Bonanza
~*~*~ Advent Calendar ~*~*~
* Day 9 *

Summary: The trouble with grownups was that they were always busy.  Too busy, to Little Joe’s mind.
Rating:  G
Words:  3,520

The Miracle of Midnight

“I just need to finish this first, Little Joe,” Adam said when he asked his oldest brother, and Pa said, “Later, Joseph.”  Even Hoss, who wasn’t really a grown up yet because he was only twelve, had looked apologetic as he pointed at the sacks on the back of the wagon and said, “I gotta shift all them, Little Joe, then I gotta check on the cows and make sure they’re all fed.  I can go with you after that if you like.”

Little Joe sat down on the porch step, looked down at the folded piece of paper in his hand and sighed.  It was Christmas Eve already and the middle of the afternoon. If he didn’t deliver his letter before evening, Christmas would be here and it would be too late.

The letter had been Adam’s idea.  A few days before, at breakfast, they had all been talking about how it would soon be Christmas and Pa had asked Joe if there was anything special he’d like as a present. Instead of excitement, Joe had found himself overwhelmed by a sudden and unexpected sadness he couldn’t explain.

“I want Mamma back,” he’d said.

Adam and Pa had exchanged looks with each other, then Pa had said, “That can’t happen, Joe, you know that, don’t you?”

Joe did know.  Of course he did.  Mamma was dead.  She was in a grave by the lake and she couldn’t come back.  But that didn’t stop him wishing.  And hoping against hope.  Because, in spite of knowing it couldn’t happen – not really – he could never quite make it go away, the secret hope inside him.  He couldn’t help it, he just found himself thinking that one day, maybe, just maybe, she would prove them all wrong, and she would walk through the door and be real again.

After breakfast, Adam had put his hand on Joe’s shoulder and said, “You could write a letter to your mamma, Little Joe.  We could take it up to her and put it on her grave.  What do you think?”

Joe had considered this for a few moments.  Writing was not his favorite occupation and he wasn’t very good at it, but he did like the idea of communicating with his mother.

“You could tell her some of the things you’ve done this year.  She’d be very proud of you, you know. I can help you write it if you like.”

So that was what he had done.  With Adam’s help, he had composed a resume of the most important events of the past year: the giant trout he’d caught all by himself, the race he’d won at the harvest picnic, the new saddle he’d been given for his sixth birthday, the boat Pa and Adam had built so they could sail on the lake, and the wonderful morning the pig got into the house.  It felt good to see all that news written down on a clean sheet of paper, even though there were more smudges and crossings out than he had hoped for.  In the space that was left on the page, he decided to add a picture, and there was no question in his mind about what that should be.

“I’m going to draw a picture of Midnight,” he told Adam.  Midnight was Mamma’s horse.  After Mamma’s accident Pa had wanted to sell her and it was only Adam who had persuaded him to let her stay.  Even though Pa still avoided her, Little Joe went to see her every day and harbored a secret hope that one day, when he was tall enough, Pa would relent and let Midnight be his.

He was pleased with his picture when it was done.  It was very clearly Midnight. He’d even remembered her white socks and the star on her forehead.  Mamma would have recognized her straight away, he was sure.  Now all that was left to do was to take the finished letter down to the lake and deliver it to Mamma’s grave.  He’d really have liked it best if they could all have gone together, a special Christmas visit, but the grown-ups were all rushing around, muttering about the weather, and needing to get the animals in, and making sure everything was secure.

Joe wasn’t clear what the fuss was about.  For sure, it was a grey day, the sky was overcast and there was a cold wind, but there had been only a few light sprinklings of snow so far that winter and the roads around the ranch were well-trodden and clear.  It wasn’t far to the lake and he was a fast runner. They were all so busy, he was confident he could be back before they’d even noticed he was gone.

He tucked his precious letter inside the pocket of his coat, pulled his fur hat down around his ears and set off at a fast trot.  No one called after him or even seemed to notice, they were all too absorbed with being busy.

