Summary: Part fifteen of A Battle of Wills
Word Count: 4700
A Battle of Wills
Chapter 1
My Darling Adam,
By now you must have received Philip’s wire. I pray that you will be able to trace down that baby and Andrea. And perhaps even his letter. I must tell you once again for all of you to watch your selves. You and your family are very dear to me and have been for many years. Please do be careful with Foster’s papers and watch out for Ted Flanagan.
I traveled to Elm Grove with Philip and examined the Massey property, which I may purchase for either investment or more likely as my retirement home.
As Levi Victor has been telling me for years, I must put some money aside for my old age and be prepared for those church ladies to eventually close the Altamont Saloon, or at least the nature of the facility. I suppose the time has come.
Since Stanley Fischer’s demise, this pious movement has gained energy like a snowball running down hill. I don’t have the fight left in me to remain in a town that has moved to be so civilized and lost all its frontier charm. Do you realize the Virginia City Counsel has voted to build three new schools next year and has banned spitting in public? They are also trying to get a law past against shooting off firearms on the streets and limiting access of main thorough fairs to cattle. As I have said before, dearest, watch for those politicians.
What will be next? Diapers on horses or mandatory attendance at church on Sunday? I certainly hope not! Reverend Felcher will have the entire population of Virginia City simultanewously snoring in one place with his sermons. Levi was so correct. I am glad you and Dennis have advised me so well on my investments, as have other gentlemen.
I will be traveling for the next few months, first to visit my mother in Phoenix and then to the northwest for a while and on to San Francisco. Perhaps your handsome father will be on a ‘business trip” at the same time and he could take me to dinner..I shall be home in Virginia City by early December, New Years at the latest. It is wonderful that Little Joe is doing so well. He will always have a special place in my heart since that difficult stage journey we all took together so many years ago. And be sure you are watching out for your dear wife. I am looking forward to seeing your new baby upon my return.
Fondly,
Miss Barbara
Chapter 2
Boston, summer 1871
The Boston police officers buttoned their jackets tighter and pulled their hats down low against the coming rain storm. Mrs. Preston didn’t want to stand in the rain with her grandson and headed back into her house with little Laurence III. Joe and Ben Cartwright were covered from head to toe in sparkly black coal dust from being locked in the coal bin. As drops of rain hit them, the water made muddy trails as it ran down their faces.
“That was a clever thing you did, Robert. You saved us,” Joe grinned. His teeth shined white against his filthy face.
Robert smiled back. “You sure both of you are ok?” He brushed Joe’s shirt off with one hand.
Ben nodded and tried to knock some of the black dust off his own suit. “You did a fine job, Robert.”
It looked as if every police officer in Boston had suddenly descended on the neighborhood and every person in the neighborhood had surged out to see what had happened. The crowd parted and Kate and Dennis ran up to them. Dennis embraced his son Robert.
“Are you all right?” Kate held onto Ben’s arm. He was still looking back and forth trying to find Adam in the confusion of noise and people and rain that filled the street about the Stoddard house.
Despite his being covered with black filth, Kate wrapped her arms around Joe who hugged her tightly to him. Some of the black coal dust smudged across her face too.
Dennis turned to Robert and said, “The officers told me how you saved Ben and Joe. I am so proud of you, son.” He clapped his arm around his boy’s shoulders.
”Are you both ok? Did you find Adam?” Kate frantically asked Ben the question as she looked at her father in law over Joe’s shoulder.
Ben Cartwright shook his head. “We found him, Katie.He was right with us a moment ago. Where is he?” Ben looked at the chaos of police trying to sort out bricklayers and prison guards and Cartwrights as they crunched over the smashed French doors. One stocky officer was pulling Old Man Preston’ cannon toward the street.
”And I was right about Laura. She was in that house with Wilkes Harrison Smith!” Joe said emphatically. He tried to wipe some of the coal dust off his face by pulling his shirt out of his trousers and mopping his face with it.
”Joseph, where is Adam? He was right behind you when the police came in the door.” Ben looked around the confusion surrounding them and still couldn’t see Adam anywhere.
Joe froze.” I don’t see him Pa. Dennis? Where is he?”
The wind kicked up and raindrops started to come down heavily.
“Where is Sam?” Kate looked around searching for her child. “Where is my son?”
Suddenly they all realized that neither Sam nor Adam were with them. “He was right behind me when we headed over here some man grabbed him and pulled him into the house.” Robert turned to Kate.” He was right behind me. I messed up Joe. I was supposed to keep him safe and I lost him.” tears welled up in his gray eyes. Dennis put his arm around him.
