Bonanza
~*~*~ Advent Calendar ~*~*~
* Day 12 *

Summary:  Lost, both literally and in the wanderings of his fevered mind, Little Joe encounters a ghostly presence (or is it?) and fears he’s in for a visitation like that of Ebenezer Scrooge.

Rating:  G
Word Count:  3,800

The Ghost of Christmas

            Little Joe was a brat, to begin with.  There is no doubt whatever about that.  Adam was the first to say it, but Ben sadly concurred, and even Hoss, loyal defender of the indefensible (Adam’s title, again) was forced to agree.  For that matter, Little Joe himself admitted it, although he couldn’t have explained to anyone why he was such a bear to live with (Hoss’s evaluation) or a crank to rival Ebenezer Scrooge himself (Adam’s).  And Joe’s response to these attacks (as he saw them) or needed correction (as the others did) was a hearty “Bah, humbug!”  (All the Cartwrights tended to spout Dickensian phrases this time of year.)

A week before Christmas was a bad time to be on Santa Ben’s naughty list, but Little Joe had most certainly landed there and thoroughly deserved to.  He just couldn’t seem to stop himself from making one caustic comment after another, and coal in his stocking was the best he could expect, probably followed by bread and water while isolated in his room for the day.  His favorite holiday of the year and he was ruining it—for himself and everyone around him.  He knew only one way to remedy the problem and that was to take himself out of it, so he’d impulsively done just that.  At least, the rest of his family could enjoy Christmas.

What no one realized, and frankly should have, was that the cause of Little Joe’s inappropriate behavior was incipient illness, and taking off in the middle of a cold December night was the worst possible thing he could have done.    And that was before it started to snow.  Great, grumped Little Joe inwardly, as if it weren’t cold enough.  Bah, humbug.

He normally liked snow, especially at Christmastime.  Soft flakes, drifting slowly to earth to form billowy pillows added just the right touch of seasonal beauty.  For a few minutes they even lifted his heavy mood and made it seem like Christmas could take root in his heart and drive away the dark clouds.  But, then, it just kept coming . . . and coming . . . and coming, and the wind blew fiercer, straight into his face and took his hat off.  It was a regular storm, maybe even a blizzard, and that realization should have been enough to make him turn around and head for home as fast as he could trot.  But did he do it?  Of course not.  Orneriness had set in and stubbornness, too, as it was all too wont (another good Dickensian word) to do in anyone named Cartwright, so he just kept pressing into the wind, his hatless head growing wetter by the minute.

Making the journey that much harder, he’d taken the worst horse he could find in the corral, since he deemed himself worthy of nothing better.   Besides, he hadn’t wanted to expose Cochise to his bad mood.  A good horse deserved better.  Even this one deserved better, but he couldn’t get far enough fast enough on foot, so he’d been forced to take some horse.  “Sorry, fella,” Little Joe said, patting the horse’s neck with his mitten-clad hand.  Not being Cochise, of course, the horse didn’t respond.  Oh, well.  It was a little late for repentance, anyway.

Not more than half an hour later, he decided he probably should have opted for repentance, late or not.  Unaware, he’d wandered off the trail, and the horse, floundering through deep drifts, stumbled and went down hard on the rocks below.  Given the kind of luck he was having (or, rather, the kind of choices he’d been making) it was probably inevitable that the horse  broke its leg.  Holding his battered ribs with one hand, Joe did what was required, though he hated to shoot even a poor animal like this one.  Add another item to the naughty list.

Even in Cartwrights, orneriness and stubbornness had its limits.  Repentance, he recalled some preacher saying, involved turning around and going a different direction.  Like Ebenezer Scrooge had (thinking Dickensian again).   It really was time to swallow his pride and go home and he was ready, but his head felt so dizzy he wasn’t sure where home was.  Figuring it must be behind him, he turned around, without realizing he already had, several times, and he started walking.

