Summary: Word Count: 6900
He Was Brave That Day
Nevada Territory
1852
“You did a fine job, son. Mighty fine,” Ben Cartwright declared proudly. He ladled the last of the stew onto Hoss’s plate. He put the black iron pot down on the ground next to the campfire with a clunk. “When we get back home tomorrow, Hop Sing will make you an even better dinner than this.”
“Hop Sing will make you anything you want!” Little Joe said. “It will be a real feast for a real hero.” He enthusiastically patted Hoss on the back and sat next to him. The four Cartwrights were headed back home after delivering a wagonload of lumber to the Winslow ranch.
After they had unloaded, Ward Winslow had brought them all out to the pasture to show off his new bull. His horse had stumbled in a chuckhole and he was thrown to the ground. The ferocious bull excitedly crashed through the fence and started to charge them. Had Hoss not thought quickly and ridden in between Winslow and the aggressive bull, the rancher would certainly have been killed. The quick-thinking boy managed to distract the beast and head the snorting animal from the fallen man. The others quickly scrambled to Ward Winslow’s aid.
“Mr. Winslow would have been gored if you didn’t act so quick, Hoss,” Adam added. “You thought fast.”
“I’m mighty proud of you, son,” his father repeated. Ben sat down on a log and dug into his own supper.
“Bet you was real scared, Hoss,” Little Joe said admiringly. He took a small bite of his corn bread. Then thinking better of it, the boy put the remainder on his largest brother’s plate.
“Not really,” Hoss shrugged. He looked down at his plate and smiled as he spotted the additional piece of corn bread.
“I told Pierce Winslow that his Pa would have been dead if my big brother Hoss weren’t so brave. And you know what? For once old Pierce didn’t say nothing. Not nothing!” Joe grinned. Not only was he proud of Hoss but also he was delighted at besting his rival, Pierce. “He knew it was so. And you know what? Pierce wished you were his brother. Can you beat that?”
Adam walked around the side of the empty wagon having finished settling the horses for the night. He wasn’t quite sure that Little Joe wasn’t exaggerating just a bit. “Did he?”
“Pierce sure did, Adam. I ain’t lying. He said he wished Hoss was his big brother. But Hoss ain’t his brother, I told him. He is mine! You are my brave brother, Hoss.”
Hoss smiled proudly and devoured the second chunk of corn bread. Little Joe threw his slender arm around Hoss’s broad shoulder possessively.
“And he‘s my brother too! Don‘t forget you that, Little Joe,” Adam added with a nod, picking up his supper plate from a rock near the fire. He eyed the food and then passed his portion of corn bread to his brother. “Here, brother. Enjoy!”
Little Joe and Pierce Winslow were about the same age. Dark-haired Pierce was tall and lanky and a good head taller than Little Joe. Both boys were the beloved youngest in their families. In addition, young Pierce was his parent’s only son and had four doting older sisters. Rarely could the two rascals spend five minutes together before they started wrestling and fussing and competing with each other. Each of them wanted what the other had, no matter what it was. Adam once said if Pierce had small pox, Little Joe would want it too.
“Pierce’s oldest sister Hannah said that they would be proud to have Hoss as their brother. And Betty too. They said that Hoss was real brave when he saved their Pa. Eloise said you was a real hero, Hoss, and that she was mighty glad you weren’t her brother though. How come that Eloise said that? How come?”
“Eat your supper before it gets cold, Joseph,” Hoss directed.
Joe stopped his chatter to take a single bite of his supper. “How come, Adam? Pa? Don‘t Eloise like Hoss?”
Adam and Ben chuckled and Hoss turned red. Eloise Winslow made no secret of her fondness for shy sixteen-year-old Hoss and her hopes of someday marrying him.
“I suppose you wouldn’t want to rope, tie and wed your own brother, right Pa?” Adam winked.
“I suppose not, son,” Ben laughed. “Eloise is a fine girl though, Hoss. Isn’t she?”
“Is there any more of that corn bread, Pa?” Hoss asked.
“Didn’t Mrs. Winslow say that Eloise is a mighty fine cook too?” Adam teased.
