Phoenix Freed

Third, and final story, of the Phoenix Trilogy

By

The Tahoe Ladies

 Chapter One:

Sweet are the voices of all angels

            Ben couldn't help but smile. Around him that Christmas night the children of the mission had gathered and listened with rapt attention as he had read the story of the birth of the Christ child. As he had read it, he had caught the nods of understanding from the five nuns, especially the oldest one, Sister Immaculata. What made him the happiest was that there, with the mission children, were his own children though he struggled hard that cold night to not think of them that way. They were men, not little boys like Juan and Paco. Their being there had had a mighty effect on the children and Ben himself. Oh, it wasn't that little Chispa, a small wisp of a girl no more than five or six, had traded her affections from Joe to Hoss once the gentle giant had proven to be a ready source of sweets. Nor that Adam had taken the two boys under his wing and in the last few weeks, had taught them a good bit about building. No, it was something much deeper. More profound. Maybe it was something only a parent could feel.

            Their time was about over. With the coming of Adam and Hoss, following their father and brother to the desolation of the lonely mission, Ben had insisted that the chapel and all the buildings be put to rights. It was time, he had said, to give back to those who had been his and Joe's salvation. Looking back now, it was hard for Ben to recall the pain but he remembered the struggle through the desert following the stage accident and beating from desperadoes bent on more than just robbery. He looked to his youngest son and, while he saw the laughter on the young man's face, remembered that it had come at a price. It hadn't been that long ago when Joe had been told by the doctor in Saint Louis that his leg would never be the way it had been. It had crushed his son and during the dark days following the unsuccessful surgery, Ben had sought a way through to his son. While he still saw Joe limping, he did what old Sister Immaculata had suggested: pray.

            Closing the worn Bible, Ben looked again at the upturned faces of the children. Such innocence, he thought. Would that all children be so innocent. He closed his eyes momentarily and lost himself in another place and time, looking into the faces of other children. They had been the boys responsible for setting all of this in motion, months before. He felt again the cold fingers of anger creep across his heart when he thought of that early summer morning when he had returned home to find it in shambles. There had been blood on the walls, the floor, every place he had turned. Joseph's blood and it was spread like some obscene writing throughout the house, telling of the battle he had waged to save their home against five young boys bent on its destruction. Ben never had discovered why the Ponderosa had been chosen and had in truth, never wanted to find out. It was enough that in the end, the boys had confessed what they had done.

            But that confession and contrition had come too late. Two of the boys were dead by then, one by his own hand in a fire, the other mysteriously killed at the edge of Chinatown. As heartfelt and sincere as the confessions had been, they had not healed all the wounds either. Joe had stood before the remaining three boys, and almost pleaded with them to pull the triggers on the guns they carried. As far as Joe had been concerned at that moment, Ben knew, his life as he had known it was over. His left hand, crushed in the melee had not healed, crippling Joe in more than just the physical way. And his knee had been so severely damaged even that skillful surgeon had been unable to return it to anywhere close to normal.

            Now as he watched the small children scurrying into their new sleeping quarters, Ben smiled but his smile held little mirth. As he sat beside the woodstove and watched the five nuns go about laying out the small gifts they had some how gotten for their wards, Ben's heart pulled at him. There would be no lavish gifts for his sons this Christmas for him to place under the massive tree at home. When he had first voiced his sorrow, it had been Adam who had spoken up for all of them.

            "Pa, the fact that we are all together is the best gift we could give one another!" He had asserted and Hoss and Joe agreed. As he closed the worn Bible in his work-scarred hands that Christmas Eve, he silently agreed with Adam but longed again for the familiarity of the Ponderosa. He pulled his chair a little closer to the warmth of the stove, feeling the cold of the desert that surrounded the mission. From out in the yard, he could hear his sons as they came back from checking on the meager livestock. Their laughter, their deep voices calling back and forth to one another were in sharp contrast to the lilting, silvery voices of the nuns in the chapel as they began singing their final prayers for the day.  As always, Ben listened to the musical voices, feeling the tingle up his spine as though he had been touched by some otherworldly hand. Perhaps he had.

            "Pa?" Adam's voice called to him from the doorway of the mission. "Can you come out here a moment?"

            Ben stood from his place beside the stove and stepped from its comfort into the chill desert night. His saw his sons there, their hands thrust deep into pockets, their shoulders hunched against the cold, standing in a rough half circle. He supposed that it was his place to fill in the circle and he did so, looking out over the white sand into the night. "What's up?" he asked, his own hands searching for warmth in his pockets.

            "Well, seein's how it's Christmas," Hoss started then drew to a stop.

            "And we've been pretty busy here at the mission," Adam picked up on Hoss' thread but also found something halting his words.

            The silence drew out long between the four men. Ben looked from face to face, knowing that of the three of them, Joseph would be the one to voice it easiest. As a father, he knew what they were trying to say with their halting words. "Well?" he asked.

            "We just wanted you to know that we meant what we said. Being together, helping these kids who need our help, that's a great Christmas present," Joe finally spoke up.

            "Why do I hear a 'but' on the end of that sentence?" Ben asked, again searching the well-known faces in the night.

            The brothers traded sideways glances, finding their boot toes more interesting.

            "Well?" Ben pressed.

            Without looking up, Joe voiced the words for himself and his brothers. "We want to go home."

            Ben's brows raised at the same time his sons found the courage to look up. "There is work still to be done," he began but let his voice soften as he continued. "but I've been thinking the same thing. Do you boys think you can finish that new well by next week?"

            "You betcha!" Hoss blurted out, louder than he intended and his brothers chuckled softly.

            "But for now," Ben smiled then let his voice deepen. "For now, we say nothing to the children. I'll ask Mother Ruth and make sure there is nothing else she would like to see here."

            "You mean it?" Adam asked as his father turned back towards the warmth of the kitchen. "We'll all head for home when the well is done?"

            Ben paused and let his gaze linger on his youngest for a few heartbeats. He knew that Joe's original plan was to not return to the Ponderosa once he had healed from his unsuccessful surgery. There was something about the way he viewed himself among the bigger men who were his family that would always push Joe. That insecurity had been raised to another level when he had been told that his leg would forever remain weak and if there was anything Joe despised, it was appearing weak or sickly, even among his family. He had found ways around the damaged hand, ways to compensate that he no longer needed. The hand, although still not one hundred percent, was coming back rapidly to its former dexterity and strength. But his leg remained as it had for months: unstable, painful at times and fragile. Now as Ben looked at his son, he saw how he stood, his weight all on the good leg. At one time, Joe had told him that he would go back to the Ponderosa and stay but now, in the cold clear night, with the women's voices rising in harmony behind them, Ben sought reassurance.

            Catching his father's eye, Joe's lips tightened and thinned down into a single line, his eyes dipping once more then rising back to meet his father's steady glare. With a short nod, Joe told his father the truth: he too wanted to go home.

             "Sounds like a good idea to me," Ben replied to Adam's petition then he couldn't help himself. He threw an arm across Hoss' broad shoulders and Adam's as well. "But boys, you have to tell the children. I will not be a party to breaking hearts."

            "Got it?" Adam shouted and, with his head tilted back looking into the early morning sunlight, had to squint to make out his brother's nod. "Here you go then!" With that, he grasped the stout rope and pulled. Behind him, he heard Hoss grunt as he also applied his strength. Above them, they heard timber groan and feet shuffling on the clay tiled roof. There were faint voices that floated down then a mighty bong just before the rope went slack.

            "That's it!" Ben called down, leaning over the edge and wiping his sleeve across his face. "Joe's tying off the rope now, Sister Ruth. Want to try it?"

            Hoss and Adam both turned. Behind them, her fingers pressed to her quivering mouth, stood the Mother Superior of the little mission. Her usually brusque manner was missing that morning as they had re-hung the mission's brass bell in the tower. Her eyes traveled over the building as if seeing it for the first time. The adobe walls were now complete and whole, whitewashed and gleaming. The red tiles on the roof, made from native materials from the local hillsides, lay like solid soldiers against poor weather. And now -now!- in the open steeple, hung the bell. For her, it was a prayer answered to see the building restored.

