I want to thank all who have let me know you're out there reading. And for those who commented and gave me the encouragement to continue writing, I do appreciate you as you add to the pleasure of writing.

"She's gone to live with my sister in Idaho," Mr. Rigby said. "I wanted her to get away from here. I lost one daughter and almost lost another. After I sell this damned house, I'm joining them. I don't even want to see Frank hang, I just want to be done with here."

Mr. Rigby sat in his parlor, his head dropped, his shoulders slumped. To Adam, he looked like a man who life had beaten down the way Hoss had beaten Branson—neither would ever be the same men they had been.

"Yes," Adam said quietly. Even two days later, his head still ached after being struck. They concluded that it had been a good-sized rock that had sent him tumbling. His ribs were still tender and a deep breath brought a sharp pain. "I think that's the best thing for Evangeline, getting away from here; I had hoped to tell her goodbye though—and to apologize for leaving her alone." Adam held his hat in his hands as he stood in front of Mr. Rigby; both Hoss and Joe waited outside. The three brothers were on their way home but Adam had insisted on stopping. For the past two days he had chastised himself, stating that he should never have left Evangeline alone in the dark while he searched for the creek, no matter how alluring the sound of water had been.

Hoss had tried to convince Adam he wasn't responsible for what happened to Evangeline. "Ain't you always tellin' me we can't ever say that things would've turned out different if we'd done somethin' else because…now how do you put it? It ain't logical because-the outcome might be the same no matter what we done. We can't predict how things would've turned out 'cause that would be…hypoth, something contrary..."

"Hypothesis contrary to fact."

"Yeah, that. Adam, iffen you had stayed with 'er, maybe Branson would've put a bullet in the back of your head 'stead of just hittin' you with a big-ol' rock, and he still would've done what he done to Miss Evangeline and maybe worse. "

Adam smiled wanly. "It's easy to say, isn't it, Hoss, but hard to hear. I suppose that logic has its place but…it's cold comfort."

Adam had asked Hoss and Joe if they wanted to go in the house. Joe said no, that it would only bring back the pain of losing Melora. Hoss also declined; he was still having problems with the incidents of that night and hadn't been able to sleep which was unusual. But Adam had slept—a drugged sleep. Hoss had suggested laudanum to ease his aching head and ribs and although Adam usually declined, this time he accepted and was soon peaceful. Hoss wondered which pain Adam was silencing with the opiate—the physical or emotional.

And as Hoss waited on his horse outside the Rigby house, that night came back to him. He had sat in the Rigby parlor, trying to console Evangeline even though he hadn't yet been told the whole story; Hoss wanted to wait until he and Adam were alone to discover all that had happened.

Hoss, almost as soaked as Adam, had declined the offer to dry out; he wanted to take Frank to the sheriff. And then there was Evangeline.

Evangeline had made it to the house alone and now she sat in a chair, her knees drawn up as she huddled with a blanket wrapped about her. She refused to meet anyone's eyes, just sat and rocked slightly back and forth. Her father paced back and forth, saying that he didn't know what to do. Adam kneeled in front of Evangeline, speaking to her in a calm voice but she wouldn't meet his eyes nor would she respond so Adam ceased; Hoss hadn't had to tell Adam what she had endured—Adam knew. After all, he had been told about Melora and found young Amy so long ago. There had to be a connection and Adam thought he knew and later he would find he was correct; the son was carrying on the madness, the obsession of the father.

Hoss had gone back for Branson ater taking Adam to the Rigby's. He found the doctor's horse tied in the trees near the house; it had nickered to Hoss' horse when he and Adam arrived. Hoss tossed the unconscious Branson over his horse as he would a sack of grain and then, untying the bandana and using the looped rope on his saddle, Hoss tied Branson's dangling hands to his ankles and delivered Branson to the sheriff in Mules' Pass.

As Hoss filled out the complaint, Branson, who had recovered to some degree, sat in a chair, hands still tied and glassy-eyed, muttering passages that Hoss assumed were from the Bible. The length of rope lay on the floor, his wrists still bound.

"Go, take yourself a wife of harlotry and children of harlotry, for the land has committed great harlotry by departing from the Lord. You have sinned and thou must pay the penalty—for the wages of sin is death. But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mysteries of God shall be finished."

"He been mumbling like that the whole time?" the sheriff asked, looking oddly at the babbling man. Frank Branson seemed not to be aware of his surroundings.

"Only since he come to. Like I said, when I found him doin'…what he was doin' to her, he was callin' Miss Evangeline a whore, a jezebel, even sayin' that she'll be devoured by dogs and that she had to be kept from riding the seven-headed beast or it'll be the downfall of mankind—trash like that."

"Revelations."

"What's that you say?"

"That's a passage from Revelations—something about the end of the world. Once, the doc here substituted for the minister when he came down with something, and he preached Revelations, the Apocalypse-death and destruction and damnation, you know, the Four Horsemen and all that. Give me a sermon on brotherly love and turnin' the other cheek any day."