He liked to run, his breath like smoke in the cold air.  On foot, he could take the shortcut down the side of the mountain, through the trees, his feet kicking up the soft needles and filling the air with a sharp piney scent. He paused to catch his breath when the lake came into view, as grey and wintery as the sky above, its surface ruffled by the same icy breeze that stung his own cheeks and made them glow red with cold.  He wondered if it was later than he’d thought as the sky looked much darker than it ought to for mid-afternoon.  He didn’t want to get into trouble with Pa for staying out longer than he should, especially on Christmas Eve, so he set off again, running faster than ever.

Close by the lake, it felt colder still, and the wind cut sharper.  He was glad of his hat and his woolen mittens.  Crouching down on the ground next to Mamma’s grave, he pulled his hand from its glove and fished in his pocket for his letter.  There was already a little pile of rounded stones on Mamma’s grave.  They’d built them into a small cairn there in the summer.  Removing the three on top, he placed his letter on the remaining stones then laid the others back where they’d come from. His letter was now securely in the middle of the pile where it wouldn’t blow away.

In just that short time, his ungloved fingers had turned red in the biting wind coming over the lake.  As he pulled his mitten back over his hand, a flurry of icy pellets stung his right cheek. He lifted his face to look at the sky and a vicious slap of wind flung another horizontal blast at his head, so sharp and so furious, it drove the breath out of him in a gasp.  In seconds, the lake had vanished in a dark fog of driving snow; not the big, silent mesmerizing snowflakes that drift down into a soft white quilt, but a howling assault of wind-driven powdered ice that whipped and hissed and scoured everything in its path.

If he’d had more warning, he would have run for the cover of the pines, but the storm engulfed him with such unexpected ferocity, all he could do was hunker down behind his mother’s headstone, burying his head in his arms to protect his face from the stinging sheets of snow that whipped at his exposed flesh.  In fact, the headstone was now his only marker in a swirling whirlwind of blinding grey-whiteness.

He shivered and huddled down tighter behind the cold grey stone. Pa was going to be angry. He’d told Little Joe not to go running off on his own, that it looked as if a storm was brewing. Joe knew he was going to be in big trouble. Except, a dismal realization was dawning upon him with alarming swiftness that he was actually in far bigger trouble than any Pa was likely to deal him. Even in the lee of the gravestone, the snow was piling up horribly fast around him.  Once again, he wondered if he might run for the trees, but when he tried to get to his feet, the wind was so strong, it bowled him right over, as if he’d been hit by a slamming door.

He scrambled back to his meagre shelter. The icy wind had already stung his eyes to tears, but now he was crying from fear as well.

“Mamma,” he called out, his voice lost in the undulating howl of the wind and the hissing, spattering cacophony of the storm.  “Mamma, help me!”

He pulled his hat down well over his ears and closed his eyes, curling up as tightly as he could against her headstone, wrapping his arms around his knees and pressing his face down out of the wind. Cold and unrelenting as the stone was, it gave him comfort to know she was close. He told himself that maybe the snowstorm would pass over as quickly as it had arrived.  Or that maybe Pa or Adam or Hoss would have wondered where he was and come looking for him. Maybe. Hopefully.

It was cold, so cold.  The sky grew darker; the wind shrilled and wailed across the lake and still the sheets of icy pellets surged across the lake in a savage winter fury.  The wind drove the cold right through his coat until he could not keep from shivering violently.

Something more solid than the wind and the snow bumped his shoulder. He opened his eyes, teeth chattering, blinking ice from his lashes. Another nudge. A shape loomed huge and dark in the swirling grey-whiteness. He squinted. A big black head, breathing smoke from its nostrils, an unmistakable white star in the center of its forehead.

“Midnight?” he whispered in disbelief.  “Is that you?”

The horse nudged him again, blowing warm air across his cold cheek. He scrambled to his feet and threw his arms around the horse’s neck as if he wanted to be sure the apparition would not vanish away and leave him alone in the storm again. But the mare was warm and strong and stood as solid as a tree.  Even when wrapped his hands into her mane and clung onto it like a rope, digging his knees and feet into her flank to haul himself onto her broad back, she bore with his clumsiness, as if she understood.  Finally, panting and shaking, he was astride her, his face pressed close into her shoulder to protect it from the icy wind, clinging on with every muscle in his small body.