Three burly officers came up to the sergeant. ”One of the witnesses said that the folks from the house dragged a little boy into the house with them.
”Oh my God. They have Sam!” Ben gasped. He tried to push past the three officers into the Stoddard house but they blocked his way. “No, sir, Mr. Cartwright. We can’t let anyone go in there yet until we check it all out.”
“They have my husband and my son! You have to find them!” Kate burst into tears and Joe wrapped his arms around her and held her to his shoulder as she sobbed. Ben just stared at the Stoddard House. His worst nightmares were coming alive again. That evil house had tried to steal his son twice before and now it was doing it a third time. And it had finally succeeded, it had swallowed up both his son Adam and Sam.
Chapter 3
“How do we get out of here, Pa?” Sammy whispered. “Out this window” whispered Adam as he moved carefully to the front attic window.
“Pa its too high up. How are we going to do it?”
Adam had chased Wilkes up the stairs of the Stoddard house in the middle of the brawl only find himself facing a Navy Revolver held by former Territorial Governor, Ted Flanagan. Smith and Flanagan had forced Adam Cartwright all the way upstairs to the attic and locked him inside. It was only then that he realized that they had captured his son, Sam and had him captive in the attic as well.
Adam didn’t try to respond, he only motioned for his son to follow as he shoved aside the dusty curtains and pushed against the attic window. It was stuck tight and had been painted shut on the edge. Adam pushed as hard as he could and the window would not budge an inch. As much as his head was throbbing he knew he had to get his son free or die trying. Adams’ eyes smoldered, his jaw set in an angry grimace as he stood stiffly pushing on the window with all his strength.
Standing close to Adam, Sam nervously watched the attic door. He hoped the cut glass doorknob would not turn until he and his father got away from their attic prison. Sammy knew he must stay alert if they were to be successful in their endeavor. There was all sorts of noise and shouting from downstairs and a then big explosion shook the house. Sam breathed a sigh of relief. He knew Robert had succeeded with the cannon and hopefully freed Uncle Joe and Grandpa.
Adam cursed and managed to get the window open about a half inch. Only a fly could escape in that amount of space. He stopped pushing. Needing something to pry the window open, Adam glanced around and found just what he needed. He wrenched the brass curtain rod off the window frame and yanked the dusty brocade curtain off of it. Adam jammed the end of the thick brass rod under the window frame and with a grunt pried open the frozen window. He tossed the curtain rod down on the floor.
“Come on, Sam. Let’s go. We can climb down the rain gutter downspout.
Sammy shook his head in dismay. “I can’t do that!” he stammered as he looked at the drop below but Adam was insistent as he moved the sash quietly upwards.
“I’ll go first. You follow me and I will catch you if you slip.” Adam swung his long leg over the windowsill onto the wet roof. “Just like climbing out of the loft of the barn and sliding down the haystack.” He smiled weakly trying to seem confident in the plan. He knew they had absolutely no choice. Smith and Flanagan would be back shortly and they knew Adam had recognized them. Who knows what means they would use to silence them both? Adam was not going to wait around to find out.
”Pa? It’s awful high up.” The boy was trembling with fear. Sam had already used up a lifetime supply of courage the last year.
Adam put out his hand and caught Sam’s hand.”Doc, we got to go right now before those bad men come back. We really don’t have any other choice.” He looked directly into Sam’s eyes and smoothed over his tangled, curly brown hair. “I won’t let you get hurt, Son.”
Sammy nodded. He trusted Adam to always keep him safe. He climbed over the windowsill and followed his father out on the roof into the storm. The both slid on the gradually slanting rain wet roof. Forked lighting slashed the sky almost at the same instant as the crash of thunder as the raging storm was right over their heads. Just as Adam slid to the edge of the roof and was about to reach for the drainpipe, Laura appeared at the streaky attic window.
“Get back here! They are getting away.” She grabbed at Sam who was just inches away from her fingertips.
“Sam get down here,” Adam bellowed fearing Laura could catch hold of his son. The boy quickly slid further down the roof just out of Laura’s grasp. The rain splattered heavily around them and thunder cracked loudly over head. Adam reached out his strong hands and caught his son inches from the end of the roof.
“Wilkes, get out there and get them before they get away.” Laura shrieked. She saw the metal curtain rod on the floor and bent over to pick it up. She thrust it at her lover. “Go knock them off the roof!” Laura demanded. “Poke them hard until they fall. Stab them. Poke out their eyes!”