“I think so. Didn’t I hear she makes excellent corn bread?” Ben said with a straight face.
“Eloise made the corn bread we had for supper. Mrs. Winslow gave it to us when we left. She said it was special for Hoss, the hero,” Joe added truthfully. “That corn bread was real good. Wasn’t it Hoss? There is a bit left in the wagon. Want me to fetch it for you?”
Hoss started choking and Adam pounded him on his back.
“You sure you don’t want some more?” Little Joe asked as his husky brother caught his breath. “We got more in the wagon. Mrs. Winslow wrapped it up in a basket just for you.”
“No, no, thanks. I had more than enough,” Hoss said. “Thanks, Little Joe.”
“Boy, you sure are a brave hero, Hoss” Joe said for the tenth time.
“Not so much brave, Little Brother. I just didn‘t really have time to think about how scared I was just then. I just had to get that bull turning away from Mr. Winslow afore he was hurt. But now that I think about it, I am sort of scared. Do you know what I mean?” Hoss said modestly. He looked across at Adam and then to his father.
“I certainly know just what you mean. When everything is going on, you just do what you need to do but now it all comes up on you,” Adam recalled. “Once I was about Hoss’ age and we got caught up in the middle of a holdup. I had to deal with some bandits. I didn‘t realize how scared I was until it was all over and then I was sitting back home shaking like a leaf.”
“You were shaking?” Joe was surprised that his unflappable oldest brother could be rattled by anything.
“Like a leaf.”
“Adam had to shoot that fella,” Hoss explained to Little Joe. “You were pretty young when that happened. Hardly more than a baby.” The middle brother remembered the incident quite well. It happened not long after Marie had died. The Cartwrights were traveling home and came upon some pretty female travelers whose wagon had broken down. The ladies were traveling all alone to Virginia City to start a new saloon. While the Cartwrights helped them sort out the repairs, some bandits attacked them.
“You shot a man, Adam? Joe‘s eyes widened, “You blasted him? “ The boy was mightily impressed. He made a pistol with his fingers and said “Pow! Die you varmint.”
“Hey, it wasn’t like that, Little Joe. Not one bit. I didn‘t have any choice, Joe. I didn‘t want to shoot him but he was threatening all the ladies and he had already hurt Pa.” Adam didn‘t want to tell his brothers that at the time he had been sure their father was lying dead on the ground. The memory of the women screaming, Pa lying on the ground bleeding and still, and Little Joe wailing still sent shivers up Adam’s spine.
Adam scraped his tin plate and dropped it in the bucket of water to soak. It was the middle boy’s turn to clean up but Adam had offered to do his brother‘s chores honoring the boy’s daring feat.
“Little Joe, go get Pa’s plate for Adam,” Hoss told his chatty little brother.
“So you shot that bandit right between his beady eyes?” Joe persisted. He was mighty impressed by his oldest brother’s bravery as well.
“Not quite. I told him to back off but he didn’t. I had no choice,” Adam said softly.
“And then you shot him!” Joe exclaimed, excitedly handing Adam the dirty dish. “That was really something, Adam. Would you show me how to shoot? Could you?” The boy still did not understand the point Adam was trying to make. Joe sat down next to his father and watched his older brothers across the flicker light of the campfire.
“Little Joe, I had no choice. I killed that man because I had no other choice. He was going to kill someone if I didn‘t. I had no other choice.”
“Adam was mighty brave that day. He handled things with a real cool head,” Hoss added. Hoss remembered that desperate day and how his older brother had saved them all. Adam had once confessed to Hoss that he sometimes still could see the blind stare of the dead man in his nightmares. “His eyes are open, but they are opaque yellow,” Adam described. “And Little Joe is wailing and Pa is all bloody.”
Once, Adam had confided with embarrassment, when he was away at college, he had fallen sound asleep in front of the hearth at his friend’s home. He had frightened the entire O’Mara household when had hollered out in his sleep.
“Could you teach me how to use your gun Adam?” Little Joe persisted.
“No,” Adam shook his head.
“Pa, tell him to teach me,” Little Joe wheedled, tugging on Ben’s sleeve. “Tell him, Pa.”
