A first lightening in the eastern sky heralded the new day. The trail camp was already packed away into the two wagons and getting ready to move. Ben Cartwright, nursing his second serving of coffee in a battered enamelled cup, turned to watch the sun come up. Even as he watched, face upraised, the arc of the sky paled and turned from blue, to grey, to a sudden, startling pink. Floating high up, somewhere between heaven and earth, were several thin, threadlike clouds emblazoned like banners of gold across the vault of God’s creation.

Then the edge of the sun appeared, turning the long, flat line of the horizon to fire. As often as he had seen it, it was a display of such unrivalled magnificence that it never failed to stir his soul.

Ben studied the sky. The day was dawning bright and clear with cool air drifting in off the desert and a promise of heat to come. There was not yet enough light to colour the world; everything was visible only in shades of grey and black. Gazing back towards the mountains, it seemed that he could see every rock and crevice, every gully and tor and scree slope. The highest peaks were already ablaze with the reflected glory of the sun - the lower slopes and the forested shoulders still shrouded in the shadows of the night. From where he stood, he could see the pass through which he had to thread the herd and trace with his eye the trail he had to take to get there.

Ben was uneasy. There was a certain something about the quality of the light that made him distrust the apparent promise of the morning. There was nothing specific amiss, nothing that he could point his finger at, but the little hairs were prickling on the back of his neck in a most disturbing manner. It was altogether too clear and too bright. Long years of living this side of the mountains made him suspect that the ancient spirits, still called upon and made offerings to by the Indians, were busily plotting mischief up there on the sunlit slopes. A frown clouded his face.

He swallowed another mouthful of bitter coffee and pulled a face. He tipped the rest of the brew into the flames of the cook-fire, effectively dousing them and creating a hissing cloud of steam. Looking up, he nodded in greeting as old Charlie rode up on his shaggy pony. Charlie stepped out of the saddle. "Reckon as we’re all set ta go, boss."

Ben looked ‘round. The teams of horses had already been harnessed to the wagons and the last of the cookware was being packed away inside. Beyond, the herd had been gathered up and was milling slowly. The air was filled with the sound of the steers’ restless lowing and the calling voices of the cowhands. For the first time in a long time, Ben was aware of the acrid smell of the cattle, so thick he could feel it clogging his nose; it was so thick he could almost chew it. For a moment, his gorge started to rise. He brought himself under fierce control.

"I think it’ll blow up a storm before sundown, Charlie."

Chewing steadily, Charlie squinted at the sky and, as Ben had done, looked towards the mountains. He saw the same tenuous signs of a weather change that had worried Ben and nodded his head in agreement. "Looks like it’ll be a wild one."

Both of them knew that the closer they got to the mountains the less chance there was of the storm blowing itself out in the foothills before it reached them. Never the less, both of them were anxious to get some miles under the herd before the trouble, however bad it might be, finished brewing up there on the heights and started rolling down the mountainsides.

Ben turned his dark eyes on Charlie. "Any sign of the boys yet?"

"Nope." Charlie turned his head and spat. "I ain’t seen hide nor hair o’ either one since they rode inta town yesterday."

Ben cursed inwardly, and his frown deepened into a scowl. Joe and Asia Prior hadn’t yet returned from their night on the town, and Ben was worried. "They weren’t in the gaol with the rest of the hands," he said gloomily, "I guess I’d better ride in and find them." If he were honest, Ben would have confessed that today, he didn’t feel like riding any further than he absolutely had to. He had eaten breakfast, but only out of habit, and because he knew that a man had to keep up his strength. Now, the food was lying in a hard, indigestible ball in his belly, and bile kept burning up into his throat. The headache of the night before was still with him, pounding away with the persistent regularity of a steam-hammer in the recesses of his skull.

He sighed. He guessed there was no help for it. "Move the herd out, Charlie. The boys and I will catch you up when I’ve straightened out whatever mess it is they’ve gotten themselves into."

Charlie grimaced and pushed his wad into one corner of his mouth. "Don’t reckon as you need bother, boss. Looks like them two young hell-raisers is riding in right now."

Sure enough, two horsemen were riding over a rise in the land. The thin, early tendrils of mist swirled about the horse’s legs, and the light of the rising sun, slanting from behind their shoulders, made their faces hard to see. Their proportions, however, were familiar, and in a moment Joe’s distinctive pinto and Asia Prior’s black gelding became recognizable. The two young men were in no hurry at all. They cantered their horses easily down the hill and into the campsite. Each of them wore the lingering traces of a silly, self-satisfied smile across his face.

Ben’s expression hardened. Charlie shot him a slantwise glance, but when Ben looked at him, the foreman was carefully paying attention somewhere else. Ben drew a big breath. "Get the herd moving, Charlie. I’ll deal with this."

Charlie looked worried but he wasn’t prepared to argue. He swung back into his saddle, and Ben, with a thunderous look on his face, strode over to where the young men had dismounted alongside the cook wagon wheel. Joe Cartwright, still in a state of euphoria after an enjoyable, if tiring night, missed the look on his father’s face entirely. He made the mistake of meeting it with a typically cheeky grin.

"Hi, Pa. Thought you might have saved us some breakfast." It was not at all the right thing to say.

As superheated water flashes instantly into steam, so Ben’s concern, which had been increasing steadily since midnight, became rage. His hands went to his hips, and he leaned forward in the characteristically Cartwright attitude of indignation. His face jutted forward. He filled his deep chest to capacity.

"Breakfast!" He bellowed, "What in all of blazes makes you think you’re going to get breakfast?" Ben’s black gaze encompassed both men, but his fury was directed principally at his son. His booming voice carried as far as the out-riders on the herd and turned heads. The horses laid back their ears in some alarm.

Joe realized that he had made some miscalculation in assessing his father’s mood. He blanched, recoiling from the older man’s temper, and stumbled into his horse’s shoulder. The pinto stamped her foot on his toe and made him hop.

Ben wasn’t about to be distracted by any such antics. His face had darkened, and his eyes had all the softness and shine of obsidian. "Just where the devil have you been? What have you been up to?" Driven and distracted by his own discomfort, he had lost sight of the fact that Joe was well into his twenties and a man grown, not a little boy or a puppy dog to be cowed and brought to heel.

Joe couldn’t make out what his Pa had gotten so all fired up mad about. It wasn’t the first time he’s spent the night wrapped up in blankets other than his own. In recent years an unexplained absence from the breakfast table had rarely provoked more than a raised eyebrow and a scowl. He didn’t see why it should be any different away from home. After all, at his age many a man was married and already father to several children of his own. He figured he was entitled to sow a little wild oats.

Confronted by his father’s aggressive rage, Joe was at first confused then acutely embarrassed at being humiliated in front of his friend; finally, he got angry. Facing up to his taller, altogether bigger father, his hands curled into white knuckled fists. "What you goin’ on about, Pa? I’m back here in time ta do my work!"

Ben glared, standing taller. "Back in time to do your work? What about taking on the responsibilities of your position?"

"My position!" Joe reacted hotly. "I don’t have a position!"

"You’re my son!"

"And you treat me just like any other cowhand!" Joe’s response was bitter. It was an old resentment that had been simmering on the back of the stove for sometime.

"While you continue to be irresponsible…" Ben’s voice boomed.

Joe yelled right back at him. "I’m not irresponsible!"

Ben hauled back and looked his son up and down, taking in for the first time his unshaven and dishevelled appearance – and the bit of straw clinging to the sleeve of his coat. It was fairly apparent that Joe had found a mattress for the night in somebody’s hayloft. That raised other questions in the elder Cartwright’s mind. His eyes, still angry but now anxious as well, moved back to Joe’s face. "Have you been doing something I should worry about, boy?"

Already mad, Joe was furious at being asked a question traditionally asked only of a daughter. The word ‘boy’ enraged him. "I ain’t a kid any more, Pa! I can make my own way in the world!"

Ben’s rage flared. "Then perhaps you’d better go and do just that!"

"I just might!"

Old Charlie rode his cowpony in between the feuding Cartwrights, making them both step back. He was leading Ben’s buckskin horse on a long rein. "Hey boss," he said to Ben, without really looking at him, "Reckon as you’re needed up at the front of the herd. Somethin’ ‘bout which trail you wanted ta take."

Ben’s angry gaze switched a few times between Charlie’s face and his son’s. Charlie knew very well which trail they were taking, and Ben knew that he knew. Charlie was showing him the back door to the saloon, and Ben had enough brains to use it. With a harrumph that promised further discussion of the subject later, he took the proffered rein and swung himself into the saddle.

Charlie watched and waited until his employer had ridden away before deliberately turning his head and spitting onto the ground. He looked at Joe and Asia with a jaundiced eye. As hired help he knew it wasn’t his place to come between the family; as an old retainer and trusted friend, he wasn’t about to let the Cartwright clan tear itself apart. He wanted both Ben and his son to simmer down some before they encountered one another again.

"You two men catch up cookie an’ git him ta give ya some bread an’ beans," he said, gathering up the reins. "Then you can catch up the herd. Guess the best thing fer you ta do is ta ride drag ag’in today." Charlie figured that with the length of the strung out herd was about the most space he could put between them. Any closer and they might both say things they’d regret for one hell’ve a long time.

Joe, feeling faintly ridiculous under the foreman’s sharp gaze, lowered his eyes. He sighed and shrugged the tension out of his shoulders. "Okay, Charlie. Anything you say."

Sitting back in his saddle, Charlie watched as the two young men picked up their reins and went to find Pete Barnes. He hoped, almost against hope, that this storm, like the one brewing up in the mountains, might blow itself out. But then, a man had to be real careful about what he wished for…

In the high foothills far to the south, the day had also dawned bright but cold. A wind was blowing keenly down off the mountains, and the vault of the heavens held a tinge of slate-grey. Adam squinted at the sky and read the signs. He wiped a hand over his face. He could feel the stubble of a day’s growth on his chin and the weight of responsibility on his shoulders.

Hoss had woken up and was lucid – more or less. He had managed to sip a little coffee but he hadn’t wanted to eat anything, and for a man whose appetite was legendary, that was worrying. He was in less pain but his breathing was laboured, and to Adam’s ear it had a rough edged rasp to it that was frightening.

There was no way he could get his brother down out of the hills. Plainly, it was impossible for Hoss to get on a horse, let alone stay upright in the saddle. Adam looked around as he tried to get his bearings. It was more than twelve years since he had last journeyed through these foothills as a young man riding in his father’s tall shadow. He recalled that they had stayed a day or two in an old trapper’s cabin; itwas long abandoned but sturdily built and standing solidly against all that time and the elements could throw at it.

Adam was pinning his hopes on that cabin. Some caves high up in the mountains to the west were the only other shelter within a week’s ride of their location. The ancient ancestors of the Anasazi had once lived there. On his one and only visit, Adam had picked up a perfect spear point chipped from yellow stone. It was shaped like a leaf and as long as his hand. He still kept it among his curiosities at home. It would be impossible to take Hoss there; the journey was too hard and too long.

Adam hoped that the cabin was still standing - and that he could find his way back there.

He ducked back inside the makeshift shelter, now bedraggled and damp after the night’s rain, and checked up on his brother. Hoss was sleeping again, his chest heaving and the sound of his breathing loud. Adam touched his face. The skin was dry and warm – a little too warm. Adam looked up and found Jody watching him with those bright, strangely coloured eyes of his. He didn’t need to say anything to the boy – Jody had sense enough to know that they were in trouble. Anyway, Adam guessed that his face had already said it all for him. Straightening up, he searched around and found the little hand axe among their gear. He picked up a coil of rope and looked at Jody.

"I’m going to need your help."

"Sure thing, Adam." More than willing to do whatever he could, Jody followed him outside.

Using the hand axe, Adam laboriously cut and trimmed two of the side branches from the massive limb that had felled Hoss. With Jody’s help he lashed them together in the form of a capital letter ‘A’. With cross braces and flexible branches he constructed a sturdy platform similar to the ones used by the plains Indians to haul their belongings between campsites.

Adam fastened the contraption to the saddle of his brother’s horse while Jody padded the platform with foliage and blankets.

Looking the arrangement over, Adam had serious misgivings. While he was in no doubt about the strength of the construction, it was an unsuitable mode of transport for the terrain. The hillsides were steep, and they were going to have difficulty manoeuvring it over the wet ground and between the trees. He saw no help for it. Hoss was too heavy a man to be carried. He walked over to where his brother lay and hunkered down.
 
 

"Hey, c’mon, big guy. We’re gonna get you out of here."

Hoss rolled his head. His blue eyes were bright. "How you gonna do that, Adam? I can’t ride no place!" Hoss had been lying there thinking, and he could see no way out of his predicament.

"You don’t have to ride." Adam gave him a grin. "But you’re gonna have to walk a ways."

Hoss was dubious but willing to make the effort. With Adam’s help, he got painfully up onto his knees and then to his feet. The effort left him pale faced and swaying. Adam took his arm across his shoulders and offered the taller man what support he could. They both knew it was a risk. If Hoss fell, they would both go tumbling down.

When he saw the makeshift conveyance, Hoss was even more doubtful. He pulled a pained face. "You don’t ‘spect me ta ride that thing, Adam?"

"It’s either that or start walking."

Hoss thought about it and concluded that he didn’t have a whole lot of choice. Just the few steps from the shelter had left him breathless - and breathing hurt like hell. Shaking his head, he lowered his big body carefully down. Adam had rigged up a web-work of ropes, which he fastened about his brother’s shoulders. It was designed to stop him falling off when the going got rough. Hoss rolled his eyes, examining the construction from a close-up vantage point. "Know something’ Adam? I’m sure glad you got that bit o’ paper what say’s you’re an engineer."

Adam chuckled dutifully at the joke and rested a hand on his brother’s shoulder. He went to help Jody finish packing up their gear. Hoss lay on his back and looked at the sky. Tentatively, he explored his chest with his fingers. His ribs ached under the tight bandaging. He sure hoped that he was going to get out of this somehow; else how was he going to ask li’le Mary Fletcher to marry him. So thinking, Hoss drifted into another light doze.

He was still sleeping when Adam came and covered him up with a blanket. Jody crouched on the other side and helped tuck the comforter securely around the big man’s shoulders. He looked at Hoss’s face. It was still pale beneath the permanent tan, but now it wore a light sheen of sweat. Jody finally asked the first, and most obvious, of the awkward questions - the one that Adam had been dreading. "He’s gonna be all right, ain’t he, Adam?"

"Sure he is." Not knowing how much his brother could hear, Adam spoke quickly and confidently. He hoped and prayed that he was right. His eyes, as he glanced quickly up at Jody, belied the surety in his tone.

Adam pointed out the path that he wanted Jody to take, picking the easiest route across the angle of the hillside. Leading three of the horses tied on long lines, one behind the other, Jody set out, walking slowly. Adam brought up the rear with the black horse that pulled the makeshift travois.

Hoss’s sturdy mount had been trained as a cutting horse. He didn’t take to his new work kindly. He didn’t like the strange device that dragged on the ground behind him, neither the noise it made nor the unaccustomed distribution of weight on his back. He laid back his ears and tossed his head and danced about in the mud. Afraid that he might kick out behind, Adam took him firmly by the reins. "Whoa, now! Whoa!"

The gelding rolled his eyes but settled down. Adam tucked some cloth into the cheek straps of the bridle to act as blinkers. Then the horse couldn’t see the contraption following him. Following in Jody’s footsteps, Adam set out. Neither one of them had seen the huge, splayed out paw mark of a big cat in the soft soil beside the stream.

As Adam had anticipated, the way was neither smooth nor easy. Try as he might to avoid tree root and stones, the dragging skids of the travois found every bump and rut in the road. Each shudder and lurch of the timber work frame transmitted itself directly to Hoss’s body. The big man drifted somewhere between half-awake and semi-consciousness. Every jolt made him snatch at his breath and grind his teeth with pain. He refused to let any cry past his lips. He knew danged well that ol’ Adam was doing his darndest to get his out of this mess. He wasn’t going to make it any harder for him than he could help.

Adam was driven by two devils. On the one the one hand, there was the need not to cause his brother any more discomfort than he absolutely had to; on the other he had the necessity of getting him to somewhere warm and dry as quickly as he possibly could. Leading the horse at a steady pace, he made numerous detours around the roughest ground and avoided the steepest slopes. He was following not so much a map in his mind, as a vague trace of memory. He knew what he was looking for but not how to find it. The trees, the very hills themselves, had changed in a dozen years.

They were heading in the right direction - Adam was sure of it - but the details were obscured by time. After a while he started to wonder if they were on the right path at all.

Jody called to him from up ahead, "Hey, Adam," He had been slowing up and had finally come to a halt. He was looking at something of the trail. "I think you better come on up here an’ look at this."

Adam was irritated at the distraction and the delay. It showed on his face. He ground-tied the black horse and slogged forward, past the other horses on the path. He slapped rumps out of the way as he went. Coming up alongside Jody, he looked where the young man pointed.

There was a faint trail, leading away downhill; it was some sort of animal track-way. A few yards along something lay humped up beside the path. Further along, there was another, still flopping weakly. Squinting against the light, Adam saw something else. He put a warning hand on Jody’s arm. Knowing that the young man was not going to stay put, he voiced a warning, "Tread carefully. Stay behind me."

The first of the animals had been dead a day or so, caught in a wire noose designed not to damage the rich pelt. Looking further along they saw, as Adam had suspected, there were other traps pegged firmly into the ground. Jody wiped a sleeve across his face.

"You reckon these was set by them same fellas as trapped the grizzly?"

Adam’s breath sighed out. "Yeah. I reckon as they were. And they’re not more than two days ahead of us." He gestured at the hoof prints in the soft ground. "They must’ve laid traps all through these hills. There won’t be nothing left alive!"

Jody hunkered down beside him and studied the tracks the way Hoss had been teaching him. "I make it three men on horses an’ about a dozen mules. Look like they went downhill."

Adam straightened up. His handsome face was tight with anger and his fists white knuckled. He felt just as strongly as his brother about trappers invading their land. He would dearly have liked to swing into his saddle and ride out after them. Getting his brother to shelter took priority. Jody read the expressions as they flowed across his face. He licked his lips.

"What you gonna do, Adam?"

Adam let go the breath he’s been holding and unwound his hands. "I’ll do what I have to do," he said, "But first…"

He pulled a dead stick out of the undergrowth. Making his way along the path he systematically wrecked every trap in the line. He took another moment to make sure that the second animal was out of its misery. His face was still dark with fury as he strode back to where Jody waited with the horses. He threw the stick aside with an angry gesture. "Come on. Let’s get going. That way," he pointed, "Over the next hill."

It was something in the quality of the light that led Adam, at last, to the tiny hanging valley. It was almost as he remembered it. A stream tumbled down the hillside into a small pool. A steep and narrow path lead up to the shack. Constructed all of thirty years before by an early immigrant to a wild country, it was built out of whole, un-peeled pine logs. The trees and scrub brush had grown dense in the intervening years. Half buried in the ground for insulation, and for protection against the weather, it had all but disappeared into the undergrowth.

Adam felt relieved that, from a distance at least, it appeared to be intact. It still had a roof on it and a door that, Adam recalled, opened directly into the single room. In any even, it was too late to change his plans now. The sky was growing dark with the threat of rain as, yet again, the weather closed in on them.

It had become much colder. The breath of men and horses alike puffed into steam in front of their faces. Jody joined Adam and stood looking up towards the shack. He eyed it dubiously. There were signs of instability all around the valley. There had been a number of landslides at different times, one of them quite close to the path. In some spots it looked almost washed out altogether. In another place, a whole tree had uprooted and slid down the hill, ending up lying across the pool.

The drab and dreary little valley swept away Adam’s memories of the mellow, sunlit days spent hunting with his father.

"We really gonna walk Hoss up there, Adam?"

Adam, his hands on his hips, was in no mood for a debate. "That’s exactly what we’re gonna do."

As it happened, it was not such a difficult task as it at first appeared. Hoss was aware, if weak and feverish. He co-operated as best he could, and once they actually got him up on his feet he was able to walk slowly between them. The difficult part came at the place where the path narrowed down to the point where they had to walk in single file. The big man navigated the place slowly and carefully, grateful when he reached the other side and could lean again on his brother’s arm.

The last part of the path was steeper and more slippery. As they climbed it the rain started to fall - a fine, driving rain mixed with splinters of ice than stung the skin.
 
 

From the outside, the basic structure of the cabin looked to be sound. There was a piece of flattened ground at the front. Two, broad, split-log steps led up to the door, and there was a single, shuttered window. The door was stuck tight. Adam parked Hoss against the doorpost and put his boot to it.

Inside, the place was a shambles. It was dark and dank and smelled of damp decay. One corner of the roof had fallen in and the room was filled with the accumulated debris of the years. There were drifts of dead leaves and pine needles, fallen timber and turf from the roof and general dirt. Some creature had taken up residence for a while; the evidence of small, scattered bones made that clear. Whatever it might have been had moved out a long time ago. Everything was covered in a layer of amorphous filth.

Built by one man for his own, sole use, there was only a single bunk built into the wall. It was filled with the gnawed and rotted remains of an Indian blanket, its bright stripes now lost to time, and a pile of leaf litter blown in by the wind. There was a crude, home-made table that had survived intact and two chairs, one of them broken. Adam muttered a few sharp words that - adult he might be - he never used when his Pa was around. He had hoped for better.

He searched the place thoroughly for snakes and then got his brother inside. He dumped the rubbish out of the bunk while Jody started to bring up their blankets and other gear. They made up a bed, and Adam lowered Hoss carefully on to it. Exhausted by the short walk up the hill, Hoss was drifting away again, into sleep – or into unconsciousness. Adam stood for a long moment watching his brother’s face. There were a dozen things that he wished: that he could have gotten Hoss down out of the hills, that he could get a doctor and medicines, that they weren’t so far from home and help. Wishing would never make it so.

There was no stove or fireplace in the cabin, only a hearth stone set beneath a smoke hole. Adam started a fire with the leaf litter and fed the flames with bits of the broken chair. Then, he set Jody the task of cleaning up the mess while he went outside to try to mend the roof.

So far, the day had exactly fulfilled its promise. The early mists had burned away to leave the morning crystal clear. As the sun climbed higher it got smaller, and hotter. The temperature climbed steadily, making it the warmest day of the year, so far. Heat devils shimmied over patches of dry earth, and the hooves of the cattle stirred up a dust cloud that hovered over the herd.

Ben Cartwright wasn’t feeling any better - in fact, he felt a great deal worse. He pulled his coat more closely about him and shivered. He was sweating inside his clothes, but his body was icily cold. He figured he must be running one hell of a fever. Certainly he had the gripes low down in his belly. His tongue tasted and felt like a strap of old leather. It had to be something he’d eaten. He shifted himself around in the saddle to ease the discomfort, and, for the twentieth time since dawn, he looked towards the mountains.

They were closer now as the herd wound its way towards the pass. Again as predicted, storm clouds were gathering above the high hills. All the way along the range thunderheads were massing, black and purple, drifting, flat bottomed, on a layer of air.

As mountain storms went this was going to be a great grand pappy!

Charlie rode up alongside and hauled back on the reins. Taking off his hat, he wiped the sweat and several layers of dust off his face and onto his sleeve. He too looked up into the mountains. Being Charlie, he didn’t see any need to comment on the obvious. The sky had taken on an ominous, brassy look and the clouds were lowering.

"There ain’t no point in lettin’ ‘em stop, boss." The sound of his foreman’s voice came to Ben as if from a long way off. He made an effort to pay attention. "We might as well keep ‘em headed straight on into it."

Ben nodded agreement. "Keep them moving, Charlie. We can get another dozen miles behind us before sundown and bed them down this side of the hills tonight. Tomorrow we can take them on through the pass."

Charlie nodded and jammed his head back onto his head. He sat for a moment, watching the moving river of cattle rather than looking at Ben; his jaws working the tobacco methodically as he debated with himself. Ben was a long time friend, and Charlie could see that there was something bothering him. His face had a grey, pinched look with high colour on the cheeks and a distinctly distracted look about the eyes. There was something peculiar about the way he sat in the saddle as well. Charlie could usually tell when there was something at odds, be it with steer, horse, or man.

"You ain’t still mad at those two younglings, are ya?" he said finally.

Ben scowled and sighed heavily. "No, Charlie. I’m not still mad at them."

"Well, I’m glad ta hear it." Charlie chewed on for a moment. He hoped that what his boss told him was the truth. With a storm blowing up fast, they were going to need every man they had with his mind planted firmly on the job. There was going to be no time for distractions. He still had the distinct feeling that there was something wrong, but Ben seemed disinclined to elaborate. Charlie fretted at it a while, and then, with another nod, he kicked his horse on and rode away towards the front of the herd.

Ben watched him go and then lifted himself in the saddle and clamped a hand to his belly as a particularly strong wave of pain rippled through him. Just for a moment, dark spots floated at the edge of his vision. He wrapped a hand tight around the saddle horn to stop himself swaying in the saddle.

Far ahead, the first low rumble of thunder rolled off the mountain. Ben straightened up and made a conscious effort to concentrate. He couldn’t afford to be ill, not here and not now; he had a herd to deliver. He simply didn’t have the time.

"C’mon, Hoss! You gotta try an’ drink some o’ this!" Adam, with Hoss’s head propped up against his arm, was getting desperate. He was holding a mug of meat broth to his brother’s lips, but he was having no success whatever at getting any of it past them. The broth was the best thing they could make with what they had available: the last of the deer meat and the dried goods in the packs. It was rich and fragrant and thick with pearl barley. Hoss, a man of legendary appetite, didn’t notice that it was there.

The painful journey on the travois had taken more out of him than he could afford. He was barely conscious, drifting in and out of awareness. From time to time, he struggled to focus his eyes on Adam’s face; even tried to talk to him. The words were meaningless, little more than a mumble. His face was pale and tight, his lips and fingernails, blue. His body burned with the dry heat of fever; Adam could feel it radiating through his clothes. Only when the fever broke would the big man start to sweat. The sound of his breathing was loud in the cabin’s single room, a rasp that ended in a wet bubbling as his inflamed lungs struggled to extract oxygen from the air.

Adam gave up the attempt to get his brother to eat and handed the mug over to Jody. Extracting his arm from behind Hoss’s back, he lowered him back onto the bedding. Hoss muttered something unintelligible and his eyes closed. Adam pulled the blankets up around his shoulders. He rubbed a hand over his own face, feeling the grime and the sweat on his skin. He was wondering what in hell he was going to do now.

Jody came and stood beside him. There was a worried look on the young man’s face that almost matched Adam’s own. He now stood taller than Adam’s shoulder, an altogether leaner and rangier man who still had some upward growing to do. His tow-coloured hair was in its usual disarray, and his oddly coloured eyes were dark with concern. In unknowing imitation of the Cartwright mannerism, he planted his hands on his hips.

"Reckon he’s getting’ real’ sick, Adam."

Wiping the hand over his mouth again, Adam cleared away some of the grit. His eyes, only a few days ago serene and filled with laughter, now held the haunted stare of a trapped animal. His agile mind was still desperately seeking a way out of a dreadful predicament. There was none to be found.

"He is real’ sick. Jody." He sighed, owning up to the facts. "He’s got lung fever." It was an admission he hated to make. Uttering the words aloud made it so. He felt helpless –useless - in the face of a disease that could carry a man off in just a few days or, sometimes, only hours.

It was Jody who stepped forward and took charge. "I guess we better get him sat up some, so as he c’n breath better. An’ then we ought ta’ git some water on ta boil, dampen up the air."

Adam gave himself a mental shake and got on with what had to be done. Getting Hoss into a sitting position with one of the packs propped behind his back took a lot of effort from both of them. When it was finally accomplished both of them were satisfied that it would help the fluids drain out of the big man’s chest.

Clearing the air and making it easier for Hoss to breathe proved to be impossible. It was unfortunate that there was only wet wood to burn. The single room filled up with smoke that was difficult to dispel. Jody had to poke some holes in the newly patched roof to let the heat rise up and take some of the smoke out with it. They kept a pan of water boiling on the hearthstone, and, in the absence of balsam or camphor, Adam threw in a handful of fresh pine needles in the hope that the scent of their resin would help.

