Poltergeist II: Benjy’s Story
Part 1
By Kathleen T. Berney

“Virginia City, Folks,” the stagecoach driver curtly announced, as he opened the door. “We leave for Carson City, soon as we change horses.”

Several of the passengers rose and began to push toward the door, among them Dolores Elizabeth Cartwright, better known to family and friends as Dio, all of eight years old for nearly a whole month now. A firm, restraining hand on her forearm literally gave her pause. She turned and found herself staring into the exasperated face of her maternal grandmother, Dolores di Cordova.

“Sit DOWN, Dio.”

“But---!?”

“I SAID sit down! We’ll get off after the other passengers.”

Dio sighed and crawled back up onto the seat next to Dolores, while her older brother, seated on the other side of their grandmother, quietly and very pointedly returned his attention to the book lying open on his lap. She sat demurely, with hands folded in her lap, for less than the space of a heartbeat, then abruptly pulled her dangling legs up onto the seat. She was across the seat, at the open window an instant later, leaning out as far as her limber body could stretch, eagerly scanning the sea of faces, waiting at the depot.

“THERE!” she cried, her dark eyes sparkling with excitement. “THERE THEY ARE!” She thrust her arm forward, pointing toward three familiar, much loved faces. “I SEE MOMMY, AND DADDY, AND GRANDPA!”

Dolores di Cordova groaned inwardly. “Dolores Elizabeth Cartwright, would you PLEASE sit down!?” she ordered. “And for heaven’s sake, don’t point like that! It’s terribly rude.”

Dio somehow managed to lean even farther out the window as the next to last passenger, an elderly woman leaning heavily on a solid, mahogany wood cane started from the coach. “HI, MOMMY! HI, DADDY! HI, GRANDPA! WE’RE HERE!” she shouted at the top of her voice, while enthusiastically waving both arms over her head.

Dolores seized her exuberant granddaughter by the waist and dragged her back inside the stagecoach. “I TOLD you to sit down,” she said through clenched teeth as she forcibly sat Dio back down on the seat.

“But, Grand-maaaa-hhh . . . . ”

“Now!”

Dio fidgeted and gazed longingly out the window, while the elderly woman took forever and a year to disembark, even with the driver and another man helping. So it seemed to her, anyway! The last passenger, a man much younger and far sprightlier, quickly exited after the old woman. Then, before her grandmother could even think to stop her, Dio herself was gone, out of the stagecoach like a shot, running headlong toward her parents, Adam and Teresa Cartwright, and Ben Cartwright, her grandfather.

Dolores threw up her hands and shook her head. That child, half her namesake, never tired. The more energy she used, the more her endlessly abundant reserves seemed to grow. She turned to her young grandson, still sitting quietly on the seat beside her with his hands folded atop his book, now closed. “Come along, Benjy,” she said in a kindlier tone.

“Yes, Grandmother.” Benjamin Eduardo Cartwright, named for his grandfathers and best known as Benjy, rose and dutifully hung back, allowing Dolores to exit the stagecoach first. After making certain his grandmother stood safely on terra firma, Benjy moved out of the coach and prepared to step down.

“Careful, Young Man,” the driver cautioned, extending a hand. “It’s a big step down.”

“Thank you, Sir,” Benjy murmured, “but I can manage.”

Dio, meanwhile, zigzagged through the gathered crowd, toward her paternal grandfather, now crouched down to her level with arms open to welcome. Dio threw herself into Ben’s arms and hugged tight. “Oh, Grandpa, Grandpa, I’m so glad to see you!”

“ . . . and I’M glad to see YOU, too, Young Lady,” Ben declared smiling, delighted if a trifle overwhelmed by his young granddaughter’s exuberance. He slipped his arms around Dio and held her close.

“Well, Teresa, I see how WE rate,” Adam remarked to his wife sotto voce, while favoring their daughter and his father with an indulgent smile.

“Grandpa?”

“Yes, Dio?”

“Is it true I’m going to learn how to ride?”

“Would you like that?”

“Oh, yes, Grandpa, yes, yes, YES! More ‘n anything!”

“Then learn to ride you shall!” Ben earnestly promised, favoring Dio with a warm, affectionate smile. “In fact the young woman who’s going to teach you is right here . . . . ” Keeping one arm firmly around his high-spirited granddaughter, Ben turned and extended his other hand toward his daughter, Stacy, who stood next to the buckboard with Joe, the youngest of her three older brothers.

Smiling, Stacy walked over to join her father and her young niece.

“Dio, this is your Aunt Stacy,” Ben said taking his daughter’s hand in his and drawing her into their circle. “Stacy, this is your niece, Dio.”

“Are you really going to teach me to ride?” Dio asked, shifting her attention from Ben to Stacy.

“Yes, I am.”

“Can we start today? When we get home?”

“Dio, you need to get yourself unpacked and settled,” Teresa said firmly. “I think tomorrow will be soon enough.”

“Aww, Mommy, please?”

“Dio, your ma’s right,” Stacy said quietly. “Tell you what? If it’s alright with your ma, you can ride back to the house with me on Blaze Face.”

“Oh, Mommy, can I? Can I please?”

Teresa smiled. “Yes, you may, Dio.”

“Thank you, Mommy!” Dio turned and threw her arms around Teresa’s waist. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

“You’re welcome, Sweetheart,” Teresa said with an indulgent smile. “Now I want you to do me a favor.”

“OK, Mommy.”

“Your grandmother and brother are over by the stage looking a little lost, so I’m going to go get them. I want you to stay here with Grandpa and Aunt Stacy. All right?”

“I will, Mommy,” Dio eagerly promised.

“I’d better see to the luggage,” Adam said.



“Hello, Mother, I missed you,” Benjy greeted his mother with a weary smile. He slipped his arms around Teresa’s waist and gave her a gentle, affectionate squeeze.

“I missed you, too, Benjy.” Teresa hugged her son close for a moment, then bent down and placed a kiss on top of his head.

“Muuu-therrrr . . . . ” Benjy groaned.

“Mother’s prerogative,” Teresa said favoring him with a warm loving smile. She hugged him again, then held him apart from herself, just enough to gaze down into his face and eyes. “How were your grades?”

Benjy’s eyes immediately dropped to his feet. “N-not so good I’m afraid.”

“Oh?”

“I tried, Mother. Honest! I did! I really did, but--- ” He shrugged helplessly.

Teresa studied her son’s face briefly, with a bewildered frown. That tell-tale catch in his voice and the unusual brightness of his eyes, round as saucers and that fixed stare, told her that Benjy was on the edge of tears. “Benjy?” she probed gently. “Is everything all right?”

“Fine, Mother.” His response was too quick.

“Don’t worry, Teresa,” Dolores said, upon taking note of the worried frown on her daughter’s face. “The boy’s probably exhausted. I know I am! I had forgotten just how much of a handful Dio can be!” Her last comment was spoken with a touch of asperity and a withering glare cast in her granddaughter’s general direction.

“Oh dear!” Teresa sighed. “I’ll have a talk with her when we reach the house.”

“Oh, no, Teresa, no! Not on the account of a travel weary, cranky old woman!” Dolores immediately protested, holding up her hands in front of her as if signaling a rider or driver to stop. “Dio’s not a bad child, just full of life, that’s all. Very much like her mother was at the same tender age. Of course I was a lot younger and more energetic myself back then.”

Benjy glared daggers at his sister, standing over by the station with their paternal grandfather and a young woman, not very much older, whom he had correctly assumed to be Aunt Stacy. His mother and maternal grandmother, meanwhile, embraced enthusiastically and for a moment held each other tight.

“Tell you what, Mother,” Teresa said, keeping one arm firmly about her mother’s waist, “when we get back to the house, why don’t you let ME unpack your things while YOU indulge yourself in a nice hot bath and maybe a nap.”

“Bath and a nap!” Dolores looked over at her daughter and smiled. “MUSIC to the ears of a cranky, travel weary old woman!”

They moved together, arm in arm, through to crowd toward Ben, now on his feet and waving at the two of them enthusiastically. Benjy sighed softly, and dutifully fell in behind them.

“Mrs. di Cordova, it’s wonderful seeing you again,” Ben greeted his eldest son’s mother-in-law with a warm smile.

“Ben Cartwright, WHEN are you going to learn to call me Dolores?” she demanded with mock severity.

“I’m very sorry, M—uhh, DOLORES.”

“That’s MUCH better!”

“Teresa?”

“Yes, Ben?”

“Adam and Joe have gone to fetch the luggage, and Stacy’s taken Dio over to the buckboard to meet Blaze Face.”

“It would seem those two have hit it off very well,” Teresa remarked, observing the animated interaction between Stacy and Dio.

“I hope Dio doesn’t run Aunt Stacy ragged,” Dolores remarked with a wry smile.

“Stacy’s pretty energetic herself, Dolores,” Ben said, favoring daughter and granddaughter with an indulgent smile. “I dare say it’ll be a toss up as to who runs who ragged.”

“This I’VE got to see!” Dolores declared with an emphatic nod of her head.

Ben’s eyes moved beyond Teresa, lingering on the quiet young boy, the top of whose head almost reached his mother’s shoulders. He stood behind his mother, his hands at his side, with book firmly clasped in his left hand. “Well! Is this Benjy?” he said by way of greeting, favoring his young grandson with a warm smile.

“Benjy, what are you doing back there?” Teresa chided him with a smile as she reached around and drew him gently forward. “Come say hello to your grandfather.”

“Hello, Grandpa.” The boy greeted him stiffly, and held out his hand.

“Hello, Benjy.” Ben respectfully shook Benjy’s hand. “You know . . . I could almost swear you’ve grown some more since I saw you last, back in October.”

“I . . . I, well, m-maybe, a little, I s’pose . . . . ”

Ben immediately noted his grandson’s unusually pale complexion. He silently studied the boy with an anxious frown. “Benjy?”

“Yes, Grandpa?”

“You all right?”

“Yes, Grandpa, I’m fine. Just a little tired, I guess.”

“Well, it HAS been a long trip . . . and not over the best of roads, either,” Ben said, not without sympathy. “We’ll have you out to the house as soon as your father and Uncle Joe finish putting the luggage in the buckboard.”

“Pa?” It was Joe. “We just got through putting the small stuff in the buckboard. Adam’s arranging to have the trunks delivered out to the house later this afternoon.”

“Joe Cartwright, is that really you?”

Joe smiled and politely tipped his hat. “Mrs. di Cordova, I presume?”

“I haven’t seen you OR your brother since the wedding!” Dolores chided him with mock severity. “It’s been eleven years, Young Man . . . almost TWELVE! Do you realize that?!”

“You joshin’ me, Ma’am?”

“No!” Dolores snapped, trying her best not to smile. “I am in earnest.”

“Um, um, UMM!” Joe grunted softly, and shook his head. “Eleven going on twelve years! I can’t believe it!”

“Believe it, Scamp!” Dolores returned. “Now! Before I leave for home you and your brother . . . . ” She frowned. “Oh dear! I’m afraid your brother’s name has just flown right out of my head.”

“Hoss, Ma’am.”

“Hoss. Before I leave for home, you and Hoss are going to give me a firm date.”

“Firm date?! . . . uhhh, firm date for WHAT, exactly?”

“For when YOU and HOSS are going to come visit me in Sacramento,” Dolores said in a stern tone that brooked no difference of opinion on the matter in any way, shape, or form. “I expect you to bring your sister along, too.”

“I wish you the best of luck, Dolores,” Adam quipped as he stepped in along side his mother-in-law. “I’VE been trying to pin these brothers of mine down to a date ever since the wedding, myself.”

Joe exhaled an overly melodramatic, long-suffering sigh, and shook his head. “Would someone please . . . PUH-LEEZE . . . tell me . . . what EVER happened to ‘hello, Joe. I’m so glad to see you. How have you been?’ ”

“Scamp!” Dolores snapped, upon noting the impish delight sparkling in his emerald green eyes.

“Everything taken care of, Adam?” Ben asked.

Adam nodded, then turned toward his mother-in-law. “The trunks will be delivered to the house this afternoon, Dolores . . . sometime between three and four o’clock.”

“Thank you, Adam,” she murmured gratefully.

“We ready to go home?” Ben asked.

“I can’t speak for anyone else, Ben, but I know I certainly am,” Dolores immediately replied. “That hot bath and nap Teresa promised me look better and better with each passing moment.”

Ben and Joe, both smiling warmly, turned and gallantly offered their arms to Dolores. She accepted the proffered arms of both father and son, returning their smiles with a gracious one of her own. Adam and Teresa fell in step close behind, a little to the right. Benjy brought up the rear, following at a slower pace.

Joe cast a quick, furtive glance over his shoulder. “Pa . . . Mrs. di Cordova, would you please excuse me?” He inclined his head undetectably behind him.

Ben nodded, understanding. “Certainly, Joe . . . by all means.”

Joe turned and walked back toward his young nephew. “Hello, Benjy,” he greeted the boy with a broad grin as he fell in step beside him. “I’m your Uncle Joe . . . your pa’s youngest brother.” He held out his hand.

“I’m very pleased to meet you, Uncle Joe,” Benjy murmured politely, as the pair shook hands.

Joe tried not to wince in the face of the boy’s stiff, formal manners. “Benjy, seeing as how YOUR sister’s riding home with MY sister on her horse, Blaze Face, I was wondering if you might like to ride home with me on Cochise. He’s the pinto over there, tethered to the buckboard.”

“ . . . uuhhh, w-which one is the pinto?” Benjy ventured hesitantly.

“He’s the handsome black and white one,” Joe replied with a proud smile.

