Treasures of the Heart

Part 4

Buying the trail saddle was the easiest part of my life during the next month. Pa showed special interest in how I rode and handled Beauty. I was puzzled because I’d always been a good rider. I didn’t realize at the time what he was doing – he was readying Beauty and me for the trail. He waved a cloth near her face and watched with a critical eye as I brought her under control. We’d done that before with other horses. Eventually she wasn’t as skittish around the fluttering fabric. He gathered brush and worked with Beauty and mostly me until we could have jumped it with our eyes closed. That was something new. He drilled me on getting into and out of the saddle as quickly as I could until my legs ached at night. Together we helped Beauty adjust to the feel of a rifle scabbard. When she didn’t react to that, Pa instructed me to acquaint her with the rifle by letting her smell it, see it, and watch me holding it. After all of that, he told me the difficult part was ahead. Pa popped a short whip far away from her until the cracking of it caused her to turn her head or pin back her ears – but she didn’t run.

Finally it was time for the important test. We rode out in the country, he dismounted and tied his horse far away from us, and then before Beauty or I were ready he fired a rifle toward a distant log. Despite all her training, Beauty made a run for it and for the first time in my life it was all I could do to stay in the saddle. I finally pulled her up and I walked her back toward Pa ready to draw blood.

"What the devil was that?" I didn’t care if he was my pa. He’d scared my horse!

I expected him to correct my disrespect immediately but instead he asked, "You think that won’t happen on the trail?"

"I sure as deuce don’t plan on shooting that close to her, no." I was as hot from anger as I was from the ride.

"What if someone else does?"

"I’ll shoot them," I snapped.

Pa was unreadable. "You’re going to have time to pull your rifle?"

"Why would I need to – " I stopped in mid-sentence. The vision of Inger dying with an arrow in her chest while I held a crying baby Erik froze me in place. "Are we going through Indian territory?"

I saw the regret in Pa’s face for breathing life into the memories. "From what I hear, they aren’t a big threat where we’re headed. I’m concerned about thieves on the way to Independence. On the trail the problems have more to do with illness, finding food –" he looked meaningfully at my rifle "- and accidents with firearms."

My dreams of going to California had been innocent. Why I’ll never know. Pa and I had rough times east of the Missouri before we lost Inger just west of it. I looked down at him as I understood our partnership was more important than ever. The responsibility of getting to New Orleans safely had been Pa’s. As we headed to California it would be Pa’s again– and mine.

He stood with the rifle in his right hand. Beauty snorted at the lingering smell of gunpowder and I absentmindedly reassured her. After he’d placed his left hand on my knee as I sat in the saddle, Pa said, "You and I are the only ones who know trail life. Erik was too young. Joseph’s never known anything but New Orleans and Mississippi. Your mother crossed the ocean but I’m not sure even she is ready for this."

I cooled down with the combination of his words and the breeze.

He continued to speak man-to-man. "You know to obey immediately, Adam." His tone lightened. "We’ve gotten to know each other inside out these past fifteen years." Then he was serious again. "But I can guarantee when you have to tell your brothers what to do or snap an order at them they’re going to balk until they learn they should obey you. Do you understand what I’m telling you?"

I answered that I did.

He patted Beauty’s neck. "You’re up to it or I wouldn’t ask you."

"I know, Pa. I’ve known since we went to Natchez."

He smiled at me in surprise. "You have, have you?"

I looked down at my gloves as I held the reins. "It was the first time you treated me like a man." He held up that cautioning finger and I gave him a smile. "A young man."

He untied his horse and swung into the saddle with the ease I remembered from years ago. After turning the horse around he looked at me from the bottoms of his eyes. "By the way, I’m selling my half of the partnership to Sean Stewart."

It was the first time I’d thought of Gabrielle since I’d bought Beauty. I should have known Pa would read my mind.

"Heard anything from her yet?" he asked as our horses walked side by side.

"It’s only been a few weeks." Then I asked what I’d been wondering for a while. "Pa? Why do I have to send letters to her cousin? Why did she want to pretend I didn’t know her when we had dinner at their house?"

He didn’t answer immediately. "Some people control their children."

"Ma and you do us," I said.

Pa grinned as he looked ahead. "We don’t make every decision for you. We allow you to make mistakes. We only punish when we have to. And even you have to admit we don’t do a lot of it."

"Even me?" I asked before I thought.

He was more serious than I’d seen him in a long time. "I know I was hardest on you." He gave me a significant look. "And I’ve been easiest on Joseph."

Okay, he’d read me like a book. So what? He was Pa. I decided to return to his answer. "What do you mean some people control their children?"

"They decide where their children will go and who with."

He should have said ‘with whom’ but I wasn’t about to correct him.

"Most of the time they arrange marriages. The children can only be seen with the right people and at the right events. And many of the parents send their son back east for school because it gives him status. Sometimes they send them overseas. They also send their daughters east for finishing school so they’ll learn how to be hostesses, do needlepoint, and be worthless."

Pa wasn’t a cynical person so the sudden observation caused a burst of laughter from me. He flushed at my reaction. "If you tell anybody I said that – "

"Yes?" I tilted my head.

Then he showed me that he hadn’t forgotten as much about my childhood as he sometimes pretended. "I’ll have your hide."

I stuck my chin out. "That threat doesn’t work anymore."

"Is that a fact?"

Nodding at him I said, "Yes, Pa."

His eyes softened and then filled with mischief. "Whoever loses the race chops wood for a week." With that he set his horse into a full run.

And do you know he never complained after he lost the race. That’s because he paid Erik to chop the wood for him.

I suppose it was Pa’s talk to me that day about how the two of us who were the only ones accustomed to traveling on the trail that caused me to start paying more attention to Erik and Joe. Maybe it would have happened anyway, I don’t know. I knew Erik would either have to walk or ride as we headed west so I decided it was in his best interest to know how to ride. I didn’t ask him his opinion. Instead I took him to the stables every other day. We’d run horses a couple of times when Martin had been around. But Erik had been younger then, the horses we had ridden had been docile, and I wanted him to be as trail ready as possible. For most of his life Erik had been one of those kids who ambled through life, enjoying it and not thinking overly much about the next day. I can tell you from personal experience that you’d better pay attention every moment you’re on a horse.

I worked Erik on the gentlest horse in the stable. Slowly I introduced him to riding other horses and I was glad to see that early in his training he understood he didn’t need so much to learn to control the horse as he needed to respect it. I didn’t dare put him on the back of a horse like Beauty and to this day he’s never beaten me in a horse race though Lord knows he’s tried. From the time he was ten, he tried to wrestle me to the floor at home and he’d never had much success. He couldn’t understand why: he was, after all, as tall as me and heavier. But while he concentrated on strength I concentrated on him, learned his tendencies, and usually brought him down pretty quickly. He was absolutely amazed and would turn to Pa asking, "How’d he do that?" Pa would just grin at me and tell Erik he had no idea. So I guess it was a natural extension for Erik to try to wrestle me off my horse when we were side by side. You guessed it. I used the same strategy and he still hasn’t been able to knock me out of the saddle – but then I haven’t been able to do the same to him, either.

When Erik was about as proud of himself as he could be and doing something that was not characteristic of him – bragging – he insisted that the family watch him ride. Ma and Pa obliged with delight in their eyes. Pa held Joe on the top rail of the training area and I knew from the look on my littlest brother’s face that he loved horses as much as I did. The only problem was that I also knew his reckless tendencies. The two were not going to mix well.