The long forgotten trapper had built better than he knew. The thick, pine log walls kept out the cold and retained the heat well. Now that Adam had sealed up every hole that he could find and the rain no longer found its way in, it rapidly started to get warm inside. It was also dark. The shutter on the only window was nailed shut and had been since the days Adam had inhabited the place with his father. In any event there was no glass, and the wind would blow the rain right inside if they opened it.

Jody made sure that Adam got some of the hot food inside him and ate himself before going out to tend the horses. It was still raining - big, dark drops that fell straight down out of the dark sky. Thunder rolled with monotonous regularity, although the lightening, when it flared, was a long way off. He fed the animals a small measure of grain and left them tethered securely a short way from the pool; then he lugged the last of the gear up the path to the cabin.

As the evening closed in, Jody and Adam sat close beside the fire and listened to the rain hammering on the front of the shack and to the occasional, sharper rattle of hailstones. It was a dismal sound. Inside, there was only the crackle and hiss of the wet wood in the flames and the harsh rasping of Hoss’s breathing.

Those storm clouds that had been gathering above the high hills since noon had drifted ever lower and spread out until they covered the entire sky. They showed all the intense and livid colours of a bruise: purple and black and brown, tinged here and there with yellow where the late sunlight poured through. Thunder, low and threatening, growled back and forth across the landscape. The world had lost its crystal clear clarity. Walls of mist and dust had closed in, making the details of distance indistinct.

Riding alongside the moving herd, keeping the steers in line and preventing the stragglers from falling behind, was hard, dirty work. The cattle were tired and bad tempered; the trail hands had to drive them hard to keep them moving at all.

Charlie rode up alongside Ben and looked him full in the face. "How much longer d’you want to push ‘em, boss?"

To Charlie’s eyes, Ben Cartwright didn’t look any better than he had several hours ago. In fact, under the accumulated layers of sweat and trail dirt, it could be that he looked a whole lot worse.

Ben looked at the sky. "I still want to get them up to that high pasture."

"I know the place." Charlie scowled, "That’s still a good hour up ahead. That storm’s sure gonna break afore we get there."

Ben’s face settled into that notoriously stubborn expression. The last thing he wanted right now was an argument with Charlie. "It’s a natural holding pen. From there we can run them all the way through the pass in a day, if we start early."

Chewing, Charlie considered. Everything Ben said was true, and Charlie knew it. But the boss was pushing hard - perhaps too hard. The men and the horses were as weary as the cattle. On the other hand the trees and the rocks had closed in on either side, narrowing the trail. There was no room here to turn the herd, to get it milling in the ever-tighter circle that would prevent it panicking when the storm started. Another roll of thunder interrupted his thoughts. This one was closer and louder. The steers bawled in counterpoint.

Ben shifted himself uncomfortably in the saddle. "Just keep them moving, Charlie."

Charlie hesitated as he considered, just for a moment, arguing the point further. Then he nodded curt assent and reined his horse round. After all, Ben was the boss.

Ben settled himself back into his seat and watched his foreman ride away into the haze. It had been the most miserable and inconvenient day he had experienced in a very long time. Always a robustly fit and healthy man, the sourness in his stomach and the ragging headache that persisted behind his eyes would give him no peace. He burned hot and cold with fever, and every joint ached. Just staying upright on the horse was an achievement of heroic proportions. Thunder rumbled again. The first, fat raindrops fell into Ben’s upturned face. They were icy cold on his fevered skin.

Charlie angled his horse across the line of march and cut skillfully through the herd. As he rode, his experienced eye took in all the warning signs: the wall-eyed look of the cattle and the way they crowded close – all but treading on one another’s toes, the surfeit of fresh sweat on the horses’ hides, the tense expressions on the cowhand’s faces. Even the air felt thicker, heavier. The quality of the sound: the bellowing of the cattle, the men’s anxious calls and whistles as they communicated with one another, the whinny of a horse, was different, concentrated. Charlie chivvied the men along.

"Keep ‘em moving, boys! Keep ‘em moving!" As it started to rain he looked heavenward. The leading edge of the storm was passing directly over his head. Lightening danced back and forth between the clouds, and the thunder followed right behind. The pace of the herd increased.

Charlie spat out his wad and turned his gelding around. He kicked hard, thinking that he might reach the point of the herd before the trouble began. He knew already that he was way too late.

The sky spat lightening.

It cracked off a rock away to the left with a sound like a rifle shot. To the right, a tree flared suddenly into flame.

Abruptly silent, the steers started to run. The rumble of hooves turned to a thunder that echoed the fury of the storm.

The outriders urged their horses to keep up, forcing the cattle into a tight stream, not letting them spread out. The sky flared and crackled again.

"Stay with ‘em!" Charlie yelled, "Stay with ‘em!" From the corner of his eye he spotted a bunch of about thirty steers split off from the main herd and hightail it down an arroyo. He picked out the nearest two men, "Git after them breakaways!" He flung out an arm to indicate the direction.

"Sure thing, Charlie!" Joe Cartwright raised his hand in acknowledgement. He swung his pinto’s head, and he and Asia Prior set out after the runaway steers at a gallop.

The rain lashed like a thousand whips across the backs of the cattle. The dust turned instantly into mud beneath their churning feet. Ben Cartwright did his best to put his personal discomfort aside. Raising his resonant voice above the racket of the storm, he shouted instructions and encouragement to the men. With hands and heels he urged the buckskin horse close in against the flanks of the running steers, trying desperately to keep them on the trail and out of the rocks where they would break their legs and their necks.

It might have been that he was operating below his usual level of competence, or it may have been the whim of an ancient and spiteful god; Ben’s horse stumbled at an exact and fateful moment.

Ben shortened the rein in an immediate and instinctive attempt to steady him. In the same instant a massively built, brown and white steer swung out of the herd. Finding the horse in his way, the wild-eyed bullock bellowed and tried to dodge aside. The buckskin squealed and threw up his head. Ben decided that it was a good time to get off. He kicked free of the stirrups. The steer swung his head.

Lightening lit the sky. Ben saw a sudden flowering of red on the horse’s shoulder as a needle pointed horn ripped into the honey-coloured hide. Screaming, the horse tumbled onto his side and rolled.

The steer, having done his worst, disappeared back into the herd.

The horse scrambled back onto his feet, shied at his fallen rider and loped away into the storm. Ben Cartwright lay unmoving on the ground at the side of the trail, and the rain continued to fall.

The stampede was short lived. The cattle were already tired, and they had been headed uphill. Inside twenty minutes the herd was back under control and the steers were bellowing again. They were turning in a giant, slowly revolving cartwheel in the sparse, high pasture. It was raining steadily, and thunder still rolled, but the first fury of the storm, the darkling clouds and the flashes of lightening, was moving away towards the desert. The darkness now was caused by encroaching nighttime.
 
 

Charlie and Auron Prior stooped to study the shoulder of Ben’s buckskin horse. Auron Prior wiped some of the blood away with his hand. There was a long, shallow gouge running all the way back to the saddle girth, still oozing. The horse’s hide quivered, and he stamped his foot.

"Don’t reckon as that’s gonna hinder him too much," Auron said. He gave the horse a steadying pat on the neck.

Charlie concurred. "I’ll sew ‘im up in a while. He’ll be just fine." He straightened up and watched two of the hands carry a man into the lee of the cook-wagon. In the rain and the fast fading light the scene had a funerary aspect. "I gist hope I c’n do somethin’ o the same fer the boss."

Auron followed Charlie’s gaze with his eyes. "There weren’t no blood on the old man."

"That don’t mean shit iffen the horse rolled on ‘im." To emphasis his feelings Charlie spat the juice of his brand-new wad out onto the ground. His expression was bleak. "He could be all smashed up inside. Ain’t nothin’ a man c’n do about it."

Auron Prior leaned back on his heels. "Pete Barnes is as good a doctor as he is a cook, even if he ain’t got no fancy papers ta prove it. If Ben Cartwright can be fixed, then Pete’s the man ta do the fixin."

Charlie gave Auron Prior a long, hard look. There was shrewdness in the foreman’s faded eyes, and it was as if, just for a moment, a thin veil lifted. He saw – or thought he saw – a different man entirely. Behind the easy smile and the relaxed manner was a sure confidence and an iron hard determination. Prior stood tall and returned the stare. Even standing still, he had a rangy, feline grace. The standard issue shirt, pants and vest of the cowpoke were worn like a second skin, one that could be shed and another donned at a moment’s notice. The tied down Colt, worn with such studied casualness, was as much a part of the man as his fingers and thumbs. It occurred to Charlie that, perhaps, none of the Priors were exactly what they seemed.

And then Auron grinned his trademark, gap-toothed grin, and the moment was past. As the rain finally stopped the concealing mask slipped back into place, and Charlie was left wondering.

Arthur Prior sauntered over. His big, bluff version of the Prior face was set into stern lines.

"Pete’s lookin’ him over now," he said. Charlie noticed with a new and sharp perception that he spoke to his brother rather than to himself. "He don’t look ta have no broke bones, an’ he ain’t bleedin’ none on the outside. He just don’t seem ta wake up."

Charlie looked from one to the other of them, chewing steadily. "Guess I’d better go take a look."

Now that the herd was settling down the men were gathering around the newly lighted fire, talking, waiting for the coffee pot to boil and expecting to be fed. Beyond, up against the side of the wagon, Ben Cartwright lay cocooned in blankets. He wasn’t moving. As they tramped over Pete Barnes straightened up from beside him and wiped his palms off against his butt. There was a scowl on his face.

"Don’t reckon as you fellas should come a whole lot closer." His voice had an edge to it that carried as far as the campfire and stopped Charlie in his tracks. Men’s heads came up and conversations stopped.

Charlie pushed his wad into his cheek. "You say what you gotta say."

Barns planted his hands on his hips. "He’s got a few bruises ta be proud of, but he ain’t been stomped on none."

"Then why ain’t he wakin’ up?"

Barnes pulled a face. "I guess that’s ‘cause he’s runnin a fever fit ta burn a barn, an’ he’s got a whole mess o’ spots."

Charlie’s eyes narrowed as everyone mentally, and some physically, took a long step back. "What sort o’ spots?" he asked.

"Bright pink ‘uns. All over his chest ‘n’ belly." Pete Barnes pulled a long breath. "I seen ‘em afore. I’m tellin’ you fellas, Ben Cartwright’s got hisself as pretty a dose o’ typhoid fever as I ever seen."
 
 

A big, wide smile spread itself, quite spontaneously, across Joe Cartwright’s face. With a prolonged sigh of satisfaction he gazed at the view spread out in front of him. It was as pleasant a prospect as a man in his situation could wish to see.

Last night, in the rain, it had seemed to the two young men that the breakaway steers would never stop running – and that they would never catch up with them. Stampeding down hill and with the storm in its full fury behind them, the cattle had just kept on going, hell for leather out of the hills and into the lowlands. In the dark and the rain, Joe and Asia had lost track of them entirely. They had been forced to bed down, in their sodden clothes and on the hard, wet ground, in the only shelter they could find – a patch of dripping foxtail pines. Without supper or more than their saddle roll blankets to wrap themselves in, it had been a long, cold and uncomfortable night.

Now though, it all seemed worth while. They had made an early start and had a stroke of good fortune in finding the trail that the cattle had taken. In daylight the tracks had been clear in the rain-dampened earth, and it had just been a matter of following along behind until they had found the runaway steers. The animals were dotted over a wide area of flat, scrubby pasture, browsing placidly, as if the night before had never happened.

Joe exchanged a grin with Asia Prior, sitting alongside him on his black gelding. "I didn’t figure they’d go on running for long, once the storm blew over."

The early sky was cloudless and a bright, sparkling blue, just starting to shade towards gold, and the sun was warm on their backs. Their clothes had been drenched through by the rain but were now almost dry. Both men were hungry, having missed both supper and breakfast; now they had the prospect of gathering up the strays and driving them back to rejoin the main herd before lunch.

Asia grinned lazily and tipped back his hat. "It’ll take us ‘bout an hour ta round ‘em up, Joe. Reckon your Pa’ll be real glad ta see em back."

The smile faded somewhat from Joe’s face. The cattle represented a sizeable investment for the family business, and there was no doubt that his father would be pleased at their recovery. Following yesterday’s encounter, Joe was less certain of his own reception. He knew that his father was inclined to hang on to a bone of contention with all the tenacity of a bulldog. He still expected to be chewed out for his exploits in Maryville. Sighing, he gathered his reins. "Let’s go get ‘em, Asia."

Asia was still smiling as the two young men kicked their horses into motion and rode down the hill. At the bottom they split up, Joe going left, and Asia taking the right hand trail as they started to gather the cattle together.

The steers were amenable enough. They moved off docilely, still chewing, as the horses approached, seemingly happy to be bunched together. The morning air was pleasant and fresh after the rain, heating through slowly as the sun rose with the promise of the first true day of spring. After a mostly sleepless night, Asia Prior was almost dozing in the saddle and letting his horse do most of the work. When the animal shied and pulled up short he was all but thrown out of the saddle. He grasped at the saddle horn, tightening his legs instinctively around the gelding’s barrel.

It was easy to see what had caused the alarm. Here the ground took a dip into a hollow, and the soil at the edge was soft and spongy. The horse disliked the insubstantiality of it and had balked. Now he refused to go on and was dancing in the trail. Asia brought him under control and looked on along the path. Everything appeared normal enough, but further along there was a steer that seemed to be mired in the ground up to his haunches. As Asia watched, holding the skittish horse in check, the animal made a lunge as if to get out and then fell back. The apparently solid earth heaved around him, and he sunk in even further than he had been before.

From where he sat, Asia could see more steers similarly stricken – four, or may be five of them. They were stuck fast, and their struggles to escape had all but exhausted them. None of them were going to last a lot longer; one had already succumbed and was no more than a brown hump sinking slowly into the ground.

Asia knew at once what he was confronted with. Keeping the gelding on a tight rein, he drew his gun and fired two shots into the air; it was a signal to Joe to come running. Unhitching the rope from around his saddle horn he spun out a loop and dropped it over the horns of the nearest steer. The animal shook its head and bellowed the customary objection to the indignity. Asia took a turn of rope about the saddle horn and backed the gelding up. The rope tightened. Both man and horse were already hard at work when Joe rode over the rise.

Asia waved him back. "Careful, Joe! Quicksand!"

Joe saw at once what Asia had seen: the way nothing grew down in the hollow, the fine-textured, too-smooth surface of the ground, the entrapped steers. He worked his pinto mare carefully round the edge of the killing pit, uncoiling his rope as he went. Asia spared him a glance.

"I reckon we c’n git most of ‘em out afore they go under iffen we git to it."

Joe was grimly determined. His family had put too much effort into the raising of these steers to lose them in some damn sinkhole! "We’re sure as hell gonna try," he said shortly. He tossed the loop of his lariat over the horns of the same steer that Asia had roped earlier. With the combined weight of the two horses leaning against the ropes, the steer stopped sinking, and with his own efforts he began to make his way towards firmer ground.

Charlie stood and watched the two men ride away. Then he spat emphatically onto the ground in front of him. Auron Prior hauled his horse to a halt alongside him and stepped down. Turning, he followed Charlie’s gaze, looking the way the men had gone although they were both now out of sight among the trees and the rocks. "That the last of them, Charlie?"

Charlie’s expression was one of utter contempt. "Yup. That makes four this mornin’, three last night." They were all the extra hands that Ben had hired to help with the herd - seven men who had ridden away without troubling to ask for their wages, just glad to be gone. Charlie was angry, and he was worried, but he couldn’t bring himself to blame any of them; they didn’t owe any loyalty to the Cartwrights, and they had gotten plain scared. He guessed that having typhoid in the camp was enough to frighten a whole lot of men.

So far, the men who were on the regular payroll had sat tight; although Charlie had heard mutterings and intercepted wall-eyed glances that he wasn’t intended to see. He turned his faded eyes on Auron Prior; Charlie needed to know where he stood, and he figured he might as well hear the worst of it now. "And how about you men? You know I ain’t got the cash ta pay ya off. What you gonna do?"

Auron met the angry look with his usual crooked smile. Hands in his back pockets, flat on his rump, he pulled a long, deep breath. "I don’t reckon as we got any pressin’ business anyplace else," he said easily, "We’ll just stick around a while longer."

Chewing, Charlie gazed round at the trail camp. It all looked remarkable normal, if quiet. Pete Nash, taking a break from the saddle, was sitting over by the baggage wagon dealing himself hands of cards onto an upturned box. Peter Barnes was fussing around the campfire, stirring something in a pot; he was chatting to Ashley Prior, squatting on a box cleaning his pistol. Charlie had noticed that he did a lot of that. The other two Priors, Arthur and Astley were not in sight. They were riding herd on the steers. The only thing out of place was the man who still lay wrapped in his blankets in the middle of the morning.

Ben Cartwright was still alive, which, Charlie supposed, was a good sign. He remained comatose and burning with fever. Charlie shot Auron Prior a narrow glance. "I’m glad ta hear it."

Narrow eyed, Auron reached out a hand and touched Charlie’s arm. "Reckon you got more trouble, Charlie. There’s three fellas ridin’ in. Seems like I recognize a couple of ‘em."

Charlie turned and looked. Sure enough, there were three horsemen coming up the hill, riding abreast, stirrup to stirrup. One was a big-built, redheaded man in a dark suit – waistcoat, watch-chain and all – who looked ill-used to sitting on a horse. Next to him rode a burley, bearded figure on an animal that looked more suitable to pulling a plough and, next to him, the lean, lanky sheriff from Maryville. Charlie recognized the sheriff and the farmer who had started the fight in the saloon. The other man was a stranger. All of them had stern faces. Charlie guessed that they hadn’t ridden all this way on any pleasure trip. The three of them drew their horses to a stop a respectful distance away.

Charlie stepped forward, looking the three of them over. "Howdy, gents. What c’n I do few you-all?"

The three of them exchanged telling glances. The big man heaved himself up in the saddle. It looked like it cost him a lot of effort. He had a pale-skinned face that went with the red hair and was scorched pink by the sun. He was sweating. He took off his hat and mopped his face with a large, white handkerchief. "I’ve come to talk to a man named Cartwright – Ben Cartwright," he said. From his brogue he was unmistakably first-generation Irish.

Thoughtfully, Charlie chewed on his tobacco. "Don’t reckon as you c’n do that right now," he said, "on account o’ Mister Cartwright, he ain’t feelin’ too well."

More glances switched back and forth amongst the three mounted men. Charlie was disinclined to invite them to step down, so he left them sitting there.

The sheriff sat up straighter, leaning back in his saddle to stretch his back. Charlie got the impression that he didn’t do a whole lot of riding. "We come ta talk ta him on account o’ his son, Joe Cartwright…" he began.

With a scowl, the Irishman interrupted him, "And the liberties he’s been taking with my daughter!"

"Miss ‘Tilda O’Toole, the lady I intend to marry!" the farmer added hotly.

"And the other man who was ridin’ with him. The fella with ribbons in his hair." The sheriff finished with a sidelong glare at the other two. It seemed that the three men hadn’t got it sorted out between them who was going to be spokesman.
 
 

Charlie looked from one to the other, eventually deciding to address his remarks to the sheriff. "Reckon you-all had a long ride fer nothin’. Ain’t neither one of ‘em here right now."

The Irishman, Shamus O’Toole, leading light of a small community and a man well used to getting his own way, scowled darkly. The farmer glowered. The sheriff, if anything, looked faintly relieved.

"That young man has used my daughter disgracefully!" O’Toole growled. His face was becoming even pinker.

"And blackened the name of my future lady wife!" The farmer’s lip lifted in a snarl. It revealed the brown-tombstone teeth in the midst of his beard. Charlie thought that, compared with this man, perhaps even he could see the attraction that the younger and undeniably well favoured Joe Cartwright might have for the fairer sex.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw the lithe Astley Prior and his bulkier brother, Arthur, climbing down from their horses. They ranged up alongside their brothers. They were all wary and watchful.

The sheriff shifted again in his saddle. He was finding the situation increasingly uncomfortable – either that or he had a bur in his pants. "Seems like Mister O’Tool there’s got a point," he said, "seein’ as it’s his daughter what’s suffered."

"My daughter didn’t get home ‘til daybreak," O’Toole grumbled on. "Ain’t right fer them to be out together all night long like that."

Charlie squinted up at him. It occurred to him that Miss Matilda O’Toole might not have suffered quite so much as she made out – leastwise, not until Joe Cartwright rode off and left her.

"Reckon Mister O’Toole is entitled to some sort of restitution," the sheriff was saying.

Charlie was aware of the Priors gathering ‘round, keeping their distance but paying close attention. They were all wearing their guns and staying carefully out of each other’s line of fire. The gambler, Nash, had put away his cards and fallen into line with the Priors; Pete Barnes had fetched a rifle from the cook wagon and was carrying in cradled in his arms. T.J. and Stubby Longbough were hovering not far away. In all, it was a formidable array of the men. To his credit, the sheriff was not intimidated. His grey eyes drifted slowly ‘round the rough semi-circle of faces and settled back on Charlie’s.

Without bothering to turn his head, Charlie spat on the ground. "Seems ta me you should ride closer herd on the girl you aim ta marry," he said to the farmer. And shrewdly, to the Irishman, "An’ you want a tighter rein on your daughter, Mister."

O’Toole’s face had darkened to an interesting shade of purple. The farmer growled with rage somewhere deep down in his belly. The sheriff cast them anxious looks. Election time was coming up, and in the small town of Maryville these were two powerful and influential men. That was the only reason he had gotten out from behind his desk and onto this horse and ridden all the way out here. "I reckon as we should all git down and talk this over with Mister Ben Cartwright. Seems like him an’ his boy owe Mister O’Toole here some sort of restitution."

Before he could kick free of his stirrup Charlie held up a hand. "Don’t think you-all want ta do that. Like I already told ya, Mister Cartwright ain’t any too well." He indicated the blanket wrapped man on the ground beside the wagon. "Pete there knows some doctorin’. He says as Ben Cartwright’s gotta a dose o’ typhoid fever."

Abruptly, the three horsemen paled visibly. They drew back, tightening their reins. Sensing their rider’s alarm, the horses began to fidget. Charlie chewed on for a few seconds.

"’Course," he said finally, "Iffen you insist on seein’ him…"

The sheriff looked over his shoulder. His companions, the Irishman and the farmer, were already sitting several yards back. He turned back to Charlie. "Don’t reckon as we’ll be doin’ that." He touched his hat politely, stepped his horse back a pace and turned him away.

Alongside Charlie, Auron Prior planted his hands squarely on his hips. Charlie sensed the tension easing out of the man. "You think they’ll be back?"

"Nah." Charlie switched his wad from one cheek to the other "They ain’t gonna be back." Looking ‘round he could see that the other Priors had already dispersed. Charlie spat and went back to work.

From his vantage point high up on the main trail, Herricule Bojun could see all the way down the animal track. Just a few days ago Perriot and Lighterman had spent long hours setting the double line of wire noose traps. It had been a huge investment of time and effort. Already, it was quite clear that all their work had been for nothing.

Corbel Lighterman came striding up the hillside. A young and supremely fit man, the privations and punishments of long weeks in the wilds had taken little toll of his strength, He was still energetic and moved easily with long, loose strides. Right now every line and every angle of his powerful body betrayed the anger that was pent up inside him. In each hand he carried a small, furred corpse.

Once, twice, he stopped to peer into the bushes at the side of the path and to kick furiously at the remains of the traps. Behind him Perriot, older and perhaps wiser – certainly stiffer – followed much more slowly. He looked carefully to right and left, examining much more closely what was left of their handiwork and studying the mud of the path itself.

Lighterman tossed the carcasses down on the ground in a gesture of absolute disgust. He glared up at Bojun out of dark, furious eyes. In the time that they had been in the hills his black hair had grown long and his beard ragged. When he snarled he looked like a wild beast. He was snarling now, his face darkened with rage. "Two! Just two! And all the Goddamn traps are broken!"

Bojun gazed down at him from the saddle of his horse. His blue eyes were bleak. Equally angry, his rage was contained, simmering. His harsh voice rasped, "What do you mean, broken?"

Perriot came up behind Lighterman. "’Bel means what he says. The traps have been smashed. He pulled a stick out of the bushes and made a close examination of the end of it. "I think, with this."

Lighterman snatched the stick and stared at it. Bojun’s lips compressed. "Not a critter then." It was a statement.

"A two legged one, may be." Perriot gave an elegant shrug.

His rage overflowing, Lighterman hurled the stick away. Spinning ‘round he stared this way and that as if he might still catch sight of the man who had thwarted him. The anger was boiling off him as raw heat. "Which way? Which way’d he go?"

Bojun nodded to Perriot. Grim faced, Perriot walked out past where their horses and mules had churned up the trail and hunkered down to study the marks in the earth. Lighterman was impatient. "Well, what d’you find!"

"Give the man time." Bojun eased his seat in the saddle and rubbed his leg. All this damned rain was making his old wounds ache. He wished he had a jug of liquor, but they were strapped to the back of a mule. Besides, his supply was running low; he needed what he had so that he could sleep nights and get started in the morning.

Perriot stood up and cast about him, searching for cleaner sign. "I can’t say for certain. It looks like more than one man, but there’s something strange about these tracks – as if something heavy’s been dragged through. The rain has washed most of it away. They’re more than a day in front of us."

Lighterman turned on Bojun, his fists clenched and his face working. "You said there weren’t no folks in these Goddamn hills!"

Bojun sat up straighter. His eyes hardened. "I guess I was wrong about that. We’re a whole lot further north than I figured ta be. Guess we might just be jumpin’ up an’ down on someone’s tail." Although he would avoid trouble if he could the prospect of it didn’t bother him a great deal. His eyes scanned the trees speculatively.

Lighterman’s anger was still white-hot. "I want ta go after them!"

Bojun regarded him with cold contempt. Perriot looked at Bojun but failed to catch his eye. With a shake of his head he walked away and climbed back onto his horse. Lighterman stood on the ground and fumed. "I said I want ta go after them!"

"I heard ya," Bojun said. "We ain’t got time ta go on no manhunt. We got traps set down below that we gotta see ta; else we’ll lose the pelts ta some damn predator. Now git back on your horse, an’ let’s git goin."

Lighterman was torn two ways – between the need for revenge and the money that the pelts would bring. Bojun contemplated the trees again. He rubbed his bad leg. Drawing his gun, he brought his weight down firmly on one side of the equation. Resting his forearm casually across the saddle horn he pointed the big colt in the general direction of Lighterman’s belly. "You had your chance to ride out, way-back. Ya don’t git another. Mount up – or I’ll kill ya where ya stand."

Lighterman ground his teeth in fury. Enraged, he hesitated one dangerous moment longer before snatching up the trailing reins of his horse and swinging into the saddle. Satisfied, Bojun put the gun away and drove his heel into his horse’s side. He didn’t see the hatred glittering in Lighterman’s eyes, but as he moved off, he might have felt it burning into his back.

Joe Drury came rapidly but carefully down the steep hillside. Despite the several and various problems that hovered in the back of his young mind like flies at a summer picnic, this morning he was feeling good. One problem, that of his injured arm, was receding. The long, parallel scratches on his forearm that had festered for days didn’t hurt any more; although he was going to be left with some dandy scars! The headache and fever that had plagued him were gone. Now, his whole arm itched intolerably – a sure sign, Adam told him, that it was starting to heal. His head was clear, and his gold-and-green eyes were bright.

Today the first true touch of spring had brushed its coattails across the high Sierra.

Jody expanded his chest and sucked in great breaths of fresh, clean air. The breezes wafting down from the high ground were cool, vagrant and just strong enough to ruffle his pale hair. The morning was brilliant with glancing, dancing sunbeams and redolent with the scent of growing things. If he lifted his eyes he could see the eastern slopes of the Sierras with crystal clarity; they had to be at least halfway to heaven! The high peaks were streaming long pennants of bright, white cloud across the sky. This had to be a million times better than where he had spent his young life, in the noise, dirt and confusion of Silver City. He could understand Hoss Cartwrights’ love of this wild country; indeed, he felt something of that love burgeoning in himself. Just looking around him at the tree covered hills with their streams and falling water and at the beautiful backdrop of the mountains, made his heart lift. In all, it was a fine day to be alive, and Jody found it impossible to keep the smile off his face.

