THE GUNFIGHTER
This story is a sequel to False Witness and although it would be possible to read on it’s own, you will need to know the background about the character Butch Thomas and how he and the Cartwright family came to know of each other.
I have changed my mind slightly for this story and it will take place only 3 years after Thomas was sent to prison for the attempted murder and kidnapping of Little Joe Cartwright. That makes Joe 19 years old for this story and suits the theme of the story a little better. I was originally going to have it five years afterwards at the age of 21 years.
Hope you enjoy this one as much as False Witness:
Three years earlier these few words echoed in Joe Cartwright’s memory:
“SOMEDAY I WILL COME BACK. YOU AND I WILL MEET AGAIN – I PROMISE”
and now the story turns another page and continues:
For the remaining hours of the afternoon, Ben stayed as close to his youngest son as he would be allowed without being accused of hovering. Joe had appeared to take some respite on the settee but it was a restless one, plagued by too many memories.
Occasionally Joe would jerk out his arm and mumble something incoherent before rolling over onto his side and face the back of the couch.
Just before supper was ready to be served, the loud clomp from the boots of Hoss could be heard to approach the front door. He was shadowed by Adam into the house.
“Keep it down boys,” Ben pleaded, indicating Joe resting on the settee. Unfortunately though Joe had heard his brothers come into the house and now sat up, rubbing tiredly at his eyes.
“Sorry, Joe,” Hoss said apologetically. He knew that restful sleep had been avoiding his brother since the accident and he was loathe to disturb any that might be attainable.
“It’s alright, Hoss, I was just getting up anyway,” Joe said, giving his father a wan smile of apology at the blatant lie.
“To tell you the truth, Joe, you really do look beat,” Hoss commented cautiously, not wanting to tread on his brother’s already beaten self-esteem.
Joe didn’t respond to Hoss’s comments, not really in the mood for getting into a conversation about anything with anyone right at the moment. His body was slowly reminding him of just how heavy the accident and guilt over Tom was starting to weigh.
“Supper ready, Mista Cartwright,” Hop Sing announced, loudly enough for the whole family to hear.
“Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, Hop Sing, tell me that you cooked a big heap of them there pork chops with baked potatoes and lots of gravy and I will be forever grateful,” Hoss said, sitting at the table first, and showing his was ready to eat by holding onto his knife and fork in both hands.
“What he means, Hop Sing, is that you put anything that resembles food onto this table, then my brother here will eat it,” Adam said dryly, poking fun at his larger framed brother. He had hoped his jibes at Hoss’s eating habits would be enough to have Joe give a dig also, or at least invoke a chuckle or a smile.
Ben could see what Adam was trying to do, and didn’t necessarily disapprove of his eldest son’s methods. Looking across at this youngest son, Joe however, he could see that the efforts were mostly in vain. Joe was sitting at the table, but his head was pointed downwards and his eyes seemed to be focused on the empty china plate in front of him.
Joe began sliding the metal fork back and forth across the porcelain surface of the plate, causing a dreadful screeching sound. He seemed to be immune to the sound, but the noise made every nerve fibre of the others to vibrate and rattle.
Joe was too consumed by his own thoughts to notice any of the concern or worrisome looks given by his family. Ben had tried to involve his son in minor conversation, but his efforts were thwarted at each question or comment by Joe’s persistent one word responses.
“How was your day today, Joe?” Adam asked, looking at this father, Joe’s face still downcast towards his plate. Maybe he would respond more to somebody else other than his father, or at least that was the theory that they were clinging to.
“Umph,” was the half-hearted reply from Joe.
“Joe said that he ran into some trouble earlier today,” Ben now informed his two eldest sons, hoping the change in topic might be enough to get Joe to fill in the missing pieces of information.
“Trouble?” Adam queried, noting the tone in his father’s voice.
Joe looked up from his plate, but still made no addition to the conservation. He was happy enough for his father to relay what had happened for the time being.
“Could be,” Ben said. “Joe said he didn’t recognize one of them. A stranger around these parts perhaps. We might have to be a bit more vigilant coming up to the drive. Some sort of underhanded deal was being carved out between this stranger and the other two men.”
“I take it then that the other two men weren’t strangers?” Hoss asked, picking up on his father’s comments about the first man mentioned. “Who were they, Joe?”
Joe found himself answering the question, like it or not. It required more than a one word response, but he gave it anyway. “The two younger ones were those fellows I hired to do that fencing,” he said.
Everyone seated at the table could tell by the tone of his voice that the fact that Joe had been the one to hire those two men in the first place and regretted doing so. Then to have to constantly check up on their progress or to see if they had carried out the instructions given to them, was just another thorn that Joe burdened himself with.
“What were they planning to do, Joe?” Adam asked, both out of a concern for whatever criminal activity might be festering upon the Ponderosa right under their noses, and to keep Joe’s attention away from the guilt over Tom Withers.
“I couldn’t hear all that they were talking about, but something about rustling some cattle, I think,” Joe offered.
“Did they give you any trouble, Joe?” Hoss asked, a little concerned that there was more to the story than Joe just happening to stumble across them discussing their would-be plans.
“Nah, the stranger got a bit hot under the collar and tried to pull his gun to see whether I would shoot or not, but he soon backed off,” Joe said, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth when he thought about the dissatisfied look that he had received from the man.