            "Can we? Can we?" pestered the children about her when she didn't answer the big rancher on the roof. The older girls, Maria and Esperanza, had joined them, running from the kitchen with Sisters Mary Magdalena and Mary Katherine. The youngest child, Chispa, ran towards the open doorway where, even as they watched, a rope came to rest, suspended from the bell above. Laughing, she grasped the rope and hung from it but her slight weight would not ring it.

            Hearing the children's eager voices, Sister Naomi, tall and thin, made her way to the knot of other nuns standing in the yard. She paused at the kitchen's new doorway and helped aging Sister Immaculata down the single step and across the hard-packed sand.

            "Come here to me, you little varmint!" Hoss teased as he snagged up Chispa. She laughed, the bright tinkling sound made louder in the open entryway as he held her squirming in his arms. He looked up and saw Joe looking down at him. "She weren't heavy enough to even make a ting!" He shouted and heard the laughter peal outside.

            Again running his sleeve over his forehead, Ben Cartwright came to stand before the stout Mother Superior. "Well?" he asked, slightly out of breath from his climb back down the ladder from the roof. He could see the tears glimmering in the woman's eyes and sensed that somehow, he and his sons had fulfilled a long held prayer that the nun had shared with no one but God.

            She dropped her hands and buried them, trembling, in the folds of her habit. One step, then another and another she took until at last she stood in the entryway to the chapel. Looking inside, she saw all the trappings that made it God's House: the altar that now shone bright from hours of cleaning and polishing. There were four pews to a side, all but two of them newly made. To one side, a single candle burned before a restored portrait of the Virgin Mary. They had found it, soiled and frameless, beneath a floorboard as if someone had hidden it years before. The oldest son, Adam, had carefully cleaned it while Hoss had built a simple frame from a broken pew. He had apologized for its simpleness but, as she had beheld it the first time, she had replied that it was what the Virgin Mary had been all about: elegant simplicity.

            "Well?" the deep voice asked her again and this time, put the knotted rope into her hand.

            "Will ye help me?" she asked, her voice so low that he almost didn't hear her. "Right now, my soul feels about as light as Chispa's, and I've seen what she could do!"

            Ben laughed lightly, looking down into her once-stern face that now didn't look quite so forbidding. "It does take a fair sized soul, I guess, to make the bell ring."

            "No," came her softened thick Irish lilt. "It takes great faith. Here, your faith and mine, put them together and the bell will be heard for miles."

            Their hands joined together over the knotted rope and the two of them, a Nevada rancher and an Irish nun, pulled hard, sending the joyous pealing over the New Mexico Territory desert.

            "That should about do it, don't you think?" Adam asked, sipping the last of his coffee. The rest of the kitchen was dark, except for there around the table where a single candle burned.

            "How can we thank you and your sons?" Sister Naomi asked. She alone of the nuns did not sit at the table. Instead, she rocked beside the warm stove, her fingers dancing in the darkness as they went about knitting yet another pair of stockings.

            Ben cleared his throat and let his eyes roam briefly over his three sons who filled one side of the table. Over the past few weeks, they had worked hard together, without a harsh word and more laughter than he'd heard from them in many months. Even Adam, normally a taciturn individual, had a smile on his face that night, his deep eyes reflecting the candle's glow.

Hoss sat beside him, his face screwed into a question mark as clearly as if it were written on paper. "How you gonna tell the kids? I mean about us leavin'? Gonna break their hearts."

Ben wondered if it were the childrens' hearts or his own middle son's heart that would hurt more with their departure.

"Children are rather resilient. These orphans perhaps more so, Hoss," Mother Ruth said then sipped her own coffee as well. "They will miss ye as will all of us, but all we shall have to do is look around and we'll remember ye here. 'Twas the Lord's leadin' that brought you here, Mister Cartwright. Ye, and yer sons, be the answer to prayers. God will be good to ye, I am sure, for doin' what ye have."

The big rancher smiled. "He already has been good to me, thank you. Now, as for tomorrow," he directed the conversation back to its original path. "Hoss, you said that the saloonkeeper told you that we could have those doors. Mother Ruth, are you sure you want doors that were once on a saloon? I realize that you need to be able to close off the sanctuary in bad weather, but…" He let his voice drift away.

"Mister Cartwright," the woman said and lowered her gaze at him as she pursed her lips. "We've part of the flooring in the sleepin' rooms made from the siding of a barn. The altar was polished with wax intended for God only knows what purpose but given up to us as a means of paying a gamblin' debt. Thank you, Hoss, once again, for beatin' Broan Turner arm wrestlin'."

Hoss smiled crookedly then he caught his father's eye and ducked his head sheepishly.

 "And the whitewash, Joseph, I don't want to know how ye came about gettin' that. Nor the new bucket at the well. Adam, those books you gave us, I'm thinkin' that it wasn't a gift from some itinerant bookseller down on his luck, like ye claim. They's few and far between in this part of the world. So, ye see, Benjamin, we're not above takin' whatever is offered when it is offered- even if it do be from questionable sources." Her mocking tone chided his sons for their ingenuity in procuring the needed items to repair the mission.

Ben noted that she had said nothing concerning his "dealing". The local merchant, a wisp of a man known as Silas Turner, had stopped by last week, just before Christmas. In his wagon he had the dressed carcass of a butchered steer. He claimed he had taken it in payment for some long-neglected debt and that he had more than he could use. He would trade it to the mission if they could part with one of the boys to help him load his wagon this coming Tuesday. Every few weeks he took a load of hides into Maricopa Wells, the closest large town. He returned with items the townspeople, and now the mission, needed. Trade, he had said, was brisk and since Joe Cartwright had gotten him into the idea of needing help, he found he did need it. Paco and Juan eagerly stepped forward and said they both would help. The man had left with an amused smile. From his pockets, he had secreted lemon drops to everyone except the Mother Superior.

"But these doors, Mother Ruth, I've seen them."

"Do ye think that they'll fit the openin', Adam?" she asked and watched with her head to one side as Adam replied that he'd measured them and they would. "And Hoss, you're sure that Silas Turner will let ye use his wagon to bring them out here? Can't have ye draggin' them behind a horse. Nor bringin' them over that mountain pass by hand!"

"Yes'm," Hoss spoke up. "He told us we could and I'm gonna hold him to it."

"So, ye see, Mister Cartwright, yer sons have done all the work there needs to be done except for hanging the doors in fact."

Why Ben thought he could ever out-argue Mother Ruth escaped him. She reminded him sometimes of Hop Sing with her assuredness but there were never two people so different, he was sure.

"Okay then," he sighed and smiled tightly. "Tomorrow, boys, get those doors and get them hung. After that, Sisters, and we need to head to the Ponderosa or Hop Sing will sell it and move to San Francisco."

As the benches cleared, Ben watched from his end. With some minor jesting and jostling, his sons left the room. They would sleep again that night, since it was clear, beside the chapel out of the wind under a star-strewn sky. Their gentle laughter would seldom carry into the kitchen where Ben slept but when it did, it would make him comfortable. Yes, he thought as he watched them, listened to them. God had been good to him. He would still send forth a prayer that the same merciful God would help Joseph for even as he watched his youngest son leave the room, Ben saw that he fought that cursed weakness in his leg.

Chapter Two:

 Faith, while it can move mountains, must first move the soul's hands.

The team of mules stood waiting, the buckboard behind them shifting with motion not of their making. One shook his head, his long ears clashing together. The other yawned and waited patiently.

"That's it," Adam called out as he helped Hoss slide the last door into the wagon bed. He grimaced at the bright colored glass at the top of the door, forming a multi-hued arch when placed next to the other door. True, there were no words there to give away the fact that the doors once belonged on high-class saloon but the picture did depict a beer glass. Full. Complete with a head of foam. Just looking at it made Adam wish for one and he said so.

Joe nimbly jumped down from the wagon bed and used the rope he had brought with him to tie the doors down in the rear. "Be with you in a minute," he called after the swiftly departing backs of his brothers. He gave the rope another tug to assure himself that the doors weren't going to shift then he followed them into the cantina.