Wilkes didn’t act quickly enough for her temper, so Laura climbed out of the window with the long metal pole in her hands. The wind blew and whipped her crinolines and her skirt and pulled her blond hair free from her elaborate upswept coiffure.
She reached out the metal curtain rod and tried to jab it at Adam Cartwright but couldn’t reach him. Laura grabbed hold of the copper gutter that trimmed the top of the roof and swung the curtain rod over her head. Rain fell heavily around her and the wind blew her royal blue ruffled skirts around her.
“Wilkes! Flanagan! Get them!” Laura shrieked furiously. “Don’t make me do all the work!”
A bolt of lightning crackled and hit the brass staff in Laura’s hand. The curtain rod acted as an effective lightning rod and the place where her hand touched the gutter sizzled as an electrical circuit was made. Greenish silver light illuminated the horrifying scene of the despicably evil woman being electrocuted by a bolt of lightning. As a clap of thunder momentarily deafened everyone nearby the smell of burning hair and flesh filled Adam’s nostrils. Sam involuntarily closed his eye at the bright flash and his hair stood up on the back of his neck from the electricity. His father held tight to him, his arms wrapped around Sam protectively. Sam crushed his face into his father’s chest.
Laura’s eyes sparked and flames shot out of her feet and hair setting the wooden siding and window frame a fire. Her blonde hair turned into a Medusa like coiffure of yellow fire spitting snakes while her shrill screams pierced the air as another crash of thunder shook the neighborhood. She shook violently and her hand was almost welded to the rain gutter by her wedding ring and the emerald pinky ring she had just received from Wilkes. Her white teeth shone starkly against her charred face. Her twisted, burned body rolled down the roof and fell three stories to the ground. The bolt of lightning had been fatal and Laura Dayton Cartwright was dead long before she thudded onto the cobblestone sidewalk in front of the Stoddard house.
The flames spread from the window frame to the shutters and the siding to the inside of the attic. “Wilkes! Flanagan! Get out before you burn up!” Adam hollered.
“No, Cartwright, you are tricking me!” Wilkes shouted and ran back further into the burning attic. Flanagan had already charged down the stairs to escape.
Sam froze with fear at the horrifying sight until he heard his father’s deep voice calmly call to him. Adam firmly told him what he had to do and Sam followed his father’s directions.
“Doc, grab hold of the rain spout son like this and go down. I’ll catch you if you slip.” Adam grabbed hold of the pipe and started to slide down the side of his house. He dug his toes into the shingles to keep from slipping too fast. Sam followed behind him clinging tightly to the drainpipe. Just as Adam got about halfway to the ground, the pipe shuddered and they heard a terrible creakas the pipe pulled away from the side of the house.
”Pa, I’m falling! Help me!” Sam pleaded from above him as the top of the pipe pulled away from the house at a dangerously acute angle. Adam lost his grip on the wet metal and dropped feet first into the shrubbery at the foundation of the house. Sam clung on to the swaying pipe at the top, like a monkey in a tree.
“Pa!” Sam shrieked. “Pa! I’m falling! Help me, please!”
The boy rode the drainpipe as it pulled further loose hanging on with every muscle in his slender body. The pipe slowly arched and swayed toward the top of a large copper beech tree that stood between the Stoddard house and the ornate spiked iron fence.
“Sammy! Adam!” Kate screamed from the ground as her son swayed precariously three stories above their heads. The milling crowd looked up at the boy.
”Oh my goodness! “ hollered Mrs. Jansen clutching at her husband.” There is a little boy up there!”
Dennis and Ben ran over to Adam and pulled him from the wet shrubbery. He was badly scratched and had twisted his knee. His was bruised and scraped but other wise not seriously hurt. Adam tried to scramble to his feet and looked up to see the roof of the Stoddard house burst into flames and the fire attack the attic. The dry old timbers and varnished bead board walls installed by Captain Abel Stoddard’s ship’s carpenters a generation earlier fueled a hot quick fire and the roof was quickly engulfed. As heavily as the rain was falling, it did nothing to quench the fury of the fire consuming the old house.
“Help me!” Sam screamed as the drainpipe swayed in the wind. The bottom was still attached to the house and the top part, with Sam clinging to it swayed back and forth in the rain. It bent away from the house almost to the copper beech tree at the side of the house.
The crowd of onlookers shouted excitedly as the police men ran helplessly about the yard.