Erik and I are so close in age that I always think of him as my "younger" brother. There is almost ten years’ difference in Joe’s and my ages and that, combined with how small he is, has led me to consider him my "littlest" brother. It may not sound like a substantial difference in outlook to you but it is and I’ve come to understand it causes some interesting behavior on my part.

After Erik had successfully exhibited his talents, and headed to the stable to tend the horse, Joe begged and begged and begged until Pa gave him permission to ride - with the warning that he listen to everything I told him. Ma shot me a knowing look and we understood each other; Joe was going to do something risky as sure as the moon rises.

I put him on a plodder of a pony and rested my hand on Joe’s thigh as we walked along. Joe looked about as small as a newborn pup in the saddle and at first he listened intently. Then, as he tends to do, he figured he knew all that could be taught and he signaled the pony to run. I was ready for him and I had the reins in my hand so quickly Joe barely had time to blink. I yanked him off the saddle, whirled him around, and smacked his bottom a couple of times. He turned on me, rubbing his behind and shouted, "Joe’s gonna tell Pa!"

I held out my right hand toward Pa in open invitation. Our father was frowning as he crooked his finger at Joe. My brother suddenly considered me less of a problem. "Maybe Joe won’t tell Pa aftew all."

Pa crooked his finger again and I leaned down behind the left side of Joe’s face. "I recommend that you don’t make him walk over here after you."

Joe slowly dragged his feet as he walked toward Pa and continued to rub his behind. After Joe crawled between two of the fence rails Pa sat on his heels. I couldn’t hear what he said but I knew it was stern because of the concern in Ma’s expression. Joe nodded his head and I read his lips as he said, "Yes, Pa." I wondered what Pa would have to say to me when we were alone.

As he often did, he surprised me. He grabbed my elbow when we entered the courtyard and held me back while everyone else went into the house. "How’s your hand?"

I shifted on my feet. "Uh – all right."

He held out his right hand and shaped it as he instructed. "Be sure to hold your hand like this. If you swat any other way you can do a lot of damage to a child’s bottom." He paused. "You can also get a blood blister for your trouble." He grinned at me. "I learned about the blood blister when I swatted you the first time."

My mouth fell open and despite my best intentions I was overtaken with what can only be described as giggles. There’s no way on earth you could have convinced me in my childhood that one day I’d be standing there laughing with Pa about him swatting my behind.

When I’d settled down his eyes met mine. "You’re not a bad horseman."

I stuck my hands in my pockets and probably squared my shoulders. "Yeah."

Young man or not, I received that eyebrow lift all his sons know to respect and I corrected myself. "Thank you."

He put his arm around my shoulders and we walked toward the house. "Don’t swat him unless you know I would," he said gently.

I looked up at him from the tops of my eyes. "I won’t swat him again, Pa. I only did it because he wasn’t thinking and he could have been hurt."

Pa nodded his head.

I eased back so he could go up the steps into the house first and immediately understood the subtle message Pa had sent me. I had hit Joe while I was angry - not a good thing to do. I’d learned that lesson when Pa had vented his temper on me back when we’d both been younger. Back before he’d learned better.

Pa turned to face me. "Plan to join us for dinner?"

I took the steps two at a time and held the door open so he could enter the house.

Erik and I were so compatible that we could not understand the constant arguments and fistfights our friends had with their siblings. On rare occasions we got into "oh yeah?" "yeah!" situations that caused Pa to raise an eyebrow and us to quiet down and agree to do something less volatile. We never came to blows until one hot, muggy, stifling day.

Erik and I were cantankerous from the time we woke up. Stupid things about each other bothered us. I snapped at Erik for saying, "ain’t." He yelled that I tried to make him fall down the back steps when all I did was accidentally bump him. We argued over whose turn it was to do what chore. Joe observed us from time to time with disbelief all over his freckled face.

Ma separated us and made me sit in the living room without a book to read and she told Erik to sit in our bedroom without anything to play with for an hour. We were no sooner released from our imprisonment than we were at it again.

I walked to the bedroom to get a book. I swear I didn’t realize Erik was lying up there on his bed - I thought he’d gone outside as soon as Ma had said he could. When I found the book on my bed, and turned with it in my hands, I was unaware that Erik was climbing down the ladder. My shoulder hit the lower part of his left leg and he grabbed a ladder rung to keep from falling to the floor.

Even though I hadn’t intended to set him off balance I started to apologize. But Erik cut me off. "You did that on purpose!" he shouted.

I rolled my eyes and walked to the parlor. As my right foot stepped on the parlor rug, Erik grabbed my shoulder and whirled me around.

"I’m talking to you, Adam!"

"No you aren’t - you’re yelling."

He pushed his hands against my shoulders and I stumbled backwards. "You ain’t the only one who can push and shove around here."

I went hot with anger. "I said I was sorry. Or at least I tried to before you - "

"That’s right, Mr. Perfect Son," he taunted. "Trying to apologize when you don’t mean it."

I balled my fists at the sides of my legs the way I had before I’d nearly beaten Henri into the dirt. "Stop it, Erik."

Erik leaned until his face was maybe six inches from mine. "You gonna make me?"

"No, but Pa will." What was I saying? I sounded like a child!

"Go ahead." Erik jerked his chin and his eyes widened. "Tell him. He’ll have your hide."

"No, he won’t. I’m too old. But he’ll sure tan yours." I was full of bluster. Behind me the mantel clock chimed seven times. If I had given it more than a moment’s notice I would have stopped our argument then and there. But I didn’t heed the clock’s warning that Pa was nearly home and I didn’t stop our battle.

Erik pushed me again and my book flew from my hand as I fell to the floor. The next thing I knew we were rolling across the parlor rug - grunting, wrestling, and hitting each other on the shoulders and in the mid-section. I’d been waiting all day to plow into Erik. His fist connected with my left cheek and his knee jabbed into my shin. I landed a blow on his nose – then his lip. Erik’s punch to my nose was as strong as the one with which Henri had nearly broken my jaw.

"Adam! Erik!" Pa’s voice echoed off the parlor walls. But we were out for blood - literally. Erik pinned me to the floor, I heaved with all my strength, and he fell to the floor. I straddled his chest and -

"No, Benjamin!" Ma yelled.

Ma never yelled like that. I turned my head to see what was happening. Pa was holding a water pitcher with his right hand and Ma was grasping his arm to stop him from emptying it on the rug - and us.

While I was distracted Erik squeezed my throat.

Pa’s strong hand grasped my shirt collar and pulled me to my feet. Now I was choking for a different reason. He bent at the waist, grabbed Erik by the side of his collar, jerked his arm, and Erik gagged as he staggered to his feet.

I whirled on Pa and yelled, "He started it!"

Pa glared at me. "You are the oldest," he reminded as he continued to hold us by our collars.

"But he started it," I accused. A whack across my bottom - a pain that brought tears to my eyes - caused me to yelp. Ma drew tears from my brother, too, when she slammed the shutter slat across Erik’s behind. I’d never known Ma was so strong but my stinging bottom assured me I hadn’t imagined anything.

Pa was as surprised by her actions as Erik and I were. It was one of the few times I’ve seen him with his mouth open and no words coming out. Finally he found his voice – and settled "the look" on Erik and me. "Find a corner," he ordered.

