Summary:  Ben Cartwright has taught his sons many things but in Leaves, he is must follow his own lessons in order to survive

Rated: K  Word Count:  2700

Leaves

He sighted down the blue-gray rifle barrel, bringing the notch into line with his perceived target.

“One more little step,” he whispered to the deer, his target. “Come on. One more.”

The deer raised its head, his antlers clattering against the overhanging branches nearly devoid of autumn leaves. Chewing, it looked in the opposite direction from where Ben Cartwright stood with his rifle trained and ready. Seemingly satisfied that it was in no danger, he dropped his head once more to browse but did not take the single step that would bring its body from behind the tree trunk and into Ben’s clear shot range.

Ben’s finger tensed on the trigger and he feared that it would cramp before the deer made its move. An errant damp breeze brushed over his face, bringing the scent of decaying foliage to his nostrils and masking his own from the deer. The wet leaves piled thickly next to the tree trunk had muted his steps, allowing him to close on his prey.

Again, he whispered his demand. “One more.” As if it had heard and understood, the deer took the single step. The trigger seemed to pull itself and the rifle, once pressed alongside the tree trunk, slammed back into Ben’s shoulder. The shot missed its killing mark but by the gout of blood the man saw, he knew the deer had been wounded. It would have to be followed and brought down mercifully.

He glanced over his shoulder quickly. His buckskin horse stood where he’d dropped the reins, ears pricked forward and alert. Ben shook his head remorsefully then turned back to the chore at hand. The underbrush here was too dense to ride through to follow the deer. He would have to go on foot. He checked the rifle, tugged down on his hat brim and took out.

The downward trail the deer followed took him deeper and deeper into the hardwood forest, away from the ridge, the traveled road and the towering pines. On the bushes, now empty of foliage yet full of grasping brambles, Ben caught his shirt sleeves more than a few times. It caught the bloody hair of the deer, too, and by that marker, he chased the wounded animal. Here the footing was slippery at times, the leaf carpet moldering and soggy. He went down onto one knee and used it as an excuse to catch his breath. Not far from him, he could hear the deer still madly plunging through the underbrush.

“Foolish old man,” he chided himself as he pushed up again. “Chasing a deer through the woods is a job for young bucks, not men my age.” He chuckled, thinking of what his sons would say.

One last sound – a crashing of vegetation and a rumble of rocks – caught at Ben and he smiled. The chase was all but over. As he edged forward, he made plans. He would field-dress the deer then return to where he’d left his horse. It wasn’t far, he told himself, but it would be too far for him to carry the bloody mess. And Buck had never handled the smell of blood well, so–

The wet leaves pushed his step aside and he fell heavily. The rifle stock broke as his body crashed down on it, his hand trapped beneath him. He tried to roll, to free himself from the possibility of shooting but even as he did, his finger caught the trigger….

The forest was a deep gray when he awoke to its shadowy stillness. Even the sky through the near naked tree branches was gray- the gray of an autumn rainy night coming to the mountains. The damp fog of the afternoon had become a steady drizzle. There was no sound beyond his own labored breathing and the constant drip of rain from the last of the leaves clinging to the branches above him.

He took a halting, shuddering breath, fearful that he’d broken ribs. No pain met him and he let it go in a thankful sigh. One leg flexed, bending the knee cautiously, then the other. Steeling himself, Ben pushed himself to sit up.

When he came to that second time, he found himself completely in the dark. For a few heart-pounding moments, he thought he’d been buried alive. No, there were no moon or stars to light the sky he looked to. No wind rattled the branches nor plucked at his shirt-sleeves. The only noise was what he created – rustling leaves and shaky breathing.

To steady himself, he pushed a hand to his face. It came away sticky and he didn’t need light to know it was blood – and his. With cautious fingers he probed his face. There, next to his hairline, he found the source. When the rifle had gone off, the bullet had grazed his forehead, bringing copious amounts of blood as do all head wounds. It had also left him with a headache that was growing in monumental proportions. This time when he tried to sit up, he did it slower and in smaller steps. Still, even with his head held with both hands, he grew dizzy and had to let it fall between his upraised knees.

