Ben

“I wasn’t sure you’d come,” I said quietly to my youngest son.

It was been just over a week since we’d gotten the wire from Hoss.  The wire had given me no information.  Hoss isn’t much of a writer even when he’s got plenty of time, and the message was as disturbing as any I’ve ever received.

COME TO SAN FRANCISCO AS SOON AS POSSIBLE STOP URGENT PROBLEM WITH JOE STOP WILL EXPLAIN WHEN YOU GET HERE STOP

I’d wired back immediately, wanting to know what type of problem.  Hoss’ response was vague, but he confirmed that my youngest son was not ill.  Not that it mattered.  Hoss doesn’t overreact.  He and Joe are so close that I couldn’t imagine a problem with Joe that Hoss couldn’t handle.  So, in a way, it didn’t actually matter what was happening:  we were going to San Francisco.  I say “we,” because Adam refused to hear of remaining at home.

Even once we’d arrived, I still couldn’t get an explanation about what had happened.  I wasn’t sure Hoss fully understood it, either.  He wouldn’t say much, only that something had happened to upset Joe and the boy had disappeared and it was all Hoss’ fault.

“Do you have any idea where he is?” I asked.  I couldn’t ever recall seeing Hoss so distressed.

“No, sir,” Hoss said.  “He jest left this note.”  He handed it to me.  The note was smeared and crumpled from much handling, and Joseph’s handwriting isn’t easy to read in the best of circumstances.  Still, I had no problem deciphering the words my son had written, although his message escaped me:

Hoss-

I’m sorry.  Tell Pa and Adam I’m sorry.  I’ll be staying here.  It’s for the best.

I wish I could have done better by all of you.  I understand.  It’s not your fault.  Take care of each other.

Have a safe trip back to the Ponderosa.

Joe

P.S.  I had to borrow some money.  I’ll send it back to you as soon as I can.

Adam looked pensive.  “Have you checked that saloon where he used to work?”

Hoss flinched as if Adam had struck him.  “They say he hasn’t been there,” he said.  Maybe it was something in his eyes, but I had the feeling someone had said a whole lot more to him.

“Let me try,” Adam said.  I suspected he’d seen the same thing I had.  He picked up his hat and gunbelt.  “I’ll be back.”

He returned an hour later to report that he’d waited outside until Ruthie came and had asked her to convey a message.  “Tell my little brother that our father is at the hotel and would like to see him,” he’d told her.

“When will she see him?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” said Adam.  “I had the feeling it wouldn’t be too long.  It wouldn’t surprise me if she knows just where he is.”

“Are you certain he wasn’t in there?”

“She said he wasn’t, and I didn’t see him,” said Adam.  “If he was there, he was hiding pretty well.  We’ll see how Ruthie does.  If Joe doesn’t come by in the next day or so, I’ll pay her another visit.”

As it turned out, there was no need.  Later that afternoon, when Adam had dragged Hoss out for a walk along the pier, there was a quiet knock.  My heart pounded as I opened the door.

“Hello,” Joe said, as if to a stranger.  The shadow of a bruise lingered on his cheekbone.

“I wasn’t sure you’d come,” I said quietly.  I wanted to reach out, to hold my boy tightly.  But he stood just over arm’s-length away, and he wasn’t coming closer.  So, I respected his distance without quite knowing why.

“I’m here,” he said.  His manner was just as distant.

Since he was tiny, I’ve been looking in his eyes for clues.  With Joe, that’s where you look if you want to know the truth.  Even if he manages to keep his face from showing his feelings, his eyes give him away every time.  I’ve seen them show every emotion known to man, from outrageous joy to the blackest grief.  They flash with life and love.  They are the most reliable barometer of his heart that I know.  Today, what I saw shook me more than any earthquake.

My son’s green eyes were hard.  Cold.  Dead.

“Please, sit down.”  I wasn’t at all certain he would, but he did.  “Would you like some coffee?”  It was like entertaining a stranger.

“No, thanks.”  His voice was as dead as his eyes.