*

“Announced by all the trumpets of the sky arrives the snow,” said Adam aloud to himself, stepping back into the shelter of the barn door as an abrupt onslaught of white fury erupted through the yard on a howling blast of wind.

Pa came running across the yard towards him, head down, shoulders hunched against the gusting cold.

“Time to get inside,” Pa said, taking him by the arm and raising his voice to be heard over the sudden noise of the wind.  “Did you manage to bring the last few horses in?”

“All except Midnight,” said Adam, squinting against the snow blowing into his face.  “The storm must have spooked her. She took off over the fence in the other direction.”

Once upon a time, Pa would have smiled at Midnight’s contrariness. “Like horse, like rider,” he’d used to say when Marie was alive.  Now, instead, his brow came down and his mouth tightened.

“Well, she’ll have to take her chance then.  We’re not going after her in this weather.  Let’s get inside.”

They only made it as far as the porch before the door of the house opened and there was Hoss, still in his coat, fair hair awry where he’d pulled off his hat.  Behind him, in his working apron, Hop Sing hovered anxiously, a small frown dinting his forehead.

Hoss peered round behind his father and brother, where the snow swirled in a wild, wind-driven melee. “Is Little Joe with you?”

“I thought he was with you,” said Pa.  “I thought the two of you were going to decorate the tree.”

“I can’t find him,” said Hoss, the frown deepening. “I’ve looked all over.”

Hop Sing nodded.  “We look all over house, Mister Ben.  Little Joe not here.”

Pa looked at Adam. He shook his head.  “He’s not in the barn.  I’ve just come from there.”

For a moment no one said anything, while each of them sensed dread, like a hard lump in the pit of his stomach.

“I’ll check the barn again,” said Pa, his voice tight.  “Adam, see if he’s with any of the men in the bunkhouse.  Hoss, check the outhouse and the other sheds.  Hop Sing, double check everywhere inside. He’s got to be here somewhere.”

It was as Adam came out of the bunkhouse that he remembered, with a plummeting heart, Joe’s letter.  Hoss came running from the back of the house and Pa emerged from the barn and they converged in front of the house.  Adam raised his voice over the howling, hammering wind and the driving snow.

“He had his letter Pa.  The letter for his mamma.  What if that’s where he’s gone, to her grave?”

Their faces gaped at him through the swirling snow, pale with dismay.  Then Pa lifted his to the angry sky as if he defied the storm to try and steal any of his sons from him. When he looked back at Adam, his dark eyes flashed.

“We need horses.  And Hoss, some rugs.”

“I’ll come with you,” said Hoss, squaring his broad young shoulders against the wind and jutting out his chin.

“No,” said Pa. “I want you here in case he comes back while we’re gone.  Now, fetch those rugs from the house. Your brother’s going to need them if he’s out in this.”

It was madness, thought Adam, as he buckled a saddle, his fingers clumsy with cold, heading out into the blinding wind and snow.  But what choice did they have?  Little Joe was only six years old.  The idea that he could be lost forever was unthinkable.  Just imagining him, alone and scared, was like a physical pain in his own middle. But Joe had guts. He might be small, but he was tough. Whatever the storm threw at him, he wouldn’t just give in.  “He’s alive,” Adam told himself.  “He’s alive and we will find him.”

Then, just as he’d finished saddling up, he heard it; a shrill yell, penetrating even the wailing of the wind.  It was Hoss’s voice, shrieking for all he was worth.  Beside Adam, Pa’s head shot up.

“Pa! Pa! Adam! He’s here! He’s here!”

He and Pa almost fell out of the barn in their haste, once again into a wall of driving snow.  There ahead of them, hopping up and down in frantic excitement, was Hoss, and in front of him, in the middle of the yard, a familiar black horse with a small, snow-covered mound, pressed limpet-fashion into her back.

“It’s Midnight!” Hoss shrilled in delight. “She found him! Midnight found Little Joe!”

Pa and Adam reached the little boy the same time which was as well because he was so cold and his body so tightly clenched against the horse, they had to peel him away, limb by limb, before Pa could lift him free and hug him to his chest, as tightly as if he never intended to let him go again.  Hoss ceased his dancing and threw his arms around Midnight’s neck, pressing his face into hers by way of a thank you before relinquishing her to his older brother’s care and sprinting after Pa and Little Joe.

