And Along Came
MaryAnn - Part 2
By
(half.tilt@verizon.net)
April 2003
Revised: March 2004
Disclaimer: I do not own the Cartwright characters but
they do linger in my mind, readily available whenever I choose to imagine. My thanks to David Dortort for creating the
Cartwright family. I do claim MaryAnn
Archer as she is described in this story.
She is my invention and she is worthy of my need to keep her safe.
“No, MaryAnn, I’m not taking you.” Seventeen-year-old Adam Cartwright was
starting to get angry.
“Who asked you to take me? I only asked if you
would go with me. There’s a difference, you know.” MaryAnn was getting a little hot under the
collar herself.
“Will you get it through your head that I’m
neither taking you nor am I going with you to Goldie’s just so you can
see what it’s like inside of a whorehouse.”
Adam jumped off his horse and grabbed the bridle of MaryAnn’s
horse. “Why are you so curious about
everything? I can understand why boys
would be curious about a whorehouse but that’s no place for a girl.”
MaryAnn also jumped off of her horse and
whirled to face Adam. “May I remind you,
Adam Stoddard Cartwright, that girls
who work at Goldie’s are precisely the reason why boys want to go there. Besides,
I already told you that I won’t be going as a girl. I’ll disguise myself as a boy and…and nobody
will know the difference.”
Adam snorted in derision.
“It will
work, Adam. I’ll pull my hair up tightly
into a cap, I’ll dress in baggy men’s clothes, and I’ll put on an old pair of
boots or something. And I’ll dirty up my
face a little for good measure. And I’m
tall enough to pass, too.”
“It’s not
going to work and you still haven’t explained to me why you want to go in
there. Good Lord, MaryAnn, you’re only
16 years old.” Adam was practically
shouting.
“Well, first of all, I don’t have to explain anything to you,
Adam. You’re only one year older than I
am so will you please stop acting like my father and start acting like my
friend?”
When Adam took a menacing step toward her,
MaryAnn involuntarily took a step backward.
“All right, all right. Back off a
little and…and I’ll try to explain this.”
“Uh…I’m not really sure if I can explain this but I’ll try. Well, you see, Adam, working in a whorehouse
is something that some people of my gender…uh…women…sometimes do. I assume it is mostly because of economic
reasons but, for whatever reason, some women choose to do this. It is beyond my understanding how anyone
could live this way but I’m a woman too so I’m…so I’m curious.” She searched Adam’s eyes for any sign of
understanding, but found none. Then,
remembering the rational manner in which Adam’s mind usually functioned, she
quickly added, “Think of it as…as anthropology.”
Adam pinched the bridge of his nose in
exasperation. “I am not convinced. And, by the
way, you are not a woman. You’re a girl!”
“Adam!
What is the harm? Nobody
is going to get hurt! Besides, if I
don’t do this when I’m young and still have a sense of adventure about me when,
pray tell, will I ever get to see the
inside of a whorehouse?”
“Well, you’re NOT going and that’s all
there is to it.” Adam’s hazel-brown eyes
bored into MaryAnn’s and his tone of voice was not unlike the one he used to
command obedience from either of his two younger brothers. MaryAnn felt her own temper beginning to rise
again.
“Adam, I wasn’t asking for your permission.
I only asked if you wanted to come along. I would feel better if you came with me but,
if you don’t want to, fine. I’ll do it
by myself.”
“Good
Lord, MaryAnn, except for my Pa and possibly my youngest brother, you are
without a doubt the most stubborn person I know.” Adam never really understood why
people often said the same thing about him.
Adam briefly wondered if shaking some sense
into MaryAnn would do any good but decided it wasn’t likely. Besides, he did have a good appreciation for
anyone with an investigative mind. Of
course, with MaryAnn, it was more than her mind that he was beginning to
appreciate.
Adam nailed her with a hard look. “Okay, I will agree to think about it. I’m not
saying I will do it, I’m only saying that I will think about it. Now, did you understand exactly what I just said?”
“Of course, Adam,” MaryAnn said sweetly,
“but let’s do it this coming Saturday night.”
Before I lose my own nerve,
she thought.
“MaryAnn, you never heard one word of what
I just said, did you?”
Against his better judgment, Adam suddenly
found himself thinking about this little adventure. The concept did intrigue him and it was part
of his nature to be up for a little challenge every now and then.
Adam looked intently into MaryAnn’s
eyes. “By the way, do you have any clue as to the kind of trouble you
and I could be getting ourselves into if either of our fathers ever get wind of
this?”
“Of course I do, Adam, but they aren’t going to find out about
it. All we have to do is be
very…careful.”
“And, MaryAnn, we may not be able to pull
this thing off at all. Remember, we have
to get past Goldie herself and I doubt if she will even let us through the
door. It isn’t going to be easy to convince her that we are just a couple of
run-of-the-mill cowpokes with a little money to spend and a little fun on our
minds.”