My heart ached.  I sat next to him on the settee.  He didn’t move, closer or away.  He kept looking straight ahead.  It was as if I hadn’t sat at all.  “Son, what happened?”

He said nothing for a long minute.  I waited.  Finally, he asked, “What did Hoss say?”

“He said you’ve decided to stay in San Francisco.”

“That’s right.”  We could have been talking about the weather, or cattle prices, or any of a dozen other innocuous topics, for all the emotion in his voice.

“Will you tell me why?”  I tried to be gentle.  I wanted to put my arm around him, but the rigid way he held himself told me that my touch was not welcome.  After a minute, I rested my hand on his shoulder anyway.  He didn’t pull away, but he didn’t lean into me as he would normally do, either.  Briefly, he closed his eyes, as if in pain.  Other than that, it was as if I’d done nothing at all.

“What did Hoss tell you?”

“Very little.”  It was true.  Hoss was consumed with his own guilt.  All he said was that he’d been wrong.  I needed to hear the story from Joe.  “Tell me,” I whispered.

“I got drunk,” he said at last.  It was a confession and a challenge, all in one:  I did this incredibly stupid, dangerous thing.  What are you doing to do about it?

It was my turn to close my eyes.  Foolishly, I’d thought this battle was behind us.  “What happened?” I asked, with different meaning this time.  I wanted to know what drove him to throw away his hard-won sobriety.  He’d been so careful for so long.  I knew that he hadn’t done this by accident.

Joe shook his head.  He wasn’t going to answer the question.  That much was clear.

“Have you had anything to drink since then?”  I didn’t want to harp on it, but I wouldn’t pretend I wasn’t worried.  Hoss hadn’t seen him in over a week.  Anything could have happened in that time.  I didn’t know why some men could stop drinking at any time and for others, it seemed almost like an addiction.  I only knew that my youngest son seemed to be in the latter group.

“No.”  No explanation, but no offense taken, either.  That was something, I supposed.

I tried a different tack.  “What happened with Hoss?”

He stood abruptly.  “You need to talk to him.”  He picked up his hat and headed for the door.  He’d never taken off his jacket or gunbelt the whole time.

“Just a minute, young man.”  I didn’t want to assert my fatherly authority-it felt too harsh, too overbearing-but I’d do it rather than let my boy walk out of that room and, as far as I knew, out of my life.  “I asked you a question, Joseph, and I want an answer.”

He turned to face me.  The dead eyes brimmed with tears.  “Ask Hoss,” he said hoarsely.  He turned away and started to open the door.

“I’m asking you.”  In two steps, I’d crossed the room and slammed the door shut.  Pinning him against it, I said, “I want an answer, and I want it now.  Tell me what happened with Hoss.”

His head was bowed, his forehead against the door.  I laid one hand on his shoulder.  He pulled away, flattening himself against the door.  “I can’t,” he said.  “I can’t.”  He wasn’t being obstinate or rebellious.  The deadness in his voice was being strangled by pain.

“Joseph,” I breathed.  I tried to turn him around, to hold him, but he jerked away.

“Just let me go, please.”  It was as close to begging as I’d ever heard from my son, and it tore at my heart.  I stepped back, releasing my hold on the door.

Without another word, my son slipped out into the hallway and was gone.

And that was when I realized that not once had he called me “Pa.”

Adam and Hoss returned from their walk a short time later.  I told them about Joe’s visit.  Hoss sat down heavily, apparently overcome with the realization that he’d missed his brother by mere minutes.

I sat across from him and looked him in the eye.  “I need to know what happened,” I said firmly.  “You have to tell me everything.  Now.”

Adam

We all sat in silence when Hoss finished his story.  It didn’t make sense, any of it.  Maybe Hoss was wrong to get quite so angry, but I could see how he’d have panicked.  I’ll never forget how bad Joe looked when we found him in that seedy little room.  He was dying from drink.  All the doctors thought it was a miracle that he wasn’t already dead.  I don’t think Joe ever knew how many days and nights Hoss spent beside his hospital bed, holding his hand and talking him through the agony of withdrawal, wiping sweat from his fevered brow and never letting on that there was any chance Joe might not make it.  If those two hadn’t already had a special bond, I think that might have done it.  It made sense that the idea of Joe going through that again-of all of us going through it again-could have made Hoss lose control.