Joe looked up franticly at his nephew. If he climbed up the beech tree he could catch the pipe as it swung near. He reached to grab a low hanging branch to start climbing up and instantly realized there was no way with his arm in the cast that he could make the climb and hang on no less catch Sam.
“Robert! Get up the tree!” Joe hollered at the boy and gave him a shove toward the copper beech. “Get up the tree and catch him. I can’t do it with one hand. Go quick.”
For an instant Robert looked blankly at Joe uncomprehendingly.
“Help me!” Sam shouted from over head as the drainpipe swung like a slow pendulum and the rain gusts increased.
“Someone do something! Please!” Kate shrieked. “Sammy!” Emily hid her eyes with her hands.
Robert grabbed a branch and Joe boosted him up the trunk of the tree with his shoulder. Young O’Mara climbed as rapidly as he could and near the top he wrapped his legs around the branch and reached his arms out. The next time the drainpipe swung in his direction he reached out as far as he could and grabbed hold of the metal and pulled it into the tree. The disconnected end of the drainpipe rested at a crazy angle against the tree trunk.
The crowd below him roared with relief.
”Climb over, Bug Boy!” Robert grinned at Sammy and reached out his big hand to clutch his slender friend’s arm. The smaller boy slid over to Robert’s grasp and the two boys climbed down the wet copper beech to the ground. Robert dropped to the muddy ground with a resounding thud and caught Sam as he slipped down beside him.
As Adam stumbled over to them, Sam fell into Katie’s arms and she held him close.
Chapter 4
As Dennis had told them about Amanda’s friend Andrea and the difficulty in getting everyone sorted out at the ship and Junior taking her to Mr. Preston’s office, Emily and Kate started chattering excitedly and suddenly all the missing pieces of the puzzle came together. Andrea Lowell who Amanda had befriended on the ship was the missing woman who had married Hoss Cartwright just before he was murdered. She was the missing woman who had disappeared with her baby. Hoss’s baby. And Andrea Lowell was right here in Boston on her way to Laurence Preston’s office.
“I’m going there right now. I am going to get her.” He shouted. Before anyone could decide otherwise Joe took off.
Joe stepped down off the sidewalk into the street. He was quickly heading for the O’Mara stable on the far side of the alley when he realized Mr. Jansen had parked his surrey on the street outside his house. “I’m going to Preston’s office Pa. I have to get this note here to the judge. If Andrea is there I’m going to catch her too. Tell Mr. Jansen I took his rig,” Joe shouted over his shoulder as he sprinted down the street. Laura’s note was stuck into his cast and he had to try to get to Andrea before she left Preston’s office and they lost her again.
“Joe! Wait, I’m coming with you!” Emily screamed. “Wait. You don’t know how to get there!”
She was right. Joe had no idea how to wind his way through the busy Boston streets to Preston’s office. The only time he had been there, Adam had taken him there. He slowed his steps down until Emily caught up with him and he swung her up on the seat of the Jansen surrey. He pulled Mr. Jansen’s coat from the seat and gave it to her. “Put this on, Em. At least you won’t get too soaked. The rain poured down heavily tracing clean streaks through the black coal dust on face.
Emily dug in her pocket for a handkerchief and handed it to Joe. He swiped it across his battered face. He was about to hand the ruined square back to her but thought better of it and jammed it into his own pocket.
“That way?” He pointed with his cast to the cross street at the corner.
She shook her head and pointed in the opposite direction.
“Good thing you are here.” He sighed.
He slapped the reigns on the back of the team and drove them carefully through the congested street between the police wagon and the steam fire pumper and the crush of curious neighbors who had rushed out at the explosion of the cannon and appearance of the police wagon and fire company.
Chapter 5
The carriage horses had run hard for a long time down Commonwealth Avenue with no real delay. They were well lathered up and their bright coats were splotched with sweat stains. There was white froth on their necks where the rub of the reins had lashed the sweat into foam despite the pouring rain and splattering of mud from the filthy gutters. It was unusual for a Cartwright to get a team worked into that state for nothing. But this was not nothing. This frantic pace meant freeing Will from the false charges and perhaps finally finding Hoss’s baby.
Joseph desperately had to get to Preston’s office with Laura’s note before the judge could convict him of murder and sentence him to hang for a crime he didn’t commit. Laura had set him up.
But more importantly this might be the only chance they would have to find Andrea and the baby before she left Boston and disappeared again.
