My Brother’s Keeper
WHI (What Happened, Instead)
For Lillian, whose timely introduction of a discussion of this episode inspired this alternate adaptation.
With deep appreciation to Seeleg Lester, who wrote the original episode we all love so much. Much of the plot and dialog in this story is his or derived from his, and the only character created exclusively by me is that of Casey Porter, who assists Hoss in replacing the Reardons.
Two horses, as different as the men who sat them, clattered down the sun-baked road. The wolf that Adam and Joe Cartwright had tracked for two days yowled enticingly, and their rifles spontaneously responded to the temptation to shoot. Out of range, the wolf escaped. “He went through that ravine,” Little Joe said, pointing.
Adam’s enervated eyes did not follow his brother’s gesture. He knew where the wolf had headed, but the discouragement of two days’ fruitless tracking had dampened his enthusiasm for the chase. “Let’s call it off,” he said.
“What do you mean ‘call it off’?” Little Joe demanded. “Now that we’ve got a chance to get him?”
“He’s in the next county by now,” Adam contended. “Let’s get on home.”
“Come on. How many more calves do you want to lose to that wolf?” Joe argued, his voice sharp with his characteristic intensity.
None, Adam had to admit, though he didn’t answer his brother directly. “You sure don’t give up easy, do you?” he responded, with admiration that was heartfelt, though exhaustion diminished its enthusiasm.
“Come on, let’s go,” Joe said, riding toward the ravine. Adam sighed in resignation and followed his more determined brother.
Determination died hard in one as young and energetic as Joe, but as the brothers rested in camp later, his face reflected the discouragement his older brother had felt for hours. “Thanks,” he murmured, barely glancing up as Adam handed him a cup of coffee.
“After we rest here for a while, we’ll head back,” Adam stated, and a chuckle of worn-down indulgence lifted his voice as he added, “whether you like it or not. We’re not gonna get home ‘til tomorrow morning as it is.”
“I sure wish I could’ve gotten him in my sights just once,” Little Joe said. The echoing howl of the wolf only strengthened his desire. “You know, he doesn’t sound too far off.” He dropped the tin cup and strode toward his pinto.
“Oh, where’re you going?” Adam queried with half-hearted protest. Was there no end to this kid’s drive? Did he never expend more energy than a few sips of coffee would restore? Don’t dare share those thoughts, Adam decided, or I’ll no doubt be favored with a few choice remarks about my advanced age. He had no intention of giving Joe that satisfaction!
“Just gonna have a look-see. You take it easy,” Joe called as he swung onto his horse and took off.
Adam exhaled a gust made up of almost equal parts of disbelief, amusement and frustration, a response he recognized as all-too-familiar in his dealings with his youngest brother. He supposed he really should go with the kid; it was always wiser to hunt in pairs, but he’d done that all day—for two days, in fact, and whether it was due to the dozen extra years he had on Joe or not, he was too tired for any more wild goose chases. He could almost hear Joe’s high-pitched teasing, something like “We’re not chasing geese, older brother. No wonder you haven’t spotted that wolf; you’ve had your eyes on the clouds!” He smiled. Yes, that was just the kind of jest Joe would have made, had he called this hunt what it was. Better not to have given him the opportunity.
I shouldn’t have let him go, though, Adam chided himself. Should have laid down the law, made him see reason. He shook his head. Joe listen to reason—yeah, sure. Never an easy task and when a fellow was dead tired before he started, well nigh impossible. With that boundless energy, Joe would just keep coming at you ‘til he wore down both reason and resolve. Still, I shouldn’t have let him go alone. Anything could happen. He silenced that thought by pouring himself another cup of coffee and savoring the aroma as he lifted it to his lips. Life was unpredictable out here, but his brother—both of them, for that matter—had been raised to handle the unexpected. He’d played a significant part in that training himself, and on that subject, if rarely on others, the kid had always been an apt pupil. Joe can take care of himself, better than most men twice his age. He chuckled. So what am I worried about? It isn’t as if the wolf could shoot back! Not like some of the two-legged predators the kid has faced.
Adam walked aimlessly around the camp as he sipped his coffee, determined not to follow the foolish example of his energy-to-burn brother. Then he laughed at himself. What was he doing here but burning energy with this constant, restless movement? He deliberately seated himself on a dead log and willed himself to savor his coffee in leisure of mind and body. A duet of siren voices periodically challenged that resolve, however: the yowl of a wolf, interspersed with the crack of a rifle. Fool kid’s gonna waste all his ammunition, he mused as he sipped his brew. One shot is all it should take to bring down that wolf . . . so long as the aim is true.
The very number of shots he heard told him that Joe wasn’t taking sufficient time to sight his rifle or, perhaps, just wasn’t getting close enough before he fired. Not that he’d set the kid much of an example in that regard the last couple of days. They were both overeager to bring down the wolf, and they’d both made mistakes that had kept them from doing that. Even when they’d done everything right, the wolf had still managed to elude them. “That’s one crafty critter, as our other brother might say,” Adam chuckled, “and we’ve wasted enough time and ammunition on him.”
When the siren voices beckoned again, Adam’s will weakened. Well, he might need some help, he rationalized, pouring out the rest of the coffee from his cup and the pot to drown the fire. Mounting his horse, he answered the siren’s call. One last try at that crafty critter and then we’re headed home, if I have to drag Joe, kicking and screaming, every inch of the way!
The siren voices seemed to separate, to sing to each other across a wider gulf. Then they fell silent. Joe’s lost him, Adam concluded, his emotions torn between disappointment and relief. He wanted the wolf just as much as his younger brother, but he was ready to concede this round and get home. Hoss was probably fed up to his ears, doing his brothers’ chores, and ready for a break from routine. Maybe he’d like to have a go at the crafty critter himself. Goodness only knew, he was the best tracker of the three, as well as the one most attuned to the ways of animals. And if Joe was still so eager for the hunt, he could turn right around and head out with Hoss.
Adam grinned. Hoss might not thank him for that suggestion, but home without Joe for a few days . . . sounded downright peaceful, just what he needed and—there! A dark gray flash against the sun-baked brown of the landscape. Finally, a chance to end this thing! But the wolf saw him, too, turned tail and ran around a curve in the trail. Eagerly, Adam urged Sport forward, around a boulder of dusty red sandstone. No time to lose. Waste a second and the wolf will be out of range. Got to get him now! Just as he came out of the boulder’s shadow, he saw that flash of gray again, raised his rifle and fired. Got him!
But Adam’s brief moment of exultation was abruptly cut short. In the split second between exhilaration and horror, he saw the wolf—still alive, still upright and uninjured—wheel around and fall upon a figure crumpled on the ground. “Oh, my God,” he gasped in shocked recognition. But shock didn’t hinder his ability to respond. Adam Cartwright had always been a man who could push emotion aside during a crisis, and he instinctively did now, when Joe’s life depended on instant action. He couldn’t risk firing. Gray fur and taupe raiment were too tangled, their positions changing too frenetically, as the man held the animal’s fangs away from his throat. He had to separate them—now—before Joe’s arms weakened and the fangs sank into his flesh.
He spurred Sport forward, covering the intervening space in seconds. He vaulted off his horse, and with both hands firmly gripping the stock of his gun, rushed forward until he was standing directly over the grisly battle. Making a lightning assessment of the positions of the combatants, he swung the barrel of the rifle forcefully and knocked the wolf away from his brother. He swung the weapon up into position and cranked the lever twice in rapid succession. This time, mercifully, the wolf dropped to earth, motionless.
Squatting beside his brother, Adam laid the rifle on the ground and reached toward the blood-stained shirt. “Joe—Joe, I didn’t mean it. I didn’t see you.”
Little Joe didn’t seem to notice the plea for understanding in his brother’s voice. Stretching one arm toward the wolf, he murmured weakly, “You got him, Adam.”
“Yeah, I got him,” Adam said, self-reproach the sole emotion in his words as he started to unbutton Joe’s earth-colored shirt. Next time we go hunting, little brother, I’m dressing you, head-to-toe, in red, something that won’t blend in with the rocks, something I can see! Next time . . . oh, God, let there be a next time.
He unfastened the buttons and opened the shirt to reveal a gaping wound in his brother’s shoulder, put there by his own bullet. My own stupidity, he chided himself, my own—
“I’m shot, Adam,” Joe whispered, sounding surprised.