He’d been plowing through deep snow for some time when he realized that his steps were climbing.  Even with his dulled senses, he knew they shouldn’t have been; he should have been descending, down out of the mountains, not going further up into them.  So, he turned around again or thought he did.  At this point he wasn’t sure where he was headed, but something felt wrong and the more he tried to make it right, the more wrong it felt.  His eyes were blurry and his head ached, and the soft pillows all around him looked so inviting.  He should probably lay down and rest just a few minutes until the world stopped spinning, and then, maybe, he could find his way home.

The wind howled like a ghost in chains, but he only heard it for a short time.  The banshee sound faded as his eyes closed, and the false warmth of a snowbound sleep crept over him.  So nice . . . so very nice . . . and . . . comforting.

He awoke to a gray apparition hovering over him, slapping at his cheeks, yelling at him above the howling wind.  He couldn’t make out the words, but they were loud and demanding.  “Are you the ghost of Christmas Past?” he croaked.  Please, God, he prayed, don’t let it be the one of Christmas yet to come.  The way he’d been acting, his Christmas future would be as bleak as that of Ebenezer Scrooge: unwept, unwanted and uncared for.

“You’re out of your head, boy,” the apparition said, “and small wonder, the shape you’re in.  Reckon you’d best come with me.”

“No,” Little Joe moaned.  “Don’t take me, ghost.  I’m not Scrooge, not really.”

“I don’t care who you be; you’re coming with me.”

Should have known better, Little Joe thought.  You don’t say no to the ghost of Christmas, whichever one it is.”

The next thing he knew he was being taken down from a horse and half-carried, half-dragged into a small, dimly lit cabin.  Did ghosts use horses?  Didn’t they fly Scrooge around with just a touch of their hand?  Well, this was the Sierra; maybe horses made better sense.  The ghost dumped him onto a narrow cot and then set about divesting itself of its robes, which looked and smelled like wet fur, and a long, winding muffler which covered half its face.  He was glad to discover it had one, otherworldly pale as it was beneath long hanks of stringy grizzled hair.

He shrank from the bony hand that laid itself across his forehead and moaned with dread.  “Be still, boy,” the ghost ordered sharply.  “I mean you no harm.”

That fit.  The first ghost of Christmas—or was it Marley?—had told old Ebenezer that he was there to do him good, hadn’t he?  But this place didn’t look like anywhere he’d been in Christmas past, so maybe this was the Spirit of Christmas Present.  Yeah, that must be it, ‘cause the snowbound cabin fit in with where he’d been before the ghost appeared.  He didn’t dare ask, though; the spirit had said to be still and he figured he’d better do as he was told.  Spirits could get cantankerous if you crossed them.  Just ask Ebenezer.

The spirit poked up the fire.  Did spirits get cold?  Probably.  Pictures he’d seen of Marley’s ghost always looked gray with icy cold, just like this one.

“I’ll fix you some hot broth, boy,” the ghost said.  “You mind you stay awake for it.”

Little Joe nodded mutely, intending to obey, but his eyes involuntarily closed, and he didn’t wake until his cheeks were again being slapped, although not as sharply this time.

“Told you to stay awake,” the ghost scolded.

It had the shape and sound of an old woman, but it was underlaid with the might of an unearthly being whose will could not be withstood, or at least, Little Joe wasn’t willing to chance trying.  “I’m sorry,” he whispered meekly.  “I didn’t mean to.”

“Well, like as not you didn’t.”  The spirit’s voice took on a kindly note that was reassuring, and she raised him up in the bed and reached for a steaming bowl.  “Now, it’s just a bit of beef broth,” the spirit went on, “but it’s what you need.”

Little Joe drew back.  Something about a bit of beef seemed familiar and not in a pleasant way.  Then he remembered and let out a weak cry of protest.  “No!  You may be an undigested bit of beef.”

“There’s no beef in it, just the broth,” the ghost insisted.