“Well, I’ll agree that none of this may be
easy but, Adam, isn’t that part of the fun?"
A warm smile suddenly lit up MaryAnn’s
face. “Thanks, Adam, I knew you would be
a good sport about this.”
Although they were amongst the trees and
highly unlikely to be seen by anyone, MaryAnn glanced around quickly before
stretching up to give Adam a quick kiss on his cheek.
Instant mydriasis set in. The black pupils of Adam’s hazel-brown eyes
dilated to an enormous size and seemed to lock in that position. The contours of his handsome face softened
and he looked like he had been pole axed.
“Why is it you only hear what you want to hear?” he asked softly. MaryAnn thought it best to consider this a
rhetorical question so she didn’t offer a response as she slowly stepped to one
side and mounted her horse.
Adam and MaryAnn had been conversing on the
hill separating the Ponderosa and the Archer ranch. There were fields on both sides of the hill
and the boundary of the two properties was at the top of the gently rounded
hill. The exact boundary was a little
ambiguous but MaryAnn’s father and Adam’s father had been friends and neighbors
for years and neither ever felt the need to go to the courthouse to locate the
records in order to mark the exact boundary.
Adam now mounted Sport and he and MaryAnn
reluctantly went their separate ways.
MaryAnn rode down her side of the hill to her father’s ranch and Adam
rode down his side of the hill to the Ponderosa.
Adam and MaryAnn had long ago worked out a
way to convey to each other the need to parley.
At the top of the hill and at the far end of a huge stand of Ponderosa
pines was an old stunted oak tree. It
had been hit by lightning sometime in its youth. It was missing the whole top part of its
structure and its middle and base were blackened with fire damage.
When Adam wanted to talk privately with
MaryAnn, he would move a perfectly white, medium-sized rock to the east side of
the tree. If an occasion rose when
MaryAnn needed to talk with Adam, she moved the white rock to the west side of
the tree. Both the east and west sides
of the tree were equally visible to Adam and MaryAnn from quite a distance on
their own properties. When the rock
wasn’t being used as a signal, it was placed in a neutral position slightly away
from the tree.
Nobody in either Adam’s or MaryAnn’s family
had ever noticed that the white rock near that old blackened tree stump
occasionally got up and relocated itself.
After placing the rock on the east side,
Adam would then move off into the thicker pines to wait for MaryAnn. If MaryAnn didn’t appear soon, he would ride
home and wait for her to “drop by” the Ponderosa. MaryAnn would use the same method when she
placed the rock on the west side as a signal to him.
Adam and MaryAnn had also long ago
discovered a small crevice in the blackened tree trunk near the base of the
tree. They used that hidden crevice to
store a small glass jar containing a pad of paper and the stub of a pencil so
they could write notes to each other. In
their earlier years, it had all seemed so clandestine and daring. Now, the note jar and the signal rock were
just too practical to give up.
It had become Adam’s habit to glance up at
the rock to check its position whenever he passed close enough for the signal
rock to be visible to him. He didn’t
realize it but this habit would remain with him for all of his life. Someday, far in his future, that signal rock
would still be there to bring him joyful memories as well as almost unbearable
loneliness.
As Adam now rode down the hill toward the
Ponderosa, his thoughts went back over the day.
He had spotted the signal rock placed on the west side of the tree when
he had been riding back from Virginia City after running a few errands and had
veered off the road to parley with MaryAnn.
The corners of his mouth lifted into a grin as he revisited in his mind
MaryAnn telling him that she wanted to visit a whorehouse. Before they parted, they had agreed to meet
again to make plans for their upcoming adventure.
I’m
not quite sure how all of this came about or exactly when it was I agreed to do
this, Adam thought as he rode towards home.
Adam and MaryAnn had spent too much time on
the hill and Adam barely made it home in time for dinner. He practically shoved the mail into Pa’s
hands and rushed past Ben to go wash up.
Ben caught Adam’s arm in a playful manner and swung his son around to
face him.
“Pa, I’ll do my chores after dinner. Sorry I’m a little late.”
“Slow down, son. You always seem to be rushing around these
days. Soon you will be going off to
college and I won’t see you for four years.
Four years! Do you realize that,
son? Good Lord, I’m going to miss
you. Slow down a little and let me enjoy
you while I can. I’ll even help you with
your chores later myself.”
“Thanks, Pa. I can’t believe I’m actually going to
college. I’ve thought about it for so
long but I know I’m going to miss all of you a lot.”
A couple of worrisome thoughts crossed
Adam’s mind. Geez, Pa, if I do this thing with MaryAnn and you find out, I hope you
don’t get so angry that you change your mind about letting me go to
college. I also hope you remember that
I’m 17 years old and I’m too old for a trip to the barn.
