To Kill A Cartwright “november Challenge” Rip Mr Cartwright

Rating:  T  (741 words)

RIP Mr Cartwright

Terrorised by this monstruous hypothesis Ben opened his eyes, trying to regain control of himself. He sat down in his bed and was trying to catch his breath. He had no idea of what time it could be , there was no moon in the sky and it was irremadiably dark in the room. He felt stupid, he had no particulary reason to be so nervous. Slowly he put down his head on the pillow and fixed the ceiling, with a pensive look. Sleep didn’t want to come back. Ben Cartwright was nervous.
Ben went out from the house, he stretched his arms above his head , he was enjoying the fresh air on the Ponderosa. The night had been hard, he was tired. He walked some steps towars the barn, BANG, a sudden detonation exploded. Ben slowly lost his balance and fell on the ground. There was a red mark on his chest.

*********Later
The coffin was put down on the ground into the small graveyard of Virginia City. Roy was there, very close to Joe, to Hoss, and to Adam. They had put the coffin on their shoulder to carry the body of their father. With all their love, Joe, Hoss and Adam with the faithful friend, they were doing what was so hard to do. They all bothered their head, couldn’t help watching the coffin in which their father was resting in peace. Each of them threw some flowers on the coffin. «You were born dust, you will become again dust» the reverend murmured. Then he made a sign to Adam. HE took a paper from his pocket and started to read, with his firm and deep voice. Just a few tears in his voice.

« Pa, here we are together, on this day,  this is maybe the hardest day of our life. In my heart, in Joe and in Hoss’ heart, there is anger. Yes, we are angry. We would like to know the name of the coward who took your life. You loved life, and you loved people, you were always there for people. You helped so many people and I’m sure, today there are here some of those people who you helped some days. You were always there to listen at people complains, you always had a shoulder to cry on. We’re not here to say goodbye, we’re here to honor you. You’ll be missed, as a friend, as a member of the town, and as a father. We’ll never forget you, we’ll think about you every day. We’ll never forget your eyes, your dark eyes when you were giving us a look, we’ll never forget your voice and your advices. You were there for us, even if life hadn’t been kind to you. You raised us. You had a dream and you realised your dream, Ponderosa, this is your dream.
May the Lord welcomes you in his arms, you opened your arms so often for others. How to think that we won’t see you any more, how thinking that you won’t walk into this town anymore. Life without you won’t be the same any more. We will go on, yes, because it is what you want, you said to us so often «you are better than this»; then yes we will continue on our way, keeping you in our memory. We won’t betray your rules and your principles. You’d be able to ask the wind to tan our hide if we would. »

At that moment, a light smile was born on Adam’s lips. During the night without sleep, he had written those words while he was sitting at his father’s desk. Adam stopped reading, he had done what he had to do…

« your father would have been proud of you, son », Roy Coffee said, hugging him.

Adam; Joe and Hoss had paid tribute to their father and they had to do it well. They had tried to be strong. But the moment when they have laying white flowers on the casket, their heart had exploded and tears had rolled on their face.  It has been the time to say goodbye.

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This is a short-story I wrote after the episode “the late Ben Cartwright’, an episode in which Ben himself let people believe, he was dead. THere was a necrologie in the newspaper and I imagined how they could have done in the cemetery…..