“A bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese,” Joe babbled on, “a fragment of an underdone potato.”

“Underdone potato?” the spirit sputtered.  “Do you think I’ve made you a whole stew, boy?  Underdone potato, indeed!”

“There’s more of gravy than the grave about you, whatever you are.”

“Gravy!  I should think I’m not gravy!  You’re not making a lick of sense, boy.  Now, you open your mouth before I pinch your nose.”

Joe clamped his mouth shut, determined to reject the otherworldly meal.  After all, who knew what strange powers it had?  He fought her, but he should have known better; he should have remembered that you don’t say no to the ghost of Christmas: past, present or yet to be.  His last thought as the spoon pushed through his lips was a prayer that this wasn’t the yet-to-be one, though he didn’t see any other way this nightmare could end.  He’d been a brat, after all.

*****

Two other men were out in the storm, forcing their way through the fierce wind, judging their direction by the instinctive knowledge that Little Joe would have made the worst possible choices.  That was the kind of luck the kid tended to have.  Especially when he wasn’t thinking straight, and clearly, he wasn’t.  No one who was thinking straight would have ridden out in this near-blizzard to begin with.  Which, Adam had to admit, meant that he and Hoss weren’t thinking too clearly, either, or rather, they were driven by something besides clear logic.  Joe was their little brother, and brat or not, they wanted him back, so they huddled into their sheepskin-lined jackets and rode on.

At least, Adam’s renowned logic had kept Pa from coming along, with the argument that someone should remain home, in case Little Joe came to his senses and returned there.  Logic also told the oldest Cartwright brother that would never happen.  When did Little Joe ever come to his senses, short of some catastrophe forcing him to?  It just wasn’t in the kid’s makeup.

The other brother stopped abruptly and dismounted from his big black horse.  Hurrying toward a single spot of brown, poking through the snow, he grabbed it up and shouted triumphantly to his brother, “It’s Joe’s!”

“Good eyes, brother,” Adam called back.  He, too, would have recognized that hat anywhere, though not half-buried in the snow, as Hoss had.  Of course, there had always been a special connection between the younger two Cartwright brothers.  Like magnets: Joe the magnet for trouble and Hoss the magnet to pull him back—well, when he wasn’t pulled straight into it, instead.  Hoss was the weaker magnet, after all.  Adam was just glad the magic of those magnets was working once again, but would it be strong enough to pull them all the way to wherever Joe had floundered this time?  They pressed on, hearts encouraged, but for all that, feeling more anxious than before.

Their uneasiness grew more intense when they found the dead horse.  Joe afoot in this storm?  They dismounted and began a desperate search of the area, but there was no sign of their little brother.  Fear at first made Hoss overlook what signs there were; then he shook himself to clear his head and began scanning the ground more closely.  “Look here, Adam” he said.  “There’s another critter been out in this.”

Adam squinted to make out the tracks.  They were faint, but he could definitely see the imprint of a four-legged beast, being led through the snow by a two-legged one with smaller feet than Joe.  “I don’t understand,” he said.  “Hard as this wind’s blowing, there shouldn’t be any tracks.”

“But there is!”

Adam looked behind at their own path.  Sure enough, even their most recent tracks were almost covered.  How had these survived?  But they had, and he wasn’t about to look gift horse tracks in the mouth.  “Come on,” he shouted above the wind.  “May not be Joe, but we’ll follow them as long as they hold up.”

“It’s Joe; I know it is,” Hoss yelled and mounted with a whoop of expectation

Maybe so, Adam conceded, hope rising in his own heart.  Hoss and Joe did share that connection, after all.  Maybe the magic was at work.

They followed the tracks for almost an hour before they faded out, covered over by the continuously falling snow.  They both shouted their little brother’s name repeatedly, but there was no response.  Then Hoss dropped to the ground and started to paw frantically through the snow.  Adam grabbed him by one brawny shoulder and yelled above the wind, “Hoss!  He’s not here!”

