Home – # 14 (by Robin)

Summary:  Part fourteen of Home

Word Count:  7900

 

 

                                                         Home

 

 

Chapter 1

 

Mid June, 1874

Virginia City, Nevada

Three weeks after Joe rode to Genoa and demanded Meg to marry him, the arrangements were made for a wedding at the Ponderosa. Meg Thackery and Joe Cartwright were finally getting married. The only ones who initially knew about Joe and Meg drawing cards to make the decision were Meg’s mother and stepfather.

Ten days before the wedding, when Joe was at his brother’s home in Virginia City industriously packing up the wine glasses that were being borrowed for the party Kate confronted him. They had been friends most of their lives and she could always tell that he had left out some detail in a story or was out and out fibbing.

“Can’t believe how hard it is raining,” Joe said as he handed her some glasses. “Third day in a row we have rain.”

She looked up at her brother in law standing on top of a ladder in the pantry.
”Now, Little Joe. Tell me the whole tale. How did you get Meg to say finally agree to getting married,” She carefully took the glasses that Joe was handing down from the cupboard.

“That is the whole tale, Katie,” Joe pulled the last glass from the top shelf and climbed down to stand next to her. “I am irresistible!”

“Truth Joe!”

“I just told her that you and Adam were so happy …” He started with a grin.

“The truth Joseph. The girl knows Adam and I are blissfully happy every minute of every hour we have been married.” She teased. “What made the difference now? You have been proposing for months, years… decades, centuries!”

Joe shrugged and put the last wine glass into the packing crate. “Don’t know. Must be my charm and persistence.”
“Do you need the punch bowl too?”

Joe shook his head. “Got one home. Pa insists on making his punch.”

”True love always triumphs?” Kate said as she smoothed her hair and put the lid on the second case.

”True love always triumphs!” Joe agreed. He picked up the wooden crates and started to walk out of the pantry. Kate blocked his path.

”Now tell me the truth, Joe. Tell me the whole, complete, entire story.” She knew there had to be more to the story and she was not going to let him get away. She put hand firmly on his arm. “Now sit down at the kitchen table and tell me the entire thing. Every word. Every single detail. I’ll even give you some coffee and fresh pie.”

”Have any cookies?”

Kate nodded. “Tell me Joe and you can have pie and cookies you big baby.”

“Both?”

”Both pie and cookies and I’ll even make a fresh pot of coffee.”

Joe laughed. “On one condition, you don’t tell anyone.”

”Not even Adam?”

”Especially my brother. Especially not Adam. He still thinks I am wild and irresponsible and I don’t want him to think Meg is crazy. Even crazier than me. Promise you won’t tell. Not Pa neither.”

”I promise,” Kate made the childhood sign of an “X” over her breast” Cross my heart and hope to die. “

Joe sat down at the table and told her the whole, entire, complete story of how he made his Meg draw cards. “Katie, I drew the ten of diamonds. I was sure that would be it.” Joe shook his head and took a bite of the blueberry pie. “ Then Meg drew her card.” He paused dramatically and took an entire cookie and jammed it in his mouth and took a swallow of his coffee.

“Joe you are going to choke yourself to death eating like a pig!” She swatted him with her napkin. “Don’t chew with your mouth open! What if my children see their uncle eating like a disgusting pig?”

”Oink!” Joe grinned.” Uncle Piggy will teach them how to pull up their Cartwright snouts at the trough! Start a new family tradition.” He made a disgusting pig noise and Kate laughed as she always did at his foolishness.

“So you drew the ten. What did Meg do?” Kate poured more coffee in her own cup.

“Meg got the two of diamonds! Imagine that Katie! The lowly, low down two! I had the ten and she had the two and I won!”

Katie reached across the table and gave him a kiss on his cheek. “You certainly did. She won too. She got the second best husband in the world.”

”What? Second best!” Joe asked.

”Second after the one I have, Joe!” Kate smiled and nodded. She decided then and there that some day, once Meg was settled in at the Ponderosa, she would ask her new sister in law for her version of the card drawing story. Journalistic ethics demanded Kate knowing the complete story. And so would Adam, the first best husband in the world. If Meg told her the story, then her promise of secrecy to Joe could be circumnavigated. She wouldn’t tell Adam the story ever. She never broke a promise to Joe in her life.

But if Meg told her the story, that was an entire other situation.

 

Chapter 2

 

Late June 1874

Ponderosa Ranch, Nevada

It was a very strange wedding indeed. Most of the invited guests never got there because the heavy rains had caused flash floods, a road wash out and a landslide between Virginia City and the Ponderosa and other surrounding towns.

Hardly a dozen guests were in attendance including the minister and the bounty hunter waiting patiently to arrest one of the guests.