“I know, Joe. I’m sorry.” Had the kid just now noticed? How could he not . . . it had happened fast, though, and the boy had been fighting for his life every second since. Joe’s oversight was understandable, his own less easily excused. But there was no time now for self-recrimination, no time for explanations, time only to do what needed doing to save his brother’s life. He cupped Joe’s left jaw and gently turned his gaze away from the wound. “You’ll be all right, boy,” he promised.
He stood and walked back to his horse. From the saddlebag he took a clean white handkerchief, grabbed his canteen off the horn and hurried back to Joe’s side. Dampening the cloth, he pressed it to the oozing wound in Joe’s left shoulder.
Joe moaned, then bit down on his lower lip to stifle the sound.
“Sorry,” Adam said. Joe nodded, tight-lipped, and Adam smiled encouragingly back at him. Once the bleeding stopped, he pulled away the cloth, and his mouth set in a grim line. Teeth marks surrounded the ragged wound, and he could see torn threads from Joe’s shirt embedded in it, as well. It would need to be cleaned out, at the very least, and that would only increase his brother’s pain. Not here, though. He needed a fire to sterilize his knife, hot water. “Let’s get you back to camp,” he said. He looked around, suddenly aware of a missing member of the party. “Where’d you leave Cochise, Joe?”
As Joe tried to lift his left arm, to point toward the opening in the rocks behind Adam, he cried out in pain, and his arm fell.
Adam had seen enough. “Back there? Okay, rest here, boy; I’ll get him.” He stood and pointed an authoritative finger at Joe. “You stay put, don’t try to move.” As soon as he’d seen Joe’s nod of acquiescence, he moved through the opening and trotted down the gravelly path. When he reached lower ground, where his brother would have left the pinto before climbing up after the wolf, he scanned the area in all directions. No Cochise. Joe must have been so set on getting the wolf that he hadn’t tethered the horse, at least not firmly enough. Looks like you need a few more lessons in safety in the wild, little brother.
Adam slammed a fist into the palm of his other hand. Joe wasn’t the only one who needed a review of that lesson. He’d been so intent on getting to his brother that he hadn’t secured Sport, either then or after the initial crisis had passed, and while they could get by easily with one horse, since Joe wasn’t fit to ride, anyway, they’d be lost if they didn’t have that one. Adam hurried back up the path to remedy his own mistake.
Fortunately, Sport was still standing where Adam had left him. With long strides Adam crossed the ground to the animal and gathered up the trailing reins. “Good, steady boy,” he said as he patted Sport’s neck. “Should have known I could count on you.” He led the horse back to Joe and again squatted beside his brother. “I couldn’t find Cooch, Joe; I’m sorry. I’m gonna take you up on Sport.”
Joe didn’t even nod this time, just closed his eyes in trust that his older brother would take care of him, as he always had. Adam’ll know what to do, his drifting mind assured him; Adam . . . always knows . . . what to do.
*************
The silence was overpowering and, combined with the darkness, oppressive. The only sound was the soft, slow clip-clop of Sport’s hooves along the dirt road. Little Joe, too weak for conversation, slumped against Adam, his chin dipping toward his breastbone. The external silence, however, only left a vacuum to be filled with the accusations roaring inside Adam’s head. Though the words had never been spoken, he’d charged Joe with reckless waste of ammunition and failure to aim true. Yet what more reckless waste of ammunition could there be than planting a slug in your own brother! I didn’t mean it; I didn’t see you. He wanted to say the words again and again, until his bleary-eyed brother understood, but Joe was too far gone now to listen, and Adam wouldn’t have burdened the boy with his guilt or worry, anyway. Both would have shown in his voice had he tried to speak. No, silence was better—harder, but better.
With a shiver Adam felt the wind snake down his neck and instinctively pulled the collar of his custard-yellow coat up around Joe’s neck. Joe’s green jacket, unneeded during the heat of the day, had been tied behind Cochise and had galloped off into the sunset with the pinto, so Adam had buttoned his own coat loosely around his brother when they left camp. It was the most he could for the boy’s comfort until they reached home, and he counted his own goose-pimpled flesh no great sacrifice. Thankfully, the weather was moderate tonight, and not until now had he felt more than slightly chilled. Better him than Joe, though; he, at least, didn’t have a bullet in his shoulder.
Adam grimaced. Another failure to add to the tally. Once he’d gotten Joe back to camp, he’d heated some water in the coffee pot and sterilized his knife by holding it in the fire until it glowed. Then he’d made a try for the bullet. It hadn’t taken long, however, for him to realize that the attempt was futile. The bullet was lodged tightly under Joe’s collarbone. Removing it would require tedious, painstaking surgery, and a trailside camp made a sorry operating room for anything other than a quick, straightforward excision of the lead. The light had been fading fast, too, and as the sun slid toward the horizon, Adam had admitted the inevitable: the bullet would have to remain inside until he got his brother home.
***********
Ben Cartwright accepted the reins of his big buckskin from the lanky, freckle-faced young man extending them. “Thanks, Casey. Appreciate you saddling Buck for me; I’m running a little late this morning.”
“More than happy to, Mr. Cartwright,” Casey Porter said, and he meant every word. Ben Cartwright had been good to him, offering him a job, unasked, when his own ranch went bankrupt. More than that, Mr. Ben had bought the place, picked it up cheap for back taxes, and promised Casey it would be his again whenever he saved enough money to buy it back at the same low price. Casey figured it would take him another year, but he was determined to do it, to honor the memory of his deceased parents. He was making good use of his time here at the Ponderosa, learning a lot about how to make the Rocking P successful, once the deed was back in his name.
It wasn’t just Mr. Cartwright he owed a debt of gratitude, though. He’d worked under each of the three sons and had found them all to be fair, honest and willing to work right alongside him at the dirtiest jobs on the ranch. Even though he was an employee, they’d treated him like an equal . . . like what he was, a fellow rancher fallen on hard times, and they’d each encouraged him to believe he could work his way back to that solid standing. He fell between Hoss and Joe in age and considered both of them friends, especially Joe, who was only a couple of years younger. He didn’t share quite the same camaraderie with Adam, maybe because he was so much older or maybe because he felt intimidated by a college-educated man, but he respected the oldest Cartwright son, almost as much as Mr. Ben himself.
The door from the kitchen swung open and Hoss Cartwright came through it, heading straight for the buckboard, whose team Casey had also hitched. Leading Buck, Ben walked over. “Got Hop Sing’s list?” he asked.
Hoss patted his front shirt pocket. “Right here. Sure is a long one, too, so I’m right glad Casey here volunteered to ride in with me and help load the supplies.”
Casey grinned as he climbed the opposite side of the buckboard from where Hoss now sat. “Second pair of hands always makes the chores go quicker.”
Hoss’s face scrunched in a half-hearted grimace. “Yeah, I can think of a couple pair of hands I’d like to see makin’ the chores go quicker.”
Ben chuckled. “They’ll be back soon, son. Your brothers know they’ll have you to answer to if they’re not, and neither one of them wants you riled up against him.”
Hoss, who wouldn’t have hurt a fly if he could avoid it, scowled fiercely as he nodded. “Best they remember that and get on home right soon.” He broke into a grin then. “Knowing them two, they’ll milk every minute they can away from barn chores. I just hope they make it back before you do!”
“If they don’t, they’ll have me to answer to,” Ben said with a significant arch of one eyebrow. “I should be back in three or four days, unless negotiations hit a snag, and your brothers know better than to waste that much time chasing a wolf.”
“Joe don’t,” Hoss chortled.
Ben smiled. “But Adam does, and he’s in charge. You’ll be heading straight out to the branding camp after you get the supplies?”
Hoss shook his head. “Got to stop by here first, drop off what ain’t needed out there.”
“Well, don’t dawdle,” Ben advised as he put his foot in the stirrup and swung into the saddle, “or Hop Sing will have your hide.”
“Naw, he don’t relish meat that tough,” Casey teased. “He’ll just threaten to run off to China.” He had worked for the Cartwrights long enough to have heard the standard threat innumerable times and felt comfortable enough, even with Mr. Ben, to risk cracking a joke. The Cartwrights could take a mite of joshing, even seemed to welcome it.
Ben led out, and for several miles the buckboard followed him. Then their paths diverged, the buckboard rolling toward Virginia City, while Ben took the road to Placerville.
***********
Shortly after dawn the two erstwhile wolf hunters came to a lake. Adam welcomed the opportunity to wash out his brother’s wound more carefully and to refill his dwindling canteen. He slid off Sport’s rump, still supporting his slumbering brother, and attempted to ease Joe from the saddle without waking him. Chalk up another failure, Adam thought as he heard his brother moan and saw his eyelids crack open.
