Summary:  A Christmas peek at Ben and Adam on the trail West.
Rating:  G  (4,040 words)

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

Clara

“Adam, son?  What are you doing?”

Eight-year-old Adam Cartwright started, winced, and then shifted his body to hide what he was doing.  It wasn’t that what he was doing was wrong…exactly…it was just that…well…the paper he was doing it on just happened to belong at the end of one of his pa’s books.

It was the only blank paper he could find in the wagon.

“Nothing,” the small boy replied with a glance over his shoulder as he shifted again to make sure his behind covered the scrap of paper entirely.

It was twilight time, so that answer was okay.  Otherwise he’d probably get a lecture about how on a wagon train there was no time to do ‘nothing’ and he should be doing something.

Which he was.

His pa was giving him ‘that’ look.  Pa had a lot of them, but this was one of the ones he had a hard time figuring out.  Like some words, it seemed to have different meanings depending on what was going on.  Words like ‘bank’ or ‘bat’.

Or ‘right’.

‘Wrong’ on the other hand had only one meaning he knew about.

Pa closed the distance between them.  Reaching out a hand, he placed it on his forehead.  “No fever.”

“I’m fine, Pa.  Just…tired.”

It was the truth.  He was tired.  Tired of traveling. Tired of being cooped up in a wagon with no place for a man to stretch his legs.  Tired of too little food and too much snow and too many people – who were just as tired – snapping and snarling at one another like hungry wolves lined up on one of the white banks that framed the trail.

“Hhmph,” his father said – which was Pa’s way of answering when he thought that what someone else felt was his fault.

“It’s not,” the boy said.

“Not what?” Pa asked with a leap of his black brows.

“You fault.”  Adam held his father’s gaze.  “Any of it.”

The big man drew a breath.  Pa seemed to stuggle with something – anger maybe – for a moment, and then he rewarded him with a weary smile.

“When did you get to be so wise?”

Adam shrugged.  “I think you told me I got that from Ma.”

There it was – that wince of deep pain – then Pa smiled again.  This time his father’s hand caressed his thick black hair.  “So I did.  And your pa is never wrong, right?”

The boy grinned.  “Right!”

“So…” Pa said as he began to rummage around the wagon’s interior for whatever he’d come for, “not going to visit Quill tonight?”

“No, sir…er…yes, sir.”  He frowned. What was the proper way to answer that?  He sure wished he knew more about grammar.  There were teachers among the inhabitants of the wagon train. Sadly, there were more of them than there was time for any kind of schooling.  “I’ve got chores to do before bed.  I thought I’d take him what’s left of the Johnny cakes Miss Murray made me this morning as a sort of, well, you know…Christmas present.”

His father paused and looked at him.  “That’s kind of you, son.  Be sure to do so before dark.  And if it’s dark before you leave, Quill needs to walk you at least part of the way back.”

Adam surpressed a sigh.  “Yes, sir.”

Pa straightened up.  He had another one of ‘those’ looks; one he knew too well.  “I know you think I am overprotective,” he said.  “The other boys your age –”

“Don’t have you as their pa.”  Adam smiled.  “It’s okay.”

And it was.

“Ah!”  Pa dove deep into a pile of cast-off clothes and came up with his pipe.  “There is it!”

“Are you keeping watch tonight?”

The older man nodded. “Til two in the morning.”

“Is it okay if I stay with Quill until then?”  He had to try.  “He said he’ll walk me back anytime.”

Brief suspicion passed over the older man’s face.  “Is there a reason?”

Adam shrugged.  “I like Quill and…it’s less lonely when I’m with someone else.”

Pa let out a sigh as he sat beside him.  The older man hung his roughened hands between his knees and looked out – beyond the canvas wall of the wagon.  “One day, son, I promise you, we’ll have a home.  I know it’s not been easy.”

The boy placed his small hand over his father’s large one.  “Its okay, Pa.  We’re together. That’s all that matters.”

His father looked at him.  Pa said nothing, but Adam could read it in the older man’s eyes.

