Summary: When a widow moves to a small spread near Virginia City, Adam tries to be neighbourly.  Meanwhile, Doctor Martin is trying to solve a medical problem.

PROLOGUE

No-one minded too much when old Ira Leavy upped and died in the hovel that passed for his home at the back of the livery stables in Virginia City.  He earned his keep helping out in the stables themselves, but when he was already two hours late and not hard at it, mucking out and changing straw by nine o’clock one June morning, his boss was hammering on his door and shouting at him to move his “drunken butt” if he still expected to have a job come noon. 

There was a limit to what Wade Thacker would put up with and Leavy had been pushing at those limits just once too often.  Fond of the whiskey of a night-time in the nearest saloon, he had often reneged on his responsibility to be up at dawn or shortly after, in order to care for any horses that were currently being stabled there.  Thacker was fast drawing the conclusion that he had been seen as a soft touch when he agreed to take on the old man for whom he had felt a certain sympathy when he could no longer find any other form of employment.  With no family, no roof over his head, few belongings and even less money to show for a lifetime of hard graft on a number of spreads throughout the region, Leavy had been happy to settle for anything.  So, in a moment of weakness that he was rapidly coming to regret, Thacker offered him the shack out back of the stables and a few dollars to eke out his seemingly miserable existence just that little bit longer.

Personal hygiene was not high on his agenda and he appeared to have only one change of clothes, when he deigned to change them, and Thacker had often found himself preferring the odour of horses than to stand down wind of Leavy on a hot day.  Still, it could not be denied that, when sober, he did his job well, but of late, those periods of sobriety had been less, and several times in recent days, Leavy had stayed in his bunk, sick to his stomach and blaming bad beer.

Another hour passed and there was still no sign or sound of Leavy. Thacker had had enough.  Throwing down the tool that he had been using to fork fresh straw into a stall, he strode over to the small, one-roomed building that had been home to Ira Leavy for eighteen months.  Ignoring the niceties of knocking and waiting until being invited to enter, Thacker threw open the door and stepped inside. His senses were immediately assaulted by a rank stench that had him gagging before he knew what had hit him.

Stumbling back  into the open, he gulped deep breaths of fresh air before pulling the bandana from around his neck.  Holding it over his nose and mouth, he stood on the threshold, trying to let his eyes adjust from the bright sunlight of the outside to the dimness within the shack.  Eventually, he could make out the still form of Leavy on the low bunk and he knew immediately that the man was dead.  Still, he crossed the room to make sure.  Flies rose from the corpse, buzzing and circling round Thacker so that he was forced to swat them away in revulsion. 

Leavy had been alive and well early the previous evening, because Thacker had seen him in the saloon, downing a beer and loudly announcing that he had unexpected plans for the evening.  He had even made an attempt to smarten himself up a little, damp hair indicating that he might have introduced himself to some water.  What his plans were, he refused to say, but it had given a few minutes of amusement and bawdy comment to a group of cowhands from one of the outlying ranches who were making the most of an early start to the evening’s relaxation.

Now Leavy was dead.  To all appearances, he had had a skinful of alcohol and, in a drunken stupor, had choked on his own vomit.  From the smell, he had also fouled himself with excreta.  There was nothing for Thacker to do except head for Doc Martin’s office and get him to confirm death before the undertaker was called. 

The city had a charity that paid for the burial of paupers and strangers within its limits but, in a moment of sadness at the passing of an apparently pointless and fruitless life, Thacker made the decision to pay for the arrangements himself.  He hoped that he never hit rock bottom like Leavy had done.  Few had taken any notice of him in life, except to throw him an extra coin for a well-groomed horse, and even fewer would mark his passing.  Thacker sighed with regret and left the shack, shutting the door on its grim contents.

CHAPTER ONE

Down the dry and dusty street one week later, a decrepit buckboard was stationary outside the main store, its owner within, purchasing much needed supplies.  The door to the store stood partially open to allow some ventilation as the heat of the day steadily climbed, but it was not so wide that the gritty dust could be blown inside by the occasional gusts of wind.  It was bad enough that so much was walked in anyway by the store’s customers and, at closing time, its proprietor spent ages sweeping out what seemed like a mini desert.

The door flew open as a woman backed out, dragging a sack of flour in her wake; the store’s owner clucking behind her, concerned that she was trying to move the weight all on her own.

“Stop fussing and bring the next one,” she said tersely.  “I can manage this just fine.”  She pulled the sack to the buckboard and propped it against the wheel, straightening up and taking a deep breath as she readied herself for the next stage of the proceedings.  She bent her knees and put both arms round the sack, preparing to lift.

“Let me get that for you, Ma’am,” offered a rich baritone by her side.

“I can get it,” she reiterated.

“I don’t doubt that, Ma’am, but my pa would be none too impressed if I just stood by and let a lady handle such weights.  You don’t really want me to get into trouble with him now, do you?  He’s always kinda prided himself in bringing up his boys right.” 

She looked across the sack at the man who bent opposite her, his own hands clutching the top of the sack, letting her know that he would not take no for an answer.  Nodding affirmatively, she stepped back and let him do the work, silently relieved that she would not have to struggle.

She cast a quick eye over her helper: about thirty years old and over six feet tall even without his heeled boots. He was clad entirely in black, a sombre colour that added an intriguing air of mystery to him.  She watched as he easily lifted the sack and tossed it over the side of the buckboard, positioning it so that it left room for more merchandise.  He was slim but broad-shouldered, the muscles straining against the cloth.

“Thank you,” she said briefly.

“It‘s no trouble, Ma’am,” he turned to face her, a finger touching the brim of his black stetson in deference.  “Adam Cartwright.”  That was all he said by way of introduction, courtesy dictating that he announce himself and inviting her to do the same.

“Eliza Rawlins,” she responded. 

“Pleased to make your acquaintance.  You got some more stuff to load?” Adam asked, tilting his head towards the store.  At that moment, the door opened again and Ike Morrison, the store’s owner, appeared, breathing hard and making heavy work of pulling another sack out into the open.  Adam grinned to himself.  Mrs Rawlins, whoever she was, had managed a lot better than the proprietor.  He stepped forward and silently took the new sack, throwing it in by its mate.

“Why thank you, Adam,” Morrison smiled.

“Why don’t you concentrate on the serving and I’ll do the loading,” Adam suggested and the little balding man who barely reached Adam’s shoulder needed no further encouragement.

“I don’t want to be taking you out of your way or from your business,” Eliza Rawlins said, little warmth in her voice or in her eyes as she scrutinised him warily.  Adam noted her distrust and wondered at what had made her so careful and unfriendly.

“Like I said, it’s no trouble.  I was headed to the store myself anyways.  I’ve got a long list for Ike that he can start filling whilst I help you,” and he held the door open for her, gesturing her in with a sweep of his arm.

She stood to one side, ever watchful as he handed Morrison his list.  Her only movement was to indicate the pile of goods that she had just purchased.

“Cartwright; I’ve heard the name.  Big landowner to the south.  That you?” she asked as he picked up the last box and she followed him out to the buckboard.

“That’s right,” Adam stowed the box.  “Well, my pa, Ben Cartwright, does the owning.  Then there’s me and my two younger brothers, Hoss and Little Joe.  What about you, Mrs Rawlins, I don’t recall seeing you in town before.  You new around here?”

“I bought the Bates place to the east about two months ago.”

Adam suddenly remembered that he had heard something about the purchase weeks ago; he also noted that she said ‘I’ instead of ‘we’.  He decided to push it a little further.

“Will Mr Rawlins be around to help unload this lot when you get back?”

“There is no Mr Rawlins,” she said curtly.  “He died six months back.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“There’s no need; you didn’t know him.”

Adam was taken aback by her brusqueness, but he was busily thinking about the Bates place.  It had gone on the market several months before following the death of Jeremiah Bates, the last of his family and in such poor health in his final years that the spread had fallen into serious disrepair.  Now this strange, aloof woman, widowed and apparently alone, had moved in.  Diminutive in size and big in attitude, she still had her work cut out for her and he could not help wondering how she was going to manage.

“Adam!” the voice cut through the bustle of main street and both Adam and the Widow Rawlins turned to see who had called.  She shielded her eyes against the sun’s glare with a hand whilst Adam merely pulled down the brim of his hat, casting a shadow over his dark eyes.

A large man ran towards them across the street, his speed belying his size.  He breathed deeply as he shared his important news.

“Hey, Adam, you’ll never guess,” he began.

“Ma’am, this is my younger brother, Hoss,” Adam cut in.  “Hoss, this is Mrs Rawlins. She’s bought the Bates place.”

“Ma’am,” Hoss puffed, extending a giant hand and shaking hers with an unexpected gentleness.  He stood an easy two inches taller than his older brother, a height that was exacerbated by the ten gallon hat that he favoured. He gave a broad, toothy grin and, on releasing her hand, removed his hat with one hand and scratched at his forehead.  He revealed a shock of fine, receding, sandy-coloured hair and looked nothing like the dark, tanned, older Cartwright.  She found it hard to believe that they were related, even remotely.  “Please excuse my manners.”  He turned again to Adam.  “You’re never gonna believe this, but ol’ Ira Leavy’s gone and died.”

“So that’s why he’s not been out to do his chores,” Mrs Rawlins muttered.

“He was doing some work for you?” Adam asked.

“Some.   He was fixing some fencing and repairing the barn. Goodness knows when the job’ll get done now.”

“Well there’ll be plenty round here who’ll be more than happy to help,” Adam explained.

“I pay my way.  I’m prepared to hire work out to those who want to earn some extra money. I may be widowed, but I’m no charity case, Mr Cartwright.”

“Nobody was thinking that you were, Ma’am.  All the same, you need something heavy doing, you let me know and if I can’t get there myself, I’ll make sure there’s someone who can,” Adam offered.

“I’ll bear it in mind.  Good day, Mr Cartwright,” and climbing up into the buckboard, reluctantly allowing Hoss to take her elbow and assist, she took the reins and clucked the horses into motion.  Adam and Hoss watched her go.

“Well ain’t she the prickly one?” Hoss observed.

“You’re not kidding,” Adam grinned.  “Even the Cartwright charm couldn’t get a smile out of that one.”

Hoss looked at his older brother in horror.  “Don’t tell me you were trying to charm her!”

Adam suddenly realised that Hoss had misunderstood his well-meaning intentions for romantic ideas.  He thought briefly of the woman in her rough grey woollen skirt and grey checked shirt; the straight mousy brown hair tinged with grey and drawn back into an austere bun.  No, he definitely had no romantic inclinations in that direction.  The woman must have been a good twenty years older than him anyway!  He watched the trail of dust behind the disappearing buckboard.

“No, I wasn’t charming her like that.  I just feel a bit sorry for her that’s all.  She’s not long lost her husband and now she’s moved here, buying up the Bates place which is going to take an awful lot of hard work if she’s going to make it pay.  I’m just wondering if she’s bitten off a mite more that she can chew.  C’mon, let’s see how Mr Morrison is getting on with that order and then maybe, just maybe, I’ll buy you a drink,” and he slapped Hoss on the back as the two brothers entered the store together.

CHAPTER TWO

It was later that evening, as the Cartwright men sat around the dining table in their ranch house on the Ponderosa, that Hoss returned to the subject of Ira Leavy.

“Seems like Doc Martin says he had too much to drink and died as a result.  Thacker found him, right mess he says,” Hoss announced reaching across for another freshly baked biscuit and dipping it in the gravy that drowned his beef.

“When did they bury him?” Ben Cartwright enquired.  A man in his late fifties and with a shock of greying hair, he was a handsome, imposing figure.

“Same day, so Roy says,” Hoss replied, referring to the local sheriff and long-standing friend of the family, especially their father.

They didn’t waste much time,” Joe, the youngest of the three brothers, commented as he forked up a mouthful of mashed potato.

“Didn’t want him hanging around, not in this heat. Anyways, there was no one really to miss him and it was death by natural causes, so they say, so why wait?” Hoss said matter-of-factly.

“Did you know the Bates place had been sold?” Adam asked his father, changing the subject as he laid his fork on his empty plate, wiped his mouth on the napkin and set it on the table.

Ben thought for a moment.  “I think I recall Roy mentioning it some time ago.  Why?”

“This Widow Rawlins has bought it up.  I get the feeling that she’s trying to work it on her own and I’m wondering how she’ll manage,” Adam said casually.

“Well, if she’s the money, she’ll take on a limited crew,” Ben observed.

“What’s this widow woman like?” Joe wanted to know, a smirk on his face.

“Don’t you be getting any ideas!” Hoss exclaimed.  “Adam must be plum loco if he’s thoughts in that direction.  She’s old, short and ugly.”

“Hoss, that’s not very polite,” Ben reprimanded gently.

“That’s as mebbe, Pa, but it’s the truth.  Adam was his usual perlite self and she near enough chewed his head off,” Hoss was on the defensive.

Ben dabbed his napkin to his lips and looked at Adam who had not risen to the bait set by his younger brothers.  “You thinking of offering your services?”  He knew what Adam was like.

“Perhaps,” Adam answered.  “It depends on what needs doing and how much.  At the moment, by the time I’ve finished with work here, there’s not much daylight left for anything extra.”

“Well, just don’t rush into things,” Ben advised. “You’ve already got a heavy workload here at the moment; you don’t want to be overdoing it.”

“Why, Pa, you’re making Adam sound like an old man that needs taking care of,” Joe laughed. 

“That’s not what I meant and your brother knows that,” Ben objected.  “We’ve got that timber contract deadline coming up at the end of next week and Adam‘s working flat out; I don’t want him taking on anything unnecessary.”

“I wish folks wouldn’t talk about me as if I’m not here,” Adam interjected, with a mock scowl.  Whilst he did not want Joe to ‘score’ points at his expense, he appreciated his father’s concern.  Already the day’s work was taking considerably longer; he was up before dawn to ride out to the logging camp to supervise the cutting.  He would often set a good example to his workforce by doffing his jacket and dirtying his hands, working alongside the men.  Problems had arisen when a couple of them had proved a little work shy and had subsequently left before he had to sack them, but it did leave him with a time-costly journey to Virginia City to seek replacements.  Returning to the Ponderosa each evening, he would then work for several more hours to keep the paperwork up to date.  Despite his father’s protestations, he would only leave the figures long enough to join his family at the dinner table. 

Hoss was still thinking about the Widow Rawlins.  “My, she was an ‘ornery character.  I don’t imagine her being mightily grateful for any help she might get.”

"She’s new in the area, probably hasn’t made too many friends yet,” Adam defended her.

"That’s not surprisin’, given her friendly nature,” Hoss laughed.  Joe joined in and they launched into some gentle, ribald teasing of their older brother.  Ben listened to the banter between his three sons, enjoying the moment as he sipped at his coffee.  If he knew Adam, he would find a way to help the community’s newest neighbour.

CHAPTER THREE  

It was the turn of Joe and Hoss to head into town for supplies and the mail on the Thursday of the following week.  The intervening days on the Ponderosa had been exceedingly busy and this was their first opportunity to leave the ranch.  Adam had spent several days and nights up at the logging camp to ensure that the men were on schedule.  He had only returned that afternoon and, after a long soak in a hot bath prepared by Hop Sing, he was pouring over timber figures with his father when the two youngest Cartwrights returned, lively, noisy and full of gossip.  Ben managed to persuade them to save the news until they had washed up for the evening meal that the little Chinese cook was about to set out on the dinner table. Meanwhile, Ben and Adam sorted through the pile of letters that had been awaiting them.

Hop Sing was serving the steaming stew when Hoss recounted the news that Wes Farrell, porter at the town’s main hotel, had suddenly died two days beforehand.  Stricken by a seriously upset stomach and cramps, he had eventually summoned the Doctor who had been helpless to alleviate the severe symptoms.  Within three more hours, Farrell was dead.  Paul Martin, the town’s doctor, had begun enquiries about what Farrell had eaten during the day, fearing that there might be some imminent outbreak of food poisoning, but he had not eaten anything out of the ordinary and there were no other reported incidents.  Death was eventually attributed to food poisoning, but whatever had caused it had  been eaten and no evidence remained.

“I check food with care,” Hop Sing announced, listening to the account and fearing that some of the produce brought home to refill his shelves might be contaminated in some way.

“Hop Sing, I doubt if the salt is gonna have a little sign that says ‘don’t eat me, I’m bad’,” Joe teased.

“Yeah, how’re you gonna tell?” Hoss added.  Suddenly, his eyes bulged and he gripped at his throat, making horrendous choking noises as he slid from his chair under the table.

Pandemonium broke out as he landed with a thud, Joe roared with laughter and the little Chinaman shrieked in alarm.  Ben’s voice rose above it all.

“Stop it, boys!  Joseph, quieten down; Hoss, get back in your seat and stop messing about. Hop Sing, calm down.  Hoss is perfectly okay.” 

Aggrieved, the little cook shot a withering look in Hoss’s direction and then returned to his kitchen to put away the food, muttering all the time in a stream of unintelligible Chinese.

Joe and Hoss succeeded in stifling their laughter until he had left the room and then they clutched each other, almost weeping in merriment.

“You know, Hoss, you keep teasing him like that and he’ll up and leave one day,” Adam warned nonchalantly as he broke off a chunk of bread from a freshly baked loaf.

“And I won’t be hiring a replacement,” Ben added.  “The kitchen chores will fall to you.”

Hoss and Joe gave themselves the luxury of one more shared glance and then they concentrated on the task in hand - eating.  Ben smiled to himself as he watched Hoss tucking in, savouring every mouthful, and guessed that the prospect of food poisoning would never cross his big son’s mind.