The bride marched down the very short aisle on the arm of the sheriff as her step father had broken his leg the week before and was stuck with all the bride’s brothers in Denver. They walked to the tune of “Oh Susanna”. The groom’s nephew forgot to bring any sheet music and was so nervous that it was the only tune that he could remember. His mother prayed that he wouldn’t automatically start singing the famous “Obscene Mermaid Song”. His father and uncle had taught him the song year before and it had that had the same melody but drastically different lyrics.

The minister, who despite being a life long friend of the groom, was newly ordained and hadn’t performed many marriages. Reverend Billy Felcher nervously started the service on the wrong page of the prayer book and began with the words “We are gathered here to bury our beloved departed friend.” Once the guests stopped laughing, he regained his composure and successfully completed a lovely wedding ceremony.

The groom fell asleep on the settee before the wedding dinner was served. The groom’s younger nephew sat silently on the floor next to him, as was his habit. Just as the father of the groom toasted the marriage in champagne, the pregnant matron of honor gasped. She thought incorrectly that she was going into labor. Since the bride was tending to the sick groom on the settee neither heard much of the toast nor the alarmed comments of the matron of honor.

The family doctor had arrived a half-hour before the ceremony drenched to the skin.  He borrowed a change of clothes from the host, a larger man. The trousers didn’t quite fit and the physician almost lost them as he joined the party. Sam Cartwright dropped his guitar and saved Doc Martin from any embarrassment by alerting the man to his potentially embarrassing exposure. . Eventually Paul Martin wound up tending to all the ill, wounded and those who were in the heat of labor and still managed not to trip over the borrowed trousers.

The best man decided once and for all to finally to turndown an invitation to run for senator. The groom never had the chance to dance with the bride as he had trouble standing upright. The groom’s father danced with the flower girl and the bride’s mother at the modest gala. The best man didn’t dance because he was still having difficulty walking from his serious injury in a mine cave in only a few months earlier. The sheriff danced with his own wife as well as the matron of honor, until she went into labor.

The groom’s cousin arrived unexpectedly in the middle of the storm. He, the groom’s father and most of the other guests and the Ponderosa hands struggled fight a fire in the barn. The blaze was accidentally started by the former finance of the bride as he tried not to get arrested on a warrant that the groom had forgotten to drop years earlier. The belligerent bounty hunter who was trying to arrest the innocent wedding guest was almost trampled by the horses escaping the fire. Fortunately for him, the man he wanted to arrest saved his sorry hide. At the bride’s firm urging, the bounty hunter finally decided to believe him and left the Ponderosa.

The Bride spent her wedding night holding cool, damp cloths on her husband’s feverish forehead and they didn’t take their San Francisco honeymoon for over a year and by that time they were accompanied by an infant and a four year old child.

It was not quite the way Ben Cartwright ever imagined his youngest son’s wedding. But in retrospect, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Francis Cartwright would never have changed a thing. Other than having to rebuild the roof of the Ponderosa barn in the middle of the rainiest summer in years and Joe hardly remembering any of it.

 

Chapter 3

 

“Pa, you want me to do anything? Should I get Grandpa or ride for the doctor” Sam Cartwright looked back and forth anxiously from his father to his uncle. They were in Joe’s bedroom helping him get dressed in his blue suit for his wedding.

Adam was newly clean-shaven again. He immediately got rid of his beard when Meg arrived at the Ponderosa. She gasped when she saw his gray beard and observed how frighteningly he resembled Governor Flanagan.

”No wonder Eric is so afraid of you, Adam,” Meg declared. “The boy thinks you are the man who held a gun to his head.”

” Shave that beard off.” Joe ordered. Adam didn’t even wait to go home to do the task. He went upstairs and borrowed his father’s razor. With Sam’s help, in a half an hour he came downstairs clean-shaven.

Meg had been completely right and by the end of the evening, Eric even allowed his freshly shaved Uncle Adam to hold him on his lap and kiss him good night.

The child patted his uncle’s smooth cheeks and smiled a vague smile of recognition. “Adam? Uncle Adam?” and hugged him good night.

Adam leaned on his cane as he reached over to straighten his brother’s tie. He could feel the fever radiating through Joe’s clothing; the lick of heat at his fingertips “Joe you’re burning up!”  Adam exclaimed. “Little Brother, you’re a very sick man.”

“Don’t let anyone know. Doc Martin should be here for the wedding. You can tell him when we are done.” Joe said. “Not a minute sooner.”

“Joe, are you going to be able to stand up by Reverend Felcher?” Adam sat on the arm of the chair near the window. “You must have finally got that fever everyone else had all winter, Pal. You always were one to do things your own way.”

Joe looked at him with glassy hazel eyes. “No problem. Billy will just have to talk fast. Good thing it’s Billy not his father. Reverend Felcher Senior would have let me waste away and die for sure with a long sermon” He smiled weakly. “I got Meg this close. No way I’m going to put this off and let her run off for the hills. Let me get the ring on her finger and then I can die a happy man.” He wobbled on rubbery legs and grabbed the bedpost to keep his balance.