In one hand he carried his long saddle gun, recently purchased with his own hard earned money and presently his pride and joy. In the other he held a pair of fat-tailed pine-squirrels. They had been hard to find and harder to shoot, even though Jody, with constant and assiduous practice, was becoming something of a marksman.

This morning the hanging valley was luminous with a light that reflected and re-reflected of the surface of the ever-moving water. If he didn’t study it too closely, the old trapper’s shack looked almost idyllic, suspended above the pool in its cluster of dark-leafed scrub oak. Or it may have been that the idealism was only in Jody’s mind. A drift of wood smoke came from the smoke-hole, dashed away by the breeze. Jody climbed the steep, slippery path to the door and let himself in.

Adam Cartwright looked up as Jody pushed the door shut behind him and struggled briefly with it to make it fit back into its warped and twisted frame. He straightened, stretching the kinks out of his back. Adam was a big man. He dominated the single room of the cabin, not only with his physical presence but also with a dark and brooding facet of his personality. In the days, and especially in the nights since Hoss’s accident, he had undergone a change. The gentle man who had laughed and splashed in the water of a beaver pond and sung beside the campfire, the man whom Jody had just begun to see, had been reabsorbed. In his place was a formidable, sharp-tongued, short fused individual. His dark clothes were dirty and sweat-stained, his face unshaved and blue with stubble. He hadn’t slept, and he ate little. He looked almost gaunt. The skin of his face had tightened, and his eyes had sunken back into his head. Those eyes were haunted with a natural and understandable fear for his brother and rimmed around with shadows.

Jody held up the two squirrels for inspection. Adam looked at them without comment.

There was not enough meat on the two small bodies to feed even the two of them for a single day. Soon, hunger would become a problem. In the gloom of the dark, smoky room, Adam’s eyes glittered.

"There ain’t nothin’ else about," Jody said defensively. "It’s as if all the wild things have skiddaddled out o’ these woods."

"Hunters," Adam replied with a short, sharp, expressive jerk of the head, "When they move into an area, everything else moves out, pronto. It’s a sort of sixth sense they have."

Jody took the remark as criticism and flared hotly in response, "Well, it ain’t my fault!"

Adam flashed right back, "I never said that it was!" The close confinement and the pressures of the situation were getting to both of them. Somehow, the two men just rubbed each other raw.

Tight lipped, Jody switched his attention to skinning and cleaning the squirrels. His cheerful mood had changed quickly to one of resentment and anger, although he was uncertain why.

Adam turned away. His hands clenched in frustration. Irrationally, he was still blaming himself for his brother’s accident, and he was taking out his anger on the younger man. He knew that his reaction was unfair and unjustified, and that made him even angrier. He was frantically worried about Hoss.

The big man was breathing easier now; although he still drifted in and out of awareness. His fever had broken sometime in the small hours of the morning, but his face was still grey and wet with sweat. His skin now looked, somehow, loose. Adam bent over the bunk and dabbed at his brother’s face with a scrap of cloth. Hoss’s pale eyes opened.

For a moment, Hoss was confused. He didn’t know where he was or what had happened to him. Always, on awakening, he had this same struggle to remember. He knew that he was hurt and that he had been ill. He screwed up his face and tried to focus his eyes, "Adam?"

"I’m right here, Hoss." Adam moved into his line of sight, leaning close so Hoss could see him. He could smell the sour sweat of sickness on his brother’s body and see the effort that it cost him to breathe.

Hoss lifted a hand and clamped it onto Adam’s arm, gripping hard. "Adam, I’m hurtin’ inside somethin’ fierce!"

"I know." Adam pressed him back into the bunk. "You have to lie quiet." Hoss subsided, and his eyelids fluttered as he fought another battle with oblivion. Adam stood up, listening to the heave of his breathing. The lower part of Hoss’s chest was crushed for sure, beneath the blankets and the bandaging his body was black and blue with bruising. Adam didn’t know how much damage he had inside.

Adam’s hands curled themselves into fists. Lying here in a log cabin in the middle of the wilderness with no medicines and the food running out wasn’t doing Hoss any good. It might yet be the death of him. Adam came to a decision. He reached for his gunbelt and buckled it around his hips.

Jody, at that moment dumping the scraps of squirrel meat into the pot, looked up at him, "Where you goin’?"

Adam finished with the buckle. In the light of the fire and the daylight that filtered through the chinks in the wall, his eyes had a feral glint.

"I’m goin’ ta fetch us some help."

Jody straightened up slowly, a tall, lean form outlined against the fire. He wiped his hands down the legs of his pants and touched the tip of his tongue to his lips. He held his voice steady, "You’re gonna leave us here?"

Again Adam’s eyes gleamed with cold fire as he turned, grabbed his coat and set his hat on his head. His whole attitude now was one of fierce determination. "I don’t have a choice. You’ll be all right. Keep the fire going. Get Hoss to drink as much as you can and try and get some food into him."

"I will." Jody ground his teeth together. He didn’t like the idea of Adam going off and leaving them, but, like the man said, they didn’t have any other options left. He was shaking, but he wasn’t about to let Adam know it. In the dim light, Adam couldn’t see how pale his face was.

Now that his mind was made up, Adam was in a hurry. He sorted quickly through his saddlebags, slung them over his shoulder and snatched up his long gun. He started for the door.

"How long will you be gone?"

Adam paused, his hand on the latch. He hated to leave his brother, and he disliked having to leave this young man with the responsibilities of caring for him. He knew that there was nothing else he could do.

"I know the fastest trail out of these hills, and I’ve got a good horse. I should be able to make it to town and get back here with the doctor and some basic supplies in six, may be seven days." He didn’t add that his timing depended upon his being able to find Paul Martin quickly – Paul being the only man in the territory with any formal medical training – and on the doctor’s willingness to ride out this far. Adam hesitated a moment longer, torn between going and staying. Then he opened the door and stepped out into the bright morning.

Jody followed him out. The young man’s mind was already running along the lines of how he was going to hunt up enough food from the denuded country to feed Hoss and himself for a week. Then there was the necessity to get dry firewood and fresh water up to the cabin and the care of the remaining animals. He knew he was going to have his work cut out for him.

Adam started down the path towards the pool, and the tethered horses with a long and determined stride. He was already planning ahead, mapping out in his mind the best way through the hills, and the speed that his horse could make without dropping under him before he got home. Once more his face was set into hard, grim lines.

He had reached the halfway point in the path – the place where the supporting bank had washed away and it narrowed down to almost nothing – when he felt the ground slide away beneath his feet.

The slope was steep and the soil loose, unbound by the roots of trees or underbrush. It was also sodden, soaked through by the prolonged spring rainfall. Jody heard Adam yelp - more with surprise than alarm and saw him disappear over the edge.

The sensation of falling was short lived. Adam had no time at all to grasp what had happened before he landed hard on his back, still sliding, the breath knocked out of him. He heard Jody’s startled cry of warning – too late to do him any good – and saw the wheeling of the sky high above. He felt the rough soil and stones as he slid over them, cushioned by his clothes, and the cascade of debris that fell along with him. Somehow he kept hold of the rifle, his hand tightening about it convulsively. The saddlebags fell away, slithering down the hill in a little avalanche all of their own.

The fall lasted only for seconds and ended with an abrupt halt among the woody shrubs and stunted trees at the water’s edge. Adam’s feet tangled in the bushes. A sharp, jarring pain shot upward through his body followed by a longer wave of more intense agony that carried him to the brink of oblivion.

Jody ran to the broken edge of the path. "Adam? Adam!"

He could see Adam Cartwright where he lay sprawled, some twenty feet below, still on his back with his legs all twisted up in the underbrush. He wasn’t moving much. Carefully, fearful of starting another mudslide, Jody eased himself over the edge and climbed down, mostly slithering on his backside. He had to scramble sideways to get to Adam’s side. He started to clear the loose soil and stones away from Adam’s face.

"Adam, are you okay? Adam?"

Adam’s eyes opened. He rolled his head in the dirt, finding Jody. There was confusion and pain on his face in equal measure. "I think I’m just winded. I’ve done something to my leg." He tried to move and gasped as pain tore through him again.

Jody started to clear the debris from around Adam’s feet. "Hey! Careful, careful!" Adam winced, bracing himself. He tried to sit up and thought better of it. The slightest movement of his leg brought fresh, hot pain. It was that same, right leg that had stopped a Shoshoni arrow two summers past.

Jody looked at him anxiously. The young man was white-faced and frightened.

Adam ground his teeth together. "It’s okay," he said tightly, "It’s okay." In reality, he knew that it was far from okay. Cautiously, he twisted round and raised himself up onto one elbow to get a look at his leg. One glance was enough. His foot was turned outwards at a very strange angle. He lowered himself back to the ground. He could feel the cold damp starting to seep through his clothes. He sucked a long breath in through his teeth. "It looks like I broke my leg."

Jody’s eyes grew huge. His voice shook, "What are we gonna do?"

Adam fought back against the pain and a rising tide of terror. He struggled to think rationally. "For a start, we don’t panic. Here…" He wriggled his hand into his pants pocket and pulled out his folding knife. He thrust it at Jody, "slit my pants leg up to the knee. Then you’re gonna have to cut my boot off."

The operation was not nearly so simple as he made it sound. By the time it was accomplished, both men were pale and sweating and had tears on their cheeks. Adam manoeuvred himself to get another look. His shin was already puffy and purple with bruising. The sight of the broken shinbone pressing against his skin from the inside brought on a wave of nausea and the black pit yawned again. He didn’t dare pass out. He knew that if the end of the bone broke through the skin he was a dead man. Infection and gangrene would carry him away long before he could reach help. He drew a long breath and forced himself to think.

"Jody, you’ll have to fetch some kindling from the firebox. Get strong, straight sticks. And get some rags. Tear the sleeves out of a couple of shirts. Bring them back here."

"Adam…" Jody chewed at his lip. Not wanting to leave Adam alone, he was inclined to argue.

Adam was barely clinging to his own senses. "For the good Lord’s sake, do it, will you!"

The young man was gone for what seemed like a very long time. Adam lay on his back on the wet earth and looked up into the sky. It was a bright, clear blue, and it looked as if it went on forever. All his senses were heightened. He felt the brush of moving air against his cheek and smelt the fresh scent of new pine. A blue-backed beetle walked over the back of his hand; he felt the prickle of its sharp clawed feet on his skin. He could hear the sound of his own breathing, slowing, steadying, and the hiss of his blood. He used the time to gather his resolve. He found himself wishing that Hoss could come – big, strong, reliable Hoss whose vast hands could straighten the leg with no trouble at all. But Hoss was too sick to move. Sweat beaded on Adam’s upper lip. He licked it away and tasted the sharp tang of salt.

When Jody came back with the wood and the rags, Adam searched about and above him for hand holds. He found them in a knot of root and the trunk of a sturdy sapling. He braced the heel of his remaining boot against the ground. By now the sweat was running freely, and he was starting to shake. He looked at Jody and spoke through clenched teeth. "Now listen good, we’re only going to get one shot at this. You know what you have to do. As like as not I’m gonna pass out. When the leg’s straight, splint it and wrap it round. Tie it tight but not so tight that my foot goes blue. You got that?"

White faced and tight-lipped, Jody nodded. "I got it." He’d seen this done only once before in his life and he was none too sure of his own ability.

Adam took a long, deep breath. He flexed his hands, taking a good grip. He fixed his eyes on the deep, blue sky and prayed that this was going to work the first time.

Jody took a firm hold of Adam’s leg and pulled it straight the same way he had seen Paul Martin pull out Sam Hayne’s broken arm.

Adam screamed as an ocean of pain welled up and washed over him. He was consumed by it. The last thing he felt as unconsciousness claimed him was the ends of the bone grating together.

Jody flinched as Adam cried out, then watched as the lean body relaxed back against the ground. Certainly the leg looked a lot straighter and Adam’s foot had rotated into a more normal position. He set to work with the makeshift splints and bandages.

With a good aim and a long throw, Asia Prior tossed his loop over the horns of the last stranded steer It was large red-brown animal with a foul temper, and it was particularly deeply mired. The evil quicksand came up to his shoulders and had already closed over his back, sucking him down to his death. Only his head and neck remained above the surface.

The morning had been hot and humid. The sun had climbed high up in the sky and beat down without mercy. The work that had to be done was hard. Asia and Joe Cartwright were both soaked in their own sweat; their hair and their faces were soaked with it, and their clothes hung damp on their bodies. They were dirty and tired and all their muscles ached, but they were two happy men. Working smoothly and efficiently together they had saved all the other steers. The cattle stood in an isolated little group, five or six of them in an assortment of sizes and colours.

Asia took off his hat and wiped his sleeve across his brow. He flashed Joe a grin. "Hey, Joe, what you gonna do when you git ta the rail head an’ draw your pay?"

Already out of his saddle, Joe gave the pinto mare an affectionate slap on the neck. Squinting against the brightness of the sky, he grinned back. "First thing I’m gonna do is get me a hot bath an’ a new suit o’ clothes, an’ then I’m goin’ a-visiting."

Asia gave him a quizzical look. "Who you goin’ visiting with?"

"I got me a list." Joe smirked and patted his shirt pocket. "My brother Adam mentioned some good, clean joyhouses. I had him jot the addresses down for me."

Leaning forward on his saddle horn Asia looked into Joe’s face. His eyes were sparkling. "Your Pa let you go visiting whorehouses?"
 
 

"Sure." Joe shrugged. He was mildly embarrassed. He was older than Asia by almost a full year, and Asia didn’t have to answer to anyone. "Leastwise, he will iffen he don’t know nothin’ about it."

Laughing aloud, Asia straightened and slapped his hand against his thigh.

Joe coloured. His father was well aware that he visited Miss Lucy’s occasionally and rarely had more to say about it than a raised eyebrow. He wondered why he should be expecting a sudden change in attitude now – but he was. "C’mon, stop haw-hawing an’ let’s get that steer out o’ there." Allowing his face to cool, he backed up the mare and took the slack out of the rope.

Still chortling, Asia urged his gelding to add in his effort. The roped tightened, shivering in the sun. The red steer bellowed, long and loud. He didn’t like the smell of the horses, and he didn’t like the loops of rope wound around the wide spread of his horns. He didn’t like the pressure that pulled him towards the men on the bank. He lunged, shaking his head and fighting the rope. Just for a moment, his forefeet came free of the sucking sand and then, struggling, he fell back. His eyeballs were protruding and white rimmed with terror. Asia’s gelding, sideways on to the pull of the rope, staggered. The mare snorted and threw up her head.

The steer lowed mournfully; he seemed disinclined to try again. He had sunk back into the hole as deeply as before.

Joe stood on the edge of the pit and cursed. He knew only too well the folly of going in and trying to push the beast out. He would be sucked down as well! For the time being all thoughts of smooth, white limbs and silk petticoats were driven from his mind, as was the image of his father’s angry face.

Asia repositioned the gelding and took another hitch of rope around his saddle-horn. "Come on, Joe. Let’s give it another try."

Joe was unwilling to give the big steer up. He mopped the sweat from his face and walked back to the patient mare. "C’mon, Cooch, one more go."

The mare rolled her eyes at him. Her hide was slick with sweat and patchy with scum where her harness rubbed. But she was a willing animal, and under Joe’s guidance she took a long step back. She leaned on the rope. The stubborn steer tossed his head from side to side, trying to escape the lasso. Like most of his kind, he didn’t want to be rescued. Asia set his gelding to the task. The ropes strained.

The steer bawled again and struggled against the quicksand. Again he came halfway free. Before he could sink back again, the horses took up the slack. In a series of lunging leaps he ploughed through the quagmire. Joe whooped as he clambered out of the hole and Asia cheered. The steer stood on solid ground at last, his head lowered to somewhere near his knees and his legs trembling. His sides were heaving.

Still laughing with delight, Joe went to free the steer’s horns from the rope. A dark shadow fell across him and he heard the distinctive double click of a six gun hammer being pulled back to full cock. The smile faded from his face as he looked up.

The man holding the gun sat tall in the saddle on a dark, long-legged cutting horse. Wearing dark clothes with a leather vest over his shirt and scarred, work-worn chaps on his legs, he looked a rangy, loose limbed individual. Below the brim of his hat his face was long and lean and shadowed with dark stubble. His eyes, cast into shadow, gleamed. The expression on his face was one of grim determination. He had taken advantage of the young men’s preoccupation with the steer to ride up close. He was close enough that the gun aimed, apparently casually, in the general direction of Joe’s midriff could not possibly miss. Nor was he alone.

Joe looked one way and Asia the other. They were surrounded on three sides with the quicksand on the other; horsemen with drawn guns were moving in on them from all directions. There were five of them, all similarly mounted and clad in the practical, comfortable clothes of the working cowboy. They all wore the same unsmiling expression and each of them held a levelled revolver.

Lean-and-Rangy made a small gesture with the muzzle of his gun. He spoke directly to Joe, "You – move away from the steer." His voice was low-pitched and had the texture of coarse gravel.

Joe caught the gleam of a steely eye in the shadow of the hat and decided to do exactly as he was told. Wearing a bewildered look he spread his hands wide and stepped away from the steer. He cast a glance towards Asia who was looking as bemused as Joe felt. Joe tried the cocky grin, "Hey, mister, you ain’t got no reason ta throw down on us!"

Lean-and-Rangy was unimpressed - by the grin, or by anything else. His face was unyielding. "Take another long step and unbuckle the gunbelt – right handed," he ordered. He glanced at Asia, "You too, Ribbons."

Carefully, both young men complied. "You’re making one hell of a mistake." Joe addressed himself to Lean-and-Rangy although he kept a wary watch on the others. Dark-Blue-Shirt-with-the–Crooked-Grin was watching him with a particularly keen eye. Sandy-Moustache-in-the-Grey-Hat was sweating profusely and chewing at his lower lip. Joe suspected that he suffered from an itchy trigger finger.

"Reckon it might be you what’s made the mistake." Lean-and-Rangy’s gravel voice grated.

Joe let his gunbelt drop onto the ground and Asia’s followed right after. Joe kicked his away, hoping it might make Sandy-Moustache a little less nervous. "I was just haulin’ my Pa’s cows out o’ the sink hole. Don’t see why that should get you fellas all riled up."

"Is that a fact?" Lean-and-Rangy took his eyes off Joe long enough to nod to one of his companions. "Seems ta me that you got your rope on another man’s steer."

Joe gulped and stared.

The indicated horseman, as dark complexioned as the first but stockier and with a cast in his left eye, holstered his gun and stepped out of his saddle. Moving around Joe with caution, he gathered up the gunbelts and also collected the saddle guns from Joe’s horse and from under Asia Prior’s knee. The two young men were left unarmed.

Joe looked at the steer; it was still trailing ropes from its horns to Joe’s saddle and to Asia’s.

"These steers are runaways from our herd," he said, "we followed ‘em all the way down from the high country."

Lean-and-Rangy regarded him impassively. The gun didn’t waver from Joe’s middle. "Reckon you better look ag’in."

Puzzled and worried, Joe shrugged. Still keeping his hands wide apart and in plain view, he walked over to the red steer. The brand on its hip was a reclining letter ‘P’. He looked up into Lean-and-Rangy’s flinty eyes. "I guess this one ain’t ours."

"Nope. It ain’t." Lean-and-Rangy’s voice was flat. "’An neither’s half o’ them others."

Joe turned towards the little group of rescued steers. He could see from where he stood that at least two of them wore the brand of the Lazy ‘P’. His hands were suddenly clammy and he felt the tickle of sweat running down the furrow of his backbone. "We were just haulin’ cows outa the quicksand! We didn’t stop ta see what brand they was carryin’!"

"Next time, p’raps you’d better check on it," Lean-and-Rangy drawled, "’ceptin’ that there ain’t goin’ ta be no next time."

The smile on Blue-Shirt-and-Grin’s face widened. He was having a real good time.

"In this part o’ the country," Lean-and-Rangy was saying, "we call ropin’ another man’s steer rustlin’. An’ ‘round here, we hang rustlers."

Joe was getting angry - and desperate. "We weren’t stealin’ your cows, mister!"

"Prescott," Lean-and-Rangy supplied amiably enough, "Seth Prescott, an’ that there’s my brother, Jed." He indicated Cast-in-the-Eye with a nod of the head.

"We was haulin’ them out of the quicksand!" Joe continued hotly. "If we hadn’t saved ‘em they’d o’ drowned!" He looked at Asia for confirmation.

Asia agreed readily. "That’s sure the truth!" He was watching Sandy-Moustache uneasily. Sandy had settled down some but he was still sweating and fiddling with his gun. His pale eyes shifted from Asia, to Joe, and back.

Seth Prescott favoured Asia with a hard glare. "Don’t you worry none, Ribbons. You’re gonna swing just as high as Curly, here."

That was when Joe got really mad. He took a long step towards Prescott’s horse and found himself looking right down the black maw of Prescott’s Colt. "You ain’t about ta hang nobody, mister! I’m Joe Cartwright from the Ponderosa ranch, south o’ here. We lost a bunch o’ steers from our trail herd in the storm last night. They must’ve got mixed up with your cattle in the dark. We was just roundin’ them up!"

Jed Prescott moved his horse up alongside his brother’s. "Reckon roundin’ up another man’s cattle is a hangin’ offence in any man’s country."

On the ground and without a gun, Joe was at a distinct disadvantage - and he knew it. His hands clenched and abruptly he felt very uncomfortable in the stomach. "You can’t hang us! We ain’t done nothin’!"

"Reckon as you done plenty." Seth Prescott gazed around at the surrounding countryside and considered. "Guess you’re plumb right about one thing though," he said slowly, "we sure as damn-it can’t hang ya here an’ now, on account o’ there ain’t no trees here abouts."

Blue-Shirt sniggered. No one else even smiled.

"Reckon as we’ll take you an’ these steers on home an’ let our Pa take a look at ya," Seth Prescott went on lazily. He was in control, and he was relaxed.

"And then I reckon as we’ll hang ya," his brother added, "We got plenty o’ trees growin’ alongside the house that’ll do right dandy."

Seth Prescott gestured at Joe with his gun, "Get on your horse, Curly. You an’ Ribbons ride on ahead o’ me, real slow. You try an’ run off an’ I’ll shoot ya down for sure."

Trading looks with Asia Prior, Joe unhitched the trailing rope from his saddle and cast the red steer loose. He picked up his trailing rein, and, under the watchful gaze of the Prescotts, he climbed into the saddle. Blue and Sandy gathered up the steers, and, picking up more strays as they went, they rode slowly south and east, towards the Lazy 'P’ ranch.

Carefully, Jody poured a measure of hot tea into a cup and carried it to where Adam lay on a bed of blankets on the floor. They had no morphine with them nor even laudanum for the pain, and the white willow from which they might have distilled something to dull the pain and reduce the fever grew only in the valley. He had concocted a brew from what they had among their supplies: horsemint and camomile. Adam was grateful for it. He struggled into a sitting position and took the cup in both hands. Although his face was still bloodless and tight with pain it was no longer the grey mask of anguish that it had been an hour before.

The long struggle up the broken path had been something to recall only in nightmare. Even with Jody’s help, Adam had accomplished most of it on his hands and one knee, easing his splinted leg behind him. He had ended up sobbing with pain and effort and frustration. It had taken him a while to regain his equilibrium. The tea, warming its way down into his belly, was very welcome.

Jody poured a cup for himself and sat down on the floor, his legs spread out in front of him. Adam swallowed another mouthful and lowered himself back gently onto one elbow. He expelled a long breath. "We still have to get help for Hoss," he said quietly.

Jody blinked at him over the rim of his cup. "You can’t ride with a busted leg. Not all by yourself."

"No, I can’t" Adam rubbed a hand along his thigh. The first hot agony was over but now his leg was starting to ache abominably. "You’ll have to go."

He watched the young man’s face for the inevitable play of expression: uncertainty, concern, some doubt. The shift of light and dark as the firelight danced made his emotions difficult to read. Adam knew that he was loading a whole lot of responsibility onto youthful shoulders. Jody was barely turned fifteen, not much more than a boy. Then he remembered the demands that had been made of him at a similar age. At fifteen he had already been organizing and running huge segments of an embryonic empire, working alongside his father as he put the ranch together. And many a man, only a couple of years older than Jody, were married with families and businesses of their own. It was the way of the west that a man was often required to grow up fast and hard. That was what Adam was asking Jody to do right now. A great deal was depending on him; certainly Hoss’s life and perhaps his own as well. Adam sipped his tea and watched Jody’s face and waited.

Jody stared long and hard into his tea. He owed a lot to Ben Cartwright and his sons. They had rescued him from a burgeoning life of crime and its inevitable consequences. They had provided him with a home and a job so that he could support himself and his mother. Adam here had gone out of his way to impart a basic education. There weren’t many cowboys who could read and write even so much as their name. No, sir! Jody wasn’t about to let the Cartwrights down; there was nothing he wanted less. He lifted his eyes to find Adam looking at him with an air of calm expectancy. It was as if Adam knew what was going through his mind and was just waiting for him to get his thoughts in order.

Jody voiced his uncertainty, "I’ll go, but I ain’t so sure I can find the way."

"It’s easy enough if you stick to the low ground. Follow the valleys. Head north. You’ll come out right on the south range. From there, it’s a day’s ride home."

Jody nodded. His freckled face settled into a mask of determination as his resolve hardened. "I’ll go," he said again, "when do you think I should leave?"

Almost apologetically, Adam said, "Today might be a good idea. There are a couple of things I’m gonna need your help with first, but there’s a whole lot ‘o daylight left. The sooner you get started…"

It was around an hour later that Jody rode out. Adam Cartwright, supported by a makeshift crutch, stood on one leg in the doorway of the cabin and watched him go. Only when the young man was completely out of sight among the trees did he hobble inside and close the door.

The Lazy ‘P’ ranch was a vast sprawl on unfenced territory that spread from somewhere in the low foothills of the mountains, across the lowlands and far out into the desert. The grazing was poor; in many places it amounted to little more than semi-desert scrub land. It became drier and less inviting as the miles slipped by. There were cattle dotted across the range, single cows with their calves and, here and there, small groups of yearling steers. They were not as numerous as on the rich, high grasslands of the Ponderosa; the pastures could not support so many.

Heedful of their warning, Joe Cartwright and Asia Prior kept their horses to a walk and their hands carefully in sight. They followed a trail that wound down out of the hills and into the flatter country to the east. The Prescott brothers had put their guns away, but they remained watchful, riding close behind. Neither Joe nor Asia had any doubt that they would be shot if they tried to ride away. Further back, Sandy and Blue, and their friend in the red check pants drifted the little herd along, keeping pace. The sandy ground had already dried out and the steers were kicking up a cloud of dust.

The house, together with its collection of barns, outbuildings and corrals was different in layout and design to those of home, but the form and function were familiar. They lay in a green fold of the land with cottonwoods close by the house and a creek meandering by. It was the pleasantest spot Joe had seen on the entire spread.

Afternoon shadows were creeping out across the yard as they rode in. Sandy, Blue and Red ran the steers into a corral. Seth and Jed climbed down and pulled out their guns.

Seth gestured with the muzzle of his Colt, "C’mon down, cowboys. Head on over ta the house"

Joe and Asia traded looks; as one man they stepped down onto the hard-packed earth. Looping their reins about the hitching rail, they started in the indicated direction. The gun in Joe’s back made his skin itch.

The Prescott house was a long, low structure. Built all on a single level it was of classic western construction; it was of thick timber boards on a stout wooden frame. What had started life as a basic one room dwelling for a man and his wife had been enlarged and extended over the years into a comfortable, many roomed home. There were two substantial wings, a wide and airy veranda and a separate cookhouse designed to provide meals for both the family and the hired help. Shingle roofed and originally painted a bright white, it had mellowed into shades of grey and settled comfortably amongst carefully planted, and now fully mature, shade trees. Joe recalled what Jed Prescott had said about the trees beside the house and eyed the cottonwoods uneasily.

The Prescotts walked their captives over to the porch steps. Sandy, Blue and Red fell in behind, interested spectators, and more hands appeared from the barn. They gathered in a group, jostling one another for position and craning their necks for a look-see as the word spread. Seth Prescott raised his voice in a yell,

"Hey, Pa! You better shift yore-self on out here! We got somethin’ fer you ta see!"

Joe and Asia Prior stood uncomfortably in the centre of a small but very interested group of men. Feeling lonely and vulnerable, they were the centre of a whole lot of attention. Asia looked anxiously at Joe and shuffled his feet around. The men jostled them about a bit. Seth Prescott made them back off.

