Treasures of the Heart

Part 3

The summer I turned fourteen and Erik turned ten he was as tall as I was. It didn’t take much of a brain to figure out that when he was full-grown he would be Pa’s height and maybe taller as well as heavier set than Joe or I. Because Erik and I were the same size - well, height - Ma and Pa no longer forbid us from wrestling, knocking each other over, dunking each other in the clear ponds, pretend boxing, and all the other things we’d been doing behind their backs.

All of Erik’s and my adventures couldn’t begin to compare to Joe’s escapades when he turned four years old. Because Ma and Pa were attending more dances and civic functions they left me in charge at home and I would have loved to let the responsibility pass to Erik. I can’t recall the half of what Joe got into - I purposely blocked it from my memory. A few, however, stand out in my mind: the time he found one of my pencils and drew a picture of our family on the parlor wall and then showed great talent by decorating the wall behind Ma’s and Pa’s bed with an anatomically correct dog. I guess he was paying more attention to Thaddeus than I’d thought. Following in his older brothers’ footsteps he delighted in peeing in the courtyard - except he liked to hit the bricks and, well, you can imagine it from there. We washed him off regularly. He climbed the iron gate and then called for one of us to come get him. We threatened to leave him but Joe said he’d tell Pa and we relented.

My little brother enjoyed climbing and probably would have been better on roofs than I was except for one problem: he had a fear of heights that grew in direct proportion to his years. Erik or I rescued him on such a regular basis that we took turns. Except for the time Joe climbed the tree in the courtyard, got way up where a huge limb branched off the main trunk, and then yelled for us. We started with the ladder. That got me nowhere near him. I coaxed, begged, ordered, and even offered candy but he would not climb down to me. The only thing left was for me to climb to him since I was lighter-weight than Erik. I wasn’t sure the same limbs that had held Joe would hold me. They bounced and creaked. Finally I grabbed a screaming Joe by his trousers, propped him on one hip, and prayed to God that Ma and Pa wouldn’t lose both of us. When we were safely standing on the bricks of the courtyard, Joe dusted his hands and declared, "Joe wasn’t afwaid." He would have done well to be afraid of me.

All the time I was thirteen and into my fourteenth year life was fine at home and school except for an occasional bout of back talk on my part that elicited a warning look and stern talk from Pa. Even though everything on the surface was smooth something was festering deep inside me. Now I know it for what it was - something every boy that age needs to be on guard against. It was unexplainable rebellion.

Erik learned his lesson about crossing Pa and you would think I had learned from my various experiences. But I needed to test the limit. Ma and Pa didn’t worry about me because they were wearing themselves out keeping up with Joe. Besides, I continued to do well at school. Then I received a bit too much education. Henri and the rest of us fell in with two boys I wish to this day I had never met - Jeremiah and Solomon. Their names were the only holy things about them. Like Pa has always told us, a person can’t make you do something you don’t want to do. I maintain, though, they can give you a mighty big shove down the path.

Jeremiah and Solomon were not the brightest students but in the interest of being fair they were not the worst. They did the minimum they could get by with at school and spent the rest of their time thinking up pranks and dares for after school. I had early chores at home on the mornings I didn’t exercise Temptation so I was wide-awake by the time I arrived at school. Jeremiah and Solomon were less aware and I was a little slow in understanding why their eyes were so bloodshot. I didn’t like them but something about them fascinated me. I learned a big lesson because of that.

The trouble started on a small scale. I left home early to meet them and smoke cigarettes and quickly advanced to cigars. I declined the bourbon. When I arrived home after dark one too many times and couldn’t offer a suitable explanation - actually I didn’t want to offer a suitable explanation because I wanted to see just how far I could push him - Pa took me out to the woodshed for an unpleasant experience. Since we knew that Joe was afraid of falling, Pa removed the nails that kept our window from being raised above a certain height and I roof walked again. I delighted in doing something Pa knew nothing about, more than once thinking how stupid he was to not catch on to my old trick. I went out with Gus, Henri, Jeremiah, and Solomon. At first my conscience chewed at me but then the sheer danger of what we wanted to do hushed my training. Along with my cohorts, I gathered up rocks and damaged several shop windows along Canal Street. Having gotten away with so much by then, and feeling remarkably invincible, we worked on improving our aim and shattered three stained glass windows in newly built homes. Pa caught me sneaking back in the window that night and demanded an accounting for my disobedience. When I tossed my head back and insolently told him I didn’t owe him anything he hauled me to the woodshed again. He hadn’t gone back to using his belt but the swats he delivered with the shutter slat would have stopped a less stubborn boy. My determination to get away with my offenses was outdone only by the strength of Pa’s swing. Every time he hit my behind the swats got harder. I didn’t even yelp because I was determined I would win the battle even if I had no idea why I was fighting him.

Then I did the most witless thing of my life. There is no way I could ever top it if I live to be a hundred. Glory how I wish Martin had been there to talk to.

The most witless thing I ever did started with the words "I bet you." Always be wary when someone beyond the age of nine says those words. They will lead to trouble as sure as a lightning strike in dry weather will produce a wildfire.

The five of us friends were wandering around the square, killing time when I should have been home doing my after school chores. Henri, Gus and Jeremiah were wealthy; Solomon was about like me - not wealthy but not at poverty’s doorstep. Jeremiah stopped and twisted his lips and we all knew he was thinking. He stuck his hands in his pockets, threw out his chest as he tried to look imminently important, and grinned in a way that made my neck hairs stand.

For reasons I still don’t fully understand - since he was one of the wealthy kids - he announced, "I bet you no one can steal a loaf of bread." His voice was full of brag. The rest of us looked at him in confusion so he continued. "Four of us can distract folks and the fifth one can steal a loaf of bread."

I asked why and he said just for the fun of doing it. It didn’t sound like much fun to me but the longer we talked about it, and the more we plotted the diversion, the deeper I got until I was up to my neck and couldn’t swim out. I was elected the first one to try to steal the loaf of bread because of my innocent face. Innocent face? I’d been breaking windows, sneaking out at night, smoking cigars, and I had an innocent face? I was afraid to ask what a criminal looked like.

Strolling along by the open-air shops, I pretended I was looking for something for my mother – at least that was the impression I hoped I was giving. Suddenly Gus yelled out and my friends pretended that Henri had stolen money from Jeremiah. The noise and running caught everyone’s attention and I grabbed the loaf of bread.

We’d overlooked one important thing in our brainy plot: I had no place to hide the bread. A strong hand locked around my wrist and I fearfully raised my eyes to the most no-nonsense policeman I had seen. "Aren’t you one of the Cartwright boys?" he asked in a gruff voice. I considered telling him I was an orphan and had only taken the bread because I was starving. But one look at me showed a well-fed fourteen-year-old. "Let’s go," he said and I just knew I was headed for a lifetime in prison. Actually a worse fate awaited me. He walked beside me to Pa’s business and made me stand there while he told Pa what I had done in the market. And then I lost my breath when he told Pa that I fit the description of one of the boys who had been seen throwing rocks at the shop windows. It was another one of those times I wished the floor would open up and gulp me down.

I just thought I had seen Pa angry before. The way he looked at me made the time he’d taken me to task in the alleyway for being rude to Ma seem like a friendly conversation. He slammed down the book he was working with, told his partner he was leaving for the day, put his hand to my back, and all but pushed me out the front door. We walked home in icy silence. We made a quick pass through the house where he took his belt off the wall and I knew what was coming all the way to the woodshed.

"Would you like to tell me what you were thinking?" I knew the words were not a request but a hard-edged order.

All my previous bluster disappeared as I watched the belt. It was time for a "sir." I looked him in the eyes and said, "Yes, sir, Pa."

He motioned with his left hand. "Well?"

As I told him about what I had done in the market and how I had sneaked out of the house to damage the shop windows I began to suspect he would find out about my other "adventures." In fact I was sure of it and I didn’t want to feel his belt ever again after this time. So I told him about everything, even the fact that I had declined the bourbon since it was the only action in my favor.

Pa stared as if he didn’t know me and I guess he felt like he didn’t. There I stood - his oldest and most responsible son; the one with whom he had shared all the difficult times; the one who had until recently performed chores without direction; the one who loved school and never gave his teachers a moment of trouble; and, truth told, the one most like Pa - and I had confessed to weeks of crime.

"You will apologize to the people whose homes you damaged," he said after a long, uncomfortable delay. "You will apologize to the shop owners whose windows you broke and if they request it you will work for them after school until you have repaid them for the damage." His left hand came up and he pointed at me as if he held a pistol. "And if you ever climb on that roof again I will have your hide. Do I make myself clear?"

I assured him that he did, all the time looking at his belt.

There was no more discussion. He turned me by my shoulders and ordered me to take down my trousers. It was the worst tanning of my life.

When Ma called us to dinner I walked slowly, dreading sitting on my bottom. I eased into my chair and as I straightened, sucking air through clenched teeth, Erik did the same thing. I raised my eyebrows at him and he shook his head. Somehow we both managed to eat. But Erik didn’t have his usual appetite - in fact he left food on his plate. We both politely declined dessert and asked to be excused.

As soon as we were in our room, I turned toward my brother. "What happened to you?"

"I’m guessin’ the same thing that happened to you," he said morosely.

"I hope not." I plopped on my bunk bed - on my stomach.

Erik leaned on the windowsill and looked down at his boots. "The way I hear it we all crossed Pa today."

I raised my head. "Joe?"

Erik nodded. "Pa spanked him so hard he cried pretty much until dinner."

I rose on my elbows. "Joe cried?"

"Everywhere he went. He’d rub his hands into his eyes and stop a minute and then he’d start crying again."

"Pa didn’t get mad?"

Erik pushed away from the windowsill. "I think he started to but then he saw how miserable Joe was and he eased back."

I didn’t believe what I had heard. "He never would have done that with me."

"Me, either." Erik climbed the ladder and fell on to his bunk - on his stomach. "I’m going to sleep."

"Take off your boots," I reminded. First one and then the other dropped past me and hit the floor. "By the way, Erik. When you were little you’d cry and Pa would hold you and pat your back until you were better."

"He don’t anymore. He ain’t done it in a long, long time."

I didn’t let him know I heard his sniffles start. Instead I told him good night. He answered back. And then we both fell into silence.

As he always did, Pa told me my punishment was over after he tanned me. When I apologized to the home and shop owners I found only one who took me to task and he was known to be impossible for anyone to get along with. How he stayed in business was a mystery to me. I exercised Temptation when my behind was better and worked so hard at school that my teacher advanced me to the next level. But things weren’t the same. Despite what he had said about my punishment being over I experienced a concern I had never felt before: that I had irrevocably disappointed the man I most admired - why else would Pa have physically hurt me more than he ever had - and that Pa loved me out of a feeling of obligation and not out of the wellspring of his heart.

Did it occur to me that Pa was pre-occupied with the trouble his partner and he had keeping good workers? Did I ever think he was devoting more time to balancing the ledgers? Of course not. I was so absorbed in feeling sorry for myself I didn’t notice he was unable to give any of the family much of his time.

I should have known Pa would drop everything when one of us needed him. He had done it all my life and he didn’t fail me when, a week after my tanning, I returned home from school and walked to the kitchen to ask Ma what chores Pa had told her to have me to do. She turned from the oven with tears in her eyes and I could tell from the damp spots on her apron they were not the first she had cried. It took a lot to make fun-loving Ma cry and I walked to her to hold her shoulders. Darkness closed around me as she told me Thaddeus had died. In his sleep, she added, as if that would help. I bit my lower lip, told myself I wouldn’t cry, convinced myself he had lived a long life, and then I grabbed her and shook in grief.