Ben could see how distressed his oldest son was by the memory of the earlier event. Ben could also see how his youngest son not at all comprehended the seriousness of using a firearm. “Killing someone is not something a good man does with ease. It weighs heavy on his mind and his heart for the rest of a man’s life. Do you understand that, Joseph? Once a life ends, it can‘t ever be returned. When you are old enough, I will teach you how to properly handle a pistol, just as I taught your brothers.”
Little Joe nodded.
“I had no choice, Little Joe,” Adam repeated. “Don’t forget that if you ever face the same situation.”
“What was the worst time you had Pa?” Hoss asked. He figured he could help Adam out by changing the subject.
Ben laughed and took a sip from his coffee. He screwed up his face at the taste. “When you boys taught Little Joe how to make this coffee? This is really awful.”
“I’ll make some more, Pa.” Adam offered reaching for the half filled pot on the campfire.
“Don’t bother, son. This is good enough. How is the boy to learn to handle a job if you two always do it over for him?”
“That’s right, Adam. How am I gonna learn to do stuff? But, if you want to make it up to me, you can show me how to shoot a hand gun if you want.” Joe had to throw in one more attempt.
Adam shot him a dark look. “Stick to making coffee for awhile and that little squirrel rifle of yours, Little Brother.”
“No Pa, really, the scaredest you ever was? Really?” Hoss asked.
“Pa was never scared, Hoss. Nothing ever scares Ben Cartwright,” Joe yawned and leaned against his father. Ben rubbed the boy’s shoulders affectionately. “Not never, right Pa?”
“Certainly I’ve been scared, Little Joe. There is no man alive who can say he was never scared.”
“And if he does, he’s lying to you, Buddy,” Adam warned the boy. He tossed the dregs of his coffee into the fire.
“It’s what someone does with his fears that is the measure of a man,” Ben explained. “Courage isn’t the absence of fear; it is realizing that something else is far more important than your fear.”
“Like Hoss saving Mr. Winslow?” Joe nodded.
Adam wanted to toss out a quote from Shakespeare or scriptures or Socrates but his brain was too weary to come up with a suitable one. Then Adam realized his father’s remark was probably better than any thing a long dead philosopher or sage could have said. “Pa is right, Little Joe. Don’t ever forget what Pa just said.”
Joe nodded. His eyes were growing heavy but he fought off sleeping. Only a little kid would fall asleep now and he was going to show everyone he was no baby.
“Don’t you think you should turn in, Little Joe?” Ben asked. “You have a big day tomorrow.”
“Yeah, Joe. We still have a long ride ahead of us,” Hoss said leaning back on his saddle. He contentedly patted his very full stomach.
Adam tossed the dirty dishwater into the dry brush. He sat next to Hoss and leaned back on his own saddle. Stretching his long legs in front of him, he tried to decide if he should pull off his boots just yet.
“I’ll keep up,” Joe yawned again. “Don’t you boys worry.” He was bone tired but wasn’t quite ready to turn in. “Pa what scared you the most?”
“Which time?” Ben laughed. ”There have been many times I was scared.”
“When you were my age. What scared you the most when you were ten years old, Pa?” Joe rubbed his eyes and yawned. He was going to force himself to stay up just as late as his brothers, perhaps later. Perhaps he could manage being the last one awake. That would show all of them.
“When I was your age, Joseph? Hmm,” Ben thought for a minute trying to remember what his life was like as a small boy. “Times were hard for us. My father had just moved us to a new town on the offer of a good job at a saw mill.”
“Joseph Cartwright,” Hoss recalled their grandfather‘s name.
“That’s right. Marie and I named Little Joe for my father.” Ben nodded, drawing his youngest boy close.
“What scary thing happened in the new town, Pa? Were their bandits that you had to shoot? Did Joseph Cartwright give you a pistol when you were my age?” Little Joe said hopefully.
“Quit interrupting and let Pa go on,” Hoss told the boy.
“When we arrived, there was no job waiting. The mill had been sold and the new owner and his partner didn‘t need any new workers. My parents found a place to live, a little house out side of town. It was hardly more than a run down cabin, a couple of rooms and an attic loft. We really didn’t have much but my mother and us boys set about to cleaning up the place up nice and homey. We really were in a fix and had hardly any food by then and probably no money.”
