
We’ve only been out here a couple hours, but we’re losing daylight. Maybe I let Little Joe sleep too long, but he needed it so, and I couldn’t bring myself to wake him. I almost didn’t wake him at all. Then, I thought of Tommy, all alone in the world, sleeping all by himself out in the rain, and I knew we couldn’t let that happen if there was any way not to.
As soon as I touched Little Joe’s shoulder, he sat bolt upright. Most times, it takes a team of mules to get that boy out of bed. My heart hurt to see the look in his eyes. If I hadn’t promised him, I’d have taken him right straight back to Pa. For a second, it almost struck me as funny—both of us tangled up with Tommy Parker on account of promises we’d made that wiser people would have told us we shouldn’t keep. But it was too late now. We were going.
All Joe would tell me when we were leaving town was to head west. I didn’t say anything, but I wondered if Tommy was hiding on our land. West from Virginia City takes a man straight across the Ponderosa. Sure enough, we’ve been on Cartwright land most of the time we’ve been riding. I’m trying not to think about what’s gonna happen if Pa realizes that I had Joe out tracking down a killer on our own land. Somehow, it don’t seem quite as bad if we’re someplace else.
About half an hour ago, Joe stopped us. “I’ll lead from here,” he said. Something in his voice, and I knew not to argue. So, I dropped back, and he took us off the main road, along some pretty narrow paths that we had to fight the horses to get through, and up this trail that we’re on now.
We’re going slow, but I’m watching Joe enough to know that, so far, he ain’t tracking Tommy. Not that he couldn’t if he wanted to. Even with the rain washing away the main part of the trail, there’s enough broken branches and tracks on the edge to see that somebody come through here not long ago. Even my little brother could follow these signs without working hard. But Little Joe’s just riding, not looking around. So, that means that he knows just where Tommy is. I have to wonder when they planned this. Tommy’s a town boy. I didn’t even know he could sit a horse. There’s no way he figured this out himself, or even just followed my brother’s directions. At some point, he and Little Joe must have made this ride. The thought makes me go cold. Once upon a time, Tommy Parker and my little brother knew a day like this would come along.
We’re climbing higher. I know where we’re headed now. There’s a cave not too far from here. Just the kind of place boys would think was a good place to hide. They wouldn’t think so much about how there’s no stream or fresh water nearby, or what might already be living in the cave, or not being able to build a fire inside, or how once you’re there, there’s no way out if somebody shows up. Still, on a cold, rainy night, it’s better than sleeping in the open.
Sure enough, I see a little bay mare tied under a tree, not far from the mouth of the cave. You can’t see the cave from here, just the rock side of it. I realize for the first time that Tommy and Joe intended all along that Joe would meet up with Tommy here. I don’t know what they thought would happen after that, whether Joe figured he’d ride with Tommy a while to get him where he needs to be or what. I’m sure my little brother never thought about the peck of trouble he’d be in when he came home after disappearing without a word. That’s so much like him. He jumps in to help, and hang the consequences.
Little Joe reins in his horse, but doesn’t dismount. He looks back at me. Before I can speak, he holds a finger to his lips. We sit quiet for a minute, listening. There’s no sound but the rain that’s coming down hard on the branches, on our hats and slickers, on the muddy ground. My brother whistles, a pretty fine imitation of a whippoorwill. After a minute, he does it again. He waits, and does it a third time. Then, he slides from the back of his horse, holding up a hand to let me know not to follow. He moves to the mouth of the cave without a sound and disappears inside.
I stay where I am. I can hear voices, but not words. Little Joe asking, Tommy answering. Then Joe telling, and Tommy asking. I hear Tommy’s voice, sharp and angry, and Little Joe trying to soothe him. Tommy’s voice gets more and more upset, and Joe’s does, too. It’s time for me to get in there.
At the mouth of the cave, I clear my throat, real loud. Both boys stop arguing and look at me. I’m nowhere near ready for what I see. Tommy has a black eye, like somebody punched him square. There’s a big bruise on his jaw, and it’s swollen on one side. A slash down his cheek looks almost more like a tear than a cut. I’d bet anything it was done with that broken whiskey bottle. There’s another gash, just over the eye that ain’t black. I bless whatever made me put together a medicine kit when I was rounding things up for this trip.
“This is my brother, Hoss,” says Joe.
“I know who he is,” says Tommy. His eyes are blue, like mine, but I don’t think mine have ever been as cold and hard as what’s looking at me now.