When my knees were strong enough, and my voice returned, I asked her where he was. She led me across the street and through the iron gate to Mrs. de Ville’s backyard. The water table was too high for underground graves, and anyhow there were laws against them, but Mrs. de Ville had found a way of getting around the regulations - as she always did. Two of her men were putting the finishing touches on a brick and masonry raised tomb for Thaddeus that everyone else would think served as the base for a statue she had brought back from Italy.

I couldn’t breathe and I gasped for air, my lips quivered as I felt myself slipping into that familiar dark hole. I cried for Dieter, lost years ago; for Martin, lost when I most needed him; and for Thaddeus, who had shared so much of my life. Ma had never heard my breathing stop, had never been helpless as I gasped for air, and had never seen me slide into the black hole. I heard the beginning of her screaming my name. I did not hear the end.

Pa revived me almost the same way he had after bringing the news of Dieter’s death. I was older though and taller, so he couldn’t rest me completely across his knees as he sat on the bed. Instead he bent me across one knee, pushed my head down, and held a cool rag to my throat. Ma handed him a small bottle and said, "I do not know if they still work, Benjamin." Whatever they were the smell shot into my nose. I could taste the odor in the back of my mouth and fought Pa to release me. He popped my behind and told me to keep my head down until I was breathing the way I should. When I finally settled into shallow but even breaths everyone except Pa left the room. He pulled off my boots and socks, unbuttoned my trousers, hung them on the clothes tree, and - with his arms under mine - helped me into bed. I idly wondered how I had gotten to my room. Pa stayed with me until I fell into a sound sleep. How could any boy think his father didn’t care after that?

I wasn’t myself for weeks following Thaddeus’ death. I did school work on my bed and sought no help from either parent. I stared blankly at the fireplace as Pa told his stories. I quietly answered, "Yes, Pa" when he gave me an order. I didn’t participate in conversations at the table because my heart wasn’t in it. I pretended to be asleep when Ma and Pa came up to our room to tell us good night. The day Ma gave me a new book I thanked her and put it on my shelf without looking at it. I even quit working with Temptation.

One night when I couldn’t sleep, I wandered to the door from our bedroom but stopped short when Ma’s voice came to me in the stillness. "It is not a faint, Benjamin. I have seen this with the foolish women who would be stylish."

Pa’s voice was soft and rich. "It’s only happened twice, Marie, when he couldn’t face something sad."

She made a disapproving sound. "He was sad when Erik’s mother died, yes?"

"Well," Pa hesitated and the bed creaked. "Yes, but he was young."

"It does not matter. He does not do this because he cannot as you say ‘face something sad.’ He does it because of the air."

No one could have mistaken the surprised tone as Pa whispered, "Marie, you’re too intelligent to believe that the graveyard - "

Some people believed that the graveyard air was tainted and once you had gone through it at night, as I had years before, you could become ill or have trouble breathing.

"I speak not of the graveyard." Her interruption was adamant. "I speak of this air. It is too wet and it is not always easy to breathe. Adam takes hurt to heart - and this and the air brings the short breaths."

Pa was quiet a long time. "We can’t keep him away from hurt. Life is full of it."

Ma was irritated. "But do you not see? If we leave here as you have hoped, if we follow the way to California, he will breathe good there."

I stood absolutely still. California? Ma was talking about California! She couldn’t foresee that when we reached Eagle Station, and then when we started our ranch, I would have a red nose, sniffles, and itchy eyes for three months of the year. I think it’s something about the pines.

My joy threatened to dissolve when Pa didn’t speak. But finally he said, "Well, the business climate is better. I’ll speak to Franklin. I would need to sell my partnership."

We were doing it - thanks to Ma we were heading to California!

"It will take time." Pa’s voice grew mischievous. "What do you think we can do while we wait?"

Ma’s low giggle caused me to blush and I tiptoed back to our bedroom.

We were headed to California! I never had so much trouble keeping a secret in all my life. I grinned like an idiot every day. Pa gave me puzzled looks and Ma leaned back several times with her head to one side as she tried to read my mind.

"Come on, Adam," Erik begged as we were carrying wood to the shed. "You’re up to something."

"Nope."

"I’m gonna tell Pa and he’ll make you tell."

I stared Erik in the eyes. You understand that meant I had to look up. "Even Pa can’t make me tell," I bragged.

"Even Pa can’t make you tell what?" Pa smiled as he held one of Joe’s wooden toys he was sanding yet again. Our littlest brother was hard on possessions.

I drew myself to my full height. Among Pa, Erik, and me I was by far the shortest. "It’s a secret and I’m not telling."

Pa nodded. "As long as it won’t get you or one of your brothers hurt I think a man keeping a secret is his own business."

"Aw, Pa!" Erik wailed.

"When you’ve finished with that wood, Erik, your mother has a chore or two for you in the kitchen. I think one involves flour."

Erik grinned. He still liked to get the stuff all over Joe and himself.

No matter what changed around us - friends moved away, we lost Thaddeus, Erik occasionally gave Jonah a wide berth, and I didn’t even see Jeremiah and Solomon except when I couldn’t avoid them at school - Ma kept our family traditions alive. Birthdays were always celebrated with a wonderful confection and candy for whoever had turned a year older.

Pa’s stories after dinner grew progressively outlandish and Ma’s ability to skip didn’t improve any. Erik and I reasoned that since we were older she had to be, too. We had become more skilled at things like jumping rope so surely she could now skip. But some people are doomed to failure. We worked with her almost every afternoon. Even four-year-old Joe got the hang of it. Pa tried to teach her in the back courtyard because he wasn’t about to be seen indulging in a child’s activity out front. Our efforts were to no avail.

When the weather was rainy or downright unpleasant, about two hundred days out of the year, we continued our habit of gathering in the parlor after dinner. I perfected pick-up sticks until no one could beat me. Ma taught me how to play chess. I watched closely, decided it was a game of math and logic, and soon no one would play with me. Erik and Joe wrestled with Pa on the rug but I considered myself too old for such horseplay. I read.

Joe kept Ma occupied at home so Erik and I had time for several rounds of mischief. One afternoon, despite Pa forbidding us, we made our way to the graveyard. It was just as spooky during the day as it had been at night. Well, maybe not just as spooky but close. We kicked rocks along the sidewalk in a residential area and then decided to see how high we could kick them. One went sailing over a fence, hit a horse that was hitched to a carriage, and the horse careened down the drive. We had heard that a pair of eyeglasses could start a fire so we used a newspaper, crouched behind our old hideout, and held the glasses over the paper. Just about the time we were ready to give up, a slender snake of smoke appeared. I blew on it gently the way Pa taught me to start a campfire. The next thing we knew we had an honest-to-gosh fire on our hands. Well, more on our boots. We stomped the thing out and pretended we had no idea when Ma and Pa kept asking us at the dinner table why our clothes smelled like smoke.

Poor Pa was miserable each year when Christmas arrived - even though he tried not to show it. We asked him to tell us about what Christmas had been like when he was a boy and it didn’t take long to understand what he missed: snow, sleigh rides, parties, visiting with friends he hadn’t seen all year, dances, and even church. That last item caused no small amount of consternation in Erik and me. Erik and I thought it was the snow Pa missed most of all. But one day when the three of us boys were gathered with Ma in the kitchen she explained how Pa missed many other things.

"He misses the evergreens and the mistletoe and the many drinks in the big bowls. He reads to you of the visit from St. Nicholas and he gives you the little books and the coins. But he misses many things."

Erik and I, in our turn, argued that we had parties. Well, they had parties. Young people weren’t invited. But leave it to Joe to ask about mistletoe, holly, and evergreens. He completely misunderstood about the type of evergreens Pa missed.

"We have all kinds of evewygweens, Ma," he bragged. His English was perfect and sometimes I wondered if pronouncing "r" like "w" came from the blending of Ma’s accent, ours, and the deep Southern accents of many people we knew. "Thewe’s some in the cowtyawd." Erik and I frowned a while before we realized he was talking about ferns.

"And this mistletoe you’we talking about," Joe climbed onto the stool where Erik and I used to sit. "Joe thinks he’s seen that in some of the twees. Adam could get it down, Ma."

She looked at me from the tops of her eyes as she cut biscuits. "It is not wise to volunteer others to do these things, Joseph."

Our littlest brother leaned his elbows on the part of the work table where Ma had not spread flour and clasped his hands under his chin in a perfect imitation of Pa. "Alwight, we have two wowds hewe, Ma. What’s this wise - Pa uses it but he hasn’t told Joe what it means yet - and what’s this volunteew?"

It was times like that when Erik and I understood why Ma and Pa enjoyed our little brother so much.

Pa may have missed the Christmases he had known years before but Ma introduced him to a different celebration. Where she had come from in France they celebrated the Epiphany season for a month after Christmas. One of the traditions Erik, Joe, and I enjoyed was what Ma called the Gateau des Rois for the three kings who visited the manger when Jesus was born. Those of us who still couldn’t speak French very well called it the Kings’ Cake. In addition to the fact that the round pastry was delicious and filled with almond paste or some other mouth-watering delight there was the excitement of wondering who would get the figurine hidden in the cake. Each year the order of receiving a slice varied but somehow Erik or Joe or I always found it in our slice of cake. Because the figurine was about the size of a bean, and we didn’t want to swallow it, the King’s Cake slowed us down and we actually chewed our food - a marvelous thing as far as Ma was concerned. I decided that Ma somehow manipulated the cake so either Joe or Erik or I found the figurine. And then the unexpected happened.

Pa, too, was counting on one of his sons to find the figurine so he wasn’t being cautious at all as he ate his slice of cake. Erik, Joe and I were disappointed that we weren’t finding a surprise in our first few bites - at least until Pa was chewing and a look of surprise washed across his face. To our unbelieving eyes, our pa - who insisted on good table manners - leaned forward and spit out something.

You can imagine the havoc his breach of manners caused in the three of us. Our forks crashed to our plates. Joe pointed at Pa, laughed, and held his tummy the way Erik had when he was little. Erik used one of his new phrases, "Well I’ll be goldanged." I, the most mature of the lot, slapped the tabletop with my hand in beat with my laughter. We tried to quiet down, we really did. For a minute we snuffled and wiped our noses and caught our breath. And then Pa held the figurine up to look at it, we remembered him spitting it out, and we were one huge lost cause. Ma had lost all semblance of decorum by then, too. She laughed almost as loudly as we did.

Pa gave us one of his fake menacing looks and he fought not to smile. Every year after that he was extremely cautious when he ate his serving of the Kings’ Cake.

One of those days when Joe was keeping Ma extra busy Erik and I were in the market area, debating on buying iced cream or candy. It was a nice day until Henri swaggered up to us. He was unpopular by then because he’d given everyone he knew a strong push down the wrong path.

He greeted me with a calculating grin and then asked if my parents were still married.

Since that was not the kind of question one boy ordinarily asked another, I wondered what he was hinting at. He sat down on a bench and looked away from me as if he were studying the busy thoroughfare. "She’s a pretty woman, you mother."

Something told me his compliment was not sincere. His voice held venom as dangerous as a rattlesnake’s.

"She’s attended a lot of parties with your father. But then she’s always been good at entertaining men, hasn’t she?" I knew what he meant by that. He was insinuating that Ma had worked in one of the sporting houses. My fists knotted by the sides of my legs.