During the week, Adam and MaryAnn had
managed to meet to plan out their strategy for the following Saturday
night. The moon was fattening up a
little more each night and Saturday night was to be a full moon so Adam and MaryAnn
expected good visibility for their upcoming journey into the world of
anthropology.
Adam planned to tell his Pa that he was
going into Virginia City for a Saturday night out. He did this fairly regularly and, as long as
he didn’t abuse the privilege and got home at a reasonable hour, Ben didn’t
usually object. Adam didn’t want to tell
a lie so he would have to remember to be vague regarding who he would be
spending his time with in case Pa should ask.
And Pa always asked.
MaryAnn planned to sneak out of her bedroom
window and would meet Adam at the signal rock.
MaryAnn had her own bedroom and didn’t have to share a bedroom with her
older sister, Lizzie. This was an
arrangement for which MaryAnn was enormously grateful. MaryAnn’s bedroom was on the second floor but
it had a great climbing tree right next to her window and MaryAnn was very good
at climbing trees. She had already
sneaked out of her window a few times in the past just for the thrill of seeing
if she could get away with it.
MaryAnn wasn’t worried about Lizzie because
Lizzie rarely had plans for a Saturday night and usually retired early. Talk about an unexamined life, MaryAnn
thought briefly. MaryAnn was, however, a
bit concerned about her father because she had heard him mention meeting a
friend of his in town on Saturday night to discuss a cattle deal that the two
of them were contemplating. She surely
did not want to run into her Pa.
Saturday night came and everything went
according to plan. Adam and MaryAnn met
at the top of the hill. Adam still had
doubts that either one of them would actually have the good fortune to make it
through Goldie’s door. He thought that
they both looked far too young to be frequenting a place like that but, if they
flashed a little money, perhaps their youth might be overlooked.
Adam chuckled when he first saw MaryAnn’s
attire but swallowed the sound when she shot him a challenging look.
They coached each other on mannerisms.
MaryAnn reminded Adam not to be overly
polite to her. It would undermine her credibility
as a man if he were to open doors for her, pull out chairs for her, or take her
elbow to guide her as they walked. Not that this was much of a habit with Adam
anyway, MaryAnn thought ruefully.
She sometimes wondered if Adam still only saw her as a childhood buddy.
Adam reminded MaryAnn to speak in a gruff
voice and to not sit in a prim and proper manner with her knees together. They both laughed at that. “Remember to walk like a man,” Adam cautioned
her.
“What does that mean?”
“Well, you know. Walk with your legs slightly apart and stomp
a little,” Adam laughed.
“What do you mean, stomp? You don’t stomp.” MaryAnn looked confused.
“I don’t have to stomp. Everybody knows I’m a man,” Adam said as he
puffed out his chest. “If you look like
a man at all, MaryAnn, it’s a damned puny-looking one. You’re going to have to stomp,” Adam said
seriously.
“Actually, Adam, I’m glad I don’t look
manly. This isn’t something I thought of
earlier, but I would really hate to have any of those women get too close to
me.” MaryAnn’s eyes were round.
Adam just stared at her in wonder. “MaryAnn, we are going into a
whorehouse. That’s what the women who
work in whorehouses are supposed to do.
Getting close to the men customers is their job. We men are supposed to be the object of their affections, so to speak.”
“Well, fine, I’ll just stick close to you.”
Adam suddenly looked alarmed. “Oh no you won’t! Don’t you dare stay close to me. You’re
dressed like a man. I have a reputation
to uphold in this town, you know.”
What
does that mean? MaryAnn wondered.
“Adam, let’s just get this over with.” MaryAnn didn’t want Adam to back out of their
plan so she had no intention of letting him know that she was becoming very
nervous.
“Well, all right, but just remember,
MaryAnn, we are going to get in the door and maybe have a drink with some of
the girls but we are NOT going to go up to the second floor. Neither of us. Under any circumstances. Have I made myself perfectly clear?"
“Perfectly clear, Adam. Sometimes you can be so bossy! Okay, okay.
Back off, I heard you.”
They rode into Virginia City with neither
one of them having said much along the way.
In truth, they were both becoming a little apprehensive. They tied their horses to a hitching post on
a side street to minimize the chance that anyone they knew might recognize
their horses. They then walked through
another darkened alley and knocked on Goldie’s door. It was a large establishment but a
burly-looking man promptly answered the door.
“What do you want? You look too young to be wantin’ to come in
here. Get lost.”
Just then a large buxom woman, Goldie
herself, firmly pushed the bouncer to one side and took a long hard look at
Adam and “Mark”.
“Aw, c’mon, Bruce. Let’em in.”
Goldie reached out and pulled Adam in by
the front of his coat and noticed that his young friend quickly followed. She looked Adam up and down in an
appreciative manner.
“This one’s young but he’s tall and he’s
awfully good looking. He’s got potential,”
she said as she laughed heartily.