A corner! I was fifteen! I started to say something but I caught sight of Ma standing beside Pa. Her left hand was at her waist. But her right hand still held that shutter slat. Burning with humiliation, I walked to a corner and faced it. I was only there a few minutes but it was long enough for me to realize my nose was bleeding – and so was my lip. I wiped at them with my shirtsleeve and then Ma said, "Adam." I’ll admit it. I startled. "Use this," she instructed as she handed me a damp cloth.

"Thank you, ma’am." I pressed it against my lip and moaned. My lip didn’t hurt nearly as bad as my nose though.

Pa was still angry. "Come here. Now," he said curtly. When I turned around Pa was sitting in his chair with Joe settled on his lap. Pa pointed in front of him. When he’s angry he does a lot of pointing. Erik and I obeyed and stood side by side. We lowered our heads, still holding the cloths to our noses.

"I don’t care what started that fight and I don’t care who started it. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, Pa."

"Yes, Pa."

"Joe didn’t fight, Pa."

"Nevertheless, you will listen," Pa instructed. "I don’t tolerate fighting and you boys know it. Look at me when I’m speaking to you."

Erik and I obeyed - but it wasn’t easy. I was mortified that he was lecturing me in front of Erik and Joe.

Once again he gave Erik and me "the look."

"Do you understand why I don’t tolerate fighting?"

Joe shook his head. "Joe didn’t fight, Pa." My little brother hunched his shoulders when Pa frowned at him. "Joe didn’t," he whimpered.

Pa looked at each of us and told us we had been given an important gift. God had chosen us to be brothers. And it was His intention that we should love one another and help one another. When we fought as Erik and I had we were treating God with disrespect.

Given that I had been taught from an early age to obey God, Pa’s words shamed me.

"You have a special bond," Pa stressed. "A bond that will not be broken by time, or where you go, or what you do. You have memories that no one can take from you." His voice softened. "The three of you are like strong, billowing sails. As long as you work together you can go anywhere." His eyes lost their harsh glare. "Think of yourselves as a rope. When you fight, you cut that rope - and then it can’t be there when you need to hold on to it for help." He stood, holding Joe with his left arm. Pa touched my cheek and then Erik’s. "You hurt more than your bodies when you fight."

I took an unsteady breath. I was fifteen. Too old for crying. So why couldn’t I control myself? Why couldn’t I stop the tears? I lowered my head and wiped at my cheeks, wincing as I touched a skinned spot.

Beside me, Erik sniffled and swiped at his nose. I summoned the courage to raise my head. Joe shifted to study Pa’s face. "Joe’ll be a strong sail and Joe’ll be a good wope."

I smiled at the simplicity and innocence of his statement. Erik looked up and said he would be a strong sail and a solid rope.

Pa’s eyes settled on me. "And you?"

"Adam’s the wind," Joe replied proudly.

Erik looked at me from the sides of his eyes. "Nah, he’s a sail and he’s full of wind."

We playfully shoved at each other and then both sucked in air through our teeth as our bruises protested the close contact. I leaned to get a good look at Erik’s face and repeated what Barbara had said to Pa years before. "You look like something the wharf rats wouldn’t be seen with."

Erik touched his cheek gingerly. "Yeah? Well you ain’t real pretty yourself." He grinned at me. "We sure could make someone wish they’d never tangled with us, huh?"

Pa slid his right hand over his face.

"Not that we would, Pa," Erik assured. "Would we, Adam?"

"Never," I agreed.

After Pa excused us, Erik and I walked out to the well and tended each other’s scrapes. Joe tagged along and made faces as we flinched and moaned.

Because of the trip we were planning, my brothers wanted to hear about Pa’s and my travel from the time we’d left the eastern seaboard. They wanted to hear every detail. Except for a few experiences that were a bit too embarrassing to share with my younger brothers, Pa or I told them what we could recall. The stories were cooperative ventures where Pa would say something and then pause as he couldn’t remember and I would fill in for him. Our varying memories of certain occurrences inevitably led to differences in opinions and we argued stubbornly.

One night Pa told them about a town we stopped in not too long before we arrived in New Orleans. I was almost eight at the time so I remembered it clearly. Erik was almost four but he had no memory of the incident. Three days before we left the town a small amount of excitement broke out because of a land dispute between two brothers.

"The older brother rode into town with a dozen men," Pa said.

"Five, " I corrected.

"It was a dozen, Adam."

"Pa, I’m telling you it was five."

He shrugged and continued. "Anyhow, they rode straight to his brother’s house at the end of Main Street."

I rolled my eyes and wondered why he was suddenly having memory problems. "His brother was the doctor, Pa. He lived off Main Street in that house that had all the flowers out front."

Pa tilted his head. "Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"Anyhow –" Pa looked at me from the sides of his eyes and shifted in his chair. "The doctor’s brother rode straight to the doctor’s house –"

I sighed deeply. "They stopped at the saloon first."

"Who did?"

"The doctor’s brother and his five friends."

"The doctor’s five friends?"

I did a double take. Was he pulling an Erik? I leaned toward him from where I sat on the rug and said very slowly, "The – doctor’s – brother - and – the – doctor’s – brother’s – five – friends – stopped – at – the – saloon – first."

Ma laughed softly as she sat on the settee behind me. Erik and Joe, who were sprawled on the stomachs, swung their heads from Pa to me to Pa.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

Pa didn’t speak for a few seconds. "So, the doctor’s brother and his friends stopped at the saloon. And then they rode up to the doctor’s house -"

"Aw, Pa," I moaned. "If you’re gonna tell the story at least tell it the right way."

Erik’s and Joe’s mouths dropped open.

"I am telling it the right way."

"You haven’t told anything the right way since you started."

Pa leaned his forearms on his knees and frowned at me. "Maybe we don’t remember it the same way."

"Are you saying I’m wrong?" I challenged.

"I’m saying you might be."

I straightened my back. "I haven’t ever been wrong."

Pa’s eyes got huge and his brows went as far up on his forehead as I’d ever seen. "I beg your pardon?"

"I haven’t ever been wrong. You’re the one who can’t remember it. They went to the saloon and they got liquored up and then they went into the back room for some poker and that’s where the doctor’s brother shot the fella who was cheating."

"What are you talking about?"

"He shot the fella who was cheating and two men carried him to the doctor –"

"The doctor’s brother?"

"No, Pa. The man the doctor’s brother shot. Why would they carry the doctor’s brother to the doctor? He wasn’t hurt. Well, not yet."

Pa tilted his head. "When did he get hurt?"

Wasn’t he listening? "The cheater got hurt at the poker game."

"I mean the doctor’s brother."

Ma had laughed so much by then she gasped for air.

"The doctor’s brother was shot when the brother of the fella who was cheating found out the doctor’s brother had shot his brother –"

Pa was incredulous. "The doctor’s brother shot his own brother?"

"Pa," I wailed. "The brother of the fella who was cheating shot the doctor’s brother."

"Oohh." Pa nodded slowly. "The way I remember it the doctor shot the fella who shot his brother."

Glory, would he never get the story right? I took a deep breath. "Pa, the doctor didn’t have any cause to shoot the brother of the fella who was cheating who shot his brother because the doctor and his brother were the ones fighting over the land."

Pa shook his head twice as if to clear his thoughts. "Let me get this straight."

Erik and Joe moaned loudly and lowered their heads.

"The doctor and the doctor’s brother were fighting over a piece of land," Pa said.

"Yes."

"The doctor’s brother shot the cheater."

"Yes."

"The cheater’s brother shot the doctor’s brother."