Three beers materialized and the bartender leaned towards the three men who picked them up. "Hear you folks are headed home soon." He looked from one brother to the other. "Gonna miss ya!" he prattled on when no one else spoke. In truth, he thought what he would miss was their easygoing way and ready ability to trade goods for services. He had benefited from the big one's woodworking ability and had himself a handsome bar to grace his establishment. The other one, the oldest brother he had heard called Adam, had played a battered guitar a few nights at the cantina. Everyone in the small town had delighted to his music and had joined in the festivities. That was everyone except the Doc and he had just glared at the man in black behind the beat up guitar, gotten his bottle of whiskey and gone home. Now it appeared that they were to be part of Lost Springs' past, not its future.

"'Fraid so," Hoss replied and tipped his mug up, letting the cold beer wash down his throat. When he sat the glass down, the bartender was looking past him. On his face was an annoyed expression. Hoss turned to see what the other man was seeing.

Out in the center of the town, next to the fountain, three men were dismounting from horses lathered and exhausted.

"Oh sweet Jesus!" the barman exclaimed then swallowed hard and moved down, away from the three brothers.

With his exclamation, Adam and Joe had also turned, looking out the open doorway. Quickly, Adam assessed the three men. They were dressed much the way he had seen Mexican peasants dress: loose baggy clothing and broad brimmed hats. Tattered and filthy serapes were thrown over their shoulders as they lounged beside the small fountain there in the center of town. One of them, the one with twin bandoleers full of shells across his chest, left the others and went towards the doctor's door. Adam shrugged and was about to turn back to the bar and his beer when something dawned on him. The three men he'd just seen weren't Mexican peasants. One's hair curled over his collar, and the one who had left his friends wore boots. High heeled, high topped boots with ornate spurs jangling as he walked. As Adam continued to watch, he heard Joe swear under his breath. Then Adam saw what had caught his brother's eye as well: a left-handed holster that held a pearl-handled revolver.

Joe moved away from the bar and instinctively, Adam put out a hand and stopped him. "Easy boy," the elder brother warned.

"Ain't no easy about it, Adam. Those are the men who beat Pa and me up at the stage accident. They took my gun. You see it, I know you do. One of the others has Pa's, I'm sure. They beat Pa. Beat him bad when he couldn't do anything to defend himself. Let me go, Adam."

Instead, Adam held his brother's arm tight and caught Hoss' eye. They had both heard how their father and brother, after having been stranded by a wrecked stage, had been set upon by bandits. They had been left, beaten, bloodied and without a way of protecting themselves in a desolate portion of the New Mexico desert, miles from civilization. Their father had taken a terrible beating and their survival had been left up to Joe. With his own strength ebbing and flowing like a storm's tide, Joe had managed up to a point. When his leg had again refused to hold him upright, Joe and his father had fallen-right into the Sisters of Charity mission. Adam understood why the muscles under his hand were trembling. He was sure it was not with fear but with suppressed anger.

Hoss swallowed the last of his beer and as he watched, the one man returned and together they came towards the cantina. He returned the glass to the bar behind him but never took his eye off the advancing men. He'd heard the exchange between Joe and Adam and had seen the revolver. Never once did it occur to him that it might belong to someone else. He had seen that holster and gun in his brother's possession for too many years to doubt now that it wasn't his brother's. What did strike him as odd was that the men coming towards them had a predatory manner about them even though they were laughing. One man was as tall as Hoss but not nearly as big otherwise. Hoss watched him carefully, figuring that man to be his target. He didn't like what he saw as they swung the batwing doors wide and came into the small cantina, shouting for drinks.

The three newcomers sidled up to the bar, barely giving the others a glance. They shouted for beer and it was delivered promptly then the bartender moved away, going into the back of his small establishment. The new arrivals lifted their glasses and, while continuing to talk loudly amongst themselves, seemed oblivious to the growing pool of silence they stood in.

"Let me go or so help me, Adam, you'll be the first," Joe hissed, yanking his arm from Adam's punishing grasp. "You!" he shouted and the others turned to look at him.

The tall man wearing the crossed bandoleers stood in the center of his friends and, when he heard the shout, shushed them to find its source. As he did, a puzzled expression crossed his features. Then slowly it cleared and was replaced by narrow slitted eyes and an oily smile.

"I remember you now, amigo. At the stage. You fought hard, as I recall. Remember him, compadres?"

One man touched the buckle of Joe's holster and nodded his head. "Yes, I 'member that gentleman, Virg. Always wanted to thank him for this rig. Finest gun I think I've ever owned."

"Give it back," Joe seethed, his shoulders squaring, his hands clenching into fists at his side.

The one addressed as Virg let one hand come to rest on the butt of his own gun. The other he left on the bar. With a sweep of his gray eyes, he took in the Cartwright brothers there. The one in the tall white hat was having trouble keeping from snarling and the remaining one, the one dressed all in black, had his right hand out of sight. He was sure it was close to the gun that the holster said was there on the hidden right side.

"Todd, Jimmy, refresh my memory but wasn't there another fella with this young pup? Old dude, as I recall." The other men, Todd and Jimmy, stepped away from the bar, fanning out to face the Cartwrights. Virg didn't wait for their reply. "Yes, there was. Remember how he screamed when we pulled him out of that overturned stage?"

Adam heard the breath Joe took and made a desperate lunge for him but came up with empty hands. Joe had launched himself at the one called Virg, heedless of the fact that he wore no sidearm. Although he had been unable to stop his brother's headlong plunge into the fight, Adam's gut tightened each time his brother struck the other. In secret he hoped that his brother would give up and, when knocked again into the dirt, would have the sense to stay there. Or that Joe would be able to knock the other man back and down.

The Cartwrights fanned out, watching as the tall desperado and Joe grappled. As Adam and Hoss watched, their hands caressed the butts of their revolvers. The warning was clear: there would be no interference from the other two men.

The one they'd heard called Todd, distinguishable from his companion only by the fact that he wore a red shirt under his filthy serape, watched the progression of the fight and didn't like what he saw. He and Jimmy, shouting encouragement, both edged further to their respective sides.

Adam and Hoss both followed the movements of the other men but only with their bodies turning, not their feet. Their attention returned again and again to the fistfight but their backs stayed close to the bar, the only protection to be offered.

Hoss saw the motion first. Although the fighting was close in, Hoss saw the man's right hand sweep back and lift the long barreled Colt from his holster. Panicked, he started to shout a warning to Joe but in the same instant, saw that the man on Adam's right was drawing his pistol as well. His hand swept back and grabbed the solid handle of his weapon and he brought it up, laying deadly fire across the room.

At the first sound of gunfire, Adam drew his gun and whirled at the source of the sound. His gun fired three times, each bullet finding its target in the man nearly hidden by Hoss' turning bulk. The man behind Hoss had pulled his gun as well and would have shot him in the back but for Adam's shout to get out of the way. A lifetime of following his brother's directions had saved the big Cartwright son, for one of Todd's bullets sliced through the air where a heartbeat before he had seen the broad back of Hoss Cartwright.

Still turning as he dropped, Hoss looked for the gun he had first seen drawn. Just from the position of the two combatants' arms, he knew where it was - between them. Through the thick gunsmoke in the little cantina he saw the shift in Joe's eyes and his lips pull back in a grimace. Then, even though his ears still rang from the previous shots, Hoss heard another shot, muffled, that was followed by yet another. Confused, his eyes swept the area. Adam stood, his back towards Hoss and his gun trained on the man his brother had shot. With a blossom of blood spouting between his fingers, the man lay on the dirt floor, grasping his stomach, his eyes rolling further up into his head just before he crumpled completely and lay still. Hoss spun, this time looking behind himself. There the third man, his back against a broken chair, panted as he also stretched out on the dirt floor. Without further concern for the man, Hoss centered his intention on Joe and his opponent, the only possible source of the muffled shots.

Some how, miraculously, Hoss guessed, Joe stood, his back to them with all his weight on his right leg as his foe slumped to the floor, wide-eyed, his mouth moving as though to speak. The desperado's hands, bloodied, were clasped around his thick middle. But Hoss wasn't watching the man beyond the first moment because he could see that Joe held the revolver. As if coming to life in that split second, the middle Cartwright pulled himself from the floor and was at his brother's back, reaching for the pistol, ignoring the blood that made its butt slick. Taking the gun, he rested his hand on Joe's shoulder, feeling it quickly rising and falling. Then, slowly, Joe turned his face to Hoss and a quiver of pain shot into his eyes and stayed there.