They asked the question – ‘Is it?’

The older man drew a deep breath.  Pa patted his thigh before rising.  “I need to get going.”

“You go ahead.  I’ll be careful on my way and I’ll have Quill bring me back.  I promise.”

The older man nodded.  “And I know you are a man of your word.  I love you, son,” he said as he opened the wagon’s canvas door.

“I love you too, Pa,” Adam replied.

“Give Quill my regards.”

“I will.”

Quill Birdsong’s wagon was at the rear of the train – near the very end.  Theirs was somewhere near the middle.  He and the older man had become friends after he asked him about his name.  It was kind of a funny one with both ‘quill’ and ‘bird’ being a part of it.  At the time, he’d wondered what Mr. Birdsong’s parents had been thinking of?!  Quill came from Germany.  He was older than pa – maybe by twenty years.  He didn’t say much about himself, but he’d learned from other people on the wagon train that he’d emigrated with his family on account of the fact that there was no work for him in the Old World. Quill was a weaver by trade and no one needed weavers anymore because machines were doing their work.  He’d come to America with his wife, daughter, and his daughter’s children.

Most of them were dead; buried somewhere along the road to California.

Maybe that was why Quill liked him to come by.  He didn’t get that wince of deep pain when Mr. Birdsong looked at him.  Probably because he was somebody else’s son.   Quill had a small loom he’d brought with him on the wagon train and he would sit and weave while they talked about just about everything – but especially about words.

And the power of words.

Adam glanced at the back of the wagon.  His pa had left it partially open, so he knew the older man was gone.   Scooching a bit, the boy moved his behind off the piece of paper he’d been hiding. Then, taking it and the book he had purloined the sheet from in hand, he picked up his everlasting pencil and – using the book as a prop – began to write again.

‘Brown.  Earthlike.  Dirt-colored.  Coffee-colored.”  Adam licked his lips and scribbled, ‘Chocolate-colored.’  He paused, pen in hand – and then struck them all out.  “No,” he said softly. “No!  That’s not right.”  The boy closed his eyes and drew a breath and pictured the thing he was trying to describe.  What was that word Quill used when he talked about the color his hair had been?

Adam smiled.

‘Umber’.

That was it.  Umber.

Her eyes were ‘umber’.  They were also ‘limped’.

The pencil hesitated.  Limped?  No.  That wasn’t right!  He’d use ‘liquid’ but that made it sound like her eyes would run off a plate if it was tilted, and ‘wet, well, wet was vulgar.  It conjured up thoughts of smelly hide and moldy wood.  He was sure the word he was hunting was ‘limped’ but it didn’t sound right.  His full lips twisted.  ‘Limped’ or ‘limp-ed….

That was it!  Limpid!

The pencil moved again on the sheet of paper, finishing the line he had been penning when his father came to the wagon unexpectedly.  “Deep umber wells,” he read out loud, ‘limpid pools of welcoming darkness that lift as I approach….’

Adam dropped the paper to rest on the fabric of his well-worn janes and sighed.

Clara.

Pa wondered what he found so interesting about old Quill.  He liked Quill and really liked to visit him.  Quill had gone to university in Germany, so he knew all kinds of things and he was willing to teach them to him.  Quill didn’t spend all his time talking about crops and cows, or the weather, or making a fortune like the other men on the train. He talked about the world he had seen and the things he had done. The older man was soft-spoken and kind, if a little sad most of the time.  Yeah, he liked Quill.

But he really liked Clara!

He…maybe even…loved her.

Adam looked at his paper again.  ‘Out of the dark she comes, seeking my touch.  Deep umber wells, limpid pools of welcoming darkness that lift as I approach.  My heart beats in return, hoping her love to earn.’

Well, it wasn’t Shakespeare, but Quill said that didn’t matter.  What mattered in a poem was putting feelings into words that were pictures other people could see without seeing anything.  Quill had a book of Shakespeare’s complete works. Sometimes when they got tired of talking, he’d get it out and read to him.  The older man liked the plays, but it was the sonnets that spoke to him.  So many people used so many words to say things when – most of the time – when just a few ‘right’ words would do.  When he and Pa joined the others for supper, he’d sit and listen to the endless chatter – to the ‘so many’ words – and wonder how it was that most people spoke about nothing.  Words were important.