She pushed both of them in front of her to
the main parlor where small clusters of girls began to advance on them in an
overly friendly and predatory manner. At
least that’s how it seemed to MaryAnn.
MaryAnn promptly forgot all of the things
that Adam had told her to do and not to do.
Her mouth went dry and her lips formed into a perfect O as she gazed at
the scanty attire of the women beginning to cluster around them. MaryAnn was dimly aware of a few other men in
the same room, with very attentive women either sitting on their laps or
leaning over them in a suggestive manner.
Adam and MaryAnn were gently but firmly
pushed into two, separate cushy lounges and both were becoming alarmingly
attended to.
MaryAnn quickly glanced over at Adam and
nearly found herself bolting for the door.
One very brazen lady of the night was running her hand through Adam’s
dark curly hair and was lazily undoing the buttons at the top of his shirt with
her other hand. The other lady in
attendance was holding a glass of wine to Adam’s lips and was simultaneously
running her other hand slowly and suggestively up and down the inside of his
right thigh.
After seeing what was happening on the
ground floor, MaryAnn blushed mightily as she tried to wrap her mind around the
type of activities that were likely reserved for the second floor.
MaryAnn could hear Adam’s protests, but he
didn’t sound very convincing. At least
he didn’t sound very convincing to MaryAnn and she noticed that neither of the
two ladies with him seemed to have heard him at all. Maybe it was only in MaryAnn’s imagination
but it seemed to her that Adam was beginning to entertain some less studious
thoughts and MaryAnn rather doubted that these thoughts had anything to do with
anthropology.
In the days to come, a very naďve MaryAnn
would wonder to herself why this turn of events regarding Adam’s sudden
distraction had never even occurred to her.
Two other young ladies were now hastening
to make MaryAnn comfortable in her too-comfortable lounger. MaryAnn noticed that neither of the fairly
young girls attending to her was very pretty.
Mousey-looking was a more accurate description. MaryAnn was a little miffed until she
suddenly remembered that it really wasn’t her goal in life to be a handsome,
masculine-looking man anyway.
If
either one of these fine ladies puts her hand on my chest, I’m going to give
her a black eye, MaryAnn suddenly vowed to herself.
MaryAnn had wrapped a wide band of cloth
around her breasts to flatten them. She
wasn’t all that big in this particular area anyway but the binding cloth did
serve its purpose quite well, especially since MaryAnn had thought to also wear
a vest over her shirt. However, there
was no way her secret was going to stay a secret if either girl put a hand on
MaryAnn’s chest or the inside of her thigh.
MaryAnn desperately tried to interest her
newfound lady friends in a stimulating discussion of their profession but they
just looked at her in a pitying manner.
One of the girls gazed into MaryAnn’s eyes, then slowly leaned forward
as if to kiss MaryAnn fully on the mouth.
MaryAnn recognized the intention with horror and promptly lost all sense
of propriety. Propriety? MaryAnn pushed both girls away
from her as hard as she could, then jumped to her feet and bolted for the
door. She didn’t remember Adam at all.
Unfortunately for MaryAnn, she ran full
force into a gentlemen just coming in the door and the force of the impact
knocked her backward and onto her tail.
The gentlemen reached down to help the young man to his feet, and
MaryAnn realized with a sudden sinking feeling that it was Mr. Henry Johnson,
the banker. She quickly turned away to
avoid meeting Mr. Johnson’s eyes and instantly recognized the father of one of
her close friends sitting in a corner with a bevy of ladies at his side and one
in his lap.
MaryAnn’s heart lurched and she made a dash
for the door again. Bruce moved toward
the door at the same time to intercept her.
MaryAnn forced herself to speak slowly and in a courser tone. “I’m sorry, sir, but you were right. I’m too young for this.”
Bruce stepped aside and MaryAnn flew out
the door with Adam racing after her.
Adam ran with her to where their horses were tethered, then quickly
tried to calm her down a bit. They
mounted their horses and raced out of town using the back streets as best they
could. Both of their hearts were pounded
furiously against their chests.
In the quiet, dark and long stretch of road
back to their hill, neither of them said a word. When they reached the top of the hill, Adam
leaned sideways in his saddle and reached for the bridle of MaryAnn’s horse. He pulled both of their horses to a stop, and
then dismounted. Going to MaryAnn’s
side, he gently pulled her from her saddle and turned her to face him. MaryAnn
was trembling and she had such a look of sadness on her face that Adam felt his
own heart lurch.
“I’m sorry, MaryAnn, I should never have
allowed this. Are you hurt?”
Adam pulled her into a soft hug and MaryAnn
leaned gently against him. Her words
were halting and so low that he could barely hear her. Adam sensed that she desperately needed to
talk and he gave her time to find the words that would work for her.