“We . . . home?” Joe asked.
The setting looked nothing like the yard at the Ponderosa, but Adam answered the question calmly, as if it made perfect sense, as perhaps it did to senses blurred by fever and pain. “Not yet. Soon,” he promised. He helped Joe over to a level spot close to the lake and lowered him to the ground. “Just taking a breather,” he explained to the questioning eyes. “Rest easy, now.” He took the folded cloth from beneath Joe’s shirt, walked down to the lake and washed the blood and pus from it. Returning, he opened Joe’s shirt and gently cleaned the area once again.
Joe flinched when his shoulder was touched. Then, seeing the concern etched on his brother’s face, he murmured weakly, “I’m all right, Adam.” His words would have been more convincing without the involuntary moan that had preceded them.
“Sure you are,” Adam agreed, his tone designed to encourage his brother. “I don’t know what got into me yesterday. Saw that wolf and just let go. Never stopped to think if you were around anywhere.” It was the closest he could come to an apology, since he still felt obliged to keep conversations brief and matter-of-fact in Joe’s current condition. “Well, we gotta get you to a doc.” Helping Joe into the saddle, Adam pointed his horse toward home.
The sun rose in the sky, and sweat began to trickle down Adam’s back. He had no need of his coat now and wondered if Joe did. He couldn’t ask, though, for Joe was only semi-conscious, and he wouldn’t risk removing it. Fever tended to chill a man, little sense as that made, and he could feel the warmth emanating from his brother. Joe had started coughing occasionally, too, making Adam fear that his lung had been affected by the impact of the bullet. It hadn’t pierced the organ, he knew that, but Dr. Martin had told him that sometimes a bruised lung could cause almost as much trouble as a punctured one. The damage just took longer to develop.
How much farther? he pondered. No, “farther” wasn’t the right word. He knew how far he was from home, but how long until they got there? That was the question. Little Joe was weakening; he needed a bed and a doctor now, but Adam had been forced to hold Sport to a slow walk, to keep from jarring his brother and possibly reopening his wound. Finally, they came to the top of a hill that sloped gently down to a road. “Virginia City road, Joe,” Adam said.
Joe only responded with a couple of dry coughs, which added to Adam’s concern, but the next moment he caught sight of something that lifted all his cares. “And you won’t believe who’s coming,” he said with a relieved smile. Clucking to Sport, he treaded his way carefully down the slope to the road below and stopped dead center in the path of the oncoming buckboard.
“Hey, Hoss,” Casey said, pointing ahead. “Ain’t that Mr. Adam’s horse?”
Hoss leaned forward over the reins. “Yeah, that’s Adam, sure ‘nough. What you reckon—”
“But where’s Joe?” Casey asked. He squinted his eyes and then murmured, “Oh, no.”
In the same instant Hoss had seen Joe slumped in the saddle in front of Adam, and he urged the horses forward at a faster pace. When the team was nose to nose with Sport, he tossed the reins to Casey, jumped off the wagon seat and hurried forward.
Adam had dismounted, and when Hoss saw him reach for Joe, he automatically helped support their younger brother.
“Watch that left shoulder,” Adam urged as Joe moaned in pain.
“What happened to him?” Hoss asked. He all but carried Joe to the buckboard.
“He’s hurt.”
“What happened?” Hoss pressed.
Adam bit his lip. “I shot him,” he said bluntly, the words weighed down by a ton of guilt.
“Shot him?” Hoss’s voice rose in pitch from sheer incredulity.
“I’ll explain later,” Adam muttered. “Let’s get him home.”
“He’s a sight more than just shot, Adam,” Hoss remonstrated, taking in the scratches on Joe’s face and the shirt sleeve hanging in tatters. “He looks like he’s been in a terrible fight.”
“Yeah . . . wolf,” Adam said laconically.
“A wolf!” Casey cried, eyes wide with alarm. No one had to tell a man raised in Nevada just how dangerous an opponent a wolf could be. He reached down to help Hoss lift Joe up to the wagon seat as Adam walked back toward Sport and gathered up his reins. Casey steadied his young friend until Hoss had climbed up and then stepped down, not sure what to do with himself. There wasn’t room for more than Hoss and Joe on the seat of the buckboard, and even if there had been, surely Mr. Adam would claim that spot himself.
Adam walked up to the young ranch hand. “Casey, you think you could ride Sport?”
For a moment Casey looked unsure of himself, for Sport had a reputation on the ranch of being virtually a one-man horse; then he squared his shoulders. If Mr. Adam had confidence in him, he wouldn’t fall short of earning it. “Yes, sir. If need be, I reckon I can.”
Adam handed him the reins. “Well, need be, Casey; need definitely be. Ride back into Virginia City and get Doc Martin. Tell him that apart from being clawed by that wolf, that bullet’s in deep, way down deep. Get him here fast.”
“I sure will, Mr. Adam!” Casey settled into the saddle on the tall chestnut and took off at a gallop.
Adam climbed into the back of the buckboard, among the supplies. He reached across the back of the seat to steady Joe, who was folding up with another fit of coughing. “Get going,” he urged Hoss. “Fast as you can without jostling him.”
“Sure thing.” Hoss whipped up the horses and headed them down the road at a steady trot. He looked back over his shoulder. “Gonna take a spell to get to the house, older brother. Reckon as how you got time to do that ‘splainin’ now.”
Adam nodded grimly and began his story. “It was an accident,” he said when he finished.
Hoss cut an astonished look over his shoulder. “I know that, Adam. I knew the minute you said you’d shot him, it couldn’t be nothin’ else.”
“Still my fault,” Adam said, almost inaudibly.
Hoss frowned, but judged that Adam wasn’t yet ready to listen to anything but his own fault-finding heart. He had too many worries crowding out common sense and wouldn’t hear it, no matter how plain it was spoke to him. Joe moaning and coughing the way he was only made it worse, deepened the guilt in their oldest brother, Hoss sensed. To distract Adam from those dark depths, he asked a purely factual question. “When’d this happen, Adam?”
Adam sighed. “Late yesterday afternoon at Montpelier Gorge.”
“You brought him all the way in from Montpelier like this?” Hoss couldn’t disguise his concern at the thought of that much time and distance between his brother’s injury and the help he needed. Better part of a day—more than enough time for infection to set in, especially with that wolf slavering over the wound.
“Yeah.” The way Adam said the single word indicated that he was sharing the exact same worry.
The fear was like an ominous cloud, hovering over the brothers as they made their way back to the Ponderosa. Neither Hoss nor Adam made much attempt at dialogue during the remainder of that drive, and what attempt they did make fell flat, lost in concern for the brother who could no longer make any contribution to conversation. When Hoss at last pulled up to the house, both he and Adam sprang into concerted action. Adam led the way, opening the front door, while Hoss scooped Little Joe up in his arms and carried him through.
The silence of the house surprised Adam. “Where’s Pa?”
“He’s in Placerville,” Hoss explained as he carried Joe up the stairs. “He left this morning. Meeting with that cattle buyer been writin’ to him. Got a wire yesterday, invitin’ him, and he had me wire this morning that he was on his way.”
Following Hoss up the stairs, Adam sighed. He’d seen the correspondence with that cattle buyer, of course, but no set time for meeting him had been established when he and Joe left on the wolf hunt. Why did it have to be now, when Joe needed Pa so much? When I need him so much, Adam admitted. His brow furrowed as a further meaning of the silent house sank in. “Hop Sing’s gone, too?”
At the top of the stairs, Hoss turned to face his brother. “He’s out at the branding camp with the hands. Wasn’t gonna be anyone here at the house, so we figured to have him do the cookin’ out there, be a treat for the men. Sorry.”
Adam dragged his hand wearily down his face. “No way you could have known.”
Hoss made his way down the hall, turned into Joe’s room and eased him onto his bed; then while Adam fumbled at the buttons of Joe’s shirt, he unbuckled his younger brother’s gun belt, slid it out from beneath him and handed it to Adam. As he placed a solicitous hand against the boy’s cheek, his brow wrinkled. “He’s spikin’ a fever, Adam, pretty smart one.”
Laying the gun belt on the bedside table, Adam nodded soberly. “I know. It’s been climbing all night.” He sat down on the bed next to Little Joe and continued to unfasten shirt buttons.
Hoss pursed his lips. “That bullet needs to come out, sooner the better.”