But for the life of me, I couldn’t see how Joe was so distraught about what Hoss had done.  Sure, Hoss lost his temper, but he’s done that before.  People underestimate Hoss.  He may be gentle most of the time, and he may have a long fuse, but you don’t want to be the one who pushes him so far that he finally gets angry.  Believe me.  I’ve done it, and I’ve had the bruises to show for it.  This sounded like a typical Hoss-style blow-up:  a few moments of temper, followed by a wagonload of remorse.  Joe knows that pattern as well as any of us.  Besides, Joe came back to the room under his own steam, with Hoss, and he let Hoss put him to bed and tend to him.  Even drunk, my little brother isn’t fool enough to do that with someone he doesn’t trust.

The only answer was that something happened after that.  So I asked.

Hoss shook his head.  “Nothing,” he said.  “He talked for a little bit and fell asleep.  Didn’t make no sense.  Kept beating himself up about how he was just a worthless drunk and not good enough for anybody to want around.  It just broke my heart to hear him.”

“What did you say?”

“I told him to just go to sleep, and we’d talk in the morning.  I couldn’t say nothin’ else.  He went to sleep right away.  An’ I just sat there, feeling so plumb awful about what I’d done to him.  After a while, I went to bed.  When I woke up, he was just leaving, and there was the note.”

We all sat there without speaking.  There was still something not making sense.  I had absolute confidence that Hoss had told me each and every event, but something was still missing.  And the only one who could fill in that blank space was Joe.

“I’ll be back,” I said.  I figured Pa and Hoss had plenty to talk about without me.

I didn’t know Joe’s regular places in San Francisco, other than the saloon, so I started there.

“He ain’t here,” said the bartender.

“When was he last here?” I asked.  The bartender looked me up and down and said nothing.  I slid a ten-dollar bill across the bar.  He pocketed it.

“The night he was here with his big brother,” he said.

“He hasn’t been back at all since?  Not even for a minute?”

“Not since.  Didn’t figure the big one would stand for it, I guess.  That one got pretty riled last time.”

I thanked the bartender and left.  I wracked my brain, trying to remember the name of that church where he’d almost gotten a job.  An Episcopal church, named for some saint.  I had no idea where it was, but I figured it must have been within walking distance of where he used to live.  I remembered being at his room that night we found him, so I headed that direction.  Maybe somebody in Joe’s old neighborhood would know where the church was.

It took some doing, because all those tenements look alike, but I found the building where he and Robin had lived.  I was standing in front of it, trying to figure out which direction to go, when the door opened, and my brother came out and stopped dead when he saw me.

“I was looking for you,” I said.  He just stood there.  He wasn’t giving anything away.  “Is this where you live now?”  He nodded.  “Well, then, let’s go inside.  You and I need to have a little talk.”  I reached for his arm, but he jerked it away.  Ten years ago, he’d have bolted down the sidewalk to get away from me.

“I can’t,” he said.  “I have to go to work.”

Dread flooded through me.  As casually as I could manage with my heart in my throat, I asked, “Are you back at the Singing Dove?”

Joe shook his head.  “I’m not that stupid,” he said quietly.

I didn’t know how to answer him.  Finally, I said, “Can you be a few minutes late?  I really need to talk to you.”

Joe regarded me for a long minute.  I couldn’t tell what he was thinking.  Ironic.  Time was when anything in his mind would have been readable on his face.  My little brother was the worst secret-keeper I’d ever met.  He’d always tell you far more than you ever had any desire to hear.  But now, when I actually wanted to know what was going on in his head, he was as inscrutable as some old Indian chief.  It was as if someone had drained Joseph Cartwright of all the life and passion that made him who he was, and they’d left behind some older, emotionless shell.