“Good for you Joe, see Adam, I done told you before, that little brother of ours can handle himself just find without us,” Hoss said, trying to lighten everyone’s mood.
“Yes I know you did, but all the same, you just be careful, Joe,” Adam warned. “Don’t go making my unnecessary enemies that might come back to haunt you later.”
“I won’t, Adam, I don’t think we have to worry about seeing too much more of them around here. I think I scared them just enough to make them think twice before trying anything,” Joe assured his family.
The conversation seemed to all but dry up at this point in time. Joe’s dark mood seemed to be lifting a little, and he was beginning to join in the family dinner, much to the relief of his father.
It wasn’t until halfway through the meal that Ben became aware that something was still disturbing his son’s thoughts. Joe seemed to be staring intently at his hand at one point and frowning while he was eating.
“Is something the matter, Joe?” Ben asked, seeing a mix of emotions play out on his son’s face.
“Nobody realises how important their hands are until something happens,” Joe said out aloud.
Ben frowned a little as he came to the belief that Joe was still trying to deal with Tom Wither’s accident and the loss of his arm. While this was true to a certain extent, none of them were aware that Joe was putting himself in the position of losing a limb and what the implications of that loss would mean to his everyday life.
Adam exchanged brief looks with his father before deciding maybe it was time that Joe was helped or nudged in the right direction to starting to come to terms with what had happened. “Joe, maybe you should go and visit Tom,” he suggested.
The startled looks from both Ben and Hoss said enough to Adam that he had perhaps said the wrong thing, but it was the reaction from Joe himself that was most hurtful.
Joe jerked his head up from the concentration on his hand at Adam’s words. His emerald green eyes on fire with anger and his face beginning to show colour to match.
“Oh, and just what the hell am I supposed to say to him, Adam?” Joe demanded hotly.
“Sorry about your arm Tom. Sorry you don’t have much of a life anymore Tom. Sorry you can’t work anymore.”
By the time Joe was finished, he was standing up from his seat and gripping the table with both hands so that the knuckles were beginning to turn white. “I may never be able to walk past him on the street again or talk face to face with Tom again. Did you ever think of that, Adam?” he shouted.
Joe began to walk away from the table, angry with Adam and angry at himself for being mad with his brother. All at once the anger and frustration seeped out of him and left him with a sense of numbness all over. He mounted the first two steps of the staircase, heading up to his room before turning to face his family again.
“Besides, what would we have to talk about now,” Joe said in a soft voice, his face crumpling under the weight of his own guilt. He didn’t wait for a reply and closed the door to his bedroom with a quiet “click”.
“I apologise Pa, it wasn’t the right time to bring that up at the table,” Adam said as he sipped at his black coffee and thought about what his younger brother had said.
“No, perhaps not, but we have to bring him out of this rut he has dug for himself. He won’t talk about the accident at all. He won’t open up to any of us while he is feeling like this, Adam,” Ben commented.
“Maybe I should go up there and try and talk to him, Pa,” Hoss said, weighing into the conversation. “I am not much good at fancy talking or anything, but Joe and I used to be able to talk about anything when we were younger.”
“Best leave him be for a while, Hoss,” Ben replied. “You can have a talk to him tomorrow at breakfast before he leaves to start work. What has Joe got planned anyway, either of you two know?”
“Just some general checking of some of the more remote fence lines in the morning Pa,” Adam informed his father. “With that cattle drive starting in a few days time, we are going to need to make sure that they are
in good shape to handle the large herds that we plan on bringing back with us.”
Ben nodded his head in acknowledgement, looking towards the closed bedroom door and hoping that tomorrow they might find a way to get Joe to talk about Tom’s accident and getting him to believe that it wasn’t his fault. It was the best they could do for the moment.
After the household had retired that night, Joe was still wide awake, a million different thoughts rushing through his head about various things that had happened over the last few days and what his direct involvement in all of it had been.
Somewhere
around
At one point in his dream, Joe had knelt down to turn over the injured Tom, just like he had in the timber yard. Instead of finding a semi-conscious man with a bleeding limb though, he found a hateful looking Tom staring at him with accusations on his lips.
“You did this to me Joe Cartwright” the dream Tom would shout at him. “And I don’t aim to let you forget either.”
“But Tom, it was only an accident,” dream Joe tried to explain, just like his family were telling him. It was just an accident.
“Accident………,” dream Tom scoffed. “Does this look like a accident to you?” he shouted and held up the bleeding and mangled remains of the limb for Joe to see before him.
Another
dream took place after the accident with Joe finding himself
walking down the main street of
“Go back to where you came from Cartwright. We don’t like troublemakers in this town,” one of the dream people hurled at him.
Other figures in the dream seemed to recoil away from him as he passed beside them or withdrew their children from his sight as though he would bring harm to them.
The hardest image to take in all of these dreams was when he reached the Ponderosa and was ready to walk into the house. He was met at the front door by the dark and accusing figures of his family, just like those people on the streets. Their faces were grim also and their eyes held no comfort and no warm for him. They did not welcome him with open arms and looks of compassion or understanding.
