Joe was waiting for Adam.  He sat astride Cochise like a statue at the crest of the hill.  His leather coat lined with wool was buttoned up to his chin and the collar turned up over his neck.  His black hat sat low over his forehead, and he beat his gloved hands against his thighs to warm them in the brisk wind.  Cochise started at the sound, and pranced nervously.  Joe tightened his knees against him, and stopped his horse from running down the hill.

Adam was late.  Joe wasn't sure why.  This worried him, because his older brother was seldom late.   Probably it was nothing more serious than a few stray cattle that didn't want to be driven to the lower pastures, but Joe still worried.  Those stray cattle had initially been stolen by some entrepreneuring  rustlers, probably attempting to raise some cash and get some fresh beef for a trip over the Sierras to California in the spring.  Hoss, Ben, and some neighboring ranchers had closed on the crooks in a blind canyon.  During the ensuing shootout, all but one of the rustlers was killed, along with Tom Willis, one of the men from a small ranching and farming spread near the Cartwrights, and the cattle had scattered.  The men had tended their wounded and brought them and those killed back, and were forced to leave the scattered cattle.  Adam had left yesterday morning with the other ranchers to find the cattle, sort them out, and bring those with the pine tree brand back to the Ponderosa.

Joe hadn't been with his father and brother when the rustlers were cornered.  He was at Doc Martin's office in Virginia City, recovering from a bar room brawl. He had been punched in the face, kicked in the back, and would have been beaten even more severely if Adam hadn't stepped in with the sheriff and put a stop to it.

Joe was still smoldering now, a few weeks after that stranger, Charles LeDuc, had waltzed arrogantly into town, throwing his name about and intimidating his father.  When Ben had told his youngest son that this man held compromising information about Joe's mother's past,  Joe had challenged the man (against Ben's wishes), and that had nearly cost him his own and his father's lives.

Joe knew that if he hadn't run so mindlessly to LeDuc, his father may have had time to prove the man's claim of murder to be a fraud.  Instead, through Joe's youthful impatience and hastiness, Ben had been forced to rescue his youngest son by offering himself in his son's place.

Joe berated himself.  Why had he done that?  Why had he run to LeDuc, threatening him with murder if he spread rumors of Marie?  A fight had ensued between Joe and LeDuc's hired man, Tom Cole.  When Cole drew on him, Joe had no choice but to shoot him.  He hadn't meant to kill him.  It just happened.  Then, when LeDuc gloated over him, saying he would be able to tell his story of Marie and her alleged lover, Simon LaRoche, thus ruining his father's reputation, Joe had panicked and run.

LeDuc, of course, claimed that Joe had shot Cole in cold-blooded fury.  Fortunately, Ben's level head and calmness in the face of emergencies had prevailed, and he managed to convince his son not to run away. Ben had convinced LeDuc to drop the assault charges against Joe by promising to accompany the Inspector to  New Orleans, supposedly to stand trial for the murder of Simon LaRoche. His father and LeDuc had been stranded in the desert, and had escaped with their lives, but little else.

Rumors of Marie's past had spread throughout Virginia City in the meanwhile, and Joe found himself compelled to defend his mother's good name.  He was in town to blow off some steam when he got in his latest fight.  Ben, unable to keep his restless and angry youngest son home, but worried that he might get into more trouble than he could handle during this hot-headed state, had sent Adam to town to look after his brother. After Adam had left, some of Ben's neighbors came by with the news about the cattle rustlers, and  he and Hoss headed out to help track them down.

Joe closed his eyes at the distressing memory of Tom Willis's grieving widow and stunned children at the funeral.  Tom had made a fairly nice start with his small ranch and farm.  They had made enough money and raised sufficient crops to feed and clothe themselves, as well as put a little by for the future.  But how would they manage now that Tom was dead?  Of course, Ben had offered his own and his sons' help, but Tom's widow had been too deeply buried in her grief to respond, and was too proud to accept charity, anyway.

Joe was painfully aware that his foolishness in town that day could very well have cost his brothers and father their lives.  Adam might have been seriously hurt along with him, and his and Adam's presence with the other ranchers against the rustlers might have made the difference in that fight.  Perhaps Tom wouldn't have been killed.  Maybe no one would have died.  The cattle might not have been scattered.  Adam wouldn't have had to go on a two-day trip to find them.  He would be home, and Joe wouldn't be worrying that something else had gone wrong.

Maybe nothing had happened.  Perhaps he was simply worrying for no good reason.

Joe again beat his hands on his thighs to bring some feeling into his legs and fingers.  The wind whipped about him, blowing his curls from under his hat and cutting through his coat like a keen-edged knife.  Clouds raced across the sky, casting fleeting shadows on the hills about him.  Cochise pranced restlessly.  Joe leaned forward and spoke softly to his mount, attempting to calm him, before he took one last look around for Adam.   "All right, come on," he told his horse when his brother was nowhere in sight.  "Let's go back in the trees and wait for him there."  He rode reluctantly down the hill and into a small grove of pine trees near a stream in between two small hills.

It was warmer out of the wind, and Cochise blew and whinnied with relief.  "I know," agreed Joe.  "But I can see him coming from the hill.  I can't see him down here."  He dismounted and tied Cochise to a pine sapling. His boots crunched through the snow that still clung to the ground under the trees as  he strode restlessly about the edge of the grove.  Where was his brother?

Ben had noticed a few days ago that two of the steers had broken through one of the fences.  They hadn't gone far, and Ben had been able to get them back through with little additional damage to the fence, which he hastily repaired.  But it needed better repair, and quickly, before the snow came again.  Ben had told Joe to meet Adam as he returned with the cattle, help him finish driving them to pasture, and enlist his help in repairing the fence.  Joe had left the supplies by the fence where the repair was needed and had ridden out to await his brother.

Joe sighed in frustration as he looked at the sun.  If he didn't leave now, it would be well after dark before he arrived home.  He mounted Cochise and headed for the fence.  Snow from the most recent storm still lay in patches on the frozen ground.  Yesterday, when Adam had left, the temperature had come  a little above freezing, turning much of the ground to mud, but it was getting colder again.  Probably another storm blowing in tomorrow or the day after.  All the more reason to get that fence repaired.

Joe was not looking forward to doing this by himself.  He could mend a fence, of course, but it took longer alone.  He might have to take off his gloves to handle the wire and nails, and would rather have some help before he froze.  He could do the job properly, but two could do it better.  His head began to throb behind his right eye, and he gingerly held his cold glove up to his discolored, swollen eye.  "My prize," he thought grimly, "from my most recent fight."  His back, still tender from the kick he had received, was also reminding him that he'd been hard at work and in the saddle most of the day while still recovering from his injuries.

Cattle lowed behind him as Joe picked his way through the snow.  Cochise tossed his head and whinnied before Joe paid the sound any mind.  He wheeled about and saw several cattle descending the hill.  He waited.  When Adam didn't follow them, he rode around the steers, so as not to startle and scatter them, to the top of the hill.  Adam was slowly ascending the slope on Sport, with a man draped across the saddle before him.  Joe rode quickly toward him and stopped short, gaping in amazement.

The man in front of Adam wore a dark blue uniform.  At first, Joe thought he was a Union officer, but he quickly saw that couldn't be so.  His trousers, instead of being tucked into boots, came all the way down to his feet.  He wore low-heeled black shoes that showed signs, despite a little mud and grime on them now, of being recently shined.  His blue dress jacket was of a style that Joe had never seen.

He hurried down the hill to his brother, dismounted, and took the man as Adam eased him from his horse.  Adam stiffly and awkwardly slid off of Sport, careful not to let the stranger fall from his arms, and together they lifted him onto Cochise, after which Joe mounted carefully.  "Where did you find him?" he asked Adam.

"At the edge of the Ponderosa," said Adam.  "He was lying in some snow, in a shallow depression in the ground, right by the fence."  Adam was breathing hard.  He was grimy and covered with mud from head to toe.  Sport's white socks were barely visible.  He tossed his head impatiently while his master spoke with Joe, snorted, and hung his head near the ground, trying to eat a bit of shriveled grass at his feet.  Adam took hold of the reins and remounted.  Sport turned in a circle and shook his head.  "I had a dickens of a time getting him back here, and herding those cattle at the same time."

The two brothers headed up the hill.  Adam went in pursuit of the cattle, while Joe followed more slowly.  Once he was down the hill, he looked more carefully at the man before him.  A silver eagle decorated each shoulder of his jacket.  On each lapel were the initials "U.S."  Above the left breast pocket were eagle's wings, and below them was a medal, possibly a medal of honor:  a bronze cross hanging from a wide blue ribbon, with narrow white stripes near each edge and a wider center strip of red edged in white.

Joe managed to help his brother get the weary cattle through the gate.  When it was shut after them, Adam sighed in relief, drew his grimy hand  across his brow, and ran his fingers through his black hair.  "Thanks, little brother," he said gratefully.  "I thought I'd never get them home."  His hazel eyes moved toward the soldier in front of Joe.  "Especially not with him."

"What happened to him?" asked Joe.

"I have no idea," replied Adam.  "He doesn't seem to have any injuries, at least not current ones, that I can see.  He has some scars on his face -" he turned the man's head so Joe could see what he was talking about - "but those are from old injuries.  He hasn't been hit in the head that I can tell.  There's no lump on his head.  And he doesn't appear to have any broken bones.  But he hasn't moved, or made a sound, since I found him."

"Is he -"

"He's still alive, yes.  At least, he was when I found him."  Adam smiled grimly and put his hand to the side of the stranger's neck.  He nodded.  "Still alive."  He looked closely at Joe.  "What brings you out here?  Did Pa send you?"

A frustrated laugh disappeared in a puff of steam in the cold wind.  "Yeah.  He did.  Pa told me to wait for you here.  He figured you'd be coming this way, judging by what direction you had to go to get the cattle.  I was supposed to help you finish driving them in, and then you were supposed to help me mend the fence a few of them broke through the other day.  Pa already did a temporary fix, but it needs more, before the next storm hits.  I was just on my way to tend to it myself as best I could, when I heard the cattle come over the hill behind me.  It really needs two of us to straighten the posts and string the wire properly."

Joe looked down at the stranger before him as he finished speaking.  He looked up, and met Adam's hazel eyes.  There was no need to debate the matter.  They had to get this man indoors.  "Trouble is," said Joe, "I left the supplies by the fence.  We can't leave them out overnight."  He described where the section needing repair was.

"We'll go home that way, and pick them up," said Adam.  "Come on."

As they rode, Adam asked, "What are Hoss and Pa up to?"