Finally, abruptly, he turned to go back into the building.  At the door, he paused briefly, not looking back.  I understood that this was all the invitation I would receive.  Without a word, I followed him as he led the way inside.

We climbed the narrow stairs to the third floor.  The place still smelled musty, of mold and mildew and dust and peeling paint.  How he could stand to be here was beyond me.  I couldn’t imagine what was so bad that this was the preferable alternative.  I stood behind my brother in the narrow hallway as he turned the key to unlock a door that I could have opened with a half-hearted kick.

Nobody had bothered cleaning the room in some time.  The cheap bureau was scratched and dusty.  The warped mirror on the wall was streaked.  Dust balls lurked in the corners.  The only evidence of Joe was his satchel on the lone chair, and the bed, typically unmade, the threadbare coverlet tossed aside.  I moved his satchel to the floor and sat on the chair.  “Have a seat,” I said.  It was less of an invitation than an order, and he heard it as such.  He remained standing.

“Joe, I need for you to tell me what happened,” I said.

“Ask Hoss,” he said.  If the voice hadn’t been so dead, it would have been belligerent.

“I did,” I said.  “And from what he told me, I can’t figure out how you two reached this point.  So either he got something wrong, or he left something out.  You need to fill in the gaps.”  He said nothing.  I stood and approached him, softening my voice.  “Joe, if this is where you really want to be, we’ll respect that.  But I don’t think it is.”  I’d moved closer as I spoke, until I was standing right in front of him.  Just like when he was a kid, I lifted his chin, forcing him to meet my eyes.

“Tell me what happened,” I whispered.  The chin in my hand quivered.  I held firm as tears welled up in my little brother’s eyes.  I tried to put my arms around him, but he delivered a solid left to my stomach, and I doubled over, releasing him.  He sprang for the door.  I tackled him, pinning him to the floor.  He tried to flip me over his head, but there wasn’t enough space in the tiny room, and he just knocked me into the wall.  I scrambled to my feet and hauled him to his, trying to be careful of his cracked ribs.  He took a swing at me and missed.  I delivered a sound right cross to his jaw that knocked him backward, onto the bed.  He started to get up.  I grabbed his arms and held him fast.

“Listen to me!  Cut it out!  I mean it!”  He struggled a little bit.  Then, just like that, all the fight went out of him.  I’d never seen him cave in so fast.  I knew then how much this whole thing had taken out of him.  I sat down next to him.  He was almost doubled over, arms crossed tightly across himself as if he were in pain.  “Are you all right?  Did I hurt you?”  I tried to get him to straighten up so that I could check his ribs, but he held himself too tightly.  “It’s okay, Little Brother, just relax.”  I rubbed his back in large, slow circles.  After a while, I felt the tension gradually release beneath my hand.  I pulled him close and held him securely, the way I used to when he was a kid.  “It’s okay,” I murmured.  “It’s all going to be fine.”  I kept saying it until I felt him start to shake, and the dam broke.  In the dismal gray light of that dingy little room, I held my brother while he sobbed in a way I hadn’t heard since he was five years old and finally understood that being dead meant that his mother was gone forever.

Eventually, he drew back, swiping at his eyes with his sleeve.  I smiled slightly.  No matter what, that kid has never learned to carry a handkerchief.  I handed him mine and waited as he composed himself.  He started to give me back the handkerchief, and I shook my head.  “Are you okay?” I asked.  He patted his ribs as if that was what I’d meant, and he nodded.  “Tell me what happened,” I said quietly.  And he did.

I was right:  Hoss had left out some parts.  Important parts.  Not because he’d overlooked anything, but because he just didn’t know.  Joe talked about what it felt like to be back in that saloon, with all those dark memories swirling around, reminding him of what had happened there and how hard he’d made everything for everybody.  He talked about Judith, how he felt he’d taken advantage of her and used her when she was in love with him.  He talked about how he’d failed us all, again and again, and that the drinking was only part of it.  He talked about the sense he’d always had of never measuring up, never quite being good enough.  He said he understood why Hoss did what he did, but he didn’t explain what he meant by that.  He just said Hoss was right, and he didn’t blame him.