"Yes."

"Well who shot the doctor?"

"Nobody shot the doctor."

"He was dead as a fence post the next morning."

"The doctor!" I exclaimed.

"Yes."

"Pa, the doctor was fine the next morning. The doctor’s brother was dead and the cheater was dead. But the doctor and the cheater’s brother were fine."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"That’s not the way I remember it. The way I remember it one of the doctor’s brother’s friends and the brother of the cheater –"

Erik and Joe threw their arms in the air and stood from the rug.

"We’we playing checkews," Joe said in disgust.

Pa couldn’t believe what my brother had said. "You don’t want to hear the rest of the story?"

Erik twisted his lips. "Far as I’m concerned we ain’t heard the beginnin’."

"Haven’t," Pa and I corrected.

"Haven’t what?" Erik asked.

I had the good sense to leave the room at that point. But from where I sat on the back steps I heard Erik and Pa at it for a full three minutes.

Much to my surprise, and probably to Ma and Pa’s disbelief, Joe went straight to bed when told to that night. That didn’t mean he fell asleep, though. And neither did Erik. The minute I entered the room they conducted their own version of the Inquisition – starting with how I could argue with Pa and get away with it and then meandering into every question imaginable about what Pa or I had told them in previous stories. Sometimes their inquiries were so comical I shared them with Pa when he and I were at the shop. Joe wanted to know if we would tie the outhouse behind the wagon. Erik was concerned about whether the steams and rivers we crossed would have shrimp and crayfish. He’d developed an Epicurean appreciation for good food in New Orleans. He was in for a big surprise.

Erik said he didn’t think it was fair that the horses had to pull the wagon all the way to Missouri. I decided not to tell him that, if we couldn’t buy oxen, those horses and a few more might be taking us to California. Instead I asked him what we could do instead of having the horses pull the wagon. I am always fascinated by the way my brother’s brain works.

"We could rig the wagon with a sail like on those ships Pa’s told us about." He swelled with importance.

"A sail - "I repeated. "What if there isn’t any wind?"

"What did they do with those ships if there wasn’t any wind?" Erik asked.

"They were dead in the water."

He looked down. "Oh." Then his face lit up. "You know what’d be best? If we could put the kind of thing those riverboats use on it."

I did not believe my ears. "Erik, the boilers on those boats are bigger than our wagon. " If they weren’t the paddle wheel was for sure.

There was nothing from him for the longest time and then he spoke slowly and deliberately. "Seems to me there oughta be some way to make that wagon move by itself."

"Move by itself. How would you control the thing?"

"I haven’t figured that out yet, Adam!"

"Well, until you do we’re using horses."

I didn’t have even a moment of relief before Joe asked if we would stop in a different city each night for dinner. I told him we’d be going through one city and maybe a town or two but that was it. He folded his arms and demanded to know where he was supposed to get candy. Just to get him to hush I told him it fell out of the sky. He might have believed that when he was three but there was no fooling him when we was a much wiser five-year-old.

Some of their questions were driven by fear. Because we had lost Erik’s mother, they were concerned about Ma’s safety. And because we always considered Pa our protector they worried equally about Pa’s welfare. When I assuaged those anxieties as much as possible an entire new crop grew in their fertile imaginations: outlaws, Indians, floods, and broken wagon axles among others. They crossed a hundred bridges before it was necessary. Hopefully before it was never necessary. I didn’t think it was unusual for Erik to consider the future on the trail but I wasn’t sure that Joe should be doing it. I was convinced Erik had influenced him and it would develop into blood-curdling nightmares that would jolt us all out of deep sleep. But Joe slept as soundly as he had as a baby – when we could finally get him to settle down.

Other than the times when I told trail stories with Pa, or when Erik and he asked me all their questions in the bedroom, Joe gave me the widest berth I’d ever witnessed. I was baffled by Joe’s daily reaction to me when we were alone and then I figured out what had caused it: the couple of swats I had given him when he’d misbehaved with the pony. Wanting to reassure him, I took him aside more than once to talk to him and the entire time those eyes were round and he nodded mutely. It hurt to have him react that way and I didn’t know how I could repair the damage.

My answer came in the form of two of his "friends" on a warm afternoon. I was walking home from work and had almost reached our house when I heard Joe yelling for help. How you can distinguish your brothers’ voices from other voices I’m not sure but you can from the moment they’re born. I called, trying to find him, because there was terror in his yells. Insane as it was, I wondered if one of those alligators I used to tease Erik about had actually wandered into our neighborhood. Then I was afraid some rabid dog had him penned. It was going to be a whole lot better for me to just find the boy instead of imagining the cause of his distress.

I called out to him a second time and he heard me. He was sobbing as he returned my call by repeating my name three or four times. I finally located him. And what I found sent my temper spewing like a volcano. My littlest brother was sitting on the mansard style roof of a house with his eyes closed. Whoever had left him alone on top of that house was going to answer to me.

A mansard roof has a lower steeper slope roof that then angles into a less steep upper slope. That upper slope is almost impossible to see from street level and if he’d been there finding him would have been a lot more difficult. Luckily for me he was sitting where the steeper level met the less steep. I had never dared climb one of those style roofs and decided I’d have a serious talk with Joe – as soon as I rescued him.

"Joe - " I held up my hand hoping to calm him. "Don’t move, brother. All right?" What a stupid thing to say to a five-year-old who was terrified of falling.

He sniffled that he understood. I made him promise me that he wouldn’t move and he screamed when I turned my back. Only when I told him I had to get the ladder did he understand I was coming back for him.

Erik wasn’t at home and neither was Ma. I didn’t have time to go back to Pa’s shop so Joe’s rescue was up to me. I leaned the ladder against the house and paused. How the heck had Joe gotten up to where he was? I forgot to explain that the roof is the same on all four sides so there was no way to jump to the peak of the roof or use any of my other tricks.

"Quit crying," I instructed. "Pay attention." He flew into new yells. "Joe, if you don’t get quiet I can’t help you. You have to help yourself a little on this and I know you can do it." I paused for a breath and to give Joe a chance to nod his head. "How’d you get up there?" I asked.

"We – we used that wall and then they pulled me up."

"That wall?" I motioned to a tall masonry courtyard wall beside the house.

"Uh huh," came the simple answer. I moved the ladder and reached the top of the wall. There I was – even with the point where the two slopes met. I studied it a long time. No way I could climb over there and carry Joe on my back.

"Can you do something for me? Think you can crawl over here to me?" I held out my hands.

"Ut uh." He still had his eyes closed and my heart went out to him.

"Tell you what I’ll do, all right? I’ll crawl over there to you and then you’ll hold on to my trousers and crawl over here behind me."

"Can I do that?" Joe asked. He now had his hands over his eyes.

"Sure." I sounded a lot braver than I felt.

Knowing he could set me off-balance I prayed to God as I never had before – not for me but for Joe. I crawled my way along the point where the two roofs met and finally reached Joe. After a deep breath I slowly eased around so I was facing the courtyard wall again. Following my coaxing and constant reassurances, Joe finally uncovered his eyes, reached over and grabbed my trouser legs, and got ready to crawl behind me.

If anyone doubts that boy’s bravery they’d better think twice.

He took a deep breath that I could feel. "You’we the best brother evew."

I decided to relax him. "Don’t tell Erik that."

"Awe you teasing Joe?"