Adam nodded again, the enervated manner in which he did it indicating that he, too, had recognized the inevitable and dreaded it. “I tried to get it out on the trail, but it’s lodged under a bone. You’re right, though; it’s got to come out; we really can’t wait for Doc.” He glanced at Hoss. “You up for it?”
“Me?” Hoss looked genuinely shocked. “I ain’t no good at doctorin’.”
Adam uttered a short chuckle. “Don’t sell yourself short. You’re one of the best I know.”
Hoss shook his head rapidly. “You’re talkin’ about critters; I’m good with critters. This is Joe.”
Adam’s head rose sharply. “He’s my brother, too.”
Hoss placed a supportive hand against his older brother’s back. “I know he is, Adam, and I know it ain’t easy for you, either, but you’re steadier than I am in a tight pinch. If you don’t know that, I do. I’ll give you all the help I can, but it needs to be you cuttin’ out that bullet.” And not just ‘cause you’re steadier, older brother; ‘cause it’s your bullet in there, and I reckon it might ease that load you’re carryin’ some if’n you’re the one takes it out.
Again Adam bowed to the inevitable responsibilities of being the eldest brother. Exhaling loudly, he stood. “All right. You get him ready, make sure there’s plenty of oil in that lamp; I’ll boil some water, gather up the things we’ll need.”
Hoss gave him a hearty clap on the back and set to work. First he removed Joe’s boots and stripped off his clothing, down to his drawers, taking special care when moving his upper body. Fingering the ripped sleeve of the tan shirt, he shook his head at the deep scratches and bite marks along his brother’s arm and side. “That ole wolf sure did a job on you, didn’t he, little brother?”
Joe moaned, as if in agreement, and his glittering eyes opened briefly, seeking Hoss’s face.
Hoss ran a comforting hand through the boy’s straggling chestnut locks. “Don’t you fret none, buddy; ole wolf may’ve done a job, sure ‘nough, but ole Adam’ll do a better one, get you fixed up right as rain before you know it.” Joe’s smile was weak, fleeting, but it sent a ray of hope surging through Hoss’s heart, and he grinned wide in response. Everything would be all right; everything had to be all right.
Downstairs, Adam set a pot of water on to boil and then began to scrounge through the kitchen drawers in search of operating instruments. Cutlery, he snorted, as he picked through an assortment of paring knives. Better suited to carving a hunk of beefsteak than delicate surgery. But they were all he had. Next time, he told himself, next time he wears red, head-to-toe, and I have a set of decent scalpels and probes on hand. Doc Martin can help me pick—he winced. Doc Martin. If only Doc Martin were here; if only any doctor were here! Back East, a man never had to wait like this for medical attention, never had to trust his family to do what they had no training to do. Adam cracked a dry laugh. Of course, back East there weren’t many wolves prowling the canyons between tall buildings, either. The whole sorry scenario would never have happened if they’d lived back East.
Adam shook himself. He had no time for such mental meanderings. He selected two knives and a pair of long, narrow tongs and dropped them into the boiling water. Then he took a small, flat silver tray from the cupboard and covered it with a snowy white napkin, ready to receive the instruments after they’d been sterilized. He blessed his lucky stars that the family doctor was one who knew and preached the benediction of cleanliness in everything that touched an open wound. Not many so-called doctors out here realized the importance of that in fighting infection. He pursed his lips and closed his eyes in painful thought. There hadn’t been much of that benediction along the trail. He’d done his best to give it to Joe, but judging by the rising fever, it hadn’t been enough. And Joe is paying the price, in pain and discomfort . . . and deadly danger . . . the price of my mistake.
Adam squared his shoulders. No time for self-reproach now, either; time enough for that later, when the surgery was over . . . when he knew just how high a price his brother might pay for the foolishness both of them had shown.
Hoss came into the kitchen. “Got Joe ready to go. You need any help?”
“Yes,” Adam said, again with that harsh, dry laugh that made him sound sarcastic. “I need a qualified surgeon. Do we have one stocked in the pantry?”
Hoss’s face scrunched up in sympathy. “Not last I looked, but I reckon we got the next best thing.”
Adam scowled. “Our dear country doctor would be the next best thing, and we don’t even have that.”
“He’ll be here, Adam,” Hoss assured him. “Not in time to spare you this, I know, but—”
“Not in time to spare Joe this,” Adam corrected with a tinge of bitterness. To forestall any more of Hoss’s well-intentioned praise for his dubious abilities to handle difficult situations, Adam suggested that he get some bandages and get back up to Joe. “I don’t like for him to be alone when he’s less than fully alert.”
“Or fully asleep,” Hoss responded with a slight grin. “He’ll be okay, Adam.”
He meant far more by those words than just that Joe would be okay alone for a few minutes and Adam knew it. “I hope so,” he murmured.
Soon all was in readiness. Adam had gathered his courage downstairs and wanted nothing more than to start the job before he lost his grip on that valuable commodity, but as he sat on his brother’s bed, he paused long enough to have a word with Joe, though he wasn’t sure how much the boy could understand. He briefly explained what he was going to do and added, “This is going to hurt, buddy, but I need you to keep as still as possible. Hoss will hold you, so—”
Joe grunted, and his head lolled from side to side on the pillow. Clearly, he didn’t like the idea of being pinned down.
Adam looked up at Hoss for an opinion.
“Give it a try,” Hoss said. “He’s a tough kid . . . and I’m here if you need me.”
Adam nodded, words beyond him now as he took a deep breath to cleanse out the remains of his fear. Folding a napkin into a compact pad, he slipped the cloth bit into Joe’s mouth, picked up a knife and made his first cut.
Joe moaned, biting down on the cloth to suppress even that soft sound. Pain pierced through Adam, as if the knife had cut his own flesh. My fault, my fault the boy’s enduring this pain. Stop it! Can’t think about that now. Just cut . . . cut again . . . probe deep . . . now deeper. Joe’s moans intensified into groans, his face contorting in agony. Sorry, kid. So sorry, little buddy. Has to be done. Focused as he was on the task at hand, Adam still noticed, with admiration, that although Joe’s head moved in reaction to each cut of the blade, his body remained, as requested, still. Plucky kid, but then he never did lack courage . . .
***********
Rearing on his hind legs, the powerful black stallion pawed the clouds. At least, that was how it seemed to ten-year-old Joseph Cartwright, standing on the bottom rail of the corral. He’d never seen a horse so big or one with such wild beauty. “Can I ride him, Adam, huh, can I?” he begged.
“No!” his older brother said sharply and firmly.
“But, Adam—”
“I don’t want to hear ‘but’ from you, little buddy,” Adam said, snatching his little brother up under his arms and lifting him bodily from the fence. He spun Joe around in his arms and held him at eye level. “And I’d better not see your scrawny butt on the back of that stallion, either, or it’ll be too sore to sit anywhere for a week!” He set his brother down and planted a light, painless swat on that part of his anatomy as a promise of things to come, should his injunction be disobeyed.
Joe rubbed his posterior with marked offense, although only his dignity had felt the weight of Adam’s palm. “I could ride him,” he insisted with outthrust lip. “I’m good.”
Arching an eyebrow, Adam raised a warning palm, and Joe took off in a huff, to lay his case before Pa. Adam followed him in, prepared to plead his own case, if necessary. It wasn’t necessary; Joe’s appeal met the altogether predictable decision from the final arbiter of all fraternal conflicts. “You always side with Adam,” Joe whined.
Ben barely restrained the temptation to laugh out loud. “I always take the side of reason,” he told his red-faced young son, “and your older brother tends to hold forth on that side more often than you, Joseph.” He took Little Joe by the elbows and drew him close. “Stay away from the horse, son. He’s too big for you, and he could hurt you badly. That’s the side I’m coming down on, the side of keeping you safe, and I’m taking that side because I love you.” He gave Joe a hug and sent him out to finish his chores.
“Thanks, Pa,” Adam said.
Ben couldn’t resist chuckling this time. “Son, did you for one minute doubt where I’d stand on that issue?”
Adam shrugged as a lopsided grin raised one corner of his mouth. “Maybe one,” he admitted. “The kid does have pronounced finger-wrapping proclivities.”
Ben’s brows came together in a mock scowl. “If you’re going to start throwing twenty-dollar words around, young man, maybe it’s time you reestablish connection with your roots.” He jerked a thumb toward the front door. “Your little brother could use some help with those barn chores.”
Adam grinned and left immediately for the barn.
There was no grin on his face a few days later, when he rode into the yard and saw his little brother swinging one leg over the back of that huge black . . . bareback, no less! That Joe hadn’t been killed that afternoon—by either the horse or his oldest brother—had to be the combined work of every guardian angel on the place. . . .