I wanted to tell him that he was being far too hard on himself, but I was determined to hear him out before I told him he was wrong.  I needed to hear it all, and he needed me to hear him.  I’d always known he felt driven to compete with the rest of us, but I’d never realized before that day just how shaky my little brother’s sense of his own adequacy was.

His account of what happened in the saloon when Hoss realized he was drunk was right in line with Hoss’ version, except for one thing:  Joe hadn’t seen how scared Hoss was.  All he saw was the anger.  His own shame masked everything else.

The pieces were starting to fit.  I listened as he told me what happened after Hoss left the saloon, how he got himself out of there and tried to find his way back to the hotel.  He talked of the men in the black suits who beat him up and robbed him, and of his futile attempts to defend himself.  He told me how he felt when Hoss found him, and the humiliation when he fell over, right there on the street, and couldn’t get up.  A strange, sad pride flickered as he recounted getting himself to his feet and making his way back to the room under his own power.  The idea that he actually counted this as an accomplishment caused my heart to ache.

For someone as drunk as Joe had been, he had remarkable recall.  His account of what happened then was just the same as Hoss’.  He described Hoss binding his ribs and putting him to bed.  Then, looking away, he told me what he’d said after that.  Almost word for word, it was as Hoss had said.

“What happened next?”  I asked, as gently as I could.

“Hoss agreed with me.”

“What?”  Hoss hadn’t said anything about that.  It couldn’t be true.  It just couldn’t.  Hoss would never do that.  I’d stake my life on it.  Carefully, knowing that I’d finally arrived at the center, I asked, “What exactly did he say?”

“Nothing.”

“I don’t understand.”

“He didn’t deny it.  Not a word.  He just sat there and said nothing.  He never said I was wrong about any of it.  He didn’t deny anything.”

Oh, dear God.  The last piece of the puzzle slid into place.  “And you thought, by saying nothing, he was agreeing with you,” I said slowly.

“He was.”  Joe’s dead voice was back.  “You know Hoss.  He wouldn’t actually say anything hurtful, but he can’t lie, either.  So, he’d admit it by just keeping quiet and not denying the truth.”

I exhaled slowly.  It all made sense now.  At that moment when Joe hit bottom, when he was drunk and overwrought and not thinking clearly, when he already believed his actions to be unforgivable, when a lifetime of struggling to measure up had crashed around him, when he felt so ashamed and unworthy and utterly unlovable-at that terrible moment, his big brother, the person he trusted more than anyone else, didn’t tell him he was wrong to think that way.  Didn’t say there was nothing Joe could do to drive him away.  Didn’t tell him he was good enough, no matter what.

For a moment, I knew how Hoss had felt, sitting there at Joe’s bedside, hearing him say those awful things about himself.  I’ve never felt so powerless in my life as I did right then, trying to figure out the magic words that would convince my brother that he’d gotten it all backward.  I wanted to shake him and tell him he was crazy, that this was Hoss we were talking about, and that he had to know, deep in his heart, that he was wrong about our brother.  I wanted to recite, chapter and verse, the thousands upon thousands of ways Hoss had taken care of him since the minute the boy was born.  I wanted to marshal the most compelling, eloquent arguments ever made, to overwhelm him with sheer irrefutable logic until he recognized that I was right and that Hoss would never, ever abandon him, no matter what he did.

“Joe, you’re wrong.”  I held his arms, shaking him slightly to get him to look up.  “You’re as wrong as you can be.”  I could hear the desperation in my own voice.  I didn’t know how he’d gotten so mixed up and far away, but I had to bring him back.  “Hoss didn’t keep quiet because he agreed with you.  He did it because he was so upset by what you said that he couldn’t say anything.  He didn’t know what had happened with Judith, how you felt about being at the Dove, or anything.”

“But I told him-”  His voice broke.