"It's okay now, Joe," Hoss said and caught the movement of Adam coming to join them out of the corner of his eye. Although he had said the words, he wasn't sure Joe had heard him. As he watched, Joe swallowed hard and turned, his hands reaching for Hoss. Then slowly, as if bit by little bit all of his bones had softened, Joe sagged.

Biting back the acid that rose, Adam moved quickly, grabbing Joe and easing him to the dirt floor that now ran red with blood. He had seen what Hoss hadn't and the first sight of it had turned his stomach. Joe's pant leg, the left one, was nearly torn away at his thigh. What remained was sodden with blood, a great hole gaping in the flesh laid bare. And with each beat of his brother's heart, Adam saw blood rise and spill out.

Without thinking, Adam yanked his own belt off and looped it around Joe's thigh and tightened it as much as he was able. Looking up, he saw that it had all finally registered with Hoss and he held Joe's shaking shoulders in his massive hands. He redirected his eyes and saw, with relief, that the blood flow from the leg had dropped off. But even as the flow slowed, Adam could see the damage done the leg, the thigh laid open, the muscles still quivering redly, the bone shards grisly white. Again his stomach turned and he yanked his eyes away, this time meeting Joe's and holding them

"Get the doctor!" Adam shouted and heard the flurry of footsteps from behind the bar. His eyes held onto his brother's whitening face. "Lay still," he hoarsely whispered and to underscore the order, placed his hand squarely on his brother's chest. Beneath it, he felt the thud of his brother's heart and silently willed it to slow down for with each beat, he knew more blood pooled to the floor. "Help's coming," he reassured himself as well as his brothers and saw Joe's eyes close sluggishly. He pulled his hand away, not wanting to feel the life beat fail completely beneath it. It left a crimson swath.

There were footfalls pounding across the hard-packed earthen floor of the cantina behind him as Adam rose to his feet. "Hang on to him," he instructed Hoss needlessly as he turned to face the sound.

The second man through the door, Adam couldn't remember seeing in town and immediately pegged him as the doctor. Flashing in his memory, he recalled what Joe had said about the man: a reclusive drunk, thin, with shoulders hunched forward as he coughed which in Adam's mind made him probably consumptive. Empty handed, the man stopped at the first body he came to and knelt there beside the one they had called Jimmy.

"He's dead!" Adam shouted. Just the sound alone was loud enough that the doctor jerked his eyes in the direction of it. But that was all that moved and he remained beside the dead man, his hands darting over the body.

Emotions roiling, the eldest Cartwright brother couldn't stand still and took the few steps to stand behind the kneeling physician. "Over here!" he seethed and grabbed the man's arm but the doctor yanked himself from the bloody, grasping hand, his eyes boring into the shadowed face.

"There are other patients here. Take your hands off me, sir." The words were spat out then he returned to the dead man's body. Dumbfounded, Adam watched as the physician continued to examine the already cooling body before him. When finished, the doctor rose and went across the room to where the other man lay.

"Doc!" Hoss shouted to get the man's attention. "My brother here, he needs you now! Them fellas is dead. You can't help 'em no more."

The thin doctor came slowly to his feet and everyone in the bar saw his shoulders sag and droop and his hands shake before him. He turned and looked down at Hoss where he still supported Joe's head and shoulders but it was as though he couldn't see them. What did catch his attention was the third man, the man Joe had fought.

"He's still alive," came the soft mutter as the doctor knelt beside the man who'd been called Virg. His hands, so tentative before, now sprang into life as his whole manner changed. He shouted for help, for the injured man to be carried to his office across the square as he pressed a restraining hand to the wound in the man's belly.

With downcast eyes, the bartender and Broan, the livery stable owner, gathered the other injured man up and carried him, following the doctor and disappearing into the far house.

"Damn it!" Adam shouted and the rafters shook with the sound.

"You don't know, do you?" Maude, the saloon's only girl asked as she slipped into the bar. The sound of guns had awoken her from her late bed and she pulled her robe tight around her as she looked down at the two dead men on the floor. "God," she moaned. "I never thought it would happen. How bad was Virg hit?" Her blue eyes finally came to rest on Adam's set face.

"Gut shot. Close range. He and Joe were fighting. He pulled his gun. The man doesn't have a chance! The doctor knows that! Why did he-?"

Maude held up her hand, silently pleading him to stop, which he did. She sank to her knees beside Joe and looked into Hoss' face. "Like I said, you don't know. How could you? Those two, Todd and Jimmy. They're the doc's nephews. Virg is his only living son."

The bartender, who went by the handle of Whiskey Will, showed Adam and Hoss into the back room of the cantina. These were his quarters, he explained, but under the circumstances…he had let his voice trail off into nothing more than a strangled whisper. Carefully, the two Cartwrights had carried Joe, now mercifully unconscious, into the small room and laid him on the hard bed there.

"Get over there and get that doctor!" Adam ordered and saw Hoss flinch at his tone. Nevertheless, the big man moved out. Wondering how long it had been, Adam loosened the makeshift tourniquet and swallowed hard when the blood again spurted rhythmically, soaking the quilt his brother laid on.

"Here, if these'll help," Whiskey offered and Adam pulled his attention reluctantly from the pooling blood. In his hand, the cantina owner offered several towels. Like everything else, it seemed to Adam, they were thin and none too clean but they were offered and he would not turn them down.

"Thanks. Tell me, that girl, Maude, she said that the doctor -" he began, pressing the towels onto Joe's leg before he wiped his hands and tightened the tourniquet again.

"She told it fair," came the answer. "Virg's two brothers were killed down in Mexico a few years ago. One of the hacienda owners caught them red-handed stealing horses and hung 'em. When they were good and dead, he tied 'em to their horses and sent 'em back across the border. 'Twas a message to the border runners. That's why Doc drinks, I do believe. To forget that his boys…well, that they ain't no more. And Virg, he always was a mean son-of-a-bitch. Would rather beat you to a pulp than look at you."

"Well, he's not going to be beating anyone any more. Surely the doctor knows that. A gutshot, close range- my God!- it's a wonder the man was even breathing a minute afterwards. He didn't have a chance. Not one." Adam turned and silenced his venom when he heard motions coming towards them. Hoss was first through the doorway. The doctor followed, and brushed Adam aside rudely.

            The doctor coughed once and pulled back the wadded toweling. He grunted and without looking at anyone, directed Whiskey Will to get the kitchen stove going good and hot. At first, the two Cartwrights thought that it was the man's intention to wash his hands since they were bloody and he hadn't yet touched Joe. In fact, as they watched, both saw the stains down the front of the man's jacket and shirt. When he removed his jacket, and rolled up his sleeves, both saw the lingering blood of another man.

            "Hurry up, Will!" he shouted over his shoulder then opened the bag he'd carried in. On the small nightstand, he spread his tools: a bottle that Hoss could see was chloroform, several clamp-like objects, and, chillingly, a saw.

            "You, big man!" the doctor barked and drew Hoss' attention from the bloodstained tools. "Get a hold of his shoulders. You!" He nodded at Adam. "Get a hold of his other leg. Ain't got time to do this pretty. Will, that fire hot? Gonna have to cauterize-"

            For some reason, and he could only claim that he was in a form of shock, Adam slowly realized what the doctor's intent was.

            "No!" he roared and reaching across, slashed at the doctor's hands, knocking the bone saw from them. It clattered into the shadows noisily. "You are not going to take his leg off!"

            The thin physician reared back and took in the fierce expression on the man's face across the bed from him. "You want him alive? If so, the leg has to come off. Too much damage." As he reached back and took a scalpel from his kit, Adam was totally ignored. "Will, gimme that saw."

            The bartender, swallowing hard, reached into the corner and picked up the saw. Holding it at arm's length, he laid it on the foot of the bed then backed away quickly. He took one last look at the young man who had helped him weeks before. Silently, he prayed for the boy and crossed himself then backed out of the room.

            When the doctor reached for the dirty saw, Adam again had to stop him, this time with a hard hand over the doctor's cold and clammy, trembling one.

            "There has to be another way," Adam insisted, his voice low. He feared if he spoke aloud, he would not be able to control his voice, his terror. "You've barely looked at the wound. Can't you stop the bleeding? See what else might be done?"