"They had to go after some cattle that slid down that bank - you know, the one with the big overhang - by the stream.  I was helping them yesterday and earlier today, but this afternoon, Pa said he and Hoss would finish driving the cattle away from there, and he told me to come wait for you, help with the cattle, and mend that fence."

Adam looked at the sun already descending to the horizon.  "By the time we get home, it will be too late for anyone to come out and take care of it."

Joe nodded.  "Pa wanted to get it finished before the next storm.  It seems another one may be blowing in."

"Yes, probably tomorrow or the day after." Adam looked steadily ahead of him.  "Think you can carry him the rest of the way home?" He looked questioningly at his brother.

"Yeah, sure," said Joe, a little indignantly, thinking his oldest brother still thought of him as a little kid.   Weary with his long trip, the cold weather, and very preoccupied, Adam said nothing for the remainder of the ride home.

Adam mulled over what he had seen and heard - rather, what he THOUGHT he had seen and heard - as he rode.  What with the job of driving weary, unwilling cattle through the snow, mud, and ice, combined with the  burden of the limp stranger in his arms, he hadn't had much occasion to think on the strange circumstances of this soldier's appearance.  He had been driving the cattle from the high country, where they had scattered when he and the other men apprehended the rustlers, and had just come in sight of the Ponderosa, when he saw a flash of light.  He had blinked quickly, and it was gone.  He told himself that perhaps the sunlight had reflected off of something in front of him, but he knew better.  This "flash" had encompassed the entire sky and landscape before him, and it appeared that the sky had briefly opened.

Strange noises had echoed about ahead of him, sounds clearly defined, yet dim and distant as those he heard while approaching a bustling town from a distance.  Shouts, terrified screams, wails, and tremendous explosions, like gunfire only much louder, had emanated from the earth.  He thought the ground rocked slightly beneath him, and that he surely must be dreaming or seeing things, when Sport suddenly shied and reared back, nearly unseating him.  The cattle lowed and ran.  Adam was hard put to gain control of his horse and regroup the cattle before they scattered again.  As he turned to chase the recalcitrant bovines, he thought he saw, on the very edge of his vision, a dark, smoke-covered terrain with intermittent fires burning, people huddled in the shelter of crumbling buildings or desperately running, and strange-looking, heavy vehicles with wings jutting from the side rumbling over them in the sky.  Cursing his visions and the cattle, he drove the steers back to the Ponderosa fence line, where they finally settled down, huddled together, lowing fearfully with heads lowered.

It was then that Adam had seen the soldier.  He was lying in a shallow depression in the snow, right by the fence.  For a moment, Adam thought he must be imagining him, too, but no, he was real.  And alive.  Adam looked over his uniform, and recognized nothing, except the "U.S." on his lapel, which he thought must mean "United States."   He definitely was not a Union soldier.  But what was he?  Who was he?  Where had he come from?  And what, if anything, had what Adam seen and heard when Sport and the cattle  took fright, have to do with this man's appearance?  Or had he actually seen and heard anything?

Adam compressed his lips and set his jaw stubbornly.  Who knows what he had really seen, or what had happened!  He was tired:   tired of driving stubborn, bawling cattle through wind, cold,  and mucky terrain; tired of sleeping on the cold, wet ground, even if for only one night; tired of chasing rustlers, and very tired of keeping tabs on his younger brother, who should be old enough to keep his own hot head out of trouble.  He was just tired, that was all.  After a hot bath and a good meal, as well as a good night's sleep, everything would look better.

As they rode up to the house, Hoss and Ben emerged from the stable.  They were just as dirty, if not filthier, than Adam.  Hoss's blue eyes peered wearily from his mud-encrusted face as his brothers dismounted.  Adam helped Joe so he didn't drop the man Joe's now-numb arms were carrying.  As Hoss and Ben watched in a weary stupor, Hop Sing emerged from the kitchen door.

"You all late!"  he shouted.   "You late, and Hop Sing's meal ruined!"  He saw the limp burden Joe and Adam shared, and was suddenly quiet.  He hurried to them.  "Who is this? "  He peered closely at the man.  "He sick!  He need doctor!  Take him inside!  I fix bed."  Hop Sing hurried through the front door, leaving it open for them to follow.

Relieved that someone was taking charge, the Cartwrights followed their energetic cook and housekeeper.  As they proceeded to the bedroom, Hop Sing erupted with a series of shrieks and Chinese curses, intermixed with a volley of "No!  No!  No!"  Confused, they stepped back and looked in bewilderment at the small man storming about before them.  "Take off boots!" he insisted.

Too weary to debate the matter of not tracking mud in the house while they were carrying an unconscious man, the men removed their boots.  Adam took the stranger from Joe and carried him to the bed, and stripped off the soldier's muddy shoes and jacket.

Hop Sing pointed to Ben.  "You all wash," he said accusingly.  "I bring food to table.  You feed him-" he pointed at the stranger - "water and broth.  I get doctor."

"Hop Sing, wait."  Adam stopped their cook as he left the room.  He knew that Virginia City after dark was no safe place for Hop Sing to be wandering the streets, searching for the doctor.  "It'll be too dark, and it's threatening to storm.  I'll saddle a fresh horse, and I'll go.  You stay here and help Pa and the others care for him."

Hop Sing bristled angrily.  "I get doctor!" he insisted.  He pointed at Joe.  "You put horses in stable, and get fresh horse for Hop Sing while Hop Sing puts food on table!"

Joe looked at Adam, who raised his eyebrows and shrugged.  Joe retrieved his boots from the middle of the floor, put them back on, and saddled a horse for Hop Sing.  As he cared for Sport and Cochise, he realized that he was probably the least tired of all of them.  His father and Hoss had been pushing cattle up a bank and through mud and snow, and Adam had been God knew where, chasing cattle down from the hills.  Both had been at it for two days.  At least he'd had one afternoon of rest as he waited for Adam, even though in the cold, instead of pushing or herding steers around.  Joe cared for the stock, and stumbled back in the house, hoping there would be some dinner left for him.

As Joe hurriedly gulped down what was left of dinner under Hoss's longing eye, Adam told his father how he had found the man.  Ben looked closely at his eldest, wondering if he was omitting something from his account.  Adam stared at his empty plate after giving his father a simple narrative of finding the stranger by the Ponderosa fence line.

"Did you see anyone, or anything?" queried his father.  "Anyone who may have left him there, or anything that may have indicated how he arrived?"

Adam shook his head.  "No, Pa.  I didn't see anything."  He swallowed as the realization that he had lied hit him like a blow between the eyes.  But maybe it wasn't a lie.  Had he really seen something?

Ben's eyebrows drew together as he studied Adam.  "Were there footprints, tracks of any kind on the ground?  Anything that would indicate how he came to be there, or who or what brought him?"

Adam rose abruptly from the table and poured himself a glass of brandy.  After hastily swallowing it down, he said, "There were lots of tracks, from the cattle and Sport.  They ran all over the place before I found him.  Once I got him up on Sport with me, it was all I could do to carry him and herd the cattle the rest of the way.  When Joe met me, it was a lifesaver."  He swallowed down another glass of brandy.

Ben watched Adam for a moment.  Finally, he looked away.  Obviously, his son would tell him the rest of the story when he was ready.   Finally, he went into the spare room to check on the stranger.  Adam rummaged through the saddlebags that Joe had brought in after tending their tired horses.

"What's that?" asked Joe.

Adam was holding a hat he had pulled from the saddlebags.  "I found this lying near him."  He handed to Joe a dark blue hat with a polished black brim.  Above the brim, on the crest of the hat, was an emblem of an eagle.

Hoss moved next to his little brother and peered at it.  He pointed to the eagle.  "What's that it's got hold of in its claws?" he asked.  "A feather?"

Adam shrugged, and took the hat from Joe.  "Not sure," he replied.  He didn't mention the obvious, that he hadn't had a chance to look very closely at it.  He took it into the room where his father sat with the stranger, and looked down at the man.

Ben was holding a bowl of soup broth.  "Did he eat anything?" asked Adam.

"I got a few dribbles of soup broth down him," replied Ben, "and he drank a few swallows of water."  He looked at the hat in Adam's hand.  "What's that?"

"His hat, I think.  I found it near him.  I put it in my saddlebag."  He tossed the hat at the foot of the bed.

"Has he spoken yet?"

"No, he barely opened his eyes.  I don't think he even saw me."

"Can you find any injuries on him?" asked Adam.  "I couldn't find any broken bones, bumps on the head, or anything.  But it's not like I could do a real thorough check at the time."

"No, I see no sign of current injuries," replied Ben, "though he does have some scarring on his face from an old one."

"Yes, I noticed that," said Adam.  He picked up the jacket from the foot of the bed and examined the regalia on it.  "What do you suppose all this means?"

"I'm not sure, son," admitted Ben.  "Most of it doesn't look familiar."

Adam touched the eagle on the shoulder of the jacket.  "This could signify  the rank of Colonel,"  he mused, "but it's smaller than what I've seen on the Union's army uniforms."  He studied the wings and the medal on the breast pocket.  If I could just figure out what this is, and what it means...."  He held it close to his face.

"I think we'll have to wait for him to wake up to let us know," said Ben gently.  He looked at the stranger again.  "I checked his pockets to see if there was anything in them, and I found this."  He handed Adam a leather wallet.  Adam opened it and pulled out some identification papers.

"Colonel James Daniel Donovan," he read.  "United States Air Force."  Stunned, he scanned the paper.  "Yankton, South Dakota."  He paused.  "South Dakota?  There is no South Dakota!  And what is the Air Force?"

"There's talk of creating another territory northeast of here, and calling it Dakota Territory," said Ben.  "But it hasn't been officially declared yet, last I heard.  I'll have to pick up a newspaper next time I'm in Virginia City."

"Isn't Yankton that settlement they just built, after that treaty with the Yankton Sioux?" asked Adam.  He looked again at the unconscious man before them.  "I'll have to check the newspaper for that, too, I guess.  But a man dressed like this, from Yankton?  That's still on the edge of the wilderness, near Indian territory.  There's still fighting going on with the Sioux further northwest of Yankton.  Even the U.S. Army has a hard time against them."

Ben shook his head in bewilderment.  "He's a soldier.  He must be stationed there."

"But Pa, this isn't an army uniform!  His clothes are all - different!"

"One thing's for sure," said Ben.  "He needs the doctor."  He looked at Adam.  "You go take a bath.  Tell your brothers to take one, too.  Hop Sing should be back with the doctor soon.  I'll stay here with him."

Adam took a last look at the soldier.  His lank blonde hair, cropped close to his head, contrasted with the deep red scars on the left side of his face.  Adam fingered his shirt and shook his head, wondering at the material, before he left the room.
 