”Don’t joke around, Joe.” Adam ordered. Sam reached out to steady his uncle.

“Who’s joking?” Joe’s face was flushed and he looked like he would keel over if the flower girl poked him with her basket of blossoms. There were deep smudges of shadow beneath his eyes, and his face was drawn and pale one minute and flushed bright pink the next.

“I’ll make an honest woman of Meg Thackery and leave her as Widow Cartwright all by noon.”

Sammy couldn’t help but laugh.

“Let’s go before Meg rides out of here or Eric starts to cry again from all the people being around.” Joe smiled weakly at the little boy. Eric stood silently looking out the window at the rain falling on the ranch.

“Sam, keep track of him for me, please.” Joe nodded toward Eric. His oldest nephew nodded and walked over to Eric and stood next to him watching the rain soak everything.

”This is the rainiest spring in more than twenty years, Eric. Wet weather is delaying crops and roundups all through the Virginia City area.” Sam quoted from the editorial Phil Bartlett had written for the Enterprise. No one in the room was listening, especially Eric. As sick as he was, Joe couldn’t help but think how much Sam was growing up just like Adam.

“Joe?” Adam started. He put his arm around his younger brothers Slowly, Joe leaned forward, letting his face come to rest on his older brother’s shoulder. Adam put his arms protectively around his younger brother’s shoulders, drawing him into an embrace long remembered but half-forgotten until that moment. “Good luck, Little Brother. You are going to do just fine.”

“Just don’t let me fall over until Meg says ‘I do’” Joe coughed.

Adam had always assumed that his brother would have a big elaborate wedding in a church with a huge party to follow with music and food and lots of happy dancing guests. Here they were, on the wettest, muddiest day of the year with most of the guests missing. The groom was as sick as a dog, the best man in pain limping on cane and the matron of honor about to give birth momentarily and all of them trying not to let the bride know any of it and give her a chance to ‘run for the hills’ as Joe feared.

She was down the hall with her mother, Nancy Foster and Katie getting dressed. With three friends, Mrs. Thackery had worked day and night since the wedding was announced to sew the beautiful wedding dress.

”Do your job. You’re the best man. You and Sammy just haul me down stairs, prop me up by Meg. Don’t let on how sick I am to Pa or he’ll make a huge fuss. If Pa starts carrying on, Meg might run out like a scared rabbit.”

”She wouldn’t! She loves you Uncle Joe.” Sam exclaimed. He was very glad that Meg had finally accepted his uncle’s proposal.

“Pa scares her.” Joe fumbled with his tie.

”Grandpa scares Meg?”

Adam nodded, “Let’s get moving before we have to start building an ark.”

”At least Uncle Joe will be two by two with Meg,” Sam teased. Eric just watched the raindrops trail down the windowpane.

“Adam, let Sammy give you a hand before you fall down the stairs and break something else” Joe shivered from his fever.

Adam nodded. He hobbled over and finished fixing Joe’s tie. He handed him his navy blue jacket and opened the door to go downstairs where the small group of guests waited.

 

Chapter 4

 

Ben Cartwright moved from the dining room where he was helping fix the punch to the entryway to see who else had arrived.

“Road is almost all washed out from Virginia City to the Ponderosa turn off, Mr. Ben. What ain’t washed out is near flooded.” Casey Newkirk called from the doorway. “No way Hop Sing will ever get back from San Francisco now. The stage line said the mountain pass road is flooded out too. And there are rock slides all over,”

Hays and Rebecca Newkirk were stuck also by the awful weather in Carson City visiting their oldest daughter and would not be at the wedding either. Casey Newkirk pulled off his slicker and shook the water off himself.

Newly appointed editor of the Enterprise, Philip Bartlett who was staying with Adam and Kate hung his dripping hat on the coat rack. He handed Casey his coat. He tried unsuccessfully to wipe his eyeglasses on his handkerchief but even that was wet. “Good thing the horse could see where he was going, Ben. I was blind most of the way. And look who we found riding in!”

The men stood dripping puddles in the entrance hall.

”Uncle Ben!” the taller wet cowboy exclaimed.

“William! Philip! How wonderful you made it!” Ben embraced his nephew and shook hands with Philip Bartlett.

“Katie wired me in Stockton. I wouldn’t miss this wedding for the entire world. Where is everyone? “Where is the groom? And where is my little Eric. ?” Will grinned glad to be finally back on the Ponderosa. He hadn’t seen Eric since he left Massey Ranch over a year earlier to work in Sacramento.

Will found the child hiding under Ben’s desk. When he scooped him up to hug him, the child cried hysterically. Philip had to go over and gently explain how easily upset Eric got. Sam carried the boy upstairs and calmed him down.

