Rating: K
Word Count=1893
Summary: The best laid plan often doesn’t play out as we’d imagined. WHN for Any Friend of Walter’s.
Disclaimer: I don’t own the Cartwrights or Bonanza. No copyright infringement is intended against Lois Hire’s script. Original plot and characters are property of the author. This story is for entertainment and no money was made from it.
Hoedown Showdown
The Founders Day Dance was a social event that Virginia City’s citizens only missed if confined to the sickbed. Young men requested the honor of escorting fetching young ladies several weeks prior to the dance. Joe, with a bevy of young ladies from which to choose, had selected Jenny Seaton to grace his arm. Adam had asked Mary Ann Dawson, a spinster who was more friend than paramour. Everyone had assumed Hoss would escort Bessie Sue Hightower as rumors were he’d been sparking her for close to a year.
As the last fiddle chord faded into the dancers’ applause, Joe strolled across the crowded room to retrieve a glass of punch for Jenny. Running the sleeve of his white shirt along his hairline to mop the sweat before it could trickle into his eyes, he smiled and nodded to couples catching their breath before the music began again.
Reaching his destination, Joe swirled the ladle around the crystal punch bowl, moving the floating orange slices out of the way before filling a dainty cut-glass cup. He slugged back his drink and ran the tip of his tongue across his upper lip as a warmth spread through his body that had nothing to do with the crowded humanity pressing close in the confines of the Town Hall. His father’s “secret” punch recipe was always a hit at dances and social functions.
The ingredients weren’t much of a secret among the male citizenry of the Virginia City area, which explained the beverage’s popularity among men who required liquid courage before asking young ladies to dance. Matrons surreptitiously sipped punch and regaled all within earshot of tales from their glory days as belles courted by multiple suitors. Young ladies’ cheeks turned a rosy red from the combination of vigorous dancing and several rounds of punch.
Joe drank another glass and a contented smile lit up his face. As he shook his head to clear the fumes that threatened to fog his concentration he was thrown off balance by a slap to the shoulder.
“Hi, Bessie Sue,” Joe said in a voice that squeaked into a higher octave.
Bessie Sue plucked up a glass and held it near the crystal bowl. She fixed Joe with a look that would have sent a sober man running for cover.
“Allow me,” said Joe as he carefully retrieved the ladle to fill her cup, taking the hint from her loud sigh.
The dainty cup was held carefully with her ring and pinkie fingers raised out of the way.
She cleared her throat and said, “That brother of yours is a no good polecat.”
“H…Hoss?” asked Joe, an eyebrow raised as he leaned away from her on the chance she opted for another friendly shoulder slap.
“You bet. He avoids me all week and leaves me to find my own escort. Good thing I don’t lack for suitors. ”
Joe coughed and gasped for air as punch went down the wrong way. Tears clouded his vision and a bright red flush prickled his face.
Bessie Sue helpfully pounded his back with a large hand to clear his lungs.
After Joe sucked in a small trickle of air without coughing, Bessie Sue said, “You should see the doc about that cough.”
“I’ll do that,” Joe wheezed out.
“It’s not like Hoss to miss a hoedown. You wouldn’t happen to know where he is, would you?” asked Bessie Sue in a voice Joe assumed was meant to sound coy.
Joe shook his head and thumped the palm of his hand against his chest to clear any remaining punch from his windpipe.
Bessie Sue shrugged, looked over her shoulder and waved her fingers at Abner Klein, a short man with a ruddy complexion and thinning hair who looked as if he needed a month’s worth of Sunday dinners in order to fill out his clothes. If he stood on his tiptoes, Abner’s eyes were level with Bessie Sue’s bosom.
“When you see Hoss, you tell that no good skunk my dance card was full. Even if he was here he’d have to fight for the honor of a turn on the floor with me.”
She set down the empty glass and nearly ran into Adam when she turned around.
“You look lovely this evening,” Adam said as he lifted her hand to his lips and placed a gentle kiss against the back of it.
“Thank you,” she said to Adam as she smiled. “See you, Joe,” she said as she slapped him against the shoulder.
Joe waved at her back as he watched her elbow her way through the crowd, intent on reaching Abner by way of a straight line rather than a more circuitous route. A frisson of relief traveled down his spine and he was glad he was no longer the object of her attention. She made him think of a mountain lion, a very ungraceful mountain lion, intent on a meal of rabbit.
A feminine voice brought Joe out of his reverie.
“Did you forget me?” asked Jenny, looking up at Joe through her eyelashes as her lower lip pushed forward in a little pout.
Joe winked and said, “Forgetting you would be as hard as forgetting the scent of a rose in bloom.”
Jenny smiled and giggled as she accepted a glass of punch. As she sipped from the cup, Joe steered her across the room with a hand pressing firmly against her lower back.
