Blood Brothers
Chapter Five
Meanwhile, inside the cabin, Starsky, Jeremy, and Joshua were just finishing up putting everything away from their dinner. Joshua picked up the place mats they'd laid out on the table earlier and took them into the bedroom, replacing them on the dresser where they were stored. From the corner of his eye, he saw a flutter of white as a sheet of paper fell to the floor.
His own name caught his eye in the dim light of the lamp. Retrieving the note from the floor, he noticed firstly that it was Jason's writing. It was a letter, addressed to Uncle Duncan. I didn't know that Jason was writing to Uncle Duncan," he thought to himself. They didn't keep secrets from each other, but his brother corresponding with their uncle over the long distance to Scotland apparently had been kept a secret.
He didn't really plan on it, but his eyes scanned the letter, searching for the glimpse of his name that he'd seen before, insatiably curious as to what his brother was telling their uncle. But as he read, he was pulled further and further into the document's text. He read the final sentences in the letter out loud. "I would appreciate anything that you can tell me about Josh's birth. I have read our parent's journals and found no reference, and I feel it is vital to resolve, in my own mind, that he truly is our brother and is in no way related to the family named Hutchinson."
He lowered himself on the edge of the large bed in shock, his world suddenly tumbling down around him. If this letter was to be believed, he wasn't a Bolt at all. Never was, to be honest. He didn't belong to this family; he didn't have a right to anything that the family's money had paid for.
"Hey, Josh!" he heard Jeremy call from the other room. "Didja get lost in there or something?" Slowly, dazedly, he watched his fair haired brother emerge from the room, feeling that his mood was drastically different from when he'd gone in. The look on Josh's face was disturbing. "What's the matter?" he asked, exchanging concerned glances with Starsky.
Josh didn't answer. Scuffing his feet on the wood floors, the letter fell from his fingers as he grabbed his coat and walked out the door. Hutch and Jason abruptly ended their conversation as he came out the door, still looking dazed yet striding purposefully. "What's wrong, Josh?" Jason asked, again with no response.
Jason was torn between going after Josh - who seemed to be headed toward the woods - and going back into the cabin to see what had happened. He'd never known Jeremy and Joshua to argue to a point that they couldn't stand to be in the same room together, but then again, there was always a first time. He opted to check with Jeremy first, with Hutch following him into the house.
"What's gotten into Josh?" Jason asked a split second before realizing that Jeremy was standing in what passed for their kitchen reading a piece of letter parchment.
He looked up, his eyes watery, at Jason's question. "Jason, what is this?" he asked, nodding toward the paper. "I didn't realize you'd gone this far."
Rather than getting into it in front of Starsky and Hutch, Jason turned to them. "Would you men mind excusing us for the evening. It seems we have a few family problems to work out."
Knowing that there was something wrong, both men were happy to leave the brothers in peace and headed back to town with a quick "Good Night."
As soon as they were clear of the door and it had slammed shut behind them, Jason turned back to Jeremy, whose eyes were still wide. "Jason, this says that Josh isn't really our brother! And you wrote it!"
"Now wait a minute," Jason said, trying to calm his youngest brother's agitation. "It doesn't say he isn't our brother by blood. It only says that he might not be our brother by blood. I wanted to know the truth before it got dropped on Joshua without warning. Even if he wasn't born from Mom and Dad, do you really think that I'd want to change what the three of us have together? Whether he's a brother by blood to Hutch or any other person, he'll always be my little brother. Would you change how you think of him just because we find out he's not really a Bolt?"
The speech seemed to have the desired effect on Jeremy, who rubbed his burning eyes and set the letter aside. "No, of course not!! I think being a brother is a lot more than just blood."
"Then we'd better go catch up with Josh, little brother, because he's out there right now thinking exactly what you thought when you read the letter. Only it's hurting him a whole lot more."
*************************
Josh roamed the woods, no longer aware of where he was or how far he'd come from the cabin. He rubbed savagely at the water on his face, not feeling how cold the skin was becoming under the tears he'd never admit to shedding. Who am I? he asked himself, uncertain for the first time in his life. If I'm not Joshua Bolt, then I'm Joshua who? He nearly ran into a tree in his distraction, only feeling the ache that seemed to be crushing his chest.
Why? Why did this have to happen to him. First to lose the only parents he'd ever known, and now to have his brothers yanked from him as if they'd never been. Oh, he knew Jason and Jeremy very well, and they'd want him to stay, that was certain. They'd offer to go on as if nothing had happened, just as if it was as it always had been. But it would be a lie, and it would be dishonest of him to take something that was never rightfully his. And one third of Bridal Veil Mountain, one third of their logging company, and one third of the cabin he'd just fled were not items that rightfully belonged to him. Not anymore.
The tears streamed stronger as he thought of what he was losing, their flow impeding his vision as he tramped through the woods. He didn't notice when he went past the boundaries of their own property, only knowing that he had to flee, as fast and as furious as his aching legs would take him.
He'd gone over a half mile onto somebody else's land, still surrounded by trees, when he first heard a click, then a louder, metallic snap. His walking stopped and a fraction of a second later the pain made its way from his leg to his brain. "Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" The scream was wrenched from him at the agony, knowing there would probably be nobody out this far this late to hear him. As he fell, he looked down and saw the bear trap, it's savage teeth embedded into his leg half-way up to his knee.