He smiled at me again. "Of course we Creoles love to have parties." He stuck his hands in his pockets - that would prove to be his undoing. "We love music, good food, dancing. We love to have fun."

Now he was referring to the women who were paid by the hour to accompany men to social affairs. My fists tightened even more.

Erik nudged me that he didn’t understand what Henri was talking about. It was just as well that he didn’t.

"You do know, don’t you, that we overlook it when a man indulges himself with a sporting woman?" He twisted his thin lips into a sneer.

Pa would never go to one of those places. Never.

"We are, however, disappointed when a woman is unfaithful to her husband."

Now he was calling Ma unfaithful to Pa? My body was hot. If he didn’t stop I would make him regret he had ever even hinted that Ma was a bad woman.

"If nothing else, it brings up questions about a child’s sire."

He was saying Joe wasn’t Pa’s son! Henri had to be listening to his parents. There was no other explanation for the way he used words. But why would his parents say such terrible things about Ma?

"I thought a sire was a horse," Erik said and it was my turn to elbow him. Despite my anger I wanted to hear what else Henri had to say.

"Sometimes a man is unable to face his wife’s unfaithfulness." He squinted at me and grinned slowly.

He lost me there. First he said Ma was unfaithful to Pa. What was he saying about Pa?

"Sometimes an unfaithful woman’s husband leaves her and all she can do is depend on her family to keep her from begging or from turning to one of the sporting houses. Sometimes, though, she works in a house until she finds one of you Americans - one who doesn’t care about her past."

I was confused at first. Then memories surfaced. He had repeated what I has said years earlier when my family had attended the wedding of one of Ma’s distant cousins near Natchez. While we had been visiting for the wedding, I had decided to impress a group of older boys - and having only the most vague of ideas of what I was talking about I had told them Pa had met Ma in a New Orleans "sporting house." The minute the news had gone from sons to fathers to mothers I had brought a bunch of trouble on myself. Tante Jeanette had finally determined I had started the lie and I had paid dearly for the transgression. It was one thing for me to start a rumor out of innocence – quite another to listen to Henri’s malicious gossip.

Henri didn’t pick up a clue from my frown or how tense I was. Instead he said the words he would regret, if not forever, at least for several days. "Is your mother still having trouble being faithful? You know her first husband left her because she slept with another - "

He never finished the sentence. I whirled, pulled him up from the bench because he still had his hands in his pockets, and threw him to the ground. I don’t know how much Erik understood of what Henri said. But he understood one thing - he knew my temper. He took off in a panicked run. Henri pulled at my leg and I fell on top of him. I grabbed his hair and banged his head against the dirt. If that area of the market had been paved I probably would have killed him at that point. Henri’s fist connected with my jaw. I flew back, unable to focus my eyes for a moment, and while I was down I felt a searing pain in my side. I grabbed at his boot, flipped him to the ground, straddled him, and pummeled him with one fist after the other. We were not silent during all this - words came out of my mouth that Pa would have busted my britches for. Henri broke my hold. I put a fist into his left ear and sent him howling as he rolled to his side.

I don’t know how long the fight would have continued if Pa hadn’t come up behind me and lifted me off my feet - kicking, yelling, and trying to lay more hits on Henri. Pa threw me over his left shoulder like a sack and said if I didn’t calm down he’d swat me all the way home. I was so mad I slapped his back and he delivered a bottom-numbing swat. Erik, who was walking beside Pa, hunched his shoulders at the sound. After that I stayed still and when my temper subsided I meekly asked him if I could please walk home. He said I most certainly could not and I hid my face in his back, hoping no one I knew would see me.

When we arrived home, Pa put me on my feet by the dining table. He told Erik to ask Ma to come in with some wet cloths and then requested that Erik take care of Joe out in the courtyard. Erik’s sky blue eyes were huge as he looked at me and then he scampered to obey Pa.

Pa said what he pretty much always did. "Would you like to tell me what happened?"

I sat in a chair although Pa hadn’t given me permission to and held the side Henri had kicked. I stated the obvious. "I got in a fight, Pa."

"I can see that."

I put my elbow on the tabletop and leaned my pounding forehead on the palm of my hand. "Pa, can we discuss this later?"

"What makes you think there will be any discussion?" he demanded. "Fighting never solves anything."

"No, Pa." Then I considered what he had said. "I mean yes, Pa." I gingerly touched my jaw and a pain shot through it.

Pa sat in the chair across from me. "What started the fight?"

I didn’t answer.

"Oh, mon Dieu!" Ma lifted my face by the chin and then released it. "Who would do this thing so terrible?"

Pa leaned back in his chair. "What started the fight, Adam?" His patience, if there was any, was shorter.

Again I didn’t answer.

"What in the deuce started the fight?" I winced at as Pa slapped the table.

Ma shook her finger at me as I recoiled. "You will be still."

"It hurts," I pleaded.

"Of course. Your face it is half bloody."

"Stand up," Pa ordered, doing so as I did. Then his voice made my ears ring. "What started the fight?"

I folded my arms and Pa folded his and we both knew what that meant - we were in for a match of stubbornness.

Pa was close to releasing an anger I knew could be formidable. "I want to hear your explanation for brawling in the middle of town!"

To my surprise, Ma walked to Pa and spread her hands on his chest. "Benjamin, this loud voice does no good."

No matter how angry Pa was I had no intention of answering him about what had started the fight because that would lead to me telling him what Henri had said. I stuck out my chin in continued challenge.

Pa shot into full fury then. He pointed to Ma’s and his room and ordered me to get his belt. I knew what that meant and there was no way I would obey, especially since all I had done was stand up for Ma. "No, I won’t," I said. Even I couldn’t believe the words had come out of my mouth.

"Adam," Pa stretched out my name. "Now!"

That was an order I never disobeyed and I was scared to my bones. Scared of the horrible tanning I knew Pa could deliver when he was that angry and fearful that if he hurt me badly enough I might tell him what Henri had said. By that time only a few steps separated us and I folded into him, holding him as I begged him not to tan me. Pa held my head close to his chest.

Ma’s voice reached Pa and me again. "Benjamin, we must talk." I turned to her but not before noting I had soaked an area of Pa’s shirt with tears and a few dabs of blood. The love in Ma’s eyes was calm and accepting - and supportive.

I looked up at Pa and said I would tell him but I couldn’t tell Ma. Pa held me by my shoulders at arm’s length and said we had no secrets in our family and my temper flared again. I said Ma and he had kept a huge one from me.

The hush that settled over the room was worse than when Erik had cussed at Pa.

Ma motioned to the parlor and, since I knew she would sit on the settee and Pa would sit in his chair, I sat between them on the rug. She smoothed her skirt - an unconscious habit - and leaned forward slightly toward me. Her approach to finding out what secret I had referred to was to come at it from a non-direct way. The very opposite of Pa. "First you tell me who started this fight?"

"Both of us."

"You are not one to fight. Who is this boy?"

I didn’t answer. I knew where it might lead and how I might hurt her.

"Adam," Ma scolded.

I closed my eyes in prayer. "Henri."

She understood everything then without me telling her. Just because I hadn’t known the rumors and the gossip that had plagued her for most of her adult life didn’t mean she hadn’t. Her dark eyes drilled into mine when I opened them. "Henri’s parents they have the garconniere? He entertains the girls there?"

Many of the homes in New Orleans had separate buildings that served as residences for their sons when they were no longer children. The sons also spent time there with women they would never be allowed to marry. But Henri was only sixteen. Was he already using that building? Had he heard about Ma from those girls instead of from his parents? What kind of gossip was he spreading?

"I don’t know, Ma." Even though she had lived in New Orleans longer than I had I was embarrassed that she knew about the buildings out back.

Her voice filled with fire. I had new respect for what Pa sometimes faced when she was irritated. "You have enjoyed this garconniere?"

I was fourteen for gosh sakes. "No ma’am!"

"What is this secret Henri tells you, Adam?" She wanted to determine what I had been told.

I wished from the bottom of my heart to save her from hurt.

She rephrased her question. "What is this secret so huge you say your father and I have kept from you?"

"You could have told me," I pleaded as I looked up at Ma.

She placed her hand gently on the top of my head. "What is it Henri says?"

I rested the non-hurting side of my face on her lap and confessed everything.

"So," she summarized, "you fight for my honor?"

"He had no right to say - "

Ma placed her right hand gently on my lips. "You will listen as a man."

I chilled inside and out.

She said I was old enough now to know - but I had not been before. "I was married before I married your father, you know this. My first husband and I married quickly and when we returned to his family they do not approve. I have no dowry. I do not bring any of the prestige to the name. We are married but a short time and I do not bring a child to the family."

Pa had walked to the brandy bottle and poured a small glassful for each of them. He reached over my head to hand Ma one small glass. She sipped twice, held it in her lap, and then continued to speak. Pa did not keep the other glass as I had expected but handed it to me. I recognized it immediately - diluted it was Pa’s magic formula for everything from sore throats to helping a grieving young boy sleep.

"There is another woman," Ma continued. "A woman who is partly of color. They have a baby and it can be white it is so pale. He says it will be ours and when I do not agree he takes everything, including this woman and baby. I do not know where they go. His family does not know where they go. He takes everything and I have nothing. I hear he goes west and sells furs and he is killed gambling. Then I receive the written notice that I am a widow. I do not know what becomes of the woman and child. My family gives me the house I had when you met me and they help me or I would have starved."

She smiled ever so slightly. "I never worked as a woman who caters to men, Adam. I do not believe your father would enjoy one."

If I didn’t blush scarlet it was a miracle. Pa sat beside her and crossed his right ankle to his left knee, his left arm stretched behind her.

"It is a noble thing you do," Ma praised. She held up a warning finger. "But you never say ‘No, I won’t’ to your father or me. You understand this?"

"Yes, ma'am." Despite how serious my transgression had been, I
smiled and then flinched with the pain it brought to my jaw.

She motioned with the hand that did not hold her sherry and said to Pa,
"See, Adam is returned."

Pa remarked that I was a bit bruised and he hoped a bit wiser, too. "Tell your brothers they can come back in now," he instructed.

I placed the glass on the table beside the settee and walked down the passageway. My brothers were peeking around the doorway. Their faces were full of concern.

"Did you tell him what started the fight?" Erik asked even though he hadn’t understood everything.

"Were you naughty, Adam?" Joe added.

When I assured my littlest brother I had not been naughty, he ran to the parlor and flew into Pa's arms. "Joe wants to know how to fight like Adam!" he declared.

Erik shook his head. "Don’t he beat all?"

I nodded. Yes, he did.

It’s an embarrassing fact that Joe proved himself to be a ladies’ man at a much younger age than Erik or I did. Joe had just celebrated his fifth birthday when he fell in love for the first time.

All the clues were there but none of us saw them. As Erik would say: shoot, no one was even watching for clues. Luckily, Joe fell in love with the girl next door. The trouble was it wasn’t just one girl. They were twins. I think they played one of those "he can’t tell the difference between us" jokes until they both became jealous and wanted him for themselves.

But before that happened, Joe was a lovesick puppy. He finished his chores quickly and more efficiently than he ever had. That should have been clue number one. He didn’t complain when he was asked to do extra chores. That should have been clue number two. I found him tossing small pebbles at the courtyard wall - clue number three but I was too busy silently praying he wasn’t following in his big brother’s footsteps and breaking windows. Clue number four was the most telling one of all - whenever he had free time he went to our room and quietly read. Joe? No way. Ma was suspicious of that one from the minute it started. The thing was I noticed something, Ma caught another behavior, Pa wondered about yet something else, and Erik went around with a lot of quizzical looks on his face.