“Did you starve to death Pa?” Joe asked.
“Joe, if Pa starved to death, he wouldn’t be sitting here right now telling us this story.” Adam shook his head. He pulled off his boots and arranged his bedroll in the small of his back to be a bit more comfortable while Pa told the story.
“We were there about a week when my father got offered a few days work helping a man clear some land. So off he went. Not being familiar with the area, I wasn’t sure where he was going. Pa wasn’t sure how long he would be gone but he would do what ever he needed to take care of us.”
“Did you miss him, Pa?” Little Joe asked. “When you were little, did you miss when your Pa went away?” The boy looked at his father’s face. “Is that why you were so scared? If you had a pistol, you wouldn’t have been so scared, Pa.”
“Sure Pa missed him. Don’t you miss Pa when he goes off? I sure do,” Hoss admitted.
“My mother was left all alone with us, not knowing for sure when my father would come back and not knowing any neighbors in the new place. As the oldest boy, my father told me I was the man of the house while he was gone. Aaron was a baby, not even three and John was about six, so I suppose by comparison I felt pretty big. I was about your size, Joe.
“My size?” Joe was amazed. He never thought of his father being little. It was hard for the boy to imagine. “You were ten and my size, Pa?”
“Maybe I wasn’t quite ten, more like nine. But there we were. Far from anyone we knew, my father gone.”
“Were you scared then? That don’t seem like a real frightening story, Pa. You were in a house with your mother and brothers,” Hoss said.
“Oh that wasn’t the frightening part,” said Ben leaning forward and speaking in an ominous voice.
“Were there wild varmints? Ghosts?” Hoss asked. “Indians?”
“No, son. There weren’t any ghosts. My mother sent us all to bed when it got dark. It must have been late September and had started getting dark earlier. Candles were pretty dear so we usually turned in early and got up at dawn. Ma and Pa had a bed in the downstairs room. We boys had one bed in the loft. More like a few quilts on a lumpy cornhusk mattress. We didn’t each have our own beds or our own rooms like you boys do now on the Ponderosa. Just after we turned in, it started to rain and bluster. It was blowing real fierce and the whole place shook like a ship in a storm. The lightning flashes were so dazzling each burst lit up the little house. The crash of thunder was earsplitting. The rain streamed through the cracks in the walls and the leaky roof.”
“That was some storm, Pa,” Adam said. He would have liked a chunk of that corn bread in the wagon but he was too comfortable to move.
“Aaron started to cry for our Ma and John joined him. I tried to get them to stop screaming but I was awfully scared myself. There was one real loud crash of thunder and the entire house shook .You could feel it right here.” Ben put his broad hand on Little Joe’s narrow chest. “I never, ever had been so scared in my life.” Little Joe put his small hand over his father’s large one and pressed it on his chest for a minute longer.
“What did you do, Pa?” Adam asked.
“Never moved so fast in all my born days. All three of us of boys scrambled down that ladder so fast I don’t think our feet touched the rungs. I was last and swung down half way and leaped the rest of the way. I caught Aaron before he hit the floor.”
All three boys laughed hard imagining Ben and his young brothers flying out of the loft.
“Well, all of us scared boys just leaped right into Ma’s bed and tried to hide under the covers with her. We jumped so hard the old bed frame collapsed and the mattress crashed to the floor.”
“That must have really been something, Pa,” Hoss said. He got up and tossed another piece of kindling on the fire.
“It didn’t matter where that bed was, we were sure our Ma would keep us safe. She just hugged us close and told us we would be just fine. She said we were perfectly safe with her and not to be scared. So we weren’t. We all slept together that feeling real safe and snug under the covers beside our mother.”
Adam nodded. He remembered sleeping all cozy like that with Hoss when they were traveling west with Pa.
“The next day I woke up it was mid-morning. We boys were all tangled together under the covers and our mother was gone.”