“Pa, now that the timber contract is all but filled and we’re inside the deadline,  I was thinking that maybe I’d head out to Mrs Rawlins’ place  tomorrow.  I want to go and see what needs doing, check if she’s got any help and perhaps give her some advice on getting a hired hand,” Adam said, taking the cup of coffee his father had poured out for him.

“Good idea, son.  It’s the neighbourly thing to do and it’ll show her that folks round here haven’t forgotten about her. It must be pretty difficult moving to a new place entirely on your own.”  Ben raised his own cup to his lips and took a sip, watching his eldest son all the while before smiling.  “At least I never had that problem.”

When Ben had left Boston and struck out west after the death of his first wife, Elizabeth, he had had for company a baby boy who had gone on to grow into the intense, committed man on his right whom he loved dearly.  No, Ben had never been totally on his own.  He may have been left alone three times following the deaths of his wives, but Adam had always been there, joined first by Hoss and then by Joe.  When Adam had gone east to college, they were dark days for Ben.  He had known his son would come back home eventually, but he had still missed him desperately and the years had seemed interminably long. 

He was suddenly aware that Adam was watching him, one eyebrow raised quizzically, his head slightly tilted and a half smile playing on his lips as if he were reading his father’s thoughts.  Ben’s heart missed a beat.  All those little mannerisms!  They were what he had loved in Elizabeth, Adam’s mother, and here they were, replicated in her son - their son. 

“No, you never had that problem, Pa,” Adam agreed softly, “though I bet with these two around. you’d welcome the peace and quiet on occasions.” 

“Oh I don’t know; after five minutes, I’d probably be screaming at the silence.  Anyway, we can’t blame it just on your brothers, you’re more than capable of raising a noise when you want,” Ben reminded him.

“Yeah, usually when you’re playin’ that darned guitar and singin’,” Joe cut in and then ducked to miss his oldest brother’s swipe across the table.  The men laughed, the atmosphere relaxed and content. Then Adam yawned.

“I hate to break up the party, but if no-one has any objections, I’m going to take my coffee upstairs with me.  I’ve a mighty tired body that knows there’s a bed up there somewhere.”

“You go ahead, son, and sleep well; you’ve deserved it,” Ben said. He waited until Adam had bid his brothers goodnight and had reached the bottom of the stairs before stopping him.

“Adam?”  His son paused, hand on the banisters.  “Well done on the timber contract.  You’ve done a great job ... again.”  Ben was rewarded by a slight smile and a glint of dark eyes before Adam’s head dipped and he made his way wearily up the stairs.  Ben knew that open praise embarrassed his eldest, but held to the belief that praise should be given where praise was due.  Besides, he always wanted to let Adam know that he was appreciated, that nothing was taken for granted where the family and the Ponderosa were concerned.

CHAPTER FOUR

Adam rode up to the Rawlins’ place late on the Friday afternoon.  He reined in Sport in front of the ranch house and studied the small building.  It was a little pretentious to refer to it as a ranch house as, from the outside, it looked little more than a two-roomed cabin, smaller than the first cabin Adam and his father had erected when they first arrived on the Ponderosa.  Sport snorted and tossed his head, the reins jangling softly in the hot silence.  The horse stamped his foot impatiently; he wanted a drink after the long run.

“Easy, boy,” Adam patted his neck to sooth him.  “You can have some water in a minute.”  He stood in the stirrups and twisted his head round, surveying the place as he looked for signs of life and called out,  “Mrs Rawlins?  Mrs Rawlins, are you there?”  He sat back in the saddle and waited.

Eventually, the door to the cabin opened slowly and the widow Rawlins emerged from the darkness within, wiping her flour-covered hands on her apron.  Shielding her eyes with a hand from the sun’s glare, she looked up at the dark-clad rider.

“Good afternoon, Mrs Rawlins.  Remember me?”  Adam touched the brim of his stetson in greeting.

She paused, no flicker of welcome in her eyes at all. Adam fleetingly wondered why he had come and then chided himself.  For a woman living alone, she had every right to be wary.

“I remember you, Mr Cartwright.  What can I do for you?” Still there was the sharp edge to her voice.

“Just doing what I said, Mrs Rawlins.  I’ve come to offer my help, if you’re still needing it, and to see what needs doing.”  He remained in the saddle, leaning easily on the pommel and waiting, as custom required, until he was invited to dismount. 

Eliza Rawlins considered the offer.  “I’ve a list of my own but you can take a look around here and then come on inside.  We’ll compare lists.  I’ve coffee on the stove or I’ve made fresh lemonade; whichever you’re wantin’.”

Adam felt his shirt sticking to his back and wiped away a bead of sweat as it trickled down the side of his face.  “The lemonade sounds good, but I‘d like to water my horse before I get started.” 

“Fine.  You come on in when you’re ready,“ she ordered, her eyes holding his, almost in a challenge.  Then she turned and was gone, back into the cool darkness of the cabin.  Adam took that as his cue to get down from Sport and led the large sorrel over to the watering trough.  He watched as the animal drank his fill and then looped his reins over a bar of the corral fence. He retrieved a small pad of paper and a pencil from his chest pocket - something he always carried in readiness - and decided to begin over at the barn.

It was half an hour later that he paused briefly to dry his freshly washed hands on the seat of his black pants and tentatively tapped at the door of the cabin.

“Come on in, it’s open,” came the short reply.

Pushing open the door, he crossed the threshold, pulling off his hat and holding it before him.  He let his eyes grow accustomed to the gloom of the interior after the brilliant sunshine of outside. It was a deceptively large room, the large oak table taking precedence in the centre.  Eliza Rawlins was aggressively rolling out pastry but nodded towards the unused far end of the table and a chair that stood beside it.

“You can set yourself there,” she instructed.

“Thank you, Ma’am,” Adam said politely, laying his hat on a shelf inside the door and sitting where he was told. Thirty years old yet this woman had the ability to make him feel like an awkward teenager again!  Why did he find her so intimidating? There had to be a crack somewhere in that hard veneer.  As she disappeared to the far side of the room to pour out the lemonade, he let his eyes wander round the room.  Sparsely furnished with plain, serviceable furniture, he saw none of the trappings he expected of a woman making a home. 

The room seemed cold, like its owner.  There were no pictures on the walls, cushions on the chairs, no quilt thrown casually over a seat, no little ornaments to remind her of times past and none of the fripperies like lace at the windows.  In fact, the curtains were dull coloured and mismatched.  He thought of the ranch house on the Ponderosa and immediately appreciated its size and comforts.  Even though it was housed by men, it had warmth and it was home.  This was no home; this was somewhere Eliza Rawlins laid her head of a night.

“Are you settling in here okay?” he asked by way of making polite conversation.

“It’ll do for now,” she replied, standing in front of him, glass of lemonade in her hand. “I had to spend a lot of time doing repairs, make it liveable.  That’s why I’ve not done much to the other buildings.”

“I can understand that,” Adam smiled encouragingly.  Perhaps she had not got round to unpacking fully yet.  She had had to prioritise her tasks and setting out a few ornaments were not a necessity to her.  “There’s a fair bit that needs doing.  Old Bates really let the place run down in his last years.  I’ve got a bit more time on my hands now but I can’t do everything, not if you’re going to get the place really working before the fall.  If you want me to, I could put out some feelers in town for hired help.”

“We’ll see,” she said, placing the drink in front of him and sitting round the table to his left. “What do you see as needing to be done first?”  She watched as he raised the glass to his lips and drank.  He gave a sharp intake of breath.  “What is it?  What’s wrong?  Is it not to your liking?” she suddenly demanded.

“No, it’s fine.  Honestly,” he reassured her.  “It’s sharp, that’s all, but it’s how I like it.  Some folks put too much sugar in.  This is good,” and he drank deeply.  She waited silently until he had drained the glass and set it back on the table. So she was not one for the pleasantries, he noted.  He laid his notebook out and perused the page.

“There are some rotten poles in the corral fence that need replacing and some of the posts aren’t secure in the ground.  You keep the horses in there much longer without that work being done and they’ve only got to lean on it and they’ll be away.  Timbers need replacing in the walls and roof of the barn and the flooring up in the hayloft isn’t very safe.  I wouldn’t go up there if I were you until that work’s done ...”

“You thinkin’ I can’t cope with a rotten floor on my own?” she interrupted, immediately on the defensive.

“No. It’s just that if anything happens to me while I’m up there, you’re here to help.  You go up there when you’re on your own and fall through, it could be a while before anyone finds you.”

She reflected on his concern and nodded in reluctant acceptance.  What he had said made sense.

“The flooring needs to be done before you can store any hay up there for winter feed.  The stalls aren’t good either and you need a new barn door hanging.  Your wood pile’s nearly all gone so it’s time to lay that in. I see you’ve got a goat and a couple of pigs tethered out there. They’ll need a permanent shelter before the weather turns and it might be a good idea to think of where you want to fence them in.  They break free and they’ll be straight in your vegetable patch.  You might want to section that off too as there’re enough things running wild that could be tempted by fresh growing stuff.  I can see where you’ve done work on the cabin but all the shutters are going to need replacing if you’re to keep out the winter chills.”

“There’s a little more than I figured but I’m not surprised,” Mrs Rawlins sighed.

“Of course, that’s just round here.  When that’s sorted, we’ll have to think further afield about the rest of the place. Have you made your plans for what you’re intending to do with the spread?” Adam asked.

“Some, but I want to think it through a little more,” her answer was guarded.  It was as if she was not prepared to share anything with him yet, as if she did not trust him.  He checked himself.  Here he was, infuriated by this woman’s refusal to confide in him about her plans for her own land when his own family were forever walking on eggshells or chiding him when he was unprepared to open up.  He smiled to himself.

“Something funny?” she demanded.

“What?  Oh no, sorry.  I was just thinking about my Pa and my brothers.”

“You’re all pretty close then?”

“Yeah, we are.  We may not always see eye to eye; leastways my youngest brother, Joe, and I may clash from time to time, but we’re there for each other. As a family, we’ve been through a lot but we’re proud of what we’ve achieved in the Ponderosa and we’re proud of each other.”

“What about your ma?” Mrs Rawlins asked abruptly. 

Adam’s face clouded over.  “My ma died when I was born.  Then Pa remarried; Inger, her name was.  Hoss was just a few months old when Indians killed her.  A few years later, Pa married Marie, Joe’s ma, but she was killed in a horse riding accident.”

“I was wondering why you and Hoss don’t look like each other,” she remarked.  “Your pa’s been through it, losing three wives like that.”

“He sure has, but that’s what’s made us all the closer, more supportive of each other.”

“What about you?” her question surprised him.

“What about me?”

“You’ve been through it too; you lost three ma’s.” 

Her forthrightness made him uncomfortable and he avoided her watchful gaze.  “Like you said, I‘ve been through it but I made it out the other side. I had to, for Pa’s sake.  He was hurting so bad; he needed time.  Now we’re all okay, we’ve got each other.”  He realised that, without even trying, she had forced him onto the defensive and he wanted to escape.

“Yes, you’ve got each other,” there was a strange, far away look in her eyes as she spoke and he felt an inexplicable cold chill run down his spine.

“I’ll be back tomorrow afternoon and I’ll make a start on the corral fencing.  I’d best go now.”  He rose to his feet and moved towards the door.

Thank you ... Adam,” she said hesitantly.

He picked up his hat, nodded in her direction, slid the stetson on his head and left.

She stood in the doorway and watched in silence as he untethered Sport, mounted and swung the horse round to face home. He raised a hand in farewell and spurred the horse into a gallop.  She continued to look until he had passed from sight and went back into the cabin.  There was a little lemonade left in the pitcher and she picked it up.  It felt warm to the touch.  Tutting to herself at the waste, she went to the open doorway again and threw the remains of the drink out into the dust before shutting the door on Adam Cartwright and the rest of the world.

CHAPTER FIVE

Ben was in town that same day for a bank visit; payday was looming and the Ponderosa crew would be looking for their money. The month had been good with a new timber contract and prompt payment from the army for a string of horses.  Content with life, Ben was even toying with the idea of giving out some bonuses.

Throwing his horse’s reins around the hitching rail, he was about to set off along the covered boardwalk when a carriage pulled up level with him.

“Ben, haven’t see you in a while,” greeted the Doctor.

“Good to see you too, Paul.  Got time for a coffee?” Ben asked,  It had been weeks since the two men, friends for years, had had the chance to pause in their hectic lives and swap news.

“’Fraid not.  Got a message to swing by Ty Norris’s place.  Seems he took sick all of a sudden.”

“Sorry to hear that.  Give him my regards when you see him, will you?  I hope he’s back on his feet soon.”

“Will do.  How about a rain-check on that coffee?” Martin asked.

“I can do better than that.  If you’ve nothing else planned, how about coming out to the Ponderosa tomorrow for supper?”

“The next couple of days are a bit difficult.  How about next Saturday?”

“Sounds good to me,” Ben said, “See you around seven.”

Paul Martin nodded and twitched the reins to encourage the horse to walk on.

His business concluded at the bank and other errands completed, Ben returned to the ranch in time for dinner.  He found Hoss and Joe caring for their mounts in the stable and, for a while, the three men worked in companionable silence, unsaddling, grooming, feeding and watering their horses.

“How did you get on today?” Ben asked casually.

“We cleared round that waterhole out in the far north pasture; took us near on three hours, and then we checked on the rest between there and here,” Joe explained.

“There’d been a rock-fall out at the stream coming through Leaning Tree ravine so we set about clearing as much of the blockage as possible but it’s going to take best part of tomorrow morning as well,” Hoss added.

“Okay, we’ll make that your agenda. Is Adam around?” Ben enquired.

“Not yet.  He passed us over an hour ago.  Said he’d done the timber orders and was going to see how that Widow Rawlins was makin’ out. He figured he might not be back in time for dinner,” Hoss explained.

“I’ll get Hop Sing to set aside something cold.  He’s going to be hungry after that ride,” Ben noted as they headed to the house.

CHAPTER SIX

Hoss was savouring the cool evening air as he sat on the veranda, drink in hand and  looking up at the clear night sky.  He listened to the crickets gently calling to each other.  The cooler the evening, the slower the sound of their legs rubbing together and he somehow found tonight’s noise very relaxing.  He was reflecting quietly on the day’s work and the tasks ahead when his elder brother rode into view and, not noticing him, headed into the barn with his mount.

Deciding that he would find out the latest developments at the Rawlins’ place, Hoss languidly pulled himself to his feet and headed off in the direction of the barn to gossip with Adam as he tended to Sport.  He was a little surprised to see Adam standing, hands on front and back of the saddle, his forehead resting against the warm leather.

“Hey, Adam, how’re things?” Hoss greeted warmly. Adam did not immediately answer but turned slowly. Hoss could see immediately that all was not well.  Adam was pale, his features drawn; whether in pain or something else, Hoss could not quite determine.  His broad grin instantly transformed itself into an anxious frown.  “Adam, you okay?”

“I’ve felt better,” Adam muttered and turned back to remove the saddle but his strength seemed to have left him and instead he groaned and leaned in against the horse again.

“Let me get that,” Hoss offered, seeing the struggle.  He made light of the task, removing the saddle and slinging it across a wooden bar dividing the stalls.  He looked across at Adam who stood, seemingly distracted and breathing hard as he ran a hand wearily over his face.

“What’s wrong?” Hoss persisted.

“I don’t know; must be something I ate. I was fine when I was out at the Rawlins’ place but as I rode back here, I started feeling really bad.  Then I got sick to the stomach,” Adam explained.

“That’s not like you,” Hoss commented, trying to think of any time when Adam had been ill.  Despite whatever hit the rest of the family, he always managed to escape and was the quiet, reassuring carer; rarely the patient.  Hoss could barely remember the few times when Adam had succumbed to the usual childhood ailments.  The small school that they had attended would be decimated and Hoss himself would have taken to his bed, but rarely Adam.  Over the years, Adam had had accidents for the work was hard and the weather extremes uncooperative ; he had also had his fair share of injuries in occasional fights, as well as collecting the odd bullet, but Hoss could count on the fingers of one hand those times when Adam had actually been ill.  When he had, it was usually serious.  Hoss tried to shrug off the bad feeling that he had.  Maybe Adam was right; he had just eaten something that did not agree with him.

“You get on inside the house and I’ll look after Sport.  I guess you’ll not be wanting the supper Hop Sing kept for you.”

Adam grimaced.  “No, I won’t.  I just want to crawl into bed and sleep this off.  Do me a favour, don’t say anything to Pa.”

“Can’t promise you that one,” Hoss grinned.  They both knew that their father missed nothing; it seemed impossible to keep much from him.

“Thanks for taking care of Sport, Hoss.”

“You bet,” and Hoss watched, concerned, as Adam patted Sport’s neck and  headed on into the house, his whole gait slow and tired.

It was a good half hour later when Hoss had finished giving the horse a rough grooming, ridding the animal’s coat of the worst of the trail dust.  He would get his usual thorough grooming from his owner the next day, always supposing he was in a fit enough state.  Hoss had also fed and watered the large animal.  As he entered the house, Joe was sprawled in a chair reading a catalogue and his father was coming from the kitchen; he had probably been seeing Hop Sing on a household matter.

Hoss locked the door for the night and eased his huge frame down onto the sofa.  His father glanced across at him from his own chair by the fire.

“Adam not come in with you?” Ben asked.

“He’s already in,” Joe quipped, not even looking up from the page.

“Oh, he must be washing up then; I’ll tell Hop Sing to lay out his food,” and Ben made to rise.

“No need, he said he was going straight to bed,” Joe added, eyes still firmly fixed on the text.

“What? But he must be hungry,” Ben objected.  Joe just shrugged.  Ben refused to be deterred.  “Did he seem all right?”  When Joe didn’t answer, Ben turned his attention on Hoss who realised, with a sinking heart, that he would have to tell all.