“Tommy, it’s good that he’s here,” says Little Joe. “It’ll be better this way.”
Tommy shifts his glare from me to Joe. “Why’s that?” I’m impressed with how he seems willing to listen to my little brother. Joe means something to him, that’s clear enough.
“Because now, nobody’s gonna come lookin’ for you,” Joe explains. “Hoss is the best tracker in these parts. If he says you can’t be found, ain’t nobody else gonna try looking for you.”
Well. If that don’t beat all. That’s we call “Joe logic.” If you don’t look too close, it makes sense, but usually, there’s at least a couple of whopping big holes in it. Like this time. First of all, a blind man could have followed Tommy’s trail. What that kid don’t know about covering his tracks would fill a book. And second, Joe’s figuring that I’ll lie to everybody when we get back, and he should know better than that. Just when I’m about to say something like this, he shoots me a look that tells me, plain as day, to just go along for now. I cross my arms and say nothing. I figure that he knows Tommy better than I do, but I hope he’s got something else planned.
Tommy looks me up and down. I’d have expected somebody who’s had the day he’s had to be scared or skittish. He don’t even look a little bit nervous. Fact is, he reminds me a little bit of Pa when he’s about to run somebody off the Ponderosa. The thought strikes me funny, since Tommy’s on our land, not us on his, and I can’t help smiling. Both boys look at me like I’m plumb loco.
Then, I look at Tommy again, and the smile goes away. I step closer to him. “I’ve got something in my saddlebag to clean those cuts,” I say. “I’ll be right back.” I head back out into the rain and get my gear and Joe’s. I’m back in a few minutes without ever hearing a sound from in here. When I come back, they’re still standing where I left them.
I drop the gear and fish around in the saddlebags for the medicine kit. “Come here, boy,” I say. I barely look up, but out of the corner of my eye, I see Little Joe nodding encouragement to him.
“It’s okay, Hoss is good at doctoring,” Joe says. He should know. Sometimes, I feel like I spent half his life doctoring him. I know now that some of those times were probably when he got beat up defending Tommy.
Tommy stands there another minute. I wait without saying anything. If there’s one thing I know, it’s how to deal with wild critters. This one may look like he’s in charge of himself, but there’s nothing to say he ain’t gonna run off if we look at him wrong.
“It’s okay,” Joe says again. I catch his eye and shake my head a little bit, frowning. Joe gets the message and shuts up.
When nobody’s said anything for a little bit, Tommy comes over to me. I tell him to sit down, but he won’t, so I doctor his face standing up. The cut on his cheek is nasty and should probably get sewed up, but I didn’t buy a needle and thread, so I make do with cleaning it out real good. Even though I know the medicine burns, Tommy never moves. I reckon he’s felt things that hurt a whole lot worse.
“Do you have any other cuts we need to clean out?” I ask. Tommy says nothing. “Tommy, if you have other cuts and we don’t do anything, they could get infected, and you’d get real sick.” He looks at me, and I look at him. All of a sudden, he unbuttons his shirt and takes his left arm out of the sleeve. There’s another cut, almost as bad as the one on his cheek. I doctor that one. Since it’s his arm, I wrap a bandage around it to keep it clean. He puts his shirt back on and buttons it, all without a word. He walks back to where Joe is standing and then turns to me.
“Thank you, sir,” he says, real quiet.
“You’re welcome,” I say, just as quiet.
Daylight is almost gone. There’s no wood around here that’s dry enough to burn, but I brought a lantern with us. I measure out the oil and light the lantern. It ain’t much, but it’s better than sitting here in the pitch dark. We’re here for the night, that’s for sure. Ain’t no way I’d take those two boys back down that trail at night. We’re probably not more than a half a day’s ride from the house, but I can’t chance it.
I unroll my bedroll and set down on it to unpack the food. I didn’t know how long we’d be gone, so I got plenty of jerky, but there’s other food, too. I stopped by Sallie Ann’s restaurant and got us some sandwiches and pie. I take out our dinner and dole it out to the boys. From the look in Tommy’s eyes, I don’t think he had any lunch. Remembering that kitchen, I realize that he probably didn’t have any breakfast, either.
“My stomach ain’t feelin’ right,” says Little Joe suddenly. Before I can say anything, he goes on, “Here, Tommy, you eat this. I ain’t hungry.” He doesn’t meet my eyes as he hands his sandwich to Tommy. Tommy looks like he ain’t sure he believes Joe, but he takes the sandwich anyway.