The front door of the house opened and the elder Prescott came out on to the veranda. He was a redoubtable old man, a pioneer settler of the old breed - as tough, resilient and unbending as the land itself. His hair was thin and white; his beard bristled; he had a large hooked nose and faded grey eyes. He sat bolt upright in a wicker-backed wheelchair. His fierce gaze switched from Joe and Asia, to the faces of his sons, to the unwavering guns that they held.

"What’s this? What’s all this then?"

It was Seth Prescott who answered, taking the precedence of age over his brother. We come across these two cowpokes a-gathering up our steers on the high range, Pa."

Prescott’s face hardened. He gestured impatiently to someone standing in the shadows behind him. A young woman appeared out of the gloom and pushed the wheelchair closer to the edge, further in to the light. Her gaze brushed briefly against Joe’s. Over her arm she carried a boldly checked blanket that she tucked around the old man’s legs. Prescott was a man who suffered from the cold.

Joe, with an eye for a pretty face no matter what the circumstances, noticed that not only was she young – somewhere about his own age – but also attractive. She had the same dark hair and silver grey eyes as Seth and Jed. Joe reckoned that they looked a whole better on her than they did on either of them. He smiled. The young woman smiled back. Joe considered winking but decided against it. There was a time and a place for everything, and Joe already had the girl’s attention.

Prescott leaned forward in his chair, so far forward that it looked for a moment as though he might topple out of it. He looked Joe and Asia over again - much more carefully. His expression darkened still more "Is that a fact?"

"Sure is, Pa." Jed Prescott seemed obligated to put in his ten cent’s worth and he did it with relish. "Curly an’ Ribbons here, they already had their ropes on our steers when we come across ‘em."

Joe started in hotly in his own defence, "Your cows got mixed in with our strays!" Right then, he was wishing he’d left all the Goddamn creatures to drown together. "We wasn’t aiming ta steal nothin’! I already told you, more’n half o’ them steers are wearin’ my Pa’s pine tree brand! You go look!"

"Your rope was on a Lazy ‘P’ steer when we come across ya," Jed said.

"Seems ta me," Prescott said grimly, "Iffen you got a rope on my steer then you already stole it."

"Hey! That ain’t so!" Joe started forward, then pulled up short. The muzzle of Jed Prescott’s Colt rammed hard into his belly. Jed smiled thinly and eased back the hammer. Joe looked down at the gun and then into old man Prescott’s face. "We wasn’t stealin’ your steers, Mister."

Jed Prescott glared, "I already promised the pair of ‘em a tap dance on the end of a rope, Pa."

Prescott scowled over the hook of his nose. "That sounds fair ta me," he said flatly.

The young woman put her hands on the old man’s shoulders, "Pa! You can’t do that!" Her grey eyes were fixed on Joe. "You can’t hang a man for stealing a cow!"

Prescott spared her the briefest glance, "We can, and we will. That’s the law we live by."

Joe was suddenly very afraid. His face paled. He was sweating up a storm. "What about sendin’ for the sheriff? What about us getting’ a fair trial?"
 
 

Jed Prescott lifted a lip in a sneer. "You just had yore-self a trial, Curly. We’re judge an’ jury an’ them steers over there," he jerked a thumb towards the corral, "Them’s the witnesses."

This witticism was greeted with a general snigger from the assembled cowboys. Jed leered round at his audience. He was enjoying himself. Blue Shirt was grinning again, and Sandy was rubbing his palm against the butt of his gun.

The young woman spoke up again, glaring at Jed, "That’s not fair! He’s right. They should get a proper trial."

The old man gave her another irritated look, "You shouldn’t be troublin’ yore-self with all this, Lily. This is men’s business."

Concern darkened Lilleth Prescott’s eyes and changed them from silver-bright to pewter-grey. "You can’t just hang them out of hand."

Prescott glowered beneath bushy brows. "Ain’t rightly a woman’s concern," he said angrily, "Git yore-self back inta the house. One o’ you men go git a couple o’ ropes."

"You can’t do that!" Joe was desperate. He exchanged frantic looks with Asia. "Why don’t you send someone up in ta the hills after our herd? My Pa’ll vouch for us! I tell you the brand on those steers is his!"

"Seems ta me," Prescott said, "we ain’t got no call ta send a man ridin’ all over them hills on account o’ a couple o’ no good cow thieves."

"It wouldn’t hurt none ta get the sheriff out here ta look these two over," Seth Prescott said unexpectedly in his slow drawl.

The irascible old man’s glare turned on him. "You goin’ soft, boy?"

Jed Prescott snarled at his brother, "He c’n come look at ‘em after we hanged ‘em."

"Pa!" Lilleth Prescott dug her fingers deep into the muscles of her father’s shoulders. She stared hard at Joe "It wouldn’t do any harm to wait until the sheriff rode out here, would it?"

"Sheriff’s only a day’s ride away in Maryville," Seth Prescott went on, pressing the point, "We start a man out now, we could have him back here by tomorrow night an’ have us a fancy hangin’ the next day, bright an’ early."

Prescott shrugged off his daughter’s hand. He glared from one son to the other. It was a look Joe knew well; in other circumstances he might even have found it funny. "Can’t you two agree on whether ta hang a man or not?"

Joe chimed in, white fisted, white faced and angry, "He’s right! You get the sheriff!" Jed Prescott jabbed him hard in the gut with his Colt. Joe ignored him, "Our herd went right by Maryville day before yesterday. The sheriff knows who we are."

Prescott glowered. The assembled cowboys shifted restlessly. A cooling evening breeze stirred the leaves of the cottonwood trees. The late sunlight glimmered. Prescott clutched at his blanket and pulled it close, shivering. An elderly man in poor health, he couldn’t afford to sit out in the evening air, even for the sake of a good, old-fashioned hanging. His sharp eye picked out Sandy,

"You, git yore-self on a horse an’ git yore-self over ta Maryville. Fetch that sheriff on out here. Tell him we got us a couple o’ cow thieves ta hang. Tell him – What’s yore name, boy?"

"Joe. Joe Cartwright of the Ponderosa ranch," Joe said, "an’ I ain’t no cow thief!"

"Tell him we’re gonna hang us Joe Cartwright." Prescott glared some more. "Lock these two fellas up someplace so as they don’t go gittin’ away. Now," he turned his hard eyes on his daughter, "You git me in outa this cold afore I catch my death."

Lilleth Prescott backed up the wheelchair and turned it towards the house. She gave Joe a last long look over her shoulder as she disappeared through the door. It might have been a trick of the light but it seemed, just for moment, that a small smile played at the corner of her mouth.

Seth Prescott gestured to Joe with the muzzle of his gun. Having won a small victory, he was determined to do just as his Pa said. He knew the old man better than to push his luck. "C’mon, Curly, Ribbons. I gotta nice storage shed that’s gonna suit you real’ dandy."

Deprived, for the moment at least of their entertainment, the ranch hands started to disperse. Seth and Jed Prescott marched Joe and Asia away at gunpoint.

Like an ancient buffalo scenting the onset of a distant storm, Herricule Bojun lifted his head and turned his bearded face into the wind. Eyes squinted almost closed against the brazen brilliance of the sky, he sniffed at the air. His expression became thoughtful.

The trappers were working deep down in a valley filled with golden afternoon light and the pleasantly musical sound of running water. Intent on their tasks, none of them had the time or the purity of spirit to appreciate the beauty of the Lord’s creation that was so prominently displayed all around them. The trap lines had been set along the banks of the stream, and this time fortune had favoured the hunters. The skinning knives and the arms of the men who wielded them were red with blood.

Bojun shifted his weight in the saddle and rubbed at the pain in his leg. Looking about him he felt what might, in another man, have been a profound stirring of satisfaction and of regret. Turning to gaze back along the trail, he filled his lungs with fresh, sun-warmed mountain air. There was nothing on earth than smelled quite like it. He allowed the corner of one, thick lip to quirk. It was the closest approach his battered and weather-beaten face ever made to a smile. It had taken a long time to accomplish what he had set out to do, far longer than he had intended. By now he should have been in a comfortable saloon someplace with good whiskey in front of him and a fancy paid-for woman on his lap. But now the job was done. Strung out behind him the line of patient mules was shorter by some four or five animals – creatures that had fallen, one way or another, by the wayside. That was only to be expected. A man didn’t travel these hills for long without losing some stock. All the mules that remained were heavily laden; the packs they carried bulged with fine furs.

If the cause of Bojun’s contentment was packed on the backs of the mules, the cause of his melancholy, were he capable of recognizing it as such, was all about him. While he failed to see the glory of the pine-clad hills and the wooded valleys or the majesty of the mountains that stood beyond, he had an inbred affinity for these wild places. The crystal clear waters of the mountain stream ran cold in his blood. He had a feeling inside, deep and abiding if unacknowledged, that he would never ride through these hills again – nor any other hills. Despite the warmth of the sun he shivered inside his padded coat.

Corbel Lighterman stood at the shoulder of Bojun’s horse and looked up at him, screwing up his face against the glare. With his wild hair and unkempt beard he looked like a savage. He had stripped off his coat and rolled up his sleeves almost to his armpits. His shirt was splattered with blood; his hands and muscular arms were all smeared with it. In one hand he held his broad bladed skinning knife and in the other a rich, dark-brown beaver pelt. For once, Lighterman had a smile on his face.

"We’ve cleared all the traps. This is the last of them." He held up the pelt as a sort of trophy; for emphasis, he kicked the bloody body into the underbrush.

Bojun eased himself again and threw off his miseries. "Then this is right where we turn ourselves around and head on back."

The smile on Lighterman’s face died an instant death and was replaced by something that more closely resembled a snarl. "What d’you mean, start back? These valleys must be full o’ prime pelts just askin’ ta be took! We gotta go on, north an’ west!"

Perriot came up close behind Lighterman’s shoulder. He had heard the tail end of the conversation, the younger man’s voice raised in anger. He wiped the blade of his knife clean on his shirtsleeve and tucked it into the top of his boot. "There’s no point in going on any further, ‘Bel."

Already furious, Lighterman turned on him, "I want to make some money out of this trip! Some real money! These streams are full o’ beaver! We might even find us some bear!"

"The mules are already loaded," Perriot slapped a hand on the younger man’s shoulder, raising the dust. "They can’t carry no more. We go back now with what we have."

"But I want more!" Lighterman threw the hand off with an angry shrug, "If you hadn’t shot the goddamn mules we could have carried all the pelts we could take!"

Perriot sighed and stepped away. With a shake of his head he started to tighten the cinches of his saddle. Lighterman was the type who could never understand.

Lighterman glared at Bojun, "I want ta go on!"

Bojun shook his head. He raised his eyes and focused them somewhere way off among the trees. "We ain’t goin on. We’re goin’ back. The mules is getting tired, an’ we’re almost out o’ grub. We got jist about enough flour and whiskey ta git us back ta Ma’s."

Lighterman was in a fine rage, "Well, I ain’t goin’ back ta Ma’s! There’s gotta be a town someplace north o’ here. I’m takin my share an’ I’m ridin’ on through!"

Bojun rubbed his leg. His gaze drifted ‘round to settle back on Lighterman’s face. His hand came to rest somewhere near his saddle gun but not touching it. The threat was plain enough. His eyes were as cold as a clear winter’s sky. "You rode in ta these hills alongside us, an’ I reckon as you ought ta ride out wi’ us. Either that or you’ll stay right here – where ya drop." The old trapper wasn’t prepared to leave this young hothead in the woods at his back – not alive, anyway.

Lighterman took a step backwards. His hand hovered close to the butt of his gun. "You haul iron on me ag’in, Bojun, an’ I’ll kill you fer sure!"

Relaxed, Bojun watched him narrowly. The two men eyed one another. The valley was silent except for the music of the stream. The mellowing sunlight danced on the moving water. The wind shifted, blowing down off the hillside. Distracted, Bojun lifted his head again. Perriot, back on his horse, eased up beside him, placing himself in between the antagonists. "What is it?"

"Wood smoke," Bojun said, "I smell wood smoke."

"Forest fire?" Lighterman looked around anxiously. For the moment his anger was forgotten.

It was Perriot who answered, thoughtfully, "These woods are too wet to burn."

"Reckon it might just be them fellas what sprung our traps," Bojun said, "There ain’t too many other folks in these hills. Catch up yore horse ‘Bel. Looks like you might git yore wish after all."

Lighterman’s dark eyes glittered dangerously. He turned to his horse and swung quickly into the saddle. "What are we sittin’ here for?"

Bojun neck reined his horse around and kicked him hard with the heel of his good foot, encouraging him to step down into the stream. Lighterman followed close on his heels, eagerness and savage excitement plainly evident on his handsome face. It turned it ugly. Perriot came along behind more slowly, leading the mule train. The horses kicked up a fine splashing as they picked their way along the streambed, heading upstream towards the hanging valley.

Charlie leaned back on his heels and hooked his thumbs onto the edge of his pants belt. There was a frown set on his weathered face, and his jaws worked slowly and methodically as he moved the wad of tobacco back and forth in his mouth. From where he stood, up against the wheel of the baggage wagon and with his back to the sun, he could observe just about everything that went on in the trail camp without doing much more than turning his head and without becoming directly involved. That included all the sudden activity over by the horse-line. The Prior brothers were busy switching their saddles onto fresh horses and tightening cinches. A long time student of human nature, Charlie was unsurprised. His eyes were bleak.

It was afternoon and the shadows were already creeping. Charlie had never learned to tell the time by a clock, but he figured it was about three or a little after. Still time for a man to put some useful miles behind him before dark if he had a mind to. It looked like that was what the Priors might be planning to do.

Aubrey Prior swung into the saddle of the leggy, dark-pointed bay he favoured and walked him over to where Charlie stood. One by one his brothers fell into line alongside him: big Arthur Prior to his right and on his left the lighter and more compact Astley. Ashley Prior joined them, and beside him, unsurprisingly, Pete Nash pulled his flashy – to Charlie’s mind – black gelding into the line. Nash’s countenance was, as always, pleasantly bland. The Priors were grim.

Charlie looked from face to face. He kept his voice level, "You fellas ridin’ out?" The question was unnecessary but pointed. They all knew without him having to say it that, without the Priors, Charlie didn’t have enough hands left to move the herd.

Aubrey tipped back his hat and clasped his hands together on his saddle horn. He gave Charlie a version of the gap-toothed grin. "It don’t take a whole day for two fellas ta round up a few stray steers," he drawled. "Them younglin’s should have been back by mid-day. We-all thought as we’d take a ride back down the hill and find out what’s keepin’ our little brother."

Charlie could see their point of view. He pulled a face. "I guess they’ve been gone a while at that." He noticed that Aubrey Prior’s trademark smile reached nowhere near his eyes. It was as if the man watched world from behind a mask – and the mask had slipped, just a bit. Charlie looked along the row of men again, this time seeing them from a different perspective. Lined up like that, sitting on their horses, relaxed, watchful, they looked a very formidable array of gunfighters indeed. Charlie wondered, and not for the first time, if the Cartwright family knew just what sort of cowhands it was that they hired on from time to time. "I guess," he said thoughtfully, "you fellas c’n haul ‘em out o’ any sort o’ mess they’ve got in."

Aubrey Prior smiled a thin smile, "Anything this side o’ the grave, Charlie." He raised a hand to tip his hat. "Don’t you worry none. We’ll be back." At his nod, Pete Nash reined his flashy black around, and, one after the other, the Priors wheeled off to follow him. Charlie stood and watched them ride off into the mellow afternoon light.

The concern at the forefront of Adam’s mind as he came out of the cabin door, was how to manoeuvre himself down the cut log steps on a crutch and a leg that hurt like hellfire without falling and breaking his fool neck. He needed to relieve himself against the cabin wall and the matter was becoming urgent. As it was a problem that took all of his attention, he had already accomplished half of it before he realized that he had visitors.

Leaning heavily against the crutch he took two long, very lame steps forward. He screwed his eyes half shut against the sharply angled sunlight that flooded the valley. There was a man – a big man – sitting on a horse at the bottom of the path. Beyond him, the open space beside the pool was all filled up with mules.

Adam wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. He forgot all about the urgent demands of his bladder and wished desperately that he hadn’t left his gun and gunbelt behind in the shack. All of a sudden his mouth as very dry. He couldn’t fail to notice that there were two more horses in amongst the mules – horses with vacant saddles. Adam started to sweat. He had an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his belly that he knew exactly where the owners of those two saddles were going to be. He turned his head to look over his shoulder.

"You hold it right there, Mister!"

Adam stood quite still. Loud in the silence he heard the distinctive double click of a revolver being cocked, twice over and from two different directions. As he had thought, both men were behind him; they were right where they ought to be, one on the left of the shack and one on the right. They had him bracketed, and they were well out of one another’s cross fire. The man on the horse had neatly decoyed him into the open. Even if he’d had his gun and all the luck there was, he couldn’t have taken more than one of them before they shot him down. He held out his left hand in a gesture of surrender.

"You got the drop on me, boys."

He heard movement behind him: the jingle of a spur, a creak of leather, men stepping carefully, closing in. They weren’t sure yet that he was harmless. Not daring to turn ‘round, Adam waited. He was afraid. No sensible man wouldn’t have been. He breathed deep and slow, steadying himself. Something - the muzzle of a gun – jabbed him hard in the back. A rough hand abused him, searching swiftly for the gun he didn’t have. Adam ground his teeth and stuck it out. He knew that the other man was standing well back, keeping him covered.

Lighterman sniggered and stepped back, but not very far, "Okay, Mister, let’s take a look at you." He grabbed at Adam’s arm with a powerful hand and hauled him ‘round.

Adam struggled for his balance, did a neat little ballet with the crutch and managed to stay upright.

Adam Cartwright and Corbel Lighterman looked each other full in the face. Neither man much liked what he saw.

Adam found himself confronted by the countenance of a wild man. Lighterman was dirty beyond belief; his black hair and beard were long, ragged and caked with the remains of several meals. His open mouth was twisted into the parody of a smile. The teeth he displayed were brown and corroded. His clothes – of leather and heavy woollen cloth – were stained with old sweat and old blood and grease. The rancid reek of him was overpowering.

Lighterman was no more impressed. Despite his predicament the man in front of him held his gaze levelly. Adam’s swarthy, sweaty, unshaven face wore an expression of defiance – of contempt. His whole attitude was unyielding, challenging. The light faded from Lighterman’s eyes; they became dark, filled with an inherent dislike. Adam’s eyes held steady. The hostility, unmistakably, was mutual. Lighterman’s smile died.

The two men were exactly of a height and very much of the same, broad-shouldered build. Both were narrow hipped, born to ride, deep chested and dark; both were muscular and work-hardened. Lighterman was, perhaps, two or three years younger than Adam.

Now pointed directly at Adam’s belly, the gun in Lighterman’s hand wavered very slightly. Adam allowed his gaze to drift down to it and then, slowly, back up. The scorn on his face was very clear. The silent exchange had lasted only seconds. Both of them knew who had won it.

Calculating his insult carefully Adam ignored Lighterman and his gun and very pointedly switched his attention to the second man. He was a little shorter, stockier, older and greyer. His clothes might have been equally filthy, but his beard was roughly trimmed and his long, grizzled hair tied back in a bunch. He also held a large, black mawed Colt that was pointed directly at Adam. Adam said, evenly, "Is there something I can do for you gentlemen?"

Lighterman made an incoherent rumbling sound deep down inside. He looked Adam over again, absorbing for the first time the significance of the crutch and the splints on his leg. The smile, in part, returned. He lashed out suddenly with a booted foot and kicked the crutch away. Adam went straight down. He hit the ground with an involuntary yelp and enough force to knock the wind out of him. Looking up at Lighterman’s sneer, he decided to stay, for the moment, exactly where he was.

Lighterman followed him down, hunkering on his haunches. He leaned in close. His breath was sour. He pushed the gun into Adam’s face. "You the son-of-a-bitch what spiked my Goddamn traps?" he inquired in a measured and conversational tone, "’cause iffen you was, I’m gonna blow your Goddamn head off!"

Adam met his eyes over the cold metal of the gun. "Are you the son-of–a-bitch that set them?"

Lighterman’s teeth clenched, discoloured tombstones in the midst of his beard. He snarled in fury. He pushed the gun harder into Adam’s cheek, making it hurt. His fingers tightened on the Colt.

Perriot came closer, standing behind Lighterman’s shoulder. "Leave him be, ‘Bel." He held his gun casually at his side, not pointed anywhere in particular but closer to Lighterman than it was to Adam. Lighterman glared up at him. His lip rolled.

"This is the motherless son that wrecked our traps! I’m gonna take it out o’ his Goddamned hide!"

Perriot looked bleakly at Adam. Canadian, he spoke with a distinct French accent, "If that’s the truth, I might even help you do it. It’s been a long time since I used a skinning knife on a man." He shrugged. "But we have plenty of time. This is a good place to rest up, stretch some hides, repack the mules. This one will keep."

The sun had set. In the gathering gloom Lighterman’s eyes gleamed with sharp anticipation. Straightening up, he eased back the hammer on his gun. "I made you a promise, Big Man," he said to Adam. "I ain’t gonna forget it." His eyes flicked to Perriot. "You let him git way, an’ I’m gonna kill you."

"Go help Bojun climb that path," Perriot said, "And unsaddle the horses. "I’ll see to him," He fixed Adam with a hard eye, "He’s not going anywhere with that leg."

A bulldog reluctant to be parted from his prey, Lighterman glared from one to the other. Still angry, he thrust his gun into his holster and turned on his heel.

Still estimating the odds, Adam watched him walk away. He looked at Perriot, bright eyed. "I can’t say I think much of your friends."

"And you make good enemies." With the edge of his foot Perriot pushed Adam’s crutch within reach. He levelled the Colt. "You have a smart mouth. Keep it shut and you might live a little longer."

Adam looked into his eyes and saw the truth of it. He reached for his crutch.
 
 

The storage shed made a perfect prison. It was small and stoutly built with a hard-packed dirt floor, stout wooden walls and a firmly fixed roof. The door had a good strong lock. Joe was sure of it. He was already intimately acquainted with the entire structure. In the last several hours he had tried and tested every inch, top to bottom, all the way around, several times over. It was windowless; except for the small seepage of daylight through the chinks between the boards, it was quite dark. It was also airless and had grown hot in the afternoon sun.

Not far beyond the door, Joe knew, there was a man with a gun. Every so often there was a low exchange of words outside as the guard was changed. He didn’t give much for his chances of breaking out.

Having completed yet another circuit he slumped down beside Asia with a mighty sigh of frustration. From the feel of it, the sacks they sat on contained potatoes. They were lumpy enough. There was little else in the shed; certainly there were no tools or weapons of any kind: Seth and Jed Prescott had made very sure of that. In the gloom, Asia gave Joe a rueful, sideways look, "Reckon they’re gonna hang us, Joe?"

"No. They ain’t gonna hang us."

"Guess this’ll teach us ta check fer another man’s brand, next time around."

Joe huffed angrily, sounding, unknown to him, uncommonly like his father. "Old man Prescott’s just an old fool livin’ in the past. They don’t hang a man without a trial no more. That sheriff’ll sort this mess out just as soon as he gets here." Joe picked up his hat and started to pick at the band. The nervousness of his fingers belied the confidence in his voice.

Asia chewed at his lip. "I sure hope the sheriff sees things our way."

"I just hope that sandy haired fella don’t get lost someplace, like the saloon. I got a feelin’ old man Prescott ain’t gonna wait on him too long.

Asia put his hat over his face and lay back against the potatoes. He clasped his hands together over his belly. The younger man by several months, he had a more relaxed outlook on life. "I guess," he said, "they can’t keep us locked up in here for ever."

"That’s kinda what I’m afraid of." Joe looked at Asia. Already his chest was rising and falling in a slow, easy rhythm. Joe contemplated making yet another inspection of the walls and then decided that perhaps Asia had the best idea after all. He settled down beside him and tried to get a little sleep.

As soon as the sun had set what little light there was faded fast. It was soon utterly dark inside the shed and becoming colder – much too cold for sleeping. Joe and Asia took turn to pace the tiny space they had, two steps one way and two the other, in an effort to keep from freezing. They had no way of measuring the passage of time, but several hours of chill darkness had certainly passed by. The guard outside the door had changed several times, and now it was changing again.

Joe was standing up, stamping his feet, when Asia reached out to him, grabbing him by the slack of his shirt. His voice hissed in the dark. "Hey Joe, what’s that?"

"What’s what?"

"I hear somethin’. Outside."

The two men listened. The sound came again: a soft scraping and a rustling of cloth. Pale light danced in the cracks around the door. A key turned in the lock and in another moment the door opened. Lilleth Prescott, her dark hair wrapped in a scarf and a shawl around her shoulders, slipped inside. She brought food with her: bread, cheese and a little cold meat wrapped up in a napkin. Most welcome of all, she brought an oil lamp - its faint flame closely shuttered so that only a glimmer escaped. It threw sharp shadows across her face. Closing the door, she hung the lamp from a long nail in the wall and turned up the light, just a fraction.

Joe and Asia shared the food between them. There wasn’t much, and it didn’t take long to eat it all. Asia voiced his appreciation through a mouthful of bread and meat. "Thank you kindly Ma’am. We sure thought your men-folk were gonna let us starve to death in this here shed. That is, iffen we didn’t freeze first."

Lilly Prescott quietened him quickly with a finger pressed against her lips. "Hush now! I ain’t supposed ta be here. My Pa said ta let you go hungry," she spoke in a whisper, "said there was no point wastin’ food on men that were gonna hang."

"That’s real’ nice o’ your Pa," Joe hissed back; "then how come you’re out here?" He looked apprehensively at the lamp. Welcome as the light was he was worried about it shinning out through the cracks in the wall.

Lilly looked from one to the other. "You have to get away, both of you! Tonight! Pa’s getting all set ta hang you first thing in the morning. Just as soon as it’s light enough ta see!"

"But your Pa sent for the sheriff!"
 
 

"Reckon Pa’s changed his mind about that. Jed’s just about talked him into a hangin’. Says it’s for the best."

Joe put a hand to his throat and swallowed the last bit of bread with difficulty. He traded hard looks with Asia. They were going to have to make a break for it.

"Anyways," Lilleth went on, "I don’t think a man should hang for a steer, an’ Seth, he thinks you should leastwise get a trial." Right there and then, they were both sentiments Joe and Asia agreed with wholeheartedly. "Seth’s sent the guard away for a while. Now’s the only chance you’re gonna get."

Hastily, the two men gathered up their hats, "Could you kindly tell us, Ma’am," said Asia politely, "where they’re most likely to have put our horses?"

"Over in the barn, I guess, across the yard."

Asia opened the door – just and inch – and peered out. The yard in front of the house was silver lit with starlight. The moon had already set behind the mountains. There was yellow light spilling from both wings of the house and more from the windows of the bunkhouse. The squared block of the cookhouse and the other outbuildings were all in darkness, except for the barn itself. The wide door was slid halfway back and a faint glow came from inside – probably an oil lamp burned there for most of the night. Apart from the restless stirring of the steers in the corral and the slink of a small cat, nothing moved.

Seth Prescott, half concealed in the shadows, turned from the hips to look at him, his rifle cradled in his arms. Asia saw the glint of light in the man’s eyes before he looked away again.

Asia closed the door and turned to Joe, "It’s all clear."

Joe reached up to turn down the lamp. Suddenly, impulsively, Lilleth Prescott pulled the scarf from her hair to let it fly free. It was long and lustrous and very dark. She flung her arms around Joe’s neck and twisted her fingers into his hair. Dragging his head down, she clamped her mouth firmly onto his. She wanted him to stay, but she knew that he had to go. She held him close and kissed him deep. Joe’s eyes widened and then half closed as he began to enjoy himself. He drew the woman’s body against his and kissed her back, hard.

Asia Prior heaved a small sigh and shook his head. He reckoned he could about see the steam coming out of Joe Cartwright’s ears as his brains boiled. He cleared his throat loudly. "Hey Joe, we gotta get outta here lessen you’re plannin’ ta be guest of honour at that necktie party tomorrow mornin’."