“He was tired, Pa, and he got sick on the way back home,” Hoss explained.

“Sick?  What do you mean sick?”  Ben knew as well as Hoss had done that Adam rarely ‘got sick’.

“He’s thinking maybe he ate something bad,” Hoss added.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Ben demanded, his eyes narrowing at his middle son’s oversight.

“But, Pa, I only jest came in and I’ve told you,” Hoss objected, trying to defend himself against his father’s wrath.

Ben turned on his youngest, “Joseph?”

“He never said to me he was sick; just that he was goin’ on up to bed,” Joe said.

“I’m going to check in on him,” Ben announced, heading up the stairs even as he spoke.  He tapped gently on the door to Adam’s room but, hearing nothing, opened it carefully, pausing only to pick up the lighted lamp from the table in the hallway before he crept in silently.

Adam was already asleep,.  Lying on his back, his left arm was crossed lightly over his stomach, his right arm bent upwards on the pillow, framing his head.  Long, black lashes brushed the defined cheekbones.  He looked peaceful, his chest rising and falling in deep, regular breaths and all would have seemed well, had it not been for the clammy pallor of his skin and the fact that he had taken the precaution to put his wash bowl on the floor by the bed before he had retired.  He still felt nauseous then.

Ben stole closer and took the opportunity to look down on his sleeping eldest son.  Adam had  been his strength for so many years.  When his mother, Elizabeth, had died at his birth, it was his very existence that finally spurred his father to go on living after days of inconsolable grief. The tiny dark-haired scrap with the loud, demanding cry had clung to his father’s finger, awakening in him the deep love that he had believed buried in the coffin with his dead Elizabeth.  This boy was her legacy; her passion for music and books lived on in him, and so Ben had taken the child and headed west.

At seven years old, the child had become a man.  With the harshness and danger of life on the trail, there had come the added responsibility of another child, Eric - later to be known as Hoss by the family.  In another tragedy, Ben’s second wife, Inger, had been cut down by an Indian arrow, months after giving birth.  Drowning in grief again, Ben had left the primary care of the young infant to a small boy who had now lost a second mother.  In his late-teens, Adam was subjected to the devastating heartache of losing mother number three, Maria, but he had suppressed his own pain, once again shouldering the responsibility of a distraught father and  the running of the Ponderosa in its early days, whilst looking after Hoss and the even younger Little Joe, both reeling with shock and grief.

Ben often felt pangs of guilt at what he had taken for granted from Adam and that his son had never had a real childhood, but the boy had rarely complained.  Instead, the experiences had fashioned a man who was strong both physically and emotionally, trustworthy, a devoted brother and son, and a man who was known in the community for his integrity.  There were those who did not like him for it, but the greater majority admired and respected him as a result.

Ben had let him go back east to his grandfather and college and the education had been an asset as the Ponderosa had grown and prospered, but Adam had undergone a change.  He had returned more serious, more fiercely independent than before and very protective of his privacy.  Intense and quiet, he guarded his feelings and Ben sometimes wondered if the seeds of damage had been planted in childhood; that he had suppressed emotions to be strong for his father and he had just got used to it. Both Hoss and Joe were much more open, easily sharing their emotions, and Ben worried that he could not readily reach Adam.  He cherished those evenings when the other two would retire and he and Adam would share precious time, drinking a last brandy each and talking about a wide variety of topics, nothing to do with the ranch.

Ben perched on the side of the bed and watched his sleeping son, wondering why such thoughts had flooded back.  Perhaps it was because he looked so vulnerable whilst asleep, so like his mother.  He had inherited her colouring in his skin tone and black hair.  He had her eyes, so dark and penetrating, seeing all and understanding all.  He was handsome as she had been beautiful and, in sleep, he had her delicacy.  Apparently too hot when he climbed into bed, he had not bothered with his nightshirt and now, without waking, he shivered involuntarily.  Ben pulled the bedding up around his bare shoulders and tenderly brushed a stray tendril of black hair from Adam’s forehead.  His skin was hot to the touch and waxen in the early stages of a fever.  Ben frowned, hoping that it would not worsen and decided that he would sit with him a while  longer.

It was some time later that the door behind him opened quietly and Ben turned to find Hoss standing, framed by the lintel, a cup of coffee in his hand.  The senior Cartwright held him back with a raised hand and, glancing once more at the sleeping form, rose and moved to the door.  Pulling it closed behind him, he met Hoss in the hallway and relieved him of the coffee.

“Wasn’t sure if you hadn’t turned in,” Hoss whispered loudly.  “You were gone so long.”

“I just thought I’d sit with Adam for a while,” Ben explained, sipping at the strong black liquid.  “Mmm, that’s good; thanks.”

“How’s he doin?” Hoss inquired, indicating the closed door with his head.

“Oh he’s sound asleep.  He had the makings of a fever; I wanted to make sure that it wouldn’t get worse, but he seems okay now.  We’ll have to see how he is in the morning.  For now, I’m going to bed; good night.”

“Night, Pa.  Sleep well.”

The next morning, when Ben went down to breakfast, Adam was already sitting at the table, refilling his cup with scalding coffee from the pot.

“Morning, Pa.”

“Morning, son.  How are you feeling today?”  Ben took his seat and spread a chequered napkin across his lap as Hop Sing materialised from the kitchen with a plate of ham and eggs and set it before him.  “Thanks, Hop Sing.”

Adam paused, the coffee cup to his lips as he watched his father over the rim.  “Hoss told you,” he said simply.

“Of course he did, but don’t worry, once inside the house, he held out for all of two minutes,” Ben stated matter-of-factly, reaching for a freshly made biscuit.

Adam grinned suddenly, “And I’ll bet you gave him a hard time for all of those two minutes.”  Ben merely shrugged and broke into a brief smile.

“You are feeling better today?” he pressed.

“Much, thanks.  I slept really well.”

“So I noticed,” Ben said.  Adam raised an eyebrow quizzically.  “You had no idea I sat with you for over an hour last night?”

“No,” Adam was genuinely surprised.  The two men concentrated on their food; Ben with his eggs and ham, Adam with fresh bread and butter.

“That all you’re eating?” Ben inquired eventually.

“For now.  Things are still a little delicate.”  They ate again.  “Pa?”

“Yes, son.”

“Thanks.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Late Saturday afternoon still retained enough heat for the sweat to trickle down Adam’s back, causing the dark red shirt to stick uncomfortably to him.  He relished the thought of soaking in a hot bath before dinner.  He had put in a lot of hours recently besides taking on the responsibility of helping the Widow Rawlins.  He smiled at the memory of his conversation with the woman earlier that afternoon; she did, at last, appear to be thawing.  As he spent time working for her, her more human side began to emerge.  Give her time and she would be a welcome member of the community around Virginia City.  Thirsty, he reached for the canteen and undid the stopper.  He drank long of the cool water and smiled again.  She had filled it for him before he left.  Eliza Rawlins wasn’t so bad after all.  He returned the canteen to its hook from the saddle and spurred Sport into a gallop, hoping that he could shave off some of the time left for the ride home.

He had ridden for a little less than half an hour when he began to feel uncomfortable.  His stomach rumbled and it was not with hunger; twinges of pain stabbed at him but he tried to shake off the feeling, along with the waves of dizziness. The queasy sensation was worsening by the minute and he broke out in a sweat that had nothing to do with the dying heat of the day.  With a growing sense of unease, he recognised similar symptoms to the previous day.  It could not be happening again, surely!  Why was this happening to him? 

He reined in his horse and sat for a moment on the trail, head bowed as he breathed hard and fought to control the turmoil of his insides.  Groaning, he gave up the struggle and slipped from the saddle.  Collapsing to his knees, he lost his limited stomach contents, the lot spilling into the dust.  He continued to dry retch for several minutes, shaking with the effort.  Eventually, he hauled himself to his feet and reached for his canteen again, rinsing his mouth and spitting the stream of water onto the ground.  Suddenly exhausted and limp from the bilious attack, he hauled himself into the saddle and encouraged Sport to walk on, believing that his stomach could not cope with anything faster.

Hoss was tidying up his tools at the entrance to the barn after an afternoon of shoeing horses when Sport came into view.  He watched as Adam slowly dismounted and looped the reins over Sport’s head, ready to lead him into his stall.  Everything about Adam was sluggish, weary, and Hoss studied his face carefully.  At the back of his mind, something was telling him that they had been here before.

“Howdy,” he tried, cheerfully, but Adam merely raised a hand in mute greeting as he led his mount past Hoss and into the barn.  Hoss frowned and followed.

“You sick again?” he asked, as Adam unbuckled Sport’s saddle and pulled it towards him.  It was a struggle and Hoss moved forward to help as he had done the previous evening, but this time, Adam shrugged off his assistance and walked off to stow the saddle.

“I’ll be okay,” he announced, sounding as if he were talking through gritted teeth.  He picked up an empty bucket and went out to fill it from the trough.  Hoss watched as he brought it back as far as the entrance to the barn and then set it down abruptly, breathing hard.  It was a weight he had never had problems with before.  Sighing, Hoss moved with surprising swiftness and snatched up the bucket.

“But you are sick again,” he repeated, this time making it a statement rather than a question.  He did not look back at his brother as he set the bucket down for Sport and patted the animal’s neck.  There was a long pause, the silence broken only by Sport snorting into the bucket as he drank.

“Yeah, I’m sick again,” Adam conceded quietly, picking up a brush and starting to groom his mount.  Hoss could see it was an effort.

“Give that to me,” he insisted.

“Nope, you did it yesterday.  You can’t keep doing my chores.”

“And neither can you when you’re sick,” Hoss challenged.  Adam ignored him and continued to brush the flank of the large animal but it was clear that his heart was not in his task. 

“When do you git over being so mule-headed?  Give it to me,” Hoss ordered, snatching the brush from his older brother’s hand and pushing him gently aside.  “After all the hard work you make this poor animal do, least he can get at the end of the day is a decent rub down and his food at a reasonable time. Way you’re goin’ at it, the poor ol’ fella will get fed at midnight.”  He watched out of the corner of his eye as Adam sank thankfully onto a couple of bales of hay and leaned back against a wooden upright, his eyes closed.  He took slow, deep breaths.

“Pa said this mornin’ that you was feelin’ better,” Hoss began, conversationally.

“That was this morning,” Adam agreed softly, “and most of the day. I was fine all the time I was at the Rawlins place. I finished repairing the corral fencing, even dug a couple of fresh post holes and you know as well as I do that that’s no job when you’re feeling lousy.”

“So what happened?”

“ She actually seemed pleased with the work I’d done today.  She smiled...”

“She what?” Hoss interrupted.

“I tell you, she smiled and thanked me.  I was feeling quite good about things as I headed for home.  I was thinking that maybe she was beginning to thaw out a little.  You, know, when she smiles, she doesn’t look quite the ogre she does the rest of the time.  Anyway, one minute I’m riding along quite happily and the next, I can hardly get off Sport fast enough.  All I know is I’m on my hands and knees in the dirt, throwing up.”

“So how do you feel now?”

“I’ll survive.”

“You’d best go in and get cleaned up.  Hop Sing’ll have dinner ready soon,” Hoss reminded him.

Adam groaned and pushed himself up from his makeshift seat, “Food’s the last thing on my mind right now but I suppose I‘d better make an effort.”

“You better had.  You know Pa’ll be watching you like a hawk.”

Adam headed for the doorway.  “Thanks, brother.”  He paused.  “You won’t mention my being ill to Pa, will you?  I‘m sure it‘s nothing, it‘ll pass.”

Hoss straightened from brushing Sport’s belly.  “I tried not mentioning it yesterday and it didn’t work.  You know what Pa’s like.  Tell you what, you manage to get through the evening without arousin’ his suspicions an’ I’ll try not to mention anything.”  Adam smiled and disappeared in the direction of the house.

Ben, Joe and Hoss were already seated at the table when Adam, washed and changed, slipped into his seat.  Hop Sing appeared carrying a plate.

“I serve yours.  No eat yesterday, not much today.  You need food; I give you food,” and he set the plate before Adam, piled high with enough food that even Hoss, with his infamous appetite, would have been hard pressed  to clear.  Hop Sing hummed to himself as he disappeared back into the kitchen, pleased that he had taken care of number one son.  Adam did not have much colour when he sat down at the table and Hoss saw him blanch at the mountain of food.

“Hop Sing must think you’re starving,” Ben chuckled.

“Either that or he’s mistaken one big brother for the other big brother,” put in Joe.  Adam gave a weak smile.

“Want some help there?” Hoss asked, for once not joking about food but seeing that Adam was genuinely uncomfortable with what sat before him. He nodded.  Hoss reached across and picked up the plate, scraping a good portion of it onto his own.

“Hey, leave some for your brother,” Ben warned.

“It’s okay, Pa.  That’s more than enough for me,” Adam hastily said.  He forked up some beans and chewed slowly, listening as the others round the table recounted the events of the day.

They had finished their meal and adjourned to easier chairs where they were drinking coffee when Adam rose quietly and headed for the front door, the disquieting, familiar feelings of nausea having returned.

“Adam?” his father queried, looking over the top of his book.

“Just checking on Sport,” he said over his shoulder and quickly went out.

Hoss’s eyes narrowed and he stood up.

“Hoss?”

“I’m just checking on Sport too, Pa,” and he walked out as well.  Curious, Joe went to rise.

“And where do you think you’re going?” his father demanded, eyes still focused on his book.

“I thought I’d check on Sport as well,” Joe tried.

“You stay where you are,” Ben ordered.  Joe sat.

“You think they’re up to something, Pa?”

“Without a doubt,” Ben answered, “but what we don’t get out of Adam, Hoss will explain.”  He tried to sound unconcerned but he had seen his eldest son’s pallor since he returned home. Adam had been quiet all evening and had only eaten a fraction of the food served.  Ben was worried that Adam, never one to complain, was not as well as he tried to make out but there was some comfort in the knowledge that Hoss was with him and would call if needed.

Outside, Hoss heard Adam before he saw him. He went to the water pump and filled a metal cup before he followed his big brother round the side of the barn.  Adam was doubled over, retching repeatedly.  Hoss waited patiently, a big hand rubbing his brother’s back, until the spasm of sickness passed and then he handed him the water to rinse his mouth.  Turning to lean against the side of the barn, Adam slid down the wall until he was sitting on the ground, head bowed.  Hoss waited a moment and then sat beside him.

“So, yesterday you ate something bad.  How’re you gonna explain it now?”

Adam raised his head to look at Hoss, “Don’t tell Hop Sing; he’ll take it personally.”

“I won’t if you won’t.”  He glanced sideways at Adam sipping carefully at the cool, refreshing water.  “I mean it, Adam.  You can’t have eaten something bad today as well.”

Adam rested his wrists on his drawn-up knees and revolved the cup in his hands.  “I know.  Maybe I picked up some kind of infection.”

“Where from?  You ain’t been into town recently.  Joe and I have but there‘s no talk of any infection, ‘cepting Wes Farrell and Ty Norris. We’re fine.  Only place you’ve been is up at the logging camp four days back.  Anyone sick there?”

“No.”

“So what have you been eating?”

“The usual. I ate exactly the same as you at lunch and it was prepared by Hop Sing.”

“Did you eat anything at the Widow’s place?” Hoss asked.

“No, I had nothing to eat there yesterday or today,” Adam insisted.

“What about drink?”

“Yesterday she’d made some fresh lemonade; it was good.”

“You have any today?”

“Again, no.  It was hot work, I just had water.”

“That’s it then,” Hoss slapped his thigh having solved the problem.  “You drank some bad water.”

“Hoss, I finished up what was in my canteen which I’d filled here.  Then she refilled it, from her own well. That’s her main water supply and there’s nothing wrong with her.  Whatever old man Bates died from months back, it sure wasn’t the water,” Adam reasoned.

Hoss frowned, disappointed that his theory would not be correct.  “Well I don’t know what to think then.”

"Neither do I.  C’mon, we’d better head back indoors else Pa’ll be wondering what’s up.  Hopefully whatever this is will be gone by tomorrow,” and Adam started to walk towards the house.

“That’s what you said yesterday,” Hoss mumbled quietly to himself.  He shook his head and followed his older brother.

Adam had already said goodnight and gone upstairs to bed when Hoss finished pouring himself a fresh cup of coffee and sank into an armchair.  He suddenly was aware that his father was watching him closely.

“Well?” Ben asked.

“Well what?” Hoss asked, feigning innocence.

“What’s with the interest in Sport all of a sudden?” Joe inquired.

His father ignored him.  “Is Adam all right?”

Hoss squirmed under his father’s scrutiny.  He was torn: Adam did not want to worry his father, but his father was already worried and, if the truth be told, so was Hoss. He rapidly weighed up the alternatives.  He could deal with Adam’s moods but could not face his father’s wrath.  He took a deep breath.

“No, Pa,  he ain’t.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

Sunday night, Ben stirred in the darkness. wondering what had disturbed his slumber.  He lay awake, listening carefully for any adverse noises. Perhaps it was Hoss going down for one of his nocturnal snacks or maybe there was an intruder.  Ben dismissed that idea, the Ponderosa ranch house having been built like a fortress.  It would take considerably more noise than what had evidently disturbed him for someone to break into the house. No, it had to have been something else.

Then he heard it again, the unmistakable sound of someone somewhere being very sick and he did not have to make many guesses as to the identity of the sufferer.  Rising quickly, he drew on slippers and a dressing gown and headed along the hallway to Adam’s room next door.

Slipping into his son’s room, he discovered Adam sitting on the side of his bed, retching miserably into the basin he had seized from his wash stand.  Sitting beside him, Ben rubbed his back, feeling the heat dampening the cotton nightshirt that clung to his shuddering frame.