Doc Martin was out when Hop Sing arrived.  He had returned home from delivering a baby reluctant to make his entrance into the world to find the cold, impatient, stubborn China man on his porch.  Despite the news he brought, Doc Martin preferred Hop Sing to spend the night at his house, and go to the Ponderosa in the morning, as it was too dark to travel with no moon.  But Hop Sing insisted, and the doctor, knowing he would get no reprieve until he agreed,  sighed, mounted his horse, and reluctantly followed the obdurate cook into the night.

Dawn was just appearing at the edges of the eastern horizon when Hop Sing and Doc Martin rode into the yard.  Hoss was sitting with the Colonel, as they were calling their guest, and reported that he had grown a little restless, but still didn't respond to anyone or anything about him.

Doc Martin looked him over.  "I don't see anything wrong with him.  His pulse is fine, his respirations are a little fast, but nothing to be concerned about, his lungs and heart sound fine, and he doesn't have  a fever."  He examined the side of the Colonel's face.  "Looks like he was burned.  How long has he been here?"

"Since yesterday afternoon," replied Hoss, and proceeded to tell the doctor how Adam had found him by the fence line.  Hoss showed him the Colonel's strange jacket, which the doctor looked at and dropped back down on the chair.

"Well, maybe he can tell us something about himself tomorrow morning.  Meanwhile, I've been up all night delivering a baby.  You don't suppose I could have something to eat and a bed, and see him when he wakes in the morning?"

"Uh, Doc, it is morning," said Hoss.

"All the more reason for me to finally get some sleep," said the doctor shortly.

"Yeah.  Yeah, sure, Doc," said Hoss.  "If you can't find nothin' wrong with him anyhow, you might as well sleep, I guess.  Uh, Hop Sing, can you rustle up some grub for the doctor here, and find him a place to sleep?  I'm gonna  get Pa to sit with this fellow a while, and go take care of the stock."

As soon as breakfast was over, Ben sent Joe and Adam to fix the fence.  As they rode out with the supplies, they saw dark clouds gathering in the west, relentlessly approaching on a cold, steady wind.  "We'd best hurry, and get this done quickly," said Joe.  "Another storm's blowing in."
 

It was late morning when the doctor knocked and entered the room.  "Hello, Ben."

"Hello, Doctor," greeted  Ben.  "We have a bit of a strange customer for you here, I'm afraid."

"So I saw, when I came in earlier this morning," replied the doctor.  "Help me undress him, will you?"  He again examined the Colonel for the next several minutes.  When he was finished, he put his instruments away.  "Ben, there appears to be nothing wrong with this fellow.  Everything seems fine with him.  There's no sign of illness, heart or breathing problems, fever, or concussion.  No broken bones.  He's not even in shock.  He has scarring from burns on his face, chest, and arms, but those have healed quite well, and certainly aren't the cause of his problems now.  I don't understand why he's not waking up and responding to us."  The doctor picked up the jacket from the chair near the foot of the bed.  "Do you know what this is?" he asked.  "I know it's no typical army uniform."

"No, we're just as puzzled about it as you are," replied Ben.  "We don't know what to make of it."

"Did you find anything on him that might identify him?"

"Yes, in his jacket pocket," replied Ben.

Doc Martin pulled out the wallet and read the papers therein.  "Ben," he said as he dropped the coat back on the chair, "I think we ought to inform the sheriff.  He may be a fugitive trying to hide from the law."

Ben stared at the doctor.  "What makes you say that?  If he was trying to hide, I don't think he'd choose such a strange get-up.  His uniform, his clothes, the material, his papers - it's all stuff I've never seen.  It's no Union uniform, as you know quite well.  And there is no - 'United States Air Force.'  If he was on the run, he'd try to blend in, not stand out."

"You have a point, Ben.  All the same, I think I'll notify Roy," said Doc Martin.  "It's worth letting him know."  He gathered his equipment.  "If he makes a turn for the worse, or doesn't wake up by the end of the day, let me know."  Ben and the doctor exchanged pleasantries, and the doctor headed back to town before the storm clouds could overtake him.
 

Joe and Adam had just finished straightening the fence posts and were starting to string the wire when a bright light flashed about them.  "Maybe we'd better stop," said Joe.  "Lightning and barbed wire don't exactly mix."

Adam put down his tools and looked about him.  "I don't think that was lightning," he said, though he knew that just about anything could happen during a storm.  He remembered the flash of light that had preceded his discovery of the Colonel, and looked about him apprehensively.

"If it wasn't lightning, what was it?" asked Joe impatiently.

"I don't know," Adam replied through gritted teeth.  He picked up the wire cutters.  "Come on.  Let's get this fence finished before the storm comes."  Tiny snowflakes flurried about them as they finally completed the task.  They  packed the supplies and mounted to hurry back to the house, looking forward to a crackling fire, a change into dry clothes, and a cup of hot chocolate or tea.

Suddenly, to the north of them, the sky opened again in a flash of light.  Adam looked toward it, fearful of what he might see or hear.

"That was no lightning," said Joe.  "What was that?"

Adam wanted nothing more than to go back to the house and forget all the occurrences of the past day or two.  He fought the gnawing curiosity drawing him to go investigate, and said, "Who knows?  Something to do with the storm blowing in.  The sooner we get back, the less of that we'll have to deal with."

"We should go check it out," insisted Joe.  Pa would want us to."

"Not when we're racing a storm," argued Adam.  "I've been out on the range for a couple days, chasing cattle, and I'm not going on a wild goose chase now.  Probably it was nothing more than a weird flash of lightning."

"That was no lightning," repeated Joe.  "You go back home, and I'll be back after I've looked that area over."  He rode off, despite Adam's protests.  Cursing under his breath, Adam followed his brother until he overtook him.  He didn't know what Joe would meet, and certainly didn't want him alone whenever he found whatever might be there.

If anything was there.

If anything had been there.

As they rode, spots of light mixed with darkness ahead of them.  Adam hoped he was ill or overtired, and rubbed his eyes.

"Adam!"

Joe's voice was behind him.  Adam stopped and turned around.  Though the lights were behind him, they still flashed before his eyes.  The snowfall was getting heavier, and it was hard to see his brother.  "What?"

"What is all that?"

"What is all what?"  Adam stubbornly refused to acknowledge the question.  "Haven't you seen snow before?"

"Don't you see it?"  Joe's voice rose in exasperation.  "Those lights!  And why is it so dark there?"

Adam was furious.  He didn't want to be here.  He preferred to ignore the lights.  He didn't want this to be happening.  "Why don't you go back to the house, little brother?" he asked sarcastically.  "Let me go check out those 'lights' you're seeing."  He turned to ride off, only to see the darkness and spots of light filling the sky above him and all about him.

Adam cringed at the sound of gunfire and ear-splitting explosions.  He heard a drone and whine, and looked up to see the winged vehicle of his previous vision.  It flew straight toward them, coming lower every second.  Adam recognized the sound of an engine that was much more sophisticated than that of a steam engine.  He bent low over Sport's neck.  Suddenly, the sound was gone.  He looked up to a cloudy sky with big snowflakes settling on his face.

"What was that?"  His brother's voice just behind him was filled with skepticism and fear.

Adam was silent for a moment.  "I don't know."  He stared vainly into the snow, hoping for a clue to what he had just seen.  He saw only snow and  increasing clouds.  "Let's get home."

As the brothers turned up their coat collars against the wind and snow and pushed their horses toward the house, Joe recalled his strange adventures at Ellen's house the previous October.  As he had driven home after dark that night, he had heard eerie, beautiful music from a stone quarry next to the road.

"Adam?"

"What?"  Adam asked tersely.

"Do you remember last fall, when I was supposed to take Ellen to that party, and we couldn't go?"

"Yeah.  I remember."

Joe hesitated.  His brother was likely to think him a fool.

Adam squinted and lowered his head against an especially hard blast of wind.  "What are you getting at?" he finally asked when Joe remained silent.

"Well....What I just saw back there made me feel - funny.  And I felt the same way when I was riding home from Ellen's that night last October."  He paused.  "Does that make any sense?"

"No," said Adam.  "But don't worry.  Nothing is making sense right now."
 

Colonel Donovan could hear the resonating booms above the noisy drone of the plane's engine.  Smoke rose as bombs fell, and the Rhineland burned.  The Allies were nearly into Germany.  If they could just get over the border, they could begin their march toward and attack on key German cities, and finally end this everlasting war.  As his squadron swooped down on the Axis forces on the other side of the Rhine, helping pave the way for the ground forces to capture a bridge for invasion, he heard the sound of rapid gunfire, followed by an explosion in the back of his plane.  He managed to eject from the aircraft as intense heat and light enveloped him.

When he awoke, his face was swathed in bandages, and his hands were tied to the metal rails of the bed.  He tried to open his eyes, but couldn't open them far enough to see very much.  He attempted to pull his hands free, and winced as the strips of cloth used to restrain him chafed his sore wrists.  Apparently, he'd been struggling to free himself for a while.  He tried to talk, but his mouth was dry and his lips cracked and sore.

He thought he saw people in white uniforms walking by, but no one came toward him.  He hoped someone would come soon.  He needed a drink of water, to find out where he was and what had happened to him, to find out what day it was, and if his wife was here.  He tried to call out, but couldn't raise his voice above a croak.  His struggles to free himself were again fruitless.

Suddenly, a strong arm slid under his shoulder and lifted him slightly.  "Easy, easy," a young man's voice crooned.  Water was dribbled onto his lips, and he opened his mouth desperately.  He yanked the glass to his face, spilling the water over the front of him.  "Easy!" exclaimed the young man again, as he grabbed the glass and kept some of it from spilling, and held it to his lips.

Jim Donovan looked about him after gulping down the water.  This wasn't the field hospital.  This was - where was this?  Home?  No.  There was no room at home that looked like this.  He suddenly realized he could see clearly, and that there were no bandages on his face.  Nor were his hands tied.

"Where am I?" he asked.

"At the Ponderosa, my father's ranch," the young man's voice replied.

Colonel Donovan looked for the first time at the young man by his side.  Sensitive green eyes in a concerned, youthful, handsome face framed by brown curls met his gaze.  Donovan gasped in mixed amazement and delight.  "Johnny?  Johnny!  You're - you're all grown up!  And - and you - you can sit up!"  He put his hand on the young man's cheek.  "Oh, it's so good to see you!  Where is your mother?"

"I - I'm not Johnny, sir," the young man replied as he gently removed the soldier's hand from his cheek.  "I'm sorry, but I'm not Johnny.  My name is Joseph Cartwright, and you're on my father's ranch, the Ponderosa."