By the time Adam had taken care of the horse – in a manner befitting an equine hero – and run back through the snow to the house, Little Joe was bundled up like a parcel in front of the fire, Hoss squashed into the chair beside him.  Only Joe’s face and a few tousled curls peeked out from the mountain of coverings, along with two small hands, tightly wrapped around a steaming mug. Pa stood behind the chair with his hands resting on the wrappings about where Joe’s shoulders would be. Hop Sing stood beaming nearby, with a plate of cookies and a pot of fresh coffee, as relieved as any of them at Joe’s safe return.

Joe lifted his face as Adam approached the fire and crouched down to hold out his hands to the welcome warmth.  There were two spots of pink now on the child’s face, a sight as welcome as the roaring fire after the nightmare of the storm.

“Is Midnight all right?” asked Joe.

“She’s fine,” said Adam. “I gave her extra oats and she seemed very happy.”

“How did she know where to find me?” asked Joe.  “Do you think Mamma sent her?”

Pa and Adam looked at each other as if each was hoping the other might answer that question, but it was Hoss who got there first.  He wrapped his arm around his cocooned brother, his round, freckled face alight with happiness.

“It’s a miracle, Little Joe.  God does miracles at Christmas, doesn’t he Pa?”

Adam grinned and even Pa smiled.  After all, who could argue with that?

*

Later that evening, they sat in the barn together while Pa read aloud the Christmas story from the big Bible. It had been Little Joe’s idea that they should listen to it in the barn, and they had all agreed it seemed fitting.

“It’s a story about a stable,” Hoss reasoned, “so makes sense to read it in a stable.”

“Then Midnight can hear it too,” added Joe.

So they sat amongst the straw and listened to Pa’s deep voice as he read about the baby born in a stable, and the shepherds and the angels, and Midnight and the other horses munched on their hay and turned their heads now and then as if to consider a particular nuance of the story.

When he’d finished reading, Pa smiled at his sons and nodded in the direction of the house.

“Time to get back in the warm,” he said. “Hop Sing’s made some special treats. And then, young man,” his eyes fixed on his youngest, “it’s time you were in bed. Go on now, off with you all.”

He watched as they headed out of the barn, full of the excitement of Christmas Eve.  The storm had finally exhausted its fury, leaving only a handful of snowflakes still drifting down from the night sky. He heard the shrill squeals of the two younger boys and the deeper laugh of his oldest son as they paused on their return to the house to pelt each other with snowballs.  He smiled too, his own peace intensified that evening by the deep relief of Joe’s safe return.

He crossed to the stall where Midnight was munching contentedly.  It might be a ridiculous notion to apologize to a horse, he thought, but even so, he reached in his pocket for the apple he’d taken earlier from the fruit bowl and Midnight leaned in and took it from his hand with surprising daintiness. He watched as she crunched it with relish then nuzzled at his hand in the hope of another.

This would be their second Christmas without Marie. The last one had been a struggle for him, poignant for all of them, and he hadn’t been looking forward to this one, but now….

The horse took a step back, tossed her head and snorted.  He looked behind him but the barn was empty of all but its usual animal occupants.  Funny, he could have sworn he sensed a presence.

Midnight lowered her head again and turned it towards him.  He looked at her with a little frown dinting his features. “Did you feel it too?” he asked her.

She blew warm breath from her nose.  He looked around again but still there was no one there.  When he looked back the horse was watching him with her dark, intelligent eyes.

He blew out the lantern and crossed to the barn door.  There he paused as if reluctant to leave.  He looked back and even though it was too dark now to see anything, he was sure he could sense Midnight’s gaze still upon him.

“Thank you,” he murmured into the soft darkness, then he raised his face to the night sky beyond the doorway.  There were no stars visible tonight, and no angels, but he didn’t need to see them to know they were there.

“Thank you,” he said again.

My phrase: “Announced by all the trumpets of the sky arrives the snow” from The Snow-Storm by Ralph Waldo Emerson

My Character:  Joe 

Link to Bonanza Brand 2023 Advent Calendar – Day 10 – The Christmas That Almost Wasn’t by Cheaux