            Contemptuously, the doctor threw down his tools. With his blood-encrusted hands planted firmly at his waist, he glared at the man in black across the sanguineous bed from him.

            "You kin to this boy?" he asked, the words edged with animosity.

            When Adam said that he was and nodded to Hoss as well, the doctor merely snorted. Not looking at the injured man again, he gathered his implements and tossed them casually back into his bag, rolled down his sleeves and went to put his coat back on.

            "Since you're kin, you can make that decision. I'll stop in and tell Silas 'bout it. I don't expect to have any problem with the law over this but Silas'll have to tell the sheriff in Maricopa Wells. You gonna want to take the body home to Nevada?"

            "He ain't dead!" Hoss shouted, suddenly grasping what the thin doctor meant and that he was leaving to boot.

            "No, not yet. Takes about an hour for a man to bleed to death from a severed artery. If he survives that, gangrene will take him in a day. Very least, blood poisoning will kill him in two days, maybe three. Good day, gentlemen."

            One huge hand reached out and grabbed the stooping shoulder of the physician, swinging him around to face an exceedingly angry Hoss Cartwright. With the same motion, he was brought to his tiptoes, a fist beneath his jaw.

            "You ain't goin' anywhere. There's something you can do besides take his leg off and you're gonna do it." Although the threat was plain, the doctor showed no fear. He pushed himself away and brushed a hand down his chest, straightening his jacket.

            "I'll be in my office when you need the death certificate signed."

            Again, Hoss started for him but Adam grabbed his arm, telling him to stop. As Hoss faced his older brother, he saw a clear determination. They stood silently seething as the doctor departed.

            "Will!" Adam shouted and it brought Whiskey Will back into the room. "How far is it to the nearest doctor?" He emphasized the word doctor, making sure that his disdain of the local one showed since he felt the man failed to meet the definition.

            "Maricopa, but even with a good horse, it'd take four, five hours. I heard what Doc said. You ain't got that sort of time."

            The certainty of what the man said made Adam's stomach knot. Beside him, he could almost see Hoss shaking and that in itself made him all the more fearful. Gulping for a breath of fresh air, Adam tasted only the coppery tang of blood. Was the doctor right? Was the only way to save Joe's life to take his leg? He looked back at his brother's pale face. He was losing blood with every beat of his heart, despite the bite of the tourniquet. And soon, Adam knew, he would have to loosen it again.

            "Will you ride out to the mission for us?" Hoss was asking and within moments, Whiskey Will was gone, thankful, Adam thought, to be away from the scene.

            "Hoss, listen to me. The doctor may have been right-" Adam began but found Hoss' hand firmly on his shoulder, his eyes blazing.

            "You said so yourself, Adam, that doctor didn't even look to see if he could do anything else. Heard some of the fellas that came home from the War 'tween the States saying that the doctors there did the same thing. Just lop of the limb because a man healed faster that way. No. It's up to us since that man ain't gonna help us."

            "You don't understand, Hoss. This isn't just a case of taking a bullet out. You saw how Joe was bleeding. There's a major artery, a vein, something, that has been cut and it leads to his heart, Hoss. That's why it spurts like that." He wanted to shake Hoss and make him understand but Adam wasn't sure that he fully understood himself. One thing he did know was that a decision had to be made and there wasn't time. There wasn't time to get another doctor; there wasn't time to make the one they had understand; there wasn't time even to wait for their father to make the decision.

            "Adam, I got faith in you. You can do it."

            He whirled, unable to face his brothers, and looked out over the sere desert vista beyond the dirty windowpane. "It takes more than faith, Hoss. It takes knowledge. It takes skill. It takes everything that doctor across the street has but won't use because his own son is dead or dying and he thinks Joe pulled the trigger."

            "Then we'll just have to make him," Hoss snarled and before Adam could stop him, was gone.

            His hands shaking, Adam loosened the tourniquet, vowing it would be the last time.

            John Edward Brockman, MD. That's what the gold lettering on the door said as Hoss pushed it open. The tiny bell attached to it tinkled incongruously in the shadows. No one responded to it and he went on further down the narrow hallway. He paused at the first door and pushed it on open. Two white shrouded bodies occupied two long counters. From somewhere in the back part of the building, he heard a staccato cough and, closing the door on death, he followed the sound. The door at the end of the hallway was partially open and he nudged it fully open with his foot.

            In the bright late afternoon winter sunlight, he saw the desperado Virg propped up in a huge bed. Beside him, the doctor seemed dwarfed and insignificant yet he ministered to the man, wiping the continuing trickle of blood from the patient's lips. At the sound of Hoss' boots on the wooden flooring, the doctor turned, glanced at him, then resumed giving his son his full attention.

            "Huh!" he coughed out. "Went quick, did he? Lucky bastard. My Virg here, he's a tough 'un, aren't you, boy?"

            "No sir, my brother's still alive. And you, sir, are gonna come help him stay that way." Hoss drew his weapon and cocked it, the sound loud in the sickroom.

            The doctor stood up from the bedside and put down the bloodied cloth he had been using. Slowly, he turned on his heels and faced the big man holding the gun on him. He showed no emotion.

            "You think you can force a man to operate? Foolish. Why, boy, I could kill your brother faster than you could pull that trigger and no one would know it."

            "You took an oath when you became a doctor. Ain't that right? Something about being a healer?"

            Doctor Brockman tilted his head and looked up into the broad face before him. "Yes, I did. I took the Hippocratic oath but before that, I was a father. Are you a father young man? That's what I thought. You don't understand. My first duty, beyond being a doctor, is to my own flesh and blood. Now, if you will excuse me, I am going back to my son. I suggest you return and share with your own brother his last minutes on this earth." The physician turned his back and dismissed the other man.

            He longed to reach out and hit the man but Hoss knew that even if he were to drag the doctor back across the street to Joe, the man could just as easily make good on his word. Lost beyond reason, Hoss grabbed up the doctor's black bag from where it sat and left the room.

            Hoss blew into the cantina much the same way a winter storm would at the far-off Ponderosa. Pushing by a now-dressed Maude, he lumbered into the back of the cantina. As he went through the small kitchen, he noted that the fire Whiskey Will had stoked up now burnt strong in the kitchen stove and water in a teakettle was boiling. He noted these things and nodded to himself. They seemed to make up his mind for him and Hoss pushed aside the door curtain brusquely.

            His head shooting up, Adam's eyes were wide when Hoss plunged into the darkening room. He was about to ask about the doctor when he noted that his brother carried the physician's black bag under his arm. "That all of the doctor you could talk into coming back?"

            "Maude!" Hoss shouted, setting the bag down carefully, all the while staring at his older brother.

            With her mumbled "huh?" at the doorway, Hoss told her what he wanted: all of the lamps she could find. "Full of oil and lit," he added then went on. "I want all the sheets, the cleanest ones you got. Tear them into strips. I want a pan of that hot water in here pronto. And make the pan a clean one to start with!"

            The saloon-girl, her eyes wide in fright, nodded then scurried away.

            "What are you up to?" Adam hissed, grabbing his brother's brawny arm as Hoss began to roll up his sleeves.

            "That doctor, he as much as told me he'd kill Joe if he worked on him, Adam. You don't think it can be done. Well, by God, I am not gonna sit here and wring my hands and watch my little brother die. I'm gonna see what I can do. You don't have to stay but if you do, you're gonna help me." The words, the phrases, were short, cutting, full of recrimination but Adam knew he meant every last one of them.

            "No," Adam sighed.

            "You ain't talkin' me out of it Adam. Joe ain't gonna die without me puttin' up a fuss."

            Maude returned just then with a blue porcelain bowl full of hot water. Adam took it from her and asked if she couldn't find a clean cloth or towel. She skittered away but returned in seconds with an almost white piece of flour sacking.

            "I'm not talking you out of it, Hoss. I said 'no' because, as much as you want to, your hands, your fingers, are too big. No, you help me and I'll -we'll- see what we can do together." The last thing Adam wanted to do and here he found himself doing it. He had never shrunk from a task in all his life. Now was not the time to start, he reminded himself.

            "First things first. We clean this stuff. Would hate to save his hide then watch Joe get an infection from one of these durn knives." Hoss, mindful of just how big his fingers were, plucked a long scalpel from the bag and held it to the waning light. Down towards the handle, blood had dried.