Will Cartwright was devastated. The family had written to him about Andrea’s death and the tragedy that had occurred on the Massey Ranch. Will never imagined the impact it all had on the once talkative, smiling child.

“Ka-Pusta died saving him, Will.” Ben said with a sigh as he handed him some punch. “Did you know the President gave Ka-Pusta a posthumous pardon?” Phil Bartlett told both men sadly.

”Too late now,” Will said as he sipped Ben’s punch and wished he had something stronger.

 

Chapter 5

 

Watching as Will and Adam Cartwright preceded him into the barn, Pierce Winslow wasn’t really sure he was doing the best thing.

”Maybe I should just head back home, Adam. I don’t have to stay for the wedding. One of you can get Mrs. Thackery back home.” He had been pressed into accompanying Meg and her mother from Genoa when Fred Thackery and the boys got stuck in Denver. Pierce never imagined that he would be chased by a bounty hunter and tracked to the Ponderosa.

“No Pierce, you just wait here. It is raining too hard for you to ride all the way back to Genoa now anyway. A lot of the roads are washed out and you can get caught in a flash flood.

Pierce followed him further into the dim, damp interior, heavy with the scent of horses, damp hay, and leather. The chilly barn was a quiet except for the occasional snort or stamp of hooves from the occupants of the stalls

“Look, Joe and Meg both said they dropped any charges against you long ago. Clem Foster sent one of our hands, Casey Newkirk into town to wire that Sheriff in Placerville who did the original charges. The boy grew up here and will know how to get around any washouts. I told him to wait for an answer,” Adam said calmly.

”Just stay out here for a while. Clem won’t let the guy arrest you. He is the law in this jurisdiction and the bounty hunter has to go with his orders. My uncle Ben said not to worry it will all be straightened out,” Will Cartwright added.

“No need for you to go out in this storm and get drowned.” Adam added.

“Just sit tight out here and we’ll bring you out some food later.” Will gestured towards a stack of wooden crates. He pulled one out from the rest and dusted it off with a rag.

“Clem and Phil Bartlett will come sit out here with you after the ceremony if Casey hasn’t come back with the Placerville wire.” Adam smiled and limped out behind Will. “They will make sure that Bounty Hunter minds his manners.” Will added. He had his own brushes with the law. Will Cartwright knew very well how things could get out of hand for an innocent man when mistakes were made.

With that thought in his mind, Pierce figured he had no choice but to wait where he was.

Adam and Will went back into the house through the driving rain.

To kill time, Pierce turned to examine the other livestock in the Cartwright barn. Everyone else was inside the nice warm, dry ranch house at the wedding and he was still here in the cold damp barn looking at the Cartwright’s horses, listening to the rain ceaselessly pounding on the roof.

The stalls next to Joe’s horse Cochise were all filled. Meg’s palomino, Goldie was in the left one. Joe had insisted on giving her the beautiful mare as a wedding gift. When she protested that she didn’t need to own a particular horse. Joe countered that she could use the horse for breeding stock and sell the colts. It was a good business investment he had urged and Meg reluctantly gave in to him.  The fine horse was the color of a newly minted gold coin. Despite herself, Meg had happily told Pierce that Joe made the right choice with the gift.

Ben Cartwright’s big buckskin, Buck, was to the right of Cochise. The horse bent to nuzzle the man and Pierce patted his nose. Then he patted Cochise. That horse had done well by them getting back from Massey Ranch.

The two draft horses, occupied the large box stalls on the far side of the large stable. Other stalls were filled with the guest’s horses. Pierce chuckled to himself nervously. The barn was growing darker and the weather was turning cruelly wet. He realized as the temperature had continued to drop and hoped the rain would not turn to snow up on the mountains. June or not the weather was totally strange. The wettest June in twenty years the Enterprise had said.

The weather was strange but not near as strange as hiding out from a bounty hunter in the Cartwright’s barn. He hoped someone of the Cartwrights would come out of the house soon and tell him it was safe to come inside. At least someone from the house could bring him some dinner and some hot coffee. A drink of something harder would be even better. The damp cold and the nervous wait made the thought of something harder much more appealing to Pierce Winslow.

“When was that dang sheriff going to straighten this whole warrant mess out,” Pierce thought grimly. Both Joe and Meg told Clem Foster and the bounty hunter that they had dropped the charges on the complaint against Pierce years ago and that Pierce Winslow was their guest at the wedding. Winslow had even brought the bride’s mother up to the Ponderosa for the event but the fool bounty hunter insisted he was going to bring Pierce in dead or alive.

“Dead or alive!” Winslow shivered at the picture.

The rancher opened the barn door and looked out on the wet muddy landscape. The rain was pouring down even harder than it had been earlier. He stood shivering and watched the rain stream down through the open barn door. He shut the creaking door and walked back inside.