“I know you did,” I said quietly.  It wasn’t the moment to tell him that he’d been so drunk that Hoss had had difficulty understanding him.  The balance of the truth would have to suffice.  Gently, I said, “It was hard for him to hear because he cares about you so much.  It was so hard that he couldn’t say anything right then.  I promise that if he’d known what you were thinking about his silence, he’d have figured out a way to tell you how wrong you were.  I’d stake my life on it.”

After that, we sat there, not talking, for what felt like a long time.  The irony was inescapable:  if anyone had said about me or Hoss or Pa even half of what Joe said about himself, Joe would have been the first to defend us.  He would have beaten the speaker to a bloody pulp without a moment’s thought, and he’d have been proud to do it.  But when it came to himself, he was more than willing to believe the worst.  So, he sat here for a week, alone in a musty room in a broken-down tenement, nursing his cracked ribs while he convinced himself that he’d failed everyone so completely that we didn’t want any more to do with him, and that we were right to feel that way.

The room’s one window looked over an alley.  The little bit of daylight that we’d been seeing by was fading fast.  I lit the lamp on the bureau.  Joe just stayed where he was.  He was clearly drained.  The elder brother in me wanted to him to put him to bed and let him get some sleep, but I resisted.  I knew that Hoss and Pa would be anxious to hear from us, and I didn’t want to make them wait any longer than necessary.

“Will you come back over to the hotel and talk to Hoss?” I asked.  “I know he wants to talk to you.”

“What’s there to say?”  His voice was slightly less dead, slightly more panicked.  But it was something.  Encouraged, I sat down beside him and pressed on.

“He can tell you to your face why he didn’t say anything,” I said, trying to sound merely reasonable.  “If you’re going to walk away from your family and your life, don’t you think you’re entitled to an explanation first?”  It was the wrong question.  I saw that immediately:  Joe didn’t feel entitled to much of anything.  I tried a different approach.  “I think he’d like a chance to explain,” I said.  “If nothing else, it would be a kindness for you to give him that chance.”

Joe dropped his head into his hands.  I could barely hear his words.  Something about already knowing the truth, about not being good enough.  My heart ached to hear him.  I didn’t know where these wounds had come from.  I’d had no idea that they were even there, much less that they went so deep.

I laid my hand on the back of his neck, the way I’d seen Pa do a thousand times.  He didn’t lean into my hand the way he did with Pa, but he didn’t pull away, either.  Quietly, I said, “The only thing you ever had to do to be ‘good enough’ was just to be exactly who you are, warts and all.  And if you don’t believe me, ask Pa and Hoss.  They’ll tell you the same thing.  I guarantee it.”

He didn’t say anything for a while.  Finally, he looked up.  With his curls all mussed and the tear tracks on his face, he looked like a little kid again.  “I’m afraid,” he whispered, just like that little kid.  I could see the fear.  Fear that I was wrong.  Fear that he was right.

I ran a hand through his hair.  He was long overdue for a haircut.  “So’s Hoss,” I said.  “Afraid of losing you.  We all are.”

He said nothing for a while, a far cry from the Joe who couldn’t have kept a thought to himself if you paid him.  I waited, my hand resting lightly on his neck.  Abruptly, without a word, he rose and crossed the tiny room to the bureau.  He upended the chipped white pitcher, emptying the last few drops into the washbowl.  He started for the door, carrying the pitcher, and I stood.

“I’ll get it,” I said.  I didn’t know who he might run into in the hall, but I thought he’d probably be more comfortable not seeing anyone until he’d cleaned up a bit.  The gratitude in his eyes as he handed me the pitcher told me that I’d guessed right.

“Down the hall, on the right,” he said.  He sounded exhausted.

I nodded and went to fetch the water, reflecting on the fact that I’ve seen Joe in fistfights and gunfights.  I’ve seen him go after men twice his size.  He’s ridden the orneriest broncs.  He’s fought off rustlers and Indians and robbers of every stripe.  He was handling cattle when he was only ten years old.  And when he was nineteen, he had the guts to defy our formidable father and leave everything he’d ever known to marry the woman he loved.  He’s taken more chances than any man I know.  He’s done dozens upon dozens of foolhardy and dangerous and incredibly courageous things.