“Adam, I’m so sorry. I should have listened to you. You were right. This wasn’t a good idea. What started out as
a lark for me has ended up with me finding out a terrible secret about my good
friend’s father. I was so worried about
us getting caught that it never occurred to me that we might catch someone
else. I didn’t mean to but I have
intruded terribly into someone else’s private life. And, Adam, the banker was in there also. How am I ever going to see either of them or
their families in the same way as I did before?”
“MaryAnn, I saw both of them too. It’s not…not important.”
“But, Adam, it is important. I don’t think either of the two men
recognized me, but they surely must have recognized you. I...I guess we don't have to worry about them
telling your father though. They’re in a
position of not being able to tell your father about you without giving away
their own involvement.”
MaryAnn’s words continued to tumble out.
“I wanted to satisfy my own curiosity about
something, but it never occurred to me that this might cause pain for someone
else. Oh, Adam, we must never tell
anyone about seeing either of them in there.
That knowledge would be so painful to their families. I wish there was some way to just undo this
whole evening so I no longer knew about them myself."
“Well, MaryAnn, I’m not entirely blameless
either. I could have and I should have stopped this in the very
beginning. I guess we both learned a
hard lesson, didn’t we?”
“Adam, I’m so sorry…sorry that it turned
out this way. You have no idea how sad I
feel. We didn’t really do anything that
wrong, but I feel guilty for finding out something about them that I had no
right to know. It almost feels like we
were eavesdropping.”
“MaryAnn, there is no way that you could
ever be anything but a good person. You
are so sweet and caring. We both just
made a mistake. A mistake in
judgment.” Adam pulled her to him again
and lightly kissed her forehead.
“Buck up, MaryAnn. Things will work out, but right now we both
have to be getting home. It’s very
late. Go quietly and carefully down the
hill and I’ll stay here and watch until you’re safely back in your house.”
“Goodnight, Adam. You are such a good person. I hope you get safely to your room and don’t
get caught by your pa. And, Adam, thanks
for…for being my friend and for going with me.”
Adam turned her away from him and gave her
a little push. “Go. I still have to get home and make it past Pa
without getting caught for coming in so late.”
Both Adam and MaryAnn escaped being caught
by their respective fathers that night.
Neither of them escaped their own regrets for how the evening had turned
out.
Ben had long ago booked passage on a ship
to carry Adam to his destination to attend college at Harvard. The ship would depart San Francisco, sail
around the southern horn of South America to the Atlantic Ocean, and would then
sail north again to deliver Adam to Boston.
Adam would turn eighteen years old just before his ship was to sail.
Although the time for departure was still
months away, problems were already cropping up.
Little Joe was too young and either could not or would not understand
that Adam was not abandoning him. He was
at times so mad at Adam that he would sulk for hours at a time and only Ben’s
threat of a spanking would make Little Joe change his attitude. Little Joe would then swing in the other
direction and would cling to Adam for days in a near death grip.
Hoss didn’t understand his older brother’s
insane need to acquire so much book learning but he did understand that this
was something that Adam wanted to do.
Hoss knew that he would miss Adam a lot but he did recognize that he
wasn’t going to lose Adam forever. Hoss
was sad but there was nothing that he could do about it. The decision had been made and Adam was going
to leave.
Adam was having problems of his own. He had been thinking about MaryAnn now for a
long time. Thinking about her constantly. Both of their families would have had to have
blinders on not to recognize that Ben’s first-born and Jim Archer’s youngest
daughter were starting to care more than a little for each other.
Adam had been privately entertaining the
idea that he really didn’t want to go to college after all. Four years was starting to seem like an
eternity. Adam didn’t want to go that
long without being around MaryAnn’s sweet face and that long body of hers. And, oh yes, her mind.
One morning after breakfast and after Hoss
and Little Joe had slammed their way outdoors, Ben got up from his own chair at
the table and slid into Little Joe’s chair.
He put his hand on Adam’s arm.
“Son, sit back down. I need to talk to you about something that
you may think is none of my business. I
want you to understand that it is my business.
It’s about MaryAnn and you—”
Adam jumped up and started toward the
door. “Pa, I don’t want to talk about
this.”
Ben grabbed his son’s arm again and sat him
back down at the table.
“If you don’t want to talk, fine. But you are
going to listen.” Ben almost laughed as
he watched Adam’s face and saw his eldest son stare stonily at his empty plate
with his lower lip slightly forward.
“Son, you’re too old to sulk so pull that lip back in and look at me.”
“Adam, I know perfectly well that you are a
gentleman and that you know how to treat a lady in a respectful manner. I also believe that you are very attracted to
MaryAnn. I believe that she also has
feelings for you. You surely must know
how much I like MaryAnn. She is a lovely
girl, Adam, but I want you to be very careful.”
Seeing that Adam was attempting to
interrupt, Ben pressed on, “You and MaryAnn have been friends for many years
but the time has come for you both to no longer spend time alone with each
other. When you’re young, emotions
can…can unexpectedly override reason and I don’t want that happening to you and
MaryAnn. MaryAnn’s father and I both
agree on this. You will be leaving for college in a few months and I don’t want
anything untoward derailing you from this dream that you have worked so hard to
achieve.”