Joe always had trouble getting quiet enough to sleep and he protested every night that it wasn’t fair that I got to stay up late. Joe was supposed to go to bed first, then half an hour later Erik climbed to his berth on the bunk beds Pa and I had built. He passed out immediately after his head hit the pillow. Many times Erik went to bed an hour or so early. Ma said it was because he was growing. Glory was she right. I had the privilege of being the last one to close my eyes and that gave me a chance to read in bed for a little while.

The bedtime system by age that Ma and Pa established did not impress Joe. He found many a reason to take a long time to obey. Most of the time Ma or Pa talked to him and stuck with him until he finally gave up. One night Joe ran into our room, vaulted into his bed the way Erik used to, lay on his back with his hands behind his bottom, and went as rigid as a tree.

The reason for his fright came up the steps in the person of Pa. To put it mildly, he was not amused.

"No, Pa," Joe protested with a shake of his head. "Joe’s too little fow a spanking."

I don’t think so. Not when you’re five years old.

Pa lifted a kicking Joe from the bed. He put the half-pint across one knee and slapped fire into Joe’s bottom. When he returned Joe to his bed Pa frowned and pointed his right finger. "You might want to re-think that, young man."

When Pa turned his back, Joe twisted his lips and just as Pa started down the steps Joe wagged his finger at Pa’s back in a perfect imitation of our father.

I suppose you would call my inability to take my eyes off my brother staring. Pa had swatted him good and he hadn’t shed a tear. In fact, he rolled to his back and started very softly humming and playing finger games. That done, he got on his knees and crawled back and forth on his bed as he softly barked. I closed my worried eyes but nothing happened to him. He returned to his back and softly hummed again.

How did Pa’s disapproval roll off Joe? I would have cried myself to sleep if Pa had done the same thing to me when I’d been Joe’s age. I would have known how disappointed he was in me and I would have been embarrassed that he had corrected me.

If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes I never would have believed Pa had even punished Joe. And that started me wondering if maybe Ma and Pa weren’t as indulgent of my littlest brother as I thought. Maybe they had administered more correction than I knew about and Joe had reacted the same way every time.

It sure was a good thing Joe bounced back so quickly - he was bottom up across Pa’s knees many times after that.

My point is that Joe was known for wandering around at night - at least until a leg-swat from Pa forced him into bed. So at first I didn’t think much about it when I awoke to hear him whispering and laughing. I squinted and then frowned in the moonlight as I rose on my right elbow. The scamp was leaning out our window. What was he pretending now?

"Joe." I tried to sound like I had authority as the oldest brother. "Get quiet and in bed."

He jumped and turned to face me and I knew right away I’d caught him at something big.

I sat on the side of my bed, as suspicious as I’d ever been. "What are you doing?"

"Nothing."

Uh huh. "Who were you talking to?"

Joe put his hands behind him and twisted on his bare feet trying to be the picture of innocence. He hadn’t been innocent since he’d learned how to eat solid food.

I played my full deck. "I guess I’ll have to call Pa."

"No." Joe ran across the room and climbed onto his bed. "Joe’ll go to sleep wite now, Adam. See?"

I didn’t believe he hadn’t been up to something but I was willing to take his quiet on any terms.

Another time he said he was going to our room to read for a while. I didn’t have any intention of spying on him. All I wanted to do was return a book to the shelf so it wouldn’t get lost. But as I walked up the steps I saw Joe looking out our window and this time I folded my arms, leaned on the doorframe, and watched. He tossed a pebble or two and the shutters across the courtyard wall opened. A cute little brunette about his age appeared at the window opening and smiled so widely I knew she would be a heart-breaker in a couple of years.

"Joe, remember what I told you about the pony?" Obviously they’d talked on more than one occasion. "Papa has it at the stable. Want to come with me?"

My brother thought a few minutes. "Joe’d have to figuwe out a way without my ma or pa finding out."

The girl waved her hand breezily. "We’ll lay our ladder across to your window."

They were going to do what? I watched Joe’s profile. At first his face was full of excitement. And then it grew thoughtful. "Joe doesn’t know," he said slowly. He peered out the window to the ground below. Ah, the fear of heights. "That sounds dangewous, " he observed. He bit his lower lip. I knew what he was thinking. He only bit his lip when he was nervous about being in trouble with Pa.

I breathed a sigh of relief. It hadn’t sounded like the best of ideas to me either.

"Nobody hawdly evew watches the fwont doow," he observed. "Joe’ll go out that way. When?"

"Let’s go now."

Good sense surfaced in Joe. But only for a short time. "That way we’ll be back befowe suppew."

I closed my eyes and then stepped back to Ma’s and Pa’s room. Joe was headed into trouble - and a girlfriend was leading him.

No more than an hour later, Pa approached me as I threw water from a bucket onto the courtyard bricks to wash them. Pa jokingly called it "swabbing the deck." I didn’t find one single thing about the chore funny. "Have you seen Joe?" he asked.

"No, sir." Which was the truth.

Pa’s right eyebrow shot up. I’d said "sir." I saved those for terrible conditions. Neither Pa nor I had been born yesterday and he knew me inside out, up and down. He asked a different question. "Do you know where he is?"

Answering that one took a little more creativity. What could I say that wouldn’t involve a lie? "Uh, he’s not here," I volunteered.

"I know that." Pa took the bucket and forced me to stop working. I slid my hands up and down the legs of my trousers. "You haven’t seen Joe and you know he’s not here," he repeated my responses. Then he set down the bucket and leaned toward me. "I’ll ask you again: do you know where he is?" He held up that right index finger in warning. "And if I receive the same answer you will have extra chores for a week."

No brother was worth that. "He’s gone with a girl to see a pony."

Pa’s face went from upset to - well, he wasn’t sure he understood me. "He went with a girl to see a pony?"

"Yes, Pa."

He turned a little away from me for a few heartbeats and then toward me. All the while he ran his hand through his hair. It didn’t take a scholar to recognize that Pa felt he’d met his match. "A girl to see a pony - " he said once again. He raised his hands to the sky. "I suppose all we can do is wait until he gets home to find out what’s going on."

"I suppose."

Pa shook his head and walked toward the kitchen. I heard him say, "A girl to see a pony" one more time.

Dinnertime rolled around and Joe raced in at the last minute like he always did those days. He splashed the minimum amount of water on his face and gave his hair the once through with a brush. Long after the blessing was finished he clasped his hands and kept his head bowed. That boy was in trouble.

Acting like he didn’t know a thing out of the ordinary, Pa asked Erik how his day had been. Erik and his buddies had found a shallow, non-treacherous offshoot of the river where they fished. But now they were building a raft and Pa gave Erik an unmistakable warning look.

"Don’t worry," my brother assured. "We’ll let you be sure it’ll float."

Ma smiled at the "let" in Erik’s sentence but said nothing.

Then, ready to catch Joe like honey does a fly, Pa asked about my littlest brother’s day. The poor little guy had been pushing his food around on his plate with his left hand as he leaned on his right palm.

"Aw, Pa, Joe has so many pwoblems." He was a miserable human being. Ma leaned toward him and put down her flatware.

"Yes, you do." Pa, too, put down his flatware. He clasped his hands and leaned his elbows on the table. "Who gave you permission to leave the house alone?"

"Nobody, Pa."

"You understand there are consequences for that behavior."

"Yes, Pa. You have to spank Joe."

Erik and I raised our eyebrows at each other. We’d been spanked, sure, but we’d never said Pa had to do it.

"We’ll take care of it after dinner," Pa continued.

"Yes, Pa." Joe still hadn’t looked up. "Pa, can you help Joe? Joe has girl pwoblems."

"But surely you are too young for the girl!" Ma exclaimed.

He shook his head as he finally looked up. "Joe can handle one girl just fine, Ma. But this is two. Joe didn’t know until we went to see the pony. Then both of them were there and it was tewwible. They fought, Ma. Joe didn’t know giwls fought like that. They pulled haiw and kicked and - " a glance Pa’s way " - they said things Pa’d blistew me fow." He waved his right hand in the air. "Joe’s finished with giwls," he announced. I decided I’d remember that last part and repeat it to him when he turned fifteen.

"What are their names?" Pa asked out of curiosity.

"Joe’s not weal suwe, Pa," our littlest brother hedged. Pa didn’t believe him and it showed. "Maybe Joe knows theiw names. Maybe he fowgot fow a minute."

Ma and Pa fought hard not to grin and when Joe told us the girls’ names dinner fell apart.

"What are their names?" Pa repeated.

Hearing him say them one time had been ridiculous enough. I exploded in laughter when Joe said the names again. "Wachel and Webecca."

Erik couldn’t save himself. He leaned back in his chair until it fell. Ma hid her face with her hand and laughed softly.

"This is a sewious pwoblem," Joe muttered. "Why’s evewbody laughing?"

Pa wiped his eyes. "I’ll see what I can do to help."

Joe’s face brightened. "Weally, Pa?"

"Yes."

"Pa, Joe loves you."

Pa motioned to Joe’s dish. "Finish your dinner."

I won’t say I forgot about Joe’s problem with Pa but it wasn’t much on my mind as I sat on the floor reading a funny rhyme to Erik. We liked it so much we decided to memorize it and recite it to our friends. Ma sat sideways on the settee with her legs straight out in front of her. She leaned her back on one of the arms and wrote a letter with the aid of her lap desk. We didn’t think she was listening until we paused for a moment and she recited the poem without skipping a word. It was one time when the fact that she didn’t skip impressed us.

"How’d you do that?" Erik asked.

She tapped her head with her left fingers. "It is the hearing it again and again. Just as you know the names of all the reindeer."

Okay, she’d lost us. We frowned at each other until she began, "On Dasher! Now, Dancer! Now, Prancer and Vixen! - "

Now we were with her! All three of us took up the list from our favorite Christmas poem.

"On, Comet! On Cupid! On, Donder and Blitzen!

To the top of the porch! To the top of the wall!

Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!"

We burst into full laughter and didn’t notice Pa standing in the doorway that led to the back of the house until Ma and I wiped our eyes.

He held up his right palm and I noticed it was a bit pink. "I’m not asking." He grinned and picked up the newspaper.

"We practice for Christmas," Ma explained, her arm across her letter.

Pa tilted his head back. "You know that poem from beginning to end. We haven’t had to read it in years."

"Yeah but ya gotta practice every so often," Erik defended. "Kind of like the teacher makes us write the alphabet over and over. Ya’d think she’d figure that we know it by now."

After sitting in his chair, Pa explained they wrote the alphabet "over and over" to improve the way they wrote - not to be sure they knew it. And then he shot himself in the foot. "That’s so you’ll have a good hand."

Erik’s brow wrinkled. "They’re both good, Pa."

Pa was reading the newspaper. "What?"

"You said we do the alphabet so I’ll have a good hand and I’ve got two of ‘em right here. Well, I mean one of ‘em’s my right one and one of ‘em’s my left one but –"

Pa lowered his paper. "What are you talking about?"

"Well, you can’t have two right hands. Can ya?"

It was about then Pa realized he was dealing with Erik. "No," he said slowly. His eyes drifted to me and then to Ma. She was looking down and giggling.

