Shadow of a Man
(WHN for The Crucible)
Ben Cartwright stood quietly in the doorway of the hotel room he was sharing with his son, brow furrowed with concern. The drapes were drawn against the afternoon sun and Ben could just make out Adam’s burned and chapped face against the stark white pillow case on the bed. Though sleeping, the young man moaned and twitched almost constantly, his legs shifting restlessly beneath the covers in spite of the sedative he’d been given. What kind of hell had Adam been through? In the hours since Ben and his two youngest sons – Hoss and Joe – had found Adam staggering through the desert dragging a dead man behind him, the silver-haired patriarch of the Cartwright clan had asked himself that question a dozen times. His eldest son had been delirious and parched with thirst, his clothes filthy and tattered, the soles of his boots worn through. He’d been missing for almost two weeks – all they knew was that he’d been waylaid and robbed of the five thousand dollars he’d been carrying. Everyone presumed he was dead, but his family had pressed on in their search for him in spite of the odds. Ben shuddered anew to realize how close they’d come to giving up themselves just moments before spotting Adam in a valley below them.
Tears sprang unbidden to Ben’s eyes as he recalled again how Adam had collapsed in his arms, chattering dementedly before breaking down in dry, wracking sobs. Somehow, they’d gotten Adam up into Ben’s saddle and with Ben riding behind him to hold him up, they’d made the trek back to Eastgate, with Joe towing the dead man’s body behind him on the makeshift travois. Ben had taken Adam immediately to the hotel and summoned the town’s doctor while Hoss and Joe transported the body to the sheriff. Though sunburned, dehydrated and suffering from heat exhaustion, Adam would be all right, the doc had assured the distraught father, but he would need a few days rest before making the journey home. He’d given Adam some laudanum and left more with Ben with instructions for its use.
Hoss and Joe, meanwhile, had discovered from the sheriff that the dead man’s name was Jedidiah Kane, a prospector who ventured into town only rarely for supplies. Since Kane was obviously severely dehydrated and since there were no bullet or knife wounds to suggest foul play, the sheriff had instantly ruled the death an accident and had ushered Joe and Hoss on their way.
Ben turned away from the door and closed it quietly behind him. Thrusting his hands into his pockets, he walked with shoulders hunched down the hall to the room Hoss and Joe were sharing. Joe answered the door at his knock, and his troubled face betrayed his anxiety over his brother’s condition. Hoss, too, regarded Ben with worry and his concern was not allayed by the expression on his father’s face.
"Adam doing any better?" asked Joe as Ben settled himself heavily into a chair.
"The doc says that physically, he’ll be okay in a couple of days. It’s his mind I’m concerned with," sighed Ben. He’d never seen Adam behave as he had when they’d found him, so emotionally out of control. Whatever had happened to him out there in the desert had affected him deeply, and Ben feared the real challenge in Adam’s recovery would not be his physical restoration, but his mental healing.
"You don’t think he’s crazy, Pa, do you?" Little Joe’s voice held an edge of fear.
"No, no. Not crazy," Ben wearily waved off the suggestion. "Disturbed maybe. Tormented. Even now, with the sedative the doctor left, he can’t sleep peacefully.
"Ya don’t suppose it’s jist the sun that’s got to him?" mused Hoss. Unconsciously, he picked up a pillow and began twisting the cover in his meaty fists. Hoss couldn’t stand being presented with a situation in which someone needed help and he could do nothing to provide it.
Ben pondered the words of his second son and heaved another sigh. "It’s possible, I suppose, but call it a father’s instincts; I think it goes much deeper than that."
"Well, Pa, you know we Cartwrights stick together," said Joe, mustering a cheerful note. "We’ll bring ol’ Adam around again. Just you wait and see."
A tiny smile curved the corner of Ben’s mouth as he regarded Joe’s winsome face. "Yes, son. You’re right. We’ll do all we can to help Adam. Tomorrow morning, though, I want you and Hoss to head back to the Ponderosa." Seeing they were about to protest, Ben raised his hand to stop them and continued. "I know you want to stay, but the Ponderosa’s been without our attention for over a week now. I need you boys to go see to the affairs of the ranch for me. I imagine Adam will be sleeping for the better part of the next two days anyway, so there’s not much you can do for him right now. As soon as he’s fit to travel, I’ll bring him home."
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Adam slept fitfully until late that evening. Opening his eyes was an effort, and he lay with them shut for just a moment, savoring the coolness around him and wondering if he was dead. When he finally managed to blink his lids open, his first sight as he glanced around the room was of his father sitting in an armchair as a burning lamp cast a small pool of light on the pages of the book he held in his lap. Waves of emotion flooded through him as he stared in disbelief at a man he’d never expected to see again.