He should have stayed on his own ranch with his own sweet wife. He had four children now, the two Bonnie had by Dean Newkirk and the two babies she and Pierce had together. He fervently wished that he had never come to the wedding on the Ponderosa. He sat forlornly on a bale of hay and rested his elbows on his knees and his chin on his fists.

Time passed slowly. The barn got finally got too dark for him to see his own hand in front of his face so he decided to walk into the tack room. Maybe it would be less drafty in there. He nervously felt for his holstered gun at his side. The flickering shadows reminded him too vividly of hiding in the Massey barn the day Andrea was killed.

Pierce rose from the hay bale. He stretched his long legs and walked quietly across the barn to the nearest lantern, which hung from a post near the tack room. He slowly opened the heavy wooden door. The hinges squeaked loudly in the silent barn.

He remembered playing there with Joe when he was a kid. Once Joe had slammed Pierce’s hand in this very door when Pierce had chased him. Joe had some little wooden horses and Pierce had snatched them up and ran. Joe got a tanning but Pierce couldn’t move his fingers for a more than a week, close to two.

He took down the lantern, pulled a match from the pocket of his heavy coat, and scratched it across the post. It flared up immediately, throwing a bit of yellow light into the darkness. He stood for a moment, one hand against the post, the other holding the glass lantern chimney up. Pierce carefully lit the wick and watched it blaze up.

Holding up his hands against the lantern to warm them a bit, Pierce listened to the thump of the horses in their stall on the other side of the wooden wall. The rain pounded the roof ceaselessly.

How could his generous deed of helping Mrs. Thackery get to Meg’s wedding wind up with him hiding out in a frigid barn hiding from some crazy bounty hunter?

“Let me take care of it, Ben Cartwright had told him.

” Go wait in the barn. Adam Cartwright told him.

“Someone will come out and get you when all this is settled.”  Will and that newspaper fellow Philip Bartlett had told him.

Pierce was sitting and freezing and waiting for one of the Cartwrights to come out and tell him that it was all straightened out. The damp cold and the endless wait were wearing him ragged.

Damn, they were all in the nice warm house and he was hungry and freezing in the barn hiding out like some sort of criminal not Pierce Winslow, wealthy rancher and pillar of his community. Maybe he should just walk inside and talk to Fargo and the sheriff and settle this all up himself. He was innocent. The warrant was from years ago when he and Joe Cartwright had a punch out down at Thackery’s auction Yard over Meg. Mr. Thackery or Meg or Joe or that stupid sheriff Cace or someone had wanted him arrested but it was all straightened out long ago. Years ago.

He and Joe Cartwright had made peace long ago but somehow the warrant was never dismissed.

Then the awful idea hit Pierce. “Bet Joe had planned this all along a final humiliating gesture to embarrass him in front of Meg. The sheriff, Clem Foster was the Cartwrights friend, his wife, Nancy was helping Adam’s wife with the food and setting things up. The so-called bounty hunter was probably one of Joe Cartwright’s ranch hands done up to look imposing and frightening. Bet the whole thing was a big fake and he was sitting freezing his butt in the barn while Meg and Joe were inside getting married and laughing at him.

No, Joe and he had become friends.  Pierce was sure of that.  Joe had saved his life at the Massey Ranch.  Why the Cartwrights had even introduced him to his wife Bonnie. Joe had helped him out too many times recently. They really had left their boyhood fighting behind them and become friends. And Meg would never, ever be so cruel.

He was just letting his nervous imagination run away with him in the shadowy Ponderosa barn.

Winslow paused and shook his lantern again, but the oil still sloshed alarmingly low. Carrying the tack room lantern, Pierce walked back out to the barn.  He shook the lantern hanging on the hook near Buck’s stall in the barn. That one was totally empty. If the Cartwrights didn’t get this mess fixed pretty soon he would be sitting alone in the dark.

“All right, so what you boys doing over in the house? Havin’ a slow contest?” he griped out loud to what he thought was an empty barn. “This is getting better by the minute,”

“Is it now?” Fargo came out of the shadows near the door. He must have entered the barn while Pierce was in the tack room. The bounty hunter had his colt navy revolver pointed at his prey. Pierce could smell the cheap whiskey on his breath as he came nearer.

“Now drop your gun belt, Winslow. And come with me.” Fargo pointed the gun at Pierce but with his other hand he pulled a pint bottle out of his coat pocket. He put it too his lips and took a long pull.  “Let’s go!”

”I won’t. There is no warrant on me. They sent that kid to check with the Genoa sheriff. He is waiting for the answer to the wire.”

”Shut up! Think I’m gonna listen to the likes of you! I ain’t waiting for no kid.”

”But..”Pierce started to protest when one of the horses stomped in his stall. The noise rattled Fargo. Drunk as he was he thought it was someone coming stop him from taking custody of Winslow. He whirled drunkenly and fired his gun.

The bullet hit the kerosene lantern. It shattered and burning oil poured onto the hay setting it on fire immediately.

