Simply the Truth

August Round-Up Challenge

By Marcella Petillo

Joe 

I’m in jail, and I’m in trouble. That’s a fact. 
The problem is, I don’t remember anything! Nothing at all, and it’s driving me crazy! I woke up in a cell at Sheriff Coffee’s jail with a monumental headache, and I even threw up my guts. 
 
“Severe head trauma,” Doc. Martin declared. In fact, the lump on the back of my head is as big as an egg and hurts like hell. 
My head is foggy, my vision blurred, and the nausea gets worse every time I get up from the bunk, but I’m too nervous to stay still. 
 
Finally, I hear my father’s and my brothers’ voices arguing with the sheriff in his office. Pa raises his voice. “Are you kidding me? That’s not possible! Not Joe! You know him!” Then he lowers it to a murmur that I can no longer make out, but a chill runs through my veins. 
I’m young, but I’m not stupid! What could I have done that was so serious as to deserve jail and not remember it? 
 
Suddenly I’m afraid, fucking terrified, and it stops me from breathing and makes me gasp for air. 
 
I grab the bars; my voice dies in my throat; I rasp, more than call out, but finally I manage to make a sound. “Pa!!” and the door opens! I don’t know how he heard me, but he comes, walks toward me in long strides, and wraps his hands around mine, squeezing tightly. 

In his eyes I read the love that has always been there, and I cling to that look. Then I feel a warmth spreading through my whole body and my head becoming light. The nausea makes me dizzy. I stagger, and even though I’m holding on to the bars, I feel my knees give way beneath me. I don’t fight it; on the contrary, I let myself go. I’m tired… so tired… 

Pa’s voice reaches me muffled, my brothers’ voices barely distinguishable; they’re calling me, but I can’t hear them anymore… my head hurts, so badly… and I close my eyes. 

***** 

Ben managed to hold Joe up just enough to keep him from crashing to the ground. Roy rushed over, alarmed by the Cartwrights’ shouts, and opened the cell to check on his prisoner. Ben pushed him aside and knelt on the ground, lifting his son into his arms. Adam ran out and returned with Paul Martin following close behind. 
 
Meanwhile, Hoss had taken Joe from his father’s arms and laid him down on the bunk. 
His hands had found the large lump on the back of his brother’s head, and he was furious. Joe was injured, pale, very sick, and he should not have been locked up in a cell! 
 
Doc. Martin confirmed the severe head trauma caused by a forceful blow to the back of the head. He reported that Joe did not remember anything that had happened. The amnesia was a direct consequence of the trauma; it would resolve over time, but for now he needed medical care, and his current condition was not compatible with being in jail. 
 
Sheriff Coffee was on pins and needles. A longtime friend of the Cartwrights, he loved Joe like a son, and having had to lock him in a cell, unconscious and injured, had been a decision he had made reluctantly, but he could do nothing else, given the seriousness of the accusation. He had had the doctor examine him and had sent someone to notify the family. 
 
In accordance with the law, he decided to set bail, which Ben paid immediately, and Joe was transferred to a room at the Hotel as a prisoner, guarded day and night by the assigned guards. There was no danger of escape; that way, no one would have anything to complain about. 

“Torture and murder” was the serious accusation. The witness had reported that he had entered the old, abandoned warehouse to retrieve some ropes that had been left there. He had seen two men on the ground; one dead, covered in blood, marked by countless stab wounds and a deep wound to the chest. In the dead man, he had recognized a businessman passing through Virginia City and headed East. A certain Jeff Donovan. In one hand he was still clutching a large stick. 
 
The other was young Cartwright, unconscious, still holding the knife in his hand. His hands were dirty with blood, but it wasn’t his. They had concluded that the man had managed to strike his torturer before dying, as evidenced by the large lump on the back of Joe’s head. 
The young man had been taken to jail while he was still unconscious, but what had happened in that warehouse seemed obvious. 

The town had immediately split. Many believed it was impossible that Joe had killed Donovan, and in such a gruesome way, even torturing him! Not Ben Cartwright’s son! The two men didn’t even know each other! 
 
Others, among those who envied the Cartwrights’ solid position, their wealth, and their undeniable prestige, were gloating at the idea that the youngest would be found guilty and hanged, tearing his family apart forever. 
 
Ben and his two older sons, having absorbed the shock that had overwhelmed them, had set themselves in motion to prove Joe’s innocence. Not one of them doubted the youngest member of the family in the slightest! 
Ben never left his son’s bedside, supporting him, hoping that he would begin to remember. Adam and Hoss combed the town looking for useful clues. 
 
Sheriff Roy was also hunting for irrefutable evidence, not because he didn’t believe the witness, an honest man, but because he had known Joe since birth. He knew his values, he knew how Ben’s sons had been raised. Besides, the dynamics of that murder did not correspond at all to Joe’s personality. The boy was impulsive, his temper flared easily, but precisely for this reason, many things didn’t add up. 
 