"Pa?" he managed to croak at last, and Ben flew from his chair, the book tumbling unheeded to the floor as he raced to his son’s side.
"Adam. Son. How are you feeling?" Ben spoke softly, but Adam could hear the pathos in his voice and realized his father was as overcome as he was.
"I…I…I’m okay, I guess. But how did I get here? Better yet, how did you get here? And where is ‘here’, exactly?"
"We’re in Eastgate. You don’t remember your brothers and me bringing you here? We found you in the desert. You were dragging the body of a man behind you."
Adam’s face clouded and when he spoke, it was in an odd monotone. "I remember being in the desert. And I remember the man I was dragging."
"But you have no recollection of our finding you or the ride into Eastgate?" Ben prompted.
"No," Adam shook his head slowly.
Ben laid his hand over Adam’s. "Don’t worry about that now, Son. It’s not important. What I would like to know, though, is where you were and what happened to you out there? We know you were robbed and left out there alone, but that’s all we know."
A hard look settled over Adam’s features and he turned his head away from Ben, staring into the gloom. He struggled to find something – anything – he could tell his pa without revealing the truth of what he’d been through. A truth so dark it had changed him forever. In the end, though, he could say nothing and no amount of urging on Ben’s part could alter that.
"Never mind, Adam. I don’t want to pressure you," Ben told him, patting his shoulder reassuringly. "Are you hungry, Boy? Do you think you could eat?"
It had been days since he’d had food, but ironically, Adam found he wasn’t hungry. "No, Pa. I’m not hungry right now. Just very tired. If you don’t mind getting me a drink of water first, I think I’ll just go back to sleep for now."
Ben held the glass of water to Adam’s lips as he sipped at it before settling back against the pillow and closing his eyes, his long, dark lashes resting against his sunburned cheeks. For a long time after Adam had drifted once more into sleep, Ben stood staring down at him, greedy just to watch the son he thought he’d lost, but so terribly afraid for him, too.
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"NO!"
The word rang out in the small room and Ben leaped instantly from his bed, two steps taking him through the dark to Adam’s bedside. He found his son sitting bolt upright, a fine sheen of sweat covering his body.
"Adam! Adam, are you all right!" he cried, grasping Adam’s shoulders and straining to see in the darkness.
"Yeah. Yes, I’m okay, Pa," Adam assured Ben, though he was breathing heavily. "It was a dream. Just a dream. I’ll be alright now."
"Are you sure? What was the dream about? Can you tell me?" Ben hovered anxiously, his own heart racing.
"No…I…I can’t remember," Adam mumbled. "I’m okay, Pa. Really. Go on back to bed."
Reluctantly, Ben returned to his bed, but not to sleep. He didn’t believe for one moment that Adam couldn’t recall his dream, and he suspected it had everything to do with whatever Adam had experienced while missing. Adam had never been particularly forthcoming with his feelings, always holding a little in reserve, but never had he so shut Ben out as he had today. Again, Ben agonized over whatever it was his boy had been through, yearning to take it upon himself if only he could.
It was nearly dawn before Ben finally yielded himself to slumber.
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Adam was clearly delighted to see his brothers the next morning, though he still held a part of himself back, even from them. Little Joe and Hoss perched on either side of him on the bed and they couldn’t seem to get enough of seeing him and touching him; little touches, to an arm, a leg, a hand – just to reassure themselves that he was there, alive and not lost to them forever, as they’d feared. Ben brought Adam an egg and some toast, and he dutifully finished them off, though he still had no appetite to speak of. He was still pretty groggy from the sedative he’d been given, and resistant to the idea of taking more, though Ben insisted that he follow the doctor’s orders to do nothing but rest for a couple of days.
It was with great reluctance that Hoss and Joe finally said good-bye to their brother and father and parted for home, but Adam was almost relieved when they were gone. As pleased as he’d been to see them, it was a strain for him now to be with them, pretending things were as they’d always been. Despite his earlier protests, he took the sedative Ben offered gratefully, surrendering to a now welcome oblivion that temporarily freed him from the thoughts beating inside his brain.