“He has to be!” Hoss shouted back, his voice breaking, his eyes blinking back icy tears.

“No, he’s still moving,” Adam said.  Or, at least, was.  Little Joe very likely was lying beneath the snow somewhere . . . just not here.  He did not, of course, share that dire prediction with Hoss, who kept digging as if his own life depended on it.

Adam looked up, staring straight ahead.  He wasn’t exactly praying.  He never got that far, for his eyes fell on a shimmer of light that he was sure hadn’t been there before.  “Hoss!” he cried.  “Look!”

Hoss was so intent on his digging that the words didn’t register at first, but he was obedient by nature, so he naturally did what his big brother said, as he had from earliest childhood.  Then he, too, saw the light and knew at once what it meant.  Someone was living out here, someone with warmth and food and shelter to offer a lost boy.  “Let’s go,” he said, scrambling up and setting out toward the cabin without even thinking to get his horse.  Adam picked up Chubby’s reins, as well as Sport’s, and followed along in hope.  Dear God, let the boy be there, he was finally able to pray.

The cabin wasn’t far, but to the two anxious brothers, the journey seemed endless.  It wasn’t really long, though, before Adam was rapping on the rough, planked door.  It was opened by a woman who looked older than Methuselah and peered out at them from piercing hazel eyes that seemed to see right through them.  “‘Bout time you got here,” she said.  “Lost somethin’, did ye?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Adam started to say when Hoss pushed past both him and the woman to rush to the cot on the opposite side of the one-room cabin, crying out his baby brother’s name.  “Please excuse my younger brother, ma’am,” Adam said.  “He means no disrespect.  It’s just . . .”

“I know what it’s just,” the woman said gruffly, but Adam thought he saw a smile of approval directed toward Hoss.  It was gone in an instant, if it were ever there, and she was opening the door wide for Adam to enter.  He thanked her and came in, going at once to the side of his little brother.

“He’s burning with fever, Adam,” Hoss said, voice thick with worry.

“That he is,” said the woman, “and jabberin’ nonsense like a boy will in a fever.  Called me an underdone potato, he did!”

“He did?”  Hoss looked incredulous.

“Aye, and a blot of mustard and a crumb of cheese, too.”

“Aw, ma’am,” Hoss said, “he was probably just hungry.”

“Then, why did he fight the bit of beef broth I give him, boy?”

The words sounded vaguely familiar to Adam, but not quite right: maybe out of order, maybe out of context.  He puzzled over them as he sipped the coffee the old woman poured for both him and Hoss while she explained how she’d come upon “the boy” and brought him in, despite his fighting her tooth for nail and talkin’ all the time about ghosts and gravy and such.

“Dickens!” Adam cried, when the words clicked together in the right order and context.

“You callin’ me the dickens now, are you, mister?  At least, your little brother only called me a ghost!”

“No,” Adam insisted impatiently.  “A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens!”

The old woman responded by laying a hand across his forehead.  “No fever,” she said.  “Are all you boys given to wild ravings, fevered or no?”

“No, ma’am, not all of us,” Hoss said with a grin, “but I think I know what he means.  He’s talkin’ about a ghost story our pa always reads to us at Christmas.”

“Ghost story?” she said.  “Don’t hardly seem fittin’ for Christmas, but if that’s the way you celebrate the Lord’s birth, it’s no wonder ghosts haunt the poor child’s rest.”

For two days Little Joe continued to rave about “ghosts and gravy and such,” while Hoss and Adam bathed his fevered flesh and slipped warm broth and clear tea between his pale lips.  The old woman, who’d given them only her first name, busied herself providing the means to ease their brother’s suffering and hearty meals for all of them, no easy challenge with Hoss in her house.  On the third day Little Joe became more lucid, at least enough to recognize his brothers.  “Don’t let it take me,” he pleaded, and by this time they knew he was referring to the Ghost of Christmas or Miss Mary, as she was known to them.