He’d made a vow to himself that he would always use the right ones, even if it meant he had to be quiet to find them.

The boy read through the poem again and nodded.  He was pretty happy with the words he’d written so far.  Clara was special and so the words had to be special.  He was writing the poem for her and had to get it right.  “Umber’ he said aloud, relishing the feel of the word on his tongue.  “Limp-ed…no…lim-pid.”  Those two worked for her eyes.  But Clara’s hair?  It was red-gold, like the color of an old copper kettle but prettier than that.  Richer.  The boy ran through the words he knew people used to describe their pans – metallic, bronze, reddish. One lady on the train – Mrs. O’Toole – had hair the color of Clara’s.  People said it was ‘auburn’, but that still wasn’t it and ‘coppery’ wasn’t even a word

He didn’t think.

Adam closed his eyes and tried to remember the conversation he and Quill had had about colors.  The older man had eyed him and said in soft tones colored by his origins.   “Vhat is the good of a vord like ‘schwarz or black’?  All black says is that there is no light.”  Quill had smiled.  “‘Ebon’ speaks of shifting shadows.  Onyx of a darkness cold as flint.  Pitch makes your eyes vater vit the memory.”  There had been one word for orange-red that he had really liked.  What was it?  What was it??

He chuckled.

Titian.  Like the ladies in the paintings by the artist of that name in the book Quill had.

The naked ladies.

Pa would kill him if he knew!

“Out of the dark she comes, seeking my touch,” he read aloud.  “Deep umber wells, limpid pools of welcoming darkness that lift as I approach.  My heart beats fast in return, hoping her love to earn. The light of the fire turns her reddish hair into a coat of Titian threads that scintillate as she moves.”

‘Scintillate’.  He loved that one.   It was like the word itself moved when you said it.

“Scintillate.”

Adam read it again and added, thoughtfully,”…scintillate as she moves and my love proves as I give her the gift I bring.”  His hazel eyes flicked to the package hidden under his well-worn linsey-woolsey coat.  He read it again, and then added, “…expecting nothing.”

Quill had told him that the deepest and best kind of love was given expecting nothing in return.

The boy read through his short piece one more time before nodding.  Then he carefully folded the paper and placed it in the pocket of his heavy coat before donning the warm item and picking up the small burlap parcel of Johnny cakes.  It was close to Christmas.  There was a lot of snow on the ground.  It seemed funny to worry about freezing when you were just going to visit a neighbor, but this trip had taught him to nothing for granted.

He’d seen too many people who had done that die.

It was a short step and a long hop for Adam to leave the wagon.  He’d made sure to grab his hat and gloves before he started his journey.  Quill lived at the end of a train of 30 wagons, which was about a quarter of a mile walk from the first one and maybe an eighth of a mile for him.  Twilight was falling when his pa left the wagon.  Now it was in full swing.  The sky was a perfect palette of the colors of fire – orange, blue and lavender darkening into purple.  The boy smiled.  Or maybe it would be better to say it was a ‘kaleidoscope of heliotrope’.

Adam laughed aloud. He liked those words too.

He just liked words.

But not as much as he liked Clara.

Most of the families in the wagon train had settled down for the night, turning in and lacing their canvas coverings tightly against the winter chill.  There’d been a lot of grumbling in the camp since it had snowed.  They’d left New England in late spring.  The California Trail took about six months to complete and the wagon master said at the start that he he meant to get them to Nevada before winter set in.  They might have made it too if not for that time in Missouri when it rained and rained and rained and the road turned to mud, slowing, and then stopping them for weeks.  Or that time in Kansas when they all got sick and had to wait even longer for everyone to recover.  And then there were the broken wheels that had to be mended and stops for supplies and on and on.  It was almost Christmas now and from the look of things they might still be on the road when the new year arrived.