For the next day and a half, Adam spent most of his hours in a drug-induced sleep. Each time the laudanum began to wear off, however, horrible nightmares returned to plague him. Dreams of Kane and his deranged, laughing face, taunting and deriding Adam. Once, Adam dreamed he was near perishing from hunger and thirst, and Kane offered him a full canteen of water and a plate heaped high with food. When Adam reached for them, though, Kane caused them to simply vanish, then threw back his head and laughed his maniacal laugh. In another, Kane was cracking a whip at Adam and demanding he pick up boulders as large as a man and move them to the other side of his camp. When Adam protested, Kane grew in stature to the size of a giant and lifted the boulders himself, hurling them down at Adam as though trying to squash a bug. The dream that troubled Adam most of all was one in which Kane mocked him, crying, "It’s a game Adam! C’mon and win the game! Become the animal I know you are! All you have to do is kill me!" The dream Adam tried to run, but Kane was always in front of him, gibing, daring Adam to kill him. At last, Adam darted into the mine, but Kane was there, too, and Adam had tackled him, hands closing around Kane’s neck and choking him…choking him until he was broken and dead on the ground. And still the laughter sounded, only now it was the Devil himself who laughed and Adam awoke once again with a cry, heart pounding so hard he thought it would burst through his chest.
By the afternoon of the second day, Adam determined he’d rested enough. The truth was, he feared sleeping any more than he had to lest he slip back into another nightmare. So, though he felt as weak as a kitten, he forced himself out of the bed and dressed in the clothes Ben had purchased for him to wear home. His father had gone down to the general store to pick up tobacco and some spearmints, and Adam relished the brief time alone. Although he loved his father dearly, every moment he was awake right now, Ben seemed to be scrutinizing his every move. He hadn’t asked Adam again about what he’d been through while the search for him went on, but the question hung unspoken in the air, and Adam was certain his father would broach it again soon.
After pulling his boots on, Adam rose, stretched and walked over to the narrow window. If he’d hoped to catch a glimpse of activity, he was disappointed, for the window faced nothing more than the brick exterior of its neighbor. Even the alleyway between the two buildings was empty and quiet. With a sigh, Adam turned back to the room and regarded it restlessly. It suddenly felt entirely too much like the closed-in mine Kane had forced him to work for days, and he felt an overwhelming urge to escape its confines. Without a second thought, he made for the door and headed down the corridor to the stairs. He was uncomfortably surprised at how exhausted he felt just descending to the bottom of the steps, and was forced to cling to the newel post at the end of the banister for a moment just to catch his breath.
Eastgate in the daylight was just as hot and dusty as he remembered it, and there wasn’t much activity on the street as Adam stepped out of the hotel. Flies buzzed around the heads of two horses tied to the hitching post in front of the hotel, but theirs was the only real commotion up and down the road. An old fellow was enjoying an afternoon snooze on the bench in front of the bathhouse across the street and Adam could hear the sound of music and laughter emanating from the saloon a few buildings down, but all was quiet otherwise. Still gathering his strength, he stood briefly and just inhaled the desert air, savoring the freedom to do so when he had figured to be dead by now.
Though grateful to be alive, his appreciation was tempered by a grief that seemed to tear at his innermost parts, even as he fought to bury it so deeply that it didn’t have to be faced. It was a grief borne of his recognition that he was not the man he’d always prided himself in being. A man in control of his emotions; a civilized man. Someone who had surpassed the baser instincts of his more primitive ancestors and developed a degree of refinement that supplanted the crude responses of the ignorant and uncultured. To have come face-to-face with a part of himself Adam had never known existed – in fact, would have sworn had no place in him – was more than he could absorb. He felt as though his entire existence to this point had been nothing but a lie. That he was a stranger even to himself shook him to his very foundation, and he wrestled with this new knowledge as Jacob had wrestled with God.
Lost in his thoughts, Adam didn’t see his father exit the General Store and start at the sight of him.
"Adam! What are you doing out of bed, Son?" Ben cried, half-running to join Adam where he stood. He took hold of Adam’s elbow as though concerned that his son might not be able to stand without support, and Adam shrugged off the hold as inoffensively as he could.
"I’m okay, Pa. I just needed to get up and moving again. It’s time I rejoined the living," Adam insisted, though the words rang hollowly inside him. Surely there was a piece of him that had died forever and could never be resurrected.
"Adam, I’m glad you’re feeling better, but I think perhaps another day’s rest would be best for you."
"No, Pa, really. Just moving about has rejuvenated me more than the past two day’s rest. If I can just get a bite to eat, I think I’d like to head on home."
In the end, Adam consented to one more night in Eastgate. As his father pointed out, leaving that late in the day, they’d never reach the Ponderosa without having to spend the night in the wilderness. Better they get a fresh start at dawn. Pushing hard, they should be able to reach home by evening.
*****END*****
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