“Did she blow away in the storm? Did Indians steal her? ” Joe asked. “If you had a gun you could have…”
“Hush up, Little Joe and let Pa finish,” Adam admonished.
“My father had arrived back home while I was still asleep. Ma was giving him breakfast and telling him about us jumping into bed with her and breaking the bed frame. I listened without letting on that I was awake.”
“You were spying on them, Pa!” Little Joe was amazed that the small boy who was his father could do that.
“And you never, ever eavesdropped, Baby Brother?” Adam asked knowing the answer.
“Me?” Little Joe shook his head. “Not never, no sir!”
“And baby brother never lies neither?” Adam asked Hoss. The two older brothers elbowed each other and laughed as Little Joe squirmed.
“Guess Pa wasn’t much of the man of the house in those days,” Adam said.
“Guess he had a ways to go,” Hoss agreed.
“Pa did catch the baby brother when they were falling out of the loft,” Little Joe defended. “Do you think that Aaron would have bounced?”
“What happened next, Pa?” Hoss asked stifling his laughter over Joe’s automatic defense of their father and description of Uncle Aaron bouncing.
“Well, the next thing I heard was my mother confessing how much she missed my father and how terribly frightened she was during the storm. She said she was probably just as scared as we children, maybe more.”
“Your mother lied to you, Pa! How could a mother lie?” Little Joe asked.
Adam had just reminded him that his fibs were wrong and now he found out that his grandmother had lied to her children.
Ben smiled softly. “It wasn’t really lying, son.”
“She told the boys they would be safe and they sure were,” observed Hoss. “It was just a storm.”
“My mother was putting our peace of mind and welfare before her own fear. She was the adult and we were just little boys. I never told her what I heard but I always remembered it, how brave she was in hiding her fears for us.”
“Children don’t always need to know everything that the adults do, Little Joe,” Adam explained. Adam remembered a few times there was very little food and Pa had claimed he wasn’t hungry so he and Hoss would eat his share. He smiled at his father, knowing how often Ben Cartwright had done that with his own boys to make them feel safe and protected. When he was very small, he had believed everything exactly as Pa told him; Hoss did too. Now that they were men, both could clearly understand Pa’s reasons and was glad Pa had.
“That was a mighty good story, Pa,” Hoss said “Your mother was real smart brave to do that.” He also was getting old enough to notice the difference of the way adults sheltered their children from storms. When he had children, he would do the same thing. Matter of fact, he and Adam already did that with Little Joe.
“She was a good woman,” Ben said.
“She raised a fine, son, Pa,” Adam smiled admiringly at his father across the campfire. Ben smiled back.
“Too bad parents can’t protect children all the time from fearful bad stuff,” Hoss said.
“It would be nice for a while, when they were small,” Ben said looking around at his three boys. Two of his boys were really men, only one still a wide-eyed child. Ben would be glad to take on their troubles and worries forever as his if that would make their lot in life easier. He knew, however, that was impossible. They had to learn to survive the world on their own. He knew he wouldn’t always be beside them everywhere they went for the rest of their lives.
“That would be nice but eventually those youngsters grow up and are adults. They have to learn to manage things on their own and solve problems. How are they going to hold down a job and raise their own families if they don’t learn to deal with things themselves?” Ben said as Joe yawned and snuggled into him.
“There were a few fellows in college who were rich, spoiled boys. They never had to do anything for themselves,” Adam recalled.
“Sort of like Pierce Winslow!” Joe said. “He can’t even wipe his own nose with out his sisters telling him what to do.”
“Those spoiled rich boys didn’t last very long on their own at college. All they did was get drunk and gamble and waste their time with bad company. They all wound up tossed out by the end of the term and went home in disgrace.”
“There is an old saying that rough seas make skillful sailors,” Ben said.
“But we ain’t sailors, Pa,” Joe said. “We are cowboys.”
“And there sure ain’t any seas around here,” Hoss added. “Just the lake and the creek.”
“I think Pa doesn’t quite mean that,” Adam tried to explain. “It means that dealing with adversity helps you to become more capable.”
The campfire was burning down and Hoss tossed another piece of kindling on the fire.