"Yeah, I’m teasing you. Ready to get down from here?" What a stupid question. I sent up another prayer to heaven – this time that my trousers would stay on as Joe gripped them between my ankles and knees.

I had to devote total concentration to the next effort so I asked God to keep an eye on us for a few more minutes. I had never walked on a roof carrying extra weight, must less crawled while I half-pulled someone, so to describe me as tentative is to understate my feelings. I’m not sure Joe breathed although common sense tells me he had to. After an eternity I was back at the courtyard wall. I asked Joe to sit on the roof while I stepped onto the wall. He whimpered and I told him we had to do it. I stepped onto the top of the courtyard wall and told him to get on my back like when we played horse. My right boot eased to the top rung of the ladder and a voice I had known all my life stopped me.

"Adam?"

"Yes, Pa?"

"What are Joseph and you doing?" he inquired.

"Pa!" Joe blurted.

The ladder almost tipped and probably would have if Pa hadn’t grabbed it.

"Pa," Joe said again. "Adam saved Joe fwom the woof."

At that point Pa didn’t ask any questions – he became my helper. "Take three more steps down, Adam, so I can reach your brother."

I obeyed and then the weight of Joe, which I had always considered light until that afternoon, came off my shoulders. I heard a delighted Joe and I stepped down the ladder and jumped from the last two rungs.

Pa hugged Joe close. Over my brother’s head Pa frowned that he didn’t understand. I mouthed the word "Later" and he nodded. With that, I lifted the ladder and we walked home.

By dinnertime Joe forgot all his fears. Instead he sat at the table and told everyone the entire process of how I’d rescued him from the "woof." At first Ma thought he was talking about a "wolf" and you’d never believe a person could be so pale. But as Joe continued his saga I explained it had been a "roof" and she shakily reached for her wine glass. I was relieved when no one asked him how he’d gotten into the trouble in the first place. There was one time when Pa looked like he was going to do just that and I quickly said something about how brave Joe had been. Pa gave me what Erik and I had taken to calling "the look" but he sensed not to ask the question and Ma turned the subject to dessert.

I sent Pa a silent signal not to ask Joe about the roof adventure right away. But he didn’t send me a silent signal in return. Later when I told Ma and him goodnight he said since I knew the whole story he expected me to deal with it. I knew from past experience to use Ma’s approach with Joe. As I said before, but it bears repeating, Pa always asked things directly but Ma came at the information slowly and from the side.

On the third day after his "woof" adventure, Joe and I walked around the neighborhood. He swung his hand as it grasped mine. From out of nowhere he blurted that he and his friends had decided to have a rooftop race. The game had sounded like fun to Joe. He’d gone as far as he was when I found him. That was where he made the mistake of looking down and triggered his fear of heights.

Finally he told me the names of the boys who had left him sitting there – John, Samuel, and Jesse. John and Jesse were the younger brothers of Erik’s sometime friend Jonah. Samuel was the youngest brother of my friend Garrett. They were all two to three years older than Joe and they must have known he was frightened. They hadn’t cared at all about someone else’s distress but I had every intention of changing that.

I located the trio in front of Garrett’s house. I must have looked as angry as I felt because they started to scatter and I told them to stay in place or I’d bust their britches. I don’t know if they’d heard the phrase before but they sensed what I meant. As they stood side by side in front of me, I put the fear of Adam Cartwright into every bone in their bodies. I purposely carried Pa’s belt with me, never intending to use it – but they didn’t know that. I lectured them as sternly as Pa ever had spoken to me. When I told them they were excused to go home they ran like rabbits. I hurried back home and hung Pa’s belt up before he discovered it was missing and started asking questions.

Joe was concerned about reprisals. He didn’t know the word but said the other boys would "get back" at him. I assured him if they even mentioned such a thing they would regret it. I wasn’t sure if my reprimand worked on his friends but if they ever "got back" at my brother I never heard about it.

A few days after I’d confronted Jesse, John, and Garrett, I told Joe we needed to talk. He stiffened a bit but he sat down beside me on the courtyard bench without balking. I didn’t want to discourage him from having fun like any other boy his age but I felt I needed to make a point with him. "Sometimes it’s hard to tell what’s fun and what you shouldn’t do, isn’t it?"

He nodded while he looked down and swung his feet back and forth.

"You know how I can tell the difference?"

That got him to look up at me.

I leaned toward him as if I were sharing some big secret. "I think about whether it is something I can tell Pa."

"And if it isn’t what do you do?" he asked.

Did I tell the truth or lie? He has the same nose for a lie as Pa does. "Sometimes I go ahead and do it. But then Pa finds out and punishes me."

Joe licked his lips and leaned toward me. I noticed more freckles were scattered across his nose than the year before. "What does he do when he punishes you?"

I closed my eyes. "He tans me with his belt." I opened my eyes and Joe’s mouth was wide open.

"His belt?" he asked after gulping.

"The first time he used it on me I wasn’t much older than you are. And a couple of years later, Joe, I had to take down my trousers when he used that belt."

Joe stopped swinging his feet. He shifted and knelt on the bench seat. "Adam, does Pa’s belt huwt bad?"

"Yes it does. That’s one of the reasons I try not to do something he’ll punish me for."

After tousling his hair, I smiled. "But you’re not going to do anything to get Pa’s belt, right?"

"Huh uh." He sat down again and swung his feet.

We didn’t talk for a while and then I took him into my confidence. "Joe? Don’t tell Pa what I did today. He wouldn’t like the way I took his belt to scare those boys. When Pa takes down his belt you can bet he’s going to use it."

"Joe won’t," he assured. "Brothers got to stay togethew."

I leaned back and laughed and then he did the same. When I pulled him into my lap he yelped in anticipation of the tickles I delivered. Then he climbed on my back for a game of horse after which we remembered we hadn’t done our afternoon chores and we hurried to complete them.

That night at dinner Joe kept giving me conspiratorial looks that puzzled Ma and Erik but didn’t fool Pa. As we followed the family into the parlor Pa asked in a low voice, "Want to tell me what you did?"

"Not particularly."

"Something to do with the friends who left Joe on the ‘woof’?"

"Maybe."

"You didn’t tan those boys, did you?"

Okay, how’d he figure all this out?

"You forgot to hang my belt the way I do – with the buckle turned toward the room and not toward the wall."

I paused as surprise rippled through me. Then, as he often did, he put his arm on my shoulders and if I hadn’t been so close to him I never would have heard his soft chuckle.

The next week, Pa stopped wearing New Orleans style clothing and dressed in the fuller shirts and more durable trousers suitable for the trail. There was another major change in his clothes: Pa wore his belt every day – and glory did that temporarily improve behavior in the Cartwright house.

I enjoyed helping Erik refine his horse riding abilities. The time together renewed all kinds of memories of when we’d been younger and had played together and had believed in things like magical rocks. We also laughed over the "big sins" we had kept from Pa like when we had chunked dirt clods into courtyards as we had passed them. And as I watched him improve it furthered my resolve about what I wanted to give him for his twelfth birthday.

"You what?" Pa asked when I told Ma and him out in the kitchen a few days later.

"I want to buy Erik a horse," I said. "Do I have enough money?"

Ma and Pa exchanged glances that still held surprise. "I suppose so," Pa said.

"I need to know for sure." I wondered if he would tell me I’d gotten a little too big for my britches but instead he cocked his head.

"Yes, you do have enough money," he said.

I exclaimed that was great and turned to leave.

"Adam," Ma said and I faced her. "You do not have the money for the saddle."