“Fire!” Pierce shouted as flames shot up.

He grabbed a horse blanket from the stall partition and started to beat out the fire. When the corner of the blanket caught fire, Pierce snatched the burning horse blanket off the bale of hay and threw it on the barn floor. He stamped on the flames quickly, putting them out. Then he took the burned cloth and attempted to smother the rest of the fire. In a less than a minute, the flames were spreading up the wooden partition and into the full hayloft. Winslow threw the blanket on the floor and hurried out of the barn toward the house.

The bounty hunter stood frozen in the doorway for an instant realizing what he had just done. He grabbed a wooden bucket from the corner and ran out to the horse trough. He filled the bucket and screamed “Help Fire!”

“Fire!” Pierce screamed. People ran out of the house toward the barn.

In less than a minute the door of the ranch house swung open and guests started dashing out. Ben started a bucket brigade from the pump as the rain continued falling around them.

“The horses!” Meg shrieked.

“Get the horses out of the barn!” Shouted Adam Cartwright from the porch. Joe started to run out of the house to the barn but Meg and Kate grabbed him and attempted to block his way.

”Joe, stay here. You can hardly stand up!” Kate ordered.

Joe pulled himself from their grasps and ignored both women. He and Will dashed through the rain to the barn. Their boots splattered through the puddles.

Ben bellowed, “Get the horses out!”

Phil Bartlett rushed through the downpour to open the gate to the corral so the escaping horses could be herded in that direction. He rushed out to join the men chasing the horses out of the burning barn toward the corral. Will and Joe ran in to the burning barn and started leading horses out of the smoky barn. Will tossed a horse blanket over the head of one agitated horse so he could lead the animal out.

Joe raced over to Cochise’s stall and slapped the pinto on the rump. “Get out Cochise!! G’yap. Get out Buck.” He hollered trying to get each animal to run out of the burning barn.

Sam and Clem shouted at the tops of their lungs and waved their arms to get the horse to gallop out of the barn as other men rushed forward to pour buckets of water on the fire.

Bounty hunter Fargo stepped out from the corner of the barn just as the horse stampede out of the double wide barn door The horses ran from the fire almost running him down. Pierce ran up behind him and grabbed him around the chest, holding him back just before he walked into the path of panicked horses. Pierce’s grasp was so forceful that they both fell over back wards into the mud.

“Son of gun, I would have been run down if warn’t for you Winslow.” Fargo gasped as he tried to stand.

”Should have let you and no one would have been the wiser.”Pierce said as he stood up. He offered the bounty hunter his hand. “I could have shoved you in their path and no one would have been the wiser too! Could have even given you a good hard push into their hooves and watched you get trampled, but I didn’t.”

In the middle of all the commotion, Casey Newkirk rode into the yard shouting, “I got the wire! I got the wire! The Genoa sheriff said to leave Mr. Winslow be!”

Fortunately for everyone, the dampness and quick action of all the men put out the fire before it got too far and none of the livestock was killed or seriously injured.

 

Chapter 6

 

Will and Philip stood next to Ben in the middle of the barn. All three of them were coughing from the smoke.  The ranch hands had checked the area thoroughly, making sure the fire was completely out. Ben held up a lantern and the light made eerie jagged shadows around the place.

“I’m going to get a front page story out of this, Ben,” Phil shook his head. “Conflagration Mars Ponderosa Nuptials” or how about “Attempted Arrest and Fire Interrupt Wedding”?”

”How about neither?” Will glared at the reporter. “No need for any story, Philip.” He couldn’t believe that Phil had was mentally putting together the next edition of the Enterprise and was already planning to head back into Virginia City to get the presses rolling. “You work far too hard, Philip. You are gonna drown in one of those wash outs getting back to town in the dark.”

Phil shrugged. “That’s what Katie hired me to do,”

”Drown?” Will stared disbelieving. “Drown?”

Phil laughed, “No, get the Enterprise up and running and print an edition every day. Don’t worry, I grew up around here and my horse sees better than I do,”

Leaning on his cane, Adam limped cautiously between the wet pieces of charred wood. He warily poked around the rubble with the tip of his cane making sure all embers were out. There was a lump in his throat. He had helped to build this barn with his father when he was younger than his son Sam.

Sam Cartwright stood attentively by his father’s side. The boy was alert, watching his father carefully in case he lost his balance or needed him for support. The rain had finally stopped and the weather cleared. When the Cartwrights looked up through the burned roof, they could see the stars.
”Good thing it cleared up, Pa,” Sam commented.

“Did all the livestock get out all right?” Adam queried.

Ben nodded, “The guests took all their animals home. The men moved our stock into the corrals for now until we see to the barn.”

“We were really fortunate it was so wet and that we all got the fire out so quickly,” Adam looked around in the flickering lantern light. “There doesn’t’ seem to be any structural damage, but we do need a new roof. I can tell better in the daylight.”

