Summary: It takes a winter storm for Adam to appreciate what’s right in front of him.
Rating:  G  Words 3,000
Written for the 2022 Bonanza Brand Advent Calendar

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Bonanza
~*~*~ Advent Calendar ~*~*~
* Day 19 *

 

A Lesson in Gratitude

 

“Hey, Pa, I’ve found some more decorations.”

Little Joe appeared on the stairs, a large wooden box in his arms. “It’s the nativity.”

“Thank heavens, I was wondering where that had gone.”

Ben skirted around the half-decorated tree and met Joe at the bottom of the stairs to take the heavy box from his hands. A few seconds later it was placed on the low fireside table, amidst a paraphernalia of garlands, holly, and glass baubles.

“It was tucked away at the back of the attic.” Joe’s eyebrows rose as he looked pointedly at his middle brother. “There was a pair of wings made of brightly-coloured feathers hiding it from view.”

Hoss’s cheeks pinked as he rummaged through the box. Choosing not to reply, and with an indignant glance at Joe, he retrieved one of the wise men and wiped away a year’s accumulated dust from its surface. “I’ll help you set up the stable, Pa.”

Unable to restrain from a giggle, Joe dipped into the box. “There’re some tree decorations in here too.” Rooting beneath the numerous ornaments, he pulled out a wooden toadstool, its bright red cap dotted with white spots.

Joe scratched his head. “What’s so festive about toadstools at Christmas?” Holding the object by its string, he held it up to his face. “I mean, it’s just a toadstool. You can’t even eat it.”

Hoss twisted to look at him from where he was knelt by the hearth, assembling the nativity. “Maybe it’s because it’s red and white, the same colours as what Santa Claus wears.”

His grin was met with a giggle. “That’s a good one, Hoss.” Joe turned to Adam who was halfway up a ladder, draping garlands across the tree.

“Hey, Adam, you know everything, what’s the meaning of the Christmas toadstool?”

Adam released a long breath and pursed his lips together. “I’ve got no idea. And I do not know everything, Joe.”

Joe’s mouth dropped open. “You don’t know? My older brother, the walking encyclopaedia, doesn’t know something.” He mocked a backwards stumble and grabbed the sofa. “I think I gotta sit down.”

With a sigh and shake of the head, Adam climbed down the ladder and walked past his youngest brother to where his coat and hat hung by the door. He had one arm in a sleeve before Ben noticed.

“Adam? What are you doing?”

“I’m going to see how Old William is.”

“Today? But Adam, it’s Christmas Eve. We haven’t finished decorating the room yet. And you went to see William yesterday, and the day before that.”

Clenching his hands by his side, Adam turned to look at his father who had joined him by the door, his fists balled on his hips. “I just need to get out for a while. We’ve been cooped up here for weeks, the road to town has only been passable once since mid-November.” He shot a look at his brothers, and lowering his voice, moved in closer to his father. “They are driving me crazy,” he whispered.

Ben’s brows drew together. “They’re just letting off steam.”

“They let off steam at my expense every day. Look, Pa, I just need some time to myself. Besides, I enjoy visiting William. And like you said, it’s Christmas Eve, he shouldn’t be alone at Christmas, especially with Rosie the way she is.”

Nodding, Ben relaxed his pose and squeezed Adam’s shoulder. “Okay, but give your brothers a chance, they are just as frustrated as you are right now.”

“Ah, Adam?” Hoss was staring out the window at the mid-morning sky. “That sky is threatenin’ snow.” He sniffed. “Reckon I can smell it too. You don’t wanna be getting caught in a snowstorm.”

Suppressing a retort, Adam donned his hat. “I can read the weather just as well as you can.” Ignoring Hoss’s shrug of the shoulders, he turned to his father. “I can be at William’s and back again by early afternoon, and before the snow reaches us.”

Opening the door, he shivered as the icy air prickled against his skin.

“Stay safe, son,” said Ben.

“See you later, older brother,” called Joe. “Don’t let your crankiness weigh you down, you’re liable to sink up to your eyes in the snow.”

Muttering under his breath, Adam lowered his head and headed out into the frozen winter.

***

It was a couple of hours later than Adam expected by the time he left William Trafford’s cabin. The old man had beckoned him into his one-room home, pressing a rolled-up blanket against the gap under the door to keep any icy draughts from chilling his feet. Adam was steered to a chair by the fire, opposite William’s own battered but comfy armchair. On the floor between them, swathed in a bundle of well-worn bed linen, lay Rosie, William’s faithful old mongrel. Her head lifted at Adam’s touch, her tongue flicking out to lick his fingers. She’d been at William’s side for as long as Adam could remember, but now, in the coldest of winters, she was nearing her end of days.

William wouldn’t move her, despite Adam’s best entreaties that they’d both be better off at the Ponderosa; that he’d make her comfortable on the back of a buckboard to transport her down the mountain. But the old man leant forward and laid a soothing hand on Rosie’s head and said, “No, son, this is her home, this is where she’ll pass.”