Joe broke away. Breathless, he gazed long and longingly into Lilly Prescott’s silver eyes. With the warm curves of her body pressing firmly against him, he would kind of liked to have stayed…

Lilly clung to him a moment longer and then let him go. Joe jammed his hat onto his head and joined Asia at the door. Apart from the watchful Seth, the yard was still deserted. Even the cat had disappeared. Asia opened the door a little wider and the two of them slipped out into the night.

Lilleth counted slowly and carefully to ten and then gave it five seconds more for her ardour to cool. She wound her hair in the scarf, took down the lamp and made her way back to the house.

Joe and Asia got to the barn the long way round, keeping to the deepest shadows and well away from the light. They had to lie low only once when a couple of cowhands strolled across the yard, heading for the bunkhouse. Joe sidled up to the barn door and sneaked a look ‘round it. Sure enough, there was only the one lamp burning, turned down low.

Familiarly the barn smelled of hay and manure. Joe looked ‘round carefully. All the stalls were full. Joe’s mare and Asia’s gelding were at the far end; someone had taken off their saddles and wiped the sweat off of their hides. Joe slipped inside and Asia followed, sliding the door almost closed behind him. They made for their mounts.

Asia grinned at Joe; Joe winked at Asia. Asia swung his saddle onto the gelding’s back and reached under for the cinch. Joe buckled the mares bridle. He stepped back and trod on the cat’s tail. The cat screeched. Joe danced. Asia started violently; his head rammed into the gelding’s belly. The gelding kicked over the feed bucket. Asia sat down hard on his backside. The cat streaked for the door. Joe turned around to see where the cat went. He came face to face with Blue Shirt and Grin. Neither of them knew who was the most surprised. Blue stuck the muzzle of his gun into Joe’s belly and pulled back the hammer, "Don’t know where in hell you think you’re goin’ boy – but I reckon you made a bad mistake."

The smoky light of an old storm lantern caught and gleamed in Adam Cartwright’s eye; it cast sharp shadows from his cheekbones and threw golden highlights onto his skin. His face was as wary and as watchful as that of an animal at bay, darkened with beard and sheened as if with sweat.

Adam found himself confronted with a dilemma: unarmed and one-legged he couldn’t fight, and he would find it awful hard to run. Even if he could get to a horse, there was nowhere to go to for help – and he couldn’t leave his brother behind. So what he did was lean carefully against the crutch and pour coffee into a chipped, enamelled cup.

The door of the cabin slammed open, and a big man filled the space it left behind. A single sweeping glance was enough for the old trapper to see everything there was to see: the shabby shattered interior of the single room, the two men who dominated it and their few, basic possessions. The man in the bunk was no threat. He was hurt and sick and had no more strength than a kitten. The other was a different matter. His dark face held dislike and defiance and Bojun took no account at all of the busted leg. Bojun knew just how much a man could accomplish with only one leg when he had to. It could just be that this one was dangerous. He stepped inside, caught the edge of the door and shoved it halfway shut.

The cabin had the one chair and the one table. Herricule Bojun took possession of them both. With his long saddle gun in one hand and a gallon jug of pure corn liquor in the other he made the three, long, stiff-legged strides it took to get there and settled himself with a grunt of pain. Stretching the crippled leg straight out in front of him, he leaned the rifle up against the wall, pulled his big, black handled colt from his belt, laid it handy on the table, and pulled the cork from the jug with his teeth. He never allowed his gaze to shift from Adam Cartwright’s face.

Adam had sense enough to know when he was at a disadvantage. He turned his face away and set the coffeepot back on the hearth stone. Resettling the crutch under his arm, he hobbled painfully over to the bunk. He was glad that, apart from a brief and brutal search for guns, his unwelcome guests had - so far - left Hoss alone.

Hoss was breathing easier now and his eyes were clear. He was lucid for most of the time and the pain was less every day. His attention still mostly on the trapper, Adam eased an arm under his brother’s shoulders and helped him sit up; he held the cup to his lips. Hoss sipped and tasted and then drank eagerly. The coffee was hot, strong and black the way Adam always made it. It scorched its way down to his belly and lay there like a lava pool, seething.

Bojun dumped his battered hat on the table alongside the Colt. He rubbed at the old, familiar, bone-deep pain in his thigh, fingers digging in hard; he sipped at the liquor. Speculatively, he said to Adam, " I suppose you got a name?"

Adam met his gaze with a hard stare of his own, "I got one. I’m kinda particular who I share it with."

Bojun considered. "There ain’t no need fer you ta be unfriendly," he said, "I ain’t done you no harm." Then he shrugged. When all was said and done, a man’s name was his own business after all. "You could say that you done me some."

Adam’s face became even more wary. "How d’you make that out?"

"You sayin’ you ain’t the fella what sprung my traps? ‘Bel Lighterman reckons as you are. He’s threatenin’ ta skin you alive."

Adam held his expression. His eyes didn’t deny it. Bojun’s lip quirked and he made a gesture with the hand that rubbed his leg. "I don’t hold it against ya none. O’ course, I was as mad as a pig at a picnic at the time, but you didn’t cost me more ’n a couple o’ days. I ain’t gonna kill a man fer a couple o’ days." He took another small sip, feeling the warmth spread. "’Bel there, he don’t see it in the same light. He’ll likely kill you just for the hell of it."

"They say you can tell a man by the company he keeps." Adam was belligerent, angry – he wasn’t prepared to give an inch. He was stepping close to the edge. He was pushing, and he knew it.

The grizzled haired trapper regarded him thoughtfully. His blue eyes glittered. He had the bluest eyes Adam had ever seen on a man: cornflower-blue, the blue of an early summer morning sky. "O’ course, I ain’t got no special reason ta keep you alive either."

Adam let the breath hiss out through his teeth and tried to dismiss the anger. If he and Hoss were going to live through this thing he had to play careful and clever. "Found rich pickings in these hills, have you?" Adam knew well enough that most of the pelts on the loaded mules had come from his family’s land.

"Rich enough." Bojun shrugged and rubbed at the pain some more. It was bad today, tearing at him, the shattered knee objecting to the use he had made of it over a long hard trip. A man of the wilds, he figured it would be good to get back to something resembling civilization and get some warmth into the leg, some comfort. "What happened to your friend there?"

"The best part of a tree fell on him," Adam said with dry humour. He swallowed the last mouthful of coffee himself. It had grown cold in the cup but it was still good. Getting it inside gave him a moment to think. The trappers had gathered up all the guns in the cabin, and so far Adam hadn’t figured out how to get his hands on one without getting himself shot full of holes. Certainly, that big Colt on the table could blow a draft right through him before he got two strides across the room. He didn’t bother with the possibility that the old trapper wouldn’t use it – he wasn’t that big a fool.

Hoss Cartwright might have been lucid, but he was still somewhat confused. Having no clear memory of anything that had happened in the last week, he was disoriented – it was the strangest feeling. He felt like he had gone to sleep somewhere in the middle of the woods and awakened in a bad dream. It was like he had landed plumb in the middle of one of them fairy tales that Adam used to tell him when he was still a kid. He wasn’t too clear in his mind where they were but they weren’t at home, and he didn’t know who all these men might be. He could tell from the razor edge of his brother’s tone that they weren’t welcome. He rolled his eyes to get a good look at his brother’s face. As sure as the good Lord made little silver fishes ol’ Adam would know what was going on.

"Hey, Adam, what’s goin’ on ‘round here? Who are these fellas? What they want?"

Adam put his hand on Hoss’s shoulder but didn’t look at him. His eyes were hooded, hidden in shadow. "Don’t you worry yourself about it." Adam knew how his brother felt about indiscriminate trapping. What he didn’t know was how the big man would react when he found out that these were the men doing the trapping. He was still debating with himself how much his brother ought to know about their situation when Hoss struggled into a sitting position all by himself.

While not the fastest man alive when it came to figuring things out, Hoss knew Adam, and he knew that look boded ill for somebody. He had a feeling that they were in trouble, and if Adam hadn’t already done something about it, it had to be big trouble. He squinted hard at Bojun. "Who are you, Mister?"

Adam looked uncomfortable, uneasy. "Take it easy, Hoss."

The trapper took a long sip from the liquor jug and wiped his hand across his mouth, "My name’s Bojun, friend. Herricule Bojun."

Hoss frowned, working the name around in his mind. "I heard o’ that name somewheres afore. Say, ain’t you heard that name, Adam?"

"I heard it." Adam sat down on the edge of the bunk, glad to get the weight off his leg. "I heard Bojun was dead."

"A lot o’ people heard that. A lot o’ people heard wrong. Sorry I can’t oblige you."

Hoss’s frown had deepened into a scowl. He had just about worried the problem into a solution. "Ain’t you the trapper what cleaned out the Squaw Hills? Killed ever’ livin’ thing what moved?" He felt Adam’s hand on his shoulder, the fingers tightening. He ignored it. "I heard all ‘bout you when I was a li’le kid. Folk said the rivers run red by the time you’d finished butcherin’." Hoss was getting angry, a hot, futile emotion that was hard to contain. "You the fella what’s bin settin’ trap lines all over this country?"

Bojun glared, "I just bin all through that with your friend here." The corn was taking effect now, numbing the pain and shortening his temper.

Hoss growled, "This here’s our land, Mister, an’ you ain’t got no right ta trap on it!"

The words were out before Adam could do anything to stop them. He wasn’t at all sure that it was wise to let these men know who they were or their connection with the country, but it was too late now. Big, blunt, bluff Hoss had already let that particular cat out of the bag.

"Your land?" Bojun laughed disbelievingly, a deep hearty rumble that had no mirth in it, "Is that at fact?" He chuckled again, blue eyes glittering like faceted ice, "Is that a fact!"

Hoss exchanged long looks with Adam. Both of them rather wished Hoss had thought a little more about what he’d said before he said it.

The door of the cabin slammed open again and Lighterman came in followed closely by Perriot. Both of them smelled of mules and horses. Lighterman’s head barely cleared the doorframe. With five big men inside, the small room was suddenly very cramped. The two newcomers headed straight for the coffeepot.

Lighterman looked at Bojun. As always, his face was angry, "What in hell ‘re you laughin’ at?"

Bojun’s lip quirked with dislike. "I’m a laughin’ at these two fellas. They reckon they own this country here abouts an’ we bin takin’ all them pelts off o’ their land."

Lighterman rounded on the Cartwrights, a sneer on his face, "You got somethin’ ag’in a man earning himself a livin’?"

Hoss couldn’t keep the dislike out of his voice. "I ain’t got no time fer no man what does nothin’ but kill critters fer their skins."

Lighterman dropped his cup, coffee and all, and started forward, snarling. Adam came to his feet with surprising speed and grace, planting himself squarely between Lighterman and his brother. He didn’t let the price of it show on his face. "My brother doesn’t much like trappers," he said pointedly, diverting Lighterman’s anger from Hoss onto himself.

Lighterman sneered, "And what about you, Big Man?"

"I don’t’ have a problem with a man taking a few pelts for his own use," Adam said carefully, "But I don’t see the point in stripping the hills bare."

Stepping close, Lighterman stared into Adam’s eyes. His big fists clenched. Perriot stepped between them, pushing them apart. "Is enough," he said, "no call for either one of you to kill the other. ‘Bel, get some food inside you, and you," he turned furiously on Adam, his own eyes angry, "I told you before about your mouth!"

The antagonists eyed each other malevolently for long seconds more. Perriot gave both of them another shove. "I said, that’s enough!"

A moment more and the two broke apart, Lighterman turning back to the fire, his face working. Adam subsided back onto the edge of Hoss’s bunk; his eyes were still full of anger. Perriot looked at Bojun. Bojun pulled a sour face. It was apparent that before long one of these two was going to kill the other. It was just a matter of which – and when. Bojun lifted the liquor jug to his mouth and drank deep.

Morning in the high Sierras dawned in glory. At first it appeared the pine forests were lit from below with light the colour of ripened apricots. Under the paling sky the wooded valleys swiftly filled with mists. The hills, ranked one on one behind the other all the way to the brightening slopes of the mountains in every shade of green and gold, brightening steadily.

Jody climbed groggily out of the damp twist of blanket and went to check on his horse. It had been a cold camp without a fire. Jody was still tired and his body ached in every joint. He was also hungry and so was the horse. Last night he had ridden for as long as there was light to see, until the silver moon set behind the mountains and plunged the forest trails into absolute darkness. Then he had taken off the saddle, wrapped himself in the blanket and slept the sleep of the dead. He had been too exhausted, too bone weary to do anything else. In the cold light of the new day he was all but overwhelmed by feelings of guilt. He had had it drummed into him hard from the very first moment he had seen a horse that a man always looked after his animal before he thought about himself. Very carefully, he went over the bay’s legs and feet inch by inch.

The gelding had taken some bumps and bruises – it was inevitable that he would - but he wasn’t lame, and he didn’t flinch from the saddle as Jody lifted it on to his back. Jody tightened the cinch. He regretted that he didn’t have more than a few handfuls of grain to feed him; pickings for a grazing animal on these hillsides were sparse. He gave the horse a pat and a few kind words before he stepped aboard. He felt very much alone in the still dripping and almost silent woodlands; the pine and the oak seemed to brood. He was following a different trail to the one they had used riding into the hills. Adam had said to get into the valleys and to follow them north and east. He was to use the rivers and streams as highways and let them guide him home.

It wasn’t nearly as easy a thing as Adam had made it sound. A whole lot of things kept getting in Jody’s way. He’d encountered everything from landslides, to fallen trees, to rivers so over-burdened with run-off water that the horse couldn’t wade through. In every case Jody had been forced to find a way around. He had a feeling that he was still too far west and was putting long days of riding onto his journey, days that neither he nor the men depending on him could afford. What made it more difficult was that none of the valleys that Jody was supposed to follow ran the way he wanted to go. To keep himself headed in the right direction he found himself scrambling up steep and stony paths, leading the horse by the bridle, and riding back down at a pace faster than was truly safe, searching for the stream that would lead the way east and home. The truth of it was, Jody was lost. He knew only vaguely where he was and had but a general idea of the way he needed to go.

Jody turned the gelding head downhill and kicked hard, driven by a devil of urgency. He rode as hard and as fast as he dared along a barely discernible trail. A fall could break the horse’s legs and spell disaster for both of them.

The river ran swift and deep in the valley bottom, a dark, green-crystal torrent that tumbled and danced over the boulders that lined the riverbed. It was the same watercourse that Jody had forded – it seemed like half a lifetime ago – riding with the Cartwright brothers, pulling the packhorse. There, the river had been wider and slower; the crossing had been easy with the water coming barely to the horses’ shoulders and swirling away in slow eddies. Here it was all but impossible. The banks were higher and the river faster, the turbulence noisy beyond belief. Jody had no way of knowing how far he was from that shallow crossing point.

For a while he jogged along the bank, easing the horse and looking for a place where they could get over. He did come to a spot eventually. A huge log had washed downstream and become wedged against the bank. The riverbank had broken and washed away, leaving a low place where he might almost walk the horse right into the water. Furthermore, the flow of the water, although fast, seemed smoother, indicating perhaps that the bottom was less rocky. Jody decided to take his chance. Turning the horse he drove his heels in hard, urging it to step down the broken bank and plunge into the water.

The gelding threw up his head and shook it, resisting as if he knew far better than the man who sat on his back. Then he leapt in, all four feet together.

The green water ran deeper, colder and faster than Jody could ever have expected. The icy shock of it took him completely by surprise. He gasped and clung tightly to the saddle horn as the horse came up for air. He had lost a rein and could do nothing to assist the gallant animal except yell encouragement that was swept away and lost in the roar of the water.

The powerful current boiled and surged around them, pulling and pushing at them with primordial and irresistible force. The horse scrambled for a footing on the slick riverbed. The freezing water filled Jody’s boots; it came to his thighs, his groin, his waist. The gelding struggled and plunged. He tried to swim but the force of the water was too strong. His head went under, then came up again, wild eyed. Jody yelled again and the horse made another effort. He lunged and plunged again; now he was making some headway against the force of the water.

Jody started to feel relief and elation. They were almost across and angling back against the current. He picked a place on the far bank where the horse would be able to climb out. He had no way of knowing that a huge boulder had washed out of the riverbed and been swept downstream. The gelding foundered in the hole. Jody was thrown from the saddle as the horse went under yet again. He clung desperately to the saddle horn as the animal struggled to the bank. His hat, the green felt hat bought for him by Joe Cartwright on his birthday, spun for a moment in a little whirlpool and swirled away, forever lost. Jody was still hanging on the saddle with grim determination as the horse hauled himself out of the water. Both of them were drenched, cold right through to the bone and shaking.

An hour later and further along the trail, Jody found yet another obstacle in his path. The heavy rains of spring had caused half a hillside to slip away; it had taken several sizeable trees and the only safe path with it. Trees and path lay together in ruins at the bottom of the down-slope. Jody sat in the saddle at the top of the slope and gave the gelding a chance to blow. He wiped his sleeve across his dirty face and tried to think intelligently about how to get down.

He was still cold; his clothes were soaked through, and all his gear was drenched. More significantly, the gelding was tiring noticeably. Since the near disastrous river crossing his gait had become unsteady. Between his knees he could feel the animal’s ribs heaving.

He studied the tree-covered hillside. There was no easy way down. To go around would involve going back over his own tracks for miles and putting as much as half a day on the trip. Jody gritted his teeth and put the horse to the hill, angling him across the slope. The gelding danced for a moment on the edge and then started down with small mincing steps.

They didn’t get far before the ground started to slide – and the horse slid with it. Still wet and loose from the recent landslide, the earth slipped away from beneath the shod hooves. The gelding squealed with alarm. Jody kicked free of the stirrups, and the animal lost his footing. The two of them, man and horse, took the shortest way to the bottom, each tumbling separately in a slide of soil and stones.

The horse landed on his back, all four legs in the air, struggling. Then he wriggled and rolled and got to his feet. He snorted and kicked up his heels. Reins and stirrups flying, he cantered off into the woods.

Jody lay stunned for several minutes. He had arrived at the bottom of the hill with enough force to knock the wind clean out of him, and somewhere along the way he had taken a good clout to the head. His face was pressed well into the dirt, and soil and rocks continued to fall on him until he was half buried. Eventually, he had to come up for air. It took him a while to gather his scattered wits and to dig himself out. There was blood on his face that he traced to a long cut up near his hairline; it kept running into his eyes. He had torn skin off both his hands and had broken open the half-healed scratches on his forearms.

Somewhere in the long tumble his six-gun had fallen from his holster. Jody sought for it anxiously. Like most cowboys, he had become almost physically attached to his side arm and hated to be parted from it. He found it eventually in the soft soil and cleaned it off on the rags of his shirttail. He got to his knees and then to his feet. Holding his arm tight against him and limping on an ankle that was unexpectedly sore, he went in search of the horse.

Too tired to run far, the gelding had found a clearing with some grass to nibble and a stream running through. His flanks were well caked in mud, and a strap on his bridle had broken. Jody found a streak of blood on his shoulder but couldn’t make out where it had come from. He rolled his eyes and tossed his head as Jody straightened the saddle and tightened the cinch. Jody sighed. He was as stiff and sore as the horse, and he still had a long way to ride. He picked up the reins and stepped back into the saddle.

Brilliant sunlight speared into Joe’s eyes.

Someone had pushed open the barn door and allowed in the punishing dazzle of the brand-new day.

Despite the discomfort of his position: bound to a stout post with his hands behind him and his ankles roped together, unable to lie down or to rest his head against anything but unyielding timber, Joe had been dozing. Yesterday had been a hard day, and he’d had disturbed night. Not even the threat of an untimely death had been enough to keep him fully awake through the earliest hours.

Old man Prescott had not enjoyed being rousted out of his warm house and his even warmer bed by all the shouting and hollering that had gone on outside. He had been even less pleased when he had been wheeled out onto the porch, all swaddled in blankets and shawls, to find out what the commotion was, to have Asia and Joe hauled up in front of him again. He’d yelled long and loud without saying anything much that they hadn’t heard before. Then the old man had leaned forward in his chair. With a flash of shrewd insight he demanded, "How ‘n hell did you two git out ‘o that shed anyhow?"

The two young men were both securely tied and a little bruised and bloody, having been hustled and roughhoused on the way over from the barn. Asia had a sullen pout that might have been the result of a rapidly swelling lip, and Joe sported a beautifully bruised eye. Angry and defiant, neither one of them had been prepared to offer an explanation. Seth Prescott stood by chewing on his lip. He looked a worried man. His sister remained in the shadows of the porch, her face invisible. Neither Joe nor Asia looked at either of them.

"Well, I guess it don’t matter none," old Prescott had said. "Tie ‘em up tight." And that they had done. "An set two men ta watch ‘em – with guns!" And they had done that too. "Don’t want em getting’ away ag’in."

At least the barn had been warmer.

Joe braved the glare and looked towards the door. The two men silhouetted against the sunlight with the brightness spilling over their shoulders were instantly recognizable: the lean Seth Prescott and his shorter, stockier brother. Both of them wore low-slung side arms and carried long barreled rifles. Joe lashed out with his feet, kicking Asia awake. On the straw in the stall the two cowboys who were supposed to be watching them were waking up and stretching cramped muscles. Joe wished he could do the same. Jed Prescott gave the two men and angry glare and a couple of hearty kicks to get them moving.

Remembering where he was and what was about to happen, Joe felt sick to his stomach and already short of breath. He looked up at Seth Prescott and there was real fear in his face, "You fellas can’t really be planning ta do this!"

Prescott’s silver eyes were filled with shadows. His face might have held the faintest traces of reluctance, of sympathy and of doubt, but for all that it was a grimly determined face. After a lengthy and loud interview with his father and a stand up shouting row with his brother he had managed, at least partially, to dispel the old mans suspicions concerning the escape. While he might not agree with the elder Prescott’s tactics, he didn’t consider himself in a position to cross the old man again.

"Git up on yore feet," he said gruffly, "an’ walk outside."

Jed Prescott finished pulling loose the ropes that held Joe to the post and untied his feet. The cast in his eye screwed up his face into a twisted squint that belied the serious business of the day. It made him look as if he were winking. He turned to take the rope off Asia. Seth jabbed Joe with the long gun and said, grimly, "You c’n die fast on the end of a rope, or you c’n die slow with a bullet in the belly. Your choice."

Joe eyed the rifle warily and with the help of the post managed to get his legs under him. His bound hands picked up a whole host of splinters from the woodwork. "You can’t do this. You can’t hang a man just for ropin’ a steer!"

"I reckon," Jed Prescott said, " you two cowboys are about to find out about that first hand."

"Outside," Seth Prescott said again. He both looked and sounded weary. After last night’s verbal battle and a repeat performance already this morning, he just wanted to get the unpleasant business over with. "Looks like we’re gonna have us a hangin’ afore breakfast after all." Jed Prescott gave his brother a sharp look but Seth ignored him. The two sleepy eyed cowboys fell in behind them, and they all trooped out of the barn.

The morning sun filled the yard with strong light and sharp, dark shadows. The house looked brighter and whiter, the trees greener and less grey. The air was crisp and clean, still with a faint hint of moisture and aglow with a promise of heat to come. It was going to be a beautiful day – the first true day of early summer. Pausing in the doorway Joe wondered how much of it he would be allowed to see.

A line from one of those books Adam was always reading ran suddenly through his mind, as bright as a thread of gold, ‘Then in good faith there is no difference between your grace and I, but that I shall die today, and you tomorrow’.** He thought of Adam with a pang; big brother wouldn’t have gotten himself into a mess like this, that was for sure.

He felt as if, for this special morning, all his senses had been enhanced. Everything was especially brilliant and crystal clear. The smell of fresh cow dung from the corral was so pungent that he could taste it on his tongue. He felt the movement of the air against his skin and heard the drone of an early, opportunistic bee all the way across the yard, buzzing among the flower tubs in front of the house. He noticed details that otherwise he would have paid no attention at all: a drift of fine cloud high up in a sky already paling to buff, a silver glint in a droplet of water as it dripped from the pump and, falling, sent ripples the length of the horse trough, the little calico cat that had been his undoing the night before sitting on the porch step cleaning her paws. It was indeed, as someone else had once said, a fine day for a hanging.

Jed Prescott jabbed the business end of his riffle into Joe’s backbone. "Get walkin’, Curly. I’m a-gettin’ hungry."

Something inside Joe snapped. If he was going to hang it would damn well be under his own name! He spun round, all but throwing himself off his feet, and stared Jed square in the face. "My name ain’t Curly! It’s Joe Cartwright! You remember that!"

The sneer on Jed’s face slipped into a snarl, "Just walk!"

Someone had pulled a wagon and team tight up against the big cottonwood tree that grew close against the house and spread gnarled branches far and wide. Two ropes, new hemp, shining white in the sunlight, were already looped over the lowest branch. The ropes ended in two oval nooses suspended some six feet above the wagon bed. Looking at them. Joe already felt the constriction about his throat.

Prescott was out on the front porch on the house, his legs wrapped in a boldly checked blanket. A man who didn’t sleep well, early rising was not a problem for him. Lilleth Prescott, pretty in a pink and white dress, was pale faced and anxious, hovering at her father’s shoulder. Joe looked at her without really seeing her. Appealing as she was, right then he had other things on his mind. The ranch hands were gathered about. Red and Blue were there in prime positions, right up beside the wagon, and there were six or seven other men from the night before. Just about every man on the Lazy ‘P’ payroll had gathered to watch. Some of them met Joe’s eyes levelly, boldly even; some of them would not look at him at all. They were all silent and still, a tableau, a snapshot frozen in time just like one of those photographic pictures that were coming to be all the rage these days.

Jed nudged Joe again with the riffle. It broke the spell. Joe took a step, and then another. The sound of the dirt crunching beneath his boots was loud in his own ears. Asia, looking over his shoulder at Seth, took his cue from Joe and went along with him. The younger man was white faced and starting to sweat; his previous composure and calm had completely deserted him. Once, he stumbled. Joe had some idea of how he was feeling. He was sick to his stomach himself, and his legs were leaden. His mind was partially detached. It was if he stood aside and watched another man walk wooden legged across the sunlit yard towards the improvised gallows.

He stopped short at the porch steps and let Jed Prescott walk right into him. Jed swore at him and shoved him hard in the back. Joe ignored his cussing and his pushing and looked steadily at the old man, "We weren’t stealin’ your steer Mister. Like I told you, we was just haulin’ him out o’ the mud!"

Prescott leaned towards him, his weight on the gnarled knob of a polished briar walking cane. His knuckles showed white and bloodless against the skin. "I told you afore, boy, more ‘n once, you put your rope on another man’s steer, you’re gonna dance fer it."

Throwing off Jed’s sticky hands, Joe struggled with the ropes that tied his hands. He was getting mad; if he could only get free he might do something to the Prescotts that would be worth hanging for.

"I got a Pa an’ I got brothers! They’re gonna come lookin’ fer me!"

"We can deal with your Pa an’ your brothers," Prescott said complacently, "A man’s got a legal right ta protect what’s his’n." He nodded his sons in the direction of the wagon. "Git the job done an’ then we c’n eat."

Jed took another good grip on Joe’s arm and hauled him roughly to the gallows. Asia was struggling with Seth, but resistance wasn’t getting either of them anywhere. There were too many men, too many hands willing to boost them bodily into the back of the wagon. Seth climbed up there with them and set about arranging the ropes around their necks. The faint look of reluctance was gone from his face, replaced by grim determination. Jed went ‘round to the front and climbed up onto the seat; he gathered the strap reins into his hands. The horses fidgeted in their harness.

Seth tightened the nooses. Joe felt the hardness and the rough prickle of the hemp against the skin of his neck. His mouth was painfully dry. He tried to swallow but the rope got in the way.

The cook appeared at the cookhouse door. He wore a once-white apron that came to his knees and a battered stovepipe hat. He was already puffing on his first pipe of the day. From the open doorway behind him the aromas of bacon and coffee and fresh baked biscuits drifted onto the morning air, announcing that breakfast was ready inside.

Joe saw Red Pants and Blue Shirt looking up at him. Blue wasn’t grinning any more; his eyes were hard and eager. Joe’s bladder was full. He realized with dismay that the last thing he would to do in life, in front of all these men, would be to disgrace himself.

Seth finished fiddling with the ropes and stepped back, finally satisfied. He chewed at his lip and rubbed his palms across his rump as if he could wipe away the feel of the hemp. Jed turned his head, "All set, Pa."