Colonel Donovan was devastated.  He collapsed back on the pillows.  "Oh, I'm sorry," he moaned.  He looked again at this man Joseph.  "You sure look like my Johnny."  He closed his eyes.  "Are you sure you're not him?"

"Yes, sir, I'm sure," replied Joe.  "I'm sorry," he added.

The soldier opened his eyes and studied him again.  "What happened to your eye?"

Joe was painfully reminded of his foolishness that nearly cost him his life.  "Oh, I - got in a fight."

Donovan studied him.  "A fight."

"Yes, sir."  Joe felt as though he was talking to his father.

"A fight in the war?"

Joe looked puzzled.  "War?  No, sir, there is no war.  Except the Indian wars.  Is that what you mean?"

Colonel Donovan looked at Joe.  Indian wars?  He looked about him.  The paneled room shone golden in the sunlight streaming in the western windows.  He saw an oil lamp on a table along the opposite wall, and a candle on the nightstand.  These people apparently didn't have electricity.  They must live awfully far away from civilization.  He studied the young man, Joseph, again.  His clothes were old-fashioned, but clean.  His tousled curls were damp.  Apparently, he had recently bathed.  They seemed civilized enough.

"Where did you say I am?" he asked.

"On the Ponderosa, my father's ranch," Joe explained again.

"Where is that?"

"We're in Nevada Territory," Joe explained, figuring it best not to explain that Nevada was not yet organized as a territory, but soon would be.

Colonel Donovan looked at him with an expression of mixed terror and suspicion.  "Nevada Territory!  You mean the state of Nevada!  Don't you?"

Joe tried to hide his surprise.  "No, sir, I mean Nevada Territory," he repeated.  "We're not a state yet, though we hope to be later."

Colonel Donovan's eyes darted about the room.  Where was he?  What had happened to him?  Perhaps this was all a bad dream.  His eyes finally came to rest on Joseph.  He closed his eyes, and saw the green eyes and brown curls on Johnny, only three years old when he had left for the war.  Of course, this young man couldn't be Johnny.  Johnny was dead.  He remembered now.  His wife had notified him of his death while he fought in France, during the Battle of the Bulge.

Johnny had never been expected to live long.  The doctors told Donovan and his wife that he would probably never walk, and may never even sit up.  Most of the time, the doctors said, these children die while they are quite young.  Johnny would probably get pneumonia, or a childhood disease such as whooping cough or measles, and die.

Jim and Irene Donovan had been determined that their son would beat the odds.  They cared for him as best as they were able, despite constant chiding from family, friends, and doctors to put him in an institution that specialized in caring for children like him.  They refused to treat him as though he was fragile or special, instead insisting that he learn to live as normal a life as was possible for him.  He was a beautiful child, with brown curls corkscrewing from his head, and vivid green eyes with long lashes.  When Jim had left for the war after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Johnny had just celebrated his third birthday.  He was a bright, congenial child who needed constant physical care, but was a pleasure to be around.  He enjoyed being read to and playing with small toys that were placed within his reach.

But Johnny had died while his father fought the Axis forces in France.  Jim had cried when he received the letter informing him of his son's death.  But he couldn't leave, not when the Allies were engaged in one of the most crucial battles that may prove to be the turning point of the war.  After that battle was won, Jim had attempted to bury his grief in the battles to invade Germany.  After he was shot down, and lying helpless in a field hospital on the French-German border, he was brought face to face with his grief.  With Joseph's green eyes and curls in his mind, Colonel James Donovan slipped back into the shadows of memory.
 

The storm had blown by in less than half a day, followed by a beautiful, sunny late afternoon and magnificent winter sunset.  When Joe reported that the Colonel had spoken to him that afternoon, the day after Adam had found him, they were delighted.  The man was confused, as he was mistaking Joe for "his Johnny."  But he had obviously been through severe emotional trauma, and some confusion was to be expected.

The morning after the Colonel awoke, Ben paid a visit to the Willis family to invite them to spend Christmas at the Ponderosa.  Adam, Hoss, and Joe went searching for a Christmas tree.  As they rode into the hills among the tall Ponderosa pines, Hoss said, "Let's make sure it's the perfect tree this year!  Them Willis kids need to have a good holiday!"

"Hoss, you always make sure it's the 'perfect' tree," said Joe.  "We never can bring home anything less than the perfect tree, and that's why we ride all over creation!  Come on!  There's lots of good trees!  Let's pick one and be done with it!"

"But Joe, those kids have been through a lot!" exclaimed Hoss.  "They just lost their pa, and they need to have a good Christmas!  And that means a good tree!"

"You mean a perfect Christmas, and the perfect tree, don't you, Hoss?" joshed Adam.  "Let's see:  Is that the perfect tree over there?"  He brought the sledge to a stop and pointed to the right side of the path.  "Or how about that one?" He pointed to the left.  "Problem is, we can't pick out the perfect tree until we've examined every tree around, can we?"

"Oh, come on!" exploded Joe.  He didn't like being reminded of Tom Willis, or his now-fatherless children.  "Just pick a tree, will you?  And let's be done with it!"

Hoss and Adam stared at their brother in mute shock after this atypical outburst.  Joe clenched his teeth and stared ahead of him, unwilling to meet their gaze.

"Why, Joe, what's the matter with you?" exclaimed Hoss.  "This isn't like you!  'specially not at Christmas, when we're trying to help somebody, and cheer them up!"  Adam said nothing, but looked at his youngest brother with concern.

"I know!  I know!  I'm just sick of scouting around for the perfect tree!  Like it even exists!  Let's just cut a tree, and get it home!"

"Joe, what is eatin' you?" declared Hoss.

Joe buried his head in his hands.  "I don't know," he said haltingly after a long minute.  He raised his head and impatiently wiped his face with his sleeve.  "I should've been there," he whispered.  "I should've been there with you, by your side, when you were fighting those rustlers.  Maybe Tom Willis wouldn't have been killed, if I'd been there, instead of in town, fightin' mad."

"Joe -" Adam hesitated.  "What makes you so sure that things would've been any different if you'd been there?  The same thing could've happened anyway, you know."  He spoke gently, trying to calm his younger brother.

"If I'd been there, you would have been, too, Adam," said Joe.  "Pa wouldn't have had to send you to town after me, if I hadn't been gone.  The two of us might have made a difference."

"Little brother, you don't know that," said Hoss earnestly.  "For all you know, you or Adam might have been killed.  Some of the other men were injured.  None seriously, except Tom, of course.  But the fact is, you don't know what might have been.  No one does or can.  You were in town, Adam went after you, and that's that.  No one can change that.  All we can do now is help Tom's widow and children as best we can."

"I know!" said Joe with an anguished cry.  "I know!  But if I'd been there -"

"Joe, Joe!" said Adam, taking hold of his brother's shoulders.  "You weren't there.  You were going through your own private hell.  You don't know what might have happened, and neither does anyone else.  No one is blaming you.  Stop torturing yourself."  Joe looked into Adam's eyes, and collapsed in his arms.  The two brothers hugged each other tightly.

Hoss stepped down from the seat and walked over to them.  He clapped them on the back, and encased both of them in a huge hug.  "Let's get going, you two," he said.  "We want to do all we can for Tom's family, now, don't we?"  He looked at Joe.

Joe and Adam pulled apart.  "Yeah, Hoss," replied Joe.  "Yeah, we do."

"Well, a start to helpin' them out is making sure they have a real nice tree," said Hoss.  "Now, I was by here about a week ago, and I saw a real purty one up over the next rise.  Why don't we go look at it, and see if we can fit it through the door?"
 

The three brothers entered the house later that day to find the Colonel sitting at the table with their father.  An empty plate and glass were pushed back in front of him.

"Hello, Pa!" Hoss greeted his father.  "Hello - sir!" Hoss was unsure how to address the stranger.

"Boys," announced Ben, "come here, please.  This is Colonel James Donovan.  These are my sons, sir:  Adam, Hoss, and Joe."

"Call me Jim," said the Colonel in a pleasant voice.  Greetings, pleasantries, and handshakes were exchanged.

"Glad to see you feeling so much better, Jim," said Adam.

"Adam is the one who found you by my fence line a few days ago," explained Ben.  "I was just starting to tell you, as they came in, that we couldn't figure out what happened to you."

Jim's eyes moved back to the boys.  He looked intently at each one, until his gaze rested on Joe.  "I talked to you.  Didn't I?"

Joe nodded.  "Yes, sir.  You did.  Yesterday.  You talked to me for a few minutes.  But you were - confused, I think."

"You told me..." Jim sighed.  "You told me some strange things.  Maybe I was dreaming."

"No, sir, you weren't dreaming," Joe assured him.  "We did talk."

"Who are you, Jim?" asked Adam.  "We found your identification papers in your pocket, but we don't understand.  Where are you from?"

"Well, if you found my papers, you know who I am." Jim sounded slightly indignant and frightened.  "I'm Colonel James Daniel Donovan, and I'm a Colonel in the United States Air Force.  I'm from Yankton, South Dakota."

"Jim," said Hoss gently, " there ain't no United States Air Force, sir.  There's the Union Army, and the Navy, but no air force.  Can't rightly think what an air force might be.  And - there ain't no South Dakota, either.  There's some territory up northeast of here that might soon become Dakota Territory, but -" he shook his head - "no South Dakota."

"Yankton's near the southeast corner of what's about to become Dakota Territory," said Adam.  "That's still Indian territory, though, and it may take it a while for it to officially become a territory of the United States government."

Jim buried his head in his hands.  Adam and Joe exchanged glances.  Ben and Hoss stared at the man.  Suddenly, Jim raised his head and looked at Joe.  "Didn't you say something about - Nevada Territory yesterday?"

Joe nodded uncertainly.  "Yes, sir.  I did.  That's where we are, in Nevada Territory.  Well, we're not officially a territory yet.  But we will be."

Their guest looked at the table before him in shock.  "What is the date?" he asked faintly.

After a moment's hesitation, Joe replied, "It's December 23rd, sir."

"Of what year?" asked Jim.

Joe looked at his father in bewilderment, then replied, "1859, sir."

The Colonel looked about him with dread as he realized where and when he was.  Ben approached him and laid a hand on his shoulder.  "Why don't you tell us the last thing you remember?"

Jim took a deep breath and looked around him.  He saw the oil lamps, the  hardwood floors, the old-fashioned rugs, and the antique furniture, not to mention the out-of-style clothing of his benefactors.  It was all so clear now.  Indian wars - Nevada Territory - Dakota Territory - 1859.  How had this happened?  And how could he ever get back to his home?

With his shoulders sagging, and staring into space before him, he began his tale.  "I was flying home from the war.  I was to attend an awards ceremony once I reached home, so I was wearing my dress uniform."  He looked at the clothes he was wearing.  "I don't know what happened to my uniform."