That was all right with him.  He liked snow.

Unlike people, it was quiet.

“Young Master Adam!  And now just where do you’d be going this late in the day, and all on your own?”

It was Mrs. O’Toole, the lady with ‘auburn’ hair.  She was a nice lady, about his pa’s age, who’d been recently widowed and was traveling west to her sister’s place where she meant to start over.  She had two sons with her and they were pretty nice too, if a little bossy.

“I’m going to see Quill,” Adam replied.  “Pa said it was okay.”

Mrs. O’Toole’s wagon was number twenty and Quill’s, twenty-nine.  So they were three or four hundred paces apart.  Quill called her Maggie and seemed to like her well enough though he wasn’t too fond of her boys.  The older man said they were ‘schnippicsh’, which was a German word.  Adam wasn’t exactly sure what it meant, but Pa had laughed and laughed when he told him.

And agreed.

“Seems to me you came by this way last night…and the night before,” Mrs. O’Toole said, her tone light and teasing.  “Now, Quill’s a fine man – don’t get me wrong – but I’m thinking there must be something else draws a young lad like you all the way to the back of the train.  Would you be telling me what it is?”

Adam swallowed hard – and shook his head.

“Ah.  So, it’s a secret then.  Well, that’s a fine thing.” The redhead leaned in and lowered her voice.  “A woman likes a man of mystery.” Before he could say anything, she added, “Now, just you wait here.  I’ve got something for you.”

She ducked inside her wagon and returned a moment later with a box in her hands. He knew what was in it the moment he caught the scent of nutmeg, cinnamon and rose.

“Jumbles!”

“Aye,” she replied, her tone wistful.  “I was thinking I’d send some to old Quinn for the holidays since he lacks a woman’s touch.  Will you be taking them for me?”

Adam’s tummy growled in time with his disappointment.  It had been a long time since he’d eaten and even then it wasn’t much.  He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a sweet!  Mrs. O’Toole’s jumble butter cookies were the stuff of legends among the boys on the wagon train and for a moment – just a moment – he’d thought they were his.

“I’ll make sure Quill gets them, Ma’am,” he said quietly.

“Bless you, Master Cartwright, you’re sure to make an old man happy.  Now, be off with you.  The sun’s nearly down.”

He’d only taken two steps when she called him back.  “Yes, Ma’am?” Adam asked as he turned toward her.

“And be sure to take one or two for yourself,” she said with a smile.  “Tis only right to pay the courier.”

A moment later he was on his way with a twisted jumble tucked safely in each of his coat pockets – one for himself and one for Clara.  That one was wrapped in the end paper he’d taken from his pa’s book and written his sonnet on.

Quill liked to stay up late, so Adam wasn’t surprised to see that the lantern on his wagon was still lit.  It meant the older man was still awake and willing to receive visitors.  He hoped Clara would be awake too.  It had been a few days since he’d seen her and the last time she hadn’t been feeling too well.  The road to California was long and hard on everyone and he wanted her to know how he felt just….

Well, just in case.

The boy’s small fingers closed on the wrapped jumble in his pocket. That would make her eyes light up even if his poem didn’t!

“Adam!  It’s sehr late, my boy.  Does your vater know you are here?”  The older man had opened the flap of the wagon and descended to the ground. His shirttail was out, so he was probably headed for the trees.

“Yes, sir.  Pa’s keeping watch tonight, so he said it was okay for me to come…as long as you walk me partway back.”

“Of course.  Of course.”  The older man eyed him.  “You must be cold, kleine junge.  Climb into the wagon.  I vill return in a minute.”

“Okay.  I am…a little.  Is…?”

“Ja?”

“Is Clara inside?”

Quill grimed and nodded.  “She is. She has been vaiting for you.”

“Really?”

The older man  chuckled.  “Really.  She has been vaiting for her young man to come calling.”

He’d almost blushed when Mrs. O’Toole leaned in.

Now he did.