Ben nodded and looked around at the mess. “No one was hurt. We didn’t lose any stock. We can rebuild.”

“We were really lucky!” Sammy exclaimed looking up at the sky. “What a night!”

”One of a kind.” Ben threw one arm around Sam and the other around Adam’s shoulders and they started walking back through the mud into the house.

 

Chapter 7

 

Elizabeth sat on the settee holding Eric’s hand in hers. The two children had been told to sit there and stay out of the way of the chaos. They were told not too move from the settee and every time Elizabeth wanted to get up and check the fire, Eric pulled her back to sit next to him. He cried and wailed until his cousin came back and sat where she was supposed to be.

“We never moved Papa,” Elizabeth lied as the sooty men walked inside. “Not an inch!”

”Very good,” Adam kissed her forehead and smoothed her dark curls. He left a black smudge on her soft cheek.

”Papa, Eric is very scared.” Elizabeth reported.

As Adam walked over and tried to comfort the two little children, Sammy clattered down the staircase with a blanket to drape around his uncle’s shoulders.

”Thanks, Doc,” the groom smiled weakly as the boy wrapped him up as he stood in the front hall.

Meg stood next to her new husband as Joe choked and hacked, and grabbed his chest. He grimaced with pain as he continued to cough sooty flem into Meg’s lace handkerchief. Ben stood next to his son, with a comforting hand on Joe’s shoulder. “Get upstairs bride groom before you get sicker than you already are,” he ordered.

“I’m fine,” Joe gasped hoarsely. Then he coughed again. “Cochise and Buck are in the back corral.”

“Fine? Look at you!” Meg smoothed her hand gently on his face. His clothes were soaking wet stained with mud and smoke.

Ben took charge.

“Meg, help me get Joe upstairs,” Ben directed and wrapped his arm around his son’s wet shoulders. “Joseph, get into bed right now.” Ben ordered.

Joe nodded weakly and allowed them to lead him upstairs.

“You stay down there Adam. I don’t need you falling down the stairs in addition to every thing else. Find Doc Martin and send him up here for Joseph,” Ben hollered down the stairs to Adam.

“Sammy, where is Doctor Martin?” Adam asked looking around the deserted dining room. “And your mother?”

”Papa, Aunt Nancy and Mrs. Thackery took her to lay down in the downstairs bedroom,” Elizabeth told him.

“Mama said she thought the baby was coming and Doc Martin was tending to her,” Sam gestured to the door of the downstairs bedroom off the dining room. Eric grabbed Sam’s leg and the boy scooped him up.

Elizabeth nodded, “They are in there for a long time, Papa,”

Adam’s jaw dropped and he rushed into the next room and pounded on the door. “Katie! Are you all right! Let me in, Nancy.” Adam held his balance by putting his hand on the dining room wall as he banged on the door.

“She is fine, just resting from all this excitement. This baby is in no rush to be born today or even in the next few days,” They all heard Doc Martin’s calm voice as Adam pushed open the door.

 

Chapter 8

 

Ben preceded Joe and Meg up the stairs, opened the bedroom door wide and pulled down the covers from the bed. Sitting on the edge of the bed, Joe felt gentle hands helping him take off his filthy wet blue suit and a warm quilt being tucked round his shivering aching shoulders. He could hear his father talking to Meg about him but he was too weary, too ill, to concentrate on what was being said and he slipped into oblivion. “I’m sorry Meg.” Joe whispered as his teeth chattered.

He said something about her not having to do anything and he could manage alone. Meg laughed because he clearly couldn’t manage even to unbutton his soot stained white dress shirt with his shaking hands without her help.

“Joe I can’t believe you convinced Adam not to tell me how sick you were, son.”

“Didn’t want to upset you Pa.” Joe smiled weakly. “I didn’t want Meg to have a chance to get cold feet and run off.”

Ben shook his head. He poured water from the pitcher into the bowl and wet a washrag in the soapy water. He gently scrubbed the soot and filth off of Joe’s face, neck and chest. “What were you thinking, Joseph?’

“That I was finally getting to marry my Meg.” Joe closed his eyes as the room was rocking and whirling around. “Are we on a boat?”

Ben shook his head. He handed his new daughter in law the cloth and walked out of his son’s bedroom. Ben was confident that Meg had the situation well under control  “I need to check on Katie and see how Will and the men are doing with bedding down the horses and clearing up from the fire. And see to Eric and Elizabeth. I’ll be back after Doc Martin checks you out.”

“Don’t worry, Mr. Cartwright. I’ll take good care of him.” Meg smiled at him. “That is my job now.”

“Thank you, honey. I’m sure you will do just fine, Meg.” Ben knew Joe had met his match in more ways than one.

Alone with her husband, Meg helped Joe out of his the rest of his filthy wet clothes. Only half coherent, the groom didn’t protest when his wife undressed him then eased him back into his bed.