This being Joe’s first words since they’d found him, Adam was so surprised that, at first, he didn’t know what to say, but intuitive Hoss stepped in.  “Don’t worry, little brother,” he said.  “Ain’t nobody gonna take you from us.”

A weak smile toyed at Joe’s lips and immediately faded.  “Sorry,” he whimpered.  “Sorry.”

This time it was Adam who found the right words.  “You are forgiven,” he said simply and followed it with a brush of his brother’s curls that brought another feeble smile, just before Little Joe’s eyes closed and he drifted into a healing sleep.

Hoss was irate.  “He don’t need forgiveness for bein’ sick, Adam.”

Still smoothing his brother’s hair, Adam said, “No, but he needed to hear it.”

The anger was gone as quickly as it had flashed.  “Oh.  Right.”

From the far corner Mary smiled on them both with approval, and that smile seemed to knock ten years off her advanced age.

By morning the storm had broken, as well as Joe’s fever, and the sun sparkled on the snow like chips of diamonds.  The older Cartwright brothers decided to take advantage of the break in the weather to get the youngest home.  Bundled well against the cold in fur robes provided by Mary, Little Joe was cradled in Hoss’s strong arms atop his equally strong horse, content to sleep away the journey back to Pa—by Christmas, no less!

Before mounting himself, Adam went to Mary and thanked her for all she’d done.

“‘T’weren’t nothin’,” she said.

“You know it was,” Adam said.  “We owe you his life.”

She nodded slightly.  “Will you do something for me, then, in repayment of the debt?”

“Anything,” Adam promised.

“Never again call him a brat,” she said, a hint of severity in her voice, “however much he may tempt you to it.  He is not that, Adam, and his life is precious to eyes in heaven.”

Adam stared at her.  No longer did she sound like the unsophisticated hill woman he’d known the last few days.  Her countenance had taken on the appearance of a prophet of old, and her eyes bored into him with an intensity he had never seen before.  “Done,” he said.

Then Mary’s eyes shone with a softer light and her smile was radiant.  Her hair, looking more fair than gray now, blew out around her head like a halo, and she again seemed to grow younger as he looked upon her.

“I don’t even know your full name,” Adam said tentatively.

“Mary Christmas,” she said.

Adam cocked his head.  “Is that your name or a seasonal greeting?”

“Yes,” she said with an enigmatic smile.

Seeing he would get no clear answer, Adam chuffed a dry chuckle and, mounting Sport, rode off with his brothers.  He couldn’t help wondering, however, how she’d known that he’d  ever called Joe the name she’d forbidden.  He had never told her, and he doubted that Joe had, unless it was in his delirium, which didn’t seem likely.  He stored it away in his mind, to be mulled over at another time and in a warmer place.

They arrived home safely and delivered Little Joe into the loving arms of his father.  By Christmas morning they were all able to gather in the great room of the Ponderosa to hear once again the story they loved so well, even though Little Joe lay snuggly wrapped in covers on the settee to hear it.

When he was fully recovered, he made his way back to Mary’s cabin to thank her personally, but she wasn’t there.  In fact, the place looked as if it had been abandoned a decade or more, and he stared in awe at the broken bedstead, where a couple of weeks ago he had received the tenderest of care from both her and his brothers.  When told, Hoss said he must have found the wrong cabin, though Little Joe insisted he had not.

Adam said nothing, disturbed in a way his logical brain could not explain by the whole otherworldly episode.  One thing is certain: he never again called his brother a brat, oft as he was tempted.  (The more inventive epithets he came up with as an alternative were more linguistically satisfying, anyway.)  And while they never shared the sentiment verbally, he and Little Joe were in agreement: you just don’t say no to the Ghost of Christmas.  Far better to say, as Tiny Tim observed, “God bless us, every one!”

The End

Link to 2019 Advent Calendar – December 13:

The Secret Santas by Lizabeth