The Monstrosity, Part Three

by J. Rosemary Moss

Genre: Fan Fiction (Bonanza)
Rating: R

LINK TO PART ONE

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I had played against Drew before, so I knew what I was in for. He was a formidable chess player—and the fact that he was blind had never stopped him from trouncing an opponent. I could hold my own against him, but it was always a struggle.

His memory never failed to astonish me. Since he couldn’t see the board, he would call out the piece that he wanted to move and the square that he wanted to move it to. I’d move the piece for him and then call out my own move. He managed to keep track of every piece on the board, down to the last pawn.

I had tried to compliment him once on both his skill and his memory. He nearly bit my head off. I learned then that Drew did not take compliments well. But perhaps things would be different now. We had become much closer in the wake of the stagecoach wreck—or so I flattered myself.

I leaned back in my chair and watched him consider his next move. He could checkmate me in a turn or two, if he was careful. I’m sure he knew that.

I studied him as he furrowed his brow. Drew often accused me of trying to adopt him as one of my ‘strays.’ He thinks that I make a habit of taking hopeless cases under my wing. Well, he may have a point—my Pa would agree with him, at any event.

But Drew was far from a hopeless case. Yes, he could be petty and cruel—but I remembered how he had behaved after the stagecoach wreck. He had taken the best care of me he could. He had even pretended to be Little Joe in order to keep me calm while I was burning up with fever. I was delirious for much of that time, but I do remember thinking that Joe was by my side.

And yet, after he got me safely home to the Ponderosa, he turned around and ruined a man just to prove a point to me. And I knew just what point he was making. He had gone out of his way to make it clear. He had even asked me, his voice dripping in irony, if I had expected him to put himself in my hands and beg me to reform him.

I smiled at that memory. To own the truth, I’ve thought for a while now that I could reform Drew, if he gave me half a chance. Moreover, I could have done a better job raising him than Jack had. I had a strong role in raising Hoss and Little Joe, after all—and they would both do any parent or older brother proud.

“Move my queen’s rook to F3,” Drew ordered, breaking into my thoughts. “That’s checkmate.”

I knew without looking at the board that I had no escape. “Yes it is,” I owned. “Well played.”

He gave me a brief nod of acknowledgement.

I smiled to myself and decided to push him. “You’re an excellent player, Drew. And your memory never fails to astonish me.”

I watched him stiffen at that. It wasn’t the compliment to his playing he disliked—it was the compliment to his memory. He had developed that memory to compensate for his blindness, so I suppose he felt that any recognition of his achievement brought undue attention to his handicap.

There were times when Drew didn’t mind references to his blindness—or at least didn’t mind referring to it himself. He had taken me to task more than once for nodding my head at him, shaking my head at him, or pointing somewhere as if he could see me. But that was different, I suppose.

At length he managed another brief nod—but I could see his resentment of me simmering. I should have let the matter drop, but I decided to push him further.

“How old were you when you learned how to play chess?” I asked.

“Ten,” he answered.

“Who taught you?”

“Jack.”

I wasn’t surprised. From what I could gather, Jack had raised his little brother. Drew seldom mentioned his parents—they didn’t seem to figure in his childhood.

“How long did it take you to memorize chess notations—and to hold a whole game in your head?”

He glared at me—or at least in my direction. “Why are you asking me all this?” he demanded.

“All this?” I repeated. “I admire your abilities, Drew, that’s all.”

“You want to know how I manage to play so well even when I can’t see the board, is that it?”

I felt my own temper rising at the anger in his voice. “Yes,” I said. “But that’s not all—I’d like to know how you manage all the accounts you deal with in business when you can’t see the numbers. And I’d like to know why Jack—who apparently raised you—didn’t realize that a mansion of this size and complexity would be a nightmare for you to navigate. And I’d like to know why Jack raised you to begin with. Where the hell were your parents?”

Drew opened his mouth to respond and then abruptly shut it again. I bit down hard on my lip before I could ask any more intrusive questions. Then I swore at myself. What was I thinking? I was here to give Drew a hand, not to interrogate him.

Drew wore a look of shock at my barrage—if I had wanted to rile him up, I had certainly succeeded. I shut my eyes and sighed.

“I’m sorry,” I said, opening my eyes again. “I’m not sure what just got into me.”

He put his elbows on the chess table and leaned toward me. “What happened in that desert, Adam?”

I managed a small, tight smile at that. “Touché,” I said. “I have no intention of answering that, so I suppose you have no reason to answer my questions.”

But I underestimated Drew. “I’ll answer your questions,” he said at length. “As long as what I say about my parents and Jack doesn’t leave this room.”

He paused to hold out his hand to me. “Do we have a deal?”

I stared at his hand for a long moment. He had shocked me this time. But at last I managed to take his hand and shake it. “Deal,” I confirmed.

LINK TO PART FOUR