Erik leaned forward from the pick-up sticks he’d been playing with while he and I were learning the rhyme in the paper. "I guess I understand why you need two good hands on account of it’d be hard to do a lot of stuff if you just had one good hand left. Or the right one. But I’ve got a left one and a right one. What’s the alphabet got to do with having a good hand? I’ve got two good ones and if something happens to one I’ve gotta learn to write with the other one anyhow. So why teach me how to write with my right hand when something might happen and I’d have to write with my left hand. Why waste all that time?"

"If you don’t become a barrister my heart will stop," Pa moaned.

Erik’s voice lowered to a whisper. "Do those barristers get to hunt ‘em?"

I don’t know why Pa didn’t just give up. "Hunt what, Erik?"

"Bears," came the simple reply.

"Why would they hunt - " Pa almost collapsed. "No, son, they don’t hunt bears."

"Oh." My brother thought a minute. "What part do they make bare?"

"Stop now," Pa warned.

"You’re always telling us the only way to learn is to ask questions," Erik defended.

"I’m making a new rule. No questions while I’m reading the paper."

Erik returned to the sticks. "That’s the dumbest rule I ever heard."

Pa stiffened. "Excuse me?"

It was the set-up I remembered from years ago. "What’d ya do?" Erik asked.

I moaned.

"What do you mean what did I do?"

Now Erik was indignant. "You said ‘excuse me’, Pa. And all I asked was what you did."

Pa leaned forward and only a fool wouldn’t have known his patience was on its last leg. "You said that was the dumbest rule you’d ever heard. What do you think I meant when I said ‘excuse me’?"

Enlightenment arrived quickly. "Oh." He licked his lip. "I oughta be the one saying excuse me, huh Pa?"

"It would be a good idea."

"Excuse me, sir. I didn’t mean any disrespect, Pa." He stood, ready to leave the room, but Pa grabbed his arm and pulled him into a hug.

"Aw, Pa, I’m too big for that kinda stuff."

A sniffle caught my ear and I looked over my right shoulder. Joe walked across the room. His eyes were a bit red but he had a big smile on his face. That was when I remembered Pa and he had had a session in the woodshed. It was also when I remembered noticing the palm of Pa’s right hand was a bit pink. "Hey Erik!" Joe said brightly. "Wanna play hide and seek?"

My middle brother didn’t consider himself too big for that. "Only the house and courtyard."

Joe grinned at Pa. "Joe’s not going out that fwont doow fowevew."

"I’m glad to hear it." Pa smiled at Joe.

Then my littlest brother walked straight to Pa and put his hands on Pa’s knees. You could have knocked me over with a pick-up stick as Joe told Pa, "We’ll let you play with us if you want to."

I watched Pa consider Joe’s proposal. "You better hide," he said. "If I find you I’ll feed you to the alligators."

Joe screamed in delight. Erik and he ran as Pa stood from his chair. "Want to play?" he asked me.

"I’d rather you just fed me to the alligators if it’s all the same."

Pa laughed. Then he lowered his voice until it was scary and stomped toward the bedrooms. "Here I come, gator food."

There was a yelp of anticipation from Joe followed by Erik’s distinctive, "Aw get quiet or he’ll find us, Joe."

Ma and I laughed. She returned to her letter and I picked up the paper so I could learn that rhyme.

"Adam," Pa called to me as I chopped wood in the courtyard and Ma worked in the far flowerbed. He walked to me and leaned on the side of the woodshed. "We’re taking a business trip to Natchez in the morning. When you finish this chore you need to get your gear together."

I asked him if the family was going and he said no, just the two of us.

The responsibility of being the eldest son was always just a thought away. "I need to stay here and take care of things, Pa."

The smile didn’t disappear. He said he thought Ma could take care of Erik and Joe.

"Well - I mean - how are we getting there?"

After a soft laugh and a shake of his head he said he planned for us to take a steamboat. He must have seen the excitement in my eyes because he teased, "Maybe you should stay home after all."

"Benjamin." Ma stood from where she had been working and dusted her gloves. "The boats they are so dangerous. They go into explosions and they make fire. Many are hurt and die this way. Is there no other way?"

Pa was in a particularly devilish mood. "There are all kinds of ways to get hurt and die. Want me to name a few?"

She tossed her head and her dark hair bounced at her shoulders. "This is not something to make silly. I worry."

He pushed away from the woodshed wall and held her close. "You worry when I go to work and when Adam rides Temptation."

Her small hands went to either side of her waist. She didn’t realize she was imitating Pa. "You say I worry always?"

Pa leaned down and placed his lips to her forehead. "You don’t seem to worry in your sleep."

"Ah!" she said in mock disgust. "You are impossible."

"So are you," he reminded. She didn’t want to but she smiled.

He motioned to the firewood and used a phrase I was hearing more often from him. "That wood won’t chop itself."

"Those bags won’t pack themselves, either," I called after him as he walked across the courtyard.

He paused with his right hand on the backdoor and considered me a moment. Then he shook his head and climbed the steps into the house.

Ma wasn’t as much a worrier as Pa pretended. No small number of riverboats blew up as they urged the Mississippi water to part. We had no such adventure as we voyaged toward Natchez but I had adventures of a different sort. I couldn’t believe how many people Pa knew and to my delight he always introduced me as his son Adam. Not his eldest son, just his son. Then he added that I helped his company with its accounting books. He didn’t mention that I had only started the job a few months earlier and did it after chores, exercising Temptation, and completing schoolwork.

Riding the steamboat up the river was my first experience traveling on the water. I loved every minute of it and spent as much time as possible leaning over the wooden rail watching the ripples, the sun, listening to the men working on the lower deck, startling every time one of the big pipes at the very top of the boat blew as it released steam, and almost hypnotizing myself by staring at the paddles that went around and around and around on the side paddle steamboat. I think Pa caught me once or twice around the waist as I almost tipped over the side. The rest of the time I tried to be suave and worldly like the men Pa knew.

Whenever Pa saw me leaning on the rail as I watched the water he smiled at me with open affection. "So you like the water?" he asked the first time.

"Is this what it’s like to sail?" The river looked big to me.

Pa stood with his legs spread, his arms folded, and looked at the water but I knew he was seeing something from long ago. "A bit," he said to humor me.

"It isn’t," I corrected.

And he shook his head. "You aren’t afraid of the river?"

I looked over the rail edge. "Should I be?"

"You should always respect it."

Frowning at him, I admitted I had no idea what he was talking about so he drew my attention to the way the men kept measuring the depth of the water with long poles. He also told me about sandbars that could disappear and then reappear - not forgiving of the unaware. Then, much to his amusement, I asked if there were alligators. He told me that he didn’t think so but there were treacherous currents.

The steamboat had several decks and in front was a gangway as wide as the boat. The crew kept the gangway pulled up at the bow of the boat until the boat reached a landing. Wooden rails guarded the sides of most of the decks and they were supported by cutout flat pieces of wood. The levels of the boat were not unlike the layers of a fancy cake and some were even painted with interesting designs. I heard that later some of the boats had calliopes that played music but I never enjoyed such a thing myself.

I had never seen anything like the Under the Hill section when we put in at Natchez. The area was aptly named because it was at the bottom of the sandy bluffs on which Natchez thrived. You couldn’t really see the area from town but by golly you could hear it if you were close enough. It was a rough and tumble area, about four or five streets wide, and if it didn’t have the sin of your choice all you had to do was wait a minute and someone would find a way to cater to you. A lot of the river men and boat workers spent time and money alongside some of Natchez’s finest gentlemen. I heard once that entire pieces of land and plantations were won and lost in the gambling dens there. And the opposite happened, too. A man of little means could make his fortune, although I always wondered if he was accepted in what they called polite society after that. I walked the streets, listening to the raw laughter of rowdy men and rough women. Gambling, drinking, women. It probably should have had the allure of the forbidden for a curious fifteen-year-old but the area made me nervous and a little sad. Pa and I didn’t linger but I wondered how many places like that he had encountered in his travels.

He carried his bag in one hand and rested a strong hand on my back. "Adam, I don’t want you coming down here."

He needn’t have worried about me wandering down to the gambling dens and houses of ill repute. If I’d been interested in that I had a big area in New Orleans to explore.

Before Inger had died we had been traveling and even though I’d been ordered to stay in the wagon in one of the small towns I had crept out and sneaked to the local saloon. All I had wanted was to peek inside to see what it was Inger disapproved of so much. I had gotten an eyeful and had run all the way back to the wagon with the painting I had seen behind the bar burned into my mind. A naked lady! I mean she hadn’t had on anything except a necklace and that hadn’t hidden anything. She’d had the necklace across her lips like she was sucking on it. For a week, I was sure that God was going to strike me dead and when he didn’t I was sure Pa was going to find out and make me wish God had stuck me dead. But neither one of them found out until recently when I felt relatively safe in confessing my sin

After we walked up the road and climbed a small hill Natchez stretched before us. The only other time I had been near the city was after their tornado of 1840 when we’d attended Ma’s cousin’s wedding. Going up the river three years later when I was fifteen, I noticed the absence of trees. Many of the ones left standing were stripped of their bark. I mentioned my observation to Pa and when he shared it several people onboard the riverboat told us that the damage was the result of the tornado that whirled up the Mississippi before slamming into Natchez. I had read about the storm in the New Orleans’ paper but seeing the results of a mile-wide tornado years later caused me to slow my steps as we reached the top of the bluffs. Our hurricane and gale winds seemed weak in comparison to what had happened here - maybe because the tornado had been so concentrated. Pa, too, looked around and shook his head slowly.

Of course, as with most traumatic events in life and with the passage of time, I had forgotten how damaging our storm in New Orleans had been. We experienced rain and wind for two days. A black, whirling cloud heavy with debris had stuck Natchez an hour or so after noon and mercifully lifted the same day.

After we had a small meal at a tavern on the bluff away from the Under the Hill area we walked to a boarding house. I was a bit set back when, as we stood downstairs, I saw signs stating things like "No more than five to a bed." I didn’t know about anyone else but the only person I felt safe sharing a bed with was Erik - and maybe Pa if my conscience was clean. After a few minutes of talking to the owner, Pa turned to me and following my eyes to one of the signs he grinned at me. "We have our own room," he said. "But you have to share the bed with me." I examined my conscience, found it not needy of correction, and followed him upstairs.

Inside our room, Pa evolved back into my father. He warned me again not to go under the hill and said he would only allow me to tour the city on my own if I stayed within certain boundaries. I studiously watched as he sketched them and wondered when he had been to Natchez before that he knew all the street names.

With Pa’s rough map of my boundaries in hand I set out to do what I had planned from the moment he had said the word "Natchez." Despite all the damage it was one of the richest cities in the country and the homes reflected almost every architectural style. I had packed my pencils and paper and I sat or stood for hours studying and sketching the fine homes. Some had tall columns and wide porches with fan shaped windows centered high above the front door. A few homes were low and reminded me of some of the Creole cottages back home. One was built on a slope and a person would have had to climb what looked like at least fifty steps to reach the front door. But every house, however different from its neighbor, was meticulously tended and exuded an air of Southern gentility. One time a servant came out of a house to see what I was doing. He smiled, his white teeth almost glowing against his dark skin, and told me there was an even prettier view from the street on the east side. He was right. Between the architecture and the free form plantings the place resembled a palace.

Only when the sun lowered on the horizon did I realize how late I was and I ran with everything I had in me back to the boarding house. I burst into our room. Pa turned from a tall, tilted mirror where he was making the last adjustments to his tie.