The sickness passed, and Adam stared in mute embarrassment into the bowl, breathing hard to control his body’s violent reaction.

“Okay now?” Ben asked quietly.  Adam merely nodded.  “I’ll get rid of this.  You okay till I come back?”  Again Adam nodded.

“I’m sorry for waking you, Pa,” he whispered.

“Don’t apologise. You should have wakened me,” Ben insisted.  Standing,  he took the offending bowl from Adam’s hands and left the room. 

His way was suddenly barred by the looming figure of Hoss.  “Pa, is Adam okay?”

“Not really, son.”  He glanced towards the bowl he carried.

“Let me take care of that,” Hoss offered.  “You get back to Adam. Anything else you’re needin’?”

“Yeah, some fresh water.  I want him to drink a little; he can’t afford to get dehydrated.  Bring some other water and cloths too, I want to freshen him up, make him feel a little more comfortable so maybe he’ll settle and get some sleep.”

“Sure thing, Pa.  I’ll clean this out and bring it back.”

Ben watched Hoss head for the stairs and then turned back to enter the sick room.

Adam was still sitting where he had been left, shivering now in the cool night air in the aftermath of his sickness.

“You think you could lay down now?” Ben suggested.  Still Adam could not bring himself to speak but just shook his head affirmatively.  Ben took his shoulders and eased him back down onto the pillows before swinging his legs up onto the bed.  Pulling up the blankets around Adam to still his shaking, he stroked back the damp, black hair.

Uncharacteristically, Adam turned his head away from his father and would not meet the concerned, paternal gaze.  Instead, he shielded his eyes from further scrutiny with his forearm and it was a couple of moments before Ben realised the shaking was not from the current chill but from suppressed tears. If he had not been worried before, this sudden turn of events caused him to be; Adam was usually very controlled and had, from early teens into adulthood, become very adept at concealing his emotions, even after the most traumatic situations.

Ben decided to take charge.  “First thing in the morning, I’m sending for the doctor.  That is if you don’t want me to send for him now.”  He spoke softly and awaited an answer.

Adam shook his head and sought to get his voice in check.  “Tomorrow’s fine if I‘m not feeling any better,” he said. There was another pause and then, barely audibly so that Ben had to strain to hear him, Adam confessed, “I’m scared, Pa. What’s wrong with me? I can’t recall ever feeling this bad for so long.” 

Ben did not know how to reassure him and was alarmed, as Adam lowered his arm, to see the expression of raw fear in his son’s eyes. “Talk to me, son. Besides the sickness, tell me how you’re feeling, really feeling.  What other symptoms do you have?”

Adam collected his thoughts.  “I’m so tired; I have no energy.  All I want to do is sleep.”

“Maybe this is your body telling you that you’ve been overdoing things. You had that big lumber contract and now you’re working out at the Widow Rawlins’ place.  It was gone nine this evening when you got back; I hope she fed you.  You‘ve not exactly been eating normally these past few days.”

“I had some stew she’d made, but that didn’t stay down, did it?”

“Never mind, son.  Are you feeling any better now?”

“A bit, but my hands hurt, and my feet.”  Adam winced and shifted his position, desperate to be more comfortable.

“How do you mean they hurt?” Ben was puzzled.  As they spoke, the door opened slowly and Hoss struggled in, his arms full.

“It’s like pins and needles, only much worse.  Sometimes it’s in my face too.”

“Do you have it all the time?” Ben asked as he began to sponge Adam down.

“It comes and goes.” Adam lay there quietly, passively, as his father worked and then towelled him dry.  Hoss raised him a little and put a glass of water to his lips.

“Just take a sip,” he advised.  Adam complied and sighed in relief as Hoss lay him down again.  The effort to drink was too much and his eyes closed as a wave of weariness washed over him.  He was almost asleep before his brother and father had even left the room.  Ben watched him briefly, before extinguishing the lantern he carried and shutting the door; he sighed heavily.

“This ain’t natural, Pa,” Hoss whispered as they stood outside their respective bedroom doors.

“You’re right there, son,” Ben answered, his tone sombre.

CHAPTER NINE

Ben and Hoss were already at breakfast early on the Monday morning when Adam joined them.

“Morning, Pa,” he greeted, pouring himself a coffee and reaching for the bread basket.

“Morning, son.  How are you feeling?” Ben kept his voice light but his keen eyes were studying his eldest son carefully.  He had already spotted the paleness, the dark-ringed eyes, the apparent tiredness.

“Better,” Adam bit into the fresh bread roll he had just buttered. Although he did not relish the thought of food, he could not deny the fact that he was hungry, but when Hop Sing appeared, carrying two plates filled with eggs, ham, beans and pancakes for Hoss and Ben, Adam shook his head. “Just a couple of pancakes for me,” he requested.

“Hoss, I want you and Joseph to go up to the summer pasture and repair the corral up there.  We’re going to be rounding up those horses for the army’s next order before too long and we’ll need to hold them there.”

“Fine, I’ll get on it.”  He opened his mouth to a huge forkful of ham and eggs, and Adam had to still his rebellious stomach at the sight.

“What about me, Pa?” he asked, forcing himself to concentrate on something else.

“I want you to stay here with me today.  We need to think about the next round of tree planting and putting a bid together for the Robinson mines’ timber contract.”

Adam frowned as neither task was pressing and did not have to be done immediately.  He knew exactly what his father was doing when he was so determined to keep Adam close to home. 

“I’m okay, Pa.  Let me go out with Hoss,” he insisted.

“I don’t think you ought to, Adam.  I want you to stay around here and take things a little easy today.  It won’t hurt you.  Anyway, I‘d said that you ought to see Paul Martin today.”

“Pa, there’s no need to bother Paul. I feel much better but I could do with the fresh air.  I won’t be on my own, Hoss’ll be there,” Adam’s stubborn streak was emerging.

“I’ll think about it over breakfast,” Ben replied and Adam knew that his father would be watching to see if he ate anything and how much.  It was  not too much of a problem; his hunger won and, when Hop Sing produced a plate of pancakes, he readily tucked into them.

Although Adam did not clear his plate, his father was satisfied that he had eaten enough and, as he pushed his own empty plate from him and sipped at a cup of scalding black coffee, Ben made his decision.  “Okay, Adam; you go with Hoss and work on the repairs.”  Adam smiled, satisfied.

A clatter of footsteps on the stairs heralded the arrival of Joe, tousled, late, breathless and starving.  He slid into his place with a mumbled apology; it had been just that bit too hard to drag himself from the comfort of his bed.

“Joseph,  I have an interesting list of chores for you today that should keep you out of trouble.  You have five minutes for your breakfast,” Ben announced quietly, rising from the table with his other two sons.  Joe groaned and attacked the plate of food the second Hop Sing put it before him.

CHAPTER TEN

Ben had been out checking on a section of the herd during the early afternoon and was in the barn stabling his mount when he heard horses’ hooves.  He was not expecting any visitors, and the boys and the hands were all out working, so he was curious.  Emerging from the barn, he did not anticipate seeing Sport and Chubb at the hitching rail outside the house; something had to be wrong.  Adam and Hoss had had more than enough work to keep them occupied until late afternoon.

Concerned, he strode towards the house and entered in time to see Adam disappear at the top of the stairs whilst Hoss stood, foot on the bottom tread and calling up, “Adam!  Adam, you’ve got it all wrong. Adam, that’s not what I meant. Adam!”  Out of sight, a door slammed shut in anger.

“What’s the matter, Hoss?  What’s going on? What’s wrong?” Ben demanded, coming up behind his middle son.

Hoss turned to face him and sighed loudly, running a hand through his sandy-coloured hair.  “Have we ever thought of Adam as not pulling his weight?”

“What?  What are you talking about?” Ben did not follow his line of reasoning.

“Adam.  Has there ever been a time when we thought he wasn’t doing his fair share of the work?”

It was such a preposterous notion that Ben was speechless. Adam was always a hard worker; there was never any question that he was committed to the Ponderosa and his family, often putting in far more hours than any of the others, Ben included. 

“Well,” Hoss spluttered, not even waiting for his father to respond, “he thinks that I think he’s not doing his fare share of the work.  I never said anything of the kind, Pa.  All I said was maybe he oughta come home and get some rest as he was finding the work kinda difficult.”

Ben winced at the thought. He could imagine that suggestion not being very well received.  “What made you say that in the first place?” he asked carefully.

“We got out to the corral, Pa, and started the digging but he just found it too hard.  Within a few minutes, he was almost on his knees.  So he began knocking new posts in.  I’d put in four while he’d made his first one just about stable. I got him to hold the posts while I knocked them in.  Later we had something to eat; Hop Sing had packed it up for us.  He didn’t eat much and, within half an hour, he threw up.  Pa, he had no energy or strength left, so we had a row, ‘cos I insisted that he oughta come back and get a rest.  He ain’t right, Pa; that’s clear for anyone to see, but he thinks I think he’s shirking.  I ain’t never thought that, Pa.  Never.”

“It’s all right, Hoss.  None of us have ever thought that about him.  He obviously feels bad that he can’t seem to do his share of the work at the moment.  We know he’s ill and he must be very frustrated, wondering what’s wrong, but we’ve just got to be patient,” Ben said gently, patting Hoss reassuringly on the shoulder.  “Maybe we’d better look in on him.”

Together, father and son ascended the stairs and, for the third time in as many days, found themselves outside the door of the eldest Cartwright sibling.  Opening the door, Ben surveyed the scene and said, grimly, “Help me make him more comfortable, will you?”

Adam lay in a foetal position across the bed, sound asleep, fully clothed and still wearing his boots.  Ben and Hoss wrestled with his boots but did not even attempt to uncurl the limbs or put a pillow beneath his head.  Hoss disappeared briefly and returned with a blanket with which he covered his sleeping brother.

“P’raps he’ll feel better when he’s had a good sleep.  He musta been awake half of last night,” Hoss said optimistically.

“Perhaps,” Ben responded, unconvinced as they both headed downstairs again.

“If it’s okay by you, Pa, I’ll finish that corral work tomorrow and work on cleaning saddles and tack for the rest of the afternoon,” Hoss volunteered.  Ben nodded silently and sat at his desk, papers spread before him, their contents unread.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Tuesday and Wednesday, Ben had his own way and Adam was confined to the ranch house where his father could keep a close eye on him.  They had clashed about Ben’s desire to send for the doctor and, on this occasion, Adam had the victory.  He claimed that he was feeling better and indeed, as the days passed and Adam was not allowed to exert himself too much - other than to assist his father with the never-ending paperwork - he seemed almost like his old self.  He still balked at eating much but Ben found solace in the fact that he was at least eating something and it was staying put!

The relief was short-lived, however.  On the Thursday, Adam’s stubborn streak was strong.  Reluctant to stick around the house any longer than necessary when so much needed doing on the Ponderosa, and feeling more than a little guilty at seemingly abandoning Mrs Rawlins’ barn repairs, he announced that he was going to undertake work as normal.  Ben’s objections fell on deaf ears and he was left to watch all three sons head off after breakfast to their respective duties.

Adam was last back and Ben only had to take one look at him to realise, with a sinking heart, that all was not well.  He washed up and changed for dinner, sat at table but ate sparingly and Ben was hardly surprised when, a little later, Adam rose from his seat and said that he was going for a walk.  Hoss shot a worried look in his father’s direction after Adam had gone but both knew that, for some reason, Adam’s illness must have returned; if it had ever gone away.

Friday followed the same pattern: a disagreement over breakfast about whether or not Doctor Martin should be summoned, followed by work on the Ponderosa and then a ride out to the Rawlins’ place for more chores.  Later that evening, it was not Hoss but Ben who followed his eldest son outside and found him hanging on grimly to a corral post as he heaved his stomach contents into the dust yet again.

“Enough is enough,” Ben announced in consternation.  “I’m sending one of the hands for Paul.”

“No,” objected Adam, pulling his neckerchief off and wiping his mouth with it.  He closed his eyes and breathed hard before speaking again. “He’s comin’ to dinner tomorrow night; I’ll have a word with him then.”

“But supposing whatever this is worsens?” Ben demanded.

“It’s been the same for a week now, Pa.  I throw up, sleep, feel better and then it all begins again.  I reckon I’ll survive another day.”

Ben was unconvinced.  “You weren’t so casual about it the other night,” he reminded him.

Adam shrugged, not wanting to recall his weakness.  “I was sick, tired and wondering what was going on.”

“So now you’re telling me that you’re not wondering any more why you should be ill like this?”

“That’s not what I’m saying, Pa,” Adam sighed as his father seemed to twist his words.

“Well that’s what it sounds like.  You and I both know that this is not normal; there is something wrong, son, and we ought to be making the effort to find out what it is,” Ben insisted.

“But this could be the end of it.  I could wake up tomorrow morning and all this could be over,” Adam argued, but his father was having none of it.

“That’s what you’ve been saying every day, and you’ve felt fine for a little while but then it has not been over.  I’ll do as you want - for now.  But whether you feel fine tomorrow or not, when Paul’s here, we raise this with him and get him to check you out.”  Adam opened his mouth to object.  “No ‘buts’, Adam.  Paul examines you tomorrow and that’s final.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

Ben welcomed Paul Martin warmly and gestured to a seat.  “Whiskey?” he offered.  Martin nodded his assent.  As Ben handed him a small glass of the amber liquid, the front door burst open and Joe and Hoss entered, laughing at some shared joke.

“Hi, Pa.  Hi, Doc,” called Joe, divesting himself of jacket, hat and gunbelt inside the door before approaching the two elder men.

“Good to see you, Joe,” the Doctor acknowledged him with the raised glass.

“Hi, Doc,” Hoss joined the group.  “Pa, we’ll wash up as quickly as we can.”  He headed for the stairs.

“I’ll send Hop Sing up with some hot water.  Hoss, can you give Adam a call, let him know dinner will be ready soon?” Ben asked.

“Sure thing, Pa.” Hoss turned and looked back over the  banisters.

Paul Martin sipped patiently at his drink whilst Ben gave instructions to Hop Sing and settled in his chair.  There was an air of distractedness about the rancher that Martin could not quite place; perhaps it had been a hectic week.  Mind you, on a spread the size of the Ponderosa with its diverse interests, there could hardly be a week when things were not hectic.

“What’s wrong, Ben?” he asked quietly.

“Why do you ask?” Ben countered.  Paul noted that he denied nothing.

“I‘m not sure, but you and I have known each other a long time and I just sense something‘s not as it should be,” was his simple answer.

Ben sighed and took another mouthful of the burning liquid before going on.  “Don’t get me wrong, Paul.  I haven’t got you here under false pretences. Your dinner invitation was before all this started.”

“What started?”

The sound of footsteps on the stairs drew the attention of both men.  “Later,” Ben muttered as Adam came into view and rose to meet him at the foot of the staircase.  “Okay?” he asked quietly, seemingly casually, but Paul heard it and did not miss the fatherly concern in his eyes or the hand fleetingly resting on the son’s arm.

Adam nodded, “Fine.  Thanks, Pa.” The moment was gone.  Seeing Paul on the sofa, Adam stepped forward flashing a grin, his hand outstretched in greeting.  “Evening, Doctor.  We don’t seem to have seen you in ages.”

Martin took the extended hand and shook it warmly, barely concealing his surprise as Adam seemed to wince in pain.  Perhaps he had just imagined it. “Hi, Adam.  I guess our paths haven’t crossed lately ’cause you boys haven’t  gotten yourselves into any trouble that warrants my being here in a professional capacity.” 

He smiled as he said it; an innocent comment, a mere jest in a lighter moment, but a reference to the more serious occasions when he had had to set bones, remove a bullet, sort a dislocated shoulder, bandage fractured ribs and work on breaking a fever.  Ranch life was hard and fraught with dangers and the four Cartwright men -father included - had had their fair share of mishaps. Now, though, Adam’s face darkened and, behind him in the room, Ben cleared his throat.

“Whiskey, Adam?”

“No thanks, Pa.  Maybe after dinner,” and he lowered himself carefully into a chair.  Tall and long-limbed, every movement Adam made was usually economical and graceful.  Now he slumped tiredly in his seat and, Paul Martin was convinced this time, a flicker of discomfort briefly contorted his features. 

Ben and the Doctor chatted on about folks and life in the area with occasional contributions from Adam but it was not long before Hoss and Joe clattered down the stairs to join them.  Dressed in clean shirts and pants, and with damp hair, their faces glowed from their recent scrubbing.  A waft of cologne surrounded both of them.  Hop Sing had silently begun to put steaming serving dishes on the table and retreated to fetch still more.

“Hey, dinner’s ready. Good job too, I’m starving,” Hoss complained, rubbing his hands together in anticipation.

“Brother, what’s new?” Joe slapped him on the back.  “I’ll be more surprised the day you say you’re not hungry.”  Together they headed for their places and stood behind their seats but the other three men hung back.

“Adam?” Ben prompted, indicating that he wanted his son to precede him and his guest to the dinner table.  Adam seemed to hesitate but, head bowed, moved past his father and joined his brothers.  Ben moved towards Paul and lowered his voice so that the Doctor initially had difficulty hearing what was said.

“Do something for me; watch Adam at dinner tonight.”

“Watch him?  I don’t understand.” Paul was bewildered but it confirmed his mounting worry that all was not well with the eldest Cartwright boy and that it went beyond a strain from riding or heavier manual work.

“Just watch him and we’ll talk afterwards.”

They joined the others at the table and the atmosphere was largely relaxed.  Hoss and Joe were in fine form and kept the gathering entertained with stories and jokes.  Hop Sing had surpassed himself as usual and the food was excellent, as was the wine that Ben had selected.  The patriarch of the Cartwright household sat in his usual place at the head of the table, his guest on his immediate right, usurping the  place of the eldest son who now sat opposite.  Hoss and Joe had quite happily moved down a place to accommodate their visitor and, as they laughed at the memory of another shared escapade, Paul Martin took the opportunity to glance at the other two men as he reached for his wine glass.