            It became a litany to Adam, one sung over and over in his mind. Don't pay attention to the blood. Don't pay attention to the blood. But there was so much of it! How much did a human body hold? How much had Joe lost? How could he still be alive?  For the first time in his life, he felt stupid, clumsy, ignorant; yet, with Hoss there beside him, Adam felt so…full of faith, and so capable. But all the same, was he doing what was proper? When they had first pulled the sodden towels from the gaping wound, Adam had released the tourniquet, seen where the blood came from, tightened the belt back up and simply placed one of the medical clamps onto the source. Gritting his teeth, he asked Hoss to undo the belt and once it was loosened, saw that the flow of blood was reduced.

            "There's still too much," he moaned.

            Hoss had pulled away the rest of his brother's pant leg. For the first time, he realized that this was the leg Joe'd had the Saint Louis doctor operate on. Heedless of the blood there, he tracked one finger down what remained of the pink scar. "There ain't but one hole in his leg, Adam. That means the bullet is still in there."

            "I know that!" Adam hissed, his resolution faltering, his hands beginning to shake as the realization of what he was dealing with hit him full force. "The hell with the bullet!"

            "Well, you got to get it out. Feel him? Joe's startin' in on a fever. Come on, brother, you can do this. You got to do this."

            Hoss continued to talk, his voice soft, low, soothing. Gradually, Adam found his hands were no longer shaking but his brother's words did nothing for the feeling of inadequacy sweeping over him. He pulled out bone shards, recognizing them as such simply because they were hard when nothing else he touched was. He pulled torn gelatinous muscle tissue together, feeling it slide through his fingers sickeningly.

            "Help me roll his leg then hold it, Hoss. It looks like the bullet went down his leg, under his knee." As he asked, Adam again began to shake, afraid of what he was doing. Was what he was doing going to ultimately cost Joe his leg? The use of it? His thoughts whirled, his mouth went dry, his brow began sweating. Maybe he should just go ahead and amputate, as the doctor had wanted to in the beginning.

            He took a quick glance at Joe's face. Maude was there at his head, a pale blue piece of cloth held across his brother's mouth and nose. Only then did he catch the whiff of chloroform and he nodded to the woman, silently thanking her. He had never thought - a noise behind him distracted him for a moment and his hands, slick with blood, dropped the scalpel and clamp they'd held. Half panicked, he picked them back up, saw again that his hands trembled.

            "You were right, young man, to remind me of the Oath I took," a voice said at Adam's shoulder but he didn't turn to acknowledge its source. Instead, feeling the heat from the many lamps now lit, he moped at his brow with his forearm. When his hand dropped back to his brother's flesh, there was another man's hand there, the flesh pink. His own was covered with so much blood that it was red.

"My son is dead," the doctor said flatly then gestured again for Adam to give him the scalpel he held. "They're all dead now. I can't use my ability to exact vengeance. I can only use it to try and heal. Give me that scalpel, young man. Maybe, just maybe, if the angels are watching tonight, this brother of yours will live."

            Adam looked up into eyes made old with loss. "I don't know if what I've done-" he began but could find no words to speak further. The physician took the implements hanging limply from his hands.

            "Go on, son. You too, Hoss," came a deep voice there at Adam's ear. Instantly he recognized it as his father's and opened his mouth to protest. Before he could form words, across from him, one of the nuns took Hoss' place and another Maude's. Hands were pulling at him, insistently, but still he felt he couldn't leave. Shrugging off the hands, he grabbed the wrist of the doctor and squeezed it until the scalpel dropped from it.

            "You cut his leg off and, so help me God, I will kill you. Do you understand?" he demanded, his face right in the doctor's, smelling the blood and the stale whiskey that seemed so much a part of the man.

            "Adam!" his father's voice roared but Adam thrust aside both the voice, the implied demand and the hands pulling at him.

            "I will do the best I can but there are no promises." With that said, the physician turned his attention back to gruesome scene before him, putting Adam and his threats from his thoughts.

            His chest still heaving with pent up emotion, Adam allowed himself to be pulled into the front of the cantina. Even as he washed his hands and dried them, he could still see and feel the blood on them. Maude was pouring drinks at the bar. He found one in his hand but couldn't drink it. Instead he put it back down and wordlessly walked out into the last rays of a winter afternoon's sunlight.

            "How is your brother?" a soft, whispery voice asked him and Adam found himself looking into the deeply wrinkled face of Sister Immaculata, the oldest of the nuns from the mission.

            "I'm not sure, Sister." He was surprised that he could speak at all. Inside, he felt as though a thousand hornets were battling against his chest, demanding freedom, their stinging burning him from the inside out. "He's lost a lot of blood. We argued with the doctor when he wanted to take Joe's leg off. Oh God, what if that-" he slammed to a halt, no longer trusting his legs to hold him upright or his voice to command his thoughts. He found himself seated on the steps leading into Silas Turner's General Store. The nun wrapped her thin bony arms around his shoulders but he shrugged her aside. She was whispering something but he couldn't understand what she was saying. Yet the words were familiar. Then he remembered where he had heard them before. They were the same words his stepmother, Marie, Joe's mother, had uttered years ago at his own bedside when he had been ill. Stilled by the memory, he waited until she finished then carefully laid his arm across her bowed shoulders.

            "There is great pain within you, Adam. I feel it." Her hand rested, her rosary intertwining her fingers as it came to rest on his thigh like a small bird.

            "Pain?" he echoed her word. Then again, "Pain? Why should I be in pain, Sister? After all, I'm not the one who may very well die. I'm not the one -God, no! I can't even think about that." Even if by some miracle, he keeps his leg, what then? But I know how it makes you feel when you realize that you may have just crippled your own brother. I know it now for certain. For the rest of my life, and his, I'll watch him try to walk and know that every step brings him pain. I can't even begin to fathom what that'll be like. And that I have given it to him; I did it to him with my own hands. But when the choice is either cripple him or watch him die, what else is there to do? The first thought that ran through my mind is that living is better than dying but what if that living isn't the way he would want to live? What if the life you save him for isn't the sort of life he can deal with?

            "But you may have saved his life," Sister Immaculata insisted. Adam's arm tightened about her as she spoke. It was almost as though she could hear his thoughts. He snorted and looked away, out to where the sun was setting across the empty desert.

"Is the life I saved his? Or is it my version of what his should be? And why did I even try it at all?" So that I can have him still in my own existence? Me? Why? Am I keeping him alive so that I can show -what? To who? Me? Him? Why, oh why did I even try?

"You tried because he is your brother. His life is important to you, to your father, to your other brother. Oh, Adam, being the oldest son, it is your duty to guard the younger ones, is it not? And do you still fear your father's wrath when you come home without having protected him, as the older sibling you were told you must? You chastise yourself for these thoughts, but they are the thoughts from childhood and you are now a man. Yet the fears of childhood have followed you longer and are harder to dismiss, are they not?"

Adam tried to smile but it came out a painful grimace instead. "You don't understand. Lots of times in the last few years, Joe and I have been at loggerheads with each other. Some times, yes, I got carried away with being his surrogate parent and came down hard on him. Too hard at times and we would have words."

"Balance those times against when you told him how you honestly care about him. On the scales that are your lives, the first side, the one that speaks of anger, does it fall below the side that speaks of a brother's love?"

            "I'm just trying to think about what his life will be like. I won't be able to feel the pain the same way he will so don't even try to tell me otherwise."

She pounded her frail fist against his leg. "Walk the road of an everyday life with him. Can he still ride? Can he do the work he loves on that ranch of yours?"

 Sure but just watching him step into the stirrup, you realize that the leg falters and threatens him.

"Watch the people around him as he walks among them. How do they react with him?"

No, they won't see him. They'll see the cane or, God forbid, a crutch he's forced to use and move aside when before they'd step close and speak to him. They hesitate to even touch him, something they did before. And late at night, when the weather turns cold and damp, he'll fight with it only to be weakened by a fight he can't win because it is within him. "I wish I had your faith, Sister. I'm sorry, but I don't. And I don’t think now is time-"

"No!" she said sharply. "Now is exactly the time for faith. Faith in your brother. Faith in God. And, maybe most of all, faith in yourself. You have done what you could. There can be only one greater act of faith than what you have done today.  That is to pray. I will leave you now for I am needed inside." She rose stiffly and, on faltering legs of her own, walked slowly to the cantina.

