Felling of the Sons-e

A Bonanza Novel by Monette Bebow-Reinhard

The Cartwrights are back! Characters from the popular TV western live again in this approved novel of revenge and murder. An enemy from Ben Cartwright's past vows to take the lives of his sons in payment for the death of his wife. A rousing good tale even if you never saw the TV show.

LiFE Award Recipient

ISBN 1-50431-159-5 Western/Historical Cover by Maggie Dix. Bonanza Art © 2005 Bonanza Ventures, Inc.

Also available in HTML and RTF formats.



CHAPTER ONE

June, 1860

“I can kill a Cartwright, pa. Let me do it.”

Bret Van Remus glanced at his father before staring back out the stagecoach window where the rocky hills and valleys, green with summer in the Sierra Mountains, blurred through his mind. The Overland coach bound from Sacramento to Virginia City, Nevada, hit ruts and lingering mud puddles as through included in the fare. Dust had settled on his lips, but Bret only tasted the blood of revenge that marked their dusty trail.

He and his pa had fought over their plans for eighteen years, putting it off, finding flaws, making adjustments, and now, at age thirty, he still felt twelve, with no future and no past, just anger.

“We don’t need to involve any outsiders.”

Clete Van Remus brushed absently at the dirt on his Chesterfield coat without looking up from his papers. “No. I’ve said this before. I want your hands clean in this.” He’d seen to their privacy in the coach by paying the full fare for just the two of them.

Pa thought himself wise using those eighteen years to invest, barter and even steal wherever possible. And now, by throwing money around in Virginia City, they would remain above suspicion when things started to go wrong for one particular family of so-called noble citizens. But Bret couldn’t get past his own need—no matter how remorseless a killer Clete eventually found to do the proper harm to the right target.

“Nobody’d know it was me.” Bret pulled his long blonde hair from his face, an unconscious game he played with the wind. He didn’t share with his pa, whose nearsightedness affected not only his physical ability to see the present, but often the future, too, that he felt capable of exploding into a million bits of uncontrolled rage just seeing one of those murdering Cartwrights.

The bumpy ride didn’t keep Clete from studying the property claim papers he had legally drawn and notarized. For the hundredth time, Bret thought, he checked them to make sure they’d fool any judge in the land. Clete finally put the papers down to study his son. “Bret, you sound just like you did when you were 12. Now keep quiet and let me think.”

“You find a problem?”

“You talk like the adult you profess to be, and we’ll have a conversation.” He hid behind the papers again to rub his eyes but Bret didn’t miss the gesture. Pa got those headaches often but refused to get treated for them, saying they came from the same hate Bret carried around. But Bret’s hate made him feel stimulated, not incapacitated.

“You had those papers verified by the best judge in the district.”

“I’m not worried about the papers. Just planning the best strategy for presenting them.” He sneezed again and adjusted his Derby, a habit of marked resignation to his balding head.

“But why’d it have to take so long?” Bret clenched his hands tight on his lap to control the rage. Ma would have been ready for revenge the day after the murder if she hadn’t been the one killed. Not Pa. Pa hated the idea of making a mistake, of being wrong or looking stupid. Bret once caught him trying on a pair of spectacles and thought his pa might buy them, too, until he caught sight of himself in a looking glass.

“Ben Cartwright will never expect us, not in a thousand years. You’ll see.”

“Whatever you say.” Bret leaned out and peered ahead on the trail, wincing at the dust in his face, and suddenly ducked back inside the coach. “Oh my god. Indians.”

“Really?” Clete didn’t put his papers down.

Bret pulled out his gun and tapped the barrel on his knee as he glanced nervously between the window and his father. “Thought I saw one. Don’t take much to get Indians on the warpath.” Clete kept reading. “Well, get yours out, too. One gun ain’t much good against a whole tribe.”

“Indians belong here, same as you and me.” A few years back Clete rode the stage with one jumpy Swede who thought he heard someone yell “Indians.” He had screamed, “Oh mine gott, vere, vere?!” and started shooting out the window like crazy. Wouldn’t have hit one even if they’d been surrounded. Damn foreigners. “Besides, that little Paiute war helped us get that mine real cheap. Sent miners running for the hills!” Clete chuckled as he carefully folded the papers back up and shut them up in his satchel. “Like I said, timing.”

“I don’t know why we gotta live here, Pa. We could just do the killing and move on again.”

“I told you, if I’m going to get the Ponderosa, we need to settle down. When Ben realizes who I am, he’ll get suspicious, unless I have a legitimate purpose.” Clete sighed. The stagecoach climbed hills slowly, with their final destination, Virginia City, nearly at the peak. “We have to gain his confidence, get established, make friends. And when his sons….” Clete grabbed Bret’s arm and lowered his voice as though the driver sitting up top might hear. “I want you to stop calling me Pa. Swear to me! If Ben Cartwright learns my son is still alive, you won’t be safe. Not once his sons start dying. Swear you’ll call me sir or Mr. Van Remus from here on!”

Bret grinned. That part of the plan seemed easy enough to him. “I swear. I won’t call you Pa.”