“You have brought shame on this family Joseph,” the dream Ben said as he barred Joe’s entrance to the one place he thought he would find sanctuary and safety from all of the lies and gossip.
“Why did you do it Little Joe?” dream Hoss asked and turned away from Joe as if brushing his hands of any brotherly connection.
“You should have known better Joe,” dream Adam said, his arms folded across his chest and his eyes narrowing.
By now, Joe had been tossing and turning in his bed for quite a few minutes, living every one of the emotions that was being felt in his dream state. His face was pinched with colour as he tried to understand the hostility directed at him. His hands fought with the bedclothes as though he were fighting off those reaching for him in the nightmare.
“It was an accident, why can’t you believe that,” Joe screamed, sitting bolt upright in bed as he said the words. His face was pale as he looked about the room. Sweat was running down his face. His heart beat was racing.
Ben and his two sons burst into the room at that point, taking in a very shaken looking Joe who was sitting up in bed, trying to regain his composure from what must have been an horrific realistic nightmare.
“Are you alright, Joseph?” Ben said as he sat on the side of the bed and took Joe’s trembling hands in his own. He was alarmed as just how much his son seemed to be affected by the dream.
Hoss handed Ben a glass of water, which Joe gratefully accepted with a nod of thanks. He drunk the water and then lay back against the back of the bed, still sitting up, closing his eyes and trying to make the demons in his head go away.
“Rough dream?” Ben said gently. Joe response was to again nod, but not open his eyes. Everyone in the room had already guessed at the subject of the dreams. They had all heard Joe’s strangulated cry before entering his room.
“I’ll be alright now, Pa,” Joe said, a little embarrassed at having his whole family come into his room in the middle of the night at his age, just for something such as a bad dream.
Despite the bad dream, Ben could see that Joe was still reluctant to talk to anyone about what he was feeling. “I’ll leave you to get some rest then, Joe.”
“Thanks,” Joe said, meaning to all of his family for dragging them out of bed.
“We will be right down the hall if you need us, Joe,” Ben said as he took a last look at his son and closed the door. Upon the door closing, Joe let out an audible sigh of relief, knowing he would have found it very difficult to talk to his family about what he had just seen, if they wanted him to tell them about his dreams.
He spent the remainder of the night by the window, careful so as to not make any noise to alert his family to his wakefulness. He didn’t want to risk dreaming again and seeing those accusing faces again.
As dawn began to emerge in the sky, Joe made sure that he was at the table, drinking his coffee and on his way out the door to work before the rest of his family had a chance to ask him about the dreams or if he had any more after they left.
The easiest thing to do was try and ignore it Joe told himself. To ignore the voices in his head and the flash backs he saw in his dreams of Tom laying on the floor of the timberyard bleeding. To shut everything and everyone out and go about things as he would any other day. To pretend it all just never happened.
Joe mounted Cochise and headed out towards the fence lines, just as Ben was coming down the stairs and ready to greet Hop Sing and breakfast.
“Little Joe already left,” Hop Sing informed the patriarch of the family. “No eat breakfast, coffee again and leave,” he added, shaking his head and making a few idle comments in Cantonese that Ben couldn’t decipher.
“Did
I just hear Hop Sing say that Joe has left already again? Adam asked as he too
came down the stairs, ready to start a day of work. “Morning,
“Morning son,” Ben said in reply, sipping his coffee. “Yes, I am afraid Joe has already left again.”
“I
will try and make some time later on to go and see what he is up too,
“I know you will son, and thanks,” Ben said in gratitude. Neither of them had any idea that this day would prove to be a mighty long one for all involved in the family.
At about lunch time that day, Joe decided he had had enough of checking fences and decided to head into town to the Saloon for a beer.
He had tried to keep himself busy for the majority of the morning, hoping his concentration on work would dull out the voices still chanting in his head about his dreams and memories. At one point he remembered Adam’s suggestion from the night before about visiting Tom. At the dinner table last night, he could think of a million reasons why he couldn’t or shouldn’t. Now, sitting out here in the heat, all alone, he could be damned for not thinking of a single one that would suffice.
‘What did he have to lose anyway?’ he asked himself. Tom and he had been friends for a long time. He knew the accident would change Tom’s life dramatically but that didn’t mean that they couldn’t still be friends. He at least owed it to Tom to go and see how he was doing, Joe convinced himself.
So
on the way to
Joe rode Cochise to the Bucket of Blood saloon and hitched her to the rail outside. Tom’s house was only a short distance from the saloon, and the man was known to frequent the pub himself on many occasions during his working life.
It was that very topic that plagued Joe all the way to Tom’s house. The fact that Tom’s working life was probably over. Doc Martin had spoken about him being taught to do other suitable work. But what comfort was that for a man who had worked with stock and timber all of his life. To be told that he couldn’t do the work he loved anymore and be given a lowly job such as mucking the stalls or helping around the yard. Whatever tasks that were suitable to a one-armed man anyway.
From where he stood now, Joe could see Tom Wither’s house. Not much to look at, an old mining cottage that Tom had bought with his meagre savings from old widow Simpson just before she headed back east after the death of her husband. The house was very small. Big enough for Tom though. The front yard never receiving any attention and devoid of any flowerbeds or vegetation.