"Me too, Sheriff. Actually, give me a nice, dull sermon where I can doze off a bit and I'm happiest."

The sheriff chuckled and then glancing back at Branson, turned back to the form on his desk and said, "Religious fanatics are the worst because they feel God is always on their side."

Hoss said nothing. He was impatient. Adam said he would return to town as soon as his clothes dried. Hoss knew that Adam was filled with guilt and sadness and regret but Evangeline wasn't in the state of mind to be helped, at least not with help by him. And there was no doctor to call on, no one to give her any medical assistance so Adam and Mr. Rigby agreed that she should have a dose of laudanum slipped into a mug of chamomile tea.

The office door opened and Adam walked in, looking at Branson who was now talking in muted tones; Frank never even looked up.

"You come to file charges?" the sheriff asked.

"No. I'm sure he slammed me with a rock but I don't know it for fact and I didn't see what he did to Evangeline Rigby. I just hope you'll release my brother."

"Not until I get the corroborating news from my deputy." The sheriff stood up and pulled Branson up from the chair, unlocking the door to the back, and untying his wrists, placed Branson in the cell next to Joe. The sheriff began to wind the length of rope and handed it partially completed to Hoss.

"Can we see our brother/" Adam asked.

"Put you firearms on my desk and you can."

Adam pulled out his water-logged pistol, then slid it onto the desk along with Hoss' and they both went back to talk to Joe and to try to explain the madman in the adjoining cell.

~ 0 ~

"I don't quite understand—everything happened so fast and yet it seems it was a lifetime ago," Joe said to Hoss as they rode along. Adam wasn't in the mood to talk so Joe went around him to get the details. While Hoss and Joe talked, Adam pulled ahead and left them a few paces behind; he had enough going on in his mind, mulling over all that had happened.

Earlier that day the deputy had come to the hotel and told Adam and Hoss that Joe was being released and they could pick up his horse at the livery, the bill was gratis; the deputy brought back the telegram confirming Joe's earlier whereabouts. Adam and Hoss were relieved; it was finally over—at least that part. And now they could 'release" Cochise as well. The two men had seen Joe's horse each time they stabled their own and the animals were always glad to be reunited, snuffling and whinnying to each other in recognition. So as soon as Joe was released from jail, his brothers and his horse were impatiently waiting.

"Joe, I done explained it. Old Doctor Branson, well, he must've been the one who was killin' them females long ago. Sheriff Murphy said that he was gonna send out telegrams and try to track down where the old doc worked all those years before they came to Mule's Pass and then turn it all over to the federal marshal. Looks like old Doc was a lunatic some of the time—somethin' about women bein' infidels and the full moon each month-and killed the females he thought were…behavin' badly, mainly by struttin' around without no man to protect them—brazen, hussy behavior the sheriff called it. Stuff was all mixed up in both docs minds and they thought women—all women,-were evil anyway, leading men to sin, incitin' 'em with ideas of lust—all that stuff just because of Eve, what the Bible said 'bout her. Sheriff said that he couldn't get no real sense outta the old man but found all sorts of notes and a journal kept by Frank Branson where he wrote what he did—a written confession. That'll help, the sheriff said, since Frank don't seem too lucid anymore."

"I just can't believe that he…" Joe's voice cracked with emotion and he stopped talking. His memories of Melora were still fresh in his mind. And Joe had wanted Frank to die, would have strangled the man with his own hands if allowed. But as he had watched the doctor in the next cell, Joe saw him as the sick, pathetic man he was and his lust for revenge receded to a degree, but he still desired to see Frank hanged.

The three brothers rode in silence. Adam had been quiet since they left Mules' Pass and now Joe was silent as well. Hoss rode along glancing at one and then the other and wondered what it was that made them both so open to pain and suffering. It wasn't as if they weren't experienced with life and its emotional traps, especially Adam, and yet they exposed themselves to pain over and over again. Shakespeare had called them "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune." Hoss recalled and that's what they were. A man was constantly "shot" and "struck" in an attempt to destroy or test him, Adam had said when explaining the phrase to Hoss.

And he thought back to the Fortuneteller's tent so long ago and the predictions she doled out. "For you, you will know a woman's love but never marry. You are a man of the land as your father is and will keep him company all his life and be a wealthy man yourself, living on the benefits of the earth" And Hoss had been disappointed at the time as he wanted a wife and family as any other man would, but now he couldn't think of a better future than to live his life out on the land he loved so much, the Ponderosa. Yes, the land never tore out your heart but held new delights and joys each day. He could find peace just by riding out of the property and looking at the snow-capped mountains and the lake and the sky filled with wild geese.

"Yes," Hoss decided, "I guess I'm the luckiest of us all."

~ Finis ~