**********
No, Joe never lacked courage, Adam thought as he continued to probe for the bullet, though foolhardiness might state the case more—
“Thank God,” Hoss said gruffly, emotion choking his words.
Adam looked up from his surgery and saw that his patient had lost consciousness. He’d been so lost in his reverie that he hadn’t noticed, but like Hoss, he was grateful that his inept carving could no longer cause his brother pain. With neither ether nor chloroform available, unconsciousness was the only anesthetic left, and Adam prayed that that anesthetic would not wear off until he’d done what had to be done. “Hold that lamp closer,” he told Hoss. “I think I see it.”
Hoss lowered the lamp he’d been holding throughout the operation and leaned in, his eyes also searching the wound for the threatening piece of lead.
“That’s it,” Adam said with controlled excitement. As he held the knife blade beneath the bullet, he reached for the tongs and grasped it. Slowly, carefully, he pulled it out and dropped it, tongs and all, onto the silver tray. He leaned back, sighing with relief.
“You gonna stitch him up?” Hoss asked.
Eyes closed, Adam nodded. “Just give me a minute.”
“Sure. Take all the time you need.”
Adam laughed harshly. “Can’t. The anesthetic’ll wear off.”
Hoss cocked his head quizzically, not sure what Adam meant, but he could read the weariness in every line of his brother’s face. His fingers closed on Adam’s shoulder with a powerful squeeze of encouragement. “You done good, Adam; I knew you would.”
Adam glanced up, and his smile, though weak, was appreciative. “Thanks,” he said simply. Taking another deep breath, he reached for needle and thread and, with a steady hand, he pulled together the ragged edges of his brother’s flesh and stitched as neatly as a seamstress sewing a finely tailored garment. When he’d finished, he held out his hand, palm up. “Bandages.”
“No,” Hoss said. “You’re about done in, Adam. I reckon I can take it from here. Go downstairs; get yourself some rest.”
Adam stood and stretched some of the tension from his back muscles. “All right,” he agreed readily. “You’ll probably do a better job, anyway.”
“Always easier when you can keep your eyes open,” Hoss jibed and was rewarded with a wry chuckle from his older brother. After Adam left Hoss quickly bandaged the wound with deft and gentle hands; then he drew the quilt up and covered Joe tenderly, brushing back unruly curls from his flushed face. His strong hand rested on his baby brother’s forehead for a moment, and he frowned as the hot flesh burned against his palm. “You’re causing us a lot of worry, you know that?” he asked an unresponsive Little Joe. He smiled warmly down at his little brother. “‘Course that ain’t nothin’ new for you. You been causin’ worry since the day you hoisted yourself up by your diapers and took to trottin’—straight for trouble. This time, though, little brother, how’s about gettin’ well real fast out of consideration for your big brothers, huh? Ole Adam’s frettin’ somethin’ fierce, and I’m—well, that don’t matter as much; I ain’t got as big a load to carry. You just get better right quick for ole Adam, okay? And—and for ole Hoss, too, you hear? You—you mind what I say, boy.” Choking down the lump in his throat, he tousled Joe’s hair and headed for the door.
Sitting on the stone hearth, wishing the fire that baked the chill from his bones could sear it from his heart, Adam looked up at the sound of Hoss’s heavy tread on the stairs. “Is he all right?”
“Still out,” Hoss said as he came down the final five steps from the landing. “Reckon he will be for some spell.”
Adam massaged the back of his neck. “Yeah. Probably for the best. He needs rest.”
He ain’t the only one, Hoss thought. Open-palmed, he thumped his hand on top of the blue chair’s back. “I’m gonna put some coffee on to boil. You want a cup?”
“Yeah, I could use some. It’s gonna be a long night.” Adam rested his elbows on his knees and cupped his jaw line with both hands.
Hoss frowned as he went into the kitchen. A long night. Yeah, it was bound to be. For Adam, the second one in a row. Older brother was in need of sleep, just about as much as younger, but knowing Adam, he wouldn’t get none ‘til he saw how things was gonna go with Little Joe. Older brother was an awful lot like Pa, when it came to that. Reckon we all take a lot after Pa at times like this, Hoss admitted, recognizing that he, too, wanted to be nowhere except right at Joe’s side.
He puttered around the kitchen while the coffee was brewing. In the larder he found some bread and cold beef and, slicing both, made a quartet of sandwiches, spread with mustard. The coffee smelled like it was ready, so he poured a cup and took a sip to taste it. He scowled. Didn’t compare to Hop Sing’s best, but it would have to do. He poured a second cup and carried it in to Adam. “Better taste it,” he suggested as he handed it to his older brother. “Might’ve made it a mite strong.”
Adam absently took a sip. “It’s very good. Hop Sing couldn’t have done better.”
Hoss outright gawked at him. “Now I know you’re dead on your feet.”
Adam impatiently clattered his cup on the hearth as he bolted to his feet. “Where’s Casey with that doctor?”
Hoss settled on the settee with his own coffee. “They’ll get here.” He said it mostly to encourage Adam, for a glance at the dining room window showed the sun low in the sky. It was getting late.
“I hope so.” Adam turned to face with Hoss brooding eyes. “Why didn’t I stop Joe? I should’ve laid down the law.”
Hoss snorted. “Sometimes that’s pretty hard to do . . . especially with Joe.”
The lines in Adam’s face hardened. “The truth is I wanted that wolf killed just as much as he did,” he accused himself, his tone bitter, “and I used just about as much common sense as he did. I should’ve known he’d’ve been around somewhere.”
“Aw, come on, Adam,” Hoss argued, setting his cup on the table and leaning intently toward his brother with his forearms on his knees. “Man can’t think of everything, every minute; just got to do what he thinks is right at the time. And you’re right more often than most.”
“Yeah, sure” Adam muttered. He moved toward the stairs.
“Hey, I made some sandwiches,” Hoss called, pointing toward the kitchen with his thumb. “Let me get you one.”
“No, thanks,” Adam said. “I’d better go up and stay with Joe. He shouldn’t be alone when he comes to.” He paused at the foot of the stairs and half-turned toward his brother. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate it, Hoss.”
Hoss’s alpine eyes filled with compassion. “Aw, Adam, don’t much matter whether you do or don’t, but I wish you’d eat something. I’m guessing you ain’t had nothin’ since before this happened.”
“Noon yesterday,” Adam admitted, rubbing the newel post, “but I couldn’t eat right now.”
“Maybe later,” Hoss suggested hopefully. “After the doc comes, huh?”
“Maybe.” Adam turned and walked up the stairs. Entering Joe’s room, he gazed with concern at the still form of his brother. Asleep? Unconscious? Some place between the two states? No way to know. The boy seemed to be resting quietly enough, but Adam worried anyway, knowing that it was weakness and loss of blood keeping Joe quiet. Fever still high, he noted, laying his hand on his brother’s forehead. Adam shrugged. He’d had no reason to expect any change this soon. Just hope.
“What’s keeping that doctor?” he muttered. He wandered over to Joe’s desk and thumbed idly through the pages of a copy of Harper’s Weekly lying there. Never able to let his mind lie idle, he sat in the mate’s chair by the desk and began to read, beginning with the first page, one article after the other. The slightest moan, coming from the bed, was enough to break his concentration, but each time he looked up, Joe seemed to settle back into his pillow and Adam would return to his reading.
He was scowling at the words on the page when Hoss came in sometime later. “Got the stock all bedded down for the night,” the big man said, “and I brought you another cup of coffee.”
Adam tossed the periodical to the desk, with a disdain he rarely showed for printed material, and reached for the cup Hoss was extending. “Thanks.”
Noting the careless way Adam had handled the periodical, Hoss asked, his nose crinkling, “News not to your liking?”
A sneer curled Adam’s lips. “It wasn’t news. I was reading a travel commentary about the glories of our fair part of the world. The author, like so many others back East, is very enthusiastic about the West.”
“Yeah?” Hoss, being enthusiastic about the West himself, eyed the issue of Harper’s with some interest.
“Oh, you know, the typical claptrap.” With a grandiose gesture toward the ceiling, Adam amplified. “The giant mountains, vast deserts, dazzling sunsets—a matchless paradise under the canopy of stars. All the usual phrases.”
Hoss eased into a tufted, gold-upholstered chair near Adam. “Guess I don’t read enough to know all the usual phrases,” he admitted.
“You’re not missing anything,” Adam said dryly. He raised the coffee cup to his lips.