But as I filled that pitcher, it occurred to me that what he was about to do now-going over to the hotel to hear what Hoss would say-just might be bravest thing I’d ever seen my little brother do.

Ben

“You need to eat something, Son,” I said gently.  This wasn’t something I usually needed to say to my middle son, but these weren’t usual times.  I’d ordered dinner to be brought up, knowing that Hoss didn’t feel like going out any more than I did.  We were waiting for Adam to come back from wherever he’d gone, hopefully with news of Joseph.

“Pa, I’m so sorry,” Hoss said for the hundredth time.  “Whatever made him go, I’m sorry.”

“I know,” I said quietly, patting his arm.  I did know.  I knew that there was just no way that Hoss would ever have done anything to hurt anyone intentionally, least of all his little brother.  Somehow, something had been misconstrued.  But I’d heard Hoss’ story, and I had no idea what it could be.  Only Joseph could answer that question.

Eventually, we stopped playing at eating dinner.  I tried to read the newspaper, and Hoss paced the length of the room.  “Pa, I think we should go out and look for them,” he announced.

“Hoss, we need to stay here in case Adam comes back,” I said.  His use of “them” had not escaped me, but I wasn’t about to raise false hopes.  Considering the way Joseph had left me earlier, I had wishes, but not expectations, about his returning.

Hoss harrumphed and continued pacing.  Just as I was about to tell him to sit down, a knock on the door echoed through the room.  We both froze.  Even though Hoss was closer to the door, he didn’t move.  After a moment, I crossed the room and opened the door.

Adam looked at me, then Hoss.  None of us spoke.  Something in my eldest son’s eyes cautioned against it.  Then, he turned to his left and said softly to someone we could not see, “You ready?”

And with that, Adam stepped aside and allowed my youngest son to enter the room.

Joe’s bravado would probably have been convincing to anyone who hadn’t known him his entire life.  The deadness was gone from his eyes.  In its place was what could have passed for arrogance on the street, but what I, his father, recognized as fear.  Fear of what, I had no idea.  I caught Adam’s gaze, but I could read nothing there.  From his expression, you might have thought he wasn’t at all concerned about anything.  Then, I saw that Adam’s hand rested, with studied casualness, against his brother’s back.  I could probably count on one hand the number of times I’d seen him do such a thing.

“Hoss.”  Joe’s voice was barely more than a whisper.  He swallowed hard.  “I-”

But he got no further, because his big brother gathered him into his arms and held him close.  “I’m sorry,” said Hoss over and over.  “Whatever it was I did, I’m so sorry.”  I couldn’t tell for certain, but I thought my middle son might be crying.  I couldn’t see Joseph’s face at all.  He was saying something, but with his face hidden against Hoss’ chest, I couldn’t make out the words.

But Hoss could.  He drew back a little bit and looked down at his brother.  In all my life, I don’t believe I ever saw him look so sorrowful.  Lightly, he smacked the back of Joseph’s head.  “You dang fool,” he said with mock gruffness.  “Where in tarnation did you ever get an idea like that?”  He pulled Joe into a fiercely gentle hug that somehow protected the cracked ribs.  I smiled; only Hoss would have remembered that in such a moment.  He whispered something to his little brother that I couldn’t hear.  “And don’t you ever forget it,” he added softly.  I saw Joe’s shoulders start to shake, and I knew that, if he hadn’t been crying before, he was now.  Watching my sons, I had need of my own handkerchief.

Even Adam’s eyes were suspiciously bright.  He reached over and took the linen square from my hand.  At my questioning look, he said quietly, “I’ll tell you later.”

Epilogue

Adam

The trip back to the Ponderosa was pretty strained.  The hands who had helped with the original drive had been sent back with the remuda and the chuck wagon before Pa and I ever got to San Francisco; Hoss had already decided that he was staying there as long as it took to find Joe.  So it was just the four of us on the trip back, which was just as well.  There was nobody else on the stage for most of the trip.  That was definitely just as well.  We all needed some time to deal with everything, and it was easier without an audience.

