Summary: Just brief musings from Ben. (Written in response to a challenge some time last year.) (actually years ago)
Rating:  G   Words:  1,045

 

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The Brandsters have included this story by this author in our project: Preserving Their Legacy. To preserve the legacy of the author, we have decided to give their work a home in the Bonanza Brand Fanfiction Library.  The author will always be the owner of this work of fanfiction, and should they wish us to remove their story, we will.

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Water

As Ben Cartwright sat on the fallen tree trunk along the shore, he stared out across the lake, placid and beautiful in the early dusk. Water. Such an ordinary, little word for such a precious commodity. It could offer respite and slake a man’s thirst after excessive labours and be a life-giving elixir to one stranded in the desert under a merciless sun. The image stirred a memory, long buried, and Ben shivered as he recalled finding his eldest son, wandering half-crazed and dragging a dead man. Ben had held the canteen to cracked and bleeding lips and felt irrational guilt overwhelm him as he measured out the mouthfuls to his desperate son from his own meagre supply. Then he had used a little more of the same, soaking his bandana in the cool liquid to wipe away the grime and soothe the sun-scorched skin.

 

It was a far cry from those moments of joyous madness when he sat in a place such as this and watched his three sons let off steam at the end of a hot summer’s day. They would strip and run into the water, sun glinting of tanned, well-honed bodies, as they shouted, laughed and ducked each other before they raced towards a designated spot with long, powerful strokes. Their teasing and mischief would bring a warmth to his heart. Inevitably, two would gang up on one, but the combination would always vary and the difference in ages between eldest and youngest would melt away in brief playfulness and sport.

 

However, there were times when the lake was far from inviting, adopting an ominous greyness that mirrored the gathering storm clouds, the wind increasing so that the water was whipped up into a relentless series of lethal waves. Ben could never forget the time when his two younger sons were in a row boat fishing and the weather had suddenly turned. Apart from a soaking and looking a little green, Hoss and Joe had battled to get the small craft back to shore but they had bee lucky and were remarkably unscathed.

 

It was not so when Adam had been caught in a gully in the pouring rain as he attempted to rescue a calf that had slipped down the steep slope into the cloying mud. The brothers knew that time was short for the rain had been torrential and the threat of a flash flood loomed large. Had Adam not been roped to Hoss and ultimately a tree on the bank, he would have been swept to his death as the wall of water bore down on him. As it was, he collected cuts and bruises from the debris in the torrent. The calf drowned.

 

It was hard to accept that much-needed rain could be life-threatening. Ben and the boys had been on cattle drives where a worrying shortage of water had led to fractious animals an dill-tempered men, the latter dreading a break in the stifling temperatures because of the thunderstorms that invariably resulted, frightening already skittish creatures and enhancing the chance of a stampede. When the dry weather eventually broke and the potential danger of a storm had passed, there was the simple joy of turning a face up to the refreshing rain that would refill watering holes and bring relief to a parched land.

 

It was such a fine balance for too much rain would result in the misery of sopping wet clothing and an incipient creeping chill, bringing with it the risk of subsequent illness or injury with mount, usually sure-footed, slipping in the mud and falling, bringing down its rider.

 

Yet water could also bring such relief to tired, aching bones at the end of a long day. Ben himself was not averse to soaking in a hot bath, especially one liberally sprinkles with some of Hop Sing’s aromatic herbs. He gave a low chuckle as he remembered some of the more momentous battles to get his youngest son to have a bath when he was smaller. Middle son Hoss merely saw it as a matter of necessity but was very practical regarding its benefits. He would scrub himself clean, dry himself and get dressed again in record time whereas his older brother would luxuriate in a long soak and was often known to retreat to the sanctuary of the wash house with a book in hand.

 

His mind flitted to that time when he and Adam had dug the well for the house. In fact, it was Adam who had done most of the digging as he was so lithe, slender and strong. He had never admitted as such to his father but Ben had known about the boy’s nightmares in the weeks following the well’s completion and he dared not think about the horrors that his son’s vivid imagination had created. A well was vital for the needs of the house and the immediate livestock but it could have been procured at a high price.

 

The proximity of water to the house brought with it the high spirits and Ben had lost count of the times when the boys chased each other round the yard, the one bringing up the rear armed with a full bucket. Failing that, they resorted to using the horse trough. Adam would dunk Joe; Hoss would overpower Adam and the two lighter, shorter brothers would combine forces to get their own back on the family giant who, when it came to messing about with his siblings, was not always so gentle.

 

Ben gave a loud sigh as he looked out over the lake; he could never get over how beautiful it was at this time of day. No two days were ever the same. The water was such a blessing and man could not live without it, bringing, as it did, life to this land, but it could be intimidating and destructive. It had a beauty all its own but a man would be wrong if he underestimated its power or dared to take it for granted.

 

He gave it one last, lingering, appreciative and respectful glance as he mounted his horse and turned towards home.