Benjy stared at Cochise long and hard. “I . . . uh . . . no!” He shook his head vigorously. “Thank you for asking me, Uncle Joe, but I don’t think I’d better.”

An anxious frown knotted Joe’s brow, as he noted the boy’s pale face and trembling hands. “You okay, Benjy?”

Benjy sighed. If he could have but one wish, it would be that everyone would stop asking him that question. He looked up into Joe’s face, his dark brown eyes, meeting his uncle’s hazel ones. “I’m fine, Uncle Joe, except for being a little tired, you know . . . from the trip.”

Joe smiled knowingly. “Over land by stage can be pretty exhausting, that’s for dang sure,” he heartily agreed, “and with having that sister of yours along for the ride . . . . ” He grimaced and rolled his eyes. “I don’t know about YOU, Benjy, but I’m getting tired just watching her.”

“Yeah,” Benjy sighed again, wondering why everyone had to be watching Dio all the time.

After everyone had finished their supper, Hop Sing banished the family from the dining room. “Go,” he urged, not so gently. “Sit. By fireplace. Hop Sing bring coffee, then after Hop Sing clear table, bring dessert.”

Hoss’ eyes lit up at the mention of dessert. “Ummm, UMM! I sure hope it’s one o’ your apple pies,” he said, licking his chops in anticipation, while gallantly holding Dolores’ chair while she rose from her place at the table. “I been hankerin’ after a big chunk o’ good, hot apple pie for nigh on a month o’ Sundays now.”

“No apple pie,” Hop Sing immediately returned, the smug, secretive Mona Lisa smile on his face, giving lie to his harsh tone of voice. “Special dessert.”

“Special dessert, ‘ey?” Hoss grinned, then all of a sudden his face fell. “Uhhh oh . . . Hop Sing,” he continued, as his initial consternation gave way to a withering baleful glare, “this special dessert o’ yours ain’t another one o’ them cakes made outta that funny French soundin’ cheese . . . is it?”

“Neufchatel?” Adam queried, mildly surprised, with eyebrow slightly upraised.

“Special dessert not cheese cake,” Hop Sing promised. “Special dessert surprise.” With that, he turned heed and sauntered off into the kitchen, humming very softly under his breath.

“ . . . and after we got through stabling Blaze Face?” Dio blithely rambled on, her eyes shining with excitement, as the family moved en masse toward the furniture grouped around the fireplace. “Aunt Stacy took me to meet Guinevere and Gentleman Jim. Guinevere’s gonna be MY horse.”

She effortlessly skipped in circles around Adam and Teresa as she spoke. Though her remarks were directed primarily toward her parents, she stole an occasional glance over at Benjy, who walked a little apart from the rest of the family, with his book tucked under his arm.

“Where in the world does she get it all?” Joe wondered aloud, awed and delighted by the child’s abundant display of energy.

“I remember asking the same question myself years ago . . . about a certain young fella, ‘way back when HE was about her age,” Ben said, as he momentarily placed his arm about his youngest son’s shoulders and affectionately squeezed.

“Whaddya mean ‘way back?!” Joe demanded in mock outrage.

“Hey! If the shoe fits, GRANDPA . . . . ”

“Pa . . . . ” Joe groaned. The impish sparkle in his eyes wasn’t lost for one minute on his father or the sister, who had just moved in next to him on his other side. “I know you’re a busy man . . . a VERY busy man most days, therefore, I gladly volunteer to step up to the plate and teach YOUR daughter a few basic lessons in giving proper respect to her elders.” He turned and favored Stacy with a glare so comically ferocious, Ben found it very difficult to maintain a straight face.

“You and what army, Grandpa?” Stacy quipped with a saucy grin. “Assuming, of course the lot of you can catch me in the first place?”

Joe immediately responded by sticking out his tongue, prompting a like response from Stacy.

Unbeknownst to Ben, Joe, or Stacy, their remarks drew a sharp glance from Benjy, as he seated himself on the hearth, placing himself as far away from his exuberant sister as he possibly could. “Sisters!” he muttered very softly, punctuating that exclamation with an exasperated sigh.

Hop Sing served coffee to the adults and a couple of tall glasses of cold milk to the children, after everyone had gotten themselves comfortably settled, then set to work clearing the table.

“Aunt Stacy says Guinevere ‘n Gentleman Jim are the nicest horses Grandpa has,” Dio continued her stream of non-stop chatter, “ ‘n you know what?”

“No, Princess . . . what?” Adam asked.

“Guinevere is Gentleman Jim’s ma,” Dio said, rising from her seat on the hearth, near the blue chair occupied by her mother. “ ‘N ya wanna know what ELSE?”

“What else?” Adam prompted.

“Aunt Stacy says Guinevere’s Blaze Face’s ma, too,” Dio said, “but Blaze Face is her last foal. That’s a baby horse, Pa.”

“Papa KNOWS that a foal’s a baby horse, Stupid!” Benjy desperately wanted to scream. “He grew up here, after all . . . . ” He very pointedly turned his back to his sister, as much as he feasibly could, before angrily slamming his book down in his lap and throwing it open.

Dio began to shift her weight slowly from one foot to the next. “Aunt Stacy said Grandpa’s put . . . that he’s put . . . he’s put Guinevere . . . . ” She frowned, trying to recall the exact words her aunt had used.

“Perhaps the words you’re looking for are ‘out to pasture,’ ” Adam kindly suggested. He stood next to the blue chair with coffee cup and saucer in hand.

Dio’s face immediately lit up with a bright, beautiful smile, very much like her mother’s that at the same time, clearly showed forth her father’s dimples. “Yeah! That’s it! Aunt Stacy said Grandpa put Guinevere out to pasture!” she all but squealed. “How’d YOU know that, Pa?”

“He grew UP here . . . remember?” Benjy silently groused, after having read over that last paragraph for what had to be the fifth, maybe even sixth time. It was sickening enough having to watch Mother and Papa fawn over her all the time, but having to watch Grandpa and Grandmother do the same was BEYOND enough . . . and to make things even worse . . . Uncle Hoss and Uncle Joe kept looking up from their checker game.

“Guinevere’s gonna be MY horse,” Dio continued. She had wandered over and plopped herself down on the footstool at her mother’s feet. “ ‘N, Benjy?”

There was no reply.

“Benjy . . . . ”

Still no reply, save for the soft sound of a page being turned.

“BENJY!”

Benjy glanced up with an exasperated sigh. “Dio, can’t you see I’m trying to read?!” he demanded irascibly.

“Guess what?”

Benjy sighed, thoroughly exasperated, yet with air of fatalistic resignation. “What?” he said, not bothering to look up from the book lying open on his lap.

“You gotta guess,” Dio said.

“I CAN’T guess,” he said stiffly, all the while wishing she would, for once in her life, just shut-up and go away.

“Aww . . . come ON, Benjy,” she whined. “You gotta try ‘n guess.”

“Dio, I DON’T know,” Benjy said cantankerously, while leveling a dark, angry glare in his sister’s general direction. “If it’s so all fired important, then just TELL me.”

“Ok.” A smug, triumphant smile slowly oozed its way across her lips. “Aunt Stacy said Gentleman Jim’s gonna be YOUR horse.”

Benjy’s sudden, sharp intake of air drew everyone’s attention. His complexion, normally fair like his father’s, had turned a sickly ashen gray within a matter of seconds. His dark eyes, now round as saucers, darted from his sister’s face, to his parents’, then settled on Aunt Stacy’s, like the eyes of a wild animal, caught in a trap from which there was no hope of escape. His book slipped from his hands and landed on the floor with a dull thud.

“Benjy,” Stacy, who sat on the settee sandwiched between Joe and Dolores di Cordova, favored her nephew with a reassuring smile, “Gentleman Jim is as his name says. He’s a perfect gentleman. Obedient, very calm, and very docile! He’s an excellent horse for a beginning rider . . . as is his mother, Guinevere.”

“Benjy?”

The boy’s eyes moved warily back toward his sister. “Now wh-what?”

Dio’s smile never wavered. “Aunt Stacy said we can start learning how to ride tomorrow, IF it’s all right with Ma and Pa.”

Before Adam or Teresa had a chance to reply, Hop Sing returned to the great room, bearing a cake, iced with a rich, chocolate butter cream frosting. Eight candles, set in a circle on top burned brightly in the dimly lit room.

“Happy birthday to you,” Hop Sing sang, a half step below key.

“Happy birthday to you,” Adam immediately joined in, his rich baritone voice raising the song to the correct level of pitch. Teresa and Ben joined in next, followed by Joe, Stacy, and Dolores.

“Happy birthday, Dear Dio . . .
Happy birthday to you.”

“Mister Hoss, you not sing!” Hop Sing observed as he carefully set the cake, lavishly decorated with icing flowers in a variety of colors, down on the coffee table before the astonished birthday girl.

Hoss chuckled. “Hop Sing, I’ve been blessed with a lotta gifts ‘n talents,” he said. “Singin’ just ain’t one of ‘em.”

“Little Missy make wish, blow out candles,” Hop Sing dutifully instructed the girl.

“Just a moment,” Adam said, before turning his attention to his son, still seated on the other side of the hearth, with his back to everyone, nose stuck in his book. “Benjy?” he called to the boy.

Benjy closed his eyes, and groaned very softly. “Yes, Papa?” he reluctantly responded.

“Come on and join the rest of us, Son,” Adam invited. “Dio’s about to make a wish and blow out the candles.”

“I’m coming,” Benjy murmured in a voice barely audible, while inwardly seething. His sister’s birthday was three weeks ago, nearly four. Almost a whole month!

. . . and Grandmother and Grandfather gave her a big party, then, too, and invited all of her friends . . . “every last one of whom is just as mean as SHE is,” he groused silently, and she had cake, and ice cream, and presents . . . mountains and mountains of ‘em.

It seemed so to HIM, anyway . . . .

Now she gets to have a birthday here, TOO?!

“It’s not fair!” he muttered, as he rose and made his way around the coffee table. “It’s not fair at all!”

“NOW, Little Missy blow out candle,” Hop Sing exhorted the girl with a big smile.

Dio closed her eyes, took a deep breath in the same moment she made her wish, and, upon opening her eyes, blew as hard as she could. She had almost run out of breath at the very end, but she did it. She blew out every single candle with one breath.

“Hey there, Young ‘n!” Hoss looked down at his young niece and smiled. “Looks like ya get your wish.”

“She sure did!” Joe agreed. “What did ya wish for, Kiddo?”

“I can’t tell you, Uncle Joe.”

Joe stuck out his lip as far as he possibly could and gazed down at his young niece with a whipped puppy dog look that would have melted the coldest of hearts. “You can’t even tell your Uncle Joe?” he begged.

Dio very solemnly shook her head. “If I do, I won’t get my wish,” she said.

“That’s right, Joe,” Hoss declared with an emphatic nod of his head.

Dio turned to Hop Sing, as he set himself to the task of cutting and serving the cake. “Mister Hop Sing?” she queried very softly.

“Not mister,” the Chinese man said, as he handed her the first slice. “Hop Sing just Hop Sing.”

“Thank you for the cake, Hop Sing,” Dio said, “but, I hafta tell you . . . it’s not my birthday today.”

Hop Sing smiled. “Hop Sing know,” he said. “Little Bird . . . wise Little Bird . . . tell Hop Sing Little Missy have birthday without Mama and Papa. Same Little Bird also tell Hop Sing Little Missy like chocolate cake best.” He handed slices of cake to Adam and Teresa, then passed one over to Dolores, seated on the settee sandwiched between Hoss and Joe.

“Who’s the Little Bird?” Dio asked, her eyes darting from once face to the next.

“Hop Sing can’t tell Little Missy who Little Bird. Bad luck! Very, very, VERY bad!”

“Well, I bet I know who it is,” Dio said. “I bet it was Grandmother.”

Dolores smiled and shook her head. “Not THIS time, Child . . . . ”

Adam, meanwhile, passed a slice of cake over to Ben, seated in the chair with the port wine hued leather upholstery, and a second to Stacy, who now sat perched on its arm. After serving his father and sister, he picked up the last piece and walked over to his son, who had taken up position between the blue chair and the fireplace hearth. “Would you like a piece of cake, Son?” he asked, holding the plate in hand out to the boy.

“No, Papa,” Benjy said stiffly. “Thank you. I’m kinda tired . . . the long trip ‘n all . . . may I go to bed now?”

“Are you feeling all right, Benjy?” Adam asked quietly, as he studied the boy with an anxious frown.

“I’m not sick or anything like that, I’m just tired,” Benjy replied. “May I go to bed now?”

Adam touched the back of his hand to Benjy’s forehead, drawing a long suffering sigh and a wry roll of the eyes heavenward. “I know you just told me you’re not sick,” he said. “I wanted to make sure.” Though Benjy felt cool as the proverbial cucumber, his face was still a couple of shades paler than normal. “All right, Son, you may go on up,” Adam said. “I’ll look in on you later.”

“Thank you, Papa.” Benjy held out his hand. “Good night.”

“Good night, Benjy,” Adam replied, as he gently shook hands with his son. “Sleep tight.”

“Dio, it’s time YOU were in bed as well,” Teresa said firmly.

“But, Maaa-aaahhh . . . I haven’t even finished my cake yet!” Dio protested.

“You have five minutes to finish it, Young Lady,” Teresa replied in a tone that brooked no argument, “and another three to tell everyone good night.

“But, I’m not even tired,” Dio whined.

“Dio, not another word,” Adam said sternly. “Now you finish your cake, and tell everyone good night, like your mother said.”

“Yes, Pa,” Dio sighed disparagingly.

“Hmpf! I can’t even go to bed without HER horning in,” Benjy grumbled softly, as he stormed into the room that would be his home away from home.