"Sorry, Pa." I pushed my hair away from my forehead. "Are you going somewhere?"

"We are."

He sat down in a chair and tipped it back to lean against the wall. "I heard about a young man with dark hair sketching houses. Was that you?"

I washed my face and hurriedly dried it. "Yes, Pa."

"What did you think of them?"

"The whole town is about the prettiest place I’ve ever seen." I was full of enthusiasm.

He tapped the fingers of his left hand on his thigh. "We’re going to an impressive house out in the country for dinner." He motioned to the armoire where our clothes hung.

I pulled on a dressier shirt and trousers and then reached for my tie. I had it halfway tied when I sensed something from Pa. He was still leaning back in his chair but he was grinning at me and his fingers were forming a tent under his jaw. "Sure glad you didn’t grind that into the floor with your boot."

At first I didn’t understand and then I felt my face flush. "You gave me three licks with the back of a clothes brush."

He frowned and lowered the chair to all four legs. "I don’t remember that."

"I do."

As he stood, Pa shrugged his left shoulder. "I guess you’re the one who should." He stopped in front of me and reached down to my tie. "You need a bit of help here, young man."

My eyes shot to his. He’d called me "young man" before but there was something different in the way he’d said it. After he had my tie looking right he took a few steps away and frowned again. "Are you sure I used a clothes brush on you?"

"On my bare behind," I added and he flinched.

"It’s a wonder one of your legs isn’t shorter than the other." We laughed as we remembered Erik’s old concern. "The way he’s growing it’s a good thing you were nice to him when you were boys."

Since Erik was only eleven I felt compelled to say, "He’s not grown up, Pa."

His strong right hand rested behind my neck. "I didn’t say he was."

I was sure of what he was telling me then.

Thanks to Ma and Pa’s training, more Ma’s than Pa’s, I knew how to use every piece of flatware on the table when we joined some of Pa’s business associates for dinner that night at a home a few miles outside of town. I had never seen flatware so ornate or so silver before. Unfettered wealth was evident in everything from porcelains on display in glass and gilt cabinets, to the antique furniture on which people sat, to the women’s dresses and jewelry, to the men’s clothing. The windows at this particular house went from floor to ceiling and that was impressive because they were high ceilings. Across the tops of some of the windows were decorative gold gilt cornices. Across the tops of other windows heavy velvet draped and fell about halfway down the side of the window frame. Floors in one room were marble and in the next room they were highly polished wood. And most impressive to me was the hand-painted silk wallpaper in the enormous entryway. It portrayed something I had only read about - the Orient and its incredible birds and mountains. Nothing in New Orleans had prepared me for what I witnessed and was a part of that night. After all, I had not been allowed to visit such homes when I was a child.

I was mostly a quiet, overwhelmed observer - speaking only when addressed directly and each time sliding a look at Pa for his silent directions. When the gentlemen retired to the library for after dinner drinks I started to wave mine away but Pa told the servant that I would appreciate one. I sipped it carefully and Pa grinned at me like a schoolboy encouraging a friend to drink homemade liquor behind a stable. Not that I know about that kind of thing directly. When the servant offered me a cigar Pa watched as closely as he had when I had seated a lady at dinner and I quickly declined.

By the time we were riding in the carriage toward our boarding house I was so sleepy my head was swimming. I wasn’t accustomed to the late hours people kept in Natchez and I really wasn’t used to the brandy. Pa leaned back in self-satisfaction but I kept dozing until my head drooped forward and I woke up with a start.

"Full day," Pa stated softly.

"Yes, Pa." I think my speech was slurred. It sounded that way to me.

"What do you plan to do tomorrow?" he asked.

"Um?" I never would have spoken to him like that if I hadn’t been nearly asleep. Alarms went off in my head but I couldn’t do anything about them.

"Plan to draw some more?"

"Um hum."

"Don’t fall asleep on me. I think you’re too big for me to - "

I woke up when he was trying to steer me up the walkway to the boarding house. He had my left arm around his shoulders and was holding my left hand while his right arm braced my back. "You look like a tottering drunk," he laughed softly.

I giggled as I bumped into him, then staggered, then bumped into him again. Something about the entire thing struck me as funny and I launched into a raucous laugh that culminated in a boot-rattling belch. That sent Pa into laughter. He finally eased his right arm from behind me and held his index finger to his lips. "Ssh," he warned. "We can’t wake up the other boarders."

"Sure we can," I challenged. "Watch this."

I took a deep breath, ready to yell at the top of my lungs, and he slapped his right hand over my mouth. "Ssh," he said softly. "How would it look in the New Orleans’ papers if they reported two Cartwrights arrested in Natchez?"

Then so help me the giggles grabbed me again. "Can’t you see Ma lighting into you?"

"Her lectures are more than enough." Pa’s tone was serious.

"She’s what Jonah calls feisty," I informed him.

"Shoot, you think so?" Pa used Erik’s favorite word.

"Ain’t no doubt," I answered, using another of Jonah’s words.

"Aw dagnabit, they’ve locked the door," Pa lamented.

"Dadburnit, what are we gonna do?" I asked.

Pa grinned and pulled a slender piece of metal from the side of his boot. In the dim light cast by a quarter moon, I couldn’t tell if it was a small knife or a tool. He played around with the door lock a moment and it clicked open. Luckily there was no crossbar inside.

I stared up at him. "Where’d you learn how to do that?"

He slapped me on the back. "I’ll tell you the story tomorrow as long as you promise not to tell your brothers."

We "sshed" each other all the way up the stairs. I fell on my bed in my good clothes but Pa managed to remove my tie and boots for me.

"Adam?" Pa’s voice penetrated my warm sleep. He sounded as if he had been awake for hours and he probably already had conducted business.

I snuggled into the pillow. The next thing I knew, Pa pulled the sheet off me and my eyes flew open. I knew he wouldn’t swat my behind but I rolled over on it out of instinctive protection.

His wide, amused grin told me his hands at his hips did not indicate displeasure. "You’ll miss the mid-day meal if you don’t force yourself out of bed soon." Motioning to my trousers he laughed and said something about how much I could sleep when given the opportunity.

I ran my hand through my hair, wondering if that would pass for brushing it and knowing Pa wouldn’t let me get away with it.

Tilting his head to one side, he handed me my brush. "After we eat, meet me at four. Can you manage that or do you plan to sleep all afternoon?" He laughed when I twisted my lips.

"You’re getting on my bad side," I teasingly warned, looking down as I tucked in my shirt.

"I’d chase you out of this room if you were dressed."

I declared that having two brothers had stripped me of all modesty and opened the door. I guess Pa thought I’d really step outside with my trousers half buttoned because he grabbed me around the waist with his left arm and slammed the door closed with his right hand. That move set us off balance and I landed on top of him

After I scampered to my feet I offered a quick apology.

He used the side of the bed to help himself stand. Once on his feet he leaned his head back and looked at me from the bottoms of his eyes. He thought a long time and then shook his head. The minute he spoke I knew he was teasing about ways to get rid of me. "No. Your mother would never believe you tripped in front of a carriage. Although - " he paused. "She might believe you slept until you starved to death."

He grinned and slapped me on the back. "If we’re late for the meal you pay."

I buttoned my trousers faster than I ever had.

"Are you an artist?"

I looked up from the bench situated on the bluffs overlooking the Mississippi and quickly shot to my feet.

She was the prettiest girl I had seen. Of course she was one of the few girls I had seen because chaperones, fathers, nuns, and high walls closely guarded the girls in New Orleans. Her hair was light and she wore a lavender bonnet that shaded her face and matched her lavender dress. Best of all, she looked like she was my age.

"I - uh - like to draw."

"Then," she laughed, "you are an artist." Her mood changed suddenly and she motioned across the river. The land was low and flat and filled with cotton plants, sugar cane, and slave labor. "The riches are spent here but I am afraid they are created there." Then her mood changed again. She returned her attention to me and extended her hand.

Did you shake hands with a young lady or did you press your lips to her glove? I had seen Pa do both. I’d never asked him the difference. Given that she looked formal I pressed my lips to her glove and she immediately motioned, as she had to the land across the river, to the bench.

"May I join you?" Her smile was radiant.

"Please do." I sat and turned sideways to look at her, stretching my right arm on the top of the bench back. That was when my eyes drifted behind her to a woman on the bench next to ours. She was watching us as if her life depended on it.

My new acquaintance lowered her glance but not before I saw the wide smile. "Her name is Esmerelda."

I blinked and the prettiest girl I’d ever met looked up at me. "Esmerelda," I repeated. "What does Esmerelda - I mean why is she staring at us?

She smoothed her skirt and then spoke softly. "She is with me all the time." When she leaned closer she even smelled of lavender. "When I was seven I escaped her for a few hours. Father found it amusing but mother was furious. Unfortunately mother rules the house and father was forced to punish me."

I had reached the age of fifteen and never considered that girls could be punished. My dismay must have shown because she laughed.

We talked for a few more minutes and with what I took as genuine regret in her voice she announced she must leave. A quiver of excitement shot through me when I stood quickly and held her hand as she rose to her feet.

"Will you be here tomorrow?" she said.

I assured her I would be and decided to argue with Pa about any plans he might have for us.

"Perhaps I will see you then?" Her eyes sparkled and she turned to walk with Esmerelda. Only when they were out of sight did I realize I had never asked her name or given her mine.

As I had the day before I ran all the way back to the boarding house and practically ripped the door off its hinges when I opened it. Pa sat in the chair, tilted back against the wall, and I quickly choked out a "Sorry, Pa" before I filled a glass from the water pitcher.

"I’m glad you’re finding Natchez so interesting. What did you draw today?"

There was something of concern in his tone and he reached for my sketchpad.

I turned toward him and paused with the glass in my hand. "Mostly the low land on the other side of the river. There are a lot of flatboats and steamboats down on the water."

He flipped through the drawings. "You didn’t see any of them closer than this?"

Did I understand him or his concern that I’d gone to Natchez Under the Hill? No. I reached in my pocket and unfolded the map he had given me. I walked to him and pointed to it. "I was - it’s okay to be here. See?"

He returned my sketchpad and indicated once again his impressive ability to distinguish even the subtlest scent. "You have lavender on you."

"Say, Pa?" I sat on the edge of the bed, not concerned about the implications of what he had been saying. "How do you know when to kiss a lady’s hand and when to shake it?"

I swear he smiled at me the way he hadn’t since he used to call me "scamp". Then he pursed his lips as if he’d bitten into something sour. "Generally you kiss a lady’s hand if she extends it with a limp wrist and you shake it if she’s holding it sideways the way a man does."

Well, that was simple. I’d done the right thing.

"Is that why you smell like lavender?" His smile spread into a wide grin. "I suggest you wash up before we go to this business meeting."

"Do I have to go?" Even I heard the six-year-old tone in my voice.

Pa read me like a map. "More than likely she’s at home having tea or getting ready for dinner." He motioned to the washbasin. I set my glass beside it and splashed a bit of water on my face. "Your neck, too," Pa instructed. As I dried with the towel he put his chair on all fours. "Did you arrange to meet tomorrow?"

I licked my lip. "Yes, Pa."

"We need to tend to a different sort of business for the next few hours." We were halfway down the steps when he paused. "Adam, remember: only a gentleman attracts a lady."

I reminded him he had told me that many times in the past.