*****
“Tell me, Pa.” Adam sat on his haunches and poked some life into the campfire. Despite the late hour, he was wide awake a savoring his father’s stories. Ben had told Little Joe about the terrifying thunderstorm. Then Hoss had posed the same question and their father had told them an exciting tale about his early days as a sailor.
Ben had been visiting Naples and lost his way one night returning to his hotel. Three men with knives had jumped out of a dark alley and attempted to hold him up. A stranger, Guido Borelli, had happened along and swung down from a balcony to help the young seaman. Between the two of them, they made quick work of the attackers. Little Joe and Hoss were mightily impressed that, despite his fear, their father succeeded fighting off so many robbers. All the boys were amazed that their father had retained his friendship with Borelli who later became a famous circus acrobat. Now both of the younger boys were sleeping and only Adam and their father remained awake under the star filled sky.
“What scared you most when you were my age, Pa? Truth, Pa.”
“The truth? You.”
“Me?” Adam was amazed at Ben‘s quick answer.
“You asked what scared me the most when I was about your age, Adam. It was the very real thought that I could loose you; the sense that my child could die that scared me the most. You were all I had left. All that I had of any value. The only thing in the universe that I treasured was you. That was the most fear inducing thing I had ever faced, Adam.”
Adam never imagined that was the answer his father would have given.
“Nothing was more precious to me in those days than you, my son Adam,” Ben said softly. “And nothing is more precious to me today than the three of you boys. Nothing in the world.”
Adam looked across the campsite at his younger brothers. The two were curled up side by side on the ground fast asleep. Hoss was leaning on his saddle and Little Joe, resting on his stomach, had his cheek pillowed comfortably on his large brother’s shoulder. The younger boy’s slim arm was draped across his brother’s belly. The two sleeping boys were breathing in exact synchronization.
Ben took a few steps over to them. “Maybe I should move Little Joe into the wagon? A cold wind is blowing in from the mountains. Don‘t want the boy catching a chill in the night sleeping on the damp ground. Or Hoss waking up before he has to because Joe is and shivering and snatching the covers.”
“Oh don’t worry so, Pa. That noisy thunder storm you told us about wouldn’t bother those two now. They are both done in. They‘ll be just fine the way they are. We managed fine in far worse weather than this, you and I. And besides, sleeping next to old Hoss is like sleeping next to a hot water bottle.” Adam tossed another piece of kindling on the camp fire to be sure. Bright orange sparks twinkled into the inky sky like fireflies.
Ben took his own blanket and tucked it around the two boys. “I’ll get that extra blanket from the wagon for myself when we turn in.”
“What happened, Pa?”
“Well, I was all alone, with a tiny, fragile life in my arms. You and I were hundreds of miles and six long months from where we had started. I had pretty much burned my bridges behind me and there was no going back to Boston at that point. You were so totally and completely dependent on me. You can’t imagine how fearsome that is, holding a tiny helpless life in your hands. I really had no idea how to take care of a baby by myself and how much I would love you. And how desperately much I would miss your mother.” Ben licked his dry lips. “Any of that bad coffee left?”
“No, sir. It sort of all got spilled out when I was cleaning up. I’ll have to give Little Joe another lesson in how to make coffee if we plan on allowing that boy to cook any time soon. And expect to survive his efforts.”
“That will be better than teaching him to shoot a pistol for a while.” Ben hated to think of his last little boy having to face the harsh side of life. “That little squirrel rifle of his is enough for now.”
“Want me to make some more coffee, Pa?”
“No. We need what we have left for breakfast. I sure don’t want to face that long ride home with out a good cup of coffee in the morning. Besides, I have something better in my saddle bag.” Ben went over to the gear that had been neatly arranged in the back of the wagon and shifted things around. “I truly loved your mother, Adam; all your mothers. But Elizabeth was my first love, the pure, sweet, innocent love of my youth. Life was supposed to be forever happy and forever sweet for us. I never could imagine any difficulties or sadness ever happening when Elizabeth and I married.”
“You really loved my mother, Pa.” Adam liked how that sounded.
“I really loved her. Real love marks a man, changes him forever.”