Joe kept watching Hoss when he thought Hoss wasn’t looking, and Hoss did the same to Joe, and so they kept catching each other at it.  It took a couple of days before they could find that funny.  Most of the time, Joe looked out the stagecoach window or slept.  It wasn’t until we were east of Sacramento that he leaned against Pa to sleep, which he used to do all the time.  He didn’t talk very much, but neither did the rest of us, so his silence wasn’t all that conspicuous.

I think it almost broke Hoss’ heart to realize that Joe actually believed Hoss could walk away from him.  Hoss and I have talked about it at some length.  It hurts him terribly to think that his little brother could have doubted him that way.  I’ve tried to explain that what Joe doubted was himself, and not Hoss at all, but Hoss is having a hard time with that distinction.  From where he sits, there’s no question that anybody would love that boy to pieces, and he just can’t see how Joe wouldn’t know that.

Neither of us ever realized how much of our cocky little brother’s attitude was show.  I don’t think even Pa understood that fully, and he probably knows Joe better than anybody.  We all knew about Joe’s constant need to prove himself, of course, but we never saw just what was driving it.

Joe knows it’s going to take a long time to fix what happened.  He’s told Hoss that the problem came from inside himself, that it wasn’t about Hoss at all.  He goes out of his way to find ways of showing Hoss that he’s sorry for doubting him.  Hoss, for his part, does almost the same thing.  He told me privately that he doesn’t want Joe to feel bad about what he thought.  So, between Joe apologizing and Hoss reassuring, it’s been exhausting around here, but everybody’s making progress.

Looking back, I have to wonder whether any of this would have happened if he hadn’t gone off to San Francisco originally.  If Joe hadn’t left when he did, the way he did, maybe he’d have been able to build his foundation to be secure enough to handle the types of the things he’s lived through in the past few years.  But he jumped out of the nest when he was still a kid in some important ways, and when everything fell apart, he made some bad decisions.  It turns out that some of those decisions are still haunting him.  Maybe they always will.

Every man has his demons.  Clearly, we’d all underestimated what went on in Joe’s mind.  At least until he married Robin, I’d always thought of him as my flighty, carefree baby brother, living for the moment, not concerned about much more than the next fast horse, pretty girl and cold beer.  Now, I find myself wondering how I missed so much.  I remember all the years I accused Pa of coddling Joe, overprotecting him.  Maybe Pa had caught a glimpse of something Hoss and I didn’t see.  Maybe, without even knowing it, he was trying to shore up that foundation a little bit more.

The splash catches me by surprise.  I look out my bedroom window to see Joe, dripping wet, climbing out of the horse trough.  Hoss is laughing himself silly.  Even from up here, I can hear Joe sputtering.  He’s gesturing wildly, trying to be furious and indignant at getting dumped, but not doing any of it very well.  He lights out after Hoss, but they’re both laughing so hard that they don’t get very far.  Joe tackles Hoss, knocking him off balance, and they both fall to the dusty ground, rolling around.

“Hoss!  Joseph!”  Pa’s voice thunders.  My brothers stop in mid-roll.  “What are you doing?  Fighting like common hooligans!  There’s work to be done yet!”  He’s sounds serious, but I can tell that he’s not really.  It’s been too long since his younger sons have laughed together like this.  Just this once, my father will let the foolishness slide.

“Yes, sir!”  It’s hard to be respectful when you’re streaked with dirt, but they’re trying.  They’re fighting to keep straight faces, but even from here, I can see it’s a losing battle.  I can’t see Pa’s expression, but I’m guessing it’s about the same.  Every time Hoss manages to look serious, Joe pokes him, and then Hoss tries to grab Joe.  In the privacy of my room, I don’t have to hide my smile.

I turn from the window.  It’s time to get back to work.  My brothers are waiting.