Without the guidance of sun or moon, he had no idea how long he’d been there. His scattered senses slowly returned and he figured since he wasn’t hungry, he hadn’t been incapacitated long. The need for water had also not hit him but as he considered it, just breathing the damp air would be enough to slake a little thirst. Although he was chilled, he wasn’t cold so he placed the time of day as some time just after sundown. He had been in and out of consciousness for a little more than two hours.

“Home,” he said aloud and it startled some small animal, sending it skittering away in the darkness. He smiled. “Home is that way. And that means that Buck is that way.” Slowly, deliberately cautious, he looked over his shoulder in that direction. Dizziness threatened but by closing his eyes for a moment, it passed.

Speaking to himself he felt like a foolish old man yet it helped. From some long lost memory, he remembered teaching his sons the art of mountain survival. Now he would have to recall the lesson for his own life hung on that lesson.

“Three things always need,” he huffed as he fought down another wave of dizziness. “Food, water and shelter. Get back to Buck and I have the first two in my saddle bags.”

One hand found the shattered rifle on the ground near him. Too short to be of use as an aid to getting up, he shoved it aside angrily. Once on his feet, he turned and caught himself on an aspen sapling. It swayed beneath his weight but he held tight to it. A sharp pain lanced up his left leg, bringing stars to his eye. Still, he held on and remained standing. The pain lessened. He tensed every muscle fiber and moved the leg, this time without bearing weight on it. The pain remained the same but localized in his boot.

“Ankle,” he hissed and let it come out wholly annoyed sounding. “Probably just twisted it.”

A glance through the dark forest, a strained listen for the noises a horse would make. Nothing. Still . . . yet . . . nothing. He even called the horse’s name though the animal had never once in all the years Ben had ridden him shown any awareness of its name. Only thing he ever pays attention to is the feed bucket, Ben thought.

He let his foot drop to the ground and felt the jab of pain come from his boot again. Biting down on his lip, he let part of his weight shift to that side. A grunt escaped him, giving room for the assurance that he would not be walking on that ankle anywhere in the very near future. He held onto the tree and eased himself to the ground.

“Food. Water. Shelter,” he muttered again as he leaned against the aspen.”Takes a man a long time to die of lack of food. Water’s no problem tonight. Shelter? Shelter.” He looked around, peering through the darkness that seemed to be deepening by the minute. Where could he find shelter?

“Could crawl to Buck, I guess but then what? Leg won’t bear up under me enough to step into the stirrups. Take what I need off of him and send him home? Not a bad idea but there isn’t anyone at the Ponderosa to see him and know something’s wrong. Adam and Hoss are in San Francisco on business – why do I want to believe that’s all they’re doing but think differently? And Joe is out hunting mustangs. Won’t be home for another couple of days. Hop Sing? He’ll think I stayed in town because I told him this morning I was going to Virginia City. And I went to Virginia City but I came back too! If only I hadn’t thought about having some nice fresh venison. And here I am always thinking that Hoss’ stomach will be the death of him when its mine that . . . ” He let his rambling words die in the night. A shiver ran up his arms and he rubbed them, thinking of his jacket hung across Buck’s saddle horn.

That seemed to galvanize him into action. On hands and knees, he felt his way slowly up the slight rise he’d fallen from in his trailing the deer. He paused, calling out to his horse once more. Was it his imagination or did he hear something that sounded like a horse in the woods off to his left? Straining in that direction, he cupped his hand to his ear but the sound did not repeat itself. Once more, hands feeling the cold ground for anything more ominous than wet leaves, he inched forward. The bramble bushes now clawed viciously at him, making themselves more of a wall than they had been earlier. He thought of stopping to rest for he was now covered in scratches and beads of perspiration ran down his face, bringing the taste of his own blood to his mouth.