You can make her sorry . . . .

Benjy froze. Had he imagined it?

You can make them ALL sorry, if you want to . . . .

He paused for a moment upon reaching the middle landing, and watched as Dio ran around enthusiastically hugging and kissing everyone good night.

“Honestly! That child tires me out just watching her!” Grandmother declared, as she gazed after her granddaughter’s swiftly retreating form with an affectionate smile.

For a moment he gave serious consideration to those words, then turned away with a melancholy sigh. “Must be more tired than I thought,” he mumbled very softly under his breath, as he continued the rest of the way up the stairs.

He awoke to the sound of bells ringing somewhere far, far away. He opened his eyes slowly, one first, then the other, gazing in utter bewilderment at the strange log ceiling over his head, and white-stucco walls surrounding him, hung with pictures of places, strange and unfamiliar.

Then, he remembered.

He was in the small upstairs guest room in his grandpa’s house on a ranch called Ponderosa. The sun shone in through the parted curtains drawn over the window above his head, gently rousing him to full awakening. He rolled out of bed, wincing against the bright sunshine, landing on his feet. He realized, then, that the bells he thought he had heard were the striking of that great big, enormous grandfather clock downstairs in the living room.

. . . nine . . . ten . . . eleven . . . twelve!

Twelve?! It couldn’t POSSIBLY be that late . . . could it?

A glance at the clock hanging on the wall facing the bed confirmed that it was indeed that late.

Why hadn’t anyone come in to wake him before this?!

He ran over to the dresser, where he had put his clothes yesterday afternoon, all neatly folded, and slid the top-drawer open. Instead of finding his socks and undergarments, he found the drawer completely empty. He frowned. How could THAT be? He had unpacked and put his clothing away himself.

He slammed the top drawer shut, and opened the second. It, too, stood empty. Judging from the collection of dust and lint across the bottom of the drawer, it hadn’t been used in a very long while. Frantic, he yanked open the third drawer, then the fourth, followed by the fifth and last on the bottom. Empty!

Every last drawer stood empty!

All the clothes he had so carefully, so painstakingly packed away yesterday afternoon were gone.

With heart in mouth, he ran over to the wardrobe. He grabbed hold of the white glass doorknobs, one in each hand, and threw open the doors, wincing as the door on the right clattered loudly against the wall perpendicular. He peered inside and found it completely empty. His good summer suit, the dark blue linen, was gone. So were his shirts, his boots, and his good shoes.

“MOTHER?” he yelled.

No answer.

He shut the wardrobe doors. As he turned to leave the room, his eyes fell on the bed in which he had just been sleeping. He gasped, upon seeing the bed completely stripped of the linens there just moments ago. Had HE stripped the bed? He frowned, trying very hard to remember . . . .

The sounds of laughter coming from outside his open bedroom window drew him from his troubled musings. He bounded across the room and glanced outside. There, he saw the entire family gathered in the yard below, laughing and chatting happily amongst themselves. Mother and Grandmother sat on the buckboard seat, on either side of Papa, who held the reins firmly in hand. His aunt was already mounted on her steed, with his sister seated on the saddle in front of her. The Chinese man came out of the house, grinning from ear-to-ear, carrying two enormous picnic baskets. He handed them to his two uncles, who dutifully set them into the back of the buckboard.

“Is everyone ready?” Grandpa asked, as he climbed up onto the back of his own horse.

“Ready, Grandpa,” his sister squealed with happy excitement.

He suddenly realized they were all leaving.

“HEY!” he shouted. “WHERE ARE YOU GOING?”

No one answered, or even bothered to look up. A small, hard, cold knot of fear began to form deep in the pit of his stomach. “WHERE’S EVERYBODY GOING?” he yelled again.

Once more, his words fell on deaf ears.

“Let’s go,” Grandpa said.

“NO! STOP! DON’T LEAVE ME!”

In the yard below, Grandpa, on his horse, took the lead with his aunt and sister riding along side.

“NO! PLEASE . . . WAIT FOR ME!” he shouted at the top of his lungs.

No answer. His uncles on their horses fell in step behind Grandpa, with Papa, Mother, and Grandmother in the buckboard bringing up the rear.

He bolted from the room and plunged head long at top speed down a seemingly endless hallway, toward the stairs. Somehow, it seemed the faster he ran, the longer the hallway stretched out before him. Finally, after what seemed an eternity of running, he emerged out at the top landing, breathless, his legs trembling with weariness.

“STOP! WAIT FOR ME!” he shouted as he half ran, half stumbled down the steps and out the front door.

He found the yard completely deserted, except for the Chinese man. For a moment, he stood, unmoving, staring apprehensively at the Chinese man, who had now turned and was ambling back toward the house.

“WAIT!” he yelled.

The Chinese man continued walking back toward the house, without even acknowledging that he had spoken, let alone giving reply. He turned and ran after him.

“Where did they go?” he gasped, as he trotted along side the Chinese man.

No answer,

“Please,” he begged, “you’ve got to tell me . . . where did they go?”

The Chinese man entered the house and closed the front door right in his face.

He turned and fled from the porch, running in the general direction he had seen Grandpa leading the others.

“MOTHER! PAPA! WAIT FOR ME!” he yelled as he ran. “GRANDPA! GRANDMOTHER! PLEASE . . . STOP!”

With a strength and stamina, renewed and fed by the panic and dread fear rising up within, he tore through the yard. Upon rounding the corner behind the barn, he blundered into a roughly circular copse of trees, tall ponderosa pines, ancient judging from the width around their bases. He beat a straight path through its center, hoping against hope that by moving “as the crow flies,” to quote Uncle Hoss, he might catch up to the rest of the family, now traveling on the meandering road leading away from the Ponderosa. Instead of emerging into the sunlit meadow he knew to be just on the other side of the trees, he found himself running through woods, deep and dark, that stretched on and on forever.

Tears, borne of the fear still escalating, cascaded freely down his cheeks, reducing his vision to varying shades of dark grays, pine greens, and black. In his panicked, blind flight through the woods, his foot caught on something . . . a rock, or perhaps an exposed tree root. As he pitched forward, a hole opened up in the earth before him. He fell into the long rectangular shaped hole and landed with a hard, ignoble thud that knocked the wind from his lungs. He slowly, painfully rolled over from his stomach onto his side. For every inch his eyes moved up the long shaft rising to the opening high overhead, his heart sank lower and lower. The hole was too deep and its sides too smooth for him to climb out on his own.

“HELP! MOTHER! PAPA! HELP!”

His words, his desperate cries for help were answered by a shower of dirt pouring into the hole, falling in his hair and dusting his shoulders. Another showering of dirt fell on him, followed by another, then yet another. He glanced up sharply as big clods of dirt this time, rained down upon him twice more in rapid succession. As he furiously brushed the dry dirt out of his hair, and off his face and shoulders, his ears picked up a slow scraping sound, of metal against dry, rocky earth.

“Who’s there?” he called out warily, his entire body rigid.

There was no reply. Only silence.

“I know someone’s there . . . . ” he called out again, afraid someone would find him one moment, and terrified no one would ever find him again the next. “I KNOW YOU’RE THERE! ANSWER ME! PLEASE . . . ANS---!” His desperate pleas were abruptly silenced by yet another showering of dirt and rocks.

Then . . . all of a sudden . . . he realized, to his horror, that someone was shoveling mounds of dirt into the hole, filling it in . . . burying him.

“NO!” he screamed. “NO! STOP! PLEASE STOP!” He began to claw frantically at the earthen wall, trying desperately to gain a foothold to propel himself upward. His movements began to slow, and he felt the muscles in his arms suddenly growing weaker and weaker.

“No . . . . ” he sobbed, “oh, God, please . . . please no . . . . ”

A numbing paralysis began in his fingers and started to spread. The clumps of dirt he had pulled from the earthen walls surrounding him fell upon his bare feet with a dull thud, from a pair of hands, turned useless. He had dim awareness of his head lifting, then his entire body falling over backward. He tried to cry out, but this time no sound issued forth. The next thing he knew, he was lying on his back at the very bottom of that hole, his body half covered with dirt.

At the top of the shaft, the silhouette of a man appeared. His face was completely hidden beneath the dark shadows cast by the wide from of his hat. Yet something in his lines . . . the way he moved . . . .

Papa?

No.

Not Papa . . . .

It was Grandpa, standing at the edge of the hole, looking down, with a shovel clasped tight in one hand.

Somewhere, in the far distance, someone screamed.

Benjy?

GRANDPA, NO!

Benjy.

GRANDPA, NO! DON’T!

Benjy!

Grandpa turned, and moved away from the edge of the hole, out of his sight.

GRANDPA, DON’T GO! DON’T LEAVE ME, PLEASE . . . DON’T LEAVE ME---

Benjy, wake up!

Benjy’s eyes suddenly snapped wide open. He found himself sitting up in a strange bed, in the midst of a dark room, staring into the anxious face of Uncle Joe. His breathing came in shallow, ragged gasps, and tiny beads of cold sweat dotted his forehead.

“It’s ok, Benjy . . . it’s ok. It was a DREAM. A bad dream from the way you were screaming, but it WAS just a dream.” Joe’s voice was quiet and gentle, yet carried within a rock hard firmness that his young nephew found deeply reassuring. “You’re safe now, Benjy . . . you’re safe.”

For one brief, utterly insane moment, Benjy wanted, more than just about anything, to simply throw himself into his uncle’s arms and just hang on for dear life. He squeezed his eyes tight shut and vigorously shook his head as if to physically dislodge that errant, near overwhelming urging. “I’m NOT a little kid anymore,” he silently, furiously chastised himself. “I’m not, I’m not, I’m NOT!”

Joe, meanwhile, began to blot the boy’s glistening forehead with the sleeve of his nightshirt. “You’re sweating like a pig, Sport . . . though for the life of me I can’t understand why,” he murmured softly. “This room feels kinda chilly.”

“Uncle Joe?”

“Yes, Benjy?”

“I . . . I need to check something . . . . ”

He was out of bed, running toward the dresser before Joe could even think of stopping him. Benjy yanked open the top drawer and stood, for a time, rooted to the spot, staring into the open drawer.

“ . . . uhhh, Benjy?” Joe queried with an anxious frown. He rose, shuddering the instant his feet touched the ice-cold floor.

The boy slammed the drawer shut as wave upon wave of pure, unadulterated relief washed over him. His underwear and socks were neatly folded and in their proper place, right were he had put them.

“Hey, Sport, y’ better come on back to bed,” Joe invited with a warm, reassuring smile. “This floor feels like ice and I’VE got these heavy socks on. You must be freezing in your bare feet.”

“Y-yeah, it IS kind of cold,” Benjy ventured hesitantly, favoring his uncle with a small, shy smile.

Joe waited while his young nephew climbed into bed, then covered him over with bed linens and the light, summer blanket lying across the foot of the bed, neatly folded. “You gonna be warm enough? I can get you a quilt . . . . ”

“I’m fine, Uncle Joe, except for . . . feeling a little . . . lost, I guess . . . . ”

Joe flashed the boy a knowing, sympathetic smile. “I know exactly how you feel, Benjy. It’s quite a shock to wake up out of a dream, especially a real bad one, and find yourself lying in your own room . . . in your own bed. When you’re away from home, sleeping in a strange room and a strange bed . . . . ”

“H-Has it ever happened to YOU, Uncle Joe?”

“Yes, Benjy. A LOT!”

“Joe?” It was Adam. “Is everything all right?”

“Benjy had a bad dream, Adam. It left him pretty shook up, but he’s gonna be ok.”

Adam entered the room. “I’d forgotten how chilly the nights get around here,” he remarked, while drawing his dark navy blue robe tighter around him. Three brisk strides brought him to his son’s bedside. Joe quietly rose and gestured for Adam to take his place on the edge of the bed. He gratefully nodded his thanks. “You ok, Buddy?”

“I . . . I’m ok, Papa,” Benjy replied, as the worst of his terror began to give way to acute embarrassment. “It was just a bad dream, like Uncle Joe said. May I have a drink of water?”

“I’ll get it,” Joe offered.

“Not much, half a glass maybe,” Adam said.

Joe nodded and set off.

“You want to talk about it, Benjy?” Adam asked after Joe had left.

Benjy shook his head.

“You sure?”

“I’m sure, Papa.” Benjy looked away from his father, focusing his gaze on his hands tightly clasped in his lap. “You’d probably think it was kind of stupid anyway.”

“No, I wouldn’t,” Adam said earnestly. “I heard you crying out, Benjy. That tells me whatever your dream was about, it had a very profound effect on you. Nothing, be it a dream or happenstance occurring during our waking hours, that affects you so deeply is stupid.”

“It doesn’t matter now, Papa, because I . . . I don’t remember too much of it anymore.”

The pale face, rapid breathing, and the slight tremor in the boy’s hands all told Adam otherwise. He decided not to press, for now anyway. “Benjy?”

“Y-Yes, Papa?”

“If you remember the dream later on, and you want to talk about it, I’m ready and willing to listen. I want you to know that.”

Benjy nodded.

A knock at the bedroom door drew the attention of father and son. It was Joe. “I’ve got the water,” he announced, holding up the glass.

Adam motioned for Joe to enter.

“Here y’ go, Sport,” Joe said, as he placed the glass into his nephew’s outstretched hands.

“Thank you, Uncle Joe.”

“You’re welcome. Well, it looks like you two don’t need ME anymore, so I’m off to bed. Good night, Adam. Good night, Benjy. See ya both in the morning.”

“Good night, Joe.”

Benjy quickly finished his water and handed the glass to his father. “Good night, Uncle Joe,” he said with a big yawn.

