Bonanza
~*~*~ Advent Calendar ~*~*~
* Day 20 *

 

Summary:  Roy Coffee helps not only Ben in his grief.
Rating:  G
Words:  2.500

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New Year‘s Traditions

“Are you sure, Pa, you won’t come to the ball at the Town Hall?” Adam asked while he snapped the reins above the team pulling the sled so they began to trot. “You are not so old that you can’t dance and have fun. I know a lot of women who would like to dance with you.”

Ben put up a hand to steady his gray topper while he glared at Adam. “Thank you!” he pressed out between clenched lips.

“I mean others, not only Widow Hawkins,” Adam said grinning.

Ben snorted before he answered, emphasizing every word: “No, I do not want. I will do what I always do on New Year’s Eve, I will visit Roy.”

“It’s alright, Pa.” His father didn’t seem to be in the mood to tolerate more teasing about the widow. It was an old joke, surely, Adam thought, and yes it was his father’s choice what he would like to do. Adam nodded while he kept his eyes on the deeply snow-covered trail. He knew the old friends were always together on New Year’s Eve and it wasn’t really his concern. The sun was shining and it was a pleasant ride on the sled with its jingling bells and warm blankets to cover them; he guessed they would be in Virginia City within three hours. Adam started to whistle. He was looking forward to the evening and night at the Town Hall. While he wouldn’t admit it to his father, after his return from Boston he relished Virginia City’s rare formal events. This year even his daughter was old enough to be left with her brothers and a nanny, so he and Glorie could go to the ball.

“You have the key of my house? And you know where the guestroom is, if you come home before we do?”

With another snort Ben answered, “Yes! This is the third time you’ve asked. I’m 63 years old, not 93, I’m able to find my way and I have the key. Don’t worry about me!”

“Sorry, Pa.” Adam nodded again, “I hope you will have a pleasant evening.”

“I hope the same for you.”

Both men smiled, satisfied with their plans.

                                                                                      ********

“Let us sit before the fire and start. It’s almost ten o’clock” Roy said, as he walked over to the two leather armchairs in front of the fireplace. He had moved to this small but cozy apartment after retiring five years earlier from being Virginia City’s sheriff.

 The two friends had already made a hearty meal out of part of the basketful of food Hop Sing had packed for his employer and his employer’s best friend. Ben had quoted Hop Sing while they unpacked the mountain of treats: “Mistah Coffee can eat tomorrow, too, good food for good man.” Roy had been moved by Hop Sing’s compliment. He mustn’t have done so badly during his time as sheriff because a lot of townspeople had brought him parcels at Christmas.

 Roy balanced a pair of wire tongs which held a big lump of sugar above a pot of steaming-hot red wine, before opening a bottle of rum so he could soak the sugar thoroughly and set it ablaze. He had learned to make a ‘Feuerzangenbowle’ from his father-in-law and to drink it as part of that family’s New Year’s Eve traditions. It had always seemed the right beverage to accompany what he and Ben were about to do. He remembered how desolated he had been after Mary’s death and how strangely Ben had behaved after Marie’s accident. In the two weeks Ben had been missing, he had looked out for the boys. They had never spoken afterwards about that time but not much later they had begun this New Year’s tradition. It had helped both of them–maybe Ben more, because his loss was fresher. There had also been a poem in “The Enterprise” that he had cut out. It became part of the tradition, or maybe even had started it, the year they both had read it on New Year’s Eve. More than 20 years ago that was now. But he still had the bit of paper and had, as always, memorized his stanzas in the morning.

 “Are you ready, Roy?” Ben inquired. “Is the sugar lump soaked with rum? Does it burn? Then I will dim the light.”

 As the flames licked around the sugar, Roy added more rum with a small ladle and let the burning rum and the melting caramelized sugar trickle down in a bright blue stream to the mulled wine below. Both men stared, mesmerized, at the flames.

 “I always think it helps to invite them,” Ben said.

 The drops of blue fire didn’t last very long but Roy managed, as he filled two mugs with the hot sweet liquid, to catch one in each. Both men watched the small flame in his mug for the last few moments it still burned, then took a first swallow.