“Little Joe, you gotta eat somethin’,” I say. What he’s trying to do is nice, but he can’t go without.
“My stomach don’t feel good,” he insists. He sits on the bedroll next to me, and I lay a hand on his forehead. He’s a little bit warm, but nothing serious. I expect it’s the day he’s had.
“Maybe you’ll have something later,” I say. He looks up at me, and I smile the tiniest bit, just to let him know that I ain’t fooled and I’ll make sure he eats before he goes to sleep. In the lantern light, I can’t quite tell if he winks at me or not.
With dinner behind us, it’s time to talk. The last thing in the world I want to do is have this talk. I take a swig of water from my canteen and wish it was whiskey. I’d thought for just a second about bringing a bottle in light of the day I’d had, but I put that notion away as fast as I thought of it. Two fourteen-year-old boys and a bottle of whiskey was a combination I didn’t want on my hands.
“Tommy,” I say. “We gotta talk about what happened today.” He looks at me, steady and sure. I’m surprised. I figured he’d be all skittish about it.
“Yes, sir,” he says. Yes, sir. The kid’s got better manners than Little Joe. Then again, nobody beat Joe’s manners into him with their fists.
I know what Joe told me, but I need to know what went on before he got there. I gesture toward his face. “Did your pa do that to you?”
“Yes, sir.” Straight answer, but no detail. I’m gonna have to drag it out of him, I can tell. “When did he do it?”
“This morning.” I wait, but he doesn’t say any more. He’ll answer my questions, but nothing more.
I need to come up with better questions. As I’m trying to think how to do this, Little Joe says, “Tell us what happened.”
I don’t expect Tommy to say anything, so I’m surprised when he says, “Pa came home this morning. I don’t know where he was last night. It don’t matter. He was drunk when he came home. He started tearing up the house. He did that every now and again. That’s why—that’s why there warn’t much there. Most times, he’d do that for a while, and then he’d fall down and sleep it off.”
“But not this time?” I ask when he doesn’t pick up with his story.
Tommy shook his head. “He found a letter from my aunt,” he says. “She lives in a little town just west of Sacramento. Ma’d finally gotten up the nerve to write to her and ask if we could come and live with her, and she said we could. The letter just came yesterday. We were gonna leave today. She sent money for the stage.” He stops again. After a minute, he says, “Pa ain’t much for readin’, but he figured out what the letter was when he saw the money, and he went clean out of his mind. He was screaming that she’d never leave him. She was so scared. He made my ma cry.” I think for a second that I see tears in the boy’s eyes, but the next second, I figure I was wrong. His eyes are cold and hard as marbles. “He smashed his whiskey bottle and came at her with it. She had the knife. I tried to get between them, but he shoved me out of the way. She was screaming for help, but nobody came. He jumped her, and I jumped him, but he shook me off like I was nothin. He went at her with the bottle, and I went back after him again. Next thing I remember, she was lyin’ there, bleeding, and he was wiping blood off his face. I think it was her blood. I tried to get to her, but he shoved me out of the way. He came after me with the bottle—that’s how I got cut up. Then, I got in a really good kick, and he went down.” In a low voice, he said, “She was already dead. She was still holding the knife. He started to get up, and I kicked him again. And then. . . .”
I have my arm around Joe. I can feel him trembling, and I know it ain’t from the cold. This is the part where he came in. I already know what happened next.
“So, you killed your pa in self-defense,” I say.
Tommy looks from me to Little Joe. “No, sir,” he says. “He was already down. He warn’t gettin’ back up.”
“But he’d attacked you,” I say. “He tried to kill you. A judge would see that.”
Tommy shakes his head. “No, sir,” he says. “I ain’t gonna lie. It warn’t self-defense. Not the way they mean in the law.” He looks me in the eye, clear and firm. If it wasn’t for the bruises and cuts on his face, he’d look positively dignified. “She was already dead when I done it, and he couldn’t’ve gotten back up right then.”
I look at Joe. He nods. He’s the one who saw the killing. If we go back, he’s the one who’s gonna have to testify against Tommy. It’s his word that’ll hang the boy.
I catch myself then. If we go back. When did there start to be a question? I don’t know what Little Joe thinks we’re doing here, but I’ve always meant to bring the boy back. Coming up here, it was clear as day to me. That’s what Pa and Adam would do without a second thought: take Tommy back to town and hand him over to Roy Coffee. Of course, Pa’d also pay for the best lawyer around to defend Tommy, and Adam would give him all sorts of advice about how to testify, but they’d never question the idea that the boy has to go back to face up to what he did. I never questioned it, either. Not until I heard what Tommy had to say. Now, I’m not so sure.