There was only one window in the cottage and an old rickety wooden door, with hinges that needed oiling in the winter months. No doubt it let in a few of the elements every now and then Joe assumed, looking at its state of disrepair. Tom would sometimes complain about the oppressive heat during summer and on other winter mornings, come to work telling Joe of how frozen his fingers felt from the overnight sprinkling of fresh snow.
There was a thin curtain hanging in the window, not quite reaching all the way to the sill. Joe couldn’t be sure with the sunlight directly in front of him, but for just a moment, he thought he saw a face peering back at him from within the house. If there was somebody watching him approach, chances are that it could only be Tom himself.
Maybe he had heard footsteps approaching and wanted to know who was coming to his house. Maybe Tom was feeling the weight of being shut out from the rest of the world as was looking out to see what he was missing. Maybe he was hiding from all of the stares and looks of sympathy for someone who was now an invalid and cripple.
Joe paused before going any closer. He felt as if he feet didn’t want to obey his commands to keep walking. Something inside of him kept going back to the words he had heard from Tom’s lips in his dreams that previous night. ‘Make sure you never forget,’ echoed in his mind once more in Tom’s voice.
Joe felt the palms of his hands become sweaty with nervous perspiration. ‘What was he going to say?’ He tried to rehearse a few lines in his head of how he would greet Tom. What was he going to do when Tom answered the door? Holding out his own hand, ready for a handshake seemed in bad taste. And what did he do when he saw the missing arm. Did he try and look as though he had never seen it? Did he try and apologize and offer to help where he could? What would Tom want him to do?
After a few more minutes, Joe decided that he had better have that beer first. He just didn’t know how to approach Tom and hoped the bottom of a beer glass would help provide an answer on his way home. As Joe slowly turned away from the small cottage and headed back to the Bucket of Blood, he was unaware that he would never get that chance to talk to Tom Withers again.
As Joe neared the front swing doors to the saloon, the noise and smoky atmosphere appealed to him even more to drown out the voices in his head. He walked in and approached Sam at the bar.
“Beer thanks, Sam,” Joe asked, looking around as he placed his order. There seemed to be a lot of people in the bar for this time of the day. It wasn’t pay day or anything. The noise seemed a little louder than normal too. As if something was brewing to get out of hand.
Joe heard the glass placed in front of him, but didn’t bother to look as he reach over and took his first large mouthful. He let the sweet taste of the beer invade his sense for a second and savoured the false sense of security that it offered.
Joe was about to let himself be fully submerged in the rowdy surroundings until he spotted two faces in the crowd that he recognized. He didn’t know the reason for them being here, but he knew he didn’t like it.
One of them was the young ranch hand he had hunted from the fence line yesterday and the other was the Stranger he had been trying to make a deal with and had shaped up to Joe when confronted. Both of them seemed to have one to many beers under their belts now, being unsteady on their feet and boisterous amongst the group they were with.
“You should have seen the way we handled that Cartwright pup,” the Stranger boasted, his back turned to Joe, so that he was unaware of Joe’s presence in the saloon.
“Kid thinks he has got a rich daddy and a gun and can order me around,” the Stranger continued, taking another swallow of his whisky glass. “Next time I see him it will be different, you mark my words.”
Joe’s emotions were fuelled by grief, guilt and anger at the moment, and he wasn’t about to keep quiet while he was made a fool of in front of the bar. Joe placed his half empty glass on the table and started walking determinedly towards the taunter, ready to have it out with him if it became necessary.
“You were saying,” Joe said as he tapped the man on the shoulder and stood behind him in a demanding pose. “Why don’t we just see if your fist is as big as your mouth,” Joe said ominously.
The stranger turned around, a little surprised to have his words answered to by none other than Joe himself. But the alcohol was doing its job and making him feel like he could take on anyone at the moment. “Well, look here, if it isn’t the mighty Joe Cartwright himself,” the man teased, the others in the group laughing along with him.
The ranch hand had a little more sense than his partner in crime and tried his best to make himself scarce before he bore the brunt of a Joe Cartwright’s temper. A few of the others followed his lead when they glanced back at the no nonsense look on Joe’s face.
“You better git back to your daddy before he sends someone out looking for ya boy,” the man jeered. Pushing his face up as close as he dared to Joe to see what sort of reaction he could extract.
“I don’t need no one to fight for me, mister!” Joe said, barely keeping his anger in check. He gritted his teeth as he began seething at the man’s drunken display on his family and reputation.
“I apologize Mr Cartwright, seems as your right. You don’t need your daddy or brothers to take care of you now. Seems as though you are the one doing the caring now. I hear that you like the company of cripples now,” the stranger spat back.
Joe’s temper climbed another notch at the mention of the word ‘cripple’. There was only one person he knew the man was referring to. How he came to know about the accident at all he didn’t know, but cared about either. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Joe found himself using his own failings at being able to face Tom about the accident and his own feelings of guilt to fuel the disdain and anger he felt towards the man who was taunting him.
Sam could see that things were about to turn might ugly in the Bucket of Blood, and somehow, Joe had managed to get himself right in the middle of it. The bartender knew that Ben didn’t appreciate his son’s brawling in the saloon like common criminals. Ben would not be impressed to hear that Joe was hurt or injured in a fight no matter who threw the first punch.