"It’s important to remember now more than ever." His hand behind my shoulder guided me down the stairs.

"Pa?" I asked as we walked the sidewalk. "Is there anyway to get rid of Esmerelda?"

He gave me a disbelieving look. "Who the devil is Esmerelda?"

"She’s with her all the time. Do you think somebody could distract her?"

"Do you want to tell me what you are thinking?"

"No, Pa."

He shook his head. "Don’t do it. Do I make myself clear?"

"Just for a couple of minutes, Pa? I wouldn’t do anything you wouldn’t do."

Glory was I in for a shock. Pa grinned at me and then looked down at the ground. "That’s what I’m afraid of." He paused for a moment. "I don’t want to give you the wrong impression, son. There have only been three women in my life." He was walking kind of funny and I looked down. He was kicking up the toes of his boots like I was. "What’s this beautiful girl’s name?"

"I – uh – well, I forgot to ask."

My confession sent him into roars of laughter.

"I just forgot," I defended.

Once again he slapped me on the back. "And to think I was worried about your intentions. Jumping Jehoshaphat you have a lot to learn about courting."

Expecting the meeting to be in another of the stately mansions of Natchez, I was surprised when instead it was in what Pa later explained to me was a taproom. A table about eight feet long had chairs on either side. Behind one side of the table was the reason for the room’s name - a tap where a man pulled large handles to fill mugs with ales and assorted other drinks. A low fire burned in the fireplace at the far end of the room and to say the walls were sparse in decoration would be to understate.

After Pa and I shook hands with four other men we sat and the men settled in for bread, cheese, and ale. I munched on the bread and cheese but even if Pa had signaled me that a mug of ale was allowed, my experience with brandy had dulled my interest in alcohol for a while.

You know how horses and dogs can determine who is the leader early in their relationships? Something indefinable in three of the men indicated the one whose last name was Chambers was the most important among them. Pa was an equal of Chambers. The three other men were slender and so nondescript they could have passed by their own wives and not been recognized. Chambers, however, was a heavier than his companions and considered himself significant based on the way he kept his head tilted back to the way - when he wasn’t drinking - he looped his thumbs behind the armholes of his vest and swelled his chest.

At first my eyes roved around the room because I was much more interested in its architecture, which bespoke an old building possibly from the 1700s, than the conversation. But then Pa did something he hadn’t done in years. His right elbow was on the table as he held his mug but his left hand was under the table. He reached over and pinched fire into my thigh. I slid my right hand over his left, trying to pull it free, but the pinch intensified. In danger of falling off my chair into a destroyed heap of young manhood, I looked at him in watery-eyed dismay. When I did so, he released my thigh and said something to Chambers. He was slick as river mud because not a man at the table suspected anything. Probably the most they thought was a bit of smoke from the fireplace had reddened my eyes.

Rubbing a part of my leg that I was convinced would be bruised for a month I tried to understand why Pa had grabbed my attention that way. I was so preoccupied with my injury that I didn’t listen at all to what the men were discussing. When I felt Pa’s left hand hovering over my thigh again I admit, fifteen or not, I tensed. But this time he tapped lower on my thigh and traced a line toward my knee. If he squeezed my knee I’d be lame the rest of -

Wait a minute. I kept my head lowered and slid my eyes his way. He traced the line from thigh to the same spot on my knee and then I understood. Listen to what Chambers is saying. And listen closely. I raised my head, put my elbows on the table like the other men, and looked straight into Chambers’ green eyes. Something about me suddenly studying him unnerved him a bit but he soon concentrated on speaking to Pa. In the back of my memory I recalled that Chambers had been doing all the talking since we had sat down and every moment of it had been about steamboat supplies.

Once I paid attention, he leaned toward Pa and listed off the number of steamboats and other forms of commerce and transportation that relied on the river’s docks, landing places, and supplies. He was a shrewd man and I didn’t like him a bit. When he finally gave Pa a business proposal, Pa said it was interesting but he needed to discuss it with his partner in New Orleans.

Chambers leaned on the tabletop toward Pa. "Why not make the decision now and inform your partner of it when you return to New Orleans?"

Pa smiled but it was not a happy smile - it was a knowing smile. "We discuss everything of importance. It is a partnership, Chambers."

"Yes, yes, well of course." Chambers backed down from Pa as if he were a hissing snake. "I shall look forward to word from you soon, then."

Pa stood as everyone else did and shook hands first with Chambers and then with the other men.

"It’s been a pleasure, Cartwright," Chambers concluded.

I noticed that Pa nodded but did not return the compliment.

We were quiet on our walk until I couldn’t hold in my thoughts anymore. "Mr. Chambers’ eyes are too close together."

Pa pulled his hands from his pockets and came to an abrupt stop. "What?"

I looked into his astonished blue eyes and held my ground. "Mr. Chambers’ eyes are too close together."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

Taking the lead, I started walking and Pa stepped up beside me. "Adam, what does that have to do with anything?"

It was my turn to stop. "I don’t like him and I don’t trust him."

Pa tilted his head back the way he always does when he’s thinking about something. "So you’re letting your emotions get in the way of a business opportunity?" His tone held neither praise nor disapproval.

Pa is a man who expects facts to back arguments or opinions. He was training me and I, who thought I knew everything about him, didn’t sense anything.

So how did I explain my argument to Pa as we resumed walking? "He’s the leader of all of them."

"And you know this because - ?"

"He’s the one who did all the talking."

"Maybe he was their spokesman." Pa’s eyes scanned my face. Then he rested his right arm around my shoulders. "Go on."

"He wasn’t their spokesman. They all deferred to him."

Even though I couldn’t see his face I knew Pa was smiling. "Deferred, hum?"

My argument began to have legs, even if they wobbled a little. "He changed the subject."

"Is that so?" Pa’s voice was calculating and I half-wondered if I was walking into a logic trap. "When did you notice that?"

Embarrassment kept me quiet a moment. "When you pinched the deuce out of my thigh."

"Is that when you noticed he had changed the subject or when you started listening?"

I shrugged. The warmth of his arm on my shoulders felt good as the cool damp evening air closed in on me. "I was listening at first. But then I got bored."

"And then I grabbed your attention," Pa summed up.

"You could call it that." We waited for two carriages to pass in front of us. When the road was clear we resumed our walk. "I finally realized why you were drawing that line from my thigh to my knee. It was to tell me to watch him and listen to him. When you came here it was to sell your share of the partnership but then he proposed that you sell the business."

"What’s wrong with that?"

I looked up at him, wondering if he really didn’t know. "Because Mr. Perin doesn’t want to sell his share of the partnership. He wants to keep the business and stay in New Orleans. He told me."

"Chambers made a generous offer. One that Franklin might not be willing to turn down."

That was when my argument’s legs reached full strength. "Mr. Perin shouldn’t sell to Mr. Chambers because there’d be no one to compete with Chambers from here to New Orleans." Pa didn’t say a thing about me dropping the "Mr."

We reached the building where we planned to have dinner. Pa rested his hand on the rail beside the steps that led to the front door. "There would be no one to compete with him from here to New Orleans?"

"No, Pa. And that means Chambers could set prices and do anything he damn well pleased."

Oops. Where had that word come from? Pa’s right brow arched significantly and the next thing out of his mouth was exactly what I had thought. "Where did that word come from?"

I swallowed hard and even though I was fifteen I felt about seven years old and definitely in for a talking to. "I don’t know." My answer was soft and honest.

"Try that sentence again," he suggested.

"I don’t know?" I asked in confusion.

The hand that wasn’t holding the rail went to the side of Pa’s waist. "The one before that."

I cleared my throat and tried twice. Finally, when I looked away from Pa, I croaked, "He could set prices and do what he pleased."

A callused hand raised my chin. Pa was smiling! "It doesn’t have the impact of the first sentence but it’s less offensive, don’t you think?" Then he patted me on the back to urge me to the step where he stood. "And by the way, you have a sound argument. That’s why neither Franklin nor I will be selling out to him."

I forgot to ask him about the tool he’d used on the boarding house door the night before. Young man or not, I basked in his approval all during the meal and into my dreams that night.

As we had arranged, the prettiest girl I’d ever met joined me on the same bench the next day. And on the bench beside ours sat the ever-dedicated Esmerelda. Before I forgot I went straight to business and told her my name. I was quickly rewarded: her name was Gabrielle Stewart. "My mother has French background and my father’s full blood Scot," she said as if I needed an explanation. "What is your background?"

I had never given it much thought. Most of the time I just considered myself a Cartwright. I said as much to her and she tossed her head back as she laughed. "That is the most refreshing thing I’ve heard. Everyone in mother’s circle knows exactly what their lineage is and is sure that you do, too." She leaned close as if she were ready to share a secret and behind her I saw Esmerelda tense. "Of course, some of them don’t have a lineage they want anyone to know about." And she winked at me. Honest to gosh she winked!

From that subject we turned to horses, which seemed logical since we had been discussing lineage. And from horses we went to races - from races to betting - from betting to card games - and from card games to the ones our parents allowed and the ones we were better off not sharing with our parents. She was more full of mischief than Joe.

"So what games do you play?" she asked.

I wasn’t about to admit to pick-up sticks. Instead I told her about checkers and chess - and dice.

She coughed when I said dice. "Do your parents know?" She wiped at her eyes.

Well, not exactly I admitted. When she asked where I had learned I told her about Barbara’s and my experience on the boat in New Orleans. She was fascinated and wanted to know every detail - especially about my ability to roof climb. She touched my thigh and all kinds of things happened to me. "That’s it," she whispered. "Don’t you see? That’s how I can get away for a while."

"Away from what?" I asked supidly, wondering when my body would settle down and behave.

"From home."

I shook my head, wishing I had never told her. "Don’t do that, Gabrielle. It’s not safe for a girl to be out at night."

She tilted her head. "It would be if you were my escort."

Do I need to tell you how tempting that plan was? I didn’t think so. Then - much to my regret - the more logical part of my brain took over. First of all she could be badly hurt depending on the pitch of her home’s roof. There was the consideration of her reputation if word got out about what she’d done. And no matter how big a city is, when it comes to gossip it is always a small town. The thing that nailed my conscience in place, though, was the thought of standing in front of Pa while he demanded, "Do you want to tell me what you were thinking?" He hadn’t laid his belt across my backside in a while, and I was pretty sure he wouldn’t now that he considered me a man, but golly he could deliver a gut-wrenching reprimand - and helping Gabrielle roof climb would probably be a good way to make him reconsider my maturity level.

I was silent a long time and finally Gabrielle folded her arms and looked away in an obvious pout. "What are your afraid of?"

No way I was going to tell her I was mostly concerned about facing up to Pa so I said I would never forgive myself if she fell and was hurt. She turned with affection in her eyes and told me that was such a sweet thing to say.

It was my turn to lean toward her. "Pa and I are leaving tomorrow. May I write you?"

She said she would miss me terribly and yes, please write. "But you mustn’t send letters to me directly," she warned and I wondered why. She wrote on the corner of my sketchpad as she spoke. "Send the letters to my cousin and she will be sure I receive them." Her quick smile assured me she had meant it when she’d said she would miss me. "Will you be returning?" she asked.

"My family usually comes to Mississippi during the fever time at home. I imagine I can ride up here to visit." I bragged even though I knew I would have to fight Ma until I didn’t have any air in my lungs. Pa - well he might let me do it. Sometimes he surprised me.