“Tommy, what happened this morning—did this kind of thing happen a lot?” I try to be gentle with the question.
“A fair amount, sir,” he says. I don’t know what that means, and it must show, because he says, “Four or five times a month, maybe. It warn’t as much when he was working in the mines, on account of he was so tired when he got home that he’d just fall into bed. But then he got fired for drinkin’ on the job, and things got worse. The last few months, it was a couple times a week.” And now, it’ll never happen again, because he killed his pa. I can’t even think what that feels like.
“Why didn’t you and your ma leave before this?” I ask instead.
“I wouldn’t leave her there alone, and she wouldn’t go,” he says. “She said everybody always gave up on Pa, and she’d promised him she never would.”
“But she wrote to your aunt. . . .”
The boy’s eyes cloud over. “I wrote the letter,” he says. “She just signed it. I’d been after her for a long time to write. We got a letter from Aunt Millie last Christmas. We hadn’t heard from any of Ma’s family in so long, we thought they were all dead. I guess they thought we were dead, too. But Aunt Millie wrote, and finally, we wrote back. And she wrote back and said we should come right away and she’d never tell anybody where we were. She said we could change our names and Pa would never find us. Ma was so scared that Pa would find out. She was gonna burn the letter, but she hid it instead. All day yesterday, she kept opening the drawer and touching it, just like she wanted to make sure it was real. She kept saying, ‘It’ll all be over soon.’” Tommy’s voice fades off then. He ain’t crying, even though he has every right. I can feel my little brother shaking, trying not to make any noise with his own crying. I hold him tighter against me. He reaches for my other hand, and I hold his hand tight.
“But this morning—why didn’t you just run?” I ask. I don’t know why I’m asking. I don’t want to hear that the boy could’ve gotten away scot-free, and that he stayed to kill his pa anyway.
“He’d’ve come after me,” says Tommy. “He knew where to find me now if I went to my aunt. I’d’ve spent my whole life lookin’ over my shoulder, waitin’ for him to catch up with me. A man can’t live like that.”
A man. The boy is fourteen years old, but he’s seen things I never have. I’ve never seen my pa come in drunk and spoiling for a fight. I never saw him so much as lay an angry hand on my stepmother, much less beat her up until she’s bloody and bruised. I’ve never seen him punch any of his sons, or even smack us in the face. I’ve never seen him pull a weapon on any of us, or anyone who didn’t draw first. The thought of what this kid has seen makes my stomach churn. Everything in me wants to protect him the way I try to protect Little Joe, but it’s too late for that with Tommy. Maybe it always has been.
“Hoss, he’s gotta go to his aunt,” says Little Joe. In the lantern light, I can see the tear tracks on his face. “He’ll be safe there. It’ll be okay.”
And you won’t have to testify, I think. Maybe that shouldn’t matter, but it does. If my little brother takes the stand, one of two things will happen. Either he’ll tell what he saw, and Tommy’ll hang, or he’ll lie under oath and I’ll have to figure out what to do, because that’s a crime in its own right. I want to believe that Little Joe would never lie on the witness stand, but right now, I’m not all that sure.
Tommy looks from Joe to me. I can’t tell what he’s thinking. He don’t say anything. Maybe he figures there’s nothing left to say. I’ve heard his story. There’s nothing else for him to tell me.
I look from one boy to the other. Two skinny kids with too-sad eyes. Oh, sweet Lord. They’re just too young for all this. Tommy sitting there, admitting to killing his pa with no excuse that the law will accept. Little Joe next to me, trying his best to hold himself together, ready to do anything to keep his friend from hanging. The rain is dripping outside the cave. More than anything, I wish Pa was here, or even Adam. This is just too much for me to do by myself. I don’t know if there’s any way to keep Tommy alive if I take him back. I ain’t never seen a kid hang, but I don’t know if that means they won’t. I don’t know what the other choice is. They ain’t gonna let him go free, that’s for sure. He put a knife in his own pa. The law ain’t gonna care about what he went through before today. I don’t even know if that excuses it. I don’t know anything except that if I take that boy back with us, it’s gonna be the end of both of them, one way or another.
I can just hear Pa yelling in my head. What is this, anyway? The law according to Hoss Cartwright? Who made you judge and jury? We have a system of laws in this country, and a man must be held accountable for his actions! I want to argue back that this ain’t a man, it’s a boy, and there are circumstances here the law don’t seem to know anything about.