“But we do got all those things out here, Adam,” Hoss observed. “I ain’t too keen on the vast deserts; kind of prefer mine narrow and far apart.” He attempted a grin that faded when Adam did not return it. “But the other,” he continued, “the tall mountains, paint-splashed sunsets and stars twinklin’ like diamonds above the pines—I can see how folks back East, all shut up inside tall jails of brick and granite, might crave to see sights like that. Can’t imagine my life without ‘em.”
“I think I might be willing to trade them for a few of the amenities of the East,” Adam grunted.
Hoss’s brow furrowed with concern. “Like a doctor close to hand? That’s what’s got you so down in the mouth, ain’t it, Adam, the doc not bein’ here yet?”
“He should be here by now,” Adam said, acknowledging Hoss’s diagnosis. “It’s been hours.”
Hoss nodded. “Casey must’ve had some trouble trackin’ Doc down. Might’ve been out on a call or somethin’, but Casey’s a steady man; he’ll keep at it ‘til he gets the job done.”
Adam emitted a long, remorseful sigh. “I should have given him an alternative to Dr. Martin. We don’t have all the advantages of the East, but we do have more than one doctor in town!”
Adam wasn’t responding to any comfort he was offered, so Hoss sat silent, drinking his coffee for a few minutes. Then, both brothers leaped to their feet at the sound of shod hooves clattering into the ranch yard. “The doctor!” Hoss cried as he charged for the door, leaving his coffee cup on the mirrored washstand beside it.
Adam set his cup on the desk so hastily that coffee splashed out onto the copy of Harper’s Weekly and left the room right behind Hoss. Both brothers clattered down the stairs and hurried across the room to the front door. When Hoss flung it open, an exhausted Casey Porter almost fell into his arms. His face was grimy, but even through the streaks of soot, Hoss could see the young man’s desolate expression. “The doc didn’t come?” he asked urgently. Adam was standing in the doorway, peering into the yard, as if willing the doctor’s buggy to round the bend and pull up to the house.
“No, but he’ll be here . . . sometime,” Casey finished weakly.
“You look done in, boy,” Hoss said with concern.
Adam, however, spun Casey around and, holding him by his shirt front, demanded, “Where’s the doctor?”
“I saw him, Mr. Adam,” Casey gasped, “but he couldn’t come. There’s been a terrible fire in Virginia City—couple dozen buildings burned—fifty, sixty people hurt. Every doctor in town tied down, tending to ‘em. He just . . . couldn’t leave . . . not with so many hurt so bad . . . said he’d try to get out soon as he could, but figured it wouldn’t be ‘til sometime tomorrow. Sorry, Mr. Adam.”
With a sigh of exasperation, Adam let go of Casey’s shirt.
“Doggone,” Hoss said. “Must’ve happened right after we left town. Lucky we weren’t caught up in it ourselves.”
Casey flicked a nervous tongue over his lower lip. “I telegraphed your pa what happened to Little Joe. Sent it the same place we wired that cattle buyer this morning. Hope I wasn’t oversteppin’ my bounds.”
Hoss clapped a hand to his shoulder. “‘Course not! You done just what you should. Pa’d want to be told.”
“I should have told you to wire him in the first place,” Adam said, relaxing a little, now that he knew help was on the way, however slowly. He thrust his hand into his pocket and drew out a coin. “This should cover the expense.”
Casey waved the money away. “No, sir, Mr. Adam. I wasn’t lookin’ to be repaid. That ain’t why I told you. Just thought it might be a comfort to know Mr. Ben was on his way. He will be, soon as he gets that wire, I know.”
“And it is a comfort,” Hoss said. Pulling the ranch hand into a one-armed embrace, he added, as if confiding an important secret, “but you’d best take the money, Casey. Ole Adam here’s got a powerful need to be in control of everything right now, and we just da’st not cross him.”
Looking appropriately cowed, Casey took the coin and gingerly pocketed it. “Anything else you need me to do?”
Though Adam looked perturbed at the charge of needing to be in control, he nonetheless automatically took responsibility for directing the ranch hand. “Just get cleaned up and get some rest. You look like you hung around to fight that fire.”
“No, sir,” Casey responded, a touch indignant. “I did help a couple of hurt folks to the hospital they set up. Figured that was where I’d find the doc, so I didn’t lose no time, except what it took to find the place.”
Adam closed his eyes and breathed deeply. “It wasn’t an accusation. Just get some sleep. Someone should.”
“He should,” Casey whispered to Hoss as the oldest Cartwright brother headed back upstairs.
Hoss nodded grimly. “He’s takin’ it mighty hard, blamin’ himself, not givin’ himself a minute’s rest, body or mind.”
“How’s Joe?” Casey asked.
Hoss shook his head. “I ain’t sure. Adam got the bullet out, but he’s got a lot of fever. Restin’ real quiet so far, though.”
“That’s good,” Casey said. “Reckon I better get cleaned up, like Mr. Adam said. Probably smell kind of ripe, between the sweat and the smoke.”
Hoss patted him on the back. “Smell of honest work—honest loyalty, to give it its true name—don’t bother me none, but you’ll be more comfortable after you wash up. Use the kitchen. There’s a couple of sandwiches left on the table in there. More’n welcome to ‘em.”
“Thanks!” Casey said with a tired grin. “Dinner was a long ways back.”
Hoss nodded. He’d shared that dinner with Casey back in Virginia City after loading the supplies, so he knew just how long it had been. As Casey walked toward the kitchen, Hoss followed Adam up the stairs and went into Joe’s room. Adam was seated on the bed at Joe’s side, checking for fever. “Down any?” Hoss asked.
Adam shook his head. “Higher, if anything. I got it out too late, Hoss, too late to prevent infection.” His chin dipped disconsolately, and his shoulders hunched with dejection.
With both hands Hoss circled one of the short posts at the foot of Joe’s bed. “You done your best, Adam. No man coulda done more.”
Sighing, Adam stood and walked toward the open window. “My best is a sorry imitation of a qualified surgeon.”
Hoss walked over to stand supportively beside his brother. “I thought you done fine—and Joe’ll say so, too, when he’s able.”
Adam smoothed his hand down the bronze mane of a rearing horse that sat on a small, marble-topped table before the window. “I hope so.” I hope he’s able; I won’t need the praise as long as I have that.
Hoss rubbed his palm across his brother’s slumped shoulders. “Why don’t you get some sleep, Adam? I can sit with Joe.”
Adam gave the bronze horse a pat and, squaring his shoulders, turned toward Hoss. “No, you get the rest. I need to be here when the doc comes. He may have questions only I can answer.”
Hoss pulled his lower lip over the upper and slowly moved his head from side to side. “I want to be here then, too, Adam, and I’ll fetch you if the doc needs—”
“No,” Adam said bluntly.
“Adam . . .”
“No.” Adam cupped a hand around Hoss’s biceps and steered him toward the door. “You get some rest now, and you can spell me after while.”
Hoss sighed in resignation. As he passed Joe’s desk, his eyes fell on the coffee-stained issue of Harper’s, and he remembered how something in the periodical had set Adam off before. “You want me to bring you somethin’ else to read?” he asked. “Joe’s got a few books in here, but maybe one of your own would be more to your taste.”
Despite his ongoing worry, Adam managed a wry grin. “Definitely. Yes, please bring me something. Anything would be better than one of Joe’s dime novels.”
Hoss’s grin was broad and genuine. He knew—as he was sure Adam did, too—that Joe’s dime novel days were behind him, but if a joke at their baby brother’s expense lifted his older brother’s spirits, Hoss was happy to play along. He went into Adam’s darkened room across the hall, and reaching blindly for the bookshelf, he pulled out a volume. Having no idea what the book was, he brought it back across the hall and handed it to Adam. “This do?”
Adam took the book and looked at the cover—Walden by Henry Thoreau. “It’ll do,” he said.
***********
Outside, crickets chirped a serenade to the gentle country breeze, but the harmonious peace struck no responsive chord in Adam’s turbulent emotions. Walden lay open in his lap, but he’d read less than a dozen paragraphs when he came upon a phrase that seemed to sum up exactly how he was feeling: “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” Desperation reigned in the heart of Adam Cartwright that silent, unending night. So, I’m not alone? he thought. At some point in most men’s lives, they come up against some battle they cannot win—and cannot bear to lose?