“Meggie, I’m so sorry. I don’t think this is gonna be much of a wedding night.” He drew a ragged breath and coughed again. He opened his eyes to look at her bright blue ones. “You look so pretty. Did I tell you that? Real pretty. Hope that dress didn’t get spoiled from all the mud when I leaned on you.”

His wife looked down at her own soiled wedding dress and laughed. “I’m sure it will be fine.”
”Did I tell you how pretty you look?” Joe repeated.

She nodded. “Three times. Good thing we already had a wedding night, Joe” she laughed heartily and kissed his warm cheek.

He smiled weakly and reached for her hand.

The bed creaked as Meg propped a hip on the edge. She leaned over to him and kissed him and pushed his curly hair off his forehead.  He turned his face into the warm caress. “Did you notice I got a hair cut for the wedding?” He said pitifully. He was trying so hard to be charming but was fighting a loosing battle. “Pa insisted.”

“Yes, you look so handsome. Sick as a dog, but very handsome.” She shook her head at how foolishly her husband was behaving. “Lift up your arms so I can get this night shirt on you.” Joe raised both arms weakly like a small child. Meg stood up and slid the clean blue and white striped shirt over her husband’s head.

”You look very pretty Meg.” He whispered as he rested his head back on the pillow.

“Thank you again. You look like a herd of cattle stampeded over you.”

Joe sniffed the air. “Is something burning?”

”Not any more. They put it out. You need a new roof on the barn.” Meg reminded him.

“I’ll do it in the morning.” He could barely move but the words sounded right to his fever stricken brain.
”I doubt it.” She finished dressing him. “Sit up a bit and let me pull this down,” she directed. Joe moved half an inch and she smoothed down the nightshirt as best as she could.

Meg stood and pulled up the blanket from the foot of the bed.  Carefully, he spread it over her husband and smoothed her hands over him again. She let her hands linger over him and he didn’t move. She kissed him on his cheek and chuckled. “Well Mr. Cartwright looks like you are really pretty darn sick if this doesn’t get you smiling and asking for more. Maybe even near death. Or else I’ve lost my touch already. We are hardly married an hour and I already lost my romantic touch.” She teased him.

“Meg? I really love you. ”  Joe’s voice was brittle and dry. He coughed and a wave of heat washed over him, leaving him light-headed and dizzy. Unfortunately, it was from fever more than from passion.  Moaning softly, he turned his head to the side. His throat felt suddenly tight and scratchy both from his illness and from the smoke he inhaled.   “ I’m sorry. I’m so sick, Darlin’.” Meg poured him a glass of water from the pitcher on his nightstand. She helped him drink some of it down and then put the glass on the top of the dresser.

“Hush, you darn fool” Meg stroked her husband’s cheek.  Her fingers shifted, trailing along his tight jaw. “At least you are not throwing up.” She had put enough drunks to bed to know what that was all about. “I can’t believe you are so sick and didn’t say anything, you darn fool.” Meg laughed at the absurdity of the whole wedding.

“Gee Meg, You say the sweetest things. You are so romantic. At least I’m not throwing up. Maybe you should hit me with another horse figurine also.” He waved his hands up in the air as if he were throwing something. Meg grabbed his hand and gently lowered his arms.

”Joe, hush up. You are sick as a dog. You are sick as two dogs.”

“Two dogs and I’ll raise you five dollars,” Joe muttered assuming he was making some rational sense and betting in a canine card game. “ Let me cut the cards, Meg. I’ll win this time too. Then you will have to marry me again. Two times. Three times.”

”Oh stop you crazy fool!” Meg couldn’t help laughing at how ridiculous he sounded.

”Four times,” Joe whispered.” I’ll marry you five times!” Joe unsuccessfully struggled to keep his eyes open.

Retrieving the basin Ben had brought up, the newly minted Mrs. Joseph Francis Cartwright dipped a cloth into the cool water, wringing out the excess. Joe flinched at the touch of the cool cloth against his sweaty brow and shivered uncontrollably. Joe’s eyes moved beneath lowered lids.  “. Tell Adam or Pa or someone to cancel all the hotel reservations. There is no way we are getting to San Francisco by the end of the week. Did I tell you how much I love you, Meg?”

“You’ll have to make it up to me when you feel better.” Meg said suggestively.

Joe smiled despite how sick he felt. “I sure will, I sure will.” He promised and squeezed his wife’s hand tightly and closed his eyes hoping it would make the room stop swirling around.

“I love you Joe. I love you,” she whispered. She had assumed Joe had fallen asleep but he hadn’t. He looked up at her and their eyes met. He had heard her wonderful words. For the first time she told him out loud that she loved him. Joe smiled contentedly at his wife.

He fell asleep with a smile on his face holding his Meg’s hand in his.

 

The End