Ben was surreptitiously watching Adam who, for  most of the time at least, seemed oblivious to the presence of the others.  Although he appreciated a good wine like his father, he had drunk barely half a glass of the fine red before him.  He was very pale and drawn, his eyes heavy-lidded with an uncharacteristic sleepiness.  Whereas the other men had refilled their plates from Hop Sing’s sumptuous fare, Adam had not cleared his plate a first time, eating little and pushing the rest around with his fork, displacing it so that it looked as if he had eaten more than he actually had.  He hardly said anything to anybody throughout the meal and this was the man with the college education, articulate on a whole range of subjects and usually very good company - but not this night.  Something was definitely wrong.  Beads of perspiration stood out on his forehead and he rose.

“Excuse me,” he muttered, not looking at anyone in particular.  “I need some fresh air,” and he was gone.  Ben started to get up but Hoss was on his feet first.

“I’ll go, Pa.  You’ve got a guest,” and he followed his older brother out through the front door into the night air.

“Pa was saying that Ty Norris had taken ill,” Joe’s voice was directed at Paul Martin as he started up another conversation. “How’s he doin?”

The doctor looked up in surprise.  “You haven’t heard then?”

“None of us has been in town since then.  Heard what?” Ben asked, refilling Paul’s wine glass and then his own.  He made to top up Adam’s half empty glass but checked himself and put the bottle down again.

“He passed away last night.  There was nothing I could do,” Martin sighed.

“Ty Norris as well?  Counting Leavy and Farrell, that’s three men in a little over two weeks,” Joe commented, a little surprised.  “What did he die from?”

“It would seem that it was the same as Farrell and from what I’ve heard over the past week about Leavy, we may have done him a great disservice.  It’s looking more and more like he did not die from an excess of alcohol but that his symptoms were the same as the other two.”

“What symptoms?  We heard as how you thought Farrell was down to food poisoning,” Joe pointed out.

“Well that’s how it looked at the time.  I know it’s not a dinner table subject, but it looks like we’ve all finished.  He had these bouts of vomiting over a period of several days.  If it had been food poisoning, he’d have gotten sick for a few hours, maybe a day or so, and then he would have started to pick up. This was strange though.  He’d get sick, seem to recover, get back to work and get sick again.  The same with Norris.  Now I hear that Leavy had been complaining about not feeling too hot for several days before he eventually died.”  Paul became aware that, as he described the symptoms, Ben had moved forward on his chair hanging on his every word.

“Any other symptoms?” he demanded.

Paul exhaled heavily as he got his thoughts in order.  “Spasmodic fever and diarrhoea.  Oh yes, something really odd.  Neither Farrell or Norris had stomach cramps or anything like that, but they did both complain of incredible pain in their fingers and face.  It seemed like their extremities were really being hit so that ...”  His voice trailed off.  “Ben, what’s the matter?”

The rancher had gone white. “Dear God,” he whispered, lowering his glass to the table.

“Pa, what is it?” Joe insisted, alarmed at the sudden change in his father’s demeanour and moving quickly round the table to sit in Adam’s place so that he was physically nearer his father in his sudden distress.

“That’s what’s happening to Adam?”  he gasped.

“What?” Joe knew that his brother had not been well lately but Ben had not made him privy to all the details.

“What do you mean?” Paul pressed. 

Ben ignored him.  “Did you do like I asked?  Did you watch him?”

“Yes, I did.”

“And?”

“Even without your reaction, I’d already decided that he must be ill.  He’s not yet thirty-one, fit and strong, doing a gruelling, strenuous job but he hadn’t been working this afternoon, had he?  He didn’t come down having just freshened up. He was up there, resting.  He’s pale; I can see that he’s lost weight and in a short space of time too.  He only ate a little and said even less.  You wanted me to watch him and it all adds up to something being wrong.  Tell me, Ben.”

“He started vomiting just over a week ago. He can’t keep anything down, and although I know he’s hungry, he seems to be afraid to eat. Even Hop Sing can’t tempt him, you saw that for yourself tonight, although he’s just eaten more than he’s done for the last two or three days.”  Ben had Paul’s total attention.  “He’s told me about the pain in his fingers, feet and face and says it gets unbearable.”

“Is it there all the time?” Paul asked, thinking back to Adam’s evident discomfort earlier when they had shaken hands.

“Apparently not, although he did say the periods are getting longer and  worse.”

“There has to be a link,” Paul thought out loud.

“You think it’s the same as Leavy, Norris and Farrell?” Joe asked, his voice quiet.

“It has to be,” Paul stated.

“But they’re dead,” Joe’s voice cracked.  The three men looked at each other in alarm.  Just then the door opened and Hoss entered, his face serious.

“Pa, I think you’d better get the Doc to take a look at Adam now.”

“Why, son?” Ben asked, already knowing in his heart what the answer would be.

“He just lost his dinner again,” Hoss announced, matter-of-factly.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Paul Martin had finished his examination of Adam, and rejoined the other three Cartwrights who sat in the lounge, anxiously sipping at brandy.

“Well?” Ben asked worriedly, pouring a drink for the doctor and handing it to him.

“There’s no doubt about it, it’s the same symptoms as the other men,” Paul announced.

“But what is it?” Joe demanded, an edge of anger in his voice. At that moment, he was angry with everyone and everything: angry at the doctor for being unable to give them a precise diagnosis; angry at Adam for not letting on how bad he was, angry at his father and older brother for not telling him that Adam had been so ill for several days and, even more to the point, angry with himself for not being observant enough to have realised that something was wrong.

“I’m sorry, Joe, but I have absolutely no idea.  There has to be a link in this that we’re just not seeing,” Paul answered.

“But we have to find that link - now.  Like I said, those other men are dead,” Joe was on his feet, punching the air in frustration as he punctuated his words.

“Now jest sit and calm yerself,” Hoss insisted.  “Ain’t gonna do anyone any good if you get excited.”  Joe merely continued to pace.

“We have to think about this logically,” Ben said thoughtfully. “We’ll have to see if we can go through every move Adam has made. There has to be  a tie-in with those other men.  Joseph, get some paper and a pencil from my desk.”

Joe sprang into action, relieved at last that they were doing something constructive.  Hoss cleared the coffee table of coffee cups and glasses and the four men gathered close.  Ben positioned himself on the sofa and acted as scribe as, between him and his sons, they attempted to recreate Adam’s every move for the preceding week as best they could.  Then the doctor added what he knew about each of the three dead men.

An hour later, they sat back as Hop Sing brought a fresh tray of coffee and they surveyed the sheets of paper strewn over the table, their disappointment plain. All they had managed to show was where there was no link between the deceased and the eldest Cartwright son.

“So,” Ben began, as he attempted to summarise their efforts, “although the other three men were all in Virginia City at the same time, the only occasion Adam was there recently was days after Leavy had died and before Farrell became ill.  He never saw Farrell that day and he certainly has not been anywhere near Ty Norris’ place so he had no contact there.  When Adam and Hoss went in that day, they did not stop to eat anywhere so there’s no link in eating places.  Besides, Paul, you already ruled out food poisoning after Farrell, because there were no other incidences.”

“We can eliminate foodstuffs bought from the store because none of the men bought supplies there on the same days, yet other folks did, and none of them took sick,” Paul explained.

“When I buy food there, I cook and no-one else get sick in house here,” Hop Sing insisted as he looked around the Cartwright men for affirmation.

Hoss came to his support.  “We’ve all eaten the same things, even when Hop Sing packs us up something at lunch times.”

“That rules out Hop Sing’s cooking then,” Joe announced, flashing the little Chinaman a wicked grin.  The cook ‘harrumped’ loudly in disgust and stood there, arms folded.

“What about when Adam’s been working off on his own on the Ponderosa?  Any chance something might have affected him there?” Paul wanted to know.

“He’s been with one of us most of the time over the past few days,” Ben answered. “He was up at the lumber camp the first half of last week.”

“Adam an’ I have already discussed that,” Hoss put in.  “He ate the same as the men and got his water from the same place.  None of them were sick then and we sure haven’t heard anything since.  Something as bad as this going round and somebody would have been squealing for the Doc afore now.”

“Hoss’s right,” Paul conceded.  Ben nodded, accepting the line of reasoning.

“What about watering holes?  Has he stopped to use any others on the ranch?  Could it be one of them has got contaminated?” Paul pressed.

“Rule that one out,” Joe interceded.

“How can you be so sure?”

“Stands to reason.  If we’ve got a contaminated water hole, we’d have sick or dying cattle.  We’ve had hands out all over this ranch in the past couple of days and not one of them has reported a problem.  Even if they had, it wouldn’t link in Leavy and the others; they haven’t been out to the Ponderosa at all,” Joe explained.

“Good point,” agreed Ben, and Paul was forced to concur.

“Anyway, Adam always starts off the day with a full canteen from the supply to the house.  Only time he’s refilled elsewhere recently is out at the Widow Rawlins place,” Hoss commented.

“When was that?” Paul asked, curiosity aroused.

“Don’t get excited.  I thought that was the answer second day Adam took ill, but he said the water was from her well.  She uses it for herself and her little bit of livestock, so that sure ain’t contaminated,” Hoss sighed.  This was getting them nowhere.  The men lapsed into silence.

“This Widow Rawlins; she the one who bought up the Bates’ place?” Paul inquired.

“Yes, why, you know her?” Ben asked.

“Just of her; I haven’t seen her yet so I wouldn’t know who she was if she passed me in the street.”

“Oh believe me,” Hoss snorted, “once you’ve seen her; you’d know it was her straight off.  She’s mighty stern, though Adam reckons she’s thawed out a little recently.  He’s been doin’ some jobs for her when he’s finished here; he’s gone and mended fences and started repairing the barn.”

“That’s why I thought he’d been overdoing things,” Ben remonstrated with himself.

“How long’s he been doin’ that job then?” Paul asked.

“’Bout the same time as he’s been ill,” Hoss said in all innocence.  Suddenly the importance of his words registered with all of them and they all leaned in towards him as he went through events in his head.  “First day he went out there, he was sick on the way home.  Same thing happened the next day and others.”

“But there have been days when he‘s been ill and not been out to the Widow’s place, like today,” Joe added quietly.  Hoss’s argument appeared to fall apart.

“I get the feeling we’re so close, only we can’t find that all important link,” Ben said, his frustration clear.

Paul got to his feet, “Well, it’s getting too late and we’re all too tired to think straight.  Maybe things will be more obvious in the morning.  I have to get going, Ben.  Thanks for your hospitality and I’m sorry about Adam.  I hope he’s feeling better in the morning, but if not, don‘t hesitate to call me in.” He extended a hand to the rancher in farewell.

“Thanks for taking a look at him, Paul,” Ben took the proffered hand and shook it warmly.  “I promise that, next time, we won’t make you work for your dinner.”  All the men laughed briefly.

“I’ll hold you to that,” the Doctor countered as he disappeared out into the night, accompanied by Hoss.  Ben and Joe watched their guest’s departure and then, as Hoss secured the barn doors, they turned back inside the house.

Ben laid a hand on Joe’s shoulder.  “I’m going up to check on Adam and then I’m going to turn in.  Sleep well, Joseph, and say goodnight to Hoss for me, will you?”

“Sure thing, Pa.  You have a good night too.”  Joe watched, his brow creased with anxiety as his father trudged wearily up the stairs, his tread heavy, his head bowed and his shoulders slumped. Concern for his eldest was taking its toll.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

A couple of days later, Paul Martin strode along the covered boardwalk in the direction of the mercantile store mulling, as he did so, about events out at the Ponderosa and replaying the conversation with the Cartwrights in his head. He was desperately seeking a link between the four men that might shed some light as to the cause of death of three of them and what was ailing the fourth.  That link had to be found, and soon, otherwise the risk to Adam was only too real.

In the store, someone was already being served by Morrison, and Martin browsed among the shelves, his mind elsewhere and not really seeing the stock, but gradually the conversation between the store owner and the customer permeated his thoughts.

“Is that all you’ve got?” the customer was asking, her voice clipped with displeasure.

“That’s the last of it, Ma’am, until new supplies come in,” Ike Morrison was explaining.

“When’s that likely to be?” she persisted.

“Sometime in the next few days; can’t say for sure.”

“And what am I supposed to do when this bit has gone?”

“Well, I’m sorry, Ma’am. but you’ve had all the arsenic I carry.  Don’t get much call for it, until now,” Morrison apologised.  “Surely you should have got rid of them pests by now?”

“That’s what I keep thinking, Mr Morrison, and yet they keep coming back.  I suppose this’ll have to do for now, but I’d appreciate you putting some to one side for me when it comes in.”

“Will do, Ma’am.  Now, are you settling up now or do you want this adding to your account?”

Paul Martin did not hear the rest of the exchange; his mind was racing and it was some moments before he realised that he was being addressed by the store owner.

“What was that?” Martin asked, drawn from his reverie.

“I wanted to know what you were needing, Doc.  Everything okay?  You looked like you was far away right then,” Ike observed.

“Sorry.  Say, Ike, who was that woman buying the arsenic?”

“Guess she hasn’t had to see you in an official capacity yet, huh?  That’s Mrs Rawlins; bought up the Bates place a while back.  Sure is having one mighty big problem with rats in the barn though.  She’s been buying up my entire stock of arsenic over the weeks but the rats must be getting the flavour of it now..  Hey, Doc, you never said what you were wanting ....” This last he called after the doctor who had suddenly walked out, leaving the door swinging slowly shut in his wake.

Back in his office, the doctor sat at his desk and pulled out the bottom drawer to retrieve a pile of medical journals that were sent to him from the east every six to eight weeks. He remembered reading a particular article and he needed to find it now; it could be vitally important and he had to refresh his memory.

                                                ***********

Ben was sitting at his desk writing letters in an atmosphere of calm and quiet that had fallen on the house.  Periodically he would be disturbed by the soft sound of footsteps on the flooring as Hop Sing emerged from the kitchen, wiping his hands on his apron.  He would look in the direction of the sofa, nod in satisfied contentment, and then disappear back into the kitchen again.  Ben smiled in silent appreciation of the little Chinaman’s concern and watchfulness.  Hadn’t he himself occasionally left his desk to cross to the back of the sofa and glance down on his sleeping son? 

Adam had put up little resistance to Ben’s insistence that he stay at home today and there had been even less of an argument when Ben had delegated Adam’s usual chores in the vicinity of the house to his brothers.  Necessary paperwork had held his attention for only an hour or so before he had sat down on the sofa and, in minutes, was sound asleep.  Ben and Hop Sing had removed his boots and, between them, laid him down, a cushion beneath his head, a rug spread over his lower limbs.  He had not even stirred. 

This had been enough to cause Ben some anxiety.  Adam was a notoriously light sleeper and had been since infancy.  Many was the time that Ben had rocked him to sleep and had been about to return the child to his crib when he had reawakened with the slight movement.  Nothing short of an explosion would move Hoss once he was in a deep sleep and, although restless, Joe was also a sound sleeper but Adam would be wide awake and alert at the slightest noise. Now, Ben and Hop Sing had struggled with his close-fitting boots, laid him down and swung his legs up onto the sofa and his eyes had not even flickered.

It had been a couple of days since Paul had dined with the Cartwrights and although Ben had continued to wrack his brains, he still could not see any pattern to Adam’s illness.  It was now three days since Adam had last left the Ponderosa and this was the first day when the sickness had not struck although, Ben acknowledged reluctantly, there was still time.  Maybe he ought to contact Paul again.

At that moment, there was a loud knock at the door.  Ben looked up as Hop Sing passed him to open it, and still Adam did not move. 

“Come in, come in,” Hop Sing said quietly, and took the Doctor’s hat for him as Paul Martin was ushered into the great room.

“Hi, Paul,” Ben greeted softly, grasping the other man’s hand.

“Ben,” Paul nodded in response.  “How’s he doing?” he asked, standing beside the elder Cartwright to look down on the son.

“No better.  You saved me from having to send for you. Come on through to the kitchen and we’ll have some of Hop Sing’s coffee while I fill you in,” and Ben guided his visitor through to the heart of the house.

They settled themselves at the kitchen table and waited until Hop Sing had put two steaming cups of strong, black coffee in front of them before either of them spoke.

“If anything,” Ben began, “Adam’s getting worse.  After you’d gone Saturday evening, he slept through until gone ten yesterday morning - can’t remember the last time he did that - and he’s slept most of today.”

“Has he had the sickness again?”

“Not yet today, but he was bad late yesterday afternoon.”

“Think, Ben.  We have to find a pattern here.  What’s he eaten and done?”

Ben ran a hand through his hair as he thought.  “He ate a little breakfast yesterday, some of Hop Sing’s fresh bread and later he had some chicken soup.  Last night he had some fish - we all did - caught in the afternoon by Joe and Hoss.  Today he’s had more fresh bread and beef soup.  Everything was made by Hop Sing and we’ve all eaten the same. Both days he’s stayed here, too lethargic and weak to leave the house, so he’s not done anything.”

“But there has to be something, Ben.  Anything out of the ordinary?” Paul persisted.

“The lady come,” Hop Sing intervened.

“Lady?  What lady?” Paul wanted to know.

“Oh, I’d forgotten,” Ben gasped. “Mrs Rawlins came to visit briefly yesterday afternoon.  She didn’t stay long.  She knew that Adam had been ill last week and again he’d not shown at her place to carry on doing any work so she thought she’d ride on over and see how he was doing.  It was neighbourly of her.  She stayed for some refreshments and to leave Adam some cookies and then she went.”