Literary truisms notwithstanding, he felt alone. Hoss and Casey—even Doc Martin, if he ever got here—could share his concern for Little Joe, but no one could share the tormenting guilt. The only thing that eased it was tending to his weakening brother’s needs. Twice he’d bathed Joe’s hot, dry flesh with cool water, his hands saying, “I’m sorry” with every touch, and the way Little Joe calmed under his ministration seemed to Adam a sign of forgiveness.
“Adam . . . Adam,” Joe called, head lolling from side to side.
Setting the book in the chair, Adam moved to his brother’s side and took his hand. “I’m here, Joe.”
Joe didn’t quiet as quickly this time. “Adam, I’m shot!” he cried, his voice conveying the shock he must have felt at the moment of impact.
Adam squeezed his brother’s hand. “It’s all right, Joe,” he soothed. “You’ll be all right, boy.” Oh, God, let that be true! As Joe settled back into fitful sleep, Adam looked at the hand curled trustingly in his palm and lightly stroked each finger, just as he had that first time. . . .
************
“He’s so little,” twelve-year-old Adam gasped as he stroked his newborn brother’s tiny fingers. “Not like Hoss at all.”
“No, not like Hoss.” Sitting on the bed beside his wife Marie, Ben chuckled. “I can still remember your first response to Hoss, young man: ‘Look at the size of it, Pa!’”
Adam grinned. “And you said, ‘That’s not an it; that’s your brother.’”
Though weary from the strains of giving birth within the hour, Marie rose up from her pillow and peered intently at the young man. “This is your brother, too, Adam. You will always remember? You will always care for him, as you have for Hoss, oui?”
Adam heard the quaver in her voice and knew he had put it there with his early rejection of her as his mother. Those feelings were past now, replaced with respect and honest regard; Marie knew that, but some residual pain still remained. He desperately wanted to drive it away, to give her such a strong assurance of his feelings for this new brother that she’d never doubt again. “Always,” he promised, and the word seemed to burst powerfully from the very depths of his heart. . . .
************
I tried to keep that promise. Adam sighed, looking at the ceiling as if he could see through it into heaven, where Marie now dwelt with the angels. I haven’t always succeeded, Ma, but I’ve tried to keep him safe for you . . . for me. Not sure trying will be enough this time, so if you’ve got any pull up there in heaven . . . He rubbed his hand across his gritty eyes, stood and went back to the upholstered chair. Picking up the book, he again started to read, but still couldn’t get past those troubling words about desperation.
Shortly past midnight Hoss entered the bedroom. He frowned at the tableau he saw. Adam, almost too weary to keep his eyes open, sat gazing anxiously at Little Joe, who was stirring uneasily beneath the covers. Adam glanced up at the sound of Hoss’s footsteps.
“How’s he doin’?” Hoss asked.
“Getting restless,” Adam replied, “and the fever’s still rising.”
Hoss gulped and then tried, futilely, to hide his fear. “He’ll be all right, Adam,” he assured his older brother.
“Will he?” Adam asked despondently.
“Sure, he will.” Hoss forced himself to sound certain. “You’re just too worn down to hope right now. I came to relieve you. Why don’t you get some sleep?”
Adam shook his head glumly. “I don’t think I can.”
Hoss pulled his brother up by one arm. “You gotta try, and that’s an order, older brother. You ain’t doin’ Joe no good, sittin’ here half asleep.”
“I guess not,” Adam admitted, rolling his shoulders to work out some of their tightness. “All right, I’ll try to get some sleep. You’ll call me if . . . ?”
“Sure, I will. Go on to bed, Adam.”
Taking his book, Adam crossed the hall to his own room and, laying it on the bedside table, stretched out on his bed, fully clothed. Sleep, however, refused to come. Why am I entitled to rest? he thought. Is Little Joe resting? More than me, maybe, he admitted with a twisted smile. But he’s got a clear conscience. Mine’s pretty murky at the moment.
He turned uneasily onto his side and saw the book on his bedside table. “‘The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation,’” he muttered. Only a murky mind would find comfort in that saying, he supposed, but reading would be better than lying awake in the dark. He sat up, took the book and quietly made his way downstairs, not wanting Hoss to know he was disobeying orders. As he descended into the great room, he saw a lanky figure stretched on the settee. “We have regular beds aplenty, you know,” he whispered to the sleeping ranch hand. To avoid waking Casey, he stepped softly to his father’s chair and, easing into it, opened the volume by Thoreau.
************
Near dawn Hoss, his eyelids heavy, came downstairs in search of a cup of coffee. While he was still on the stairs, he saw his brother. “Adam,” he called, his voice disapproving. Eyes fixed on his older brother’s haggard appearance, he missed Adam’s wave of restraint and continued down the stairs, heels thunking on every step.
“Huh?” Casey Porter woke with such a start that he almost fell off the settee. He sat up, blinking groggily at the two brothers.
“How’s Joe?” Adam asked Hoss.
“About the same.” Hoss leaned his folded arms on the back of the blue chair and sent an apologetic smile in the ranch hand’s direction. “Sorry, Casey. Didn’t see you sleepin’ there.”
“Guess I should’ve gone out to the bunkhouse,” Casey stammered, “but I thought, maybe—”
Hoss brushed the defense aside. “You’re fine,” he said. “Think you’re awake enough to sit with Joe for a spell?”
Casey sprang to his feet. “Yes, sir! Anything you need.” At Hoss’s nod of gratitude, he headed for the stairs.
“Casey,” Adam called. “Next time, pick a bed—any bed. No need to stand on form at a time like this.”
Casey smiled. “Thanks, Mr. Adam. I’ll—uh—do that.” For Mr. Adam to even think about his comfort, when he was carrying such a heavy load, spoke volumes to the young ranch hand. He went on upstairs, thinking again what good folks the Cartwrights were to work for. Never made a man feel like he was less than they were.
Hoss didn’t like the way Adam looked. The listless cant of his head against the back of the chair bespoke his weariness, and the dullness in his eyes bespoke more than that. Hands in his pockets, Hoss ambled over to his brother. “I thought you told me you were gonna try to get some sleep after I relieved you,” he chided.
“Well, I tried, but I couldn’t,” Adam replied. “I was just reading something by Mr. Thoreau.” His voice gave dramatic, if melancholy, interpretation to the words as he declaimed, “‘The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What one trusts to be truths turn into compromises. And what is called resignation is confirmed desperation.’”
Hoss was drawn into the words by the power of Adam’s recitation, and while he was no scholar, he’d seen enough of life and human nature to understand exactly what Thoreau meant. When Adam stopped, Hoss looked like someone had just crammed a handful of tongue-puckerin’ lemons in his mouth. “Yeah,” he muttered, wondering how he’d managed, by chance, to pull something that gloomy off Adam’s shelf. Then again, maybe all Adam’s books were like that, so deep they couldn’t do nothin’ but bring a man down. Give me one of Joe’s silly old dime novels, any day! “Pretty—pretty sour pill to have to take, ain’t it?” he said soberly, turning away from Adam, “but I guess it’s the truth. Reckon that’s why me and books just always were in a different world.”
“Yeah, books are another world to me now, too,” Adam agreed. His gaze seemed distant, fixed, perhaps, on some land far from the wilds of Nevada.
Hoss nodded slowly. “I know they are, Adam,” he concurred, “and I can appreciate what they mean to you.” He looked upward, as if he could see through the solid logs to the natural beauty beyond them. “But this out here’s always been my world.” He listed the things he loved best about the Ponderosa and its environs, his face growing more expressive, more radiant with each phrase. “Smell of fresh pine, silver trout jumping in a mountain stream, old mama bear and her cubs out hunting in the woods, bacon sizzling in a frying pan.”
He suddenly realized how far afield his mind was wandering and, pulling it back, moved toward his brother. With one foot on the hearth, he folded his arms on his bent knee and leaned forward. “Adam, Little Joe’s gonna be alright. Don’t you worry.” He paused; then judging that the time had finally come to speak to the heart of his brother’s problem, he added, “You ain’t got nothing to blame yourself for.”
“I hope so,” Adam sighed.
“Go on upstairs and get some sleep,” Hoss ordered. “I’ll call you when the doc gets here.”
“All right,” Adam said, sounding more resigned than convinced. He closed his book and started to rise. Just then the two brothers heard a buggy pull into the yard. “Whoa,” a deep voice ordered.
“Finally,” Hoss said as he and Adam went to the door.
Adam opened it and acknowledged the silver-haired man. “Dr. Martin,”
“Mornin’, Adam,” Dr. Martin greeted him. “Hoss.”
“Doc,” Hoss, standing with one hand on the door, said.
“Sorry it took so long.”