He didn’t know what it was exactly about Clara.  It was like there was something that tied them together.  He thought about her all of the time – about her limpid brown eyes and how they lit up when she saw him like he was something special.

Quill placed a hand on his back and shoved him gently. “Geh rein, geh jetzt!”I

One night when he and his pa had been sitting outside the wagon, staring up at the stars, Pa had started talking about ma.  Pa didn’t do that very often.  It hurt too much.  He didn’t say anything.  He just listened.  Pa talked about how ma and him had met and married, and how happy she’d had been to find out she was with child – how she had looked forward to loving and taking care of him. Then Pa said something he never had before. He started to talk about himself and how deeply he had loved her and how lost he was without her.

His soul mate.

Pa said it was as if they had been two parts of one whole, split; a whole that had not been complete until they found each other.  Then he’d looked right at him and said, ‘Son, one day you will find that special someone for yourself and it will be the same.’

Adam pulled the jumble cookie out of his pocket and removed it from its paper wrapping.  He read his poem again and realized with a start that he hadn’t really written for Clara.  He’d written it for himself out of a deep desire to express something inexpressible.

His need to be loved.

Adam heard a shuffle in the corner and an old, well-worn Indian blanket shifted, revealing what lay beneath.  Clara’s deep umber eyes lit up when she saw him.  Rising to her feet she moved quickly across the wagon’s rude floorboards to his side.  When she stopped, Adam reached out to touch her, marveling again at the silken softness of her coat beneath his fingers.   “It’s for you, girl,” he said as he held the cookie out. “Just for you.”

She’d caught the scent of the jumble now.  Taking it, she downed it in one bite and then jumped on him and knocked him to the ground.

Adam couldn’t help it.  He giggled as her rough tongue washed his face and her fluffy tail beat a tune against the crate Quill used as a chair.

Later, as Quill enjoyed his own jumble, Clara rested on the floor beside Adam’s feet.  She sure was beautiful with those dark brown eyes and her thick coat of Titian fur!  Quill called her a ‘roter spitz.  Spitz was the kind of dog she was and ‘roter’ described her red coat.  She was just about the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

“She sure loves you,” Quill said quietly.

He looked up. “You think so?”

“Ja, or she vould not be be vhere she is, sitting vit you instead of me!” he laughed.

Adam reached down to ruffle the dog’s thick mane.  “Well, I can tell you I sure love her to.”

“Vould you like Clara to take you home?  You could keep her overnight, if your vater vould allow.”

Pa wasn’t too keen on animals, at least in the house…or wagon.

He pushed his fingers into her warm fur.  “I’d really like that, but Pa….”

“Pa what?”

Adam started.  He turned to find his father entering the wagon.

“My shift ended early,” he said as he brushed snow from the shoulders of his thick coat.  His lips twisted with a smile.  “A little early.  It’s a little after midnight.”

The boy jumped to his feet.  “I’m sorry, Pa!  I wasn’t paying attention.  I didn’t mean to worry you!”

His father held up a hand.  “You’re not in trouble, son.  And I wasn’t worried.  I knew you were with Quill.”  He paused as he eyed the dog on the floor.  “And Clara.”

“I offered the boy that Clara could valk him home and stay until morning.  You may consider it a kind of Christmas present, if you like.”

Pa’s look was one he hadn’t seen before, and that was kind of hard.  It was sort of stern, but softened like butter on a windowsill into a kind of…smile…as he watched.

“Would you like that, Adam?” he asked.

It took a second to respond.  “I sure would!  Do you mean I can?”

His father stepped forward to place a hand on his head.  “It’s Christmas Day, son.  How could I refuse?”

That night as they lay snuggled in his bedding inside the wagon, while Pa snored, the wind howled, and the stars blazed overhead, Adam told Clara that she was his soul mate and that he would love her until the end of time and then he read her his poem.

She was suitably impressed.

But she liked the second jumble in his pocket even more.

Prompt: Adam finds a soul mate

Link to the Bonanza Brand Advent Calendar – Day 10 – At the End of Their Rope – Belle