Joe pulled his arm back, ready to deliver that first blow, grabbing a handful of the stranger’s shirt to make sure his aim didn’t go astray. He was prevented from letting his fist go when Sam fired a rifle into the ceiling, startling all who were about to take part in the fight.
Joe whirled around, as did a number of other patrons in the saloon, flinching a little at the splinters that resulted from the shot.
“I don’t know who started it, but I am going to finish it, here and now,” Sam said to all. “Now, Little Joe, its none of my business what irks you have here with his fellow. Or what he has against you. But you find somewhere else and some other time to settle your differences.”
Joe heeded Sam’s words, a little ashamed that he was going to start an all in brawl for having someone accuse him of keeping company with Tom because he was cripple. He knew his father would have his hide if he came home sporting a black eye or bruises from a fight that he hadn’t backed away from or work out some other way. Ben Cartwright had taught his three sons to work out their problems without resorting to violence.
Joe turned back towards his taunter, a let go of his shirt. Whatever the fight was going to be about now didn’t really seem to matter anymore. Joe walked back to the bar and picked up his hat before heading out of the door. He didn’t even bother looking at any of the other patrons as he went to collect his horse and headed for home.
For his submissive actions, the stranger and the others laughed at Joe as he left without admitting defeat. The stranger had very much wanted to see how he did hand to hand against the Cartwright kid with his fists. He hoped that somewhere down the line he got that chance to see who was better.
Nobody, not even Joe noticed a figure sitting at a table in the very back of the bar room. He had made no noise, but watched the argument between Joe and the stranger with interest. He blew a puff of smoke into the air from his cigar as he watched the young man leave the saloon and mount his horse.
The man had entered the saloon shortly before Joe had walked in. He had ordered a bottle of whisky and a glass and then took up at a table in the back corner. From where he was sitting, his presence was concealed by a partition in the wall. He was able to see the comings and goings within the bar room without much threat of being discovered.
Sam had wanted to ask the drifter who he was, but he had learned a long time ago in this saloon business that there were people in this world that wanted to remain nameless. His mud stained clothes and worn boots gave the appearance that he had been travelling for a number of days and had just arrived in town. He gave no indication that he wanted to interact with any of the other men in the bar, instead steering clear and content enough to enjoy his own company.
All just as well, he didn’t want to attract Joe’s attention just yet. There were many things that needed to be put into place first. Plans that had to be carefully laid out. Revenge against Joe Cartwright and his family would have to wait a little longer.
Joe rode slowly back towards the Ponderosa, passing Tom Withers old cottage as he headed out of town. He couldn’t help but notice that there was no signs of activity within the house.
As he slowly made his way home, Joe couldn’t help but notice how tired he was beginning to feel. He had not had much sleep since his nightmares the night before and had left relatively early to avoid the questioning and concerned looks from his family.
His shoulders were slumped and his head bowed towards his breast, his eyes threatening to close in sleep. Thankfully he had taught Cochise a long time ago how to get home without any instruction from his master. It had come in handy on a number of occasions in the past, and it was only thanks to Cochise that he had made it home safely on a few nights in the past that he would rather forget.
Cochise made a small whinny sound as she entered the yard of the Ponderosa, letting her rider know that he had finally made it home. She was rewarded with a gentle pat to her long neck, “Thanks,” Joe muttered and slid down off the saddle rather than dismounted. His body had run out of energy and his muscles no longer wanted to obey his brain’s will.
Joe was about to lead Cochise into the barn and rub her down for the day when he noticed a buggy parked near the house. Upon closer inspection, he recognized the vehicle as belonging to the local physician Doctor Paul Martin. This made him grimace a little, thinking that his family had asked the kindly doctor out to the ranch on his behalf.
Joe shrugged off the tiredness for a few minutes and strode purposefully towards the front door, ready to give his family a blistering argument for not needing to see Doc Martin. As he turned the handle and opened the door, the looks on the faces of his father and brothers made the words die upon his lips.
Paul Martin had been seated with his back to Joe, but turned around as he heard the door open. If it were possible, the doctor looked exactly how Joe felt; tired and worn. The man looked as though he hadn’t had a good night’s sleep himself and there were dark circles of fatigue under the man’s eyes.
It was the expression on the faces of his father and brothers that perplexed him even more. They were looking at him with sympathy, almost as if they were afraid to tell him something. That coupled with the tired look from the doctor made Joe even more uneasy as he placed his hat upon the peg and unbuckled his gun belt and placed it on the credenza.
“Hello son,” Ben said, knowing that one of them had to at least greet Joe as he entered the room. They could all see how tired and worn he looked, no doubt a combination of work and still dealing with the after effects of the accident. Which made it even more difficult for what he was about to tell his son.
“How did you go today, Joe?” Adam asked casually, trying to take off some of the tension that seemed to be accumulating within the room.
“Alright I suppose,” Joe offered meekly. “Had a little trouble just now at the saloon in town,” he said, thinking it better that the explanation come from his own account rather than from Sam or someone else in the bar room to his father.
“What kind of trouble, short shanks?” Hoss said, not being able to mask his feelings of awkwardness as well as Pa or Adam.
