ADVERSITY

By Heidi

Adam and Mary Cartwright were enjoying the presence of their newborn daughter Lisa and also of course Mitch. The children got spoiled by all grown-ups but by Ben the most. But the happiness turned soon into adversity.

On a nice morning Adam was with his brother Hoss in town to collect a load of supplies when they were driving by a new bank building.
“Adam, I didn’t know that Virginia City had gotten a new bank”, hoss said looking at the building being amazed.
“Hm, it won’t take a long time before that bank is robbed”, Adam reacted nonchalant.
“I wouldn’t be so sure of that young man. This bank is protected with the latest security system”, the brothers heard a voice saying then.
Hoss stopped the car and looked with Adam to the speaker. Adam got the shock of his life but recovered a second later. The speaker too got the shock of his life and knew enough.
“If I hadn’t thought it. A remark like that one can only come from that terrible son-in-law of mine”, Carl, the speaker, groaned.
Adan and Hoss looked at each other and they thought the same thing.
“Mary really doesn’t deserve to have such low life people as parents like you are”, Adam groaned out of his mood.
“What do you mean with: Mary deserves? She has been dead for years”, Carl said.
“That is her twinsister Lucy. You brought her to a lunatic asylum after that fight over Mitch”, Adam answered cool.
Everybody who was standing around heard it. Carl was shocked and kept silent. The brothers rode on without saying another word.
 
Mary sat with Mitch on the settee when Adam and Hoss came home.
“Honey, I have very bad news”, adam said serious.
Mary looked at him questionable.
“There is a new bank opened in Virginia City. The owner is nobody else but Carl Watts”, Adam said.
“That’s gotta be my father”, mary said worried.
Adam nodded.
“Well, we don’t exist for them anymore”, Mitch remarked dry.
Mary looked at her husband and son on turns being amazed.
“Mitch had  to write about your parents once. First I refused to help whereafter he ranaway with Cody. He found them but they showed him the door. I found them some time later with pa whereafter your parents told him at the hotel that he will never be their grandson”, Adam told.
“They will find out soon enough that I am back with you again and that we even had a baby together”, Mary said concerned.
“He already knows. I mean the fact that you are still alive but not from Lisa. You and the kids remain here with me at the ranch. We are here also”, Adam assured his wife.
 
Because Carl and Sharon had heard that thier daughter Mary was still alive they decided to take action. Sharon had a ardent dislike towards her daughter and made no secret of  it.
“Now will that gal really not live much longer and neither will that kid of hers and Adam”, Carol groaned when he had heard the news.
“Let me handle it”, his wife said.

Sharon pretended when she came to visit like she was living there for years. Mitch was doing his homework when she just came in.
He asked, “What are you doing here? You don’t want anything to do with us?”
“You must keep your big mouth shut, sonny”, Sharon snapped.
She hit her grandson so hard that he ended up at the open fireplace. Mitch was so amazed that he didn’t say a word anymore. Sharon went upstairs to look for Mary and Elizabeth. In the elderly bedroom Sharon saw Mary but not the baby.
“You can give birth to a child but look after it properly, no”, Sharon said.
“Leave us alone”, Mary said fierce.
“You are coming with us and then I will look after your child while you go back to that institute”, Sharon said snappy.
“No, never in a lifetime. I stay here. We belong at the ranch”, the young mother reacted.
Sharon grabbed her daugther very tight and dragged her to the stairs. Suddenly Cody came running upstairs and began to bark and to groan against the eldest woman that she had to let Mary go and fell down the stairs. Mary and Mitch saw what had happened and Hop sing came also running out of the kitchen.
“Miss Mary, what happened?”, the cook asked.
“My mother, who is lying there, tried to throw me off the stairs. But I pushed her”, the young woman said.
Sharon wasn’t moving anymore whereby Mary and hop Sing knew that she was dead. Mitch came to the stairs and looked at it.
“Mitch, you go and get your father at once”, Mary said directly.
Mitch ran to get his horse. He mounted on and rode to the herd.
“There comes your son riding on. He seems to be in a big hurry, so I see”, Hoss said to Adam.
They stopped the young rider. The others came to them too.
“Mamma has thrown gran off the stairs and she is dead”, Mitch said.
Adam didn’t think for a minute, jumped on sport and rode back home being followed by the others.