So, I did it. Oh God, I still see my hand hovering over the blood and torn flesh that was his leg. I couldn't even look at him. In my hand, I had the instruments that will either condemned him to eternal pain or, by withholding them, would have given him death. And my hands shook like a leaf in a storm. I would have done anything to not have this choice before me. I begged him, silently, longing to have him make the decision one way or the other but he had placed himself into my hands completely. Oh, Sister Immaculata, that's faith! He trusted me but I didn't trust myself.  Those scales of yours, Sister, they waver, seeking equality, but there is none.

It is because of that trust, that loving and implicit trust that he gave me, that my hand steadied and my own resolve strengthened. No matter what else I did for my brother, I tried. And if it should fail, I'll stand beside him and give him not just my arm in support but, maybe, finally, my understanding.

 And maybe then, the scale will begin at last to balance.

            As Adam watched, the winter sun slipped behind the far western mountains, painting the sky red. He rose stiffly and headed back to the cantina, the still desert air chilling him.

            "Here, drink this," the wispy voice said in the darkness and into Ben's hand was pressed a tin cup, warm to the touch. He recognized both the smell of coffee and the soft voice of Sister Immaculata. He murmured his thanks and took the cup from the frail hands offering it to him. "Has he stirred?"

            "No," Ben answered flatly. He sipped the coffee as he sat there in the corner of the nearly dark room. Within arm's reach, Joseph remained almost motionless. Only the slight movement of his chest told his father that he still lived. With the light from a single lamp, and that turned down low, Ben had watched that rise and fall.

            At the far side of the bed, Sister Naomi knelt, her dark rosary beads falling one at a time through her fingers. With her shrouded head bent, all Ben could see were her lips, silently moving as she prayed. He didn't remember when he had first noticed her there but he would do nothing to dissuade her presence. If nothing else, he gained solace, knowing that he would not have to face the long night alone.

            Even as he watched numbly, Mother Ruth came into the room, carrying another lamp. She raised the patchwork quilt that covered Joe's left leg. The shake of her head told Ben what he would have seen. Over her shoulder she called softly for the two younger nuns to come. Ben rose from his chair to help but the old nun pushed him back down and shook her head slowly.

            As though they had done the same maneuver many times before, the three women changed the sodden bandage that ran from Joe's thigh clear down to almost his foot. Without exchanging words of direction, they moved surely, swiftly, each taking, holding, giving in her turn. When the dressing was changed, Ben found himself studying his son. It was as though Joe had felt nothing and had continued his restful repose, his face serene, unlined.

            "You should rest, Benjamin," the mother superior's Gaelic whisper caught at him and he looked up into her broad face, shadowed by the room's darkness. "There is a cot in the cantina for you. We will stay with him."

            "But," Ben started to protest, claiming that if his son should awaken, he wanted - no, he needed to be there. It was as though the woman knew his thoughts for she told him that if Joseph showed any sign of waking, he would be summoned immediately.

            "Go on," she encouraged, her hand sweeping before her. "Your other sons need you as well."

            "Maybe a short stretch, but-" he began again but the head nun patted his shoulder as he passed her.

            Out in the front part of the cantina, only one of the lamps was lit. The light it gave off did little to disperse the gloom, the same way that the meager flames in the small fireplace barely warmed the room. By the orange glow of the fire, Ben could see the shapes of Adam and Hoss. Hunched over in their chairs, they both held glasses, glasses that were not quite empty. As Ben watched, Adam tipped his up and finished it. When he turned to set it on the nearby table, he saw his father.

            "Pa!" he said, the single word a soft explosion in the dark night. He started to rise but Ben's hand pressed him back into the chair.

            "How's Joe?" Hoss asked, his face turning up to meet his father's. Even in the shadows, Ben could see the strain, the uneasiness, on his sons' faces.

            Ben swallowed hard and blinked, searching the dancing flames of the fire for an answer. There were none there so he answered, "Still alive." The words tasted cold, bitter, unfeeling.

            Softly, Adam cursed and looked into the fire the same way Ben had. On his shoulder, he felt his father's hand come to rest then, slowly, the fingers tightening, gently rebuking him. He mumbled an apology but couldn't look up. One glimpse had shown him the pain in his father's eyes and he couldn't bear to see it again. Not that night, nor any night to come, he told himself bitterly.

            "He's resting quietly. Hasn't even moved. Doc Brockman thought it best if he sedated him heavily. Said there was a lot of damage -". Before Ben could finish, Adam rose to his feet and shrugged his father's restricting grasp aside. Feeling the anger in the gesture, Ben tried to stop him from leaving the room but Hoss held his arm and his voice.

            "Let him go, Pa. You weren't here. You didn't see what we saw. Made me sick to my stomach, watchin' Adam. Knew what he was tryin' to do 'cause I told him I was gonna do it if he didn't." The big man sighed deeply and pulled his father back into the chair his brother had just vacated. "Joe gonna keep his leg? What did the doc say about it?"

            "First," Ben swallowed again, his throat closing over the lump his thoughts brought to it, "we have to make sure your brother lives. Then we'll think about his leg."

            With the coming of the first fingers of dawn, he stirred. Restless and heavy with the drugs pressed unknowingly upon him in the night, his motions were weak, disjointed. He could move but slowly and his eyes seemed reluctant to open but he persevered. His determination rewarded him with the smile of Sister Immaculata a few inches from his face. 

            Her hands, twisted with arthritis, nevertheless held a glass of water for him as he drank. At first, he struggled to take even a few sips, his throat tight in its parchedness. As she helped hold his head up, the old nun encouraged him with soft and simple words. Finally, his thirst slaked, she laid his head back on the hard pillow. With deft movements, she straightened the quilt, pulling it to his shoulders and wisping her fingers through his hair to push it back from his face.

            “My father? My brothers?” he asked, his voice a rasping croak that held no strength.

            “They are close. Do you need them?” she told him then asked, taking a seat beside him on the narrow bed.

            As she watched, his eyes slowly closed, dark smudges beneath them making him look even more exhausted. He stirred restlessly and opened his eyes once more. Again she offered up that his family was close at hand and asked if she should call to them. He shook his head 'no' just once. It seemed that the little he had done had exhausted all his strength and he needed to rest again. She understood this and brushed his cheek with the backs of her fingers, the motion soothing and gentling. Once that she was sure that he was again sleeping, she rose and left the room.

            When he had left the small cantina, Adam had gone to sit once more on the steps of the General Store. With his jacket pulled tight about him, he had stayed there for the remainder of the night, sometimes sleeping but mostly awake and staring into the bright moon and star-lit desert sky. For a while he had thought about how distant those stars seemed to him, compared to when he had studied them from his mountain home. They were the same stars, he knew, but here, now, they seemed foreign. He’d instinctively sought out the Big Dipper and other constellations he knew. They were just where he expected to see them but were different in some unfathomable way. He had just put that thought away again when he heard the first noises from the livery stable.

            That’s Broan, he thought, feeding his few animals. Guess he took care of the mules yesterday. I was too busy to even think of the poor beasts until just now. But the sounds from within the town’s largest building continued and, curious now, Adam got to his feet.

            Pulling the door open a crack, Adam put his eye to the opening. There he saw the big smith, his wiry hair and bushy beard giving him an unkempt appearance, over on the side next to his forge. He must have felt the cool morning air or heard the creak of the hinges because he called out, saying that he was there and that whoever was at the door was welcome to join him beside the warming fire.

            “How is your brother?” the other man asked, pulling on the bellows when he recognized Adam Cartwright.

            Coming into the barn, Adam realized two things. The first was that he was cold. Now, as he neared the warming coals of the forge, he felt the tingle, acknowledging it for the first time. Secondly, he could see by the faint gleam of the fire that there was a small pile of lumber in the center of the livery. When Broan lit the lantern, Adam nearly jumped away from the lumber since he could see then that the woodpiles were becoming coffins.