“Can you imagine the nerve of those scum,” Joe shouted all of a sudden as he paced back and forth across the room, waving his arms about, displaying his abject frustration.
“They were calling him a cripple, Pa,” Joe said, the contempt he felt towards the men responsible clearly visible to all in the room. “They called Tom a cripple because he lost his arm. And then they accused me of ………….., well you don’t need to know what they were saying about me.”
Ben’s heart sunk further as he realised just how difficult the next subject was going to be to approach with Joe’s nerves on edge after already being pushed to the limit that day. The fact that the argument had centred around Tom made it even harder.
Joe then stopped his pacing and looked down at his hands as he admitted what else he had tried to do that afternoon before heading to the saloon. “I tried to go and visit Tom……….” leaving the sentence incomplete.
Thankfully Joe was unaware of the looks that were exchanged between Ben and Paul Martin at how fortunate they had been that Joe had not been able to do just that. Mercy had smiled upon him, even if he was unaware of it, for it seemed he was spared from seeing a most gruesome scene. Paul Martin had seen it himself first hand and still shuddered at the memory of seeing Tom that afternoon.
“How are you feeling, Joe?” Paul asked, a natural question for a doctor in his position and something he had asked innumerable times before, but this time, it seemed to have a falseness about it.
“Fine!” Joe said with a little emphasis, trying to keep to his original plan of telling the doctor that he didn’t need anyone checking up on him. Joe looked from brother to brother and then to his father. Something had happened and they obviously didn’t want to tell him what.
“Out with it, what is wrong? I am too tired to play games,” Joe said firmly, his hands on hips, waiting for a response.
“Joe, why don’t you sit down for a minute,” Ben said, rising from his arm chair and attempting to guide Joe over to the settee, not knowing what sort of reaction this piece of news was going to invoke.
“I don’t want to sit down until you tell me what is going on, Pa!” Joe said, pulling away from his father’s grip.
Ben resigned to the fact that they were just going to have to tell Joe regardless. There was going to be no easy way, and they couldn’t keep this sort of information from him. Ben glanced briefly at Paul, gauging whether it was alright to proceed. A slight nod from the doctor gave him permission to do what he felt he had no other choice in doing.
“Joe, Tom Withers died this afternoon,” he said, trying to give the information in smaller, more manageable pieces.
At first there was no reaction and Ben was convinced he was going to repeat what he had just said. But his fears seemed a little premature, when all of a sudden, the words seemed to register on Joe’s face. Joe’s healthy tanned skin lost its pallor and Ben was worried that his son was on the verge of fainting.
Adam and Hoss stood and prepared to help their brother when motioned to do so. They watched the mix of emotions beginning to emerge on Joe’s face and would give anything to not have Joe have to face this now.
“Died?” Joe said, barely a whisper. He frowned slightly, as if the words didn’t make sense to him. Tom couldn’t be dead. He had tried to visit him and say he was sorry, but in the end had not found the courage to face his friend. They couldn’t be telling him he was ‘dead’. That would mean that he would never get that chance.
Then almost involuntarily, Joe found himself asking a question of his own, “How?”
Out of any question, this was the one Paul and Ben dreaded the most being asked by Joe. They would have preferred him not to know the cause of Tom’s death and given him time just to the fact that the man had died. Telling Joe how Tom had died just seemed to be drawing out the suffering and torment even further.
Paul decided it was his turn to speak. “Joe, its not for lack of trying to help Tom. I tried my best to heal his wounds on the outside. But I guess that wasn’t good enough. In the end, no matter how much I tried to convince Tom that he would have a normal life again, he just couldn’t see beyond the stump of an elbow where his arm used to be.”
“Stop talking in riddles, doc,” Joe said irritably. He held his head in his hands, with his eyes closed as if forcing himself to hear what he did not want to.
“Tom took his own life by hanging himself,” Paul said, watching Joe’s face intently. “By the time I got there it was too late Joe, there was nothing I could do. I am truly sorry.”
“Hanged himself” Joe said inwardly. His hands reaching up and feeling around his own neck in memory of how that had felt. He could distinctly remember how the course rope dug into the soft skin and how it chafed the skin red and raw. The rope burn had taken a considerable amount of time before the mark faded altogether, but in the back of his mind, Joe would always have an invisible scar.
Ben saw his son’s hands nervously encircling his neck, remembering what it felt like to have a rope tightened and bringing up old ghosts from the past. Until he saw this action, he hadn’t thought that Joe would have felt that kind of connection with Tom. It pained him to think that Joe was not only being told of a friend’s death, but also reminded of events that had happened in his own life that he had tried so hard to forget.
During that time in captivity, the noose forced over Joe’s head and the rope tightened when he was feeling his weakest. He couldn’t imagine what horrors or torments were going through Tom’s mind to make him think of taking his own life was a way out of his pain and suffering.
Joe looked at his father, as if searching for answers. His green eyes wide with shock and mirroring every flicker of emotion he was feeling inside. His face had not regained any of its lost colour and Ben was still concerned that Joe’s body would collapse from the well of emotions and exhaustion. He tried to reach out to his son in case he should falter at any moment.
All in the room where completely unprepared for Joe’s next move, which was to give an animalistic cry of outrage and run out of the house in the direction of the barn. He didn’t know what he was running from; maybe the past, maybe himself, from the voices in his head and the images that plagued his dreams. It didn’t really matter.