That’s not your decision! Pa’s voice keeps going. That man could have been a lawyer. Your job is to bring the boy back so he can stand trial. That’s all. You have to trust that, in the end, the law will do what’s right, and justice will be done.
Maybe that’s my problem. Today, what’s the law and what’s justice don’t seem to line up straight. I don’t trust the law to get this one right. Most times I do, or at least, I’m willing to let it do what it has to do. Not here, though. Not in this cave. Not looking at the cuts and bruises on Tommy Parker’s face, knowing that this ain’t the first time his pa put them there, but that it’s finally the last time. Not standing in front of a boy who watched his ma die at his pa’s hands and knew that if he didn’t do something, one day soon it might be him. Even if we get the boy the best lawyer around, there ain’t no guarantees. Even Pa would admit that.
“Tommy.” I look deep into his eyes. A boy’s eyes should never be so sad. “How long did your pa—do what he did to you?”
“As long as I can remember.” It amazes me, the way he talks. No hemming or hawing. Just straight out, clear and honest, like he ain’t got nothing left to fear. Maybe he ain’t.
“And how old are you?”
“Fourteen, sir.”
I don’t know if I’m right or wrong. Pa would say I’m wrong. He’d say to bring Tommy back. I feel like doing anything else is to disobey him, right here on his own land, and I just don’t do that. Pa would say I have to trust the law to do the right thing, and maybe he’s right.
Except the way I see it, the law’s been failing this boy for a long time. The law says a man can discipline his family the way he sees fit, and it never stepped in to protect Tommy or his ma. Roy Coffee did what he could, but Mary Beth Parker ended up dead just the same. I always thought I had as much faith in the law as Pa does. Now, I just don’t know. A good woman is dead, and the man who killed her and beat her son is dead, too. Maybe this time, we should just let the dead bury the dead. Maybe fourteen years of hell is enough. Maybe this boy’s already served his time.
I reach into my vest pocket for my wallet. There’s fifty dollars there. More than enough to get a boy to a little town on the far side of Sacramento. I take it all out and press it into Tommy’s hand.
“We’re gonna go with you as far as the stage,” I say. I want to use my rough voice, the one I use when I want to make sure Little Joe does what he’s told, but I can’t. This boy’s heard enough roughness to last a lifetime. “You’re gonna go straight to your aunt’s house, and you’re gonna stay there. When you get there, you have her send me a wire so’s I know everything’s okay.”
Tommy shakes his head. “I’ll have one of her neighbors send it,” he says. “They’ll just say that the package arrived.” The boy is so smart. I wish he’d been smart enough to figure out how to get himself and his ma away from his pa.
“If I don’t get that wire in a week, I’m gonna come looking for you,” I say. I try to sound gruff. “And if I do, I’ll find you, just the way I did today, and I’ll bring you back here to stand trial. So you better go where you’re sayin’, and you better stay there.”
“Yes, sir.” Tommy’s not afraid of me. He knows I’m telling him the truth, but he ain’t upset about it. He seems to think it’s fair. I reckon that, after you’ve seen what he’s seen, there ain’t much left that can upset you.
I can feel Joe’s eyes on me. We’re gonna have to talk about this, him and me. I don’t know what we’re gonna tell Pa. I know Pa ain’t gonna agree with me on this one, not even a little bit. Maybe I should tell Tommy not to send the wire. Then, at least, I can say honestly that I don’t know where the boy is.
“Send the wire to me,” Joe says suddenly. He’s not looking at Tommy; he’s looking at me. Without me saying a word, he knows what I’m thinking. It’s like that with us sometimes. He’s doing his level best to protect me, just like I do with him. He knows I won’t lie to Pa, so he figures if I don’t know, it won’t be a lie when I say so. Joe won’t lie, either; he just won’t say anything, even if he gets in trouble again. He’ll keep Tommy’s secrets, same way he’s been doing all these years.
I shake my head firmly. “Send it to me.” Little Joe’s been keeping those secrets long enough. It’s time to shift the burden off those young shoulders. He should never have had to carry it in the first place. I’ll figure out what to tell Pa.
I see Joe catch Tommy’s eye and shake his head slightly, and Tommy nods. I know what’s going to happen. I’ll talk to Joe about it later. Everybody’s protecting everybody now. I have to wonder where the protection was for Tommy for all these years. Wrapped up in my little brother’s fists, I guess. I wish to God he’d told me. Maybe we could have figured out something before it came to this.