Adam thought sorrowfully of Amanda Bruce, the girl who broke his heart back in Boston. “I’ve been in love,” he confessed softly.
Ben looked at his oldest son. Adam had never told him much about the ruined affair, just that the girl had sincerely been in love with another man, his best friend, Dennis. It had all ended badly for Adam and some how his grandfather had been to blame. Somehow, Adam had retained his friendship with Dennis.
“No, you haven’t been in love, not really. Not the way you will be some day, son. You just thought you were in love, that time.”
In the flickering light of the campfire, Ben could see Adam raise his eyebrows in an unspoken question.
“It was just your sap running, son. You were chasing some sweet perfume and thinking you were quite a man when you held that soft, round girl in your arms. The pain you feel now is the humiliation of loosing her to your friend, and the sorrow of being betrayed by another man you sincerely trusted.” Ben couldn’t bring him to say the name of Abel Stoddard.
“Do you think so?” Adam asked. Adam had never thought of things the way his father so accurately described.
“You’ll see, son. Wait until you meet the right woman and it will see the difference.”
Adam appreciated that his father had never probed for more details and respected his privacy. Adam looked at his brothers soundly sleeping nearby and envied their sweet innocence. Ignorance truly was bliss.
“Real love is different, son. Someday you will meet the right woman. You will share your dreams with her and want to see her eyes in the eyes of your children.”
Adam nodded, hoping his father was right, fearing he wasn’t and that he would never find a woman who loved him. He valued his father‘s words. “What did you do, the time you were telling me about?” Adam asked. He wanted to hear more of his father’s memories of starting out, not discuss his own private disappointment. “How did you manage to tend a baby?”
“Along the way, I asked folks what to do and learned a bit here and there. I prayed a lot. Some times a woman who had children would show me how to manage things. Folks were very kind when they saw a man alone trying to raise a baby. Some thought it was amazingly heroic in a way they don’t think a woman alone with fatherless children is heroic. I thought I was doing pretty well, considering,” Ben said over his shoulder. He dug into his saddlebag until he found a small silver flask of brandy. He held it up for his oldest to see. The bottle shined in the firelight. Adam nodded and held out the two tin cups for his father to pour each of them a portion of the golden liquor.
“Until that night. That night, I finally admitted to myself that I had made a terrible mistake and you could pay the price for my lack of judgment.” Ben took a long swallow of the brandy. “I couldn’t blame any of this on anyone but my own self.”
“What do you mean Pa?” The brandy warmed his insides and melted the stiffness in his shoulders from the long day of hard work.
“What did I mean? That night, you were sick and squalling. Nothing I could do helped comfort you. Your crying just pierced my heart. I remember thinking what was I doing when I took you from Boston? Was I a lunatic? That was the only time I ever really thought that Abel Stoddard could have been right.”
“Right? What do you mean, Pa?” Adam had finally learned what type of man Abel Stoddard was during the time he had lived with his grandfather in Boston. Abel Stoddard could never have been right about anything. Stoddard was a manipulative, self-serving liar. The man would do anything and everything for his own personal gain including using his own grandson. Adam finally understood why his father had good reason to avoid contact with Stoddard after they had gone west. Adam had learned that far too well from his own painful experience.
His grandfather had connived to keep Adam in Boston by deception. The girl he had fallen in love with was the daughter of Abel’s partner, Charles Bruce. The entire union had been plotted by the two greedy men as business merger and a means to keep young Adam from going back home to the Ponderosa. Neither cared a wit about the hearts of the young people involved, just the soundness of a financial arrangement and an opportunity to bring a clever, hardworking young man into their business. Vengeful Abel would do anything to have kept the young man from returning to his father and brothers after his college graduation. He wanted Adam Cartwright for his own heir and to prove once and for all he could beat out Ben Cartwright.
“That night I was positive that I should have left you with your grandfather in Boston. At least until I was more established out west.” Ben sipped his brandy and watched the fire.
“But Pa, that could have taken years.” Adam couldn’t imagine what kind of vile person he would have become had he not been raised by Ben Cartwright. He wondered if his grandfather would have even returned him to his father when Ben requested. That was better left unimagined and unsaid.