Paul tried to suppress his mounting horror.  “Did he eat the cookies?”

Ben was surprised at Paul’s interest in an edible gift.  “Of course.  There weren’t many and she said she’d baked them especially for him.  Adam was quite touched; maybe he’s getting through to this woman after all. It was hard keeping Hoss away from the cookies but once Adam had convinced him that they weren’t as good as Hop Sing’s, he didn’t mind.”

“Are there any of these cookies left?” demanded Paul.

“No; like I said, there weren’t many.”

“And then Adam got sick.  How soon?”

“Oh, I don’t rightly recall.  An hour later, I suppose, maybe a little less.  Why?  Where are you going with this, Paul? Surely you don’t think it was the cookies?  That Mrs Rawlins ...” Ben’s voice trailed off in disbelief.

“I don’t know for sure, Ben, but humour me. We need to wake up Adam.  I want a clip of his hair and a sample of his urine.  Oh, and I‘d like to take his usual water canteen with me as well.”

“What on earth for?”

“I’m following up an idea but I don’t know if it is going to work.  Has he drunk enough today?”

“Possibly. Whenever he’s awake we try to get him to drink water; I’m worried he’s going to get dehydrated.”

It was a little under an hour later when Ben watched the Doctor ride off into the distance, apparently satisfied with a cutting of Adam’s hair, a curl from behind his right ear.  That had been the easy part. Producing the water sample had been more problematic as they had roused him from a deep sleep.  He was groggy, grouchy and embarrassed as the Doctor and his father awaited results. It was soon obvious that he had not been drinking enough and so they had had to ply him with several glasses full before there had been any positive effect.

“What was that all about?” Adam growled as his father came back into the room.

“Paul’s got an idea and he has to do a few tests to work out what’s wrong with you,” Ben explained, tying to sound more light-hearted than he was actually feeling as he plumped up the cushions and folded the rug.  “You feel like eating anything?”

“Nope, but you’ll make me anyway,” Adam replied.  Ben was pleased to see his serious features break into a wry smile and he grinned back.

“Well, if you think you can stagger into the kitchen with me and Hop Sing, maybe we’ll find something that’ll interest you,” and he reached out a hand to help his son to his feet.

Adam took it and allowed his father to put a steadying arm round his waist when he swayed slightly. “Oh it all interests me, Pa,” he reluctantly conceded as they moved slowly towards the kitchen and he realised he was hungry.  “I just want it to stay put when I‘ve eaten it.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Ben was back at his desk next day when the knock came.

“You no move, I get it,” Hop Sing said from the bottom of the stairs. He had just been about to head up them, arms full of fresh linen.  Now he turned and deposited his load on the nearest chair before seeing who the visitors were.  He admitted Paul Martin and Roy Coffee.

Ben rose to meet them, a smile on his face in greeting but the smile faded when he noted their serious expressions.

“Roy, Paul,” he shook each of them by the hand and indicated a chair. They mumbled their greeting and sat, the sheriff looking uncomfortable as his fingers circled the brim of his hat in his hands.  “What brings you both here?”

“I get coffee,” Hop Sing announced and bustled out, leaving the men to talk.  Paul Martin broke the silence.

“You remember I took a clip of Adam’s hair yesterday and a urine sample,” he began.

“Yes.  Have you found something?” Ben hardly gave him time to answer and the doctor raised a hand to stem the tide of questions.

“Back in 1836, an English chemist called James Marsh developed a test. It was pure chance that I was reading a report about it recently.  Anyway, it wasn’t easy but I reproduced the test as best I could.  The results might not be totally accurate but the Marsh test is unbelievably sensitive and can give us a good idea.”

“What does this test do?” Ben was worried now.

“It detects the presence of arsenic in body tissue and fluids,” Paul explained quietly.

Ben stared at him in horror as the words registered.  “What are you saying? That Adam has got arsenic in him?”

“In small enough doses, arsenic does not have to be fatal.  Indeed, I’ve read that there are some who swear by its medicinal value but I haven’t met any of those people myself.  Anyway, it can be administered over a period of time.  It causes severe stomach upsets, debilitating tiredness, dehydration, diarrhoea and extreme pins and needles, in particular in the hands and feet.  Norris, Tyler and Adam have all complained of this.  Don’t you see, it fits.  They received a dose, got sick, recovered slightly, received another dose, got sick again and the cycle went on.  All the time, with Norris, Tyler and, so we now believe, Leavy, the level of arsenic in their bodies was increasing until they had an extreme reaction.  The level was too high and they died. It’s arsenic poisoning.”

“So Adam’s got arsenic in him and it’s getting more all the time?” Ben was trying to get the idea straight in his head.  “But how’s it getting there?”  The two other men looked at each other before Roy answered.

“Eliza Rawlins has been dosing him up with it.”

“Eliza Rawlins?” Ben stared at them in disbelief. “How?”

“She gave it to him in drinks and food when he was out working for her and she put it in his canteen; there were traces there,” Paul explained.

“But she came here a couple of days ago to see how Adam was doing when she heard he got sick!” Ben objected.

"Yes, and what did she bring with her?” Roy asked quietly.

The horror of the situation hit Ben hard. “The cookies!  She brought him a plate of cookies.”

“Exactly. We made some more inquiries and found that Leavy, Norris and Tyler had all been out to her ranch making deliveries or offering to help her around the place. It’s the only thing that ties them all together.”

“And I saw her at the mercantile store earlier yesterday morning.  She was buying arsenic; claims she has rats in the barn,“ Paul added.  “That’s when I put the pieces together.”

Roy took up the story again. “Each time they went out to her place, she gave them some of the poison.  In a small quantity, it’s tasteless.  They would never have known.  She gave Adam coffee, filled his canteen for him on more than one occasion, and baked the cookies by her own admission.  All gave her ample opportunity to dose him with the arsenic.

“Once he’d got enough in his system, it didn’t matter if he did not go and see her every day.  As soon as he ate anything substantial, he got sick to his stomach,” Paul added.

Ben looked at Roy, an expression of disgust and rage distorting his features. “Are you trying to tell me that woman has deliberately been poisoning my son?”

“It looks like it,” Paul agreed.

“Where is Adam now?” Roy asked.  “We need to go ask him some questions.”

Ben paled as realisation dawned.  His answer was barely a whisper as fear coursed through him.  “He’s there, at the Rawlins’ place.  He felt he was letting her down and, as he was feeling more like himself today, he’s gone to help her some more.  I didn‘t want him to go; I felt he ought to give himself some more time, but you know what he‘s like.”  He appealed to the other two men and they nodded in sympathetic agreement; they had learned over the years that once the eldest Cartwright son had set his mind to something, he was virtually immovable.

“We’d best get over there as quickly as we can,” Roy said, somewhat unnecessarily as the three men headed for the door.  Hop Sing was just appearing from the kitchen with the freshly made coffee when he saw the men leaving. 

“You don’t want coffee?“ he asked, wondering at their haste.  Ben paused as he picked up his gunbelt from the dresser by the door and buckled it round his waist.  Reaching for his hat, he issued rapid instructions.

“Tell Hoss and Little Joe we’ve gone over to the Rawlins place.  We have to get to Adam and quickly. He’s in danger,“ and the door slammed shut.

"Danger?  What you mean danger?  How Mistah Adam in danger?  Where I find Mistah Hoss and Mistah Joe?” He stood bewildered in the empty room, his words falling in the silence, the tray of coffee and cups still in his hands.

The three men had swiftly mounted and headed northwards. They rode in silence, each lost in their own thoughts and filled with trepidation.  All Ben could think of was that Adam had been worsening as the days passed.  His rate of recuperation following each bout was slower or incomplete and now he may have been even further at risk.

If what they surmised about the Widow Rawlins was true, Roy found it difficult to conceive that a woman could commit such a heinous act.  In all his years as a lawman, he had never seen the like.  There were probably at least three men dead at the hands of this woman and now, the eldest son of one of his closest friends looked set to be her next victim.  Roy shook his head in disbelief.  Adam was a serious, intense young man, considerate when it came to the welfare of others and concerned that right was always done.  Here he was, giving time after an already demanding day on the Ponderosa to a woman who was apparently in need; yet her method of repayment was to steadily dose him with poison. 

Paul Martin had been describing to him how ill the eldest Cartwright boy was looking when he had checked him over at Ben’s request.  The Doctor had also listed the symptoms that poor Adam had experienced over a period of time; all deliberately inflicted and to what purpose?  What had the Widow Rawlins hoped to achieve by this?  Lawyers were looking into the estates of the dead men but Adam was in no position to sign anything over to her.  Everything to do with the Ponderosa was still firmly in Ben’s name; none of the boys was able to take sole responsibility, even in the event of Ben’s demise. 

So what had she wanted?  Adam could not have suspected anything himself.  No-one willingly wanted to be that ill and certainly no-one with an ounce of intelligence was prepared to deliberately run the apparent risk he would be taking by his repeated visits to the Widow had he known. 

Roy could only see two uncomfortable alternatives.  Either Eliza Rawlins had lost her grip on her sanity or she derived a cold, sadistic delight in the suffering she was inflicting.

Despite being pleased that he had read the report on the Marsh test and had, in part, reproduced it with some success, Paul could not disguise his irrational feeling of guilt that he had not identified things earlier.  Why had he not questioned before now the suspicious deaths of  Leavy, Farrell, and Norris?  Why had he not looked at the similarities in the symptoms and their rapid deterioration with more care?  Supposing they failed to find Adam in time?  If Widow Rawlins had been systematically poisoning him over several days, she might have been steadily increasing the doses. If she was in the process of poisoning him even now, as they rode to intervene, who could say if this was not a larger dose, or even the potentially fatal one?  He breathed deeply, a cold fear gripping his heart.  He could not even begin to conceive what this would do to the Cartwright family.

Ben suddenly reined in as he saw a rider approaching them in the distance.  Shielding his eyes against the sun, he squinted as he sought to recognise the animal.  He was sure it was Sport.

"That’s Adam,” he cried in relief and spurred his horse on to meet the other rider.  The distant sorrel ground to a halt and for a moment, its rider swayed in the saddle.  To Ben’s horror, the man slid sideways and pitched head first onto the ground.

“Adam!” he yelled. “Adam!” He leaped from his own horse and ran the last few steps across the ground to where Adam lay, still and silent.  Rolling him over onto his back, Ben gasped at the sight of his son. 

Adam was a deathly white, his eyes darkly ringed.  His breathing was laboured, his skin sheened with sweat and his black shirt front stained with fresh vomit.

“Adam,” Ben pulled him up into his arms as the sheriff and the doctor arrived alongside and dismounted to join the father and son.

“Ben, let me take a look at him,” Paul offered.  Quickly and silently, he examined the semi-conscious young man but, in this wide open space, there was little he could do other than force a little water through the dry lips.  It was no good; seconds after swallowing, Adam jerked in his father’s arms and retched noisily.  Ben patiently held him as his shoulders heaved and more vomit puddled into the dust at his side. 

Paul tried to keep his voice steady as he stared at the evidence tinged with the dark red flecks of blood.  “We need to get him back to the Ponderosa as quickly as possible.”

Together, they hauled Adam up and guided his left foot into the stirrup.  Working as a team, they pushed him up into the saddle and Ben mounted rapidly behind him, his arms wrapped round him to keep him on the horse.  They had not been riding for long when he felt the limp form sag heavily against him; Adam had totally lost consciousness now.

Hoss met them as they pulled up outside the house.

“Pa, what’s going on?  Hop Sing said Adam was in danger,” demanded Hoss, concerned by the arrival of the Sheriff and the Doctor with his father, but then he saw his sick brother.  “Is Adam real bad?”

Ben ignored his question.  “Give me a hand, Hoss.  We have to get him into the house.” 

Hoss stepped forward to assist as his father lowered his brother into his arms.  He could not prevent himself from instinctively wrinkling his nose in disgust as his nostrils picked up the unmistakable odour of vomit and something else. 

“Pa?” he began, shifting his hold on Adam so that he could slip one arm round his brother’s shoulders and the other under his knees in order to pick him up with remarkable ease.  At nearly six feet two and strong in build, Adam was no lightweight but he could have been a mere baby in the way Hoss gathered him up.  Ben dismounted, silencing his middle son with a glance.

“We need to get him cleaned up as soon as possible and make him comfortable.”  He made no other  reference to the fact that Adam had completely lost bowel and bladder control as they had ridden up to the ranch house.

In Adam’s room, Hoss stood to one side, effortlessly carrying his brother whilst the other men and Hop Sing made preparations.  Unbidden, the little Chinaman came and went with bowls of hot water and cloths and two empty bowls. Paul Martin searched through his medical bag whilst Roy and Ben stripped down the bed covers and laid out clean towels to protect the sheeted mattress.  Hoss relinquished his precious burden, remaining on hand to help manipulate the unresponsive limbs as his father and Roy Coffee peeled off the layers of soiled, stinking clothing.

Just as silently, Hop Sing gathered up the discarded shirt, black pants and underclothing and removed them from the room as Ben and Paul soaked cloths and gently wiped clean the naked form that lay between them on the bed.

“Where’s Joseph?” Ben asked distractedly, never pausing in his task and throwing a dirty cloth into an empty basin on the floor.  Reaching for a clean towel Hop Sing had put in a pile at the foot of the bed, he began to dry Adam’s legs   He knew he was probably being irrational, but at that moment, he wanted his three sons where he could see them.

“He’d gone out to check the herd in the lower pastures. I sent Charlie to go get him.” Hoss felt helpless, standing by and watching as his father and the doctor frantically worked. “What’s goin’ on, Pa?  What’s wrong with Adam?  Why’d you say he was in danger?”

Roy, feeling equally at a loss, crossed the room to join him.  “Your brother’s been poisoned with arsenic.”

Hoss turned frightened eyes on him.  All he had picked up on was ‘poisoned’ and ‘arsenic’; two words that were guaranteed to conjure up fear.  “Who’d want to poison Adam?”

“It’s the Widow Rawlins,” Roy explained.

Hoss was just as amazed as his father.  “What?  Why?  I mean how can you ...” his words trailed off in disbelief.

“That’s what we intend to find out,” Roy assured him.  “Doc, any chance that Adam can tell us anything soon?”

Paul straightened up from where he had been taking Adam’s pulse and leaving Ben to cover him with a cotton sheet.  “I doubt it, Roy.  He’s not been properly conscious since we got him back home.  He doesn’t look as if he’s going to come round fully any time soon.”

“I’ll wait a bit though,” Roy said, “if no-one minds, that is.”

“You’re welcome, Roy; you know that,” Hoss answered when his father failed to answer.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Hoss was still standing inside the door when Joe slipped in some time later and stood beside him.   Together they watched proceedings.  Roy Coffee was heading back into town, realising that there was no way Adam would be in a fit enough state to answer any questions that night.  As he laid a reassuring hand of farewell on Joe’s arm before he vacated the room, Roy cast one long backward glance and desperately hoped that there would be a time when Adam could speak for himself.  Right now, the situation was not looking good.  Ben was sitting on the bed, his back against the carved bedhead.  Adam half lay, half sat against him, eyes closed where he remained semi-conscious, his skin clammy and beaded with sweat.  Every so often, he moved in obvious discomfort, his brow furrowing and a low moan escaping him, almost akin to a stifled sob.

Joe nudged Hoss and whispered worriedly, “How’s he doing?”

“Not too good.  They’ve given up trying to get any water into him; he can’t keep anything down and when he’s not throwing up, he’s messin’ hisself.  They’ve changed the bed and cleaned him up twice now,” Hoss explained. 

Joe registered shock.  Knowing his brother, Joe realised that he would be more than mortified by his lack of bodily control.  He listened, his horror mounting, as Hoss explained what was actually wrong with Adam and Mrs Rawlins’ supposed part in events.

Joe had witnessed ranching accidents and gunshot wounds, but this deliberate poisoning was something beyond his experience and he could not understand the callousness of such an act, especially when Adam had tried so hard to help this woman.  He felt so helpless in that he could do absolutely nothing to alleviate his brother’s suffering.

Movement from the bed broke into his reverie.  Adam was restless, his father muttering softly in reassurance as the ritual began again.  Paul stepped forward with the bowl and Ben held Adam’s head as the agonised retching tore through him once more.  Joe winced at the painful sound and turned towards Hoss, who had not failed to notice the exchange of alarmed expressions between his father and the doctor.

“What is it, Pa?” he asked urgently, unfolding his arms and pushing himself up and away from the wall to approach the bed.  Adam was spitting bile into the bowl, his stomach long since empty.

“Blood,” Ben replied simply, wiping Adam’s mouth and settling back against the pillows with him before turning worried eyes in Paul’s direction.

“Blood!” Joe exclaimed, moving to unconsciously grip the foot of the bed, his knuckles white and a stark contrast to the darkened wood.

“It’s okay,” Paul reassured them as he finished his inspection of the bowl’s meagre contents and handed it with a nod to Hop Sing for cleaning yet again.  “He’s not got a serious internal bleed such as from the stomach; there’s not enough there.  It’s more likely that with all this retching, he’s busted some blood vessels in his throat.  It’ll add to his discomfort but it’s nothing to worry about.”

“You sure?” Hoss insisted.

“Positive,” Paul smiled in an attempt to reassure father and younger brothers.  He hoped he looked more confident than he felt.  Three men had died of arsenic poisoning in the last two weeks and two of them had been despite his own futile ministrations.  He was working in the dark here, knowing only what he had read, never having encountered other cases like these before.  The slightest change in Adam’s condition over the past few hours and he was doing a mental comparison with similar symptoms in Farrell and Norris.