Lilly Prescott pressed her white fists hard against her mouth. Above them, her eyes were wide open with alarm. Old man Prescott rapped his stick against the boards of the porch. "Do it then!"

A low, slow voice drawled, "I think you-all better stop right there."

Aubrey Prior eased his horse around the side of the house. Reins in his left hand, he held his six-gun casually across the horn of his saddle. The muzzle covered all the Prescotts fairly effectively.

From behind the barn Pet Nash strolled out into the sunlight; the fancy black horse followed on a slack rein. He had his gun in his hand and his usual friendly smile on his face; his eyes suggested that no-one take chances with a poker-playing man. Ashley Prior was sitting his gelding over by the corral. He could watch the whole yard from there without so much as moving his head. Astley and Arthur rode out of the cottonwoods. Grinning humourlessly, Arthur swung out of the saddle and moved with a speed that belied his bulk to the heads of the two-horse team.

For half a heartbeat everyone stood still. It was as if the world held its breath.

Jed Prescott recovered first. With a resounding yell he slapped the reins against the horses’ backs. The team leapt forward. The wagon lurched into motion. Joe felt himself falling, felt the rope dragging at his neck. He danced as the wagon moved under him, trying desperately to keep his footing. The rope dragged at his neck. Lilleth Prescott stifled a scream. The cowboys started shouting and milling about. The horses lunged wildly. The cat, wisely, retired hastily to the safety of the house.

A single shot, startlingly loud, rang out in the sudden uproar.

Jed Prescott yelped in surprise and sudden pain and fell sideways in the seat. His face twisted in agony and he clutched at his newly broken upper arm. Blood flowed freely from between his fingers. Arthur Prior grabbed the bridles of the plunging horses, using his enormous strength to bring them both to a tremble-legged halt. The wagon lurched to a stop. Joe’s boots teetered on the very edge of the wagon bed. He fought for his balance. He could hear the blood singing in his head. Seth Prescott, regaining his own feet in the swaying wagon, took him firmly by the elbow; he steadied him, pulling him back to safety. He had his other hand on Asia’s arm.

Across the yard Ashley Prior pulled back the hammer of his Colt for a second shot, should it be necessary. His face was impassive. Aubrey swung his gun around so that it pointed directly at Seth. Astley rode alongside the wagon; his weapon covered Seth as well.

"I suggest," Aubrey said in a conversational tone that carried just far enough, "that you take that rope off our brother’s neck an’ turn him loose. Joe Cartwright as well."

Seth didn’t need telling twice. He didn’t spare his father so much as a glance before doing exactly as he was bidden. The look on his face indicated that he was glad to do it. He freed Asia’s hands in short order and then Joe’s and helped them get their necks out of the ropes. They didn’t waste any time jumping down from the wagon. They wanted to put distance between themselves and those empty nooses as quickly as they could. The assembled cowhands stepped away from them, giving them room. Under the guns of the Priors the bravado had evaporated abruptly; no one was prepared to stand in their way. In the front of the wagon Jed Prescott groaned with pain. His father was purple faced with fury. His rage was making the wheelchair shake.

"Who in hell ‘re you? What give you the right to interfere with justice?"

Aubrey Prior raised his hand, still with the gun in it and tipped back his hat; he eased himself in the saddle. His eyes were bleak. "Ain’t rightly got the time ta discuss justice with ya, but I know my brother ain’t done nothin’ ta be hung fer."

Prescott blustered, "He was caught cow stealin’! That’s a hangin’ offence!"

"You ain’t gonna hang nobody, Mister." Aubrey gave him a jaundiced look, then turned a charming, gap toothed smile on Lilleth. "If I could trouble you, Ma’am, for these men’s side arms?"

Lilleth vanished into the house and re-emerged moments later with guns and gunbelts. Seth Prescott walked over. His father turned on him, "You gonna let them ride out o’ here?"

With a shrug and an easy smile Seth said, "I reckon that’s just what I’m gonna do, Pa."

"An’ who runs things around here?"

Seth took his time about answering. He looked at his wounded brother, now in the care of his sister. Jed was still bleeding and whimpering, not nearly the man he pretended to be. Perhaps it was that cast in his eye that had, somewhere along the line, twisted Jed’s outlook on the world. He looked around at the assembled cowhands, watching and waiting to see what would happen. They were good enough men as cowhands went, though they needed a firm hand on occasion. He thought about the ranch. The Lazy ‘P’ broke even, with a little extra to boot, but only just. The buildings could do with repair and renovation: a new bath house, perhaps, and another barn for the stock. A little innovation and investment could soon see the place turning a healthy profit. He lifted his gaze to the range-land, dusty green and gold, rising towards the distant hills. He had often thought that sheep would do better on this poor grazing than steers, and there was a growing demand in the market for mutton and wool. Finally, he looked at his father: infirm and often unwell, confined now to his bed and his wheelchair, commanding and demanding. Lately, the old man’s judgment had not been what it was; this time he had very nearly bamboozled them all into making a very serious mistake. It was time, so Seth reckoned, for a man to finally stand up and declare himself a man. "I guess, from now on, I am, Pa," he said, cheerfully enough.

Joe tightened the cinch under the pinto mare and lifted himself into the saddle. He would glad to be away from the Prescott ranch and off Lazy ‘P’ range, but there was one thing he had to do first. He reined the mare round and headed for the corral.

"Joe?" Aubrey Prior drew rein and looked after him enquiringly.

Joe glanced over his shoulder. "I’m just gonna sort through these steers," he said with determination, "half of them wear a pine tree brand, an’ I’m not leaving here without them!"
 
 

Jody rode hell-for-leather into the front yard of the house and half slid, half fell out of he saddle. He had done his best to conserve the animal, but in the last few miles the sweep of the range had become achingly familiar, and he found that he knew every tree and bend in the trail. With the prospect of home just over the hill, he had been unable to resist kicking hard and driving the horse into a cruelly laboured gallop.

He didn’t bother to tie the gelding to the rail. The animal was more dead than alive and certainly wasn’t going to wander off. Jody felt a pang of guilt leaving him standing there with his head hanging down to his knees and the tongue lolling out of his mouth. He made a promise that the horse was the second thing he was going to take care off. Limping – he wasn’t able to do much more - he headed for the door.

The front door of the ranch house was unlocked, in fact, in the hospitable and trusting way of the old frontier it had no lock on it but was held closed against the wind and the weather by a simple catch. Jody opened it and pushed his way inside. He raised his voice in a yell of, "Halloooo!"

Of course, he didn’t expect any of the Cartwrights to be there. Ben and Joe wouldn’t have returned yet from the cattle drive, and Mrs. Cartwright was away visiting. He thought that the cook and housekeeper, Hop Sing might be somewhere about. The Chinese factotum seemed like a good place to start when it came to getting something done.

Inside, the large living room was in perfect order. Everything was in its place and new pin bright, as if all the woodwork had been recently polished and the rugs freshly beaten. All that was missing was the tick of the tall case French clock. Unwound, it had run down to a stop. The silence in the room was uncanny. The other thing that was missing was the fire that burned, summer and winter alike, in the grey-stone fireplace. Logs and tinder were laid there ready to light but the hearthstones were cold.

Momentarily confused, Jody stopped short, his mouth open in surprise. Then he headed for the kitchen. That was Hop Sing’s realm and domain; if the little oriental was anywhere about, that was where he would be. The kitchen fire was out as well, and the vast, black-iron range that filled one wall was quite cold. No one had done any cooking there for quite some time, and there was no sign of the cook anywhere. Bemused, Jody slowly made his way back into the living room.

"C’n I do somethin’ fer you, Mister?" The voice was sudden, startling, and it came from behind. Jody jumped violently and spun around.

Old Elias Trenchard, a white-haired old-timer who had worked for Ben Cartwright as long as Charlie, and who had lived for longer still, had seen the front door to the big house standing open and come to see who was about. Elias, too frail now to work the range or even to get on the back of a horse, was still on the Ponderosa payroll. These days he busied himself doing odd jobs and keeping a general eye on the place. With the Cartwrights and all the regular hands away from home, he took his duties seriously. A short, stocky man, buckled and bowed by fifty years of hard, grinding work in an unforgiving country, he leaned back on his heels and looked Jody over from top to toe.

The fellow he saw was young, grown tall and willowy, but not yet filled out with the muscles of manhood. He had a whole host of faded freckles in an anxious, wind-burned face and a mop of unruly, candle-coloured hair growing out every which-away. And he had the strangest eyes. The irises were large: a light hazel-brown and sprinkled with motes of green and brightest gold. The eyes had a frantic, fanatical glow to them. Old Elias knew he had seen those eyes someplace before, but for a moment he just couldn’t think where…

"Ain’t no use you looking for Ben or his boys," he said slowly. There ain’t none of ‘em here nor likely ta be fer a while."

Jody felt a surge of frustration. He made a helpless, angry gesture. "Oh hell, Elias! Adam an’ Hoss are up in the hills! They’re both hurt an’ needin’ help real bad!"

Elias knew the voice as well, now completely broken from treble to pleasant tenor. Elias looked the stranger over again, this time taking in the ragged and dirty clothes, the scrapes and the scratches. His sun-faded eyes returned to the face. He was sure he knew that face. "Jody? Is that you, Jody?" Could this possibly be the scrawny, tow-haired city whelp that the Cartwrights had been wet-nursing all these months, grown all of sudden into a tall young man? He could hardly believe it was so.

"It’s me, Elias!" Jody was fresh out of patience with the old man’s slow thinking, "Where the heck’s Hop Sing?" It was a stronger expletive that trembled briefly on his lips, one that he had often heard the cowboys use, but this was, after all, Ben Cartwright’s house.

He gazed around as if he expected the little Chinese housekeeper to creep out of the woodwork.

Elias scratched thoughtfully at the stubble on his cheek. "Hop Sing ain’t here neither," he said finally. "He’s gone off ta Placerville ta visit wi’ some o’ those relatives o’ his. Don’t recall him sayin’ when he was comin’ back."

"I gotta get some help!" Jody pushed Elias out of the way and started for the door. The old cowhand hooked a hand around his arm,

"Just you hold on a minute, now Jody. You say ag’in what you said afore ‘bout Adam an’ Hoss, only say it whole lot slower."

Jody took a long breath, "Hoss had a chunk o’ tree fall on him an’ stove in his chest, and then he took with lung fever, and Adam fell an’ busted his leg. They need a doctor, an’ they need ‘im real’ fast!"

He made another bolt for the door. Elias held on tight to his arm and walked along with him. They went at a much slower pace than Jody would have liked. "An’ whereabouts is them two fellas now?" Elias asked.

"They’re holed up in an ol’ trapper’s cabin up in the hills beyond the lake." Out in the yard again, Jody looked anxiously for someone to help – anyone! It was obvious to the young man that old Elias wasn’t going to be any use. It was in the forefront of his mind to get a fresh horse and ride on into town. There must be someone there able to turn out to help.

"Reckon I know the place," Elias said after a moment’s thought, "that’s a three – four day ride from here. How long you bin in the saddle, boy?"

Jody shrugged and shook his head at the same time. "I gotta get a doctor!"

"I’ll put ol’ Sam Haynes up on a nag. He’s got that busted arm but he c’n make it in ta town, roust out the doc. An’ the sheriff." Elias, a shrewder man than Jody gave him credit for, was thinking on his feet. He walked Jody firmly towards the bunkhouse and a perpetually hot pot of coffee. "Roy Coffee’s a good friend o’ the Cartwrights. He’ll send out some men ta help them fellas home." He parked Jody’s backside in a chair and poured black coffee into a cup.

Jody was relaxing now, hearing the old man making plans; in reaction to his long ride he was starting to shake. Elias left him to relish his coffee while he went to set Sam on his way and to do what he could for the gelding.

Several hours, some sleep and a meal later, Jody was back in the yard harnessing a team to a stout wagon. Elias watched him doubtfully, "You sure you know what you’re doin’ boy?

"I know." Jody tossed some bundles into the back of the wagon: bundles that contained food and blankets, spare clothing and dry firewood. He threw Elias a hard, determined look, "I seen a way I c’n get this wagon a good long way in ta those hills. Then I’m gonna ride up ta that shack with some grub and these morphine tablets." He patted the pocket of his coat where the packet of little white pills resided.

Elias looked at the sorrel gelding tied to the rear of the wagon. He had to admit that Jody had picked the right animal for the job - that horse could climb like a mountain goat. He scratched his chin, "Is a day gonna make that much difference? You could rest up fer a bit; ride on up with the doctor."

"I could," Jody climbed up onto the driving seat, "but Adam an’ Hoss are my friends, and right now, they’re needin’!" He nodded to Elias, slapped the reins against the horses’ backs and with a yell, started them at a steady pace towards the hills.

Elias stood in the yard and gazed after him until the dust cleared around the bend in the trail. He shook his head and sighed before heading for the barn. He figured that who ever had finished the job of bringing that boy up had done a real’ fine job.

Joe threw his leg over the horn of the saddle and slid out of the leather. His boots hit the ground while the horse was still at full stride and launched him into a stumbling run. He was headed for the wagon, the fire and the blanket swathed figure that lay on the ground beside it. Charlie stepped in his way. He hooked the young man under the arm and spun him round, stopping him dead in his tracks. "Whoa now, Joe! Whoa now!"

Joe shrugged himself loose, and Charlie grabbed him again, holding on tight and ducking an errant fist. "Hold on a minute Boy!"

Joe rounded on him. His eyes were frantic, and there was a trace of a tear on his cheek. "Let go o’ me Charlie!"

"Joe, you can’t go over there."

"They told me my Pa’s sick!"

Charlie pushed his old, weather-beaten face into Joe’s young and angry one. "An’ did they tell you what your Pa’s sick with? He’s got typhoid, boy. You go over there an’ as like as not you’re gonna git it too! How d’you think he’d feel about that?"

It took a moment for Joe to take in what Charlie was telling him. Then his expression changed to uncertainty and anxiety tinged with fear. He stopped struggling. "But my Pa…"

Satisfied that the younger man was finally thinking straight, Charlie let go of him. "Pete Barnes there knows doctorin’. He got some medicines in the wagon fer the fever, an’ he’s lookin’ after yore Pa real’ good."

Joe looked from face to face: Charlie, Auron and Asia Prior, Nash, TJ and the rest of the Ponderosa hands. They were all watching him, waiting to see what he was going to do. His hands were suddenly moist. Unconsciously, he wiped his palms on his pants. He looked at Charlie again. "Is my Pa goin’ to be all right?"

Charlie lifted a shoulder. "Ben’s as strong as an old bull. Pete says he’s doin’ okay. Reckon it’s gonna take a while fer him ta git over it though. Longer than you got."

"What do you mean, longer than I’ve got?"

Chewing slowly, Charlie narrowed his eyes and gazed into the trees. "You think about it a bit, Joe. You got fourteen hundred head o’ steers eatin’ their fool heads off. There wasn’t that much grass here ta start with, an’ there sure ain’t none left now! Lessen you move ‘em quick, them steers is gonna starve. You’re gonna lose the whole Goddamned herd."

Joe sucked on his lip and thought about it hard. His Pa was real’ sick. Joe knew that a lot of people died of typhoid. He had to be right there if his father needed him, just in case. He knew that if he rode off and his Pa died with only strangers for company there was no way he could ever explain it to Hoss, or to Adam; how would he ever even explain it to himself?

But then there was the herd. His family had three years of their lives tied up in that bunch of bone-headed steers. Three years of back breaking, gut wrenching and often soul-destroying work. If the herd were lost it would prove a devastating blow to all of them: to their personal plans and ambitions and to the future of the ranch itself. If the steers weren’t delivered to the rail head by the due date on the contract there would be massive penalties to be paid – fines big enough to cripple the Ponderosa for years to come, if not destroy it entirely and for ever. It would be almost as disastrous for the family as the untimely death of Ben Cartwright himself. Joe didn’t try to fool himself; much as his Pa loved his family, without the ranch he had conquered a wilderness to create he would be little more than a shell of a man. Without the ranch Hoss wouldn’t be able to marry little Mary Fletcher the way he was planning, and Adam – well Adam would fight long and hard to salvage what he could for his siblings and for Jenny and probably spend the rest of his life doing it. If they had to sell the land to pay off the debt, the foundations of all that they had would be swept away.

Joe found abruptly that there was a whole lot of responsibility on his shoulders. He was a man with obligations: to the ranch and to the herd, to his father and his brothers and to the men now waiting on his decision. Ultimately, he was accountable to himself. He knew that he couldn’t sit on his butt and watch while those steers died.

He glanced again towards his father. He knew what Ben Cartwright would want him to do; it was up to him to go and do it. Joe bit down hard on the bullet. "How long to drive the herd through the pass, Charlie?"

Without hesitation, Charlie said, "A full day, first light ‘til sundown. Then it’s another three – four days to the rail head if we push ‘em hard. With the men we got, we should have ‘em corralled by the end o’ the week."

A rapid calculation told Joe that he didn’t have much time to spare. He pulled a deep breath, "We’ll leave Pete Barnes and Rolo here with my Pa; one of the wagons and two teams of horses. We drive the herd out before sunup tomorrow."

Charlie gave him a curt but very apparent nod of respect. He said, clearly, "Just as you say, boss." Leaving Joe standing he turned away and started shouting orders. Joe carefully unwound the tight fists his hands had become. He knew that riding away from here tomorrow morning would be the hardest thing he had ever done.

Exactly what it was that had started the argument none of them were quite sure. It didn’t really matter. It was only the latest of several, and they had all ended up in much the same way. The two big men stood toe to toe and chest to chest in the centre of the cabin, glaring into each other’s eyes and breathing each other’s breath. At every encounter the two of them struck sparks off one another like flint off steel.

The trappers had kicked open the window shutters and allowed the bright sunlight and fresh air to flood in. The smoke and the herbal steam that had characterized the early days of Hoss’s illness had been dispelled; the light revealed the broken squalor of the room: the dirt and the shattered woodwork, the debris of the long years of neglect.

Lighterman had his back to the light. His dark eyes were blazing with rage, and there was spittle in the beard at the corners of his mouth. He snarled into Adam’s teeth, "I told you afore ta keep out o’ my Goddamned way!"

Adam, glared at him in furious defiance and spat right back at him, "And I told you to stay away from my brother!" Adam was well aware that he should be keeping his mouth shut, but these men were interlopers, invaders, enemies! He was angry, and he couldn’t help himself.

Still confined to the bunk, Hoss flailed helplessly, anxious to avert the conflict, powerless to prevent it. The antagonists were too involved with each other to notice. Lighterman looked from one brother to the other, his eyes glittering. "What in Goddamn hell’re you two whisperin’ about, anyhow?" he asked.

Neither man answered him. They were not about to admit to their escape plans: desperate, futile and ultimately abortive. Lighterman pulled out his Colt and jammed it into Adam’s belly. The muzzle was hard up against the scar of that old bullet wound. Both of them knew that if he pulled the trigger the ball would smash Adam’s spine on its way out. This time he was just about mad enough to do it.

Adam saw it in his face and had sense enough to back down. Getting himself killed by this insane hothead wasn’t about to do Hoss any good at all. His eyes, hazel in the light from the window, dark flecked, faltered. Lighterman saw it and laughed. He knew that he was in control. With his free hand, he pushed Adam over. It wasn’t a hard thing to do. Fearful of damaging his leg still more, Adam let himself go, catching his weight on his arms and his elbow. Lighterman stood over him, his lip lifted to reveal the discoloured teeth. He took careful aim.

"I’m gonna put an end to you right now, Big Man," he said in a low growl. "I just about had enough o’ you an’ your Goddamn fancy mouth!"

"Is that the best you can do?" Adam snarled, "Shoot a man when he’s down and can’t fight you back!" He could see Lighterman’s knuckles whitening around the butt of the Colt. His voice was edged with desperation. Lighterman laughed, a short sharp bark.

"Oh no! You ain’t gonna git me ta kill you that easy. I promised you a skinnin’, an’ that’s what you’re gonna get!" He put away the Colt and in the same movement took the broad bladed skinning knife from the sheath on his belt. The sunlight shimmered on the razor edge and danced in the central blood furrow.

On hands and elbows and the heel of his good foot Adam edged away from him. He knew that this time he’d pushed Lighterman too far and would probably end up paying for the mistake with blood. He refused to cringe, and he wouldn’t beg, but there was a shadow of fear on his face. Lighterman recognized it for what it was and smiled cruelly. He put a stop to Adam’s retreat by the simple expedient of placing a booted foot on the splinted leg. He leaned over, turning the blade so that it flashed sunlight into Adam’s eyes.

Adam’s breath hissed in through his teeth as waves of pain washed through him. Lighterman grinned wolfishly and leaned closer, putting more of his weight on to the leg. Adam screamed. His vision darkened, closing in on all sides. Lighterman laughed aloud, opening his mouth wide and letting the foul air gust out.

Hoss struggled into a sitting position in the bunk, roaring with rage. He tried to get his legs over the edge but couldn’t quite make it. He reached for Lighterman with his huge hands. There was grim murder in his face. Lighterman danced out of range, still laughing. With two big, potentially dangerous men at his mercy he was enjoying himself. Momentarily distracted from Adam, he waved the knife in Hoss’s direction. Hoss growled at him,

"You git away from my brother, or I’ll break yore back!"

Lighterman sniggered with delight. He kicked out at Adam’s leg, just to elicit a response from Hoss. Fortunately for Adam, his aim was bad. Adam had regained some of his senses; he rolled, putting as much space between them as the room would allow. Lighterman went after him, at the same time being careful to keep out of Hoss’s reach.

The cabin door slammed open and Perriot loomed in the doorway. He had heard all the hullabaloo and had come to find out what was going on. He looked at Adam, still down on the floor with Lighterman standing over him. The smile on ‘Bel’s face was already turning into a snarl at the intrusion. The other big man, Hoss, was halfway out of the bunk, holding his ribs with one hand and grabbing onto the woodwork with the other. Lighterman waved the knife in Perriot’s direction.

"Stay out o’ this, Old Man. This one’s mine, an’ I’m gonna cut him in ta little pieces!"

Perriot looked grim. "Then do it quietly. Like I told you before, I don’t like to watch things suffer."

Looking down at Adam, Lighterman sniggered. "I’m going ta take the hide off you one inch at a time!"

Perriot jerked his head towards the door. "Bojun wants you. He says now."

Lighterman jammed the knife back into its sheath and pointed a finger at Adam. "Don’t you go away, Big Man. We’re gonna have some real fun, you an’ me, but me, I reckon, more ’n you" Chuckling at his own joke, he stumped past Perriot and out of the door. His eyes held both threat and promise.

Perriot favoured the brothers with another angry look and followed him out. Those two were more trouble than they were worth. He couldn’t make out why Bojun didn’t let Lighterman finish with the pair of them and have done, but the old trapper’s orders were clear: keep them alive, for the time being at least. Perriot just hoped the one with the sharp mouth had learned himself a lesson.

On his backside, Adam eased himself over and sat with his back up against Hoss’s bunk while he waited for his breathing to steady and the pain to subside. Hoss’s hand came snaking over the side to touch him on the shoulder. "You all right, Adam?"

Adam covered his brother’s hand with his own. "I’m all right, Hoss." He sighed and closed his eyes, "I’m all right."

The last range of hills opened, finally, to reveal a wide, flat-bottomed valley. Beyond, the plain was folded and pleated, forming a natural funnel, a chute that delivered the cattle almost directly into the cattle pens at the railhead. A spiral of smoke arose from a locomotive, as yet no more than a black mote in the far distance. On the other side of the tracks was the ever-expanding sprawl of the city itself, a dark and untidy stain on a beautiful landscape. In the eye of Joe Cartwright, it was a jewel without price.

He sat comfortably enough in the saddle of a brown-coated cow pony. The cattle flowed by him in a seemingly endless stream of red and white bodies. A blanket of grey dust hung over the herd; Joe’s clothes were thick with it, and he wore a mask of the same colour. He took off his hat and wiped a sleeve across his face. It only served to spread the dirt about.

Asia Prior cantered his borrowed grey gelding up the rise in the land and pulled in beside him. He had a big grin on his face, and it was infectious. Joe cracked a smile. At once the muscles of his face started to ache. It was the first time he had smiled in quite a while.

"Almost there." Asia eased himself in the saddle. It had been a long, hard ride for all of them. "I reckon about another hour should do it."

"About that." Joe estimated the speed of the herd. His smile faded again to be replaced by a frown of concern. Moving the steers at the rate they had must have run fifteen or twenty pounds of beef off an animal. It worried him.

Asia swept a stray strand of his hair out of his face and tucked it behind an ear. "First thing I’m gonna do when I get my pay is get me a bath, a new suit o’ clothes and a square meal." Asia was entertaining visions of an elaborate, steam filled bathroom and someone soft and compliant to wash his back.

Automatically, Joe returned his friend’s grin, but he had other things on his mind. Following his close encounter with a noose on the end of a rope, Asia had quickly regained his naturally cheerful equilibrium. Joe, on the other hand, was feeling the full burden of his responsibilities. Rather than anticipating his own creature comforts, he was thinking in terms of getting the cattle penned and fed and contacting the buyers agent. Having been there only once before in his life, he was trying to dredge out of memory the exact whereabouts of Mister McGrath’s office.

Asia chuckled at Joe’s apparent distraction and rode off, chasing errant steers back into the mainstream of the herd as he went. Still fretting at his problems, Joe lifted his hands, clucked to the cow pony and followed on behind.

Morning; although it was still early the sky was already bright. The mist was lifting in softly silvered layers from the hills. One by one, as the sun rose, the valleys filled with amber light. On the higher slopes the pine stood stark, black and eternal against the skyline.

Leaning heavily on his crutch Adam came out of the cabin door and hobbled carefully down the steps. He found it a relief to get out of the stuffy, stinking shack. Five men sleeping, or trying to sleep, in the tiny, enclosed space did not make for a comfortable environment. With his eyes squinted half shut against the dazzle of the new day, he pulled deep lungsful of the fresh morning air. It was lightly scented with pine and just beginning to warm. It made him feel good inside.

This was a day he had never thought would come; leastwise, he hadn’t expected to live to see it. After days of steady activity: tending to the hurts of their animals, curing and sorting furs, re-packing their bundles, the trappers were about ready to leave. Down by the base of the waterfall the pack mules were loaded and already strung together, and the horses were saddled. Adam hobbled a few cautious steps to get a better look.

Bojun had already shrugged into his heavy oilskin coat and, early though it might be, had consumed half a jug of neat corn. He was at the very end of his supply and looking forward to a good many painful days in the saddle. Every step his horse took would jolt through a knee locked tight and a hip crippled by arthritis. And if the days were going to be bad, then the nights would be a hundred times worse. Without the anaesthetic qualities of the raw alcohol, the agony would gnaw at his leg and his back all through the small, dark hours until, just before dawn, he fell into a pain wracked doze of exhaustion. Unwilling to ration himself, he had known when he extended the trip that he would run out of liquor before it ended. It was not a prospect that he relished.

He took another long swig from the jug and palmed the stopper back into place. For the moment the pain was under control; the world was bathed in a pink tinged, golden glow. He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and turned to look squarely at Adam.

"Nice morning for a ride, friend." There was an edge to his voice, and Adam picked it up instantly.

Carefully he said, "It looks like you’ve chosen a pleasant day for it."

Bojun smiled a thin, humourless smile. "You’re gonna be ridin’ right along with us, friend Adam."

Adam breathed slowly and deliberately, out and in, while he assimilated what the trapper had said. He turned his head and saw for the first time that his own gelding was among the saddled horses. This was no spur of the moment decision on Bojun’s part; it had been planned this way all along. Somehow, he wasn’t surprised. The brightness of the morning took on a harsh, brittle gleam. All the moisture went out of Adam’s mouth. His eyes switched back to Bojun’s face.

The trapper was watching him with an air of open speculation. Beyond him, Lighterman was paying close attention. Obviously in on Bojun’s plans, he wore a savage, vulpine grin.

"I bin wonderin’ ‘bout you two fellas since the first moment I seen you," Bojun said, "wonderin’ what you was doing up here in the hills by yore-selves, all banged up like you was."

Adam touched the tip of his tongue to his dry lip. He had an unpleasant feeling that he had been under-reckoning these men right from the outset.