My solution was quick. "I’ll buy him the horse now and the saddle later."

"With what?" Pa asked, reminding me that I no longer received money for exercising Temptation. And I tended to spend what I earned at the store as soon as I received it.

All right. I had a problem on my hands. I looked down as I thought and that ever-bothersome lock of hair fell across my forehead. After I raised my head and hand combed my hair I made a meek suggestion to my parents that maybe they could buy him one.

Pa crossed his arms at his chest and Ma clasped her hands in front of her dress.

Ut oh. Maybe I should have minded my own business.

"What about the horse’s feed and upkeep?"

"Maybe he could work there, too?"

Ma raised her chin. "Do you know this for a fact?"

I admitted that I didn’t.

Then it was Pa’s turn to speak. They were working on me like the team they were. "I suggest you find out about that and then we’ll discuss this idea of yours."

I wasn’t about to let reality crush my plan. I told him I would do as he asked. I did. And a couple of days later Erik had a horse and saddle. He was as excited as I’d ever seen him and kept telling me "Thanks" until I threatened to return the horse if he didn’t stop. Seeing him that enthusiastic about something was worth the fact that buying his gift had taken every last bit of money I had.

By the time of Erik’s birthday Gabrielle and I had exchanged three letters. Mine were awkward but hers were full of news. She told me about horseback rides in the country and about dances and parties. She recounted how visitors arrived and, in the best of Southern traditions, stayed weeks at a time. In her third letter she excitedly told me about the possibility of going back east to school. I remembered Pa’s remark about girls who learned to be hostesses, do needlework, and be generally worthless. The thought of pretty Gabrielle turning into one of those women saddened me.

I was sitting at the dining table, involved with my fourth boring letter to Gabrielle, when Erik came in from the courtyard and sat down across from me. He watched silently until I finally gave him my attention.

"Well?" I asked.

"Nothing."

"Come on, Erik. What do you want?"

He slid his finger on the tabletop, invisibly writing something I couldn’t figure out. "Adam?"

"Hum?"

"You’re gonna go to California aren’t ya?"

I put down my pencil. "What kind of question is that?"

His sky blue eyes met mine. "Are ya?"

"What makes you think I’m not?"

He pointed to the letter. "You ain’t getting married or nothin’ are ya?"

"Erik." I tried to be patient. "I won’t be sixteen for another month. What makes you think Ma and Pa would let me?"

"Lots of people get married when they’re sixteen."

I shook my head. "Not in this family."

He pursed his lips. "How old was Pa when he got married?"

"Not sixteen."

Those blue eyes squinted. "You sure?"

"Yes."

"How old was he do ya think?"

"Maybe nineteen or so."

"That’s not much older than you are now," Erik observed.

With startling insight I realized Pa had only been a few years older than I was at that time. He’d taken on a wife and, a short time later, a baby. I couldn’t imagine doing the same thing. Truth told, I didn’t want to. I knew I wasn’t ready to take care of a child – having two younger brothers had driven that conviction into me.

"How come –" Erik paused. "Well I mean why’re you writing to her if you’re not gonna marry her?"

I put my elbows on the table. "Because we’re friends."

Erik shook his head. "No way boys and girls are just friends."

Even though I didn’t mean to, I smiled at his statement. "Is that so?"

"Sure. Just look around. I mean the boy wants to be just friends but the girl gets all – oh I don’t know. They get all fussy and asking the boy to do this and do that. It’s embarrassing."

"Being with – " I remembered what that term meant to a lot of people and wasn’t sure how Erik understood it so I changed my wording. "Sharing time with a girl doesn’t mean you want to marry her. When someone talks about courting a girl that means they want to get married."

He looked at me shyly. "Are you courting her?" He pointed again to the letter.

"I’m going to California."

"Are you taking her with us?"

"I’m not planning on it."

He leaned back and sighed deeply. "Good. We can’t get to California without ya, Adam. ‘Sides, I wouldn’t want to go if you didn’t come."

I reached across the table and genially slugged him in the arm with my fist. He tried to do the same to me but I was faster than he was. I swung to one side and his fist sailed past me. When he pulled in his arm to jab at me again I held up my hand. "Only one try. You know the rules."

Erik rolled his eyes as he stood up. "Rules, rules, rules."

Pa walked into the room. "What’s the matter with rules?" He must have been listening from just outside the doorway. He wasn’t serious but Erik didn’t know that.

"Well it’s just that – what I mean is – well, Pa, rules get in the way of having fun and they’re a whole buncha trouble when you break them."

Pa put his right hand over his mouth as if he were considering Erik’s remarks – but I knew the hand hid a huge grin.

"I was just talking, Pa. I didn’t mean nothing by it."

"Anything," Pa and I corrected at the same time.

"What?" Erik was confused and that was never a good thing.

"I didn’t mean anything by it," Pa repeated.

"You didn’t? By what?"

I crossed my arms on the tabletop and rested my head on them. Stop, Pa. Please stop.

"You said you didn’t mean nothing by it. I said you didn’t mean anything by it."

"So? All it means is we agree."

"I was correcting your speech, Erik."

"What?"

Pa moaned softly. "You said "nothing."

I could imagine Erik’s face screwed up in a frown. "No I didn’t, Pa. I told you I was just talking."

"Never mind," Pa said in defeat.

Erik was incredulous. "Never mind you, Pa??"

I raised my head. "He means forget what you two are talking about not that you should never mind him."

Erik shook his head. "That’s not what he said."

Exasperation filled my tone of voice. "But that’s what he meant, brother."

"Why didn’t he say that?"

I fought the impulse to scream. "He did. And if you halfway listened you’d understand."

Erik leaned toward me with anger in his eyes. "I listen to Pa better than you ever have."

That was an out and out insult. "What??"

"Both of you stop." Pa’s order was short and firm.

Did we listen to him? Hardly. We were into a matter of honor about who listened to him better.

I slammed my hand on the tabletop and stood. I can’t tell you how disconcerting it was to look up to my younger brother at a time like that. "You have never listened to Pa as well as I have a day in your life."

"Boys - " Pa’s voice promised danger. But we didn’t listen because we were busy arguing about who listened to him.

"I’ve always done what Pa said but you haven’t." Erik’s accusation stung. "You’ve got Pa convinced you’re Mister Perfect so when you do something wrong he let’s you get away with it."

"Adam. Erik. Stop this. Now." Pa might as well have been at the shop for all he was accomplishing with us.

I couldn’t believe my ears. Get away with it? "I’ve never gotten away with anything in my whole life!" Well, a few things but Erik didn’t know about them and, thankfully, neither did Pa.

Our father’s voice sort of entered my consciousness. "Now."

We ignored Pa completely.

"Oh yeah?" Erik challenged.

I pointed at him and squinted my eyes. "You name one time I’ve gotten away with something. Just one."

Erik thought. "Well – "

Slapping the tabletop again I claimed he had proven my point.

Not a second later Pa grabbed my head and Erik’s and he held us dangerously close to each other. "I’m about to split your heads open to see if either one of you has any brains."

Pa had never said anything as ludicrous as that to us. I can’t begin to tell you how funny it sounded although I’m pretty sure Pa hadn’t meant it that way. Erik and I slid looks at each other from the corners of our eyes and laughed until we shook. Pa released us and stared. Our laughter was so strong we leaned into each other for support as tears streamed down our faces.