Even the brief exchange of amenities seemed a waste of time to Adam. “Yes. Let’s go,” he said and led the way upstairs. Hoss closed the front door and followed the others.
When they came into Joe’s room, Casey was dampening a cloth in the washbasin by the door, so he could continue bathing his friend’s feverish face. Though he felt that he should probably step outside, to give the family privacy, he nonetheless remained by the washstand. He was worried about Joe and wanted to know just how bad he was.
Dr. Martin set his bag on Little Joe’s bedside table. “The message I got said he was also bitten by a wolf.”
“That’s right.” Adam’s words were crisp, almost to the point of curtness.
“Did you clean the wound out as soon as you could?” the doctor asked.
“As best I could on the trail.” He hurried the words, not wanting his brother’s medical attention to be delayed by so much as a second.
“Any sign of rabies in that wolf?”
“No.”
Dr. Martin moved aside the bandage covering the wound, but though his touch was gentle, Little Joe moaned and tried to pull away. “Easy now, easy does it; easy does it,” the doctor murmured. He checked Joe’s pulse, frowned and then listened to his heart and lungs through a stethoscope. “Well, you got the bullet out all right,” he said to Adam when he’d finished his examination. “Those wolf fangs didn’t help any.”
Adam exhaled with impatient irritation. “I know all that. How is he?”
Shaking a vial he’d taken from his bag, the doctor muttered, “I guess I’m out.”
Adam seemed to think the doctor was avoiding his question. More firmly, he said, “I asked you how he was.”
“He’s a pretty sick boy.” Dr. Martin reacted to Adam’s accusatory tone with a defensive brusqueness of his own. “It’s unfortunate I couldn’t come sooner.”
“Unfortunate,” Adam muttered bitterly.
The doctor noted the tone, but ignored it as he took a notepad from his coat pocket and scribbled medical hieroglyphics across a blank sheet. “Hoss, you’ll have to go into Virginia City to get this medicine.” He handed Hoss the written prescription.
“Yes, sir, Doc. I’ll ride fast,” Hoss replied. With long strides he moved toward the door.
Casey stopped him with an outstretched arm. “I can get this,” he said, reaching for the script in Hoss’s hand. “You should stay with Joe.”
Hoss handed over the prescription and gave Casey a single clap on the shoulder. “Thanks.” He lowered his voice. “Fast as you can, Casey; he needs it bad.”
“Yes, sir, I know.” Casey took no time to say more, but left at once. Even the brief time he’d spent with Joe had been enough to show just how sick the youngest Cartwright was. The doc said the medicine was important, so he’d do all he could to get it here quickly; not even the Pony riders who carried the U. S. Mail would cover ground any faster.
“Keep cold compresses on him,” Dr. Martin told Adam. “When that medicine gets here, just follow the instructions. I’ll try and get back tonight.”
“Tonight?” Adam protested, his voice taking on a hint of righteous indignation. “You mean you’re not staying? You’re walking out? You’re gonna leave him here all day?”
“Adam, I do have other patients, several of them just as seriously ill as Little Joe,” Dr. Martin said a bit testily. It had been a long day, and he was in no mood to deal with an irate Adam Cartwright at its end. He’d lost two patients, burned beyond hope of recovery, and had a dozen others back in town as much in need of his attention as young Joseph Cartwright. Some days there’s just not enough of me to go around, especially when my patients live so far apart.
“Well, tell me, just how sick is my brother?” Adam demanded.
“All right, I’ll tell you, Adam. He’s pretty bad off—real bad off,” the doctor admitted. “I’m counting on his constitution and that medicine to save him—maybe a little help from God.”
“And there’s nothing you can do?” Adam asked bitterly.
Dr. Martin’s response was blunt. “Nothing at the moment,” he said. “If there were, I’d stay. You heard about the fire?”
Adam nodded.
“I have patients back in Virginia City who aren’t likely to last the night, others who won’t survive without careful tending,” the doctor explained. “Now, you tell me what I should do.”
Adam didn’t answer. He knew what the right answer was, knew what Joe himself would say if the question were put to him, but he didn’t like that answer and refused to utter words he didn’t want to hear.
Dr. Martin pressed a sympathetic hand to the young man’s arm as he passed. He understood Adam’s worry and knew better than Adam how justified it was, but could think of nothing he might do to remove its cause. And when the patient was the son of a close personal friend, that hurt more than he knew how to express.
Hoss followed the doctor out into the hall, where he extended his hand. “Thanks for comin’, Doc,” he said. “Don’t mind Adam; he’s so dead on his feet he don’t much know what he’s sayin’ tonight.”
Dr. Martin grasped the big man’s warm hand. “I could tell. No offense taken. See if you can’t talk him into getting some rest, Hoss. Joe shouldn’t be left alone, but if you two don’t spell each other off, I’ll have two more patients, and frankly, I’m spread too thin as it is.” He gave Hoss’s brawny arm a couple of thumps with his doubled fist. “I’ll see myself out.”
“Yes, sir. Thanks again.” He went back into Joe’s room.
Adam was standing by the bed, staring down at Little Joe, and though his face was a mask of studied immobility, Hoss knew his brother well enough to see the underlying emotion. “Try not to be upset, Adam,” he urged.
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not upset,” Adam muttered, his acid tone demonstrating just how upset he really was. “After all, we still have those lovely sunsets.” He moved to the washbasin and started to wring out the cloth Casey had left in the water.
Hoss took it from him. “You promised me you was gonna get some sleep. The doc’s been and gone, and you ain’t got no more excuse, older brother. Go to bed. Now.”
Adam glanced at his injured brother and then at the determined set of Hoss’s jaw. Without a word he stalked out of the room and down the hall to his own. He flung himself on the bed, but he was too angry to sleep: angry with himself, Dr. Martin, eastern periodicals, and the entire, brother-endangering West.
***********
“Adam . . . Adam.” Little Joe writhed in pain as he called his brother’s name.
“Shh . . . shh,” Hoss soothed, laying aside the cold compress to try to quiet the troubled boy. “Adam’s sleepin’—leastways, I hope he is—but he’ll come runnin’ if he hears you takin’ on like this, Shortshanks.”
“Adam . . . I’m shot,” Joe gasped.
“Hush now,” Hoss cooed. “Adam knows that; I know that.” He smiled fondly. “You’re the only one seems surprised ‘bout it . . . over and over again.” How many times had Joe said those same words over the last couple of hours since Adam had been gone? Six? Eight? A dozen? Hoss shook his head; he’d lost track. Each time, though, he’d just keep running his hands over Joe’s feverish flesh until the boy quieted down. So far, it had always worked, and Hoss didn’t expect different . . . now or ever. Beat anything he’d ever seen, the way Little Joe responded to bein’ touched, opened right up to it . . . like that time he’d hid himself away in the harness room. . . .
************
The minute he walked in, to hang up a bridle one of the hands had carelessly slung over the planks of a stall, Hoss knew someone was inside the small room. He wasn’t sure how he knew; he just sensed the presence of someone else, even though he couldn’t see clearly in the unlit room with a single window at the front. “Who’s there?” he asked.
There was no answer, just a deepening silence, as if whoever was there was holding his breath, trying to be quieter than ever.
“I know you’re there,” Hoss said. “Best come out and show yourself.” No one responded, though he did hear someone take a hitched breath. Suddenly Hoss knew who had drawn it. A ranch hand, wanting to keep his job, would have come out when ordered; an intruder wouldn’t have sounded hurt or scared, the way that uneasy breath had. “Little Joe?” he called. “That you, boy?”
There was no answer but a soft snuffle, and Hoss knew for sure then. It was Joe hidden in those shadows . . . and he was crying. Moving slowly, Hoss approached the corner from which the sound had come. “I know you’re in here, Shortshanks.” He kept his voice gentle, like he would with any hurt critter. “Come on out and tell your big brother what’s wrong, buddy.”
No response, so Hoss just kept walking slowly toward the sound of those hitched breaths until he reached the far back corner. He squatted down in front of Little Joe and tapped his knee. “What you doin’, hidin’ back here in the dark, huh, Shortshanks? You in trouble?”
“No,” Little Joe croaked hoarsely. His arms were wrapped around his torso.
All huddled in on himself, Hoss noted, like he’s tryin’ to hold somethin’ in that wants in the worst way to come bustin’ out. With both hands he reached out to pull Little Joe toward him and then just held him, without saying a word. Joe started to tremble, and Hoss held him tighter. “It’s all right,” he soothed. “Just let it come, Punkin.” Joe’d l