“You sure everything’s all right, Benjy?” Adam asked, after his youngest brother had gone.

Benjy nodded.

“If you need me for anything, I’m in the room at the end of the hall with your mother. All right?”

“Ok, Papa.”

Adam nodded, then reached for the quilt still neatly folded at the end of the bed.

“You don’t have to do that,” Benjy protested. He was deeply grateful it was still dark, and that his father couldn’t see the hot flush of deep crimson that had all of a sudden come to his cheeks. “I’m a big boy now, Papa . . . I’m too old to be tucked in.”

“First of all, it’s pretty chilly in here,” Adam said, as he covered his son with the quilt, then set himself to the task of tucking the edges under the mattress. “Second . . . . ” he smiled. “ . . . YOU could live to be a hundred, Young Man, and I live to be . . . well, whatever! It’ll STILL be my prerogative as your father.”

An amused smile tugged hard at the corner of Benjy’s mouth. “I’ll bet Grandpa doesn’t tuck in Uncle Hoss, Uncle Joe, and Aunt Stacy.”

“I’ll bet he DOES . . . sometimes,” Adam replied. He refrained from adding that Grandpa would probably tuck HIM in, too, if Teresa weren’t sharing the room and bed with him. “You sure everything’s all right?”

“Yes, Papa, I’m fine now.”

He leaned down and kissed his son on the forehead. “Good night, Benjy.”

“Good night, Papa.”

Adam left his son’s room, noiselessly closing the door behind him. He, then, made his way back down the hall to the large room at the end, taking great care to tread quietly, so not to wake up anyone else.

“Everything all right?” Teresa asked, as Adam entered the room.

He removed his robe and draped it over the chair next to the door. “Everything’s QUIET! The jury’s still out on the question of whether or not everything’s all right.”

“What happened?”

“Benjy had a nightmare that left him pretty shook up,” Adam replied as he climbed into bed next to his wife.

“What was the nightmare about?”

“He wasn’t forthcoming on that score, I’m afraid. He claimed he had forgotten most of it, but he hadn’t. I could tell by the frightened look on his face.”

“I know Benjy’s pretty reserved, especially around people he doesn’t know very well . . . and he’s travel weary, but . . . . ” Teresa sighed and shook her head. “He’s been too quiet, today, Adam. Much too quiet!”

Adam nodded. “Yeah, something’s bothering him. I had every intention of taking him aside and sitting him down for a private father-son chat, but between getting everyone back here, unpacked, and settled . . . not to mention visiting with each other . . . . ” He sighed very softly, and shook his head. “I’m afraid my good intentions got shoved by the way side.”

“Things WERE pretty hectic today,” Teresa agreed. “By the time everyone settled down, it was time to go to bed.”

“Perhaps I’ll have better luck tomorrow after the kids have their riding lesson.”

“In the meantime, I’LL try and talk with Mother sometime tomorrow. She and Papa have been looking after them since you and I left to come here. Maybe she can shed some light on things.”

Adam nodded.

“Good night, Adam.” Teresa leaned over and kissed him passionately on the lips.

“ . . . uuhhh, Teresa?”

“Hmmm?”

“I hope you know we’ve got to watch ourselves like hawks from here on out, Sweetheart,” Adam warned. “Benjy and Dio are ten times more inquisitive than Joe and Stacy, and THEY have a much greater tendency to ask embarrassing questions at the absolute worst times.”

Father Brendan Rutherford crumpled the sheet of paper, lying on the desk before him, and, with a soft, melancholy sigh, tossed it across the room toward the trash receptacle, already full to overflowing. “I might as well be honest and admit to myself that I’m not going to get a blessed thing accomplished . . . leastwise, not tonight.” He rose, and stretched. “I’d go to bed . . . if I thought for a minute I’d actually get any sleep,” he murmured, barely aware of having just spoken out loud.

Aged in his late sixties, his big, square shaped face, with its wide jaw and ruddy complexion, along with the circlet of tonsured red hair, easily took twenty years away from his appearance. He was a big man, standing well over six feet tall, with broad, muscular shoulders and barreled chest. Although his well-defined musculature and washboard flat abdomen had softened and grown more round under the inevitable pull of age and gravity, he still presented a picture of a man physically fit. Though now largely retired, he still supervised the three priests assigned to Saint Mary’s in the Mountains, visited the sick and infirm among the community, counseled troubled parishioners on occasion, and filled in during mass as needed.

The sound of someone knocking softly on the door to his study drew him from his troubled musings. “Come in,” he responded, inwardly grateful for the respite.

Brother Algernon Wolfe, a short, portly man a dozen years his junior, quietly entered the room bearing a tray, with the nightcap monk and priest had shared before retiring for more years now than he cared to count sometimes. “It would appear that the best for all concerned would be for me to leave your, ummm . . . shall we say ‘well aged nightly medication’ on the desk and not bother you with my petty little difficulties so that you might finish that sermon for Sunday,” the monk remarked wryly, as his eyes fell upon the trash receptacle, piled high with crumpled wads of paper.

“You’ve not once left me in peace for a single night over the past ten years and I’ll not have you start now, thank you very much,” Father Brendan retorted with mock severity, the twinkle in his blue eyes giving lie to the stern glower on his face. “Now sit down, y’ ol’ coot.”

Brother Algernon chuckled with genuine mirth as he set the tray down on the priest’s expansive, mahogany desk, and seated himself in the hard backed chair facing it. “You realize of course that you calling me an ol’ coot’s like the pot calling the kettle black, Monsignor.”

Father Brendan took one of the glasses, filled to the brim with a very fine brandy, from the tray and took a small sip. “Any word on how Mrs. Smith is faring?” he asked, turning serious.

For the past thirty years, Mrs. Lee Smith had lived among the sisters at the convent of Saint Mary’s in the Mountains. She had initially come as a patient in desperate need of healing, not only for her bruised, battered body, but for her stricken spirit and soul as well. Though she had never sought to take the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, she had nonetheless remained, serving the kindly sisters with diligence and grace as their housekeeper, chief cook and bottle washer, bookkeeper, and as able nursing assistant after the hospital had been established.

“The good news is . . . Mother Catherine has NOT sent me to fetch Doctor Martin,” Brother Algernon replied. “Last I heard the good lady was in her room, resting comfortably with one of the sisters in attendance.”

Father Brendan nodded his head slowly. “Yes,” he murmured softly, yet guarded. “Yes. That IS good news.”

“Monsignor?”

“Yes, Brother?”

“The anniversary of . . . . ” the monk’s voice trailed away to silence. He sipped from his own glass of brandy, then continued. “It’s . . . soon, is it not?”

“Four . . . . ” Father Brendan’s eyes strayed over to the tall grandfather’s clock positioned against the wall directly in front of him, sandwiched between a pair of matching barrister’s bookcases, packed full. “No . . . make that THREE days from now,” he amended, upon noting that the time was a few minutes past midnight.

“The anniversary never HAS been a very good time for her . . . not in the time I’VE known her at any rate,” Brother Algernon quietly observed.

“No,” Father Brendan agreed, “and now, with her heath being so precarious . . . . ” His voice trailed away to an ominous silence that lingered for a time.

“Monsignor?”

“Yes?”

“I . . . thought . . . I overheard Mother Catherine telling one of the sisters that it’s been thirty years now, since . . . . ”

“Thirty years,” Father Brendan murmured, then nodded. “Yes. That sounds about right.”

Brother Algernon finished the last of his brandy in a single swallow. “I . . . would think thirty years would be more than enough time to . . . well, to forget about it . . . to put it out of her mind and go on with her life.”

“Brother Algernon, I seriously doubt that ANY mother who loses all six of her children to death in so very short a time CAN forget about it,” Father Brendan said.

“I suppose,” Brother Algernon acquiesced in a bland tone. He, then, rose and set his empty glass back down onto the tray. “I’m going to say good night, Monsignor. Am I correct in assuming that you intend to linger over your brandy for a while?”

Father Brendan nodded. “Good night, Brother . . . sleep well. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Mister Cartwright, two minutes! Breakfast ready!” Hop Sing announced tersely to the family gathered over next to the fireplace the following morning.

“It’s about dadburn time,” Hoss groused, scowling.

“Hoss?”

“Yeah, Adam?”

“I trust you got Peggy moved yesterday afternoon without any problems?” Adam asked.

“Yep,” Hoss replied, nodding his head. “She’s settled in now with Doc ‘n Mrs. Martin, just as snug as a bug in a rug,” he replied. “Mrs. Martin says she’s gonna let Peggy have a crack at straightenin’ t’ doctor’s books.”

“Excellent. That’ll be good practice for her,” Adam nodded and smiled approvingly.

The sound of booted feet slapping against the wooden steps in rapid succession brought all conversation to a halt. Dio, her face shining with all of the excitement of a new day and new adventure soon to begin, rounded the corner at the middle landing, bounded two thirds of the way down the remaining steps. There, she paused, then took a flying leap over the last three steps, landing on her feet with all the fluid grace of a leaping cat, if not the silence.

Adam immediately leapt to his feet the instant he realized his young daughter was airborne. He quickly circled around the settee, then hurried across the great room toward the steps. “Dio?!” he called out to his daughter anxiously. “Are you---??” His words ended with a loud, pained grunt, when Dio barreled into him half way between the settee and the stairs.

“Good morning, Pa!” she cried as she wrapped her small arms tight around his thighs. Her long black hair had been braided into a single braid that reached down to the middle of her back, and this morning, she was dressed in an old shirt and a pair of pants her Aunt Stacy had outgrown several years before. The boots on her feet were an old pair Uncle Joe had outgrown shortly after his eighth birthday.

“Good morning!” Adam slipped one arm around his daughter, while unconsciously waggling the other in a valiant attempt to maintain his balance.

“Aunt Stacy’s gonna give us our first riding lesson today,” Dio said. “Ma said it was ok . . . if it’s ok with YOU . . . . ” She peered up into her father’s face, eager and hopeful.

“Fine with me,” Adam agreed, punctuating his reply with a long, slow sigh of relief when his balance finally stabilized.

“Your first riding lesson begins after breakfast,” Stacy said, as she made her way down the stairs, moving at a brisk pace, “and AFTER I finish my morning chores.”

“Pa?”

“Yes, Princess?” Adam queried as he took his young daughter by the hand and led her over to the fireplace where his father, brothers, and mother-in-law yet remained. Stacy quietly fell in behind her brother and niece.

“Can I help Aunt Stacy with her morning chores?” Dio begged. “Please? Can I pretty please?!”

Ben laughed out loud. “Did I actually hear someone ASKING to do chores? That’s a first around here!”

“That way we can have our lesson faster,” Dio explained.

“Hey, Kid, think you can you use an assistant teacher?” Joe asked, as Stacy plopped herself down on the hearth next to the leather upholstered port wine chair, occupied by their father.

“Why do you ask, Grandpa?”

“I could use a little help with MY chores in the morning, too.”

“Now you see here, Baby Brother! If you think for one minute I’m going to allow you to exploit my daughter as slave labor . . . . ” Adam protested, half teasing and every inch the overly protective father.

“On THAT note, I think we’d better head on out to the table,” Ben said as he slowly rose to his feet.

“Last one there’s a rotten egg!” Dio cried as she turned, and headed for the dining running as fast as her legs could carry her.

“Now hold on there, Young ‘n!” Hoss said with a smile, as he grabbed hold of his niece mid-stride, and lifted her high into the air, prompting a startled cry. “You better try ‘n save some of that energy o’ yours if you intend on helpin’ Aunt Stacy out with doin’ her chores,” he exhorted, while gently tucking the laughing, squirming little girl under his arm. “Otherwise you’re gonna be too plumb tuckered out for that ridin’ lesson.”

“Pa?”

“Yes, Adam?”

“I’ll be with the rest of you in a moment,” Adam said quietly. “I think perhaps I should run upstairs and hurry Teresa and Benjy along . . . .”

Adam found Benjy still in his pajamas, lying huddled up under the covers. Teresa sat poised on the edge of the bed, gazing down at their son with a worried frown. She gently smoothed a stray lock of hair from the boy’s forehead. He paused before the open door and softly knocked on the doorframe. “Good morning, Teresa . . . Benjy. May I come in?”

“Good morning, Adam . . . and yes! Please . . . come on in,” Teresa invited. “Benjy doesn’t seem to be feeling well this morning.”

“Oh?” Adam queried as he crossed the room, and walked around to the other side of the bed. “What’s the matter, Son?”

“My stomach hurts, Papa, and my fingers and toes feel kind of funny.”

Teresa leaned over and gently pressed her lips to Benjy’s forehead.

“How is he?” Adam asked.

“Cool as a cucumber,” she replied, straightening.

“You feel up to putting on your robe and coming downstairs for a bite of breakfast?” Adam asked. “We can ask Hop Sing to fix you some toast and brew up a bit of weak tea.”

“No, Papa. I’d rather go back to sleep for a little while, if I may?”

“All right, Benjy,” Adam agreed. “Your mother and I’ll be up to look in on you after breakfast.”

“Papa?”

“Yes, Son?”

“Would you please tell Aunt Stacy to go ahead and start teaching Dio? How to ride I mean. No point in making her wait because I’m feeling sick.”

“Sure, I’ll tell her,” Adam promised. “In the meantime, you get some rest. We’ll be back in a little while.”

“Good morning, Teresa,” Ben greeted his daughter-in-law with a smile, as she and Adam approached the dining room table. The rest of the family was already seated. “Is Benjy coming?”

“It seems he’s not feeling well this morning,” Teresa said.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Ben murmured sympathetically. “I hope it’s nothing serious.”