"We have it," Ben assured him.  "The doctor needed to undress you to fully examine you.  We put the uniform away, and gave you some of my clothes to wear."

"Anyway," the Colonel continued, "shortly after my pilot said we were over the Missouri/Nebraska border, we suddenly entered a thick fog.  We hadn't seen it coming.  I couldn't see an inch past my window, and the pilot couldn't navigate at all, because his instruments suddenly went haywire.  For a long time, he wasn't certain where we were.  We must have veered off course.  I thought we'd crash for sure.  I felt this tremendous jolt, and heard several explosions, but they sounded far away.  I must have passed out.  The next thing I remember is this young man -" he nodded toward Joe - "talking to me."

Ben's brows drew down over his eyes.  "Mr. Donovan, sir," he said, "there are several items from your 'account' that need clarification.  For starters, you say you were flying.  In a balloon?  If so, how could you get from the Missouri/Nebraska border to here, in the circumstances you describe?  No fog could last that long!  And you say your pilot's instruments 'went haywire'.  What instruments?"

Adam looked from Colonel Donovan to his father.  He felt his youngest brother's eyes upon him, and turned unwillingly to meet them.  Joe was watching him with a knowing, frightened expression, and Adam's fear grew as he returned the gaze.

Adam swallowed hard, and turned to his father.  "Pa, wait a minute."  He looked at their guest.  "Mr. - uh, Colonel Donovan, what were you - were you in a balloon when this happened?"

The Colonel looked puzzled.  "Why, no, sir, of course not!" he exclaimed.  "I was in a plane, of course!"

"A WHAT?!" exclaimed Hoss.

"A plane!" exclaimed Jim.  "An airplane!  Surely you have seen planes out here!"  Suddenly he realized the date:  1859.  No.  They had not seen planes.  Not if they were telling him the truth, and this wasn't some gigantic hoax.

"Colonel," said Joe, "the last you remember, when you were going home, as you say, what year was it?"

Jim swallowed and stared bleakly back at him.  "1945," he whispered.

"And what war were you in?" asked Adam.

"World War II," came the barely audible reply.

Joe and Adam looked at each other with mingled fear and understanding.  Ben's brows drew down even more.  "Mr. Donovan," he thundered, "I'm going to have to report you to the sheriff.  I can only assume -"

"Pa," Joe interrupted.  His father glared at him.  "He's not lying, Pa."

"Joe's right," agreed Adam.  "Colonel Donovan's telling -" Adam hesitated.  "He must be telling the truth."

Ben looked from one son to the other.  "Perhaps you would care to enlighten me as to why you are so certain he's being truthful?"  he stormed.

Adam and Joe looked at each other, turned to their father, and shook their heads.  "No, sir," replied Joe.  "Not right now, at least."

"You'd never believe us," added Adam.  "I'm not sure I believe us," he silently added to himself.

Hoss stirred uncomfortably.  "Uh, why don't you tell us about the war you fought in, Mr. Donovan?"

Jim hesitated, unsure of whether or not to continue.  "I was a pilot in the war.  305th Bombardment Group, Eighth Air Force.  We were stationed in England, and I bombed enemy targets in France and Germany, mainly.  I fought the Germans in France at the Battle of the Bulge."  He shut his eyes as he recalled the hideous casualties of that battle and the terror surrounding him every moment.  His voice shook as he continued.   "Somehow, during the midst of that horrible battle, I received notification from my wife informing me that-" his voice broke and tears streamed down his face before he could continue in a hoarse whisper - "my son had died."  He was unable to continue for several minutes.  Hoss put his arm about the man in an attempt to comfort him.

"My Johnny!" sobbed Jim.  "He was a beautiful child!  He was three years old when I left in '42.  He had green eyes, brown curls, and was the spunkiest, happiest boy anywhere.  He was the best."

After a few deep breaths, Jim continued.  "Johnny had something wrong with him.  The doctors had a long, fancy name for it.  I don't recall it.  I only remember them telling me that he'd never walk, and he'd probably die before he even reached two years.  He was five, almost six, when he died.  We took care of him ourselves, we did, though most everyone about us told us to put him in an institution.  But he contracted pneumonia, and he died.  He died.  And I wasn't there!  I wasn't there to see him, or be with him.  I couldn't hold his hand; couldn't comfort him, or my wife.  No, I was at war, and in the midst of one of the most horrible and decisive battles in the war, as it turned out."

Joe swallowed and looked away.  He knew full well the agony involved of being one place and later wishing he was in another.

Jim buried his head in his hands.  "Once I knew my son was dead, and we finally were through with that horrible battle, I didn't want to go back."  He stopped while he mastered his emotions, then continued.  "After that, we were sent to help with the Allied invasion of Germany.  I was shot down as I bombed the German forces east of the Rhine.

"I woke up in a field hospital in France.  I was covered in bandages, with my hands tied to the bed so I couldn't aggravate my burns.  I doubted I'd recover - I really didn't want to - but I did.

"While I was still in the hospital, I was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for valor in battle."  He laughed mirthlessly.  "What valor?!  I only did what I had to do; what I was told to do.  Once I learned my son had died, I didn't care what I did, or what happened to me."  He shook his head.  "It was not valor that earned me that medal.  It was foolhardiness."

Ben pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to his guest.  After wiping his eyes, Jim continued.  "A few months later, after I recovered somewhat, I could have gone home.  But I didn't.  My wife needed me, I'm sure.  But I couldn't go home and face her without our son there.  I couldn't.  So when I heard that people were needed in Germany to help with refugees, I volunteered to go.  Since I speak German fluently, they were glad to have me.  I sent a wire to my wife, and went to Munich, where I was to help reunite survivors of the concentration camps with their families, or at least help people find out what happened to members of their families who had been taken there."

"Concentration camps?" asked Adam.

Jim closed his eyes wearily.  "Hitler, the Fuhrer of Germany, incarcerated in forced labor and extermination camps anyone who was....different.  Anyone non-white.  Especially the Jews.  There were also blacks, gypsies, Christians and others who stood up for those they would take away...and the ones blind, deaf, deformed, or....crippled."  He uttered the last word in a whisper.  He couldn't go on.

"The Germans did this?" Ben asked incredulously after several moment's silence.

Jim nodded.

"Didn't anyone try to stop them?" demanded Joe.

Jim shook his head.  "Not at first.  Germany had already lost the last war, and no one believed they could really do what they were doing.  But they conquered one country after another, and scarcely anyone wanted to get involved in another war across the world."  He looked up at Joe.  "Our country didn't get involved until after we were bombed by the Japanese.  And no one could believe the reports of the killing in the concentration camps.  It seemed too incredible, too inhumane, to be true."

Jim's hands shook.  How could he describe the horrors of learning that large groups of people had been murdered by poison gas, while thinking they were showering?  How could he recount the nightmare of war-hardened troops, liberating a concentration camp full of live skeletal bodies behind barbed wire, only to find a crematory full of human skeletons?  And that wasn't even the beginning....

Hop Sing emerged from the kitchen.  "Colonel Jim's bath ready.  Come with me, please, if you are ready?"

Ben nodded.  "Yes, Hop Sing, thank you."  He helped the Colonel up from the table and led him to his cook, who anxiously assisted him to his bath.

"You eat, bathe.  You feel better.  Soon!"

Ben and Hoss looked at one another, then at Adam and Joe, who dropped their eyes to the floor.  "Boys, I can't buy what he's saying," Ben argued, as though to convince himself.  "The German Confederation is full of unrest and dissension.  There was a revolution about 10 years ago, and the Prussian king refused to rule over a united Germany!  The point is, Germany is not a strong, unified power, which it would have to be for what he is talking about to be true!  He's talking about a war - more than one war! - across the world from here!"

"He mentioned Japan, too, Pa," said Hoss, shaking his head in bewilderment.

"But Pa," protested Joe, "he's talking about 1945, not now."

"Is he?" thundered Ben.  "Or is he, as Doc Martin suspects, a fugitive from justice?"

"Pa," said Adam gently, "if he was running from the law, why concoct such a wild, unbelievable, inaccurate story?  Why wear such a get-up as he had on?  No, if he was running from justice, he'd try to blend in, not stand out!"

Ben hesitated as he heard his own words to the doctor echoed by his eldest son.  He looked at him sharply, wondering what he had seen, what he knew, that he wasn't telling.  "Maybe he's not right in the head," he muttered, more to convince himself than Adam or his brothers.

Adam shrugged.  "Maybe not.  But he deserves the benefit of the doubt.  Let's give it some time."

Ben sighed.  Adam was right.  This wasn't the time of year to be uncovering subterfuge, anyway.  They had company coming tomorrow, and the house had better be ready, and the hosts in the right frame of mind.  Anything that needed reporting to the sheriff could wait until after Christmas.  "Did you boys find that tree I sent you after?"

"Yes, sir!" exclaimed Hoss.  "We found us the perfect Christmas tree, didn't we now, Joe?"  Hoss and his brothers led their father outside to show him the tall, slender tree on the sledge.
 

While his hosts struggled to get the huge tree into the house, Jim attempted to relax in the warm water.  He was exhausted after telling his story to the Cartwrights, but his mind was in turmoil.  What he had revealed to his hosts had shocked them, though he could tell that Ben, and maybe Hoss, doubted his tale.  But what he hadn't told them now tormented him.

He saw in his mind the long lines of people waiting, for hours or days, for information about their loved ones who had been taken away before and during the war.  Munich, where he was stationed, was between 10 and 15 miles from Dachau, which he very quickly learned was the location of one of the worst concentration camps that had been established by the Nazis.

Jim shuddered as he recalled searching through endless lists of names and  documents that had been found when the Nazi soldiers abandoned the camp during the Allied advance into Germany.  At first, when telling distraught family members that their loved ones had been killed, he had wept, especially when pressed for details.  He had quickly overcome that reaction - too quickly, perhaps.  Very soon, he was speaking in a monotone, telling one faceless person after another that their love ones had died by poison gas, starvation, disease, or execution.  He watched himself walk calmly through each day, researching these horrible murders, and emotionlessly relaying the information to one agitated survivor after another.  He learned not to meet their eyes, and to turn away from their tears.

He found it increasingly difficult to sleep, and began to dread going to his quarters at the end of the day.  Countless times each night he woke to his own screams, drenched in sweat, with vague memories of nameless demons pursuing him in his swiftly fading dreams.  He began leaving a light burning at night while he slept, and found himself constantly looking over his shoulder whenever he was alone, especially when it was dark.