Joe pulled the reins against the horse as the traffic slowed up. Joe urged them between a freight wagon and the beer hauler on either side of the street. He was soaked through from the downpour and water ran down his neck. He looked up and down the congested avenue, for an instant, panicking that he didn’t know which way to proceed.
“Turn up at the next corner, Joe. You can cut across on Water street and get a few streets closer,” Emily directed him. Thank goodness she had insisted on accompanying him or he would have been totally lost.
She was drenched and had draped Jansen’s jacket over her head to keep some of the rain off her. It wasn’t really enough and she was wet through to her skin, as was Joe. She shivered next to him and he wished he could do something to protect her more from the rain.
A loud commotion further down the street caught Joe’s attention. A maroon painted freight wagon, together with its four-horse team, was skewed at an awkward angle across the thoroughfare. In the puddle filled intersection a smaller freight delivery wagon, drawn by a pair of gray workhorses, was wedged in tightly against it. The spoked wheels of the two vehicles were locked together.
A barrel filled brewery wagon was caught behind them and the driver was hollering at the other drivers to move.
A traffic jam of wagons and carts was forming rapidly in both directions, and a crowd of interested onlookers was gathering despite the rain. A few drivers were shouting loud and colorful curses in a variety of languages.
The driver of the freight wagon, a burly, florid faced teamster in a wet green shirt and a soaked brown tweed cap was on his feet arguing loudly with the other driver The man in the driving seat of the freight wagon looked confused and very drunk. The other driver held the reins of the gray team in one hand and a long driving whip in the other. He swung the whip over his head at the drunken freight driver.
The freight driver grabbed the end of the whip and yanked it hard pulling the other driver off his wagon seat. He tumbled forward into the filthy wet cobblestone street right into a puddle. The drunken freight driver leaped off his wagon onto to the other man and started pummeling him. The crowd roared and urged the combatants on. In the midst of all the congestion a woman screamed that someone has snatched her purse.
Joe and Emily were trapped in the street behind a handsome cab and a milk wagon closed in tightly behind them blocking them from the rear.
“Get moving!” The milk driver bellowed tossing an empty bottle at the freight wagon. The bottle crashed against the side of the wagon and shattered.
“There! Joe go down that alley! It is the alley behind the Golden Shamrock!” Her eyes flashed with excitement and the rain dripped off her forehead.
With a faint glimmer of a smile at her cleverness, Joe slapped the reins against the broad rumps of the horses and, with something of a jolt, the wagon started into motion on the uneven cobblestones. Rain poured down heavily and the streets were filled with a rushing torrent of water.
Joe pulled up the team. It was going to be a tight squeeze to get them passed the milk wagon. ‘Gee yaw’ Joe snapped the reigns and made them cut across tightly over the low curb into the narrow trash filled alley. He recognized exactly where he was. This was the same alley that he and the boys had run through with the bricklayers at their tails.
“We can go in the back door and out the front of the Golden Shamrock and the Preston’s law office is just down the street.”
If he hadn’t been so occupied with driving the Jansen’s surrey down the narrow, garbage strewn, Joe would have kissed her.
At the back entrance of the Saloon, Joe tossed the reins over the iron hitching post. He swung Emily down from her seat in the surrey lifting her over the stream of filthy rainwater rushing down the alley. He crossed the sidewalk in two long strides and slammed through the back door of the Golden Shamrock with his left arm wrapped firmly around Emily’s waist. Joe clapped his right hand with the cast over her hand and pulled her close to his side. She could feel the strength in his muscles as she held tight to him and tried to keep up with his quickening pace.
As the Joe shouldered people aside as he and Emily rushed through the saloon.
“Emily! Where are you going?” Sean called to her from behind the bar. He hadn’t even recognized filthy Joe Cartwright as he rushed past.
“We are going to the Preston’s!” She hollered to her uncle over her shoulder as Joe whipped her through the front door and out onto the crowded rainy street.
“Which way now?” Joe halted for an instant. He still had his arm wrapped around her waist and he was breathing heavily. The rain was coming down harder and running down his soaked hair to his neck and into his shining eyes.
“That way, across the street and one more block over.” Emily was gasping for air. “Go with out me. I’ll catch up. I can’t run as fast as you.” She pointed to the brick office building diagonally across the street. Joe recognized the building now and dashed across the busy street leaping over the puddles at the curb and dodging the traffic. He cut in front of a delivery wagon and stopped at the front of the Preston’s office. With his shoulder Joe Cartwright pushed open the glass paneled doors of the office building and dashed up the stairs to the law offices.
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