Adam courteously held his wife’s chair, as she sat down. “He says his stomach hurts, but he doesn’t seem to be running a fever, Pa. I’m thinking the rigors of the trip took a lot more out of him than we figured yesterday.”

“I can send for Doctor Martin if you wish,” Ben offered.

“Thank you, Pa, but I don’t think that’ll be necessary,” Adam replied. “For now, we’ll just keep an eye on him.”

“Breakfast served,” Hop Sing blithely announced, as he entered the dining room carrying a large platter of pancakes. “Eat! Taste best hot!”

“Hop Sing?”

“Yes, Mister Adam?”

“Benjy’s not feeling well this morning,” Adam explained. “He says his stomach hurts. Would you mind fixing him a piece of toast, and maybe a little weak tea, after you’ve brought every thing to the table?”

Hop Sing’s face fell. “Oh, very sorry Mister Adam little boy sick,” he murmured sympathetically. “Hop Sing fix toast and peppermint tea. Peppermint tea very good for sick tummy.”

“Thank you, Hop Sing,” Teresa said quietly. “If you’ll let me know when it’s ready, I’ll take it up to him.”

Hop Sing nodded. “When Hop Sing make, bring to Mrs. Teresa,” he dutifully promised before returning to the kitchen.

“Ma?”

“Yes, Dio?”

“Does that mean you won’t watch me take my first riding lesson?” Dio asked. The disappointment she felt was reflected very clearly in her face and eyes.

Teresa shook her head. “You brother’s not feeling well, Dio. I think it would best if I kept close.”

“I’LL be there to watch you, Princess,” Adam promised, “and I’ll bet you anything your grandpa might come out and watch, too.”

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Ben declared . . . .

“How am I doing, Aunt Stacy?”

“You’re doing great, Dio,” Stacy praised her young niece. The child was a natural, no denying that, and she was fast proving to be an excellent student in all areas so far, except the most important in the mind of the young teacher . . . .

“Dio, one thing you’ve got to ALWAYS remember is . . . while it’s true most horses’ll do anything for you, if you treat them right . . . they’re big animals,” Stacy cautioned her niece first thing, just as Silver Moon had cautioned her nearly a decade ago now. “They’re big . . . they’re very strong, and very powerful. You’ve got to respect that. If not, they can hurt you . . . very badly . . . without even realizing.”

“I’ll remember . . . . ” the child responded. She stood on a nearby bale of hay, gazing into the stall at Guinevere through eyes filled with adoration.

Stacy knew that her words of warning had gone in one ear and right out the other. She’d made herself a stern mental note then to work harder at impressing upon the girl the need to exercise caution.

Dio circled around the corral on Guinevere’s back, at a brisk, steady walk. She sat tall in the saddle, hips and legs relaxed, hands and arms echoing the movements of Guinevere’s head. Her eyes and face glowed.

Guinevere was a bay mare with a rich deep reddish brown coat. Though still well muscled and physically fit, the liberal sprinkling of white hairs around her mouth and nostrils divulged her steadily advancing age.

Ben stood outside the corral, leaning up against the fence, with Adam standing to his right. “Dio’s a natural, Adam,” he said softly. “A real natural . . . just like her aunt.”

“I’m impressed, Pa,” Adam said by way of agreement. He looked over at his father and smiled. “With BOTH of them! You were right when you said that Stacy’s a good teacher.”

“Stacy!”

“Yeah, Pa?” she replied, her eyes remaining glued to Dio and Guinevere.

“Better start winding things up. We eat dinner in a hour.”

“Aww, Grandpa, already?” Dio groaned. Her contented glow faded into a mask of complete and utter disappointment.

“Pa’s right, Dio,” Stacy said. “I still have to teach you about stabling Guinevere and about keeping things straight in the tack room. Pa . . . your GRANDpa . . . is a real stickler about that! Barn door’s THIS way . . . . ”

“Hey, Adam, look who’s decided to join us.”

Adam turned, his eyes following the line of Ben’s outstretched hand and pointing finger. Benjy, clad in a pair of dark brown trousers and a white shirt, stepped down off the porch and started across the yard. “Good morning, Benjy,” Adam greeted his son with a broad grin. “Feeling better?”

“A little.”

“Dio’s in the barn with Aunt Stacy learning how to unsaddle and stable her horse, along with a thing or two about keeping the tack room straight,” Adam said. “Why don’t you go on in and join them? That way you won’t be as far behind Dio tomorrow.”

Benjy frowned. “Tomorrow?”

“Your riding lesson tomorrow,” Adam quickly filled in the blank.

“Oh. I kind of . . . I guess I forgot.”

“If you don’t see Stacy and Dio in the barn, you’ll probably find them in the tack room on the left as you go in through the big door,” Ben said, pointing.

Benjy stared at the open barn door for a moment, then shook his head. “I-I don’t know if I should,” he ventured hesitantly. “I don’t want to interrupt anything.”

“You wouldn’t be interrupting anything, Benjy,” Ben said with an encouraging smile. “They’ll just be getting started.”

“Oh. Well, ok, I guess.” Benjy turned heel and trudged reluctantly over toward the open barn door.

As Benjy stepped over the threshold, moving from the warm sun into the cool, dimly lit interior of the enormous barn, he heard the voices of his sister and aunt coming from somewhere directly in front of him. He heard none of their words, only a soft, endless drone, that sounded far distant, despite the fact that Guinevere’s stall had to be along that back wall of the barn, facing the door. He peered into the odd, murky shadows ahead of him, searching for Dio and Aunt Stacy, but couldn’t find them.

With each step he took, the world outside, where his father and grandfather stood leaning up against the corral fence talking, seemed to recede, like the waves of the ocean retreat from the beach when the tide ebbs. The sunshine, pouring in through the openings high over his head, illumined the interior of the barn with a dim, silvery gray light. That and the oddly shaped deep shadows lurking within the empty stalls added to the eerie, otherworldly atmosphere. A heavy, deep silence settled over him, over everything, like a heavy shroud.

Benjy found himself turning right, away from the places where Papa and Grandpa had told him he would find Aunt Stacy and Dio. His feet seemed to move of their own volition, drawing him further and further into the dim, murky lit interior of the barn. He suddenly had the uneasy feeling of two eyes watching every single move he made. A cold, icy chill ran down the entire length of his spine, and he felt the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end.

Hello.

Benjy glanced up sharply, expecting to see someone standing in front of him. He saw no one.

Hello.

This time, the voice seemed to be coming from behind him. He whirled in his tracks, but again, saw no one. “Is . . . is anyone . . . is anyone h-here?” Benjy ventured timidly.

I’m here.

“Wh-where?” Benjy responded. He could feel his heart pounding hard against his rib cage. “Where ARE you?”

“Benjy?”

Benjy started so violently, he lost his balance and fell, landing in a nearby pile of straw.

“Benjy, are you all right?”

He opened his eyes and found himself staring up into Aunt Stacy’s anxious face.

“I’m sorry I startled you,” she apologized as she gently helped him to his feet. “You all right?”

“Y-yes . . . yes, I AM, Aunt Stacy, thank you,” he murmured as he brushed off the dust from his backside with a few sweeps of his hand. “Grandpa and Papa said I might come in and find out about keeping the tack room clean and . . . and about stabling a horse.”

Stacy smiled. “Come with me, Benjy,” she invited. “Dio’s waiting next to Guinevere’s stall, over there.” She pointed back in the direction from whence he had initially heard their voices. “We were just getting ready to unsaddle Guinevere.”

Benjy nodded and fell in step beside Stacy. Suddenly, his ears were assaulted with a cacophony of sounds emanating from the world around him: birds singing, the gentle breezes wafting through aspen boughs and pine needles, the occasional sound of a horse whinnying in the corral outside. They found Dio and Guinevere waiting, the former impatiently shifting from one foot to the other, next to the gentle mare’s open stall.

“Aunt Stacy?”

“Yes, Dio?”

“Can I unsaddle Guinevere? Please, Aunt Stacy? Can I?”

“MAY I,” Benjy corrected, in a lofty, imperious tone.

“That’s what I said!” Dio hotly protested.

“No, you said CAN I,” Benjy persisted, with the same disdainful condescension that, in the past, had sometimes unintentionally crept into his father’s voice when HE set about to correct his younger brothers. “I assume you CAN unsaddle Guinevere, after Aunt Stacy shows you how, but you’re really asking her permission to do so. The correct way to ask permission is to say MAY I.”

Dio’s cheeks flamed scarlet. She quickly bowed her head, suddenly unable to bring herself to look Stacy directly in the eye.

“Yes, Dio, you CAN and you MAY unsaddle Guinevere while I talk you through it,” Stacy offered kindly, as she placed a comforting hand on her niece’s shoulder.

Dio looked up returning her aunt’s encouraging smile with a tremulous one of her own.

Stacy also noted with surprise and a little dismay that the girl’s eyes glistened with unusual brightness. “You come on around here, Dio,” she said, drawing a dark glare from her nephew. “Benjy?”

“Yes, Aunt Stacy?”

“Would YOU like some hands on experience unsaddling Guinevere?”

Benjy could feel the blood draining right out of his face. He involuntarily took a step backward. “I . . . uuhh, that’s ok. I can WATCH Dio . . . if that’s alright.”

“Sure, that’s fine,” Stacy agreed. She motioned Dio to come over next to her and Guinevere.

Dio started walking over toward Stacy and Guinevere. She had scarcely taken a half dozen steps, when she suddenly stopped and turned toward Benjy, favoring him with a smug grin. “ ‘Fraidy cat!”

“Shut-up, Dio,” Benjy returned, very much on the defensive.

“Benjy is a ‘fraidy cat . . . . ”

“Shut-UP, Dio . . . . ”

“Well, you ARE a big ol’ ‘fraidy cat,” Dio continued, “and you’re a big sissy too. YOU’RE an even bigger sissy ‘n Amy Collins!”

“Dio, if you don’t shut your lying mouth, I’ll . . . I’ll . . . so HELP me, I’ll--- ”

“You won’t do NUTHIN’ . . . ‘cause you’re afraid!”

“Dio . . . Benjy, that’s enough!” Stacy said in a quiet, yet very firm tone.

“Benjy is a sissy, Benjy is a sissy, Benjy is a— ”

“SHUT-UP, DIO, JUST SHUT-UP!” Benjy shouted, his voice catching.

“WELL YOU ARE A BIG SISSY . . . ‘N YOU’RE A GREAT BIG ‘FRAIDY CAT, AND YOU’RE A BIG, BIG, BIG CRYBABY, TOO,” Dio yelled back, her face contorting with raw fury.

Stacy angrily seized her young niece by the forearm and spun her around. “Dio, I SAID that’s enough!” she said, favoring the girl with a dark, angry glare.

“But, he IS a big sissy, ‘fraidy cat, Aunt Stacy,” Dio wailed defensively. “Almost everyone I know says so! And you can see for yourself he’s a big crybaby!”

Benjy turned heel and, with a strangled cry, fled from the barn.

Stacy forced herself to take a deep breath and count to ten. “Dio, whether Benjy is a big sissy, ‘fraidy cat, crybaby or not doesn’t matter,” she said, laboring to keep the worst of her rising anger in check. “What you did just now was pure out ‘n out ornery mean!”

Dio’s face fell. “I . . . I’m s-sorry, Aunt Stacy.”

“I’m not the one you were mean to just now, Dio. You need to tell BENJY you’re sorry.”

Dio pulled herself up to full height and glared up at Stacy defiantly. “No! I won’t tell Benjy I’m sorry, I won’t!”

“Then I’m not giving you anymore riding lessons,” Stacy said firmly. “Not until you tell Benjy that you’re sorry.”

Dio stared up at Stacy, her defiance giving way to complete and utter despair. With a heart-wrenching sob, she turned heel and fled from the barn.

For a moment, Stacy stood, unmoving, her eyes glued to her young niece’s retreating back, trying desperately to make some kind of sense out of the angry exchange between Dio and Benjy just now. She finally just shook her head, then set herself to the task of stabling the patient, gentle Guinevere. She was surprised to feel the sting of tears in her own eyes as she removed Guinevere’s saddle, and carried it to its block in the tack room.

“Hey, Kid, what was THAT all about?”

Stacy turned and glanced over at the doorway between the tack room and the rest of the barn. She saw Joe there, leaning against the side of the door, with arms folded across his chest and a puzzled look on his face.

“Benjy and Dio?”

Joe nodded.

“I wish I knew!” Her voice caught on the last word.

Joe unfolded his arms and walked over to his sister. “What happened, Stace?” he asked quietly, as he gave her shoulders a gentle, reassuring squeeze.

Stacy haltingly gave her brother an account of what had transpired between their niece and nephew a few moments before, and of her own intervention.

“For what it’s worth, Little Sister, I think you did the right thing as far as Dio’s concerned,” Joe voiced his wholehearted agreement, punctuating his words with an emphatic nod of his head.

“If I d-did? Then why am I crying?”

Joe reached into the inside pocket of his green jacket and produced a clean handkerchief. He placed the handkerchief in Stacy’s hand, then slipped his own arms around her. “You’re probably crying because you love Dio very much, and you had to hurt her just now. But, Stacy?”

She looked up into his face expectantly.

“You’ve got to stick to your guns on this one, because Dio not only loves YOU very much, but she also looks up to you,” Joe continued in a gentle, yet firm tone. “She’s got to know that you’re not going to tolerate that kind of meanness. It’s not going to be easy, Kid, but then being the grown-up never is.”

“I couldn’t have said it better myself.”

Joe and Stacy glanced up just as their father entered the tack room with an odd, bemused smile on his face.

“Pa?”

“Yes, Stacy?”

“Am I in trouble?”