Silently Martin prayed that they had reached Adam before he had received a potentially fatal dose; the signs were good.  He had lasted longer than the other men once the doctor had been summoned.  Maybe he had not ingested as much poison as the others.  Maybe, because he was undoubtedly younger, fitter and stronger than the first victims, he stood a better chance of fighting the effects. Maybe, Martin thought grimly, those were the very reasons why this was being drawn out so long.  Maybe Adam had had the lethal dose but was just taking longer to die.  Martin shrugged himself free of the desperation: too many maybes and unknown quantities.

He looked at Ben, cradling his eldest son tenderly in his arms, rocking him slightly as he attempted to sooth the low whimpers of pain and stroked the long fingers, held claw-like in excruciating agony.

“Can’t you give him anything for the pain?” Joe asked, having heard about the inflammation of the nerve endings from Hoss.

“I wish I could, Joe,” the doctor patiently explained, “But he wouldn’t keep anything down long enough for it to start working. Besides, I wouldn’t want to give him anything that might react with the arsenic.  I’m sorry, but I’m treading on unknown ground here.”

“We know that, Paul.  We know you’re doing your best,” Ben said quietly, never ceasing the gentle rocking.

Paul watched as Hoss dampened a cloth and lightly started to bathe his brother’s face.  Joe seated himself on the side of the bed and carefully took one of Adam’s listless hands in his own as if it were so fragile, his thumb softly rubbing the fingertips in a vain attempt to ease the suffering.

Adam had something the other victims had never had.  One had died entirely alone, another one had had only the doctor vainly trying to do his job.  The last had at least had the support of a couple of neighbours. Adam, on the other hand,  had a father and two brothers who loved him and who were willing him to live with every fibre of their being.  Silently, yet united, they were urging him to fight and not give up.  He must respond.

The evening wore on into night and in the subdued atmosphere of Adam’s bedroom, the struggle for life continued.  The bouts of vomiting subsided, but they had taken their toll and he was severely weakened, his breath coming in deep ragged gasps, fever eating away at him as he slipped in and out of consciousness, his fingers still clawing in agony at sweat-soaked sheets.  As his father held him gently, his brothers, the doctor and Hop Sing took turns to sponge him down with tepid water in a vain attempt to break the fever and wet his dry lips, fearful of letting him swallow any liquid in case it triggered the noisy, agonised retching once more.

About three o’clock in the morning, as Hoss and Joe dozed fitfully in a corner of the room and Hop Sing went to get fresh water and heat up more coffee, Ben turned exhausted eyes on his doctor friend.

“How much more can he take?  How much worse can this get?

Paul took a deep breath. He had known Ben Cartwright too long to withhold the truth, such as he knew it, or attempt to ease the pain of the situation with well-meaning platitudes.  “I don’t know, Ben.  I never saw this in the other men.”

Ben held his gaze as the words sank in.  “You mean they were all dead before this?”

Paul nodded.  “There are things in Adam’s favour.  He’s much younger than any of them and he’s strong ...”

“Not at the moment,” Ben interrupted bitterly.  “His strength’s all but gone.  This has been building up for days.”

“But he’s still with us, Ben; he’s a fighter.  He’s been a fighter all his life, which is more than can be said for the other men....”  He stopped himself.

“That woman did this deliberately. If I ever get my hands on her ....,”  he let his threat tail off as Adam moaned softly in his arms.  His anger immediately dissipated as his attention was diverted and he looked down, all the while stroking Adam’s sweat-soaked hair from his burning forehead. Ben kissed the top of his head.  “She went out of her way to harm my son.  She even had the audacity to come to this house to visit, pretending to be concerned, and all the while she was taking the opportunity to feed him more of her ....poison.  And I let her, Paul; I’ll never forgive myself.”

“You weren’t to know, Ben. How could you?” Paul objected in a harsh whisper, trying not to awaken the sleeping brothers; Hoss snored gently.

“I welcomed her into this house.  I let her have access to him; this woman whom he had been helping. She sat and chatted with him, Hop Sing gave her coffee and all the while, she’d brought those cookies.  I even heard her say she’d specially baked them for him and that she didn’t want him to share them.  Why didn’t I question that?  Why didn’t the alarm bells ring in my head?”

“Why should they have done, Ben?  I wouldn’t have stopped to consider a neighbourly act.  You said yourself he was helping her on her spread.  Folks in town have been commenting on just what a proud woman she is; it’s understandable to make a mistake and think the cookies were the only way she felt she could repay him without being mightily embarrassed.  You have to stop beating yourself up about this.  He already had the arsenic in his system.”

“And then he had more and I could have stopped it,” Ben remonstrated with himself, voice taut with grief.  “It wouldn’t have come to this.”

The crisis came before the next hour was up.  Hop Sing shook Joe and Hoss awake and the three of them gathered at the foot of the bed, looking on with white, fearful faces.  Joe swiped angrily at a stray tear and Hoss slipped an arm comfortingly around him. 

The only sound in the room was Adam’s laboured, ragged breathing.  His heels scrabbled briefly at the crumpled sheet until Paul’s hands reached out to still him, and his fingers clutched desperately at his father’s arm. 

Ben held him tight, rocking him, willing his own strength to pass into his dying son.  “Fight it, Adam.  Fight it, you must,” he whispered fiercely, his mouth close to Adam’s ear but his voice just loud enough that the others could hear.  Joe gave up on trying to stem the tears as he witnessed his father’s desperation.  This couldn’t be it. They couldn’t give up on Adam like this.

“Doc,” he begged.

“I’m sorry, Joe.  I can’t do any more.”  Paul’s heart was heavy. He had helped this family through so much, nursed so many bullet wounds and broken bones, but he could do nothing in this instance. He had never felt so helpless.

“Adam,” Joe’s voice was beseeching.  His brother had to hear him.  “Adam, don’t you dare give up.”

“You hear him?  You hear your brother?  Don’t you dare give up, son.  Don’t do this to me.  You’ve always been a fighter; you’ve always come through. Do it this time. Please, son, for me.  Your brothers need you. I need you.  I need your strength.  You’re always there, always have been.  Don’t you leave me. I won’t let you, you hear.    You keep fighting, you hear me.  Keep fighting.  I love you, son.  Stay with me, please.”  Ben kept up his frantic pleading, tears trickling down his cheeks, his frame shaking with suppressed sobs and his hold on Adam tightening as if the sheer ferocity of his embrace could prevent what he feared was inevitable.  As the hours had passed, he had been increasingly aware of the change in Adam, of his deterioration and growing weakness.  It was as if Ben could feel the very life slipping away from Adam and he clung to it now, not willing to let go.

The rasping breathing slowed.  Adam shuddered in his father’s arms and went still.  Ben’s eyes widened in horror.

“Noooooooo!” His denial was an animal-like wail as he bent, burying his face in Adam’s neck.  Joe gasped and turned into Hoss’s waiting arms as they wept together.

Paul stood, head bowed, a hand resting on the shoulder of his grief-stricken friend.  It was Hop Sing who, through his own tears, thought he saw the movement, albeit very slight, but he was sure the fingers of the limp hand draped on the sheet flexed a little.   He moved forward and tenderly took the hand in his; it was, as expected, still warm.  He stroked the palm very gently, his touch feather-like and tickling. The fingers jerked slightly.

“Doctor Paul,” he said softly, not wanting to interrupt the family’s grief before he was absolutely sure.  “Doctor Paul.”  Paul glanced in his direction and Hop Sing repeated his action.  The fingers moved again.  Paul glanced quickly at the grieving Cartwrights, oblivious to anything but their shared pain.  He took Adam’s hand from Hop Sing and felt for a pulse.  His eyes lit up and the flicker of a smile crossed his face as he looked at Hop Sing.  The Chinaman nodded sagely, his relief evident.

Paul needed to check Adam more thoroughly but he was enveloped in his father’s arms.  “Ben. please.  I need to see.”  Gradually, Ben eased his hold and raised his head.  He watched resigned as Paul felt Adam’s brow and cheeks and felt the side of his neck to double check the pulse.  Without a word, he used his stethoscope to listen for a heart beat; it was there, thready and weak but it was definitely there.

Paul straightened up, his own eyes filling with unshed tears.  “He’s okay, Ben. The fever’s broken.”  Ben’s jaw dropped open in disbelief.  He looked first at the doctor and then down at the limp form of his son, a dead weight in his arms.  “He’s made it, Ben.  He’s come through.  He’s asleep.”

Ben gave a shaky laugh and stroked Adam’s face.  It was true, he was cooler to the touch and his breathing, so frighteningly rasping for much of the night, was now quiet and regular.  His features, tortured with pain and sickness for so long, had softened; ebony lashes a startling contrast to his ashen cheeks.

“Pa?” Hoss dare not believe that everything was fine until his father confirmed it.

“He’s all right, Hoss,” Ben smiled through his tears and held his precious son close. He had genuinely thought that he had lost him and now his desperate prayers had been heard and answered.  “Thank you, good Lord. Thank you for giving him back to me,” he whispered.

Joe and Hoss stirred into action with relief and joy. Paul watched, his face breaking into a wide grin as Hoss moved to one side of the bed, one arm engulfing his father, the other reaching to gently enfold his stricken brother whilst Joe clambered onto the other side of the bed, his left hand reaching for his father whilst he cupped Adam’s face in the other and kissed him fervently on the forehead, something he would never have contemplated - or risked - had his brother been well or at least awake. 

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

It was nearing mid-day when Sheriff Roy Coffee rode up to the Ponderosa ranch house, dismounting just as Hoss came out of the barn.

“Back again, Roy?” Hoss asked.

“Got some news for your Pa.  He around?”

Hoss chuckled, “No prizes for guessing where.  He hasn’t left Adam’s side since you brought him home yesterday.”

“How is Adam?”

“The Doc says he’s through the worst but it’ll be a while yet before we know whether all the arsenic has worked its way through his system.”

“But he’s going to be okay?”

Hoss grinned in unmistakable relief.  “Yeah, he’s gonna be okay.”

“I’m glad.  Maybe my news’ll help things along too.”

“Go on in, Roy.  You know where they’ll be,” and Hoss indicated the house.  Roy nodded and went inside.

He tapped lightly on Adam’s door before opening it and paused, taking in the peaceful scene, a contrast to the frenzied nursing of the night before.  Adam lay sleeping, curled up on his left side and facing his father, who sat at the bedside.  Ben held Adam’s right hand in one of his own, his other hand gently stroking Adam’s forehead and hair.

“Hoss tells me he’s gonna be okay,” Roy whispered softy, not wanting to startle the father or awaken the son.

Ben turned at the sound of his voice and gave him a tired smile. “Welcome back, Roy.”

“You need to look after yourself and get some rest , Ben.”

“I’m resting right now, resting in the knowledge that he’s out of danger,” Ben replied.

“I thought you’d want to know; we’ve brought her in.  She’s in the jail.”  He referred to his earlier arrest of Eliza Rawlins.

Ben’s jaw muscles tightened and, glancing back at his sleeping son whilst continuing to stroke his dark hair, he asked, “And what did she have to say for herself?”

“Nothing.  She didn’t even deny the charges.”

At this, Ben swung round in barely concealed anger.  “She wouldn’t dare.  Last night I came this close,” and here he held thumb and index finger near each other, “to losing my son, and for what?  I want to see her, Roy.”

“Why?  What do you hope to achieve?”  Roy was worried. Ben was too emotionally involved in all this to confront the accused.

“I have to hear from her why she did this.  We live in violent times, Roy.  Men live by the gun and die by it, but this?  Poison?  And for the person responsible being a woman defies belief!  What was she thinking of?  What did she hope to get out of it?  Adam was helping her, for for goodness’ sake.  He’d do it for anybody, man or woman; that’s what he’s like.  He sees someone in need and, if he can, he’ll help.”

“I know that,” Roy assured him, but Ben did not even pause in his tirade.

“And she repays him by trying to kill him!  Why?  Why did she kill those other men?  What had they ever done for her except try to help too? If we hadn’t pieced this together when we did, how much more suffering would Adam have gone through?  How long before he ...” Ben could not put the awful thought into words.  “I don’t understand it, Roy.  How could she?” His voice broke and he gripped Adam‘s hand a little harder.  “I just feel so helpless, and I don’t like feeling like that.  I have to do something, Roy, and if that’s going to see her in jail and just asking her why she did it, then that’s what I’ll do.” 

“Ben, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Roy spoke softly, appreciating the grief and suppressed anger in his friend, yet keen to dissuade him from a situation which could be far from successful.

“I have to make her see what she’s done.  Look at him.  Look at what she did to him.  He didn‘t deserve this, Roy,” and he turned pain-filled eyes towards the sheriff.  “I have to see her.”

A low groan from the bed attracted his attention.  Adam stretched slightly and opened his eyes slowly.  They were heavy with sleep and he had difficulty keeping them open and focusing.

“Pa,” it came out more as a croak and he tried to lick his dry lips but there was no moisture in his mouth, only a stale taste.  He frowned and tried to move.

“Hold on, Adam.  Take it easy and I’ll get you some water,”  Ben said soothingly.

“You stay there; I’m on it,” Roy intervened, crossing the room and pouring a fresh glass of water from the jug on the dresser.  He handed it to Ben who had slid a hand under Adam’s head and raised him slightly.

"Just take a sip, not too much now.  You can always have more later.”  Knowing that Adam must be badly dehydrated and desperate for water, Ben was keen that he did not drink too much in case he still could not keep anything down.  Adam sipped slowly, savouring the coolness in his mouth for as long as possible before he reluctantly swallowed.  He attempted again to lick his parched lips.  The effort proved too much and he sank back into the pillows, his eyes closing again so that Ben thought he had drifted off to sleep once more.

“What happened?” Adam whispered, struggling to open his eyes.

“You’ve been very ill, but you’re okay now.  It’s going to take time but you’ll be fine.  You’ll start eating and get your strength up and we’ll have you back on your feet in no time,” Ben rushed cheerfully. He did not want Adam to know the truth just yet.

“Ill?”  He frowned as he tried to make sense of it all.  He moved his head and suddenly Roy Coffee came into his line of sight.  His frown deepened.  “Why’s the Sheriff here?”

“Roy came to see how you were getting on,” Ben explained.  In his mind, he convinced himself that he was not lying; he was telling a part truth.  Roy had been concerned.

“Why’d I get ill?” Adam pressed.  His chest and stomach were hurting and some unpleasant memories were beginning to surface.

“You don’t need to worry about that now.  Just concentrate on getting well,” Ben insisted.

Adam closed his eyes and took a deep breath.  “I’m hungry,” he announced.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The next day, Little Joe slipped back into the house, having abandoned his chores, and made his way upstairs to his brother’s room.  The window was open, curtains moving slightly as the gentle breeze took them.  The whole atmosphere of the room had changed in less than thirty-six hours.  Gone was the tension and fear associated with serious illness.  Instead, his brother lay sleeping, his face relaxed. whilst his father sat reading in his customary chair.  Had Joe not known better, he would have thought that Ben had not moved since the awful moment Adam had been brought home.  Joe stood at the foot of the bed, just looking; the nightmare all too real of how close they had come to losing Adam.

“I didn’t expect to see you, Joseph,” Ben commented softly, closing the book and raising his eyes to look on his youngest boy.

“I thought I’d come back for some lunch,” Joe answered casually.

“And to check on your brother?” Ben added, understanding why Joe had done what he had.  After all, was it not for exactly the same reason that he still took his seat by the bed?  It was not two days since the crisis and he could not trust himself to leave his eldest son alone, not yet.

“That too,” Joe conceded.  He moved round the bed for a closer inspection of his brother.  “He looks a lot better, Pa.”

“You reckon so?” Ben set his book down on the end of the bed as he leaned forward in his chair, a hand resting lightly on Adam’s covered legs, relishing the contact.  “I was wondering if it was my wishful thinking.”

“No, he’s got more colour today - and he smells sweeter.  You’ve been busy.” 

“Well, he was out of it most of yesterday,” Ben began, a smile playing on his lips as he remembered how hard he and Hop Sing had worked.  They had tried to air the room but the lingering stale odour of sweat and sickness had been with Adam himself.  “It didn’t seem fair to start pulling him about when he was finally resting from that fever, but this morning, when he woke up, Hop Sing and I gave him a bed bath, washed his hair and I shaved him.  Then we changed the bed linen again so he felt fresher and more comfortable.”

Joe looked round the room, his eyes resting on the opened window. “Isn’t he cold without a night shirt on?

“No, he did not want one.  I wasn’t prepared to fight with him about it.”

“But the window’s open,” Joe objected.  “He might catch a chill on top ...”

“Joseph?” Ben interrupted.

“Yes, Pa?”

“Stop fussing,” Ben admonished gently.

“Sorry, Pa,” Joe grinned.  “It’s just that....”  He left what he wanted to say unspoken. His heart was too full of what might have happened and how Adam, always the strong one, had been brought so low, was no longer invincible and seemed particularly frail right now.  He desperately wanted to be the one to protect his older brother for once.  Having failed to save him from the danger presented by the Widow Rawlins; he would do his utmost to keep him safe from now onwards.

"I know, son,” Ben understood the conflicting emotions doing battle in his youngest son’s green eyes.  “Since you’re here, you can do something for me.”

“What’s that?” Joe’s curiosity piqued.

“You can watch your brother for me.  I don’t want him waking up alone at the moment.”  Ben stood up, arching his back to relieve the tension in the muscles.

“Why?  Where are you going?”  Adam might be on the mend but it was still early days and there had to be a very pressing reason that would take Ben from his son’s side even now.

“Into town,” was Ben’s simple answer.

The silence before Joe spoke seemed to go on for ever but at last he found his voice.  “You’re going to see her, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Ben moved towards the door.  Joe darted past him and barred the way.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea, Pa.  What do you hope to gain?”