Adam had offered to stay, but William had snapped a sharp refusal. “Adam, this is a time for kin, and your kins awaitin’ you back at the Ponderosa. I ain’t alone. Rosie’s my family. Always will be.”

And then, with that wisdom that comes with age, he’d cocked his head to one side. “I know why you keep visitin’, boy. You ain’t one to be penned in. And I’d bet my last plug o’ tobacca that those brothers of your’n are startin’ to needle ya.”

Adam was about to deny such an allegation, but then he realised there was no point, and with a quirk of his cheek, he looked down and nodded.

William clutched the blanket around his shoulders and gazed at the fire. “I had brothers too, ya know. Both long gone now. And there were times I could have gladly strung one or other of ‘em up by their thumbs — the pranks we’d pull on each other.” The old man smiled, but then sighed. “But I miss ‘em, Adam, they were my best friends, and I didn’t truly know that till they were gone.”

Old William shifted forward to the edge of his chair and placed a gnarled hand on Adam’s knee.

“Hoss and Little Joe, they’re good men, they’ll always have your back. You be thankful for ‘em.”

William pulled himself to his feet. “Now then…” Reaching up to the high chimneypiece over the fire, he lifted down two small glasses and a bottle of his best moonshine. “Let’s raise a glass to the season, and my old girl, Rosie, and…” he chuckled, “…to pesky brothers.”

They raised a toast, and another one, and a further one as it would be rude not to, and before he knew it, the warmth of the fire and the heat from the whiskey had lulled Adam into a contented sleep.  When he awoke a while later, he saw his host had also nodded off. A glance at his pocket watch, and a muttered oath at the time, and Adam was soon shaking William awake to bid him farewell. With a promise to return the following day, and with a last stroke of Rosie’s ears, he left the close warmth of the cabin.

***

The cold air hit him like a thousand pinpricks on his exposed skin. His mount snorted in disgust at being pulled out of the shelter of the cabin’s overhanging roof and away from the warmth that bled through the walls.

The looming snow clouds were nearer than Adam liked, and he urged Sport in the direction of home with a haste that seemed contrary after the lethargy of the cabin. Following the faint tracks he’d made on his way up, Sport’s hooves threw up powder as he crunched across the hard crusty snow. The pines stood black against the snowscape, and the increasingly ominous sky hung over the hills with bleak menace.

When the first snowflakes settled on Adam’s thick winter jacket, he pushed Sport into a run. But the handful of flakes became larger and heavier, and within minutes of the first flake, Adam was alone in a whiteout. A still and silent world had shifted into a raging wind which blew snow into his eyes and cut through his clothing. Finding the trail over the hills too exposed, Adam turned his animal towards the forest and prayed there would be shelter from the tempestuous blizzard.

There was no respite, even amongst the tall trees. The wind whistled through the forest, driving the blinding snow into the hapless rider and horse. Adam reigned in and strained to make out the trail through the snowstorm. It was soon lost amidst a topography of indistinct shapes and a barrage of biting icy wind. The blaze of white that had been the sun in the sky was nowhere to be seen, but Adam was sure if he kept riding parallel to the exposed trail it would lead him down to the flat land surrounding the Ponderosa, and he’d be a stone’s throw from home.

As Sport moved through the blizzard, tree boughs reached out of nowhere to assault them. Adam would veer off sharply to avoid the abrupt attack of rigid pine and manoeuvre his way past the sudden obstacle. It was as though the forest, a place Adam had ridden through a thousand times before was deliberately steering him off track, and in directions he couldn’t fathom. And all the while, the snow was collecting on his animal’s neck and head, weighing down Adam until a good shake shifted the collected ice from his hat and shoulders. Despite his leather gloves, his fingers were dead with cold, the freezing air permeating his layers to chill flesh and bones.

With the build-up of snow, and drifts piling up around him. Adam could no longer tell whether he was going uphill or down. But then he found out the hard way. Sport stumbled to his knees as the ground beneath him dropped. Adam, his hands too numb to grip the reins, fell from the saddle, landing on his side in the snow. In despair, he watched as Sport scrambled to his feet and, free of his burden, disappeared from sight in the snowstorm.

“Hey! Get back here you useless…” Adam cursed, and then whistled, but the piercing note was taken on the wind. “Hey!” But Sport was gone, ridden off to who knew where.

Adam was alone in the forest, his one chance of getting home gone. And the storm continued to rage.

***

At first, he kept moving. He knew that to stop would be to curl up in a ball, to be smothered in the onslaught. With feet prickling from lack of sensation, and his head down into the wind, Adam forced his way through the drifts. But the effort drained him, and his movements became slower and laboured, until all he could do was crawl beneath the low branches of a fir and collapse with his back against the trunk. Here he was sheltered from the worst of the storm. But his throat ached with the cold, and the skin on his face was raw. He knew he had to move; he couldn’t stay where he was, but it took more effort than he had to stand. Tucking his hands into his armpits, he closed his eyes and let fatigue take him.