"Seems ta me," Bojun went on with that same air of conjecture, "that ownin’ all this hereabouts, you must be big, important men in this neck o’ the woods. There’s folks gonna be comin’ up here lookin’ fer ya."

Adam thought fast. "My brother was off his head when he told you that. We don’t own nothing." It was an outright lie for which he knew he would be forgiven.

"Nope," Bojun shook his head, "he weren’t off o’ his head. That was God’s own truth if ever I heard it. An’ I bin watchin you. All that whispering you bin doing, all that shifty eyed lookin’ at the woods. You bin playin’ games wi’ me, friend Adam, an’ I can’t say as I like it much. I reckon you sent someone fer help afore we got here, an’ you’re expectin’ ‘em back any time now."

There didn’t seem to be much point in denying the fact; Bojun had it all figured out. Adam knew with a sudden, hot anger at himself that he must have given himself away a dozen times over with an expression, a glance, a hesitation. He gritted his teeth, edge on edge, for the worst of it.

"Yore gonna ride along with us a-ways. Keep those friends of yore’s off our necks until we’re well out o’ these hills."

Adam set his jaw. "They’re not interested in you. They’re only coming to help my brother."

Bojun leaned back on his good leg. "That’s what you say now. You’ll think different when they git here. Us takin’ all these skins off o’ yore land; you ain’t gonna like it no more ‘n yore brother does. You ride along with us, an’ yore friends ain’t gonna bother us none." He swapped the corn jug into his left hand and pulled out his Colt. Lighterman, hands on hips and still grinning, came up beside him. Bojun pointed the gun at Adam. "Now you go git yore-self on that horse."

Adam backed up. "I can’t ride off an’ leave my brother all alone."

"Somehow I jist knew you were gonna say that," Bojun chewed at his thick lips. His eyes were as blue and as hard as sapphires, "I’m gonna make it real’ easy fer you. ‘Bel, git yore-self in there and kill the other ‘un."

It was the moment Corbel Lighterman had been antiicipating for a long time. Leering, he started for the cabin.

"No!" In desperation Adam moved awkwardly to put himself in the way, his own body between Lighterman and Hoss.

From behind, Perriot hit him across the head with the muzzle of his gun. Adam pitched face first into the dirt. The blow had been hard enough to knock him down but not to knock him out. Stunned, he struggled to get him legs back under him. Still standing over him, Perriot kicked the crutch out of his reach and left him floundering. Laughing, his gun already in his hand, Lighterman stepped over him to the cabin door.

Elias Trenchard had been absolutely right in his assessment of the sorrel gelding. The animal had the speed of a gazelle and the clambering ability of a wily old mule. Jody had left the wagon in the valley bottom, hobbling the team so that they could graze but not wander, and ridden the gelding as straight as the terrain would allow for the remote, hanging valley. The gelding had been fresh and willing, and he had climbed the hills as if he enjoyed the exercise.

Jody had traveled light. Apart from the clothes he stood up in and a hat loaned him by Sam Haynes, all he carried behind the saddle was a blanket to wrap himself in when it became too dark to ride, some basic foodstuffs in bulging saddlebags and the package of precious medicines. He had covered the ground in half the time it had taken to ride home.

He had been in the saddle since first light, urging the horse to the fastest pace possible, anxious to cover the last miles to bring comfort and relief to the men he considered, above all, to be his friends. He had been more than surprised to find the little valley filled to capacity with heavily laden pack mules. It had taken only a moment for him to figure out whose mules they were - they just had to belong to the fur trappers Adam and Hoss had been so all-fired mad at. If the size of the packs was anything to go by, the Ponderosa hills had provided a plentiful harvest.

Jody hastily rode the gelding out of sight among the trees and stepped out of the saddle. He left the horse tied securely; he didn’t want him joining the other animals and giving his presence away. He had a powerful feeling that he ought to find out how the land lay before he barged right in.

Moving steadily through the woods, he soon found himself following the same vague path that he had used on the morning he had shot the squirrels, the morning Adam had broken his leg, the day he had ridden away. He knew that the path came out close beside the shack and that if he kept low and moved quietly the scrub growth would give him cover every inch of the way.

Jody saw Adam confronting three big, bearded men; he saw them pull their guns on him, and he saw him knocked to the ground. Lighterman headed for the cabin with his gun in his hand and murder written plainly on his face. Bojun and Perriot had Adam squarely bracketed between them.

Jody pulled him Colt out of his holster. Everything that the Cartwrights had taught him presented itself readily at the forefront of his mind: keep the gun low, lock the wrist but not the elbow, be prepared for the recoil, be ready to take a second shot but make the first one count. Clearest of all was Adam’s first lesson, delivered in the dim mustiness of summer inside Eli Huxton’s General Store; never, ever draw down on a man unless you were prepared to kill him.

Jody stepped out from behind the scrub pine. He knew better than to shoot any man in the back. He pulled a deep breath and hoped that his still unreliable voice wouldn’t squeak,

"All of you, hold it right there." He pulled the hammer of the Colt all the way back and the loud, double click added its own emphasis.

Bojun turned, pivoting on his good leg. Surprise, anger and determination all flashed across his face. The black Colt in his hand came around in an arc, flat and level.

Jody aimed at the big trapper’s chest and squeezed the trigger. At the range, it was impossible to miss. The ball went in low, smashed its way through Bojun’s lower ribsand angled upwards, tearing its way out in a gout of blood below the shoulder blade. Bojun went down hard, spread eagled on the ground. The liquor jug spun away, bouncing and rolling on the ground. The Colt flew from his hand. His last breath splattered blood over his beard.

Adam, by far the more experienced man, reacted quickly and grabbed the advantage of the moment. He kicked out hard with his good leg, catching Perriot off balance and distracted by Bojun’s abrupt demise. The Canadian staggered. Adam rolled desperately, snatching up Bojun’s Colt as he went. Lighterman was bolting for the cabin. Adam fired a snap shot as the gun came up. The ball splintered Lighterman’s elbow, smashed his forearm and shattered the small bones of his wrist. The force of it threw him off his feet and hurled him face first against the wall of the shack. He landed with a yell and slid to the ground, whimpering. He made no attempt to get up.

Still rolling and twisting as he went, Adam cocked and fired again, using his momentum to bring the gun into line. His second ball went in under Perriot’s chin and came out the back of his head. The gun in the dead man’s hand fired before he fell. The ball ploughed into the ground where Adam had been one instant before.

The sound of gunfire reverberated for a moment from the surrounding hills and was then absorbed as the silence re-established itself. Smoke and the smells of gunpowder and blood drifted on the morning air. The only sound that remained was that of men’s breathing: Adam’s, harsh and rasping, Lighterman’s, degenerating into sobs of agony and Jody’s, starting to shudder now as the reaction set in.

His Colt still in his hand, the young man stepped forward and looked down at Bojun. The trapper’s mouth was open and so were his eyes. Brightest blue, the eyes stared sightlessly up at the sky they would never see again. It was a face Jody would never forget, the face of the first man he killed.

When he had looked his fill he raised his eyes. His gaze settled on Lighterman. Some primitive instinct inside of him demanded that he finish the job. Of its own volition the gun came up, steady and level despite the tremor in his body. He thumbed the hammer back to full cock.

"No! Jody!" The yell was Adam’s. Adam could see what Jody intended. He knew that right now the young man’s mind wasn’t working too well; he had been there himself once, and he knew how it felt. Irrelevantly, he noticed that there was a fine fuzz of beard on Jody’s chin, palest gold in the sunlight. He guessed that he would have to teach the boy to use a razor before much longer. Still on the ground, Adam held out his hand, the hand without the gun in it. He was too far away to get there in time.

Jody’s finger hesitated on the trigger.

"He’s finished," Adam told him quietly, "you don’t have to kill him."

Jody was confused and bewildered – both by what had happened and the speed at which it had happened. He looked at Adam, "But after what he done to you..?"

"That doesn’t count for anything, Jody. It’s over. Let it go."

Jody swallowed hard and lowered the gun. Saliva flooded his mouth, and he felt abruptly sick. Lighterman met his eyes with a look of bitter hatred. The trapper would live – he would live a long time – but his right wing was shattered beyond any possibility of repair. That was the ongoing pain that he would have to live with, and he knew that he would sooner be dead.
 
 

Joe handed the reins of the gelding over to TJ and walked stiff legged to the water trough. In the last week he had spent every daylight hour, and a goodly bit of each night besides, astride the back of a horse. He had an aching groin, a sore backside and knees that didn’t want to bend any more. He worked the handle of the pump and dunked his head under the fresh flow in an attempt to wash some of the dirt and sweat out of his hair. He came up dripping wet and somewhat refreshed, if not a great deal cleaner.

He took a deep breath of air. He had done it! He had gotten the herd safely to railhead – the cattle were in the pens now, milling about and protesting loudly at their constriction – a full twenty-four hours before the deadline ran out. The sense of achievement, of triumph, was almost overwhelming. He favoured himself that even his brother Adam couldn’t have timed it any better, although his father might have claimed otherwise. At the thought of his Pa, the smile on his face faded a little; he paused to wonder how the elder Cartwright was faring and wished he had some way of finding out.

He dipped again, just for good measure, and shook a cascade of water droplets out of his hair. Grinning broadly, the ever-cheerful Asia Prior clapped him on the back,

"Hey Joe, I’m just off to cadge a beer off my big brother, you comin’?"

Joe responded ruefully. "Not much chance at the moment. I have to get over to the cattle buyer’s office, tell him the herd’s in and arrange to get paid for all these critters."

Asia went with him to find the hired man who looked after the cattle pens.

"McGrath’s office is over on River Street," the waddy told him, when asked, "almost opposite the big ol’ church that sits on the corner, but I don’t reckon as you’re gonna find him there."

Joe stared at him a trifle blankly, "Why’s that?"

The waddy pushed back his hat and scratched his head. "It’s all closed up; no one’s seen him fer a while. Heard a relative o’ his got sick, an’ he left town. Can’t rightly say when he’ll be comin’ back."

"But we’ve been doing business with McGrath for years." Joe pulled a long breath and steadied himself. It had been more years than he could rightly remember. "He’s supposed to be writing me a draft on the bank to pay for these here steers."

"Reckon as you’ll be doin’ your business with Mister Mullen then," the waddy said, "he’s bin actin’ as cattle buyer in McGrath’s place fer quite a spell now."

"Is that a fact?" Joe let go the breath he was holding. He tried to shrug some of the tension out of his shoulders. Perhaps he was anticipating trouble before it was born, but he couldn’t help just a little niggle of concern. The man he would be dealing with was not the man whose name appeared on the contract he held.

As he turned he found Charlie, still trailing the reins of his cow-pony, and Auron Prior standing close behind him. Charlie noted the scowl on Joe’s face.

"You got troubles, Joe?"

Joe chewed at his lips and shook his head. There was no real problem that he could put his finger on, just that tickle of unease. "I don’t reckon so, Charlie. Pa’s cattle buyer seems to have quit, an’ now there’s a new man I have to deal with." Joe wondered again, briefly, what had happened to McGrath. He had met the dour old Scotsman only that once, but McGrath had done business with the Cartwright family for so long that Ben and Adam regarded him almost as a personal friend. They would be concerned that he was no longer in the job.

Pete Nash wandered over along with the rest of the Prior brothers. All of them wore pleasantly relaxed expressions, and there was some light-hearted pushing and shoving going on between Astley and Arthur. Inevitably, up against his bigger, younger brother, Astley was getting the worst of it. For them the drive, with all its attendant problems and privations was over. They were looking forward to clean clothes, clean beds and a whole week of living high on the town. First and foremost, though, they needed to draw their wages, and the responsibility of paying them fell to Joe. He needed to get that draft safely banked so that he could draw some cash against it and pay off the men.

"I have to catch up with a man called Mullen."

The waddy nudged his elbow. "You want ta talk ta Mullen, Mister, you ain’t got far ta go. That’s him, right there."

Heads turned and eyes followed the direction of the waddy’s nod. Half a dozen men were strolling towards the cattle pens in a loose knit, well spread group. It was easy enough to tell which of them was Mullen.

Surrounded by his entourage of henchmen and cronies in leather vests and low-slung guns, Mullen was a man who simply shone in the sunlight. He was a well-built, finely proportioned man, not overly tall, and broader in the shoulder than he was in the hip. The suit he wore was fashioned of worsted, silver-grey broadcloth and cut in the very latest style. On his head he wore a new-looking hat in a paler shade of grey. Joe exchanged looks with Charlie. The cattle buyer’s pristine prosperity made him very aware of the sweat and grime that stained his own clothing.

Feeling very much the country hick, Joe moved to intercept him. "Mister Mullen?"

Mullen’s small, grey eyes glanced over him briefly and swept away again, back towards the cattle. Close too, Joe could see that the cattle buyer’s cheek was as pink and as smooth as if he had just stepped out of a high-class barber’s shop – which he had. A narrow, neatly tailored black moustache traced the line of his upper lip, and a fat brown cigar, recently lit, was clamped between his teeth. He spoke around the sides of the cigar. "Is this the Cartwright herd?"

"It is." Joe stuck out his hand. "I’m Joe Cartwright, Mister Mullen."

Mullen leaned back on the heels of his soft, calfskin boots and pointedly hooked his thumbs into the pockets of his waistcoat. It was an elaborately patterned, silk brocade waistcoat, Joe noticed, with a gold watch-chain swagged across an embryonic bankers belly.

Mullen ignored the outstretched hand entirely; he appeared to be totally absorbed the steers in the pens although he seemed disinclined to go closer. A pall of dust hung over the restless animals, and he was reluctant to soil his immaculate clothing or, apparently, his beautifully manicured hands.

Embarrassed beyond belief by the carefully calculated insult, Joe let his hand drop. Unconsciously, he felt the need to wipe his palm off against his pants. Around them, Mullen’s men had stationed themselves strategically and were paying close attention. There was a man with lank, black hair and a heavily tanned face on Mullen’s left. From the look of him, he had Indian blood in him. He was watching Joe closely. Joe’s unease was growing apace.

After a long, awkward pause, Mullen spoke again. "I got word you’d brought the herd in, Cartwright. How many head you got?"

"A tad over fourteen hundred." Joe couldn’t keep the pride from edging his voice. Since he’d been trail boss, they hadn’t lost a single head. "All prime stock."

Mullen turned and looked at him directly for the first time. He took the cigar from his mouth and almost, but not quite, blew smoke into Joe’s face. The sun caught and danced in a huge diamond on his smallest finger. "I’m afraid prime isn’t going to cut it. Cattle are a glut on the market this year. The price on the coast is rock bottom."

Joe exhaled slowly. His attention centered on Mullen, he was aware of a man close by his left side - Charlie – and of Auron Prior on his right; beyond him Pete Nash stood with his thumbs hooked into his belt and his hat pushed way back. Carefully, he said, "I’ve got a contract that guarantees me six dollars a head if the herd is delivered before twelve noon tomorrow." Joe stated the facts with all the confidence of a man who knew he was in the right.

Smiling a thin, shark-like smile, Mullen returned the cigar to his mouth, "Not signed by me, you haven’t."

Joe’s fists tightened; his voice started rise as he got angry. "Mister McGrath signed the contract with my Pa last fall. They agreed six dollars a head with the buyers in California."

The thin smile remained. "Well the buyers ain’t here, kid, and neither’s your Pa. Like I told you there’s no market for cattle this year." Mullen worked the cigar in his mouth for a minute while Joe stood and stewed. Then, "Tell you what I’ll do, Cartwright, and for no other reason than you’ve got that contract in your pocket. I’ll offer you two an a half dollars on the head for your herd."

Joe heard the breath hiss in through old Charlie’s teeth, and he caught a glimpse of the stunned look on Auron Prior’s face. Joe didn’t believe what he’d heard himself. The whole world was taking up a slow and stately dance about him. "Two and a half dollars! It cost us more than that to raise them!"

Mullen took his cigar out again and made a gesture with it in the air. "That’s the offer. Take it or leave it. By the time I’ve shipped ‘em west, I’ll scarce break even."

Joe didn’t believe it for a minute. His mouth was dry, and the blood was singing a discordant song inside his head. "I’m not taking any measly two and half dollars for my steers, Mullen. I’ll find another buyer for the herd."

The thin smile returned. "You do that, Cartwright. Sell your beef elsewhere if you can." Mullen started to walk away. Then he half turned and looked back. He pointed the tip of his cigar at Joe’s furious face. "Just to show I’m not an unreasonable man, I’ll keep that offer open for a while. Shall we say until your deadline runs out? Twelve o’clock tomorrow? After that, the price drops."

The man with the bronzed face leaned in close – so close that Joe could smell the sour animal fat that greased his hair. He thrust a blunt finger into Joe’s chest, "To you, it’s Mister Mullen!"

Looking over his shoulder Mullen called his dog off, "Rance, leave it - for now." The little group with Mullen in it’s midst, ambled unhurriedly away.

Charlie spat eloquently into the dirt where Mullen had stood. "What you gonna do now, Joe?"

Joe unwound his hands and pulled a breath. He still had responsibilities.

"First thing I’m gonna do it find me the sheriff."
 
 

Sheriff Mortimer Brooker was a competent enough man in his own way, although since the railroad had come and the town had grown itself into a city, he sometimes found himself out of his depth. Brooker was pushing sixty, and he had been a law officer since he first pinned on a deputy’s badge at the age of eighteen. He still managed to take most things in his stride: saloon brawls and robberies, Saturday night drunks and Temp’rance meetings that got out of hand, wild street shootings and runaway kids. They were all handled with an old-time grace and a sawn off shotgun that rarely left his side. Except for the children, that was. They got a tannin’ and were sent home to their Pas.

He sat at his littered desk and blew out his grey moustaches,

"I understand what you’re saying, Mister Cartwright, but I don’t really see that there’s anythin’ I c’n do ta help you."

Joe was still sizzling with anger. "Mullen’s trying to steal my herd!"

Mortimer Brooker looked distinctly doubtful. "I don’t know that he’s rightly stealin’ em. He offered you a price, an’ you c’n take it or leave it."

"But I’ve got a contract!" Joe thrust the paper close enough to the sheriff’s face to make him blink.

Brooker worried at the problem. In his day, when a man sold a steer he got a dollar for it, hard coin in his hand. He found all these written down paper promises nothing short of confusing. If he wasn’t careful, he was going to be way out of his depth.

"If Mullen pulled a gun on you an’ run off your steers, now that’d be stealin’!"

"This is stealin’ too!" Joe yelled, waving the paper again, "He’s tryin’ ta buy my herd for the price of the hoofs and the hides! They’re worth more than twice what he’s offerin’!"

Sheriff Brooker chewed on it a while longer; then his face brightened as he came up with a likely solution – or at least, a solution that would get this angry young man out of his office and into someone else’s. "Say, why don’t you go see one o’ them legal lawyer fellas. We gotta whole passel of ‘em in town. This sounds like jist the sort o’ thing they like ta chaw on."

Outside on the boardwalk Joe traded a look with Asia. He slapped the folded paper into the palm of his hand then tucked it into his inside pocket. It was on the tip of his tongue to say some uncomplimentary things concerning elderly sheriffs who didn’t understand the ways of the modern world, but right then he had other things on his mind and no time to waste. Asia gave his friend an uncertain look.

"You know any o’ those lawyer fellas he was talkin’ about, Joe?"

"My Pa’s got lawyers in town. But there’s somethin’ else I gotta do first."

The telegraph office stood in Maple Street alongside the tall and impressive structure that housed the Northrop Western bank. Joe borrowed the clerk’s pencil and stood for a minute at the counter, debating with himself over the wording of his wire. The telegraph was a new innovation, and he knew that they had to be worded just right if they were to make sense at the other end. He just didn’t have the time for any misunderstandings. Finally, he filled in the flimsy with bold, black lettering and paid a dollar to get it sent. He knew it would take a while to get a response from the buyers in San Francisco. He just hoped that it wouldn’t be too long.

Mister Charles Arnhault of Arnhault, Arnhault and Mayers recognized the Cartwright name and made a place in his busy schedule to see Joe at once. It was a special privilege that Joe was in no mood to appreciate, especially as ‘at once’ involved cooling his heels in the outer office for more than half an hour.

Arnhault spread the contract on the desk before him and read it through swiftly but carefully. Asia sat in the studded, green leather armchair and gazed all about him while Arnhault read. Asia had never seen the inside of a lawyer’s office before. The walls were painted a neutral cream; there were green curtains at the windows and a brown patterned rug on the floor. The pictures that hung on the walls were brown tinted mono-prints behind sheets of glass. It was an uninspiring place for a man to spend his working life. Too fired up to sit, Joe paced back and forth across the floor.

After what seemed like an age, but was in fact only a few minutes, Arnhault took off his spectacles and sat back in his chair. "This appears to be a perfectly straight forward agreement, Mister Cartwright. The agent of the vendee contracts to pay the vendor in the sum of six dollars per live head delivered to the railhead before twelve noon on the seventeenth of the month - this month. That’s tomorrow."

Joe’s heart leapt, "You’re saying the contract’s good? Mullen’s gotta pay me six dollars a head for my herd?"

Arnhault waved a hand over the document in an all-encompassing gesture. "There are a number of subsidiary clauses involved, what you might call ifs, buts and maybes." His lips quirked in a small smile at his own wit. Arnhault had been the Cartwright’s solicitor for a very long time, dealing first with the father and then with the elder son. They were both men of intelligence with cool, logical heads. They understood the workings of the law. He wasn’t sure that this young man did. "Essentially that’s just what it says."

"So I go see him? Tell his he’s gotta pay me?"

"You could try that if you like, but the chances are it won’t do you any good at all, and you might say something that would ultimately damage your case. If Mister Mullen refuses to relinquish payment…" Arnhault finished his sentence with a shrug that was intended to convey a whole range of information, most of which went right over Joe’s head.

Joe was confused. Arnhault had been his father’s lawyer for years; his Pa and Adam trusted him implicitly. Yet here he was saying two different things in the same breath. Joe decided he just didn’t understand lawyers – and his patience was starting to wear thin.

"So what do I have to do?"

"Ah!" At last the relevant question! Arnhault made a thoughtful steeple out of his fingers. "First of all we’ll take the matter before a judge and prove that Mister Mullen has a case to answer. With this document in our possession that should be a simple enough matter; even though it was, in fact, signed by a Mister, er, McGrath." He frowned and though for a moment, as if it might not be such a simple matter after all. Then, "Once we’ve achieved that we have to request a date for the hearing."

Joe was staring at him in horror. "How long is all this going to take?"

"Oh, perhaps a year," Arnhault considered, eyeing the ceiling somewhere above Joe’s head. "Perhaps two – to prepare the paperwork for the initial hearing."

"I don’t have a year! I have ‘til noon tomorrow!" Joe was yelling again, only he didn’t know it.

The manager at the bank kept Joe waiting for only eighteen minutes before having him ushered into his office. His smile was bland, his eyes sharp and his manner polite, if ultimately unhelpful. Yes, he had heard of the Ponderosa ranch in Utah; yes he knew that the Cartwrights had been customers in the past, and yes, the bank would be delighted to advance funds to cover Joe’s immediate expenses. Just as soon as they got authorization from the bank in Virginia City – say, twenty-four hours Joe was told. Joe no longer had twenty-four hours to spare.

Afterwards, Joe was never quite certain of what he had said to the manager of the bank, but he was left with an abiding feeling that he should go back and apologize. He found himself on the boardwalk outside without remembering how he got to be there, although he suspected that Asia had quite a lot to do with it. He stood on the edge of the boardwalk and watched the flow of traffic while he cooled off and decided what to do next.

All of city life was there: mule carts and wagons drawn by oxen, a prairie schooner or two, coaches and carriages with high stepping horses, a new fangled omnibus. There were bankers and barmen, clergymen and cooks, drovers and men with a cause; there were women with children and children with dogs and dogs that were all on their own. A man on a boneshaker rattled by, one of the hounds snapping his heels. There were faces of every different colour: red and white, brown, black and yellow and voices raised in half a hundred different tongues.

A troop of bonneted women paraded past right under Joe’s nose, ringing bells and singing a rousing song; the Temperance League was on the march. Joe didn’t notice them at all; he was a man with things on his mind.

Inevitably, Joe ended up at Mullen’s impressive offices on the corner of Main Street and Park. They were, appropriately enough, housed in a grey-faced, brick-built building, three story’s tall. The woman in the outside office was fifty and practical to a fault, testimony that not all of Mullen’s business was conducted with bully and bluster. She looked over the edge of her spectacles at Joe.

"I really am sorry Mister Cartwright. I do appreciate that your business is urgent, but Mister Mullen had already left for the day."

Joe looked towards the door of the inner sanctum. It was a tall door, paneled and varnished and firmly shut. He considered, albeit briefly, busting right on in there and having it out with Mullen on the spot. Then he caught sight of the woman again, watching the angry workings of his face. Her own features were displaying the first inklings of alarm. Beyond her, on the wall, the clock face showed six-twenty; it was later than he’d thought.

With as much grace as he could muster Joe wished the woman a cordial good evening and excused himself. He’d been willing to go in there and beg and plead. He’s have ranted and raved and shouted. He might even have smashed Mullen’s smug, polished face with his fist or his gun. He knew deep down inside that it wouldn’t have done him any good. He remembered Arnhault’s words and knew that an acrimonious encounter with the sheriff was the last thing he needed right now.

The Sign of the Prancing Pony saloon was a small and unpretentious establishment. It was clean, comfortable and uncluttered. Unpaid as they were, most of the drovers had gravitated there; it was the best that they could afford. It had the added advantage of being out of sight, sound and smell of the stockyards. All of them had seen enough of steers to last them for some time.

The majority of the cowboys had gathered in the barroom, trying to make a beer last an hour. Huey Worth sat in a tipped back chair with his hat pulled ‘way down over his face and his feet propped up on the table. Apparently he was asleep although no snoring issued from beneath the hat. TJ and Tony Briar were playing a desultory game of stud for matches. Outside, Charlie was lounging against the porch post with his thumbs hooked into his belt. He had been there for a while. His jaws worked slowly as he watched the two young men approach through the thickening evening murk. From the looks on their faces he could guess that the news wasn’t good.

The Priors, Nash and TJ wandered out to hear all about it followed by the rest of the hands. Joe looked from one face to the other. He had come back empty handed. and they all knew it, but still it had to be said.

"I’ve spoken to every cattle buyer in town. There’s not one of them that will touch the herd. They’re all stiff-scared of Mullen and Rance. They’ve got the business in this town pretty well buttoned down." Joe sounded as depressed as he looked. The men shuffled and shifted their feet uneasily. They all knew the Cartwrights well enough to know they’d get paid in the end, but it was no fun being in the big city with no money to blow on the high-life. Some of the hands were unhappy about having to wait. Charlie, his gaze fixed firmly on the building across the way, spat juice into the street. The silence stretched. Then the foreman took it on himself to speak for everyone.

"Well, don’t you worry about it none, Joe. Ain’t nobody gonna take it out o’ your hide." He silenced the possible dissenters with a sharp glance.

Inwardly Joe heaved a sigh. The drovers that remained were all Ponderosa hands who had worked for the family for a while. They might not like it, but he guessed they’d be prepared to wait for their pay – for a while at least. And the Priors were his friends. Joe took a deep breath; he figured they deserved to hear the rest of it.

"The fella down at the cattle pens has let me have feed for the herd and the horses on account o’ my Pa’s good name but only for twenty-four hours. If I don’t come up with somethin’ I’m gonna have ta sell to Mullen at his price, just to pay off what I owe." He didn’t have to say any more. They all knew it was that or lose the herd by default.

Charlie straightened up and stretched. Amazingly, the post stayed standing all by itself. "You look like a man who could use a beer, Joe. Come on inside an’ buy the men a drink."

Joe’s dejected expression dropped some more. "Wish I could, Charlie. I spent my last dollar on that wire to the San Francisco. I don’t have two bits ta rub together."

Charlie thought about that for a bit. He figured that he might have just enough left in his pants pocket to stand the boss’s son a round of drinks. Over Joe’s shoulder he caught Auron Prior’s eye. Auron had returned from business of his own in time to hear the last part of the conversation. He gave Charlie the slightest nod.

"C’mon in, Joe," Charlie said, "I’ll buy you a beer."