Joe reached the barn door and found without mounting one of the horses or escaping on foot, there was nowhere else to run. He was trapped, but this time it was not within a bad dream. He wanted to lash out at the world that felt so unfair. Without thinking of the consequences, lashing out is exactly what he did, with his left clenched fist.
Ben had told Paul and his boys to stay put while he followed Joe out to the barn. He didn’t want Joe dealing with all of this pain on his own. He was only half way across the yard when he heard Joe give a scream of utter rage. He quickened his pace but was surprised and alarmed to see his son sitting on the barn floor, just inside the door, nursing a bleeding and rapidly swelling left hand.
It only took a minute to look from his son to the barn door and work out what had happened. With his scream of anger and frustration, Joe had lashed out, and tried to deal with some of that anger by slamming his fist into the solid wooden barn door. The result, the door had caused his knuckles to bleed profusely and his hand begin to darken with bruising.
“Oh, Joe!” Ben said, kneeling beside his son and trying to assess how much damage he had done to his hand. Luckily Paul was still inside the house and would be able to remedy the situation.
With just the two of them together, and all of his energy spent, Joe found himself leaning heavily against his father’s chest and giving into the tide of emotions that he had been trying to suppress. His grieving process over Tom had started but had such a long way to go.
The pain of Tom’s loss would be felt by the family for quite a while to come, and probably by no one more so than Joe. Ben just prayed that Joe had the strength to forgive himself for the accident like others had tried to tell him. Ben embraced his son and let him have as much comfort and security as he sought. He used a gentle, soothing hand to stroke Joe’s chestnut curls, murmuring soft words of encouragement and love.
Although he considered his sons to be grown now, there were still times that they showed themselves to be his little children. Vulnerable, in times of weakness or pain. Ready to accept his fatherly embrace and listen to his words of wisdom when they sought answers to questions about things that happened that were out of their control.
“Pa,” Joe whispered in a soft voice as he tried to regain his composure.
“Yes, Joseph,” Ben said, waiting until Joe was ready to talk.
“I think I broke my hand,” Joe said sheepishly, giving a wince of pain to further support his diagnosis. The bleeding had slowed, but his hand was now throbbing mercilessly and he could scarcely hide his gasps of pain from his father.
Ben cautiously inspected the bleeding hand as best he could without causing his son too much discomfort. The knuckles were indeed a bloody mess and the back of his hand and fingers where now discolouring with dark bruising. “Come on Joe, let’s get some use out of Paul while he is still here.”
Ben stood up and then gently pulled his son into a standing position. Joe’s exhaustion and grief left him a little unsteady on his feet, swaying slightly so that Ben grasped him around the waist to prevent him from losing his balance.
Ben had a firm but gentle grip in the middle over his left arm and held it out in front so that he could keep an eye on it as they made their way back towards the house. Adam, Hoss and Paul had been standing in the door way, awaiting a signal from Ben that their assistance was needed. They all gasped at the sight of Joe leaning heavily against his father, seemingly barely able to stand on his feet and sporting a bleeding hand.
“What happened?” Adam asked, clearing a path for his father to lead Joe into the living room and settle his son on the couch for Paul to take a closer look.
“Fetch a blanket out of that closet there please, Hoss,” Ben now said, noting that Joe was practically asleep as he was laid down on the couch. His face was still reddened from his crying and his brow still frowned frequently from the pain throbbing in his hand.
Hoss did as his father asked and draped a warm blanket over the now slumbering form of his younger brother. He guessed at the cause of Joe’s swollen hand, but would wait for his father to explain.
“I might give him something to help his sleep be a little deeper Ben, before I examine that hand. No doubt it is already causing him some considerable pain. That way I can look at it without causing him too much discomfort,” Paul suggested. A nod of consent was received from Ben, not taking his eyes from Joe’s face.
Paul mixed the sedative for Joe, making it a little stronger than normal. He walked over to the couch and pondered how successful they were going to be in administering it to the sleepy patient. “How do you suggest we approach this, Ben?”
“I’ll do it, Pa,” Hoss offered, thinking it was the most useful thing he had done all night. He took the milky liquid from Paul and knelt beside the couch, ready to rouse his slumbering brother long enough to take the medicine and ease his pain.
Adam and Hop Sing went about gathering a basin of warm, salty water and some cloths, ready for when Paul was ready to examine Joe’s hand.
“Joe,” Hoss whispered in his brother’s ear. “Can you sip this for Hoss?” he asked, lifting Joe’s head a little, hoping the motion would awaken Joe sufficiently to comply.
“Too tired, Hoss,” came the mumbled reply from Joe as he tried to lay his head down again. His eyes never opened long enough to even look at his brother.
“I know Joe, I know, but I just need you to do this for me, and then you can sleep,” Hoss continued. To Paul’s astonishment and Ben’s delight, Joe seemed to respond to Hoss and allowed the cup to be brought to his lips. He started to pull away from the strange taste, but a few more words of encouragement again from Hoss and Joe resumed swallowing the small amount of fluid.