Then the sisters arrived.  He saw them far back in line, waiting patiently in their neat but travel-worn habits.  As they approached, he noticed their anxious yet hopeful eyes in careworn faces.  For some unfathomable reason, he began to dread their approach, and hoped that they would talk with someone else in their search for loved ones.  His hopes were unrealized as they came to him when they finally reached the front of the line after several hours.

Sister Marta Francesca addressed him politely but earnestly.  Her German was a little difficult to understand, as it was mixed with French.  She and her sisters came from  a small town west of Stuttgart.  That explained her dialect, thought the Colonel.  That was less than 60 miles from the French border, and the people in that area  were known for their peculiar smattering of French mixed with German.

As she told Jim what they wanted, he understood why he had dreaded talking to her.  He couldn't face these women.  He had to get away.  But all of their eyes were fixed on him, and there was no escape.  They had been to Baden-Baden, Sister Francesca told him.  That was where a lot of searches for those lost to the Nazis began, as it was the seat of the French occupational government after the war.  The authorities there had directed them to Munich.

The women were from the Convent of the Sisters of Mercy.  They were looking for their children.  The nun's words were punctuated silently by her sisters' nods of affirmation.  Their children, Sister Francesca explained, all had infirmities.  Many were mentally feeble, some were blind, or deaf; several could not speak as well, and many were in wheelchairs.  They had cared for these children for many years, the sister was careful to point out.  Some of them were orphaned; others from broken homes.  Quite a few were from loving parents who simply could not care for them.  These were the children God had given them, whom no one else wanted.  They had lovingly devoted themselves to their care.

They never thought their children were in any danger.  What possible threat could they pose to the people about them?  When the soldiers came to their small town for the Jews, it didn't seem to affect them.  They prayed that God would keep them and their children safe.  And so it seemed He did.

But one day, there was a knock on the door.  The sister who opened it encountered several grim, unsmiling soldiers, one of whom informed her they had come for their children.  The woman ran for Sister Francesca, but there was nothing any of them could do.  The soldiers went through the convent and took all their children.  They carried them outside and threw them into the back of an army truck as though they were sacks of cattle feed.  No amount of reasoning, pleading, begging, or weeping could dissuade them.  This was by order of the Fuhrer, the commanding officer tonelessly informed the sisters.  There was nothing he, they, or anyone could do.  When several of the nuns attempted to climb into the truck with the children, they were thrown or kicked out.  They begged to be taken with the children, to care for them, but were harshly refused.  Helplessly, they watched the truck and the soldiers disappear with the precious cargo.

Appeals to the town authorities met variously with stony silence, disapproving glares, shifting eyes, or threats of incarceration due to their sedition in supporting and caring for "undesirables."  The Fuhrer only wished to weed out the inferior, unproductive members of society.  Did they not wish to help?  Pleas to visit the children, to at least see them from afar, were refused.  This, along with all else the Fuhrer ordered, was for Germany's own good, the sisters were told.  They would realize this, and would thank him yet, IF they kept quiet and did not question him further.  The whole world would thank him.

Sister Francesca produced photographs of some of the children, and names and descriptions of all of them.  Jim's hands shook as he took them.  He did his usual search through the files, and finally found cross-referenced under "Stuttgart" the name "Convent of the Sisters of Mercy."  Several of the children's names were listed there.  Probably these were the ones who could tell the soldiers their names, Jim assumed.  Others were described by hair and eye color, or infirmity.  He searched further, and was fairly certain he found all of them.  Most had been sent to Dachau; some to Treblinka.  Further search through the files retrieved from Dachau showed that they had all died at the hands of doctors while being used for medical research.  Notes by the names or descriptions of those sent to Treblinka indicated those children probably met the same fate.

Through his tears (which rarely flowed now), the Colonel looked again at the pictures.  One of them was of a lad with a twisted body who appeared to be about five years old.  He had bright eyes, a lively expression, and a winsome smile.  Jim could tell that child wasn't mentally feeble.  His only "crime" was to be born in a body that didn't work right.  He could have been Johnny.  Any of them could have been Johnny.

Jim managed to stop his tears, and stumbled back to tell the sisters that their children had been killed by poison gas.  That lie was bad enough, but he could not bear to tell them the truth.  He managed also to inform them that some of the children, whose names or descriptions he provided, had been sent to Treblinka.   He was careful not to watch as they clutched one another and stumbled away, bent over and sobbing with grief.  He wondered what they would have done had he told them the truth.

That night, his nightmares returned worse than ever.  He awoke screaming, convinced that something was in the room with him.  He was sent to a hospital by his superior officer, where doctors determined him to be on the edge of a nervous breakdown after two intense battles, being shot down and injured, and the death of his son.  Dealing with the aftermath of the concentration camps was only adding to his stress, it was decided, so he was discharged and sent home.

He notified his wife of his impending arrival, who wired him back, saying his hometown wanted to hold a special ceremony for their decorated war hero upon his return.  He dreaded that ceremony as much as he dreaded returning to a home bereft of his son.
 

The four Cartwrights struggled mightily as they eased, jiggled, gently pulled, and finally shoved the gigantic tree through the door of the Ponderosa.  "Hoss, you've done it again!" growled Joe.  "Your 'perfect' tree is too big to get through the door!"

Hoss grunted as he strained to compress the branches so none broke as they brought the enormous tree through the doorway.  "You weren't complaining when we found the tree, Joe.  You said you thought it'd do just fine."

"I did not!" Joe hotly replied.  "I told you it was too big to get inside!  You insisted it was fine!"

"Enough, you two!" panted Adam.

At the same time, Ben snarled, "You boys always get a tree we can barely lift off the sledge, much less fit through the door!  Remind me to cut a bigger doorway once the weather gets warmer!"

"Pa, you say that every year!" declared Hoss.

"That's because I forget to do it in the summer, and it's too cold to do it when I need it!"

With a mighty heave, Hoss, who was holding on to the bottom of the tree, squeezed the great branches past the doorway and shoved the behemoth all the way into the room.  Ben, Adam, and Hoss were caught off guard and propelled forward along with the tree.  Adam stumbled and fell, closing his eyes tightly as the branches raked over his face.  Ben was dragged along with his arm caught tightly in the fork of the branch he had been holding.  Joe was swept off his feet and dragged along under the tree, which fell on top of him once his father and brother lost their hold.

"Hoss!" bellowed Ben, yanking his arm free, "Tell us before you do any more shoving like that!  We'd like to be ready!"

"Dadburnit, Pa, I'm just tryin' to get this tree inside!  If you three would hold on and pull like you're supposed to, everything would've been fine!"  Hoss still held his end of the tree off the floor.

"We have to know what you're doing before you go shoving the tree around like it's on a runaway train, Hoss!" shouted Adam.  He rubbed his sleeve over his face to dislodge pine needles.  "Next time, warn us!"

"All right!" exclaimed Hoss.  He watched his brother rub his face and his father massage his arm.  "Well, come on!  Are you gonna help me get this tree up, or not?!"  Ben and Adam glared at him, and Adam started toward him with fists clenched and a glint in his eye.

"Would somebody get this thing off of me!" shouted Joe.

Adam stopped in mid stride and looked down to see a few of the branches waving as his brother struggled under the tree.  Ben looked down in alarm.  "Hoss!" Ben exclaimed.  "Joe is caught under the tree!"

Hoss looked at his father in alarm, dropped the tree completely on the floor, and ran forward.  "Where?" he shouted.

"Right there!" roared Ben, pointing next to his feet.  "Get it off of him, now!"

Hoss seized the trunk of the tree and lifted it off of his brother, who crawled out, sticky with rosin and spitting pine needles.  Once he was clear of the branches, Hoss dropped the tree back on the floor, oblivious to Ben jumping out of the way.  "You ok, Little Joe?"

"Bleeeah!" Joe spat the last of the pine needles from his mouth.  "Yeah, I'm ok, no thanks to you, you lumbering ox!"

Hoss's eyes grew big, his mouth tightened up, and his brows drew together.  He started over the tree toward his younger brother.

"All right, now, that's enough!" said Adam, jumping between his brothers with a restraining hand on each of them.  Hoss stopped, but Joe slipped around Adam.  As he tried to punch Hoss, Adam tried to grab his arm.  Joe tripped over the tree branches at the same time, and fell back into the tree.

Adam tried not to laugh, but the sight of his brother's curls stuck full of needles and the fury in his eyes as he rose from the tangled, breaking branches suddenly triggered a fountain of mirth.  He stumbled back to sit on the floor, laughing as hard as he could.

Joe's attention was suddenly turned toward Adam.  He had only taken one step toward him, however, before Hoss stepped over the trunk of the tree and lifted his younger brother over it.  "Let me go, Hoss!" shouted Joe as he struggled to free himself.

Hoss waited for him to calm down.  When he didn't, he tossed him into a nearby chair.  "Cut it out, Little Joe," he said.  "We've gotta get this tree up.  So cut out all the foolin' around, and let's get it done."

Joe paid no mind, but shot out of the chair straight towards Adam, who still sat on the floor laughing.

"Joseph!" shouted Ben.

Hoss yanked him off of Adam, pulled him close, and slowly squeezed.  For a moment, Joe protested and struggled mightily.  His struggles grew more feeble, and finally stopped.  He gasped for breath.

"Are you gonna quit this nonsense, Little Joe?" asked Hoss.  "Or do you turn blue first?"  He dropped him on the floor and started for Adam, who was still laughing.  He opened his hand and drew it back.  "How about you, older brother?"  Adam scrambled to his feet and stepped hastily backwards, swallowing his laughter.

"Now, cut out this foolishness, and let's all help get this tree up," said Ben.

The four men slowly heaved the tree off the floor and moved it to the center of the room, where a large wooden tub sat ready next to several pails full of dirt and small rocks.  "Steady," groaned Ben.  "Let's get it into this tub, and then Joe, you put in the dirt and rocks once we tell you to."  Joe grunted his assent.

"Now, let's all lift it up into the tub-" started Ben.  Once again, Hoss gave a mighty heave, and the tree went up, then the trunk down.  Unprepared for his brother's mighty effort, Joe was lifted off the floor and swung about into Adam, knocking him over.  The tree fell over, knocking the knickknacks from the top of the bookshelf, which broke on the floor with a crash-smash-splinter-crunch.

"Consarn it!" bellowed Hoss.  "Can't you two do nothing right?"

"Thanks for the warning, Hoss!" Adam's sarcasm was unmistakable as he emerged from the branches once again.

"Pa said to lift it up!"

"Lift it up, not propel it through the ceiling!  And on the count of three!"

"He didn't say anything about countin' to three!"

"You didn't give him a chance!"

"Get this thing off of me!" Joe was pinned between the upper part of the tree and the stair bannister.