Ben shook his head. “Adam, Teresa, and I managed to piece together something of what happened after hearing what the kids had to say. I just wanted to make sure YOU were all right, and let you know that we’re all in agreement about you not giving Dio anymore riding lessons until she apologizes to Benjy.”

“Thanks . . . Both of You.” Stacy gave her brother an affectionate squeeze then stepped over and hugged Ben. “I don’t feel very good about this whole thing, but I think I feel a little better.”

“We’d best get ourselves into the house,” Ben urged. “Dinner’ll be ready soon.”

“You two go ahead,” Stacy said. “I need to finish stabling Guinevere.”

Ben nodded.

“See you at the table, Little Sister,” Joe said, before leaving in the company of his father.

“Son, you really amaze me sometimes,” Ben said quietly, as they stepped together from the barn into the sunshine.

Joe looked over at his father and grinned. “Oh? How so, Pa?”

“Everything you said to Stacy just now.”

“You heard?”

Ben nodded. “I really meant it when I said that I couldn’t have put it any better.”

“Thanks, Pa.”

“So. Where DID you come by all those words of wisdom you just got through dispensing to your sister?” Ben asked as he slipped a paternal arm about his youngest son’s shoulders.

“Easy.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah!” Joe’s smile broadened. “I just pretended I was YOU.”

The minute his father excused him from the dinner table, Benjy ran upstairs to fetch his book, then bolted outdoors in search of a tall shade tree under which he might sit and read for a little while. He was gratified to learn that his parents, grandparents, even his uncles and the Chinese man, all agreed with Aunt Stacy’s decision not to give Dio anymore riding lessons until she apologized to him for her meanness. However, instead of blaming Aunt Stacy or the others, Dio blamed HIM. She adamantly refused to speak to him, and throughout the entire noon meal, she directed the very worst angry glare that she could possibly summon, right at him.

Benjy walked out past the barn toward that circle of trees, bearing a very strong resemblance to the woods in that horrible nightmare last night. He paused just outside the circle and peered fearfully within. The sun shone down through the overhead canopy of pine needles and branches in long rays of silver gray light, dappling the ground with spots reminiscent of a young fawn’s coat. At the outer edges of the tree circle, deep, impenetrable shadows pooled in nooks, crannies, and crevices formed by tree roots and the uneven ground, lending the entire area within a sinister, forbidding air.

Benjy swallowed, contemplating a quick return to his room to spend the afternoon reading there.

“ ‘Fraidy cat, ‘fraidy cat!”

His sister’s cruel, taunting words sounded once again in his ears, followed by a peal of mean laughter.

“Benjy’s nothing but a big sissy, ‘fraidy cat, crybaby.”

“I am NOT a ‘fraidy cat!” he muttered angrily, under his breath. With book in hand and a sudden, steely determination, Benjy strode resolutely into the midst of the trees and sat down under the tallest ponderosa pine tree, forming the circle. An eerie stillness descended upon him, as he settled himself on the ground, with his back against the tree. With the stillness came a heavy, all pervading silence, not unlike what he experienced in the barn earlier.

As he slowly opened his book, Benjy couldn’t shake the uneasy, eerie feeling of someone watching . . . .

Hello.

Benjy gasped, nearly jumping clear out of his skin. His book flew out of his hands and landed several yards from his feet, near the center of the circle. “Wh-who’s there?” he demanded, his entire body trembling.

“Sorry I scared ya.”

Benjy glanced up sharply, and found, much to his astonishment, a boy kneeling beside him, on his right. Clad only in a pair of faded, worn overalls, he appeared to be slightly older, with a mop of unruly brown curls, a pale face, and hazel eyes, round and staring.

“I found your book.”

“Th-thank you,” Benjy murmured in as steady a voice as he could muster. “You live around here?”

“Yeah, I guess so. You?”

Benjy shook his head. “I live in Sacramento.”

“Sacramento?! Where’s THAT?”

“California.”

The boy gave Benjy a bewildered look, then shook his head. “Is it far away?”

“Kinda, I guess,” Benjy replied. “It took my grandmother, my sister, and me a whole week to travel by stagecoach from Sacramento to Virginia City.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m visiting my grandfather, my uncles, and my aunt,” he said as he marked his place and closed his book.

“Who’s your grandfather?”

“Ben Cartwright.”

“ . . . Cartwright . . . Ben Cartwright . . . . ” the boy murmured softly. “I . . . kinda remember the name . . . but, I don’t remember his face.”

“His real name’s BENJAMIN, but most people call him Ben. My name’s Benjamin, too.”

“Really?” The boy smiled.

Benjy smiled back and nodded his head. “Everyone pretty much calls me Benjy, though . . . . ”

“That’s what folks call ME!” The boy’s smile broadened. “My name’s ALSO Benjamin.”

“Honest?”

“Honest!”

“Benjy?”

The other boy giggled. “Yeah, Benjy?”

“Where do YOU live?”

“Here.”

“On the Ponderosa?”

“No, here. Ponderosa’s over THAT way.” The boy raised his right arm and pointed. “This here’s--- ” He frowned, trying to remember.

“It’s the Ponderosa,” Benjy said, favoring the other boy with a bewildered frown. “My grandpa, my two uncles, and my aunt live in that big log house on the other side of these trees, and the barn.”

“This AIN’T the Ponderosa!” the other Benjy insisted.

“Yes, it IS,” Benjy argued.

“No, it ain’t,” the other boy declared heatedly. “I tell ya Ponderosa’s over there, yonder. This here’s my pa’s land. He even named it, but I . . . I can’t remember.”

“I can prove this is Ponderosa!” Benjy’s own ire began to rise. “If you go out beyond these trees you’ll see the barn AND the house.”

“That’s OUR house!”

“No, it’s NOT your house! It’s my grandpa’s house.”

“Hey, Sport, who’re you talking to?”

Benjy yelped, and whirled in his tracks. He saw Uncle Joe, standing at the very edge of the tree circle.

“Sorry I startled you, Benjy,” Joe apologized as he stepped inside the circle.

“ ‘S ok, Uncle Joe.”

“You all right?”

“Yes, I’m all right now . . . I think . . . . ” Benjy closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

“So, who were you talking to?”

“A boy. His name’s Benjy, too, Uncle Joe.”

“Really?”

Benjy nodded.

“Where’d he go?”

“He’s right here! Benjy, this is— ” Benjy Cartwright turned and found that his companion was gone. He frowned. “I don’t understand . . . he was just here a second ago.”

“He must’ve been in a real big hurry to go,” Joe remarked. “When I stepped up to the outer edge of this tree circle just now, I only saw YOU. No one else.”

“He WAS here, Uncle Joe,” Benjy insisted. “Honest! You heard us talking just now. You even said so.”

“Actually . . . I only heard YOU talking, Benjy,” Joe confessed.

“You . . . you don’t believe me, do you?” Benjy queried in a sullen tone of voice.

“Now don’t you go puttin’ words in my mouth, Young Man,” Joe admonished the boy. His nephew’s words and tone of voice had him feeling oddly on the defensive. “I never said that.”

“I’m sorry, Uncle Joe,” the boy immediately apologized. “It’s just that when you said you didn’t see or hear him . . . . ”

“Just because I didn’t see or hear him, doesn’t mean he wasn’t here,” Joe explained in a kindlier tone. “Could be this other Benjy’s shy. That would explain why he left so quick, and why I never heard him speak. Sometimes people who are REALLY shy don’t speak very loud.”

“I guess . . . . ” Benjy knew a few shy people himself, and knew his uncle spoke true. The only flaw in Uncle Joe’s explanation was that he and the other boy were in the midst of an argument, practically yelling at each other.

“This other Benjy . . . he a new friend?”

Benjy thought the matter over for a moment. “I don’t know.” He shrugged. “Maybe . . . I guess . . . . ”

Joe knew that about a dozen or so of the Ponderosa ranch hands had wives and families. Among the ranch hands’ children were about two or three boys around the same age as his nephew, but none of them were named Benjy. “Maybe the boy’s somebody’s visiting relative,” Joe silently mused. Jacob and Ellen Cromwell were expecting a visit from her sister’s boy, and Edgar Barnes’ two nephews from St. Louis were staying with HIM for the summer. “Benjy?”

“Yes, Uncle Joe?”

“Does your new friend have a last name?”

“He didn’t say.”

On the whole, Joe was gratified by the prospect of Benjy having made the acquaintance of another boy his age. His nephew’s bookishness, stiff bearing, formal manners, and painful shyness, frankly worried him. It relieved him to know that the boy had cultivated enough of the social graces to enable him to make friends. Benjy’s friendship with this OTHER Benjy would also provide him and his sister an opportunity to go their separate ways from time to time, easing some of the tension between them.

“Even so . . . I’d STILL feel a whole heckuva lot better if I knew exactly who this other Benjy is,” Joe mused uneasily, in silence.

“Uncle Joe?”

“Yes, Benjy?”

“Did you want me about something?”

“That was a pretty rough set-to you and your sister had earlier,” Joe said, fully sympathetic. “I saw her looking daggers at you across the table all through dinner. I just wanted to check up on you, make sure you’re all right.”

“I’m fine, Uncle Joe, thank you.”

Joe grinned. “Good! Unless you need or want me for anything, I’ll let you get back to your book.”

“Thank you, Uncle Joe, for checking up on me.”

“My pleasure, Sport. We’re family, after all, and that’s what families do. See ya later.”

“IT’S NOT FAIR!” Dio angrily yelled at the four walls of the small spare room upstairs, her home away from home. “IT’S NOT, IT’S NOT, IT’S NOT!” She stamped her foot, with the full weight of her growing rage and frustration. The force of her foot striking wood floor set the windows and bric-a-brac rattling. Her fury pushed her to the edge of tears.

“It’s not fair!” Dio murmured again, this time very softly, as she wiped her eyes and cheeks with angry disdain, using the heel of her hand. Ma and Pa had promised her she could finally, at long last, learn to ride a horse when they came to spend the summer with Grandpa at the Ponderosa. That was all the way back in September, when school started. She had waited and waited for nearly a whole year. Now, thanks to Benjy, she probably wouldn’t get to learn at all. “It’s not fair!”

A soft knock on the door drew her from her angry musings. “Come in,” she sighed morosely.

She was a little surprised to see Grandpa walk into the room. She had half expected one or both of her parents, especially after that stern lecture from Pa about the dirty looks she had given Benjy throughout the entire noon meal.

“It’s turned out to be such a beautiful afternoon, I thought I’d take a buggy ride,” Ben said, as he seated himself on the edge of the bed beside her. “Would you like to come?”

“I don’t know, Grandpa . . . . ” she replied, troubled and uncertain.

“It would sure beat keeping yourself cooped up inside all afternoon.”

“Is Aunt Stacy coming, too?”

Ben shook his head. “Aunt Stacy, Uncle Joe, and Uncle Hoss are out racing Sun Dancer, getting him ready for the big Independence Day race next week.”

Her face fell. “Oh. What about Benjy?” A dark, angry scowl deeply furrowed her brow when she spoke her brother’s name.

“Before he left to race Sun Dancer, Uncle Joe told me that Benjy’s sitting under a big shady tree somewhere, reading a book. It’s just going to be you and me this time, Dio . . . if you want to come, that is.”

Her face brightened. “Just you and me, Grandpa?”

Ben nodded.

“Ok. Can I drive the horses? Please? I know how. Pa’s been teaching me.”

“I don’t see why not, once we get out on the road,” Ben replied. “Come on, get your shoes on. Before you know it, it’s going to be supper time.”

Dio quickly slipped on her shoes, then happily trotted out of the room alongside her grandfather.

Outside, the buggy was hitched and waiting. Ben lifted his granddaughter up and gently placed her in the passengers’ seat, before climbing up into the driver’s seat. He backed the buggy away from the post to which it and the horse had been tethered, taking things slow and easy. He half expected Dio to be impatiently bouncing off the sides of the buggy by the time he turned the horse and set out toward the road. She almost certainly would have been had they made this trip yesterday. Today, however, she sat quietly on the seat beside him, with her hands folded in her lap.

“Grandpa?”

“Yes, Dio?”

“Where are we going?”

“You know, I hadn’t really given that much thought to where we might go,” Ben replied. “Is there any place YOU’D like to go?”

“Can we go watch Aunt Stacy, Uncle Joe, and Uncle Hoss race Sun Dancer?”

Ben smiled. “We sure can.”

The two of them rode in companionable silence until they reached the main road that led from the Ponderosa toward Virginia City.

“Dio, if I were to make a wild guess, I’d say you think a whole lot of Aunt Stacy,” Ben remarked casually.

Dio smiled. “I love Aunt Stacy the most in the whole wide world,” she declared, her voice carrying a glimmer of the boundless enthusiasm she usually displayed for the people she loved most, and the things of greatest interest. “After Ma and Pa, and you, Grandma, and my other grandpa, that is.”

“Aunt Stacy loves YOU very much, too, Dio.”

The sparkle in her eyes dimmed. “I don’t think she does, Grandpa,” Dio said in a quiet, solemn tone of voice. “Not anymore.”

Ben glanced over at Dio his face a caricatured mask of pure, unadulterated astonishment. “What makes you say that?”

“She said she’s not going to give me any more riding lessons,” Dio said dejectedly, her eyes dropped away from Ben’s face to her small hands, resting in her lap, with fingers interlaced.

“Did she say why?”

Dio frowned. “She said I had to tell Benjy I was sorry for what I said, but I’m not, Grandpa, I’m NOT!” She glanced up sharply, her lips thinned with anger, and her lower jaw set with the same fierce, stubborn determination Ben had seen many, many times in the faces of his own children, particularly this child’s father.