The tears he'd shed before from pain in his heart now reflected instead the pain in his leg. He knew it was in deep as the blood trickled down the sides of his leg. Like any wounded animal, his only driving force was to get his leg from that trap in any way necessary. He tried to pull the leg out as it was, which only succeeded in tearing the skin even more and causing him to cry out again. The rips made the bleeding worse, and he knew he'd have to remove the trap in order to get free.
Joshua felt the weakness acutely in his arms as he tried to push the sides of the trap open, realizing that the cold and his dash through the woods had left him with less energy than he should have for the task. "Please, God, help me!" he screamed into the night, putting every remaining ounce of his strength into pushing one last time on the trap.
Suddenly, it snapped open and he was free. The injured man's first thought was that he had to get back to the cabin; it was the closest place where he could get help. But as he looked at his leg and the blood pouring out of it, he knew he'd never make it that far. As his consciousness faded, he thought, maybe this is all for the best. Best for me because I don't have to leave and best for Jason and Jeremy because they don't have to keep living a lie. It'll be easier on all of us this way.....
He drifted off as his hold on consciousness was loosed. What he believed would be his final thoughts were of the men he'd always called his brothers and how much he loved them.
**************************
Jason and Jeremy were bundled up against the cold, each carrying a gas lantern to light the trail Josh had left through the woods. The fact that he'd left such a blatant trail was proof to them that he hadn't been thinking clearly, especially if it was his intention to get out of Seattle.
"It looks like he went this way," Jeremy noted, pointed to some broken branches just inside the woods behind their cabin.
"Jeremy, I have a feeling we're going to need more than just you and me to find him. Why don't you go back to the cabin. Use Josh's horse - he's the fastest - and go into town. Bring back every able-bodied man you can find to help. Be sure they bring lamps with them, okay?"
Jeremy didn't waste the time speaking, he simply nodded once and took off, leaving Jason to follow the trail he'd found into the woods.
The horse was indeed as fast as Jason had said, and Jeremy was back at the trail within a half hour. With him he had Corky, Big Swede, Ben, Starsky, Hutch, and another dozen or so loggers, all equipped with lanterns from Ben's.
"Jason!" Jeremy called, trying to place his brother's location, but he must've been out of earshot because he didn't answer. He turned to the men behind him; with Jason and Joshua out of the area, he was in charge. "Now, if you point your lamps down, you'll see the tracks that Josh left, and I'm sure where they get faint, Jason has left signs of which way he went. Keep your eyes out and look for Josh. He should be easy to spot in the dark with his hair." He pulled himself up to his full 5'8". "Everybody, move out!"
*************************
"Joshua!!" Jason called, his voice as close to frantic as it ever got. "Josh!! Come back!! The letter didn't mean anything!!!" It was a lie and he knew it, but anything that got Josh to come back was worth it to him. As if it were possible, Jason thought it was getting even darker, the light from his lamp being little help any more.
"Please! Josh!" he whispered ferociously to himself. "Come back safe."
**************************
Something under his cheek was wet and cold. Was this what heaven was like? Or maybe this was hell. Maybe all the bibles and preachers were wrong: it wasn't horribly hot in hell, it was cold - so cold you could never get warm.
He decided to try opening his eyes. Do you even have eyes when you're dead? He wondered for a second before giving it a try. Yes, he still had eyes, and they seemed to be working, for the most part. Trees like the ones he and his brothers cut down towered above him, seeming to threaten him with their revenge for all their brothers and sisters. It terrified him.
He sat up, the pain in his leg reminding him of his accident. His eyes didn't want to focus, but he could make out in the darkness the injury and the blood flowing from it. Apparently, he hadn't been out that long; there was more blood than when he'd passed out, but not a lot.
Need to stop the bleeding, he thought, his instinct for survival kicking in. He methodically checked all his pockets for his handkerchief with no positive results. He needed a cloth, preferably a long strip of absorbent, fairly clean fabric. The blue eyes fell on the outstretched arm, clamped down on the more serious wounds on his right side. His shirt sleeve would be perfect.
It took him four yanks at the shoulder seam before it came apart from the rest of the shirt and he was able to slide it off his arm. He immediately felt the cold invade that arm, not that it mattered when faced with the prospect of bleeding to death.
There was only enough fabric to wrap it around once, which Josh did with precision, being sure that the wounds were covered before he knotted the cloth.
That taken care of, he had another thought, and this one scared him even more. I've got to find a way to get to town. He tried to stand, finding himself failing when the leg went out from under him and he fell again in the soft bed of leaves. Well, if he couldn't walk, he'd just have to crawl.
Even that was painful, the leg being dragged behind him for the most part. He wasn't certain he was headed in the correct direction, but he had a good idea. After going about fifty yards, he checked the bandage, which was sodden with blood past its ability to absorb. The grass was red again, and he was weak, cold, and scared. The stars and moon above were growing dim. He shook his head once to try to clear his vision of the darkness, but it only succeeded in making him feel sick. This is it, he felt certain as he drifted off again. It figures. The last thing I'll ever see before I die, and it's these damn trees.
*************************
Return to main
Previous chapter
Next chapter