"Enough!" roared Ben.   Silence  immediately fell.  "Now, get hold of this tree, and when I count to three, lift it into the tub!"  Finally, the tree was successfully lifted off of Joe and into the tub.

Joe stepped back and looked at it.  "It's crooked.  Move it to the right."  As the other three were standing on different sides of the tree, they all attempted to move it in different directions.

"Right!" shouted Joe.

"Whose right?" snarled Adam.

"My right!  Towards the stairs!"   They complied.  "Uh, now it's too far to the right."  They moved it again.  Joe studied it critically from every angle.  "Um, it's tipped too far back."  They moved it forward.  "Now it's too-"

"Just-put-the rocks-and dirt-in!!" growled Ben through clenched teeth.
Joe opened his mouth, then shut it, and did as his father said.

Hop Sing came in the room.  "What are you doing?!   Door is standing open!  It is cold in here!"  He looked at the floor.  "Dirt and snow all over!  You careless, and drop tree, and break things!  Company coming tomorrow, and Hop Sing does not have time to clean up after big boys fighting!"

The men shut their eyes as he continued his tirade.  "Hop Sing, Hop Sing!" exclaimed Joe.  "We'll clean it up, ok?  We'll clean it all up!  Won't we?" he looked at his brothers.

Hoss glared at him.  "You oughta clean it up!"

"Me!" sputtered Joe.  "Seems to me you're the one who caused all the trouble!"

"You'll all clean it up!" thundered Ben.  The boys looked at each other and shrugged.

Adam and Hoss cleaned up the mess while Ben and Joe, mounted on ladders, anchored the top and center of the tree to the wall with wire.  While they admired their handiwork, Hoss grumbled, "Get over here, Little Joe, and help us clean up."  After a glare from his father, Joe complied.

The Colonel entered the room as the brothers swept up the last of the dirt and broken glass.  He had started to pull his sweater on as he felt the chill in the room, but let it slide down his arm as he stood transfixed.  Ben and the boys watched him as he stared at the tree.  A smile crept across his face, and his eyes grew moist.

"Come in, Mr. Donovan, and sit down," said Ben.  "Would you like something to drink?  Some tea, perhaps?"

For a moment, it appeared Jim hadn't heard him.  "Uh, yes," he finally stammered.  "Tea sounds delightful, thank you."

Ben went to the kitchen to ask Hop Sing to bring in some tea while Hoss and Adam moved a chair back by the fire for the Colonel.  When Ben returned, he told Hoss to return the ladders to the tool shed.  "Adam, you come with me to the attic and help me get the Christmas decorations down.  Joe, you stay here and entertain our guest."  He looked at Jim, wondering what memories were triggered by the tree that he and his sons had struggled to put up.  "Come to the fire, Jim, and sit down," he said gently.  "We'll be with you in a few minutes."

Hop Sing bustled into the room a moment later with a tray holding a steaming teapot, cups and saucers, plates, and cookies.   "Mr. Cartwright work hard at getting tree up.  Boys clean up mess, so I can bake cookies."  He served Jim a fragrant cup of tea.  "Colonel Jim eat, drink, and get strong, so he can go home.  Eat cookies now, before Mister Hoss come, or there will be no cookies!"

"Sounds like good advice to me!" Jim took several cookies while Hop Sing poured Joe's tea.

After Hop Sing returned to the kitchen, Joe and the Colonel sat in silence for several minutes, sipping their tea and munching cookies.  The room was slowly warming up after the door had been open for so long, but they huddled close to the fire.  The acrid scent of wood smoke, the comforting aroma of the ginger tea, and the sharp, tingling fragrance of the pine tree reminded Joe of Christmases long past, and brought the image of his mother to  mind.  He recalled helping her decorating the tree, and saw her sprucing up the house for the holidays.  When neighbors came to visit, she greeted them with frothy mugs of hot chocolate - a rare and expensive treat out West! - or a cup of hot, spicy tea.

"How strange," Joe thought.  "I'm the only one of my brothers who remembers his mother, and I barely remember her at all.  But I miss her so much!"  A tremendous wave of loneliness swept over him, and he wondered if Hoss or Adam felt as lonely when they thought of their mothers, if indeed they ever thought of them.

Jim sat down his teacup with a clatter.  His large hands were almost too big to handle the delicate china.  "Your tree is beautiful," he told Joe.  He stared at it for a moment.  "It reminds me of the last Christmas I had at home."

"When was that?" Joe asked.

"Three - no, four- years ago," Jim replied quietly.

"Did you have a tree like this?"

Jim opened his mouth as though to speak, then gave a deep sigh.  "No, not this big," he finally said.  "It was smaller, though it seemed as big, because it filled our whole room.  But our room was a lot smaller than this.  I had just been called to active duty, and had to leave right after Christmas, in January of '42.  We got the biggest tree we could find, and had a Christmas celebration that we hoped no one would ever forget."  He stared at the fire.  "Johnny - my son- had a wonderful time."  Jim swallowed hard.

"I - I'm sorry about your son, sir," said Joe awkwardly.

Jim nodded, acknowledging Joe's expression of sympathy.  "I wasn't there when he died," he said hoarsely.  "I should have been there."

"You couldn't be, sir, if you were fighting a war," reasoned Joe.  "At least you have a happy last memory of him."

"I still should have been there, or gone home after I was released from the hospital instead of staying in Germany," said the Colonel.  He suddenly stood up.  "Even if he was still alive, I wouldn't have recognized my son!  He would have been three years older than when I had left!  He wouldn't have known me, either!  I didn't know myself by the time I left Europe!  I was shell-shocked, exhausted, sick of seeing what people had done to one another during the war!   Fancy that:  a decorated 'war hero' who was afraid to be in the dark!"

Joe stared at him, shocked by his outburst.  He wondered what this man had gone through, and what he hadn't told them that could possibly be any more grim than what he had already shared.  "I'm sure he would have known you, sir, and been proud of you," Joe replied with quiet certainty.

Jim looked at him closely.  "What makes you so certain, Joseph?"

"He'd know you," Joe said with quiet confidence.  "And he'd be proud of you, the same way I'd know and be proud of my mother."

"Your mother?" asked Jim.

"Yes, sir," replied Joe.  "My mother died when I was a small child.  I barely remember her.  Not too long ago, someone came into town, saying nasty things about her; about her past, I mean, before she met and married my father.  I spent a lot of time fighting people, defending her honor."

Jim looked knowingly at him.  "That's how you got your black eye."

Joe laughed self-consciously.  "Yes, sir.  A fight over my mother, who is dead."

"But you believe in your mother."  Jim's voice carried across the room.

"Yes, of course!" Joe said defensively.

"Good!" exclaimed Jim.  "If a man won't fight for something he believes in, what good is he?  I had to go overseas to fight against the Germans and their allies, to do my part to keep them from taking over the whole world and destroying the freedoms and way of life I know.  I also had to miss my son's death while doing it.  Maybe I should have gone home right away after getting out of that field hospital.  My wife needed me.  But I was needed in Europe, too.  I certainly didn't do anything great after the war, and I  didn't do anybody proud, either.  I was on the edge of a nervous breakdown.  But I helped reunite families who were the victims of a vicious  war, though a poor job I did of it.  But if a man won't fight for what he believes in, for what he holds dear to his heart, then what good is he?"

Joe fought back tears to no avail.  "I -  I missed something, too, sir.  While I was in town, fighting drunken gamblers about my mother's honor, my father sent Adam, my oldest brother, to check up on me.  While we were both gone - because of me - my father and my brother Hoss had to leave with some other men to chase down some rustlers who had stolen some cattle.  They got in a shoot-out, and - one man was killed."  Joe swallowed and gasped, "If Adam and I had been there, we may have been able to have stopped it.  Maybe that man wouldn't have been killed.  But he's dead, and now his wife and children are alone-"

"Joseph!"  Joe stopped as the Colonel looked hard at him.  "Do you actually think you might have changed things?  How can you know what might have been?  How can you know that divine providence didn't arrange it in just such a way as this?"  Jim looked at the crackling fire behind the boy, and the pictures and Bible on the table pushed out of the way against the wall.  "Yes, you ran off, hot-headed, perhaps, defending your mother's honor.  And someone else died while you were away.  But your mother's memory is still there, unchanged, despite what anyone thinks or does.  Nothing can change your memory, unless you let it."  He looked sharply at Joe.  "You did what you had to do, at the time you had to do it.  Let it go at that.  Move on.  Your mother, I believe, would be proud of you."  Jim looked Joe in the eye,  and a tear rolled down his cheek.  "You look so much as I imagine my son Johnny would look, were he grown.  You are a young man, a son, anyone would be proud of."

Joe nearly choked.  "Even though I wasn't there during a shoot-out, when my father and brother needed me?  And when I took another brother away to check up on me, so he wasn't there either?  Even when a man with a wife and children was killed when I might have prevented it?"

"Even so; especially so," said Jim, "since you were fighting for someone you loved and believed in."  He smiled at the young man before him.  "So many of us, during this war, wished we could be two, or even three, places at once.  But we couldn't.  We had families; yet we were called on to defend our country.  We had to be one place in order to fight for what we believed was important in another."  He smiled as he fought tears.  "You've done well, John- Joseph.  You did the best you could.  And that's all anyone could ask."  He put a strong hand on Joe's shoulder.  Joe looked him in the eye and tried to smile through his tears.

A strong gust of wind blew the tree's branches about and rushed up the chimney as Hoss came back in.  "It's gettin' colder 'n ole Billy b'dang out there!  I think there's another storm blowin' in!  I sure hope Mrs. Willis and them kids can get here tomorrow!  I'm thinkin' maybe one of us should go there and get them, instead of lettin' them drive over here alone!"  He hurried to the fire and stood in front of it, rubbing his hands together.  "Hey, Joe, where's Pa?  I need to talk to him about something."

"Pa went up to the attic with Adam to get the Christmas decorations down," said Joe.  He looked toward the top of the stairs.  "I think I hear them coming back downstairs now."  Scraping and thumping noises resounded over their heads, followed by Ben and Adam's footsteps descending the stairs.  Hoss and Joe helped carry several big crates down the steps.

"Well, come on, everyone, let's start decorating!" exclaimed Adam.  He looked around the room.  "Where are the ladders?  We can't get the tinsel on the tree, or any decorations near the top, without them."

"Dadgumit!" exclaimed Hoss.  "Pa, why did you tell me to take them ladders back out to the shed?  Now I gotta go back out in this cold to get them!"

Everyone except Hoss laughed.  "No, Hoss, just leave them until tomorrow," said Pa.  "I think the Willis family will enjoy helping us decorate the tree.  Besides, I think I've had more than enough of this tree for one day!"