She stood, I kissed her hand, Esmerelda stood, and the two of them walked away. But at the last minute, when Esmerelda was watching the road ahead, Gabrielle turned her head and winked at me again. I winked back and then fell back on the bench hopelessly in love.

Pa stared at me as if he’d never seen me before when I returned to our boarding house. At first I thought it was because I was early for dinner but then his face brightened. "So what’s her name?"

I sat beside him on the edge of the bed. "Gabrielle."

"Did you happen to get around to telling each other last names?"

"Uh - Stewart."

"Gabrielle Stewart - " he repeated. Then his tone of voice changed. "Does she live in the city or in the country?"

Is that something a love-smitten guy would ask? Of course not. "Who cares?" I answered. "Does it make any difference?"

"Probably not." His answer was vague. "Well, time for us to dress for dinner. Another formal one." He patted me on the knee.

My thoughts were so far from those of lesser humans that I didn’t remember dressing - and probably received no small amount of help from Pa - I didn’t notice much about the carriage in which we rode and I didn’t pay a moment’s attention to our surroundings. All I could see and all I could hear was Gabrielle.

"Adam," Pa said and shook my left shoulder to break me from my reverie. "Adam wake up." His voice was full of good humor and I followed him out of the carriage and then beside him along a walkway toward a house. All I wanted was for the evening to be over so I could dream of my beautiful Gabrielle.

But when a servant opened the entry door there stood a well-dressed couple who looked about Pa’s age and, alongside them in a gorgeous soft yellow silk dress, Gabrielle. My desire for the evening to end evaporated. I started to walk straight to her, but she gently shook her head "no" and then winked.

Suddenly all my senses were on full alert and extremely attuned to the real world. Formal introductions were made, although I noticed Mr. Stewart called Pa "Ben" as we slowly walked to the dining room. Mrs. Stewart held her husband’s arm and I didn’t know whether to offer mine to Gabrielle or not. Deciding discretion was the best course I simply nodded to her and walked beside her. When we were seated her father was at one end of the table, Pa was at the other end, I was to Pa’s left, and Mrs. Stewart and Gabrielle were to her father’s left. What luck! She and I were across from each other!

She was a great actress. When the adult conversation eased from time to time she asked my opinion of Natchez, what my business was, what my plans for the future might be, and if I had enjoyed the riverboat ride.

I have no idea what our meal was or what the adults discussed or whether the windows were open or even if we had dessert. Whenever we weren’t speaking directly to each other I looked at her from the tops of my eyes and she did the same.

My hopes that we would all retire to the parlor were crushed. Only Mr. Stewart, Pa, and I adjourned to the depressing room. I declined both the after-dinner drink and cigar and sat destroyed until the time to leave arrived. Mrs. Stewart wished us good night but Gabrielle was nowhere in sight. If it hadn’t been a huge breech of good manners - which Pa stressed almost as much as respect, obedience, and telling the truth - I would have searched every room to find her.

The carriage had no more than lurched forward for our return to the boarding house than I leaned toward Pa as he sat across from me. "You knew," I accused.

He held his hands up with his palms toward me. "All I knew was that Sean’s last name was Stewart and so was your sweetheart’s."

I crossed my arms. I wanted to say I didn’t believe him but that would have been a bit too close to calling him a liar.

"You don’t believe me," he said for me.

I remained quiet since I had no intention of being lured into a dressing down.

"Adam." He leaned across the coach toward me and raised my chin with little effort. "Pouting takes a lot out of your good looks."

I hadn’t been expecting that and I couldn’t have been more shocked if he’d spoken to me in German. Me? Good looking? Since when?

"You’re not a child anymore. Don’t force me to discipline you as if you were." His voice was as soft as when he used to reassure me when I was little.

Still staring at him, I nodded without saying a word and he smiled slowly. Then he patted my knee and leaned back to his side of the carriage. "When do you plan to write her?"

"Soon as I get back home."

"How do you plan to get the letters to her?"

Let’s see. Let me pick a different language. I looked at him as if he’d spoken Italian.

"You do know her mother will never allow her to receive the letters," Pa continued.

I told him she had given me the address of a cousin who would make sure Gabrielle was able to read them.

Pa smirked and crossed his arms. "Bravery. Always have admired that in a man."

"Sir?"

He tilted his head. "The odds are against you."

Odds. Was there any way to use that word other than in gambling? Did I tip my hand or play innocent? I went for the latter. "That means something about an advantage, doesn’t it? I’ve heard some men say that."

Pa was wise to my ploy. "I’m sure you have."

I quickly looked away, sent thanks to God, and wondered when Pa was going to call in the debt I owed him for not telling the whole truth. He and I both knew there’d be a day when he did - we just didn’t know when.

I wrote my first and astoundingly stupid letter to Gabrielle on the boat ride home and posted it as soon as we reached New Orleans. If I was an awkward suitor, though, there was one thing I knew everything about: horses. It was just as well that I had written to Gabrielle because she was second in my fickle thoughts once Beauty came into my life.

When we reached home there were the usual greetings - everyone hugged and talked at the same time. Erik asked me excitedly about the steamboat and Joe pulled at Pa’s trouser leg until Pa lifted him for a tickle. For a brief moment everyone paused and Ma took full advantage of the silence.

"Adam, I have the most magnificent news," she announced. Her eyes were as bright as a child’s.

I turned toward her, curious but a bit tired. "Yes, Ma?"

"Monsieur Alexander, he is selling the horse you call Beauty."

Suddenly I wasn’t tired at all. And then I was. "He probably wants a lot for her."

Ma turned her head a bit to one side. "Perhaps not as much as you think. I remind him that she is not a young horse. He reminds me that when you ride her she is very quick. I remind him it is the rider as much as the horse."

With each of her sentences, Pa’s smiled widened. "And when did he give in?"

She shrugged her right shoulder. "I talk a bit more but I have convinced him that he should allow Adam to consider her first."

Pa asked the price and Ma immediately answered.

I felt even more tired. "I can’t pay that," I said. "I don’t have that much money."

"But of course you do," Ma said.

"No I don’t, Ma."

Then Pa stepped in. "Yes you do, son." The authority in his voice was not to be argued with. Of course that didn’t stop me. I held up my arms and said I maybe had enough to buy two books.

"There’s the money you’ve been saving," he said.

Saving? What was he talking about? The way I figured it I didn’t have much money because I’d told Pa to use it. If Ma had told me we could buy another platter the day I broke hers I would have been in a bind.

"Remember the money you’ve given us each year from what you’ve earned for exercising Temptation? It’s amounted to a nice sum."

"But - but I told you to use it for things we needed."

Ma smiled almost as wide as Pa did and put her hands together in front of her skirt. "Luckily we had no need for anything."

I looked from Ma to Pa and back to Ma. My fatigue was as forgotten as a boring Bible lesson. "I want to go talk to him now."

Ma nodded. "You will be back for dinner."

I danced on one foot, ready to run. "Yes, Ma."

"And you will be careful."

"Yes, Ma."

She waved her left hand. "Then you may go."

I shot out of the house and was at the stables faster than I had ever been. I didn’t even have the good sense to slow down and I wound up spooking two of the horses in their stalls. They snorted their disapproval at me and then I stopped. Why had I run all the way? Mr. Alexander wouldn’t be here.

Just as I whirled around Jesse called out to me. Since he ran the stables I turned back to face him.

"Guess you’ve come to look over Beauty?" he teased.

"I want to buy her from Mr. Alexander."

"It’s not a good horse trader who doesn’t look over what he’s buying."

Considering that I rode Beauty every day for pure enjoyment after I exercised Temptation I didn’t see any sense in Jesse’s observation. "Is she any different than she was when I left for Natchez?"

He leaned on the fence that surrounded the exercise yard. "Nope."

"Then I’m buying her," I yelled over my shoulder as I ran again.

I knocked so loudly and impatiently at Mr. Alexander’s house that he opened the door - I’m sure he thought there was an emergency. I didn’t even wait for the common courtesy of asking him how he was or if he was busy or if I had interrupted anything. "I want to buy Beauty," I blurted out, gasping for air.

Looking down at me, he nodded. "I thought you might. Come inside for some lemonade and we’ll take care of the papers."

I stopped. I should have brought Pa. There was no way I was old enough to sign a contract.

At that age you can’t believe anyone besides your parents knows how you feel or really much cares but Mr. Alexander understood me better than I thought. He was a man who loved horses, too. "What we will do," he said after we had both finished our glasses of lemonade, "is I will sign my portion of the bill of sale. You can take it home and have Benjamin sign it and then I will meet him at his shop tomorrow for the payment. Is that agreeable?"

"Yes, sir," I said.

He handed me the folded piece of paper. "I hope this doesn’t mean I am losing the man who exercises Temptation."

I looked up through my lashes. "No, sir."

He leaned back in his chair. "I thought, Adam, that instead of my paying you in the future we might consider a business deal of sorts. You exercise Temptation for the usual wage and I will credit it to Beauty’s upkeep."

Given that I hadn’t even considered what I would do with Beauty now that I had her, the deal sounded good to me. I told Mr. Alexander I thought that was fair and he did all he could to fight a smile. He slapped both of his knees and stood so quickly I couldn’t keep up with him. By the time I was on my feet he had extended his hand. "You are a good man to do business with, Adam Cartwright."

I stammered some sort of response and strolled down his sidewalk. As soon as I was clear of the house, I ran all the way home.

How my family put up with my excited chatter at the dinner table that night I will never know. More than once Ma motioned to my plate. I took a small bite and then started talking with food still in my mouth, trying to ignore the unhappy look from Ma.

Pa knew how to slow me down though. He reached for his cup of coffee and casually asked, "Did you get a saddle with her?"

I didn’t even pretend to eat then. I placed my fork in the middle of my plate and turned my head to one side as I answered, "I don’t think so, Pa."

Pa reached to a small serving table to his left and closed his hand around the bill of sale. "This will tell you."

How many ways were there to be a fool? No equipment whatsoever. Just the horse and the deal I had worked out about her upkeep with Mr. Alexander. "How much does a good saddle cost, Pa?"

He looked at the ceiling and considered my question. Then he caused everyone to stop eating - except for Erik. "I suppose that would depend on whether you wanted a leisure saddle or one built for the trail, son."

I whirled to look at Ma and she was smiling at Pa, glad he had finally shared the secret. Now for me to pretend I hadn’t known about the plans.

"A trail saddle, Pa?"

He slid his tongue across his teeth and those blue eyes weighed me to the ounce. "I believe you’ve known for a while, haven’t you?"

Erik pointed his fork at me. "That’s the secret you wouldn’t tell me - and Pa wouldn’t make you tell."

"Maybe I guessed," I said.

"Aw Adam," Erik moaned. "Ain’t you ever gonna learn what a terrible liar you are?"

"Pa?" Joe leaned sideways, trying to get around Erik. "What’s a twail saddle?"

"It’s one made for heavy use. Trails aren’t easy on the horse or the rider."

"But," Joe went on as he pushed at Erik to lean back so he could see Pa, "what is a twail?"

"It’s what we’ll follow to California," Erik said as he shoved Joe back to his proper place.

Joe continued his questions. "What’s this Califownia?"

"It is a place," Ma answered. "Far way. I will show you on the map. We are going to travel there. But first you must eat."

"Why?" he challenged. "Nobody else is."

Ma’s knowing eyes settled on each of us in turn and we all got the hint. Before he put his fork to his lips Pa told me how much he thought a good trail saddle would cost and then he quickly obeyed Ma.

Go to Part 4