 As one they stood up and nodded to each other. Ben raised his mug and said: “Let us drink to you, Elizabeth, my love! I see you, Liz, how you stood at the harbor wall when the Wanderer came into port, your thick black hair all done up in braids as you were waiting for your father. Later waiting for Abel and me, than for me, your finance. I remember our first kiss, our wedding, the day when you knew you would become a mother.” Ben swallowed hard and looked at Roy, who encouragingly smiled at him. “I remember the tiny small clothes you made for our son, and the fine needlework you always enjoyed doing,” Ben continued in a calmer voice. “And I think you were smarter than me, Liz. You loved puzzles and riddles and were so clever keeping the books at the store,” Ben smiled. “I still hate doing the ledgers.”

 “It’s possible she was, “Roy said grinning. “Or why is Adam so smart?”

 Ben waved a hand at his friend in playful threat.

 Now Roy held up his mug, “I drink to you, my Mary. You were my sun, my life, and my world. I loved how tidy our rooms always were, your kitchen. I loved your meals. I loved our days and our nights, and I admire how you could comfort me when you were the one who was dying. Thanks for it all, Mary. You gave me the strength to watch over my town for so many years because I know you wanted ‘your lawman Roy’ to do something good with his life. And you even knew that looking out for my town could replace having a family and even – a bit – having you! And look, Mary, at all the gifts the townsfolk gave me for Christmas!” Roy waved his arm at where tins, bottles, sausages, and cakes were piled on his kitchen counter.

 Both men raised their mugs higher and drank.

 “I’m sorry I never met your wife, Roy; she must have been a very special and loveable person. I …”

 In this moment someone knocked on the door. “Oh no,” Ben broke off, “not now!”

 Roy, still the good city servant, went to open the door. “Oh, Adam, is something wrong? What happened?”

 “Nothing, Roy. I hope I don’t disturb you, sorry.”

 “Not at all, come in and drink a cup of hot wine with us,” Roy said, while he filled a mug for Adam.

 “What is that? It tasted good.”

 “Something I learned from my wife’s family, called a ‘fire-tongs punch’,” Roy answered with a smile.

 When the three men had settled down, Ben glared a silent question at his son.

 “Mh, hm, Roy, Pa. Glorie sent me. She decided she would like the family to leave the ball and be outside the church at midnight, so we can hear the bells, and wish everyone a good new year. She is at home now getting the boys ready to come with us to the church, and she thought maybe you both would also like to join us. I wasn’t sure if I should intrude here, but Glorie insisted,” Adam said in excuse. “She also gave me a cake to bring you, Roy.”

 “Thank you! It’s a nice idea, meeting your family at the church, Ben, isn’t it? And it’s even a far better place for our poem, I think.”

 Roy went to put the new cake with the others. Did he dare reveal the little ritual Ben obviously never had shared with his sons? Without waiting for Ben to speak, he asked, “And, Adam, why don’t you join us here in our toasting; it’s more than an hour before midnight?” He took a deep breath, but Ben did not explode. “Or does your wife need you?”

 “She expects me back in half an hour. What do you mean by toasting?”

 “You will see, Adam,” Roy said, winking at Ben who seemed reluctant. “Come on!”

 Ben nodded hesitantly, then cast a wavering smile at Adam, as first he and then the two others rose from their seats.

 “I drink to you, Inger, my love! You gave me and my small son a home and a place in your heart. I loved your way with all kind of people and animals, your helpfulness, your ever-cheerful mood, and your courage. You gave me my middle son who is so much like you. And,” Ben looked over at Adam, “you saved me and by doing that saved my first son. I thank you, Inger. Let us drink now!”

 Ben and Roy drank, but Adam stood there frozen.

 “Adam?” Ben asked, but the younger man turned away. Roy held his breath–had he overstepped a line? Then they heard in a low voice, “For you, Mama Inger, for you!” and Adam turned back raising his mug.

 “Son, I …” Ben put a hand on his son’s shoulder.

 “Thanks, Pa,” Adam said in a low voice. “But now, it’s time for me to go home; we’ll meet at the church.” Adam nearly flew out of the room.