The musicians tested their instruments in readiness for the next round of dancing. Couples broke apart from larger groups to stake out places in the crowded room.
The fiddler called out, “The next dance will be . . . .”
A boom echoed in the room as the Town Hall door was kicked open.
Everyone appeared confused as they looked at the intruder in their midst for they hadn’t heard his ordered “Stick ‘em up!” through the bandana that covered the lower half of his face.
The man shuffled the items in his hands—a pistol and a couple of sacks—before he lifted the bottom of the bandana and said, “Get your hands in the air! And stand along the wall—menfolk on the left, womenfolk on the right!”
People cleared the center of the room as they nervously backed away. Joe reached for his pistol, forgetting that he, and all of the other men, had left their weapons at the sheriff’s office in compliance with the city ordinance.
After another muffled request, the man pulled his bandana up higher so it no longer covered his mouth. He then grabbed Bessie Sue and Jenny from among the young ladies and handed each a sack. Shoving Bessie Sue towards the women, he said, “Give your jewelry to this heifer.” Gently pushing Jenny towards the men, he said, “Gents, give this pretty little filly your money, watches, or anything else of value.” Bessie Sue shot him a glare that would have brought on a spring melt faster than a warm sunny day. Jenny sniffled as tears trickled down her cheeks.
Bessie Sue offered soothing words as ladies removed rings, earrings, bracelets, and necklaces. “Don’t you worry, we’ll get your wedding ring back.” To another lady, she said, “The sheriff will see to it that your earbobs are returned.”
“Hurry up! I ain’t got all night!” said the man as he brandished his pistol.
Several young ladies wept under the assumption that one or more of them would be killed without experiencing their first goodnight kiss.
Jenny handed the bag to the robber as if it contained a passel of rattlesnakes. She scurried over to the ladies’ side of the room and removed her earrings with shaking hands.
Joe Cartwright pressed his back against the wall before taking a step to the side. A hard tug on his sleeve stopped him from moving further and he looked into Adam’s eyes. At a barely imperceptible shake of the head from his older brother, Joe abandoned his plan.
“Get over here, heifer,” growled the holdup man, irritated with the amount of time it was taking Bessie Sue to collect valuables.
She sauntered across the room like a prowling mountain lion, the bag slung over her shoulder, her eyes narrowed in anger.
“Gimme it,” were the last words the man got out before the heavy sack collided with the side of his head.
Glass shattered and the window frame exploded inward as Hoss dove into the silent room.
“Don’t you folks worry, I won’t let him get away with this!” yelled Hoss.
Bessie Sue picked up the sack and handed it to Jenny. “Make sure everyone claims what’s theirs.” The woman then planted her feet and put her hands on her hips. “Where were you when we needed you, Hoss Cartwright?”
Hoss gulped and pointed to the unconscious man on the floor. “I was tryin’ to save you from this…robber.”
A cheer of, “Hooray for Bessie Sue!” arose within the room in gratitude for her swift action.
Abner appeared at her side, helpfully offering a glass of punch.
“Abner?” asked Hoss as he scrunched up his nose in disbelief.
“You didn’t even defend my honor when that man called me a heifer,” she said to Abner in a cold tone as she poked him in the chest with a large finger. She then stalked off in a huff.
“Punch?” asked Abner, holding the glass up for Hoss.
Hoss took the cup and drained it in one swallow. A tug on his sleeve brought him out of his thoughts.
“You’re coming with me,” said Sheriff Roy Coffee.
Hoss glanced over at the would-be robber’s face and noted the new lump swelling among the left-over bruises.
“But…but I didn’t do anything,” said Hoss in a near whine.
“Care to explain the destruction of city property?” Roy asked, pointing to the window. He shook the dazed would-be-robber by the back of the collar and asked Hoss, “Or why this man you claimed tried to rob you and that Obie fellah is here when he said you’d caused all his injuries?”
“Oh Lordy,” mumbled Hoss.
*
The key turned, locking the cell door. Hoss sat on the bunk, his elbows propped on his knees and his chin resting on his fists.
“I just don’t understand,” said Obie. “Walter’s plan was fool-proof.”
“Well, Bessie Sue’s madder than a wet cat,” said Hoss.
Obie set up the checker board and said, “We may be confirmed bachelors but Walter has a right romantic streak.”
Walter sighed and cracked open an eye.
“Hear that?” asked Obie. “Walter’s thinkin’ up a humdinger of a plan.”
Hoss groaned and joined Obie at the checker board, the sound of a fiddle carrying through the cell window. He looked over at Walter, hoping for a sign that a plan was coming together.
“Don’t you worry,” said Obie as he slid a checker piece across the board, “Walter will come up with a sure-fire way for you to win your girl back.”
The End
August 2013