***

Adam woke with a start. How long had he slumbered? It was the eerie quiet that had roused him, and he realised with relief that the wind had died away. Blinking the ice from his lashes he saw drifts had formed against the low-slung tree limbs that cast him into grey shady darkness. He couldn’t stay here so after he had slapped and kneaded his legs to get the blood flowing, and struggled into a half crouch, he scrambled beneath the tree limb, punching through a drift into snow-grey terrain. He looked with dismay upon an unrecognisable formless landscape: high drifts had blown against banks and boulders, covering everything with a mantle of fresh powder amongst which trees reared like ghostly sentinels, guarding their domain.

He was lost. Well and truly lost. Every landmark he might once have recognised was hidden from plain sight. The sky was darkening with the onset of dusk, and there was no sign of the moon and stars to aid him. If he started walking in the wrong direction, or waited for the stars to appear, he would find himself alone and vulnerable in the forest as night fell and the temperature dropped even lower. He would succumb to the elements, alone, on Christmas Eve, his family wondering what fate had befallen him.

A flash of colour drew his eye. Under a pine, a few feet away, a toadstool glowed red, bright against the clean snow. Adam frowned. Everything was covered in a foot of powder, but this one toadstool stood proud. Pulling himself through the snow, Adam stomped towards the toadstool and stared down at it, a puzzled expression narrowing his eyes. Not a single snowflake covered the pristine red cap. Dotted with white spots, it was identical to the wooden ornament Joe had found that very morning. It seemed like an eternity ago now, and with his eyes screwed shut, Adam was overcome with images of his father and brothers decorating the tree and hearth, a picture of home and comfort. He shook the images away.

There was another stab of colour several feet beyond: a second toadstool. Adam heaved himself through the snow and stared down at it, perplexed by what he was seeing.

At sight of a third one, Adam kicked up powder to reach it. Dropping to his knees, he sank deep into the snow. But he didn’t care. He tore off a glove and hovered his fingers over the flawless specimen, which, like the two before was perfect, untouched, pure, shining with a faint iridescent glow. Adam pulled off his other glove and with his bare hands began to dig beneath the toadstool, sweeping away the snow to find the roots. But there were no roots. There wasn’t even a long thin stem winding its way down through the snow.

Adam shook his head and stumbled to his feet. And it was then he noticed he was at the end of a long zig-zag line of toadstools receding into the distance, shining like candles in the fading light. As he took one step towards the next toadstool, Adam was sure a new bright dot appeared in the far distance. There was nothing for it. Pulling his gloves back on, he flexed his red raw fingers and slapped his hands together to get the feeling back, and without further thought, began to follow the zig-zag line.

As Adam struggled through the snow, his eyes never wavered from the line of toadstools that shone like way-markers, lighting the way in the ever-darkening forest. His muscles screamed with the effort of pressing through the thick layer of snow; his heart pounded as though trying to escape his body. Each bitter intake of air froze his throat and lungs, and he was enveloped in a permanent cloud of foggy breath. In the dying light the temperature was beginning to rapidly fall, but nothing would stop him now. He drove forward, aware suddenly that the ground was slanting downhill, and the trees were thinning out. And then—were his eyes playing tricks? —were those the lights of the Ponderosa twinkling in the distance?

There was a shout on the air.

He stumbled to a halt, peering into the semi-darkness, and there, riding up to meet him, were three horsemen, lanterns swinging from gloved hands, and leading a very familiar chestnut.

“Pa…” It was all he could do to breathe the word. He collapsed onto his knees in exhaustion.

There was the sound of feet crunching at speed through the snow, and then strong hands were lifting him to his feet. He looked up to see the worried faces of his father and brothers. His annoying, irritating, and oh-so-wonderful brothers.

“Are you okay, son? Sport rode into the yard without you, I thought…” His father’s voice faded.

Adam’s cheek quirked as he gripped Ben’s arm. “Just took a little tumble, Pa.”

A slap on the back from Hoss nearly toppled him over. “Sure glad you found yer way home, Adam. We’ve been ridin’ all over for a coupla hours and we find you a half mile from home.”

Adam turned to look behind him. The light from the magical row of toadstools had dwindled to a faint glow, and as he watched, their light ebbed into the gloom. He nodded a thanks. “I had a little help.”

“Huh?” Joe’s voice drew him back to face his family. And Adam realised they had not witnessed what he had just seen.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Let’s get you home, son. Can you ride?”

“Uh-ha.”

He was helped up into the saddle and as the four Cartwrights began to pick their way back to home and hearth, Adam glanced over at his youngest brother.

“You want to know why toadstools are important at Christmas, Joe?”

He was met with a curious stare.

“Because they lead you home.” He slapped Joe’s thigh and laughed, and leaving his perplexed brother behind, spurred his horse onwards to a Christmas he’d treasure for always.

 

The End

 

Chosen Character: Adam

Secondary Character: None chosen

Item: Toadstool

 

Link to the 2022 Bonanza Brand Advent Calendar – Day 20 – True Meaning of Christmas (by wx4rmk)