 Roy wasn’t sure if he had made a mistake, but his heart told him that he hadn’t.

                                                                          ****************

 When Ben and Roy arrived at the open space outside the church, Adam and his family, as promised, were among the crowd waiting for midnight. Glorie even had little Eizabeth in her arms. The boys greeted their grandfather with excitement, and when the church bells began to ring, the family embraced, and everyone around them began to wish each other a happy new year.

 Suddenly Roy stepped forward, waved his hand and declaimed in a loud voice looking towards the belfry:

        Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,

      The flying cloud, the frosty light:

      The year is dying in the night;

      Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

  The other people looked at him, first with surprise and then with happy smiles as Roy continued:

      Ring out the old, ring in the new,

     Ring, happy bells, across the snow:

     The year is going, let him go;

     Ring out the false, ring in the true.

 Now Ben, still surrounded by his family, raised his loud voice to declaim:

      Ring out the grief that saps the mind

     For those that here we see no more;

 Before he could finish the stanza, Adam laid a shaking hand on his father’s arm and all at once the two men fell into each other’s arms, the poem forgotten.

 “Son, I’m sorry,” Ben croaked. Sorry I couldn’t help you back in the prairie, sorry I ran away when Marie died. So very sorry. I… I was broken. I had no strength left. I was ashamed of myself and didn’t want you to see me in my weakness. I know you thought I was selfish but I couldn’t… It was Roy who helped me overcome the grief that darkened me.”

 Adam nodded, still hugging his father. “Pa, I never thought you were selfish, but maybe it would have been easier if we had talked about it – easier for both of us,” he mumbled. “What you said about Inger was so wonderful. Have you drunk toasts to Marie as well?”

 “Of course.”

 “I always wished I could have thanked Marie for giving a difficult teenaged boy the chance to love and to be loved by a mother he didn’t want at first. – Pa, why don’t you and Roy move this toasting to the Ponderosa? I’m sure Joe and Hoss would like to join in. Or perhaps we could repeat it on the Chinese New Year right next week, when we all are together?”

 “Do you think Hoss and Joe would like that?”

 “Yes, I know it!”

 When they finally moved apart they were still encircled by the smiling faces of Roy and the family.

 Adam winked at Ben and Roy, then took a few steps backwards before he declaimed in his rich baritone:

     Ring out false pride in place and blood,

     The civic slander and the spite;

     Ring in the love of truth and right,

     Ring in the common love of good.

 

     Ring out old shapes of foul disease;

     Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;

     Ring out the thousand wars of old,

     Ring in the thousand years of peace.

 He ended just as the last sound of the bells faded away.

 “Roy, father, that’s such a beautiful poem Tennyson wrote. I love it, too. And I thought I should join in repeating his good wishes for the whole world, too. ‘The thousand years of peace.’ Sometimes I wonder if men a hundred or two hundred years ago wished for the same things? Or maybe people fifty or a hundred fifty years in the future? Will the world be a better place; will the people be more perfect than we are? Will they look with the same hope into the New Year?” Adam wondered.

 “Maybe yes, maybe no. We can’t see into the future, not even into 1874 which is starting now. But let us hope for the best in our time and also for the men in a hundred fifty years! And now, son, suppose I take the children home and you two go back and enjoy the rest of the ball. I know you sometimes miss Boston’s fancy entertainments.” Ben thumped his son’s back vigorously.

 “Thanks, Pa!” Adam smiled, while Glorie gave his father in law a kiss on the cheek, then another one to Roy Coffee who was grinning more broadly than Adam had ever seen him do before.

 

Notes:

 At first, I have to say thank you to Sklamb, who gave a lot of her time to help me with my story, although she is writing her own second story.

 

My prompt: “the grief that saps the mind, For those that here we see no more” from In Memoriam (Ring Out, Wild Bells) by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
My character: Roy Coffee

*Ring Out Wild Bells is in the public domain

If you are interested:

A longer explanation of the “Feuerzangenbowle:” in English:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feuerzangenbowle

 

Link to Bonanza Brand 2023 Advent Calendar – Day 21 – Ring Out Wild Bells by sklamb