Summary: A continuation of Patina’s Hope in a Dimming World story
Rating:   1,375 words

Written for the Bonanza Brand Advent Calendar

Bonanza
~*~*~ Advent Calendar ~*~*~
* Day 23 *

Author’s Note: Patina was kind enough to let me reference back to her lovely Christmas tale: Hope in a Dimming World This ended up as more a random ‘day in the life of’ snippet than a follow-up, but it does take place a year later.

Life in a Dimming World

“You get it?”

“Nrggh yrttt…”

“Well, what is that supposed ta mean?”

Clem released the stovepipe, slumped against the wall, and breathed hard. “It means not yet.”

“Well, ya gotta tell me clear! I can’t see too much anymore, ya know.”

The sheriff gritted his teeth against his first response and managed to bite out, “I do know that,” in what he hoped was a civil tone. He hadn’t asked for an audience to this disaster, after all—especially one that had been here since midnight and needed constant updates. “I know that, Roy. Just ain’t much to tell.”

“You sure you don’t want me ta go find you some help?”

“Yep, I’m sure.” Clem glared at the pipe, glad to have something to glare at besides the older man. “I’ve got this.” Since Roy had retired after Christmas last year he had taken to dropping by the jail at all hours—to chat, to drink coffee, to offer a ‘voice of experience’ that Clem only sometimes took into account. He was (mostly) happy enough to host his former boss, especially when the cells were empty and the paperwork was done, but there were times when he wished Roy would just go home.

Then again, he wouldn’t want to be rattling around alone in a house he mostly couldn’t see, either.

“You better get at it a little quicker, then. Christmas Eve tonight. Them cells are gonna be full by midnight and ain’t nobody gonna be too happy ta be freezing their—”

“Thanks for that, Roy! As soon as I finish all the lazing around I’ve been doing all morning, I plan on—”

“Hey boys. What’s up?”

They both swung toward Joe Cartwright’s voice, Roy with a squint and Clem a snarl. Just what he needed—a Cartwright in the building. As if there wasn’t enough unnecessary advice on the premises already …

“Clem can’t get the stove fixed.” The sheriff tossed his hands into the air and staggered toward his desk chair. The former sheriff nodded toward the woodstove. “Pipe’s got a hole rusted in it, just about. New pipe is here, but Clem here’s havin’ trouble getting the old one out.”

Joe stepped out of the early morning grey, tucking his gloves into his pocket and stamping snow off his boots. He squinted at the joint Clem had been wrestling with for most of the early morning hours. “Why don’t you just cut it?”

Clem sighed into his hands, then stood and drifted back toward the cold stove. “Look up there where it vents out into the alley.” Joe followed his gaze, then scratched at his graying curls.

“Wonder why they did that?”

“Yeah. Don’t know, but it’s a good thing they ain’t standing at punching distance right now.” Clem nodded toward the replacement pipe laying against the far wall. “Had to have this one special made to fit. Otherwise, we woulda had to have torn out that section of the wall.”

Joe glanced toward the  new pipe, and his gaze snagged right where Clem knew it would. He sighed. Cartwright stepped closer, read the small sign screwed into the pipe, then turned a baffled look at the sheriff.

“It’s a stovepipe, Clem. People are gonna know not to touch it.”

Clem stalked away. Roy cackled from his chair.

“Well, ya never know with people these days …”

“Missus Dixon had it added before they delivered it.”

“But why?”

“How am I supposed to know? I didn’t go ask her.”

“Wait a second.” Here it came… “Why is it in braille too?”

Roy’s cackle burst into a full-fledged guffaw.

“Maybe because Roy doesn’t ever go anywhere else?” Clem shot a scowl at the older man, who was completely unaffected. Then again, maybe he didn’t even see it. “Again, I didn’t ask!”

“But … Roy would have ta touch it in order to read the—”

“You don’t have to explain it, Cartwright. We get it.”

Missus Dixon, apparently not so much–but that Hiram Dixon’s problem, not his …

“Right.” Joe glanced again at the sign. “Huh.” He stared at it for a long moment, then shook himself and turned back to Clem. “You tried a wrench?”

Clem scrubbed at his stubble-covered cheeks and tried not to wince. This kind of thing was why the Cartwrights always thought everyone needed their help …

“Don’t have one.”

Joe blinked. “You don’t have a wrench? They been around for a while now, Clem …”

“Yeah, well, I did have one. But now I don’t.” There was no need to explain that it had disappeared at some point in the last six months or so and he hadn’t bothered to buy another. What did he ever need with a wrench, anyway?

He’d been rethinking that approach for the last few hours.

Maybe when the general store opened and he went to buy one, he’d ask Missus Dixon why she’d put braille on a sign bolted to a hot pipe …

“I got one in the wagon.”

“Well then don’t just stand there, boy!” Roy roared from his corner. “Get it in here!”

Joe ducked back out the door, and Clem didn’t even care. He was sore, and exhausted, and regretting his decision to replace the pipe overnight. It had seemed like a good idea at the time—the town was relatively quiet, less traffic through his office. He would have it apart and back together in no time.

“What’s so funny over there?”

“Not a thing.” Clem bit back a giggle that sounded more hysterical than was appropriate for the sheriff of Virginia City.

The door banged back open. “You want me to get it?” Joe asked, struggling out of his coat as he strode in. Clem snatched the wrench as Cartwright passed.

“Not on your life. This one’s mine.”

He stalked across the room, fitted the wrench around the offending joint, and tightened it. Then, Clem tightened his grip and yanked. Hard.

Too hard, possibly.

The stubborn pipes wrenched apart, showering him in soot. He overbalanced, staggering into a chair and going over backward with it. The crack as the back and one leg broke off was drowned by the clatter of the old pipe hitting the floor. A ringing silence followed.

“Um … you’re welcome?”

“Get out, Cartwright.”

Roy’s cackle joined Joe’s, bouncing around his pounding skull.

“Out! Now!”

“Merry Christmas, boys!” The door slammed shut, cutting off at least one source of laughter. Clem rested his head on the stone, willing his head to stop spinning. Footsteps warned him that Roy was up and moving.

“Right here, Roy.” There was no reason for both of them to end up on the floor.

The former sheriff wasn’t coming his way, though. At least, not right away. Roy made his way to the coffee pot, poured the last dregs into Clem’s mug, and shuffled toward him. Clem managed to sit by the time Roy arrived, and reached up to accept the drink.

“Well, that part’s done, at least.”

“Yep.” The coffee was acidic and terrible. Clem drank it with relish.

“Still gotta get the new one in.”

“Yep.”

Roy thumped back into his chair. “Want me ta go hire someone?”

Clem sucked the last of the coffee down and listened to the city waking around them. Christmas Eve. A night of drunken fights and arrests awaited him, and all he wanted was a solid 48 hours in bed. He eyed the rusted pipe and the soot and the new pipe against the far wall—maybe still not quite the right size, even custom made—and admitted defeat.

Sometimes, having the Roy and the Cartwrights around to take up the slack wasn’t such a bad thing, after all.

“Yep.”

~~~~~~~~~~~

Prompt: Wrench – 1835

Character: Clem, the (deputy) sheriff

Part of this story also came from a picture I saw online not too long ago of a ‘Hot surface: Do not touch’ sign that was also in braille. If anyone knows of an actual reason to do this, I would love to hear it … 😛

Merry Christmas to all!

Link to Day 24 of the Bonanza Brand Advent Calendar –