“I see,” Ben murmured softly. “Did Aunt Stacy tell you WHY you have to apologize to Benjy?”

Dio sighed. “It’s because I said he was a big sissy, ‘fraidy cat, crybaby.”

“Those weren’t very nice things to say.”

“I know, Grandpa,” Dio said contritely, “but Benjy made me look stupid in front of Aunt Stacy, just because I said CAN I, instead of MAY I.”

Benjy the smart, studious one, whose idea of a good time was to while away the hours of a lazy afternoon with his nose buried deep in a good book . . . and Dio, a young bundle of high energy and even higher spirits, who would far rather be outdoors, running and playing! They reminded Ben so much of Adam and Joe at their respective ages, it was almost frightening. Unfortunately, their closeness in age, four years as compared to the twelve between their father and uncle, meant that the two children found themselves thrown together a lot more often. Worse, and perhaps even more important, Benjy and Dio had no peacemaker in the middle, as had Adam and Joe.

“Making you look and feel stupid in front of Aunt Stacy wasn’t very nice either,” Ben agreed. “Benjy probably didn’t even realize he was doing that.”

“You mean it was like an accident?”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I mean.”

“Oh.” Dio silently digested the import of her grandfather’s words. At length, she looked up. A lot of the angry, stubborn, defiance, so palpable a scant moment ago, had vanished. “Grandpa?”

“Yes, Dio?”

“The things I said to Benjy WEREN’T like an accident,” she confessed ruefully. “I said those things on purpose. I guess, maybe I SHOULD tell Benjy I’m sorry.”

Ben nodded.

“I will when we get back, Grandpa. I promise,” Dio said, with a determined nod of her head for emphasis. “Can I have my next riding lesson again tomorrow?”

Ben smiled. “You’ll have to ask Aunt Stacy THAT question, but between you and me? I think she’ll probably say yes.”

“ON YOUR MARK . . . GET SET . . . GO!” Candy shouted, firing the starting gun on ‘go.’

Susannah O’Brien and her older brother, Jason, stood side by side on the rocky promontory overlooking the road, watching the race unfold between Joe Cartwright on that magnificent black and her friend, Stacy, riding the golden palomino. They lived with their father, Houston, and older sister, Crystal McShane, both widowed, along with Crystal’s young sons, Robert and Carey, on their own spread, the Shoshone Queen, named for their mother, a full blooded Shoshone, who had died many years ago, when Susannah was a baby. The O’Briens’ ranch was located a few miles south of Virginia City and the Ponderosa.

“Susannah?”

“Yeah, Jason?”

“Who is she?”

“She who?”

“She . . . HER!” Jason, much to her shocked amazement, pointed down toward Stacy and the palomino. “Who is SHE?”

His question prompted a wry roll of the eyes heavenward. “Honestly, Jason . . . . ”

Jason frowned. “What?”

“You really . . . honest ‘n truly . . . DON’T know who she is?!” Susannah exclaimed, incredulous. He had to be pulling her leg.

Jason shook his head. “Is she a relative of the Cartwrights?”

“Yes . . . you COULD say that she’s a . . . relative of the Cartwrights . . . . ”

Jason’s face fell. “Oh no! She’s not ADAM’S wife . . . is she? Pa said Adam and his family were visiting . . . . ”

Susannah immediately shook her head. “Are you kidding? Adam’s wife is OLD, for heaven’s sake. Why I’ll betcha she’s every bit as old as CRYSTAL, if she’s a day . . . maybe even OLDER!”

“I’m sure glad to hear that,” Jason declared with a smile, as he turned again to watch the young woman riding the golden palomino stallion.

“Jason . . . . ”

“NOW what?”

“You really DON’T know her, do you?” Susannah queried, as a devilish smile spread slowly across her lips.

“If I’d met a beautiful woman like her, who could ride a horse like that, I’d NEVER forget her, not in a million years.”

Susannah griped the reins of her horse tightly in both hands to keep from rubbing them together in devilish, villainous glee. “I’ll introduce you, if you’d like,” she offered, taking care to keep her tone neutral.

“You KNOW her?”

“Um hmm,” Susannah replied, nodding her head.

“Yes,” Jason said. His entire face glowed with an inner light. “I WOULD like you to introduce me. When?”

The joyous anticipation she saw mirrored in her brother’s face gave her pause. For one brief, insane moment she wavered on the edge of making a full confession as to the identity of his beautiful mystery woman. The moment quickly passed. “How about NOW?” she queried, in a tone of voice a touch too solemn.

“N-Now . . . as in . . . r-right now?!”

“Why not, Jason? There’s no time like the present, after all . . . . ” With that, she gently urged her mount down the narrow path, leading to the road below.

Ben, meanwhile, spotted his older sons, Adam and Hoss, up ahead, seated atop their mounts, Sport II and Chubb, respectively. Both horses stood quietly well off the road as Bonnie Prince Charlie and Sun Dancer thundered toward them, drawing closer and closer, with each passing second.

“Dio, you’d better let ME take the reins now,” Ben said.

“Ok, Grandpa,” Dio acquiesced. She quickly brought the two horses pulling their buggy to a halt, then passed the reins to her grandfather.

Ben immediately moved the buggy off the road, drawing up alongside Adam and Hoss a few minutes later.

“Pa, if I didn’t know better, I’d say that Sun Dancer had just sprouted wings and was flying,” Adam said, astonished and awed.

“How can you be so sure he AIN’T flyin’, Adam?” Hoss queried with a smile.

“To be perfectly honest, Big Brother, I’m NOT sure,” Adam retorted with a smile.

“They’re comin’ down the last stretch, Pa . . . . ”

Ben set the brake, and rose, shielding his eyes against the bright sun. He could see Stacy and Sun Dancer pulling ahead of Joe and Bonnie Prince.

“Grandpa, I can’t see!” Dio wailed in complete and utter dismay.

Adam glanced down, noticing his daughter’s presence for the first time. “Why don’t you come up here and sit with me, Princess?” he invited, patting the saddle in front of him. “You’ll be able to see everything from up here.”

“Can I, Pa?” Dio ventured, suddenly shy.

Adam smiled and held out both hands.

Ben lifted his granddaughter and handed over into her father’s waiting arms. Adam placed Dio on the saddle in front of him, then returned his attention to the race at hand.

“COME ON, AUNT STACY!” Dio shouted, her dark eyes glowing with excitement. “COME ON, SUN DANCER!”

Stacy and Sun Dancer led by two and a half lengths over Joe and Bonnie Prince Charlie, slowly, inexorably stretching to three, then three and a half.

“Pa, Sun Dancer really IS flying!” Adam declared as the lead stretched to four, then five lengths.

“Sun Dancer’s gonna leave Blake Wilson’s General Ulysses eatin’ his dust, that’s for dadburn sure,” Hoss declared with a proud smile.

Joe nudged Bonnie Prince Charlie to run faster. With his mouth and jaw both set with grim determination, he began to close the lead, down from four and a half lengths, to four, then three.

“COME ON, AUNT STACY!” Dio shouted. “COME ON, SUN DANCER! YOU CAN DO IT! YOU CAN BEAT ‘EM!”

Stacy nudged Sun Dancer to pour on his top speed. He easily regained the ground lost and increased to five and a half, five and three quarters, six lengths, then seven. He finally passed Hoss nearly eight lengths ahead of Bonnie Prince Charlie.

“YAY! AUNT STACY WON!” Dio cheered. “AUNT STACY WON!”

“She and Sun Dancer sure did, Dio!” Ben said, grinning from ear-to-ear with healthy doses of parental pride and the eager, almost childlike anticipation of his own competitive nature. “I can’t wait to see Blake Wilson’s face when Stacy and Sun Dancer cross that finish line miles ahead of Matt on General Ulysses.”

“Grandpa?”

“Yes, Dio?”

“Aren’t Uncle Joe and Aunt Stacy coming back here?”

“No,” Ben shook his head. “Sun Dancer and Bonnie Prince Charlie need to cool down after running so fast. Aunt Stacy and Uncle Joe are going to let the horses cool down on their way back home.”

“”Princess?”

“Yes, Pa?”

“You and I can catch up to ‘em on Sport here, if you wish,” Adam offered.

Dio thought the matter over, then shook her head. “We’d better not, Pa, ‘cause I need to talk to YOU.”

“Hey, Pa, we got company!” Hoss inclined his head toward two approaching riders, a tall, muscular young man a few years younger than Joe, and a young woman the same age as Stacy. Both sat tall in the saddle, with a natural, straight, almost regal posture. “Looks like Susannah ‘n Jason.”

“Jason?” Ben queried with a raised eyebrow.

Hoss nodded.

“I didn’t know he’d arrived home for the summer,” Ben mused thoughtfully.

“I think he was due in a day or two before Mrs. di Cordova came with Benjy ‘n Dio,” Hoss said.

Adam turned and stared, his dark eyes round with surprise. “THAT’S Susannah and Jason O’Brien?!” he echoed, incredulous.

“Yep!” Hoss nodded.

Adam shook his head. “Last time I saw Jason, he couldn’t been much older than Benjy is now, and Susannah . . . . ”

“Time flies when you’re having fun, Adam,” Ben teased.

“So it would seem . . . . ”

“Hi, Mister Cartwright . . . Hoss!” Susannah greeted the Cartwright clan patriarch and his biggest son cheerfully, with a bright smile. She turned toward the eldest of the Cartwright offspring and studied him for a long moment. “Adam?”

“At your service, Susannah,” Adam replied with a wry smile.

“I must say you’ve filled out quite nicely,” Susannah quipped without missing a beat. Her eyes strayed pointedly toward Adam’s girth.

“Susannah, manners!” Jason admonished his younger sister with a smile. “Hi, Mister Cartwright . . . Hoss. Good seeing YOU again, Adam.”

“Good seeing you, too, Jason,” Adam responded with a wry smile. “It’s a shame I can’t say the same about your sister.”

“Would you rather I had remarked on how well you had AGED?” Susannah retorted playfully.

Jason, meanwhile, turned to Dio and smiled. “Who’s THIS beautiful young lady?”

“My name’s Dolores Elizabeth Cartwright,” Dio politely introduced herself. “You can call me Dio. That’s what everybody else calls me. Adam Cartwright’s my pa.”

“Pleased to meet you, Dio. My name is Jason O’Brien, and this is my sister, Susannah.”

“You admit it, Jason?” Adam teased, drawing a dark glare from Susannah.

“Are you two Indians?” Dio asked.

Jason smiled. “Our ma was a Shoshone.”

“Was she a chief?” Dio asked, awed by the prospect of having just met a couple of real live, honest-to-goodness Indians.

“No,” Jason replied. “Our mother wasn’t a chief, but her father and grandfather were.”

“Jason . . . Susannah, would you like to come back to the house?” Ben invited. “Hop Sing baked up a big batch of chocolate chip cookies early this morning.”

“We’d LOVE to!” The O’Briens immediately chorused in unison.

Joe Cartwright finished brushing Bonnie Prince Charlie’s glossy black coat, then rubbed his long muzzle affectionately. “You did good today, Your Highness, you did REAL good! Time now to mosey on over to your stall for a well de— Hey!”

Stacy, in the midst of brushing Sun Dancer, glanced up sharply. “What’s the matter with YOU, Grandpa?”

“His Highness here won’t go into his stall,” Joe said, mystified.

Stacy frowned. “Why not?”

“Beats me!” Joe led the magnificent black gelding over to the nearest support beam and tethered his lead. He, then, returned to the stall and began to gingerly poke around through the straw covering the floor.

“Find anything?” Stacy asked, as Joe stepped out of the stall.

“Nope!” Joe shrugged and shook his head. “It’s a little chilly over here, though.”

“Oh?” Stacy looked over at her brother askance.

“Probably just a draft through a small mouse hole.” Joe shrugged it off. “After all that running around he just got through doing, I think I’ll put him in the empty stall over here, next to Blaze Face.”

Stacy finished brushing Sun Dancer and lead him to his own stall.

“I wonder what’s keeping Pa and the others?” Joe mused aloud as he and Stacy set themselves to the task of giving all the horses fresh hay and changing their water. “They should’ve been back by now.”

“Pa, I’m going to tell Benjy I’m sorry,” Dio told her father, as they set off together on Sport II, ahead of the others.

“I’m very happy to hear you say that,” Adam said, with all sincerity. “May I ask you a question?”

“Ok,” Dio replied with an indifferent shrug.

“What made you change your mind?”

“Grandpa and I talked about it,” Dio replied. “He told me that Benjy probably didn’t know he was being so mean. Like an accident.”

“Hmm. Your grandpa could be right about that,” Adam readily agreed.

“But, I WAS trying to be mean, Pa,” Dio continued, “ ‘cause I thought BENJY was being mean. That’s why I have to tell him I’m sorry.”

“You can do that when we get back to the house,” Adam said, making a mental note to speak to Benjy about this business of correcting his sister’s grammar, or anything else for that matter, in front of other people, especially in front of someone Dio admired. Benjy owed his sister an apology as well.

Joe and Stacy stepped from the barn into the waning late afternoon sunshine, just as Adam and Dio rounded the back corner of the barn and turned into the yard. “It’s about time the lot of you got back here, Oldest Brother,” Joe greeted Adam with an amused grin.

“We got way laid by neighbors,” Adam replied, as he brought Sport II to a stop. Stacy quietly moved forward to take the reins while Adam dismounted, then turned to help his daughter down. Dio immediately set off in search of her brother.

“Way laid by neighbors, eh?” Joe echoed, favoring his oldest brother with an amused grin. “Which neighbors?”

“The O’Briens . . . Jason and Susannah,” Adam replied, taking the reins back from his sister. “Word to the wise! Watch out for Susannah! That young warrior princess has the tongue of an adder.”