Ben’s voice dropped an octave and it took
on a slightly harder edge, “Is this understood?”
“No, it’s not understood! You and Mr. Archer have been talking about
MaryAnn and me? When? And why?
MaryAnn isn’t that kind of girl.
How could you even imply that?
And yes, I do know how to act like a gentlemen.” Adam was getting very angry.
“Watch your tone and your words with me,
Adam!”
Adam struggled to get his anger under
control. “Pa, this isn’t fair to either
me or to MaryAnn. Neither one of us
would ever do anything to hurt the other one.
I run into MaryAnn all of the time going and coming on this ranch. What am I supposed to do when I see her
riding toward me, turn tail and run?”
“Careful, Adam,” Ben warned.
“Pa—”
“Adam, I’m not saying you can’t see each
other at all. What I am telling you is that I don’t want the
two of you to spend time alone. I’m not
being unreasonable, son. Why don’t you
take the morning off and ride over and talk to MaryAnn and tell her what I’ve
told you and what I expect from both of you from now on?”
A sharp retort started to form on Adam’s
lips but sanity prevailed at the last second when the sternness that had been
in Ben’s voice finally penetrated Adam’s brain.
He took a deep breath. “May I be
excused?”
The overly polite tone of Adam’s question
was not lost on Ben and he groaned inwardly at his son’s unwillingness to
graciously accept his father’s edict.
Adam went out to the barn to saddle
Sport. He just wanted to ride and ride
hard before coming back to reposition the signal rock for MaryAnn to come and
meet him. He needed to ride off some of his anger and frustration before he
talked to her. Adam was just as angry at
MaryAnn’s father as he was at his own.
He didn’t want to just show up at MaryAnn’s house and have to talk to her
father also.
Little Joe’s eyes lit up when he saw Adam
come into the barn and start to saddle Sport.
He ran over to Adam and peppered him with questions.
“Where ya goin’, Adam? Can I come?
Lift me up and let me come with ya.
I’ll be good. I’ll just sit in
front of ya and I won’t squirm or nothin’.
I’ll be good, honest.”
“Not today, Little Joe. I’ve got things to do. I’ll take you riding with me later in the
week. I promise. We might even go fishin’.” Adam turned himself away from the
disappointed look on Little Joe’s face and rode away.
After Adam had nearly exhausted his horse
and himself, he reined Sport in and leaned forward to pat Sport’s withers. “Sorry, fella, no reason why you should pay
just because I’m mad at the world and the way it is.” Sport just tossed his head in his
high-spirited manner.
Adam was a considerable distance away from
the ranch house but he was now riding Sport at an easy walk to cool both of
them down. He crested a small hill and
suddenly grinned in spite of his bad mood when he spotted MaryAnn walking her
horse toward Lake Tahoe.
MaryAnn’s horse was going at such a slow
pace that it could hardly be called a walk.
What made Adam grin was the realization that MaryAnn was once again
reading while she was riding. Adam
wondered how many times his own safety-conscious father had yelled at him for
doing the same thing.
Adam kicked Sport into an easy lope to
catch up with MaryAnn. He knew that
MaryAnn, unlike him, would not
be reading Shakespeare or poetry. That
was one of the few things they did not agree on. As always, MaryAnn would likely be reading a
science journal or a nature periodical that she had saved her money to
subscribe to.
Sure enough, Adam was almost upon her
before she even looked up. A small
niggling thought came to Adam that perhaps his father was right. It was lucky for MaryAnn that it was he who
was riding up. It gave Adam a queasy
feeling when he thought of all of the unsavory men who often used the Ponderosa
for a short cut to wherever they happened to be heading.
“Hello, Adam, I didn’t expect to run into
you today but I’m glad I did. I was just
on my way to spend some time at the lake.
Do you have time to join me? I
have two great journals that came in the mail just this past week.”
Adam swung Sport alongside of MaryAnn’s
horse and said, “Well, at this pace, you won’t get to the lake this month. Want to race?”
Adam took off before MaryAnn had time to
either take up the challenge or to put her periodical safely back into her
saddlebag. Sport was already tired so
Adam used every advantage he needed in order to win the race.
When they reached the lake and had settled
themselves comfortably near the shore, Adam turned to MaryAnn and blurted out
what his father had told him.
“Apparently, you and I are going to be restricted from being alone from
now on. I’m so angry, I could spit
nails.”
“Calm down, Adam. I don’t like it either. It upsets me that neither of our fathers
seems to trust us.”
Adam sat there angrily tossing small stones
into the water. It was quiet for a long
time between them before he felt MaryAnn’s eyes on him. He turned slowly to look at her and was
startled to find that she was intently looking at the small fresh scar on his
forehead, compliments of Little Joe’s teeth when the two of them had collided
on the ice this past winter.