Arrived at home he found the mortial remains of Sharon. Mary sat on the settee and was very upset. Adam went to sit next to her and took her into his arms.
“She tried to throw me off the stairs but Cody saved me so that I had to give her a push”, Mary said who started to cry softly.
“The sheriff will see it as selfdefence”, Adam said quiet.
Ben came inside and saw what had happened. One look at the mortial remains of sharon and the rancher knew enough.
“Mary, you have a  big chance that your father will procecute you for murdering your mother”, Ben said after a long silence.
“She tried to kill me”, his daugther-in-law reacted.
“They just have to leave us alone”, Adam said being amazed by the remark of his father.
“By my parents and brother I ended up in that institue. Now my family comes first and not their willings”, Mary said.
Hoss, Little Joe and Candy  took the mortial remains tot the town and brought the authority up to date.
“Hoss, tell your sister-in-law that she can’t be procescuted because she was handeling in selfdefence”, sheriff Roy Coffee said.
Carl heard it by accident and rode as hell to the ranch.

To forget the murder Mary went to sit outside with the children on the porch.The sun shone lovely. The young woman was so busy with the children that she didn’t even noitce that they had gotten company. Without saying a word Carl pointed his rifle at his daugther and granddaughter and he robbed them from thier life. Strangely enough Mitch got left alone.

After the cowardly deed Carl rode straight back to the bank to get no suspicion from anyone. Mitch saw his mother and sister lying and ran inside.
“Daddy, mamma and lisa are dead by grandpa”, he yelled.
Adam and Ben came to him and saw the their mortail remains lying. A momennt later Mitch grabbed his pony and he disappeared.

At the Ponderosa Ben tried to receive Adam but that was impossible. Even when sheriff Roy Coffee and the doctor Paul Martin had come Adam was desperate.
“They were dead at once sop they haven’t suffered”, Paul said after the examination.
“Elizabeth was just three weeks old. She had done noboy ever wromng. Why then she and her mother had to die?”, Adam asked furious.
“We don’t know that either. We find it also very bad. Ben, where is Mitch?”, Roy asked.
“Mitch disappeared trackless shortly after the murder. I don’t know where he is”, the ranhcer answered.

Meanwhile at the bank. Carl had gotten an unexpected vist from his grandson. Mitch looked at his grandpa for a long time.
“Am I wearing something from you?”, the banker asked fter a long while.
“No, must you ? I can go straight to the sheriff and tell him that you have shot dead my mother and sister”, Mitch said daring.
Carl laughed mean.
“Do you really think that the sheriff, an official of the government in fact, is going to listen to a little crippled kid? Don’t think so”, the banker answered.
“Thought so”, his grandson replied sober.
The appearnace of mitch began to work on the nerves of Carl. He realised that Mitch really would go to the authority of Virginia City and tell everything. That was the reason why he would deal with it differently. He got up and walked to the boy.
“Mitch, have you ever seen a banksafe which wa sso big as a jailcell?”, he asked friendly.
 The boy shook of no. Carl got him by the shoulders and walked with him to the back end of the bank. They came to a door of bars. Carl opened it and pushed his grandson inside.
“So, you stay there until you are dead. By that time I am way gone and nobody will find out that I have done it”, Carl laughed mean.
Mitch got up, wlaked to the bars and telled, “Let me go!”
“Goodbye Mitchell Cartwright!”, Carl said laughing while he closed the door before it, walked to the frontdoor and put out the light.
Mitch realised that he had fallen into it and that nobody would come to save him. He let the bars loose and went to sit into a corner.

At the ranch doctoer Paul Martin had given Adam a sleeping medicine whereafter the eldest Cartwright boy fell asleep after he had let know that he didn’t want to see anyone.

In the evening Abigail Jones came by at the ranch. Little Joe answered the door and saw the teahcer standing on the porch.
“Miss Jones, what are you doing here?”, he asked amazed.
“I have heard the terrible news and now I come to pay my sympathy to Adam”, she said.
“Only to Adam or is there another reason for your visit? He really isn’t in the mood to see you. He has lost his family today”, the young Cartwright replied a bit fierce.
“Joseph Cartwright! I have the very best with your bother. You apperently haven’t”, Abigail reacted a bit insulted.
Ben came to them and said, “Miss Abigail, I understand that you have sympathy with Adam but he really doesn’t want to see anyone. I am sorry.”
The teacher turned around and walked to her carriage. Ben and Little Joe stared at her.
“Where can Mitch be for peacesake? The longer he stays away the longer we get worried and Adam more insane”, the rancher said.
“I think adam;’s father-in-law is behind it. Mitch was an eyewitness of the murder at Mary and Lisa?”, his youngest son asked.
Ben nodded and looked at him questionable.