            “Joe’s still alive, if that’s what you’re asking,” Adam replied, more tersely than he wanted to. He mentally chastised himself, recalling the easy going way of the big man but then he also remembered that he had made himself available first to the doctor the day before, carrying the wounded man into the clinic while he and Hoss were left to deal with their brother.

            “I like your brother, Adam,” the other man said, the sound of his voice giving credence to his words. “He’s a hard worker. Never shirked any job I give him when he was workin' here with me. I understand that he might lose a leg over that business yesterday. Hell of a shame, but it could be worse.”

            Adam spread his hands above the now reddening coals, chaffing them to bring the blood flowing back. “I’m not sure that there could be anything worse, Broan. You don’t know my brother very well-“

            Broan hit his anvil with a ferocious swing of a hammer and the sound seemed to explode around them, showering both men with its naked brutality. “I know your brother pretty damn good!” Broan exclaimed, gesturing with his right hand, a hand that Adam saw was deformed, the fingers pulled into a grotesque fist. “When he came here, when I met him for the first time, I saw he had a hand like this one of mine. Without sayin’ nuthin’ ‘bout it, I tried to show him how to work around it. And he learned, by God, he learned! I heard him sometimes, talkin’ to himself, trying to get over feelin' sorry for himself. And he was tryin’ his damnedest to show other folks that he wasn’t a cripple to be pitied. Always had the feelin’ that some of those folks were his family. You maybe?”

            What else could he do but grit his teeth, look at the floor and nod? Yes, Adam silently conceded. Among others at the Ponderosa, they had dealt with Joe’s infirmity as though he were some child – no! more like a baby – to be coddled. Hadn’t he even nearly come to blows with Joe because of it?

            “I heard what happened and, while I ain’t much of a religious man, I think your brother got a miracle. At first, I teased him some, yeah. You heard me that day but you didn’t say nuthin’. When I found out who you were, I thought to myself that you kind of doubted it bein’ a miracle too, the same way I did. It didn’t matter then and it don’t matter now. Your brother got the full use of his hand back. Now this.” His head shook sadly, his beard whisking across his chest. “Yeah, it’ll be tough if he loses his leg but your brother, give him half a chance and he’ll survive. That’s a sight more than Virg, Todd and Jimmy.”

            “No,” a new voice spoke up from the doorway. Both men turned to face it, finding the doctor standing there.

            “Sorry, Doc, didn’t hear you come in,” the smith greeted sadly.

            “Are they finished?” he asked, gesturing to the half-built coffins with a nod of his head.

            “Not yet. Will be soon. I promise.”

            As though he hadn’t heard a word said, the doctor merely stood, one hand resting on the rough wood, a lost expression on his face.

            “I checked on your brother, Mr. Cartwright. I don’t understand how or why, but he may keep the leg. That is if infection doesn’t set it. He’s gonna be laid up for a long while, but he’s gonna live.”

            Chastised, Adam warred within himself then said the words anyway. “Thank you, sir. And as for your son, your nephews, I am sorry.”

            “Don’t be. Hate to say it but Virg, ever since he brought his brothers back dead from Mexico, he’s…” The words seem to hang up in the doctor’s throat and he had to cough to release them. “He’d been chasing death a long time. It was just a matter of time before he caught up to it. Don’t be sorry for what happened to my boys. I knew it would happen but I was always afraid that it would be somewhere else. I was always afraid that I would hear about it days, weeks, months maybe, later. Was afraid that he would never be laid in a grave, but maybe left to rot in the desert, food for the scavengers. As it was, I had time with him before he went. And he’ll be laid to rest not far from his brothers. When the time comes, I’ll be there too.”

            In the silence that followed, again Adam recalled the painful deaths and burial of his two stepmothers. Yes, the doctor was right. There was a certain amount of peace in knowing a loved one was cared for right when the end came. When death came.

            “How much more is there to do, Broan?” Adam asked, his question a mere whisper in the coming brightness of the day. “If you’ll let me, I’d like to help. I’m not much of a carpenter, but I can help that much.”

            With the double doors pushed open to the cool of the morning, the sound of hammers and saws echoed dully across the town courtyard.

            “Pa,” Hoss called, gently shaking his sleeping father’s shoulder.

            Immediately, Ben awoke, beginning to come to his feet even as his eyes popped open. Just as quickly, his son was trying to calm him, saying that Joe was all right, sleeping, resting quietly, repeating again that he was all right.

            “Just thought you’d want to go back with him for a bit. The sisters and me and Adam, we’re gonna be gone for a bit.” He paused, not wanting to continue with his explanation but seeing the expression on his father’s face, knew he had to. “They need somebody to help dig the graves. I told ‘em I’d help. Then,” again he paused and this time he knew his father understood. It was a hard thing, to help with something like this when you'd been the cause of it.

            “Go ahead, son.” Ben stood, his shoulders rotating as he shook off the effects of a too brief night’s rest.

            “The sisters made some coffee. They’re in the kitchen with Maude. Will and Silas and me, well, we’ll be back after bit.” Then Hoss was gone, leaving Ben running his hand back through his hair to settle his sudden nervousness.

            "Morning, ladies," he greeted, pouring himself a cup of coffee and nodding to Mother Ruth, Sister Naomi and Maude, the cantina's female entertainment. Ben felt he had stepped into the middle of a conversation, suddenly hushed, and it made him uncomfortable. "Where are the other sisters?"

            Mother Ruth raised her battered tin cup and spoke just before she sipped the bitter brew. "I sent Sister Mary Katherine and Sister Mary Magdalena back to the mission. The children will be worried and I thought they needed someone there other than Esperanza."

            Ben nodded and, leaning against the wall there in the small kitchen, sipped his own coffee. A glimpse through the gap in the hanging curtain that was the door into the bedroom area showed him that the oldest nun sat beside his son's bed. He could see that his son was still not awake. His worry must have shown on his face for the mother superior spoke up again.

            "The doctor was here briefly just at sun rise. He checked Joe's bandages. He seemed, I don't want to say that he was pleased, but I think he was relieved."

            "Relieved?" Ben echoed.

            "I also checked the bandages. There is very little bleeding now and," she smiled, her hand now dancing to her lips to cover her mouth," when I ran my finger up his foot, his toes moved and the flesh, although cool, was warm enough."

            Whatever it was that had curled tight around Ben's stomach released its merciless grip. If there had been a muscular reaction and the flesh wasn't stone cold, that meant, at least to his layman's opinion, that Joe had a fair chance of the leg healing. Ben's relief was vast.

            "We still gotta watch out for infection," Maude piped up and the other women nodded.

            "If you ladies will excuse me, I think I'd like to see if I can stir that young man. Maybe get a little something in him." As Ben turned to go into the other room, the women stirred, Maude saying something that Mother Ruth found humorous, for her full throated chuckle followed Ben.

            He nodded to the wizened nun sitting beside the bed. She smiled and. getting up slowly from the chair, shuffled into the other room, leaving Ben alone with his son. Tentatively, he touched Joe's cheek and was relieved to find the flesh, although warm, not feverish. Benevolently, he called out, as though awakening his son for a day of work. He was grateful that Joe stirred almost immediately. Slowly and sluggishly, his eyes opened and seeing his father, Joe smiled briefly.

            "Morning," Ben whispered and pulled the chair closer to the bed so that he could sit down and still be close to his son. "How you feeling?"

            "Tired," came the response after a few long moments. The single word came as though it were a great effort to speak. Again, Ben smiled for his son then asked if he wanted something to eat, something to drink. Joe nodded his head slowly, as though it took all of his energy to do so. "Don't go any where. I'll be right back once I see what Mother Ruth is cooking up."

            "I'll get him some beef tea in just a bit, Benjamin. The doctor left some pain medication and said he should be taking it every four hours. He'll be needin' it before I get his tea done so you might want to tend to that." In the small kitchen, Mother Ruth seemed to overflow all of the spare space there and Ben had quickly thanked her and returned to his son.

            True to her word, the thick liquid was in a brown bottle next to a spoon on the nightstand.

            "No," Joe croaked and weakly shook his head when he saw what his father was going to do.

            "But the doctor said for you to have it every four hours, son, and Mother Ruth said your four hours are about up. Come on, let's get it down."

            Joe refused. "No, Pa. I don't need it. Not now."

            He looked into his eyes, searching for the telltale signs that his son might not ha