Inside the barroom the lamps had been lit; outside it had grown quite dark. The men, for the most part, adjourned to the warmth and the light and the laughter of the pretty girls. Auron put out a restraining hand and held Nash back, waiting until the others had gone inside before he spoke up. Ashley joined the pair.

"Did you get it?" asked Auron, keeping his voice low.

In response, Ashley winked at him and patted his pocket. "I’ve got every cent the men could spare. Everyone chipped in with something."

Auron Prior looked at Nash. "I’ve found out where Mullen likes to hang out. Fancy place across town. He plays poker there every night; five card draw’s his game."

Ruefully, Pete Nash shook his head. "You’re taking a hell of a chance, my friend."

"Not in my book." Auron Prior had absolute faith. "C’mon. Let’s go." With Ashley tagging along they set out across town.

The Argonaut was an elegant saloon with polished hardwood floors, and a thirty-five foot mahogany bar that sported gleaming brass rails. Gilded mirrors adorned the back bar and heavily fringed, wine velvet hangings draped the windows.

Pete Nash, in his element now, donned a different persona – dressed in his black frock coat and a shoe string tie, he looked the place over; then he led the way to the bar. Auron parked himself at one end, foot on the rail. From there he could watch the door and the whole of the rest of room. Ashley bought a bottle and took it off to drink on his own.

The big game, it appeared, was about to begin. Nash was in no particular hurry; he knew well the way these things worked. He ordered a beer and settled into a comfortable lean to watch.

Mullen was established in his usual seat, a throne-like leather chair, at the massive, green felt covered poker table. His sycophants and cronies filled the other chairs around the playing field. There was Oscar L. Northrop, bank owner and city council member, two slick lawyers, Jon Foxx and Winston Haire, known for defending any low life with the money to pay their exorbitant fees. Walter Simmons, a popular local physician and two gray, non-descript men, co-owners of a vast hydraulic mining enterprise, joined them. The enemies of the mining men’s destructive excavation methods that ripped away the earth with water driven at enormous force consistently referred to them as the ‘mud men’, and the name fit. Mullen’s foreman, Rance Love, filled a seat on his boss’s left.

The Argonaut’s dealer was a dapper little man in a colorful silk brocade vest over his poet’s shirt. His flowing sleeves where held well above his wrists by flame red garters. Calm and soft-spoken ‘Silky’ Styles was known for his smooth, beautifully groomed hands and his clean, crisp way with the pasteboards. He had dealt for the best, and he was not intimidated by the money and power represented at the table. Pretty waiter girls in their brief costumes and high piled hair fluttered around the table like brightly colored butterflies bringing drinks, lighting cigars and changing large bills. When the game began they would withdraw to a discrete distance unless one of the players signalled for a girl to approach.
 
 

‘Silky’ held up a hand for quite. The men around the table broke off their conversations and turned their eyes to the dealer. "Gentlemen," he told them. "We will be playing five-card draw poker, nothing wild, Jacks or better to open, table stakes only. Any objections?" This was Mullen’s preferred game, and they all knew it. No one spoke.

"Very well, gentlemen," ‘Silky’ said. "Ante is five dollars. Please place your bets." Bills, gold and silver showered onto the table as ‘Silky’ broke open a new deck, stripped the jokers and shuffled well. Offering it for a cut, he began a smooth, swift deal, and the game was underway.

Pete Nash appeared to nurse his beer, pass an occasional remark to the busy bartender and enjoy the rich ambience of the club. In reality, he watched the play and the players like an eagle circling lazily above its intended prey. Mullen was a good player. He clearly knew the odds and had more patience than Pete would have expected. He had few ‘tells’ that signalled his intentions, but Nash twice saw him worry a large diamond ring he wore on his left ring finger. Each time he made substantial raises on what proved to be a winning hand.

Over an hour of swift play, the piles of cash before several of the weaker players diminished steadily while those before Mullen and lawyer Jon Foxx increased. Doc Simmons really didn’t belong in this game. Pete quickly determined that his milieu was a friendly Saturday night game with good friends and small bets. On a foolish gamble he tried to buy a hand against the big guns opposing him and went down hard – cleaned to the lint in his pockets. With a shamefaced grin and a nod to Mullen, he gave up his seat and wandered forlornly toward the exit.

Pete Nash stepped swiftly forward and placed a hand on the back of the vacant chair. "May I sit in, gentlemen?" His free hand held a thick sheaf of bills and a poke heavy with gold coin. It represented his entire reserve and everything Joe’s crew and friends could assemble.

Mullen scanned him with a cold eye and opened his mouth to refuse, but ‘Silky’ got in first. "Have a seat, Mister. Your money is good with the Argonaut." After all, the house took its percentage from each pot. There was little Mullen could do. He didn’t own the saloon, and Caulfield Lee, who did, had money and power to burn. Mullen grunted, and his man, Rance, glared daggers at Pete and lightly fingered the butt of his .44.

Pete merely smiled genially and said, "Thank you, Mr. Styles. My name’s Nash, Pete Nash," as he settled into the chair and spread his money before him. ‘Silky’ repeated the game’s parameters, called for the ante and began to deal again.

Nash played quiet, sensible poker making no great show of himself but raking in small pots regularly. There was one false impression he needed to establish in Mullen’s mind, however. He accomplished it when the deal brought him three Aces. He made a substantial raise on each round of the pre-draw betting and let a small smile lift one corner of his mouth as he discarded the two useless cards. He allowed his expression to cloud for just an instant as he picked up his two new cards; they were less help than the ones he had discarded. He quickly slid his poker face back into place, but Mullen had seen just as Pete hoped he would. Others took cards or stood pat, but when the deal reached Mullen, he took only one card. Nash saw the cattle buyer’s eyes widen briefly as he picked it up. He slipped it into his hand and began to twist his ring slowly back and forth as he waited for the betting to begin. Pete suspected he had filled a straight or flush; even four of a kind was possible. They all beat his hand.

Nash began with a modest $20.00 bet. Others folded, raised or checked. It was at $40.00 to stay in the game when it reached Mullen. He doubled it to $80.00 with a $40.00 raise saying, "Time to drive the sheep out of the game." Rance folded immediately. Jon Foxx slowly counted out his $80.00, but Mr. Haire threw in his hand.

"It’s $60.00 to you, Mr. Nash," ‘Silky’ advised him. Pete pretended to debate then counted out the $60.00 saying, "Reckon I’ll have to see those raises and bump it up a mite more." He took out a $100.00 bill and added it to the pot. The players to his left dropped out at once. Mullen lifted his upper lip in a sour grin, met the $100.00 and added $50.00 more. Jon Foxx sighed and dropped out. Pete met Mullen’s raise and boosted it another $50.00. Mullen thought it over carefully. He didn’t know this quiet stranger. Maybe he was holding a full house or better. He saw the $50.00 and called. Pete proudly displayed his three Aces and appeared appropriately crestfallen when Mullen turned over his seven to Jack straight. Foxx cursed. Pete suspected he had folded a better hand than either of them had played. It had cost some money, but Mullen should now believe that Pete would bet heavily on a less than sure thing.

Pleased with his small triumph, Mullen leaned back expansively and signalled one of the waiting girls over. He ordered a ‘bourbon and branch’, patted her on her spangled rump and let his hard, gray eyes settle on Pete. "Care for some tonsil varnish, Nash?" he asked.

"No thanks," Pete replied pleasantly. "I’d better concentrate a mite more on my game."

Play continued into the small hours of the morning. Rance Love, Mullen’s man, got bored and asked to be dealt out. He wandered to the bar where he could keep an eye on his boss while sipping a beer and pawing one of the girls. The ‘mud men’ dropped out not long after. The got into a short, fierce argument when the older of the two refused to lend the younger money to continue playing after he was cleaned out by Jon Foxx. The dead broke hydraulic engineer slammed angrily out of his chair and stomped away followed by his loudly protesting partner.

An hour later Winston Haire swore his wife was going to scalp him if he didn’t get home and went away with considerably lighter pockets.

Nash’s small, steady wins had gradually increased his stakes. Mullen had substantial funds before him, as did Jon Foxx, who was a smart, savvy player. Banker Northrop’s pile was down, but he still seemed eager to play.

Pete settled in to some serious poker. There were only a few hours left before the deadline. The cards seemed to favour him. In a rare hand he took over $1,100.00 from Foxx, beating his four fives with four nines of his own. Even ‘Silky’ stated he had never seen that particular combination before.

As dawn began to lighten the eastern sky, Pete was dealt a hand that all but made his eyes roll back in their sockets. He picked up his hand and slid the pasteboards apart one by one to reveal the ten, Jack, Queen and King of hearts and a five of clubs. Any other heart would give him a flush, a nine of hearts would give him a King-high straight flush, and the Ace would make a Royal Flush. In twenty years of playing many thousands of hands of poker, he had only gotten one Royal Flush, and that had been in seven-card stud. If he were going to be of any help to Joe, now was the time to pray to all the gods of Chance.

When Mullen looked at his hand it was all black with no face cards showing. Closer examination revealed he had the six, seven, nine and ten of spades and a three of clubs. He knew the rule that you never draw to an inside straight as well as the next player, but God it was tempting! He had done it once or twice before with fair luck. An eight of anything would give him a ten high straight; any spade would make a flush, and the nine of spades would see him sitting pretty with a straight flush. It was worth the chance if the initial round of pre-draw betting didn’t go too high. If he went bust on the draw – as he fully expected to do – he would fold.

The first round of betting went quickly. Neither Nash nor Mullen had an opening hand. Foxx bet $5.00, Northrop merely checked. Pete dropped his one card, as did Mullen. Foxx called for two replacement cards and Northrop wanted three. Mullen picked up the card he was dealt with slow deliberation and slipped it into his hand before he looked. Against everything he had learned about poker, he had drawn the nine of spades. Nothing seemed impossible in that moment.

Foxx looked at his two cards coldly. He had two pair with an Ace kicker – a winning hand in some games, a money sink in others. Time would tell. Northrop looked at his three new cards for some time and then shrugged. He’d had a nothing hand to begin with; it was worth even less now. Pete Nash pulled his card up close to his chest and eyed it cautiously. A shock went through him that was like touching one of the balls of blue lightening that sometimes danced on the horns of the cattle on stormy night. Only years of practice kept it from showing in his face.

Mullen started the betting modestly. He didn’t want to scare the other players out of the pot. "I’ll chance $20.00." He dropped two ten-dollar gold pieces onto the green felt. Pete noticed he was twisting his ring round and round his finger. Foxx saw the $20.00 but didn’t raise. Northrop threw his hand in and muttered about calling it a night. Pete saw Mullen’s $20.00 and raised it $20.00 more. They made two more identical rounds. Then Mullen lost patience and raised $100.00. Foxx dropped out at once. It was butt heads poker now – the wealthy cattle buyer versus the trail hand. Nash chewed his lower lip and appeared to debate. He put out the covering $100.00 and slowly added $200.00 more.

Mullen glared at him. "You can’t buy this hand, cowboy," he snapped. Nash merely nodded. Mullen threw out the $200.00 disdainfully and raised a thousand. Pete saw the $1,000.00 and bumped it $500.00.

A small crowd of those remaining in the saloon began to gather near the table when they heard the bets begin to climb.

"How much you got there, Nash?" Mullen demanded.

Pete had the cool, logical brain of a master mathematician. He knew to the penny what he was worth, and he had watched the cattle buyer’s winnings and losses closely. "Enough to keep on bettin’ for a spell yet," was all he said in response.

Mullen shuffled his money counting quickly. "Three thousand, two hundred and seventy-seven dollars here." He used both hands to push it forward. "You ain’t got that kind of money."

Pete’s slim stacks proved deceptive. A pile of hundred’s was topped with a five dollar bill. Fifty’s were hidden under twenty’s, and three five hundred dollar bills emerged from among some hundred’s. He put the required $3,277.00 before him and looked at what remained. "I’ll raise you $5.00," he said calmly.

Mullen reared back in a rage. "Rance!" he shouted. "Bring me some damned cash!" Nash lifted a hand in protest, but ‘Silky’ was there first.

"Sorry, Mr. Mullen, we are playing table stakes. If you can’t call Mr. Nash’s bet with what you have before you, I’m afraid he wins. Unless you’ll permit fresh money to come into the game?" He raised a questioning eyebrow at Pete Nash.

"No, Mr. Styles, I’m afraid I can’t do that," Pete answered quietly.

"God damn you to hell!" Mullen stormed. "I own this hand. What will you take? My ring?" He tugged at the diamond.

When the bartender heard raised voices, he moseyed over with his sawn off, double-barrelled shotgun held casually along one leg. If he let Mr. Lee’s imported French mirrors get broken in a fight, the owner would have his head to go along with his job. Auron Prior hung back, his watchful eye on Rance.

"Got no use for a flashy ring," Pete allowed. "But since you’re so all fired set on that hand, I’ll tell you what I will take. If I win, you pay young Joe Cartwright the full San Francisco market price for his herd. If I lose, you get them for the pitiful $2.50 a head you’re offering now." There was a low gasp from some of the bystanders when they heard this miserly price stated aloud.

"So that’s it," Mullen demanded. "You’re trying to save the kid?"

"That’s it," Pete answered blandly. "What do you say?"

Mullen looked hard at ‘Silky.’ "Has this card slick been cheatin’ me?"

The little dealer bristled. "Not at all, Mr. Mullen! No one cheats at my table. I know every trick in the book, and he has been playing straight up poker all night."

Jon Foxx agreed. "It’s up to the cards, Mullen. Have you got them, and do you want to take the bet? Otherwise face your loss like a man." Jon would be taking away more than he came with however it went.

"Damn straight, I do. I’m going to get a cheap herd and a pile of money." Mullen gestured to the overflowing pot and then threw down his hand face up. "A ten-high, straight spade flush ladies and gentlemen. Read ‘em and weep." He reached to rake in the pile.

"Just a minute, partner," Pete said. Mullen froze. Pete made him wait for the space of several endless seconds before he turned over his cards one by one – ten… Jack… Queen… King… Ace of Hearts. "I believe a Royal Flush still beats ten-high."

Mullen staggered, reeling from the shock.

"Well, I will be hornswoggled," ‘Silky’ said in quiet amazement. "If this hasn’t been the damnedest game I ever saw."
 
 

With a tight, white face Mullen stood up abruptly. He had bitten through his cigar and spat out the end in a rage. His pale hands worked. Foxx looked at him mildly, a faint glimmer of contempt in his pale eye. It was not often someone out played Mullen, and he, for one, was not sorry to see it.

"I guess you’ll be going round to Northrop’s first thing in the morning to arrange the bank draft for Cartwright’s herd?"

"None of your damn business!" Mullen’s eyes flicked venomously to his face and then back to Pete Nash. Pete hadn’t moved; he was watching the infuriated cattle buyer narrowly. His long fingered hands lay motionless on the table beside the extraordinary display of pasteboards. Rance was moving, prowling on the balls of his feet, watching and waiting for a word from his boss.

At the bar, Auron Prior – who had been all but motionless for hours - shifted his weight, easing his gun hip forward. The Bartender gave him a glare. At his distant table, the sleepy Ashley was suddenly wide-awake and paying attention, The Prior eyes were slate grey and as cold as an arctic winter.

Softly, Silky said, "You loose, Mister Mullen. Pay up and look big."

Mullen’s face purpled. He knew that if he made a fuss the very best thing that could happen was that he’d be blacklisted and banned from his favourite game. A man was required to honour his bet.

"I’ll be there!" he spat savagely and turned on his heel.

Nash watched him all the way out of the door before he moved. Then he gathered up his money and stacked it carefully together, using the time to allow the tension inside of him to unwind. He looked at the dealer, "Thank you Mister Styles, for a most enjoyable game." He peeled off two hundred-dollar bills and passed them across the table. As the tension broke, Foxx smiled broadly; he gathered his winnings and added a hundred-dollar tip of his own.

Pete Nash stood up and tucked his money into an inside pocket. It was ironic, he thought, that Lady Luck chose to smile this night of all nights, when he was playing not for himself but for another. Before he left the room he took a last long look at those cards. He knew that as long as he lived he might never own a hand like that again.

Joe Cartwright and Asia Prior stepped, side by side out of the Prancing Pony into the strong, bright light of the morning. Summer was starting to take hold, and it was hot and dry and dusty. The sun pulled the sweat right out of their skins. Joe didn’t care. He tipped back his hat and smiled a big, broad smile. As far as he was concerned the day was about as good as a day could get. Mullen, albeit with a bad grace, had stumped up a bank draft for the full price of the herd. The buyer had made a snarled comment about ‘card sharps’ that Joe didn’t quite understand. Although he had some idea of what had gone on in the first, small hours of the day, he wasn’t about to go chasing after the details.

It was enough that he’s been able to draw sufficient cash against the draft to pay off his men and to add a little bonus for the wait they’d endured. That had changed the grumbles to smiles. And he’d been able to pay off his feed bill at the cattle pens. As he’d left he’d noticed that Rance and his men were already loading the steers into cattle cars for their ride to the coast. The half-breed had given him a long and indecipherable look.

Joe took a deep breath and decided that it had been a quite a while since the air had tasted so sweet. First on his list of priorities was breakfast, a full measure of bacon, eggs and hot, fresh coffee; and then a long, relaxing soak.

Asia nudged him in the elbow. "Hey Joe, you still got that list of addresses your brother wrote down fer you?"

"Sure have." Joe gave his pocket a confident pat. "Right here." Doing the list justice was the next thing on Joe’s personal agenda.

Asia, apparently, had similar ideas. "What say we see how many of ‘em we c’n call on afore you have ta start fer home?"

Grinning with an anticipation that went right to the root of the matter, the two young men stepped down into the street. Asia caught at Joe’s arm again, pulling him back. He was looking ‘way down the street.

"Joe, ain’t that your wagon comin’ along there?"

Joe looked. Sure enough, behind a pair of ambling horses the small covered wagon was achingly familiar; the man sitting up on the high seat beside Pete Barnes was more so. Ben Cartwright looked older, thinner and very tired. His face was grey as if his illness had drawn the strength and the life right out of him. It was going to take a while, but he would get better, and he was very glad to see his son.

From the highest point of the ridge the valley lay spread before them in the mellowing light of the afternoon, a masterwork created on a good day by the hand of the Lord himself. Summer had brushed lightly across the face of the land, and there were a million shades of green to behold: from the misty jade of the distant hills, to the emerald turf of the home pastures all dotted with grazing cattle, to the aquamarine tint of the silver surfaced lake. Steep hillsides swept to the water’s edge clothed in a garments of Gods design: the eternal, omnipresent pine.

The pine had been there since the start of time; the pine would be there at time’s end. They scented the air with their fragrance; their magnificence beggared the eye. The multitude of their numbers defied the mind of man.

Ben Cartwright sat in the saddle and overlooked the land – his land, won by the sweat of his brow and the blood of his body, entrusted, he felt, into his keeping. In a fold of the ground the house, with its barns and outbuildings and attendant corrals looked, at the distance, like the toy of a child: small enough to be picked between thumb and forefinger and utterly perfect. A column of smoke rose straight up to heaven, carrying the promise of hearth and home.

Ben had been ill for a long time. He had spent several weeks in the city, resting and recovering his strength. Even then, the doctors had been reluctant to let him travel. ‘A man of his age…’ they’d said, shaking their heads. But Ben had wanted to go home. Besides, he figured it was best to get Joe out of the city; the young man had been spreading himself a little too freely for his father’s peace of mind.

They had travelled in short, easy stages, stopping often to rest and to hunt. Even so Ben was weaker than he had thought and very tired; he was looking forward to getting home. He had been away, it felt, for such a very long time.

He looked across at the young man sitting on his horse beside him. Joe tipped back his hat and grinned in return. He had grown, not taller but in stature and confidence. He spoke slower now, and he thought more before he opened his mouth.

"We should be home by supper time," said Ben, unnecessarily. "I wonder what Hop Sing has on the table for tonight."
 
 

Joe shifted himself in the saddle. He’d had a good time in the city, and he’d been sorry to part with his friends. But he was worn to a frazzle by the hectic round, and he would admit that it was good to be back within spitting distance of his own front door.

"If Hoss’s home, I’ll lay odds on roast pork and apples still in their skins."

Ben chuckled, "I’m not about to argue with a gambling man. Come on. Let’s go and find out for sure." Laughing, the two men kicked on down the trail and rode into the valley just as it started to fill with twilight.

By the time they arrived in their own front yard the last of the light lay in coloured bands across the sky. The moon, an ethereal crescent, hung a finger’s breadth above the mountain peaks; soon, the stars would be coming out. The lamps had been lit in the big house, and all the windows glowed with yellow light. Ben was disconcerted to find Paul Martin’s buggy pulled up, yet again, outside his front door. He stepped out the saddle in a hurry, and a tall young man with pale hair stepped forward out of the rapidly gathering gloom.

"I’ll take your horses, Mister Cartwright. Welcome home."

Distracted by the presence of the doctor in his house, Ben handed over the reins. He didn’t know whom the young man was - or perhaps he did. He looked again. It was the eyes that gave it away, "Jody?" Ben scarcely recognized him. He was taller, broader, fulfilling the promise he shown; he stood straight and serene, bearing Ben’s appraisal with a slight smile. The gangling boy that Ben had known was gone and would never return.

Jody inclined his head, "Yes, sir. It’s me. Adam and Hoss are in the house."

Reminded, Ben started anxiously for the door.

He encountered Paul Martin just inside. The doctor had already put on his coat and had thoughts in his mind of home, dinner and his own fireside. He smiled in surprise and pleasure as Ben came in. The two old friends shook hands.

"Ben, it’s good to see you. We were expecting you a while back."

"I got delayed." Ben looked hard into the doctor’s face. "Paul, what’s happened? Why are you here?"

Paul put a reassuring hand on his arm, "It’s nothing to be alarmed about, Ben. Hoss has had a bad time, but he’s over the worst of it now. He’s resting up in his own bed. Adam’s broken his leg," he indicated the fireside with a nod of his head, "he’s on the mend now, but it’ll take a while." The doctor hauled back and frowned as he looked Ben over, top to toe. "You don’t look so good yourself. You’ve lost a lot of weight."

Worried only for his sons, Ben dismissed Paul’s concern. "I’ve been sick for a while. I’m all right now. Now that I’m home, everything is going to be all right."

Paul gathered up his hat and his black leather bag, "Well, you take it easy, Ben. Get some of Hop Sing’s cooking inside of you. I’ll be out here again in a couple of days to see how Hoss is doing. I’ll look you over then." He set his hat on his head and shook hands with Joe. "I’ll see myself out."

Ben took two more steps into the great room. From the kitchen a small hurricane dressed in blue erupted almost into his arms,

"Mista Ben! Mista Ben, it so good that you come home! Where you bin all this time? Why you stay away so long? You not like Hop Sing’s cooking no more?"

Ben found himself laughing. "It’s good to be home, Hop Sing. And of course I still like your cooking," he sniffed long and loud. "From the smell of it, that’s a haunch of pork you’ve got roasting, right now!"

"Loast polk! You right!" The China-man nodded with enthusiasm.

"With apples in their skins?" Joe asked, dumping his hat and gunbelt onto the sideboard. "I just knew it!"

"Lil’ Joe!" Unable to contain himself any longer Hop Sing hurled himself into Joe’s arms.

Later, once supper had been consumed and appreciated and the dishes cleared away, Ben settled into his armchair beside the roaring fire with his pipe and a brandy warming slowly on the table at his side. He was all but exhausted by his long ride home and yearned for the comfort of his bed. But for the moment he felt the need to sit a while with his son. He pulled out the letter that had been waiting for him with the rest of the mail on his desk; he caressed the laid, cream coloured paper of the envelope with callused fingers; he unfolded again the several sheets. The letter was from Jenny. It began, "My dearest love…"

"Jenny says Daniel’s up on his feet and that any day now he’ll take his first steps," he said, smiling as he read the words again. He supposed that now he would have to think about getting his youngest boy a horse. "She says they’ll be home by the end of the week."

Sitting across the hearth from him in the red leather armchair, propped with cushions and his leg raised on a stool. Adam smiled back, "That’s good, Pa. The house seems almost empty without them."

Ben puffed on his pipe and though for a while about all the years that the house had been without a woman and without children. Adam was right, yet it had seemed full at the time. Then he laughed abruptly. "Once your brother starts running about after you, you might wish it were empty again. Remember the torment you went through with Little Joe?"

"I remember it, Pa," Adam shook a rueful head. "Oh, I remember it."

He shifted his position in the chair. He was distinctly uncomfortable; he had a disturbing tendency to slip down in the seat, and his leg ached all the time. He rubbed at his thigh, working the big muscles with his fingers. Ben asked him what had happened, and Adam related the story of their trip into the hills. There were only a few things that he chose to leave out.

The telling told the two men sat for a while in companionable silence, basking in the golden glow. Only the roar of the flames as they leapt at the chimney and the tick of the long-case clock broke the stillness. Then Ben asked the question that had been plaguing him,

"Have you come to any decisions, son? Have you made up your mind what you’re going to do?"

Adam smiled. He realized that he hadn’t given a thought to the glories of Europe or his plans for going there in quite some time. All his concerns had been for his family and for the place that he thought of as home. In any event, with his leg as it was, he wouldn’t be going anywhere for a while. It looked as if his mind had been made up for him, and he found that he didn’t regret it – not one little bit. The question in his mind was how he should answer his father without giving too much away. He rubbed at his knee where it pained him. The heavy box splint Doc. Martin had applied held his leg rigid and made the joint ache.

"I’ve been thinking, Pa, now that the new season’s here, we should get that scrub brush cleared away at the top of the North range. I was reading in the Stockman’s Journal ‘bout some new strains of rye grass they’ve been developing back east. It’s as tough as all-get-out. Starts growing earlier, finishes later, would increase our grazing capacity by ten percent. And then there’s that eastern strip where we edge on to the desert, as dry as a dustbowl and as hot as hell. If we could put some irrigation in there…"

Ben pointed with his pipe stem. "How do you propose to pump the water?"

"Windmills," said Adam, promptly. Ben harrumphed, but quietly. So they were back to the windmills again. "And," Adam’s enthusiasm was fired, " if we build a bridge across White Water Cutting, we can drive a new logging road right through to the mill."

"A bridge?" Ben frowned. "That’s a big undertaking."

"We can do it, Pa. I’ll design it myself." Sitting back with a smile Ben listened to him talk. Adam had plans, high Falutin plans; some of them might even work. At least he’d decided to stay.

Adam went on for a while. He had plans for lighting the mines and suggestions for increasing their investment holdings in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, Chicago and Detroit. He wanted new breeds of cattle with more tender meat, stocks in the railroads and pictures that were printed in colour. Finally, he ran out of steam. He dug his fingers deep into his leg; tonight it was hurting a lot. He looked across at his father’s fine face. He respected this man above all others. Sometimes he was stubborn, sometimes cantankerous, and sometimes wrong; sometimes Adam could almost despise him – always he loved him.

"I hear Joe did well with the herd, Pa."

Ben nodded, "Your brother did real’ well. With a little help from his friends."

"They say you can measure a man by the friends he keeps."

Ben acknowledged the point with a gesture of the pipe, "From what I hear, you did pretty well for a friend yourself."

Adam drew a long, careful breath, "He saved our lives, Pa, both Hoss’s and mine."

"I know, son. I was talking to Jody. He’s done a whole lot of growing up while I’ve been away. Seems like you took away a boy and brought back a full grown man."

Adam pulled himself up in the chair, carefully easing his leg. Quoth he, "When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known."

Ben gazed into the dancing flames and took up the passage to its end, "And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three, but the greatest of these is charity."***

He looked across the hearth at the man opposite. Adam’s eyes had closed, and as Ben watched his breathing slowed and steadied as he slipped into a deep, healing sleep.
 
 
 
 

*Matthew Ch 18 v21

**Thomas More (1478-1535)(attributed)

***1 Corinthians Ch 13 v1
 
 
 
 

Historical Note: The Chromolithograph, also known as foreshadowing, was a colour printing process in which each colour was printed with individual stones, or dyes, prepared by hand. Sometimes as many as thirty separate stones were used for a single print. The technique was pioneered in the 1830s but came into wide commercial use only in the 1860s, It was the most popular method of colour reproduction until the end of the nineteenth century when more efficient techniques rendered it obsolete. (Encyclopaedia Britannica)

Potter Bar 2001