After the funerals of Mary and Lisa Adam had a total breakdown. He became very silent. Ben tried to be there of his eldest son but he had  much sorrow himself due to the recent loss.

Each morning Carl was the first one in the bank to see how his little hostager was doing. To let him see that he wouldn’t get him Mitch made sure that he was optimistic.

After three weeks the Cartwrights decided to let Carl walk into the trap.
Ben came into the bank and asked, “Mr Watts, I want to open here a bankaccount for my grandson. Is that possible?”
“Of course sir. Please, sit down. I will get a paper for it” , Carl said.
The rancher went to sit and studied directly the bankbuilding. Suddenly he saw that the most farerst door was open and he saw a part of the bars.
“What is there behind that door which is open?”, the rancher asked.
Carl turned around and said careless, “That is my new safe but it still complete empty.”
“Shall we take a look at it?”, Ben asked.
“Good, but shall we first finish this?”, the banker asked.
Ben shook his head and said, “It has no rush really.”
The two men got up and Carl went in front of him to the safe annex jail.Mitch recognized the heavy footsteps of his beloved grandpa and hid just next to the wall near the door. Carl opened the door and stepped inside. Mitch let him trip and fled out of the safe. Ben caught his grandson and understood it all at once.
“Grandpa, lock the door. He held me her hostage without food and drink”, Mitch said directly.
Ben did what Mitch wanted.
“Let me out because I am the owner of the bank and that kid belongs here”, Carl said when he had realised what had happened.
“He killed mamma and Lisa”, Mitch said slowly.
The he fell down fromexhausting. The rancher caught him and took him to the practise of the doctor. Underway they came across deputy Clem Foster.
“Ben, what is the matter with Mitch?”, Clem asked.
“That new banker, Carl Watts, has kept him three weeks behind bars in his safe. He sits there now so go and do your duty”, the rancher said.
The deputy understood the hint. He went inside the bankbuilding and found quite soon the banker behind his own bars.
“Normally I must put my arrestants behind bars but you have done it yourself”, the deputy said.
“I am innocent. You must arrest that Ben Cartwright because he made sure that I ended up here. I am innocent”, Carl snapped.
“So is Santa Claus on a hot summerday. Come along”, Clem reacted calm.
He hit the banker into his handchuffs.

Paul examined the young Cartwright and said, “Ben, I don’t know how it can be but despite the fact that your grandson has lost some weight and needs a lot of sleep he is alright.”
“Good, then I take him home”, the rancher said.

So said, so done.

When Ben and Mitch came inside the house Adam took the boy directly into his arms and he didn’t let him go anymore.
“Kid, come here. What have I missed you”, Adam said with tears of joy in his eyes.
“He locked me up in his safe but I didn’t  let him get to me”, the boy said as cheerful as possible.
It was quiet for a moment. Then the boy started slowly but passionately to cry. Adam let him and brought him to bed. Mitch cried himself to sleep. Adam realised that he had to go on with Mitch. But he didn’t know how yet. Therefor was his sorrow to big.

Mitch slept a lot and by the love and good caring of his family, Hop Sing and Candy he was the boy became himself again. He played outside again a lot with Cody.

At an afternoon Mitch came into the bedroom of Adam. He lied on the bed reading.
“Daddy, mamma and Lisa are now in Heaven, aren’t they?”, Mitch asked carefully.
Adam looked up and put the book away.
“Yeah, why?”, he asked on his turn.
“Well, then she can see everything I am up to? So now I must be extra good because mamma is watching me from Heaven and you down here”, Mitch explained.
“That is indeed so. I know now for sure that mamma would have wanted that I stay here with you. I must look after you and grandpa will look after you when I am away for business”, Adam answered.
He took his son into his arms and cuddled him full of love. Adam now knew for sure that he would make it by the love of his child and the other way around.



THE END
November 2002


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