Pa knew when he was licked. He muttered and left us in our howling state. It was the only time we disobeyed him when he said "now." But he never said something as unbelievable as banging our heads together to us again.

Pa had been right when he told me that Erik and Joe would balk anytime I gave them an order. Since he was busy finishing up the legal work involved in selling his half of the partnership, Pa left me list after list of things to be done before we left for Independence. When I relayed those orders to my brothers they made stubborn mules look compliant. More than once I was tempted to smack Joe’s backside but I had told Pa I would never do it again and I intended to keep my word. What I couldn’t understand was why they didn’t obey. They were just as eager to get to California as I was.

"They don’t have any idea of the work involved," Pa said when I collapsed on the settee to ask his advice one night after the sources of my aggravation were in bed. "I told you about this, remember?"

"Couldn’t you give them orders?" I requested. "They don’t disobey you."

He rocked in his chair and worried with his pipe a moment. "We’re partners, Adam. You need to learn how to make them obey you, too."

"Could you at least talk to them?"

"Yes. But I’m warning you, you have a tough time ahead of you and only half of it is getting to California." When I gave him a weary look he reassured me. "They’ll learn how to pull along with you instead of against you. The three of you will learn to work as an effective team. Just be patient."

I answered that I understood. But his words ran thin by the next afternoon. To my utter dismay I found myself yelling at them both. "Do you want to go to California or not!"

What do you think they did? They yelled right back. "Since when are you the boss?" Erik demanded. "You can’t make me," Joe challenged. I threw my hands in the air and stormed away. That night I told Pa I didn’t want to be in charge of Erik and Joe anymore. He informed me that I had no choice.

I was so aggravated with my brothers that I escaped reality by dreaming about going to Natchez and marrying Gabrielle – it was pure escape because I knew traveling to California was more important to me than any girl. Besides, all entertainment of that idea fell from the heights when I received a letter from her. It began, "Oh, Adam, I have the most exciting news. I am engaged." I didn’t even bother to read the rest of it. I quickly sent her a letter of congratulations and told her we were headed for California. That’s the way I cast "the prettiest girl I’d ever seen" aside.

The next morning Joe woke me by putting his hand on my shoulder. After pretending I was asleep only got me a firm pat on the shoulder, I slowly opened my eyes and acknowledged the imp.

"Adam?" He had an expression on his face that I’d never seen before and there was hesitancy in his voice. "Adam?"

I lifted up on my right elbow. "What’s up, Little Brother?"

The hesitancy didn’t go away. He even bit at his lip a moment before he took a deep breath in preparation. "Adam? Joe pwomises to do whatevew you say and Joe won’t do anything Joe shouldn’t if – if you’ll show Joe how to wide a howse."

I suggested we needed to ask Ma and Pa about his proposal. He said he would ask them if I promised to teach him. After long consideration of what I was committing myself to, I said I would but I wanted to be present when he asked permission.

His smile drove the hesitancy from his face. "Joe’ll ask them now."

"You’re going to let me get dressed, right?"

He ran to the clothes tree and stood on his tiptoes to reach my trousers. He almost tripped over them as he brought them to me. "You don’t need your boots, Adam. We’we just going to the kitchen."

How could you not smile at him? I stood up, pulled on my trousers, and walked behind him to the kitchen. I’d known he was brave after he’d come off the roof, and I knew Pa never frightened him, but I’d never noticed how he’d inherited Pa’s direct way. In the kitchen he marched to where Pa was pouring a cup of coffee and went straight to the point. "Adam says he’ll teach Joe how to wide a howse if Joe pwomises to do what he says and he said Joe has to ask youw pewmission and he has to see Joe do it. So may Joe?"

Ma leaned against the work counter considering Joe’s request but I think she was also seeing something in her son she hadn’t seen before – he was pretty sure of himself for a six-year-old. The trait has stayed with him as he has grown and has been misunderstood more than once as cockiness.

Pa considered Joe’s request without surprise. He sat on his heels and asked Joe to come to him. My brother did so without hesitation.

"The first time Adam tells us you’ve disobeyed him you lose the privilege. Do I make myself clear, Joseph?"

Joe was as serious as Pa was. "Yes, Pa."

Pa waved his left hand. "You have my permission."

After a moment’s hesitation, Joe walked over to Ma. "May Joe, please?"

She sent a beseeching look to Pa and then studied Joe. "Do you not think you are too young for this?"

"No, ma’am. In those stowies they’ve been telling about twaveling, Pa said Adam was widing when he was my age."

"That’s true, Ma." I stood beside him.

She placed her hands on Joe’s shoulders. "You will be careful?"

"Yes, ma’am." He bit his lower lip until she answered.

"Then I, too, give my permission."

All the tension came out of Joe’s body. He hugged Ma tightly and smiled when she leaned down so he could give her a kiss on the cheek. Turning to face Pa, Joe thanked him too, with a grin just like Pa’s.

I was the subject of his attention next. "They said Joe could wide, Adam. Will you teach Joe now?"

I picked him up and tousled his hair. "Remember what I told you."

"Joe does. Joe’ll be the best you evew saw." His excitement was as contagious as his smile. When he hugged me I knew what was coming next. "You’we the best brother evew."

I winked at him. "Don’t tell Erik that."

He squinted those big eyes. "Awe you teasing Joe?" And we both laughed.

I started training Joe on a horse the next day. Erik had a suggestion or two based on how I’d taught him so pretty soon he, too, was involved in teaching Joe how to ride a horse. Erik helped Joe as I had helped Erik. He never yelled at Joe and he never told Joe he wasn’t capable of doing something. When Joe didn’t seem ready for the next step, Erik and I worked with him until he gained more control of himself and the horse. I had been right in my evaluation of him the day Erik had asked the family to watch him ride: Joe loved horses as much as I did. He enjoyed riding them, watching them, petting them, grooming them, feeding them – and Erik and I muttered our surprise to each other when the boy didn’t complain about cleaning up after the horse he had ridden. Adding to our bewilderment was the fact that out brother quit referring to himself as "Joe" and learned how to pronounce "r" about two weeks after he started riding a horse.

Joe was as good as his word. He never once disobeyed Erik or me. And while I won’t kid you by saying he was overly cautious he didn’t take any risks. Erik and I softly exchanged worries that someone may have kidnapped our original brother and replaced him with a new one.

On the days when Joe wasn’t due to ride, Erik and I indulged in our favorite sport. We lined up our horses side by side and then we raced down a straightaway yards from the training area. Determining who enjoyed the exercise more, the horses or Erik and me, would have been a difficult task. Our mounts knew what we were preparing to do the minute we trotted them to the scene and the winner tossed his head at the other horse as if to say, "Beat ya."

Pa didn’t know about our indulgence until Erik and I raced one day when he came to the stables looking for Joe. After we turned our horses to cool them down Pa gave us "the look" as he straightened from where he leaned against the training area fence. We flinched.

"Ut oh," Erik muttered.

"Act like nothing’s wrong," I advised.

Erik thought I was crazy. "Adam, Pa’s mad."

"Angry," I corrected.

"What’s the difference?"

"I’ll tell you later." I tried to look meek as we stopped our horses near Pa. Erik had no problem – he was meek.

Pa considered Erik. "How long have you been racing?"

"We thought it would be fun," Erik answered. Which was the truth.

Pa never has been easy to fool. He knew it was not our first race by the way we rode and controlled our mounts.

I heard what I always dread - that slow, "Adam."