“But you were really too small to be toted from pillar to post.”
“You did what you thought was the right thing, Pa. I was your son. You did the right thing keeping me with you. I belonged to you alone, not Abel Stoddard.”
“Alone?” Ben poured another round for each of them. “I was very alone after I left Boston. You can’t imagine how terribly lonely I felt after your mother died. Everything I had done, I did for her. Every plan I made included Elizabeth. Now I was alone with out the love of my life. Sometimes a person who feels so very alone will do foolish things to make himself feel less lonely. It was pretty irrational to be traveling to the frontier with such a young child. I thought I could manage, but I couldn‘t.”
“But you did Pa. You did fine. Look at us. You did more than fine.”
“I was running from my loneliness and not really thinking of you and what was best for a baby,” Ben confessed softly. He held the tin cup between his two hands and stared at the fire. “I can admit it now.”
“That’s not the only reason you left Boston, Pa. You wanted to follow your dream, the dream you and my mother had about moving west. It all worked out,” Adam repeated.
“But that night, I feared that my impetuous, dream chasing might jeopardize something far more precious to me, Adam. You. Nothing means more to me than you and your brothers, Adam. Nothing,” Ben repeated. “Not even the Ponderosa or my own life. Nothing. I was very young and foolish and alone and not thinking soundly.”
Adam had never really thought of how really young his father had been. When his father was Adam’s age, Ben had already been to sea, married, had a baby and been widowed. Ben had been on his own for years. Adam had never thought of his father being so very young. “And you were just about my age then?”
Ben did the calculations in his head. “Just about, son. Perhaps even few months younger than you are now. I was all alone in the middle of the wilderness. I had no idea how far it was to the next town but knew I couldn‘t turn around and go back the way I came. The weather turned bad. First it was raining. Then, towards sunset, it started snowing, wet thick flakes. I feared it was turning into a blizzard.” Adam watched his father stare at the clear, night sky. “You were crying and nothing I could do was soothing you. I had you wrapped in a blanket, inside my mackinaw. I was riding that old sorrel with the white blaze. Remember that horse?”
Adam nodded “Washington?” They had that horse until Adam was about four years old, Ben sold it in Ohio.
Ben was surprised but then not really. Adam was a smart child with a sharp mind for details. “You remembered?” Ben poured another round into their tin cups from the flask.
Adam nodded. “We used the money toward a team and a used wagon. And you bought me new boots and a McGuffy reader that day.”
“I’m amazed that you can recall all that.”
“And a sack of peppermints too,” Adam added.
“Lemon drops. Sour lemon drops,” Ben corrected. “The golden color caught your eye. You said they were sunshine candies and wanted to eat the sunshine. Then you spit them out saying they tasted nasty. I was sort of upset that you were wasting them. Cash was so dear to us and it wasn’t often you got sweets. The shopkeeper saw how unhappy you were and just took them back without a word. He gave you some peppermints in their place.”
“Now I remember. They were red and white peppermints. Go on with the story, Pa.”
“I was never so scared and just kept pressing on through the snow. I had no idea if they even had a doctor there and I don’t think I had more than forty cents to my name. You were struggling to survive and crying and I had no idea what to do to make you well. I never felt so scared and helpless and hopeless ever in my life. Everything meant nothing if I didn’t have you. I had you inside my mackinaw and was trying to slog on. I was riding that sorrel mare. There was a break in the snow.”
“What happened, Pa? “ Adam asked as his father paused.
“Well, I got to the town and found me an open tavern and went in. You were whimpering still. You were too tired to cry much more. The tavern owner’s wife took you from my arms and said she would try to get you warm. She took one look at you and knew exactly what was causing your distress.”
“What was it Pa? Adam assumed it was typhoid or small pox or some sort of serious disease.
Ben smiled. “You were getting a tooth.”
“A tooth?” Adam laughed, “You thought I was dying and I was getting a tooth?”
Ben nodded. “I told you I didn’t know much about tending babies then. I think we should turn in. Like you told your brothers, we have a long trip tomorrow until we get home. Good night, son.”
“Night, Pa,” Adam answered and drained the last swallow from his cup.
The End
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