The Silver Coin, Part Fifteen

by J. Rosemary Moss

Genre: Slash Fan Fiction (Bonanza)
Rating: PG-13

Link to Part One

~

Joe put his hands behind his head and stared up at the stars. It was one of those nights where it made more sense to sleep outside, by the fire, than inside the line shack.

Hoss, Adam and David were all sleeping outside as well. And they seemed to be genuinely sleeping. Only Joe was lying there awake.

He turned toward the fire for a moment and stared into it. Then he reached for a spare piece of wood and used it to stir up the coals—no use letting the fire die down while he still needed its warmth. Then he went back to staring up at the sky.

He’d been content during the day—there’d been too much work to do to worry about how he’d rather be occupying his time. But now he was itching to be back in Virginia City, sitting at a table with cards in front of him.

He’d even been plotting how to get around his promise to David. He’d need start up money for that; but there were plenty of ways to earn extra cash. He could bust broncos at another ranch, or give riding lessons to the rich debutantes in town…yeah, that last idea could serve a double purpose. He liked getting to know the debutantes. Most of them were new money and only vaguely refined—but that didn’t lessen their charms.

But he couldn’t break his promise to David. He had to lay off the tables for two months—that was the deal. And David had hired that Irish fellow to make sure that Joe held up his end of the bargain.

Joe cracked a smile. That almost made him want to put the fellow to the test. But he had given David his word.

Now why had David thought that his word wouldn’t be enough? Joe should be insulted by that—but he wasn’t. It was going to take every inch of his resolve not to break his promise, so he couldn’t hold David’s distrust against him. Besides, David trusted Joe on important stuff; he just didn’t trust him when it came to poker.

But why was he itching to play? Joe couldn’t answer that. It didn’t even make sense. After all, he knew that he could walk away from the tables any time, despite David’s misgivings. He knew he could.

So why was he laying here thinking about the game?

“What are you thinking about, Joe?”

The voice startled him out of his thoughts. Joe looked across the fire and saw that Adam was sitting up, staring at him.

Joe sat up himself and turned to face his older brother. “Nothing much,” he said with a grin. “Just the debutantes in Virginia City.”

Adam’s eyes flickered in the firelight as he continued to stare at Joe. For a second, Joe thought that his older brother didn’t believe him. But at length Adam seemed to accept his answer.

“Well, don’t worry,” Adam said, smiling a little. “You’ll see them within a week.”

Joe smiled back and nodded, but part of him wanted to tell Adam that he was lying—that he didn’t care about the debutantes right now, that he just wanted to play poker.

Why couldn’t older brother see that? Why couldn’t Hoss? Why was it only David who had enough sense to be worried? It wasn’t normal—thinking about poker instead of the debutantes.

Joe started coughing from the smoke as the realization hit him. If cards mattered more to him now than just about anything else—if cards were edging everything else out of his mind—then there was a problem.

Adam and Hoss couldn’t see it because they had always babied him. They were used to him being irresponsible when it came to money and cards. Heck, they’d come to expect it. They were accustomed to bailing him out. He was the youngest, after all, and he’d always had his older brothers to fall back on.

But David was still enough of an outsider to know that dropping all that money was a serious matter—even for the baby of the family.

Joe gasped at the insight as he continued to cough. Adam was already at his side—funny, Joe had never seen him move—patting him on the back.

“Are you okay, Joe?” he asked.

Joe finished coughing and then turned his head toward Adam. “Yeah, I’m fine.” He paused for a moment, just long enough to sigh. “But there’s something I need to tell you.”

LINK TO PART SIXTEEN