As Adam continued to look at MaryAnn, he
watched her gaze slide slowly down to his mouth, then down to his shirtfront,
and then watched it slowly drift back up again to his mouth and finally come to
rest on his eyes.
Any residual anger drained from Adam and
all he could do was fill his mind with MaryAnn.
Good Lord, he wanted her. He
wanted to touch her, and hold her, and feel her long, naked body held tightly
to his own.
He reached out and roughly pulled her to
him. She didn’t resist. He leaned his body hard into hers and tumbled
her the rest of the way backward to the ground.
He swung one long leg over her and straddled her body. MaryAnn saw a devilish look come into his
eyes as he grabbed both of her wrists and held her arms outstretched on the
ground above their heads.
Still holding their arms above them, Adam
carefully settled his long, fully clothed body over MaryAnn’s fully clothed
body. Just as he bent his head towards
hers, he heard a hesitant but forever curious MaryAnn quietly say in his ear,
“So tell me, Adam, have you ever done this before?”
“Shut up, MaryAnn,” Adam said softly as his
sweet mouth captured hers.
MaryAnn’s mouth parted slightly and, for
the second time in her life, she felt the warmth and wetness of Adam’s tongue. And, as had happened the first time they had
kissed in the barn, she again felt a tingling jolt touch the palms of her
hands. So sharp and sudden was the
tingling that it was almost painful.
Only this time, the tingling in MaryAnn’s
palms was suddenly joined by a sharp, inwardly tugging sensation at a lower,
more vital part of her body. The word
‘primal’ rose unbidden from the depth of MaryAnn’s soul and reverberated over
and over in the recesses of her mind.
Good Lord, Adam, I want you so much, it hurts, she thought.
Then the thought that was never far from
her mind came back in full force and stopped MaryAnn in her tracks. She whispered into Adam’s ear, “Wait.”
When MaryAnn wiggled her hands to get free,
Adam loosened his grip and let her wrists slide out of his hands. She placed one hand to the center of his
chest and said, “Wait.”
For MaryAnn, it was no longer “too soon to
worry.” The time to worry was here. No, that wasn’t true. She had been worrying and fighting a mental
battle with herself for a long time. It
wasn’t the time to worry that was here; it was the time to make a decision that
was here. It could no longer be put off
until some future obscure date. The time
for her to make the most difficult decision of her life had arrived, as she had
always known it would.
She also knew that she wasn’t strong enough
yet.
Like Adam, MaryAnn was herself a rational
person and brutally honest with herself.
For all of her life, if she didn’t know the answer to any problem that
presented itself, she had a tendency to mentally debate possible solutions in
her mind. Although she had already
debated this issue with herself many times, she seized the chance to quickly
sift through the possibilities again.
Perhaps she had missed something.
I can sleep with him now and still leave him
later.
No.
You are not strong enough yet. If
you sleep with him now, you will not be strong enough to leave him. This is your problem, not his. Remember, he doesn’t know.
But I can sleep with him now, and then he
will go away to college. That way, I
don’t have to be strong enough to leave him.
He will be leaving me. Isn’t that
the same result?
No.
If you sleep with him, you know that he won’t want to leave you. You aren’t strong enough for yourself yet,
how will you be strong enough to resist his wish to stay with you?
But I can sleep with him now and just tell
him my secret.
No.
If you tell him that you can’t have children, you know he will choose
you anyway.
Does it matter if he chooses me? He doesn’t even know he needs children.
But you know he needs children. After Marie died, you are the one who saw the
love and protectiveness on his face whenever Little Joe turned to him for
comfort.
I can’t give him up.
You have to make sure that he marries someone
else. You can’t conceive his children
but another woman can.
But we could adopt children.
Your inability to have children is only the
first part of the problem. If you
adopted children, how would that solve the second part?
If he is willing to give up having children
rather than give me up, does it really matter?
Don’t you matter? Aren’t you forgetting the part that is so
important to you? You have a need to see
the physical looks and strong character of this man you love so much live on in
his future sons. This is your
need, not his.
But I want him now. I can’t wait any longer. My body aches for his.
You can wait. Let him go away for four years. You will get stronger in that time.
I won’t give him up!
You will find a way. If you sleep with him now, you won’t be
strong enough to walk away. Get on your
horse and go home. Four years isn’t so
long.
Why do I always choose to be so damned
rational?
Because you are too intelligent to muddle
through life by just letting things happen.
Direct your life and make things happen.
Always choose to think.
But I love him.
You don’t have to stop loving him. If you make the right choice for you, that
choice will eventually be the right choice for both of you.
But I want to sleep with him now!
If you sleep with him now, the sons and
daughters of Adam Cartwright will never exist.
You will come to regret that.
But I love this man so much!