After I reset my hat and leaned my hands on the saddle horn I answered, "Yes, Pa?"

He called in my debt for when I hadn’t told him the whole truth in Natchez. "Don’t make me ask the question again."

"We’ve been racing a long time."

"Where?" His voice deepened.

The implied threat surprised me. "Sir?"

He rarely repeats himself but he did that day. "Where, Adam?"

I motioned behind me. "Here. On the straightaway."

"Not the racetrack?"

The racetrack! Pa would have had our hides if he had thought we’d been at the racetrack – particularly if he had thought we’d been betting. Erik and I realized what he was thinking at the same time and we said, "No, Pa" as one.

"I saw ‘em, Pa," Joe piped in after he seemingly appeared out of nowhere. "Here at the stables."

I blinked and leaned toward him. "We only did it the days you weren’t here."

He looked down at the soft dirt. "Maybe I came to watch sometimes."

The big brother in me shot to the surface. "You walked from home to the stables by yourself?"

He frowned at me and waved his arms. "I’m six years old, Adam!"

"You need to be older to do that," I challenged.

Joe always has been quick with a comeback. He thrust his chin out and folded his arms. "I did it, didn’t I?"

Pa had his back to my littlest brother so Joe couldn’t see the smirk on Pa’s face.

"Besides," Joe pointed out, "you’re not my pa."

I leaned forward in the saddle. "Nope but I’m your big brother and you have to do what I tell you."

His face reddened with aggravation. "Pa, did you hear that?"

Pa studied me and I saw admiration in his eyes as he answered, "Yes."

"Are you gonna let him say that?" Joe was incensed.

"Yes," Pa said again.

But Joe wasn’t having any of my warning. "He’s not my pa and he won’t ever be."

Pa turned his back to Erik and me so he could face Joe. "As Adam said - he’s you’re big brother. You’ll do well to obey him from now on or you will answer to me." He looked at Erik to indicate the directive was meant for him too.

I could only imagine Joe’s reaction but I didn’t have to imagine Erik’s. He whirled at me. "You ain’t giving me any orders!"

"Aren’t," I corrected.

"And quit doing that," he snapped.

Pa turned his attention to Erik. "Young man - "

Erik puffed up like a cold bird but he had the acquired wisdom to know when to hush around Pa.

I didn’t throw my weight around with them very much when we were on the trail. And the fact that I didn’t push them meant they listened when I gave them an order. Well, they listened maybe fifty percent of the time. After all, they are Cartwrights.

Erik and Joe developed into good riders. Joe showed signs of being an instinctive horseman – underlying his talent though was that basic recklessness. I always worried when he mounted up because I knew how badly he could be hurt while riding.

After several delays we were almost outfitted for the trip to Independence, Missouri, to join a wagon train. That was when Tante Jeanette came to our house and pleaded with Ma not to go.

"There are so many dangers," she said. "And you are so frail, Marie. It is not the life for you."

Frail? Ma? She’d had Joe hadn’t she? And more astounding as far as I was concerned she’d kept up with him for six years! Added to that was the fact that she was mother to Erik and me – and even I’ll admit we’re not easy to handle at times. She managed to keep her sense of humor, tease us, and accept all of our individual traits. Ma worked as hard at home as Pa did in town. In fact the only thing she was unable to do that I was aware of was skip. I cast a disbelieving eye at Pa and the look he threw back at me warned no matter how old I was he’d tan me if I said a word. I became uncommonly humble.

Getting through that night without saying anything was one of the greatest challenges of my life. Luckily, Tante Jeanette’s words were to no avail and our date of departure remained unchanged.

I had a lot to take care of during the days before we left. I thanked Mr. Alexander for all his help, and for selling Beauty and Erik’s horse to me. He shook my hand and wished my family the best of luck. Telling my friends goodbye was a little harder. We promised to write just as Martin and I had promised. I knew we wouldn’t or the mail would never reach us.

Mrs. de Ville was the person I found it hardest to leave behind. Whenever I had the time I visited with her and we reminisced about everything that had happened since Erik and I had first met her – including the time Thaddeus had gotten inside and damaged the best draperies in her house. I had been scared at the time and sure I could never repay her for my dog’s trespass but Mrs. de Ville had been as gracious as always. As I sat with her when we were ready to leave I came to understand Pa’s lesson about how I might not always agree with someone but it would be a shame if I couldn’t find common ground on a few things. Mrs. de Ville and I agreed on most things – except the fact that she’d sold her country house to a man who owned slaves. I never said a thing to her about it though. It wasn’t my place. Besides I would never have done anything to hurt the woman who was my grandmother in all but blood.

Ma and Pa sold the items we didn’t plan to take with us. Pa bought a wagon to get us to Independence, where we’d exchange it for a bigger one. The trip from New Orleans to Missouri wasn’t as long so we needed fewer provisions.

For the first time I felt sentimental not only about the people we would leave behind but about the city. I treasured New Orleans and all its idiosyncrasies. I would miss the seafood, breads and pastries. I would miss the church bells and the busy sounds around the square. I would miss the architecture and watching the steamboats pull in and then leave again with their excited passengers aboard. I would miss the fine carriages and the equally fine horses – the women in their fancy dresses and the men in their finest suits. I would miss riding the St. Charles streetcar and admiring the new homes that were springing up like wildflowers. I would miss the luxuriant growth of vines and even the moss that grew on the bricks. But most of all I would miss iced cream. I nearly cried when I thought about leaving it behind.

One night when I was reading in bed, one unusual night when Joe and Erik were asleep, Ma’s and Pa’s voices drifted to me. They sounded as if they were at the dining table. I returned to my book and then started eavesdropping – even though I knew better.

Pa told Ma how much money we had and how much he had determined joining a wagon train and outfitting a new wagon in Independence would cost. "There’s one problem," he said. "Selling the partnership and preparing for the trip took longer than I planned. We’ll reach Independence after May so we’ll have to wait for the wagon train next spring."

My parents were silent a while and then Ma spoke, her soft accent unusually thick. "I see the money you have listed that we have. But there is more, Benjamin."

For once someone surprised Pa. "More, Marie?"

She told him how much more there was and it was such a substantial amount that I concentrated all the more on their conversation.

"I don’t understand," Pa said uncertainly.

"I sold the jewelry."

"The pieces I’ve given you wouldn’t bring that much."

"The others did."

Pa sighed and I knew he was trying to hold his temper. "What other jewelry?"

"They are what my first husband gave me," Ma confessed. "I have kept them that I might use them. This was the time."

"Where did you keep - My stars, Marie! Why didn’t you sell them before?"

"As I say to you, Benjamin, I save them for the future."

"You endured everything after he left when you could have sold that jewelry?"

"It was not such a hard time," she assured and then directed the conversation in the direction she wanted. "My family is precious - not the gifts given without the love. Such things belong to the past. We leave for the future, yes?"

Pa’s voice went husky and I wondered if he was crying. "Is it possible to love someone more every day?"

Ma laughed slightly. "Surely. It is how I love the boys and you."

I blew out the lantern by my bunk bed and thanked God for Ma.

We said our final goodbyes in New Orleans and then struck out for Missouri. Oddly enough I no longer felt any attachment to the place we had lived for eight years. We left with more than we had when we arrived: a loving mother and wife - and a handful of a brother and son.

I turned in the saddle and looked back once at New Orleans. I never looked back again. I’d brought along all the important things - my family and my memories. No matter what, they are always with me.

The End.