“I don’t know whether I can make you understand, Joseph, but I hope for answers.  I need them, and I know your brother will too.  I have to know what drove her to hurt him like this.  Now please move out of the way.  I’ll tell Hop Sing you’re here and ask him to bring some food up for you.”

Joe hesitated and his eyes locked with his father’s but, when he saw the older man’s steely determination, he nodded briefly and stepped aside.  He was sitting by his brother when he heard the bedroom door open, knew from the pause that his father was watching both of them carefully and then the door closed.  Joe shut his eyes, hastily offering up a garbled prayer that his father would find the answers he wanted.  He would not necessarily like what he heard but he needed closure and, right now, he probably needed it more than Adam did.

It was over an hour later that Adam stirred to find his youngest brother sitting by his side.

“Hi there, sleepy head,” Joe shot him a broad grin.

“Hi, yourself,” Adam answered, managing a wan smile.

“Here, you need to drink.  Pa said I’d got to get as much water in you as possible,” Joe insisted, reaching for the full glass.

Adam moaned, “That’s what he and Hop Sing have been doing every time I open my eyes.  I’ve swallowed so much water, I’m surprised I don’t float away.”

Joe slid a hand beneath Adam’s head and raised him slightly as he put the glass to his lips.  “You’re really dehydrated, Adam.  We’ve got to change that.  Now, take a sip.  You can always have more later.”

Adam did as he was told and then, to Joe’s pleasure, lifted an eyebrow in mock reproof, a sign that he was feeling more like his old self.  “You bossing me about?”

“Yes, I suppose I am.  Gee, that makes a change.”

“Well don’t get used to the idea!”  Adam’s eyes searched the room for the familiar figure he knew had always been with him through the crisis.  “Where is Pa anyway?  You finally persuaded him to go and get some rest?” 

“He’s not resting.  He’s gone into town,” Joe’s words spilled out quickly.

“To town?”  Adam could not conceal his surprise that his father was not merely in his adjoining room but had actually left him.  An irrational feeling of disappointment welled up in him.  “What’s so important in town?”

Joe’s features darkened as he struggled to find a suitable explanation to placate his big brother but he hesitated just that little bit too long.

“What are you not telling me, Joe?”

At that moment, the door opened quietly to reveal Hoss and Joe’s face broke into a smile of relief.  “Hey, Hoss, look who’s back with us?”

“Sure is good to see you wide awake and looking better,” Hoss beamed as he stood at the foot of the bed.

“Why’s Pa gone into town?” Adam fired at him.  Hoss glanced hurriedly towards Joe.  He had not actually known that his father had gone into town but he could guess the reason and he was fully aware that Ben had wanted to break the news to Adam himself about the Widow Rawlins and her murderous inclinations.

“Er, we forgot some supplies,” he said hastily, his guilty expression vivid evidence of the lie he was telling.

“Yeah, that’s what we did, we forgot supplies,” Joe warmed to the tale, “and Pa thought it would be a good idea if he went to get them.  He’s been sitting here with you for a couple of days now and needed some fresh air.”

“You’re both lousy liars. Neither of you is leaving this room until you tell me what’s going on,” Adam ordered, struggling to pull himself and swing his legs over the side of the bed but he had moved too quickly and, in his present state, the room revolved violently.  He groaned in frustration as his body refused to respond.  Both Joe and Hoss rushed forward with restraining hands.

“Now where in tarnation do you reckon you’re going?” demanded Hoss.

“Not sure yet, but I’m going somewhere if you don’t tell me the truth,” Adam argued.  He fought off their hands and they exchanged worried glances over his head.  Joe shrugged in submission and Hoss nodded nervously.

“Okay.  Just get back into bed and lie still.  You and me both know you’re not going anywhere ‘cause you’re weaker’n a kitten,” Joe pushed his brother back down into the pillows, “but you stay there and we’ll tell you.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Ben waited in silence, staring hard at the woman, as Roy unlocked the cell door and stood to one side to let the rancher enter.

“You don’t have to stay, Roy,” Ben said coldly, his eyes never leaving the subject of his scrutiny.

“I’m not goin’ anywhere,” Roy declared quietly.

“What’s the matter?  Don’t trust me all of a sudden?”

Roy had his doubts but was not going to admit to them.  “No, I just want to be here in case she says anything important ‘cause I sure haven’t got anything out of her yet.”

Eliza Rawlins did not move.  She sat on the bunk, staring up at Ben.  “I didn’t expect to see you, Mr. Cartwright,” she opened, as if they were pleasantly passing the time of day.

“No, I don’t expect you did,” Ben’s voice was vitriolic.

“How’s Adam?” she inquired, her eyes fixed on him, her face expressionless.

“As if you care!”  Ben spat the words, amazed that this woman had the effrontery to ask.

“Oh, I care,” she declared, never flinching in the face of his violent passion.

“He’s going to be okay - no thanks to you.”  Ben had spent the ride into town considering what he was going to say to this devilish woman and trying to control his conflicting emotions.  This confrontation was already not going the way he had planned and he paced the small cell like a caged animal, confused by this woman’s apparent calmness.  Had she no idea as to the implications of what she had done?

She passively watched his impatient pacing.  “Why’d ya come, Mr. Cartwright?”

It was the opening he wanted; it focused his mind and he wheeled round on her.  “To ask you one question and I want an honest answer.  Why?  Why did you hurt my son?”

“You wouldn’t understand,” she said announced simply, looking at her clasped hands in her lap as though they belonged to someone else.

“Too damn right I wouldn’t, but try me anyway,” Ben could conceal his anger no longer.  “Let me hear your excuse, because that’s all it is.  Nothing can justify what you did to Adam.”

he sighed and when she spoke again, her voice was soft, even, unaffected by the horrors she revealed.  She might have been passing on a recipe for an apple pie.  “My husband was a cruel man, Mr Cartwright, very cruel.  I knowed that as soon as I married him thirty-five years ago.  I tried to do something about it.  I told the preacher, and the sheriff, and the woman who was supposed to be my best friend.  But you see, you’re not supposed to be telling folks things like that, going round and making accusations.  They don’t believe you, especially when they see the charming considerate man who would go out of his way to please folks but, inside our home with the door shut, he was the devil himself.  Folks turned against me and they told him what I’d said.  He just became more cruel.  In the end, I couldn’t take no more so I gave him the arsenic.” 

Her admission was so matter-of-fact, so calmly delivered.  Roy and Ben shot incredulous glances at each other but then Ben pressed for more information.  “What has this to do with Adam?”

“Those other men, all helpful and smiling,” she went on, as if she had not heard him.  This was her story and, once she had begun, she was going to tell it her way.  “They were just like Clayton on the outside. When they came to the ranch, I could see them sizing things up.  Here was a widow with money, all on her own and needing a man to do the work.  Well I wasn’t going to have them take over.  It’s my place and I gave up a lot to get it - gave up thirty-five years of my life.”

“But Adam wasn’t after your ranch.  All he wanted was to genuinely help someone he saw who needed it.”

“Oh I know that, Mr Cartwright,” she reassured him.

Ben was perplexed.  “Then I don’t ...”

“Understand?” she interrupted.  “I said you wouldn’t.”  She stopped, as if that were the end of her tale. 

Ben tried a different tack.  “Mrs Rawlins, do you have any children?”

There was no hesitation before her answer. “No.”

Roy Coffee passed a stool through the open cell doorway.  Taking it, Ben nodded his thanks, put it down in front of Eliza Rawlins but beyond arm’s reach, and sat down.  He took a deep breath and tried to still his racing heart.  This was his moment when he tried to make her understand what she had done to him and his family.

“It doesn’t matter how old they are, they are always your children; a gift from God. You try hard to do your best by them, raise them right, give them a good chance, and you’d do everything in your power to protect them.  They’re so precious and they’re your children.  Yes, Adam’s a man in years, but to me he’s still my child, and it was my child that I held in my arms the night before last as he struggled for breath.  It was my child burning up with fever and crying “Why me?“ as I wiped away his tears and cleaned him of his vomit and body waste.  My child, Mrs Rawlins, and you tried to take him away from me.”  His voice caught and he fought to maintain his composure.  “There were those long moments when I thought he’d actually died in my arms.  You will never understand how I felt then nor how I feel about you now.”  His anger again surfaced.

Her eyes had been on him impassively the whole time he was speaking and she never looked away as she continued her confession.  “Oh but I do, Mr Cartwright.  I understand only too well.  You see, I didn’t tell the whole truth when you asked me if I have children.  I don’t now, but I did - I had a son, Joshua.  He’d be about your Adam’s age. Well, six months ago, I held him in my arms too, but the difference between you and me is that Joshua was really dead.  I cut him down from the barn rafters where he’d hung himself.  Pushed that little bit too far, once too often by his pa.  See, he wasn’t strong like your Adam, but he was a good boy.  He tried so hard, but nothing he ever did pleased his pa.  He was always riding him for summat, beating him black and blue as a child when he hadn’t done something quite right.  I said my husband was cruel, Mr Cartwright, but really he was worse than any beast, whether he had the whiskey inside him or no. I shoulda done something definite years ago but I was too scairt.  My Joshua’s life was a misery until six months ago when he couldn’t take no more and he killed hisself.  So I killed Clayton.  All that boy wanted was a kind word from his pa, and he never got one, not from the day he was born.

“The first time I saw Adam, he stopped to help me load stores from the  mercantile.  His eyes shone as he told me how his pa had raised him right and he weren’t to let no lady lift heavy things or else he’d get in trouble with his pa.  I didn’t want him to get in no trouble with you, not like poor Joshua would have done.  But then I seed that it weren’t fear in Adam’s eyes but love and respect.  Joshua never had that.  All those times when Adam came out to my place, he’d tell me all about you and his brothers and the Ponderosa.  Yours is a house of love, Mr Cartwright.  I could see that.  Your boy shone with love and pride for his family and what you’ve achieved.  I never had any of that for thirty-five years.

“Joshua was weak, it wasn’t his fault, but he was a constant disappointment to his pa.  I couldn’t see Adam ever being a disappointment to you but I had to make sure.  If he were sickly and couldn’t work no more, would you still be proud of him? Would you still want him?  If not, I’d have taken care of him, same as I did my Joshua.  Then, when I came to your house that day, an’ saw you fussin’ over him, I knew you would never stop loving him, an’ I could never have him.”

Her explanation ended, she resumed her scrutiny of her hands and absent-mindedly picked at a thread on her skirt.  Ben watched her, his throat constricting as he endeavoured to make sense of what she had said, to clarify her motives. 

His face was dark, his eyes black and threatening when at last he trusted himself to speak again.  His voice was deep and menacing.  “You poisoned my own son to test my love for him and then you carried on poisoning him so that he would die and I couldn’t have Adam either.”

At his pronouncement, to Ben’s horror, Eliza Rawlins merely raised her head so that her eyes met his .... and she smiled.

EPILOGUE

It was late afternoon two days later and Adam was seated on the veranda in an easy chair, his eyes closed and his head tilted upwards as he appreciated the warmth of  the sun.  It was the first day that he had left his bed, Hoss helping him downstairs with a steadying arm and remaining attentive until he was safely ensconced on the sofa in the great room.  He was still very weak and his appetite had not fully returned but once he had eaten a little lunch, carefully prepared by Hop Sing, it had only been a matter of time before he had persuaded his father to let him sit outside, the lure of the fresh air and the sun’s rays being too much for him to ignore.

The sound of the door opening and footsteps on the wooden flooring roused him.  He lazily opened his eyes and turned his head just as his father reached his side and shook open a rug, spreading it over his legs and tucking it round him.

“Pa,” he said in gentle reproof.

Ben knew that Adam generally hated being fussed over and his mild objection was a reassuring sign that he was on the road to recovery.  Pulling up another chair, Ben sat beside his beloved son and grinned appealingly, “Just indulge me a little longer, son, please.”

“One more day,” Adam conceded.

“One more day,” Ben agreed.  Hop Sing materialised with a loaded tray and put it down on a small table by Ben’s side, and just as silently disappeared. 

Adam leaned forward so that he could see past his father and raised an eyebrow questioningly at the tray’s contents.  “Milk and cookies?”

“Oh Hop Sing thought you might like to have a snack,” Ben said cheerfully, passing a full glass to Adam.

“Hop Sing seems to think I might like a snack every hour,” he commented.

“Milk to line your stomach and cookies to help fatten you up a little,” Ben commented, biting into a freshly baked cookie and surveying the view.  “You do realise this is his main aim in life now, don’t you, to get some meat back on you?”

Adam glanced down at his jeans and choice of shirt.  He had abandoned his usual black in favour of blue pants and a stone-coloured shirt, knowing that his preferred colour would have emphasised his pallor and caused his father additional concern.  “Yeah, well even I have to admit that I didn’t think I’d manage to lose so much weight in such a short time.  My clothes don’t fit any more.”

Ben had tried not to notice the clothes hanging loosely where not so long ago they used to be close-fitting over well-toned muscles.  “No matter. We’ll soon remedy that when you start eating normally again.” 

They fell into companionable silence but Ben could not help glancing sideways at his son.  He would never get over how close he was to losing his first-born and watched him surreptitiously, counting his blessings at every conceivable moment that his son was still alive and breathing.

“You’re watching me again,” Adam’s voice was soft and teasing.  He sipped at the milk.

Ben laughed guiltily.  “Sorry, son.  Guess you caught me out.”  He instantly became serious, “but I can’t help it, you know.”

Suddenly Adam turned his intense, dark brown eyes on his father, a low huskiness in his voice that spoke volumes.  “I know, Pa.”

They lapsed into silence once more, a certain awkwardness in the air.  Ben knew that Adam was hurting and had been since the afternoon Ben had returned from the jail, still trying to assimilate what he had heard from Eliza Rawlins. Joe and Hoss had been waiting for him and admitted that they had told their brother everything that had happened.  When Ben had entered Adam’s room, he had found him lying quietly, unmoving, staring at the ceiling.

“So what did she tell you?” Adam had said eventually, his voice tight and cold. This was always a sign that he was battling to keep his emotions in check, something at which he normally succeeded.  “I know you’ve seen her.”  His eyes challenged his father to tell him all there was to know; there was to be no holding back.

And so Ben told him.  Quietly, he related all that she had said about her unhappy marriage; her cruel, abusive husband; her weak, victimised son who ultimately killed himself, and the way she had murdered Clayton Rawlins.  Ben tried, as gently as possible, to explain her twisted justification for her fatal attacks on the three men of Virginia City and her subsequent poisoning of Adam. Despite attempting to get Adam to talk, Ben could only sit and watch as he fell silent, absorbed the information and withdrew into himself.  As Adam had turned his head away from his father, Ben knew, with a sinking heart, that there would be no discussion on the subject unless Adam initiated it and that would only be in his own time and on his terms.

Ben had given him two days and he took advantage of this period when the two of them were relaxed, drinking milk and sharing the cookies.  “I’m not pressing you, son.  I just want you to know that when you’re ready, and you want to talk about what’s happened, I’m here and I’m ready to listen.”

“I know you are, Pa, and thanks.”  Adam went to take a bite of the cookie in his hand and then suddenly stopped, looking at it as horrific memories rushed in of another day, another plate of cookies.

Ben saw his expression and the way he reacted, and knew what had flashed through his mind.  “It’s okay, Adam,  Hop Sing made them fresh after lunch.  I saw him do them myself,” he spoke softly, reassuringly.  They had  a long way to go before this particular battle was won.

Adam smiled sheepishly and took another small bite. 

“Roy came to see me this morning,” Ben said carefully.  He felt rather than saw Adam go still and wait, wondering what was coming next.  “You were asleep and I didn’t want to disturb you.  The circuit judge has made a decision.  He maintains Eliza Rawlins isn’t fit enough to stand trial.  Paul Martin has had the chance to examine her and at least one other doctor will do the same but it seems she’s gone out of her mind.  They’re moving her to an asylum up north.”

He waited for a reaction from his son but Adam merely nodded and slipped the remaining piece of cookie into his mouth.  As he chewed, he appeared thoughtful.  “I can’t understand a man my age fearing his pa so much that he can’t or won’t stand up to him and kills himself instead.”  There was pained disbelief in his tone. 

His father had disciplined him and his brothers when they were younger but it had always been deserved and had been accompanied by reasoned explanation for the punishment.  More importantly, they had always known that their father loved them unconditionally.  He never held back from telling them so, or that he was proud of them, and although in recent years Adam found such open displays of affection difficult, it warmed him to know how his father felt.

“I can’t understand a man who can’t feel anything for his son and is so cruel that he drives him to kill himself.”  Ben was genuine in his lack of understanding.  The arrival of each of his sons into the world had been a tremendous blessing, despite the loss of Elizabeth at Adam’s birth.  His sons had been a constant source of pleasure and comfort to him, even when they were driving him to distraction.  He always fondly believed that they had turned him prematurely grey.  They had grown and learned all together and he would not have changed any of it for the world.  No, he could never understand the likes of Clayton Rawlins.

Adam sneaked a look at his father and shot him a dimpled grin.  Ben’s heart leaped; this was the Adam of old.  “Guess I did all right getting you for a pa.”

Ben returned the grin.  “Guess I did all right getting you for a son.”

Laughing together, they reached for the last cookie on the plate at the same time.  Adam’s fingers closed on it first.

“I know I don’t say it very often, but I do love you, son,” Ben said softly, his eyes and voice filled with suppressed emotion.

Adam fixed him with his dark, intense stare, his head slightly tilted to the right.  At length he spoke; his rich baritone gentle and tender.  “I know, Pa, and I guess I don’t always say it enough either but I love you too.”  He paused and then his face broke into an infectious, handsome smile as he opened his hand and held out the last cookie to his father.

THE END

24/07/03