Hoss furrowed his brow and frowned.  "What makes you say that, Pa?"  Much to his chagrin, everyone laughed again.  "What's so funny?" he demanded.

"Hoss, some of us nearly died to get this tree up," Adam reminded him.

Hoss's brows drew further together.  "Well, it wasn't my fault!" he growled.

"No, no, of course not," Ben placated him.  "We were all just hungry, and tired, that's all.  We ARE all hungry and tired, and need something to eat."  He looked hopefully toward the table.  "Surely supper will be ready soon," he muttered wishfully.

As if on cue, Hop Sing emerged from the kitchen door and began setting the table.  "Supper almost ready.  Wash up, and sit down, or chicken and dumplings will be ruined."

"Chicken and dumplings!  Now, don't that sound good!" exclaimed Hoss as he made a beeline for the table.

"Wash up!  Wash up!  I do not feed boys with dirty hands and faces!"  Hop Sing waved all of them away from the table and through the door, where they proceeded to wash up.

As they started to eat, Hoss said to Ben, "Pa, I saw some strange goings-on outside while I was taking them ladders back to the shed.  There were lots of lights off to the north, and strange, loud noises.  I couldn't figure what any of it might be."  He took a big bite of chicken.  "Maybe we ought to go out and take a look around after dinner.  Or tomorrow morning.  Can't do much in the dark, but we would be able to see those lights, if they come back."

Joe and Adam stopped eating.  Adam put his fork on his plate, while Joe's fork remained suspended between the plate and his mouth with a tantalizing bite of chicken with gravy on it.  Ben was staring at Hoss, meaning to ask him what he meant by lights and noises, but turned instead toward his other two sons.  Joe and Adam looked first at Hoss, then at each other.  When they noticed their father looking hard at them, they immediately turned their attention back to their food.

Looking at his oldest and youngest sons, Ben said, "What do you mean, Hoss?  What kind of lights, and what sort of noise?"

"Well, uh -" Hoss looked from his father to his brothers.  "It's kind of hard to explain, Pa.  Real bright lights flashing around, some big flashes, some little.  And lots of noise - a loud, roaring type of noise.  But it all happened real quick, before I came in."  Hoss watched his father as he studied Adam and Joe.  "Pa," demanded Hoss, "what's going on around here?"  He turned to his brothers.  "What are you two keeping from us?"

Joe sneaked a glance up from his plate toward Adam, who kept eating.  "Nothing, Hoss," said Joe.  "We're not keeping anything from you."

Adam glanced quickly at the Colonel, who was hungrily devouring one of the best meals he'd had since he left for the war.  Jim smiled politely at Adam in between mouthfuls of dumplings and beans.  As he took a sip of piping hot tea, he noticed Ben's blazing brown eyes beneath lowered brows glaring at him with scarcely muted fury, and drew back, puzzled and alarmed.  As all eyes at the table turned toward him, he put down his cup and said, "Gentlemen, is something amiss?"

Adam looked at his father.  "No, sir, Colonel," he replied.  "Nothing's wrong.  We're just - tired, that's all."

"Yeah," agreed Joe.  "We're tired.  Aren't we, Pa?"  Ben said nothing, but looked hard at Joe and Adam.

The Colonel sighed, and looked down at his plate.  "I'm sorry to put you to so much trouble," he apologized.

"It's no trouble, sir," Joe assured him.  "You're no trouble at all."

Ben managed to give a tight smile to his guest.  He leaned slightly toward Hoss and hissed, "You must have been seeing things!"

Hoss shrugged and kept eating.  Maybe he had been imagining things, as his father thought.  It had all occurred so quickly that he couldn't be certain.  But now, the house was warm, the food was good, and Christmas was coming.  He'd worry about what he had seen outside - if he had seen anything - later.
 

Hoss awakened suddenly during the night, and listened intently.  Some sound had roused him immediately and completely from a deep sleep.  He wasn't frightened; he hadn't even been startled awake, but he knew that something was amiss.  He listened closely to the deep silence of the Nevada night about him.  Faint light from a very thin crescent moon came through the window, and he could see a few stars in the sky from where he lay in bed.

There it was again!  A deep, resonating sound echoed about outside.  Hoss threw the covers back and rose stealthily.  As soon as his feet touched the cold floor, he hastily pulled on his socks.  He grabbed his robe from the foot of his bed as he went to the window, and pulled it tightly about him.

He looked out into the eerie blackness lit only by the sliver of moon.  The resonating vibrations grew more focused and changed pitch, growing higher, then lower.  Hoss furrowed his brow as he looked at the sky, hoping to see the moon was behind a cloud, and might soon give more light.  But the moon rode in a clear sky, and was already beginning its descent to the west.

Hoss saw Andromeda and Cassiopeia in the western sky, and watched them for a moment.  He swore that bright, fuzzy star in Andromeda winked at him.   The two constellations were lower in the sky than they had been last October, when Adam had pointed out that star to him.  His brother had mentioned it more than once in that peculiar way of his, and had always emphasized how bright it was.  Adam had a funny way of putting things.  He talked as though that star could be another whole world in itself.

The fluid sound vibrated up the stairs.  Hoss turned around, half irritated.  "Doggone if that isn't Adam playing his guitar, waking everyone up!"  But he knew it couldn't be Adam's guitar, unless Adam was making it play differently than he had ever heard it.  He left his room and went quietly down the hall to the stairs.  He suddenly stopped, and his breath caught in his throat.  Someone was standing there.  He could see nothing in the dark, even with the moonlight dimly illuminating the hall outside his room, but he could feel someone there, and he had heard the scritch of clothes against the wall.

"Who's there?" he asked.

"It's me, Hoss," he heard Ben reply from the top of the stairs.

"Pa?  What's that sound?"

"I don't know, son.  Maybe some of the hands are up to something in the bunkhouse."

Neither of them could figure what that something might be.

"I thought it might be Adam's guitar," said Hoss.

"It's not a guitar," said Ben.  He didn't say what he thought it could be.

"Sounds like it's coming from downstairs now," said Hoss.

As the two men descended the stairs, the sound faded away.  They looked about, but found nothing.  "Well, perhaps we were dreaming," said Ben.

Hoss started to say it was a pretty strange dream that happened at the same time, the same way for both of them, but jumped instead.  His eyes grew big, and he pointed to the window next to the table.  "Pa!  Look!  There's those lights again!"

Ben turned around.  Through the window, he could see lights flashing in the northern sky.  A low rumble resounded from far away, growing in intensity until the windows shook.  Heedless of the cold and his nightclothes, Hoss ran to the door.  "Hoss!" called Ben.  "Don't go outside!"

But Hoss ran out anyway, leaving the door open behind him.  Ben ran to the doorway, and both stared above them.  Something huge with flashing lights was flying directly toward them.  The low rumble had become a roar.  Hoss and Ben both ducked, fearful that whatever it was they were seeing would hit the house.  Suddenly, it disappeared.  The lights and sound were gone as well.  They searched the sky all about them, but only the stars shone, and the moon set as they were looking.

Ben took hold of Hoss's arm.  "Come on, son.  Let's get inside."  As he left the mystery of the lights and flying machine outside, Hoss took one last look at the western horizon.  Andromeda once again twinkled brightly at him.

Ben shut the door, and father and son looked at one another.  Then Ben stared at the floor while Hoss peered anxiously out the window, hoping and dreading to catch another glimpse of whatever spectacular sight he had just witnessed.   "Pa," said Hoss, "what did we just see out there?"

"I - I don't know," said Ben.  "Maybe we need to go to bed.  We must be - seeing things."

"Together?"  Hoss shot the word like an accusation.

Ben was speechless.

"Pa, we need to figure out what just happened!  We aren't dreaming, and we can't imagine the same things together!  Now, let's go back out there, and see what we can find!"

Ben put a restraining hand on his son's arm.  "Hoss, what makes you think we'd find anything?  There was nothing there when we went inside.  Besides, it's too cold and too dark to be going back out there tonight."  Hoss stared at him for a moment, wanting to argue but finding no words.  "We can always check tomorrow morning for - footprints, or, or tracks," continued Ben.

Reluctantly, Hoss nodded.  "Yeah.  Yeah, I guess we can do that."  He nodded again.  "First light."

Ben resisted the urge to turn and look out the window.  "We'd best get back to bed.  We have company coming tomorrow, and a couple of big days ahead of us."  Wordlessly, Hoss preceded his father up the stairs.

The music wove itself into Adam's dreams, which shifted from slogging through the mud after stubborn, bewildered cattle to a concert hall he had frequented while in Boston.  "What am I doing here in my muddy clothes?" he asked himself as he gazed at the other impeccably dressed patrons and then looked down at his dirty, bedraggled clothing and riding boots.  "I don't believe I came here dressed like this!   They'll think I'm just a cowhand!"

Finally, the music penetrated his consciousness, and he recognized it as the cello music he had heard that night last October, after Joe had come home so late from an outing with Ellen.  Fully awakened, he opened his eyes and stared at the darkness about him, trying to convince himself that he wasn't actually hearing what he was hearing.  As the music grew louder instead of fading away as he willed it to do, he turned over and put his pillow tightly about his ears.  Long before he could settle down enough to go back to sleep, however, a deep rumble that vibrated from the floor up through his bed made him open his eyes.  He saw lights flashing against the trees outside his window, and heard the now-familiar low rumbling noise increasing to a roar.  He hurled the covers over his head, wrapped the pillow back around his ears, and buried his face in the bed.

Joe started out of a sound sleep when he heard the music.  He bolted upright in bed, and stared about him.  For a moment, he thought it was last October, after he had returned from Ellen's, and had heard that music on his way home.  As the sound faded, he realized that it was two months later.  It must be Christmas Eve by now.  What was that sound?  Why was he hearing it again, here, now?  Maybe Adam....?  No.  That wasn't Adam's guitar.  Adam never woke anybody when he couldn't sleep, unless something was wrong.

He held his breath, trying to detect any sound in the silence now about him.  There was something....He fancied he heard a low rumble.  His window rattled, and so did the breath in his throat.  As the roar surrounded the house, he put his hands over his ears and waited for it to stop.  He saw the trees outside dimly illumined in flashing light, and squeezed his eyes tightly shut.  In the sudden silence that followed the sound, he heard the door close downstairs, followed by stealthy footsteps on the stairs and in the hall, and two bedroom doors closing.  He lay back down and tried to go back to sleep.  It took a long time for his ragged breathing and pounding heart to get back to normal.

Early the next morning, Joe went to the barn to help with the chores.  He saw footprints in the shallow cover of new snow that had fallen after they had brought the tree in the house the night before, and noted with surprise that they didn't