I look from one to the other. They’re only fourteen, but right now, they look like men. With all my heart, I wish they could’ve stayed boys just a little longer.
**********
The walk from the livery stable to Roy Coffee’s office ain’t nearly long enough. I keep remembering how we left Tommy at the stage. The three of us rode to the way station with the morning sun at our backs. We stood around, not saying much, until we saw the stage coming. I stepped away to give Little Joe a chance to say his goodbyes. Then, when the stage drew to a stop, I picked up Tommy’s little bag and tossed it up on top with the other luggage.
“Now, you listen to me,” I said, low but serious, my hand on the boy’s shoulder. “You know where we are. If you have any trouble—anything—you let me know, and I’ll come get you. I mean it. Any time at all.”
For the first time since I’d walked into that cave, Tommy’s chin trembled. His eyes glistened. For a minute, he looked like a little boy. He looked at Little Joe, and my brother nodded, laying a hand on Tommy’s arm.
“You’re gonna be okay now,” Joe whispered, tears in his own eyes. Tommy ducked his head, and I pulled him into a hug, same as I would have done with my little brother. I held the boy close for a minute. I heard him sniffle, and I gave him a little extra squeeze. Then, I let go of him, and he stepped back, head bowed. I handed him my handkerchief, and he turned away to blow his nose. When he turned back to us, he was under control.
He handed me the handkerchief. “Thanks,” he whispered. Then, he climbed into the stagecoach, and the driver slammed the door after him. They drove off, and Tommy waved out the window, and we waved back, until they went around a curve and disappeared from sight.
I draped my arm around Little Joe’s shoulders as we walked back to the horses. I had no intention taking him straight home. We needed some time to ourselves before we had to face everybody. I knew he probably already knew how much I loved him, but right then, I wanted to make real sure. A couple of days of fishing and taking it easy, just the two of us, seemed like a good place to start.
So, we spent some time at Little Joe’s favorite fishing place, about a half-day’s ride from the house. We caught trout and cooked them over a campfire. We talked about Tommy and about other things. I’d figured Joe might have some nightmares about what he saw at the Parkers’, and he did, but I was right there, and he was fine.
He wanted to go back to the house while I came to town, but I wouldn’t hear of it. I’m the one who’s gonna tell Pa what happened. Little Joe’s carried this thing long enough. So I made him come into town with me. We returned all three horses to the livery stable. Now, Little Joe’s waiting for me over at the hotel. Leastways, that’s where he’s supposed to be. Wouldn’t surprise me to find him back at the livery stable, brushing the horses. Kinda wish I could be doing that, too, but I gotta see Roy. Sort of like practice for talking to Pa, to my way of thinking.
Roy’s at his desk, scribbling away about something. He looks up when I come in. He doesn’t seem surprised that I’m alone. “Well?” he says.
I shrug. Even though I practiced in my head what I was gonna say, I can’t make it come out. “I don’t know where he is,” I say finally. My mouth is dry as cotton. I feel like I’m skating on the thin edge of seven different lies, even though what I said is true: right now, at this moment, I don’t know where he is. He could be riding in the stagecoach, or sitting in a way station, or just standing beside the road, stretching his weary bones and knowing, for maybe the first time in his life, that nobody’s gonna come along and beat the tar out of him.
Roy peers at me with that way he has, like he knows everything you could possibly be keeping from him. Maybe he does. “Guess that’s that, then,” he says. I can’t say for sure, but I think he’s relieved.
After a minute, when I don’t say anything else, he reaches into his desk drawer and pulls something out. A thin gold band with a tiny blue stone.
“Mary Beth Parker’s ring,” he says. “Ida Mae found it when she was cleaning out the house. Wasn’t from Amos. I remember Mary Beth saying it belonged to her ma.” He holds it out for me to take, adding, “I reckon Little Joe’ll know what to do with it.”
He knows. I take the ring and fight the urge to bow my head in shame. Roy Coffee is the most upstanding lawman I ever met. In that moment, I want to tell him I’m sorry for making him part of this. Before I can say anything, he lays a hand on my shoulder.
“Sometimes, all a man can do is what seems right at the time,” he says softly.
I don’t know about that. All I know is that somewhere, there’s a boy riding in a stagecoach, with the wind in his face and maybe the worst part of his life finally behind him. For now, I reckon that’ll have to be enough.
*****End*****
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