Ben drove the buggy into the yard a few moments later, with Susannah O’Brien riding beside him. Her horse, Star Fire, was tethered to the back. Jason and Hoss followed behind. Jacob Cromwell, with Mitch Cranston and Charlie Osbourne in tow, came to unhitch the buggy and stable the horses.

Susannah, meanwhile, had jumped down from the buggy, and within seconds caught her friend, Stacy, up in a big bear hug, that was returned with equal affection and enthusiasm.

“I thought I wasn’t going to see you until the race next week,” Stacy said smiling.

“Jason and I saw Sun Dancer out on the road,” Susannah said, returning her friend’s smile. “He’s gonna be out, around the tree, and back before Mister Wilson’s General Ulysses takes two steps!”

“That’s what Hoss says!”

“I’D give you a good run for your money on our Comstock King, but Crystal won’t let me.”

“Why not?”

“Because SHE insists on riding Comstock King herself,” Susannah replied with a melancholy sigh, then brightened. “You’d better watch out, too, ‘cause Crystal’s out to win.”

“Well you can tell her for me, that Sun Dancer and I are out to win, too.”

“I will,” Susannah eagerly promised. “In the meantime, I have someone with me who wants very much to meet you.”

“You do?!” Stacy scanned the faces in front of her with a frown. Pa, Hoss, Joe, and Jason . . . she knew them all.

Susannah took Stacy by the hand and marched over to where Jason stood talking with Hoss and Ben. “Jason, this is the young woman you asked to meet?”

Jason glanced up, favoring Stacy with a warm smile.

“Jason, I’d like you to meet Stacy Cartwright,” she said with a deliciously evil grin. Her eyes danced and gleamed with impish delight. “Stacy, I think YOU, ummm . . . RECOGNIZE . . . my brother, Jason?”

The warm smile quickly changed to one of shocked astonishment, coupled with openly frank admiration. “St-Stacy?! I . . . I . . . you . . . . ” Jason stammered. “When . . . when did y-you . . . . ?!?”

“I’m pleased to meet you, too, Jason,” Stacy wryly acknowledged Susannah’s introduction with an amused smile.

“When I left f-for college . . . y-you . . . you were . . . you were just a KID!” A skinny kid, all arms and legs, who had just sprouted to her present height. That growth spurt had accentuated her thinness. “N-Now . . . . ”

“Now you come home a couple of years later and you don’t even recognize me. Tell you the truth, I don’t know whether I should be flattered or insulted,” Stacy said, as she took him gently by the arm and steered him toward the house.

“While you’re thinking THAT one over, I’M going to think over how I’m gonna kill my sister,” Jason vowed, directing a baleful glare at his mischievous younger sister.

Susannah flashed Jason a smug cat-that-ate-the-cream grin and thumbed her nose for extra measure. Jason retaliated by sticking out his tongue.

“Susannah, I don’t believe this business of introducing Jason to Stacy,” Joe said, smiling, as he fell in step beside her. “He honestly didn’t recognize her? At all?”

“Nope.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you have a delightfully evil mind?

“Not in so many words and definitely not as a compliment,” Susannah retorted, grinning from ear-to-ear. “Thank you.”

Adam quietly followed Joe and Susannah into the house, while Ben and Hoss, moving a bit slower than the rest brought up the rear.

“Pa?”

“What is it, Hoss?”

The gentle giant looked over at his father, smiling. “Kinda looks like ol’ Jason’s really smitten with our gal, don’t it?”

“It sure does,” Ben was forced to agree, if grudgingly. “It sure as shootin’ does!”

“Benjy? Benjy, are you in here?” Dio called out as she entered the barn. She had already searched the house, the yard, even the corral for her brother, but had thus far come up empty handed. She asked Grandma and Hop Sing, but neither one of them seemed to know where Benjy was.

“I remember Uncle Joe saying that Benjy was out sitting under a tree reading his book,” Ma had said when Dio asked her.

The closest strand of trees, however, were those real big ones out behind the barn. Yesterday, when she and Aunt Stacy rode past there, she noticed at once how dark it appeared within that rough circle formed by those trees. She also remembered Aunt Stacy and Blaze Face giving that whole area a wide, respectful berth. Dio fervently hoped and prayed that Benjy would turn up in the barn, however ridiculous that notion may be.

“Benjy?” Dio poked her head into the tack room. She saw all the saddles placed on their blocks, bridles and halters neatly hanging from their proper hooks on the opposite wall, the horse blankets folded and stacked on a long shelf stretching the entire length of the wall into which the door opened. But there was no sign at all of Benjy.

Dio turned and moved through the main portion of the barn, where the horses were stabled. She recognized Blaze Face, Chubb, Cochise, Buck, her pa’s favorite, Sport II, Gentleman Jim, and of course, Guinevere and Sun Dancer. The horses her grandfather used to pull the buckboard, and buggy were also stabled, as was the black horse who lost that race to Sun Dancer a short while ago. Bonnie Prince, everyone called him. Dio frowned, upon realizing that the black horse wasn’t in his usual stall. She glanced down at the end of the row, and discovered, much to her surprise, that Bonnie Prince’s stall was empty. Curious, she walked over to investigate.

The closer Dio drew to Bonnie Prince Charlie’s empty stall, the colder it seemed to be. She was shivering by the time she reached the stall. “Th-this is c-crazy!” she grumbled under her breath, her teeth chattering. “It’s SWELTERING outside!”

She walked up to the stall entrance, and peered inside. There was clean straw on the floor for bedding and fresh hay to eat. Folding her arms tightly across her chest she entered the stall and peered into the water trough. The water was clean and clear, evidence that it had been recently changed, as well. Why had the Bonnie Prince been moved to that stall next to Blaze Face? Was it because of this strange cold?

“What are YOU doing here?” a voice, as ice cold as the air around Bonnie Prince Charlie’s empty stall, demanded.

Dio started, and whirled in her tracks. “Benjy Cartwright!” she said angrily. “You scared me to— ” She gasped. There was no one there. She stood, as if rooted to the spot, staring wide eyed and open mouthed, all the while vigorously rubbing her exposed forearms.

“Get out!” This time, the voice came from inside the stall.

Dio nearly jumped right out of her skin. She turned again, with heart slamming hard against her rib cage. The stall was empty. She automatically took a step backward, then another, away from Bonnie Prince Charlie’s stall.

She heard the sound of a child’s laughter, soft at first, like the sound of water moving over a rocky bed. There was no joy in this laughter, no sense of fun or play. It was very much like Johnny Whitman’s laugh the day he slowly tortured to death a baby bird that had fallen from its nest during morning recess. It seemed to be coming from behind her.

“B-Benjy?” Dio murmured her brother’s name, as she turned slowly, still shivering. There was no one there. Except for the horses, who were beginning to grow a little edgy themselves, she was alone. “BENJY, WHERE ARE YOU?” Dio shouted, her eyes darting from pillar to post, in manner not unlike those of a trapped wild animal.

The laughter slowly, steadily rose in volume. It seemed to be coming from Bonnie Prince Charlie’s stall one minute, then from behind her the next. The two horses that had pulled the buggy for herself and her grandpa, snorted softly as they began to restlessly move as allowed by the confines of their stalls, flanking either side of the Bonnie Prince’s empty one.

“BENJY, STOP IT!” Dio screamed, her wide staring eyes and pallid complexion mirroring the terror now mushrooming by leaps and bounds within her. “YOU STOP IT RIGHT NOW, OR . . . OR I’LL TELL MA AND PA!”

The laughter grew and swelled, until it seemed to be coming from everywhere in the barn all at once.

“Stop it, Benjy!” the voice cruelly mimicked her own. “Stop it right now, or I’ll tell Ma and Pa.”

One of the horses, Grandpa had used to pull the buggy, began to kick at the fast closed lower door that kept him confined within the enclosure of his stall. Cochise whinnied back nervously, as did Chubb.

“BENJY, STOP IT! IT’S NOT FUNNY!” Dio yelled, on the verge of tears.

“NOW who’s the big sissy, ‘fraidy cat, crybaby?” the voice sneered.

Dio abruptly turned heel and bolted for the open door. She had scarcely gone half a dozen steps when the barn door hinges began to squeak and groan. She froze. The barn door shuddered, then began to move, very slowly, of its own volition. Dio tried to move, to run, but her legs remained immobile, as if she had just taken root. All she could do was stand there and watch helplessly, with mounting horror, as the dark shadows in the barn slowly but surely swallowed up her only means of escape.

The mocking, derisive laughter grew louder, and louder. Cochise, Buck, even the gentle, easy-going Guinevere began to kick against the confines of their own stalls. Dio’s surroundings blurred and dissolved under a watery sheen of tears, and her desperate pleas quickly degenerated to unintelligible screams, intensely primal, more bestial than human.

“I’ll be working for Pa and Crystal for the rest of the summer and on into the fall, until after our cattle drive is over,” Jason said, as he reached for another chocolate chip cookie. “They’ve decided to pay me wages, most of which I’m putting aside so I can go back and complete my education. After the round up’s over, I’ll be working at the post office in town—”

Suddenly, Stacy, sandwiched between Jason and her brother, Joe, on the settee gasped. Her entire body went rigid.

“Yeah . . . . ” Joe murmured softly, his own posture straightening. “Something’s wrong!”

“Dio!” Adam and Teresa gasped in unison, as they exchanged uneasy glances.

“Come on!” Hoss moved out from his place behind the red, leather chair, occupied by Dolores di Cordova, and barreled across the room toward the front door with surprising speed and agility given a man of his height and mass. Stacy and Joe immediately leapt to their feet and ran after their biggest brother as fast as their legs could carry them.

“Stay here!” Adam said to his wife, his voice terse with urgency. He followed on the heels of his two youngest siblings.

“Ben? I . . . don’t understand . . . . ” Dolores shook her head, trying to make sense of the Cartwright offspring’s’ sudden departure.

“Something’s . . . going on with our horses,” Ben replied. “Hoss, Joe, and Stacy have developed something of a sixth sense when it comes to their own, and mine, too . . . and from the way Adam and Teresa are acting, it would appear that Dio’s right in the middle of it.” He slowly rose from his place in the blue chair. “Please excuse me. I’d better go lend them a hand.”

“Mister Cartwright, if you can use an extra hand, I’m volunteering,” Jason offered.

“Me, too, Mister Cartwright,” Susannah chimed in.

“Thank you,” Ben said gratefully. “I’ll take all the help I can get.”

The instant Hoss set foot outside, his sharp ears picked up the percussive pounding of hooves against wood stalls, and something else. “Dio!” he whispered, in shocked astonishment. With mouth and chin grimly set, he redoubled he speed, reaching the closed door in seconds.

“DIO!? DIO, IT’S UNCLE HOSS! I’LL HAVE YA OUTTA THERE IN A JIFFY!” he shouted at the top of his lungs, to make himself heard over the rising din of his young niece’s near hysterical screaming and panicked horses beating against the confines of their stalls with their hooves. He seized hold of the handle and pulled. Much to his surprise and consternation, the door wouldn’t budge so much as a fraction of an inch. He pulled again, and again. The door remained firmly in place.

“Hoss, what’s the matter?” Joe demanded tersely, as he and Stacy reached the barn door.

“Dadburn it! I can’t get this door open,” Hoss replied, his voice filled with astonishment and dread. He wrapped the fingers of his other hand tightly around the handle and pulled again.

“Come on, Hoss, get your back into it!”

“I AM, Li’l Brother,” Hoss said defensively, as he continued to tug with all his might.

“Is there something we can use as a lever?” Joe mused aloud, his eyes casting about the ground surrounding him.

“There!” Stacy said tersely, pointing. Lying just on the ground, just inside the corral fence was a good stout tree branch. She bent down, retrieved it, then turned and ran back toward her brothers all in the same quick, fluid movement.

Joe gratefully nodded his thanks as he accepted the tree limb from his sister. Hoss’ straining and pulling succeeded in moving the door nearly half an inch. Joe jammed the narrowest end of the branch into the small crack and pushed with all his might, trying to help Hoss widen that opening.

“Stacy, what’s going on?” Ben demanded tersely, upon reaching his three younger children.

“The barn door’s stuck, Pa—”

Ben looked over at his daughter askance. “What do you mean that door’s stuck?!”

“Hoss and Joe both have been pushing and pulling for all they’re worth, but that’s as far as they’ve been able to get it open.”

Adam reached his father and younger siblings an instant later. “Pa . . . Stacy, what’s—” Suddenly, he froze as his own ears zeroed in on his daughter’s terrified screams. Both Ben and Stacy saw the blood drain right out of his face, leaving his complexion an ashen gray. “Oh my God! Dio!”

Three giant steps brought Adam alongside his youngest brother, still laboring frantically to help Hoss widen the opening. With a fierce scowl on his face, his mouth set in a thin, determined, angry line, he shoved Joe aside with a hard, powerful thrust of his arm.

The branch fell out of Joe’s hands, landing on the ground behind him with a dull thud. Joe suddenly found himself stumbling backward. He frantically waved his hands in ever widening circles, fighting desperately to regain his balance, to no avail. His right heel smacked up against the fallen tree branch, bringing him down hard on his backside.

Adam, meanwhile, wrapped his large hands and long fingers around the edge of the door handle, grasping hold as hard as he possibly could. Gritting his teeth, he dug his heels firmly in the surrounding earth and pulled, throwing the entire weight of his body into the move. Suddenly, the door opened with enough force to send both Adam and Hoss toppling to the ground.

Dio, blinded by tears and hysteria, bolted from the barn, screaming. Adam scrambled to his feet and set off after her at a dead run.

End of Part 1

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