Love yourself enough to make yourself strong
first.
I’ll never give him up!
If and when he comes back, you will be
stronger and you will find a way to never give him up. Walk away from him. Now.
MaryAnn slowly sat up and looked into
Adam’s eyes with tears suddenly spilling from her own.
“What happened, MaryAnn? All of a sudden you looked so sad and seemed
so far away.”
“Please, Adam. Please listen carefully. I want you so much it is physically hurting
me to be near you. But your pa is right. We shouldn’t be alone. All of this today is too soon for me. I...I’m not strong enough yet.”
I’m going to get on my horse and go
home. I think I’m doing the right thing,
MaryAnn silently told herself.
“MaryAnn, do you have any idea how much I
love you? Do you have any clue how much
my mind and my body want you for the rest of our lives? I don’t want to go to college. I don’t want to be away for four years. I want to marry you now. I want us to have lots of daughters who look
just like you. Please, MaryAnn, marry me now.”
MaryAnn’s heart slowed and the sound of
blood rushing through her ears quieted.
So there it was. It couldn’t get
much clearer than that. Adam wanted
daughters like her just as MaryAnn wanted sons like him.
Well, I can’t give you daughters like
me, Adam, but I can make it possible for another woman to give you sons like
you, MaryAnn thought to herself.
“Adam, I will love you for all of my life
but I...I will never marry you. Someday
I will tell you the reason but that reason doesn’t matter for today. I will tell you that it has to do with a
circumstance that is beyond the control of either of us. For now, please just believe me and let
that be enough.”
“I want you to go to college, Adam. I may not stay in Virginia City but, if I
leave, I will come back to be here when you get home. And even then, I may leave again. Adam, please believe that I will never leave
you completely and...and I will love you for all of my life."
Adam was very quiet as his eyes searched
her face. MaryAnn slowly stood up and
turned to mount up. He caught her arm
and gently turned her to face him again.
“MaryAnn, I haven’t seen you cry since we
were…pups. I believe you about loving
me.”
“Marry a good woman someday, Adam, someone
who will appreciate the kind of man you are.
I know you don’t understand this yet, but please remember that I will find a way to never leave you
completely.”
MaryAnn’s eyes were drawn to the front of
Adam’s shirt. Why not? she thought.
“Adam, would you just…not move for a minute
and…and not say anything? Please?"
At his nod, MaryAnn gently brushed the
front of his already unbuttoned shirtfront slightly to one side and softly
placed her lips in the little hollow just above his collarbone. Oh Lord, I waited a long time for this,
she thought. Then she tugged his
shirtfront back into position and stepped away toward her horse.
After mounting, MaryAnn turned again to
Adam and smiled the sweetest smile he had seen in his entire life. “Remember, Cartwright, I’m not through with
you,” she said so softly he could barely hear her.
A surge of happiness shot through Adam and
he knew that MaryAnn would never be out of his life.
As he looked up at her, he saw a look of
merriment come into her eyes.
“So what do you think, Adam? This place?
In four years? Uh…would you wear
all black clothes like you’re wearing today?
Oh, and would you…leave the top few buttons of your shirt undone when
you come riding up?"
Adam suddenly couldn’t wait to get to
college so he could hurry up and get back home again. He grinned at her and his left eyelid slid
into its characteristic wink.
“This place. In four years, MaryAnn. I’ll be here.
Count on it.”
(Sung by Pernell Roberts)
The
birds sing out and the grass is growing high.
The
field warms in the sun.
Spring’s
coming on and the ice melts down
as
it runs through the streams to the sea
far
away, MaryAnn.
Now
the grass growing high and the singing of the birds
might
charm the hearts of some.
But
all I feel is the cold spring rain
that
says my love has gone
far
away, MaryAnn
When
she was here, my heart was bright and warm,
but
now it grows so cold.
A
man needs the love of a soft gentle girl.
Summer’s
gone, winter’s now coming on.
Hurry
home, MaryAnn.
Soon
the grass will die and the birds fly south
and
the ground ring hard as stone.
But
her smile will melt the ice in my heart
when
I see my love coming home,
on
the hill, MaryAnn
But
her smile will melt the ice in my heart
when
I see my love coming home,
on
the hill, MaryAnn, MaryAnn, MaryAnn.
References:
Mydriasis is
a long-continued or excessive dilatation of the pupil of the eye
(Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition principal copyright
1993, 456WC02010099).
MaryAnn’s
reference to “an unexamined life” comes from Socrates (The Dialogues of
Plato, June 1986, ISBN 0-553-21371-7, page 22).
The
reference to a freshly healed scar on Adam’s forehead comes from Lifelong
Impressions, a story I posted in March 2003. The small scar described in that story can be
seen in many episodes but only if you have a large TV screen.
The song,
“MaryAnn” comes from the CD, Pernell Roberts Sings Come All Ye Fair.
End
of Part 2