“You did good short shanks,” Hoss whispered, laying Joe’s head back down on the comfortable couch. “Go ahead and sleep now, old Hoss will be here when you wake up, I promise.” Joe’s only response was a sigh and to turn his face towards the back of the couch away from his crowd of worried family and friends.
“I thought we were going to have a much tougher fight than that on our hands,” Paul chuckled as Joe’s face began to relax into deep sleep. They all waited in silence for a moment, looking down at Joe while he slept and each of them feeling saddened by the cruel turn of events that caused this.
Ben had been holding Joe’s right hand, but now felt it go limp in his own, signalling that the medicine was indeed working. “Joseph, can you hear me?” he asked softly, wanting to make sure that Joe had fully succumbed to the effects of the sedative. There was no response as he stroked the curls from his son’s face and prayed that he would be allowed a few hours respite from bad dreams to gain some needed rest.
Paul now motioned for the basin of tepid, salty water and went about seeing to Joe’s hand. While the family watched his administrations, Ben explained what had happened to Joe out at the barn.
“Joe smashed his fist against the barn door,” Ben informed them, Paul noting that it would have taken a great amount of force to damage the knuckles as badly as they were. The hand was already becoming stiff, and Joe would no doubt have a loss of flexibility in the joints for a few weeks to come.
“He’s is going to have one mighty sore hand for a few weeks, Ben,” Paul said as he finished cleaning away the blood and dirt to examined just how much the hand had swollen. The bruising was already becoming visible, in shades of motley purple and black.
“It is going to take him some time to get over Tom’s death,” Ben commented. “He still blames himself for the accident. What is something like this going to do to him?”
“We will be there for him Pa, every step of the way,” Hoss assured him. “Do you think he will be able to go on the cattle drive with us with his hand all busted like that?”
Ben looked towards Paul for his diagnosis of Joe’s condition and whether or not the cattle drive was a good or bad idea.
Paul was finishing wrapping Joe’s injured hand as he spoke. “Well, his hand is not going to be of much use to him for that time Ben. But the alternative in leaving him behind on his own at the ranch is probably going to do more harm than good. He will have too much time on his hands to brood over what has happened, and before you return he will have sunk into a deeper state of depression. It might be difficult to drag him back from the brink of that.”
“Well, I think we should consult Joe on the matter anyhow. If he wants to stay home, I will understand, but maybe one of us should stay with him if that happens, just to make sure he doesn’t let himself go while we are away. If he still wants to come, we will just have to accommodate him the best way we can and let him do what his hand will allow him to do,” Ben stated.
“We have one more difficult task for Joe even before the cattle drive begins,” Adam now interjected into the conversation. “Tom’s funeral,” he state d, answering the unspoken question on everyone’s lips.
Ben ran a hand down his face as he tried to think of the best way to approach that subject at all. There was no doubt there was going to be a funeral for Tom. Ben had paid for it himself and had arranged for it to take place a day before the cattle drive, which was the day after tomorrow. What sort of mixed feelings he would receive from Joe on that matter he could only hasten a guess.
“Let’s wait until tomorrow as see how Joe is fairing shall we,” Paul suggested, noting the concern everyone held for Joe’s emotional state of mind should he wish to attend Tom’s funeral. “I will come back out tomorrow to check on Joe and his hand. We can cross that bridge when we come to it.”
Paul bid the family good bye and told Ben not to be too concerned by any unusual behaviour from Joe. In times of great distress such as a traumatic death, people often acted differently than their loved ones might have thought. He reminded them of all the mood swings that Joe might display over the next few days and warned that because the accident had now turned into a death, these mood swings might become even more intense and sporadic.
While Ben saw Paul out, Adam and Hoss between them moved Joe to his bedroom, his sleep deep enough that he didn’t stir at being lifted from the couch. They settled him in his bed, keeping him warm and making sure that his injured hand was above the covers and would not be rolled on during the night if he became restless.
TO BE CONTINUED…………….
Author Notes:
I added a lot more content into this chapter that wasn’t originally intended, therefore it has ended a little earlier than I planned. The next chapter will see the unfolding of the cattle
drive and some events that will become a critical part of the story later on.
If you haven’t guessed by now, yes the figure in the saloon was Butch Thomas – how he is there and out of prison is yet to be explained in detail in later chapters as to why he was there – that too will be explained further down the track. It was a last minute idea to
have him there and mostly due to having future involvement using the stranger as well.
I know Joe normally would feel his presence in a room, but for the moment he hasn’t been aware of Butch being there. The remarks about the rope and hanging are supposed to be a connection to the first part of the story False Witness and be an integral
link between the events that Joe experienced in that story and events in this new one.
If you read between the lines there are GIANT hints as to some things that are going to
occur in the following parts of the story. Some of them are deliberate, others are not and
there was no other way do it.
I apologize for the delay in updating, but as you can probably appreciate, this story is getting rather complicated. In the following two chapters there will be between 8 to 10 new characters introduced with a name and a background for each. So please bear
with me as I try and take some time with certain parts so this author does not become
confused before the readers.
And please take notes if you wish, there will be a written exam at the end of the story
to see how much you have remembered (Just Kidding) LOL.
Please review and let me know how I am going. The next chapter is already in progress
and promises loads of new surprises in store.
Hope you are enjoying the drama so far.
JULES