It had not been a spur-of-the-moment murder; the man had been tortured for a long time before dying, perhaps to force information out of him. Roy assumed that, having achieved his purpose, the killer had then delivered the fatal blow. That wasn’t Joe! Roy would have bet on it, but the young man’s amnesia wasn’t helping him. 
 
Both the sheriff and the Cartwrights were convinced there was a third man, someone connected to Donovan’s past or his business affairs. Someone who had reasons for resentment or interests strong enough to want him dead. They had to prove it, though! 

***** 

Joe 

Four days have passed, and I’m in bed, on the doctor’s orders. Not that I feel like moving! The headache is fierce, and I get nauseous every time I try to sit up; I eat very little and Pa worries. The painkillers dull the throbbing in my poor head, but the effect doesn’t last long. 
 
I sleep, or try to sleep; even that isn’t easy. Between the pain and the thoughts spinning around in my head, I’m exhausted. I force myself to remember, but in the end I feel sick, and Doc. told me to stop. The memory will come back on its own, he says, when the lump goes down. I understand, but he’s not the one whose neck is on the line! 
 
The idea of not recovering my memory torments me. It might not even come back! I’m scared. It almost makes me want to laugh: Me, scared? I’m never afraid, well… almost never! 
 
Instead, I’m terrified at the thought that… Oh, my God!… 
Could I have done what they’re accusing me of?… 
Could I have tortured a man to death?… 
Every part of me screams no, but what if there were a dark side inside me?… 
Something I didn’t know about, something I’ll never know if I can’t remember… 
 
Pa senses my anguish; I’d like to confide in him, but I’m not ready yet. My brothers try to cheer me up, and sometimes they succeed, but they’re almost always out asking questions, reconstructing the events, finding evidence of my innocence. I’m so grateful for that! 

***** 

That very evening, Adam flung the door open and burst into the room, 
“I have proof that Joe is innocent! He was framed!” 
 
Ben and Hoss jumped at the noise and the words. Broad smiles lit up their faces. Joe woke with a start, confused. 
 
Adam approached his brother’s bed, 
“Do you understand, Joe? I have proof that you’re innocent! We had it right under our noses, but we didn’t notice! I reconstructed the scene with the witness, and only then did I understand!” A thousand different expressions crossed Joe’s face, then he covered his eyes, overwhelmed. 
 
Adam pressed on, “The witness confirmed that he found you unconscious next to Donovan and that you were still clutching the knife in your hand, while Donovan was holding the stick with which he supposedly struck you. 
Which hand, Joe? You had the knife in your right hand! And you’re left-handed! There’s more; Donovan could never have struck you on the back of the head from where he was standing; you fell forward, toward him. Someone hit you from behind, then put the knife in your wrong hand and the stick in the hand of a dead man!” 
 
Adam pulled up a chair, sat beside the bed, and continued, 
“Doc Martin performed an autopsy on Donovan’s body, which was exhumed on the sheriff’s orders. Roy and I tried to reconstruct what happened; we think you entered the warehouse because you heard something, perhaps groans. When you found Donovan, you tried to help him; you touched him, which is why your hands were bloody! The killer came out of his hiding place and struck you on the back of the head. The whole scene was staged to throw us off the trail!” 
 
They were interrupted by a knock at the door, and Roy entered accompanied by Dr. Martin, 
“We have the scientific evidence! The stab wound that killed Donovan pierced his heart. The doctor says he died instantly, so he couldn’t have struck Joe. There was someone else in the warehouse! In his haste, the killer didn’t notice that Joe is left-handed, and placed the knife in the wrong hand. 
You’re cleared of the charges, my boy! Now we have to find the real culprit! If only Joe could remember some distinctive clue…” 

Roy turned around, and as he did, the keys hanging from his belt jingled. 

Joe suddenly stiffened, gasped as he turned pale, squeezed his eyes shut, and grabbed his head with both hands, “Wait… wait… I remember a sound… a metallic jingle… behind me. And also a sweet sound, like a little silver bell…” Every voice in the room suddenly fell silent! 

“Where have I heard that sound before?” Adam concentrated. “A metallic jingle, a little silver bell… Yes! Yesterday! At the Silver Dollar! While I was asking questions around town, I heard something similar!” 

Roy’s eyes widened. “A jingling sound… like… like spurs?” He slapped his hands on his thighs, “Like spurs with a little silver bell?” He laughed loudly and moved closer to Joe’s bed, “Thank you, son, now I know who it is! I know exactly who it is, and I’m going to get him! You two coming with me?” he asked, turning to Adam and Hoss, who immediately moved toward the door. The room was left empty. 

Ben smiled at his son, leaned over the bed, and hugged him tightly, “Simply the truth, Joe. You can’t stop it for long, the truth; sooner or later it comes out and shines even in the darkness!” 

The End