Mystic Fire: A Bonanza /Civil War Novel

by Monette Bebow-Reinhard

Lincoln's haunted by ghosts of dead soldiers and Hoss is in "love,” what Hop Sing calls an unhealthy obsession. Adam's missing, Joe thinks Ben is dead and Ben follows the trail of a slave's suspicion that Lincoln is a traitor. In a departure from FELLING OF THE SONS, MYSTIC FIRE separates the Cartwrights into four misadventures, involving Lincoln, Mark Twain, slavery, greed, and Victorian Spiritualism. A Civil War-impacted adventure that tears the Cartwrights apart even as they try to cling together, demonstrating that in the Civil War, there were more than two sides to every battle.

ISBN 978-1-59431-712-5 Western, Adventure, TV Series, Civil War, Historical,

Cover Art by Suzy Mommaerts

studiographicsinc@gmail.com

Chapter 1

The wagon rocked, shaking the three runaways into clutching each other as Tobias jumped out. “Tobias! You’s leaving us here alone?! You promised to keep us safe!”

Tobias turned back to his sister. “They’re catching up to us now, Sadie. We have to split. One of us will get through. You keep going. Don’t stop. You know what to do.” Sadie clung to her children as Tobias sprinted up a rock cliff and looked for a route of escape. “You be careful, Tobias! I’ll find us a Cartwright, like we planned. You just be careful!”

“We’ll make this right, Sadie, we has to. Lincoln has to. Hurry!”

* * *

With his ranch house waiting cozy and firelight-warm behind him, his sons finishing dinner, Ben Cartwright walked outside to watch the sun fight the coming darkness over Lake Tahoe. No color in the sky, no clouds, no moisture. This was about the driest weather he could remember. Carson Valley was normally dry most of the year, but on the mountain they should have a little rain by now. He couldn’t shake the warning in his gut, a half-grown fear not ready to be shared with his sons. Once he figured its source…

The door opened behind him—his son Adam came out, by the sounds of the stride. Ben grinned. They’ve been together too long. He could tell his three boys apart by the sound of their boots. Maybe because each son was so different. Three wives, all who found life with him too hard. Whenever he caught himself wishing he’d had a daughter, he remembered losing a wife.

But a daughter-in-law might be nice.

Adam stood silent next to Ben, allowing Ben’s thoughts to ramble on. Adam, the oldest, and, Ben allowed a moment of ego, far more attractive than he’d ever been by his early 30s, was still single and tied to the ranch. Ben would be happy to have all three sons hitched. Each of them knew a portion of the near thousand acres of the Ponderosa was theirs to work as they saw fit, as their legacy. All the work Ben’s done here, cattling, timbering, mining, has been for them—his hope for a better future, for grandchildren, and sons’ wives who would live longer than any of his own wives had.

Three wives, three sons—even if his darkest grief, he didn’t mourn knowing any of his loves, all true, honest, sincere. All giving him another part of his legacy.

A better future. Something good must emerge from that secession war raging out east, giving the world a torn-apart feel, all the way out here. President Abe Lincoln’s speeches to the army made Ben shudder. Just keep throwing bodies at the South, that’s what winning demanded? Lincoln didn’t say as much, but telling the soldiers that they held the responsibility to save the Union made Ben very glad his sons were this far away.1

Ben faced his eldest. Adam stared into the same dull dry sky, a brooding look on his darkly handsome face, lips pursed as he wrangled with an issue. His mother, Elizabeth, had laughed when Ben remarked that she had been an Arabian princess in a former life. Adam picked up her darker features, especially visible after the summer sun had its way on him. Adam could have his pick of any woman in town, but there just weren’t that many single women out here, even now. That blasted “civil war,” now over a year old . and bloodier than ever, kept women from coming west, because few traveled unaccompanied by fathers or brothers. Adam was particular about women. Ben supposed he wanted the same romance he’d heard his father share of his three marriages.

Adam spoke under his father’s steady gaze. “No sign of rain yet.”

“No, and I am plenty worried about the section up north.”

Adam crossed his arms and fixed his intensity back on Ben. “What about a windmill?”

Ben sighed. “That’s not an overnight chore, son, and I don’t know if we can spare the time or the men.”

“I’m more worried about the land. And now we’re seeing the worst brand of men running this way from the east, no telling the trouble they can cause with a careless smoke.”

“I know.” Ben tried to stay calm because he knew how worry looked on his face, with his dark eyebrows furling under stark white hair. He didn’t want to get Adam more worked up than necessary, and tried to smile as he laid a gentle hand on his son’s shoulder. “Lucky we got the cattle sold when we did. But we could sell off some winter stock locally rather than trying to keep them fed up here.”

“I’m going to ride to town in the morning and send a wire to San Francisco. I can get the windmill designs here in a week. We can only hope to get it built and drawing water before we have a major fire.”

“I’ve had all the lakes prepared—”

“We don’t have enough lakes for 800 acres, and what we do have are seriously low. Even the water wagons we have filled and stationed at every cattle ground will only carry so far. I’ve got in mind to build it where the lakes are too far to help.”

“Doesn’t matter what I say anymore.” Ben shook his head. Since that other windmill trip Adam had tried to make went sour, he’d not been able to get the idea out of his head.

“Guess not.” Adam looked around. “Wonder why the first crew hasn’t returned yet. Mind if I ride out and see if there’s trouble?”

“No, go ahead.” Ben watched Adam walk to his still-saddled horse. He shook his head at his son’s stubbornness and penchant for hard work as he walked back in the house. He’d seen Adam go weeks with four hours of sleep a night and without any seeming ill effects. If only that New England character had rubbed off on his other two sons!

Ben knew, though he didn’t like to remember, the real reason for Adam’s new somberness and distance from other people of late. A few months back he’d gotten robbed and left on foot to die in the desert, rescued and then tormented by a deranged miner. Ben hated the memory, and figured Adam did, too, but the truth was, that torment at the hand of a madman had changed his son in some irreparable ways. Ben still felt relief just looking at Adam after coming so close to leaving him for dead coyote meat. But for awhile after they’d found Adam dehydrated and deranged, they weren’t sure they were going to get him back at all.2. This windmill project could be the thing to bring him all the way back from that frightful time. Inside the door Ben took off his hat, as Joe laughed at a checker move he caught on Hoss.

They were embroiled in their usual after-dinner pastime. While Adam might be reading or drawing up designs for improving work flow or building new shelters, his brothers had checkers, cards or girls on their minds. Of course he couldn’t expect the boys to be that similar. But Adam could have the ladies on the mind once in a while, or Hoss and Joe concentrate on the next day’s chores. After all, they all had the same hard-working, back-breaking father—who encouraged them all to break their backs often enough.

But not tonight.