“No, no stopping. These brambles weren’t far from where I started chasing the deer. Get through them and Buck will be right there.” Encouraged by his own words, he pushed on, mashing the bushes down with his hands, punishing his knees with their tiny thorns.

Too late he thought about using what was left of the rifle to brace his hands on to slide across the ground. He even looked back, trying to judge if it was worth the return trip but just then, his hands encountered free space. Indeed, he nearly crowed with joy to feel only leaves beneath his hands. To celebrate this small victory, he sat back and lifted his head to the night sky. The mist cooled his face quickly as it swirled down to meet him. He watched mesmerized as it became fog around him, cocooning him.

He shook himself. “Keep moving. You stop moving and you get cold. You get cold out here in this wet and you’ll die of pneumonia, Ben Cartwright. Come on. Move! Buck! Buck! Where are you? Make a noise. Give me some help here, boy, or I’ll . . . I’ll . . . ” His bravado stumbled when he encountered more dense underbrush.

When did exhaustion overtake him? Ben had no recollection of stopping again. He must’ve because he awoke, shivering and teeth chattering with the cold. The voice in his head told him to find shelter but not where and not how. He took it where he could find it – pressed against the roots of a tree and covering himself with leaves. He mounded them about his legs, drawing them up to his chest. Oddly enough, with their moldy smell came warmth – or at least the absence of the penetrating cold he’d found upon waking. As he huddled beneath this gold and russet blanket nature had provided him, he heard the sounds of the forest night come to life. The fog amplified it, letting him imagine what he could not see. Over there an owl sat ruffling its feathers, preparing for flight. There, to his right, a tiny squeak he thought would be from a mouse. The air became tangy for just a few minutes as he imagined a skunk walking by his impromptu bed. As he played this game, his muscles loosened and the pain slacked off.

At day break, with the morning sun driving back the fog, Ben pushed the leaves away. In the light, he felt along his ankle. The swelling there kept him from pulling off his boot and he counted that as a blessing in disguise when he felt something move that shouldn’t’ve. His stomach rumbled ominously and he took stock of where he was.

He had stopped less than a hundred feet from where his adventure had started the day before. There was sign in the clearing that Buck had been there. He’d grazed the grass down to the roots, circling his dropped reins. But there was no Buck.

Cursing softly under his breath, Ben pulled himself up the tree he’d rested against. Still, no sign of his buckskin. He called the horse’s name twice then decided he was wasting time and his breath. Once more on all fours, Ben Cartwright crawled across the forest floor until he came at last to the sandy road.

“Okay, now, Ben, are you getting ready to do something really stupid?” he chastised himself aloud. “Crawl this way and it’s a good three miles to the ranch house. Go that way, through the woods and it’s maybe a mile and a half. Or go the other way on the road toward where the men are building that new hay barn. No, that’s probably four miles and it is Sunday so they aren’t working any way.” Frustrated, he lay back, not realizing he was in the middle of the road.

“Actually doesn’t feel too bad. Sun warming the sand up, drying things out.” He chortled and imagined himself as a lizard warming itself on a rock after a cold night.

“You forget something, Ben? Like your horse? Now if you were Joe and I found you in the middle of the road after you’d been to town, I wouldn’t think nothing of it. But you, Ben?”

Roy Coffee’s banter made Ben sit up and reply in kind. “Well, it’s my road and I can do what I like on it! Help me up.”

The summoned Doc Martin had wrapped his twisted ankle and instructed him to stay off it for a few days. Ben would oblige the man but doing the same with Hop Sing’s demand that he drink this tea and take that herbal remedy for his cold was harder yet. He grudgingly complied but called it all off after three days. By then word had gotten around about his adventure and had brought home an anxious youngest son.

“Are you okay, Pa?” Joe’s concern for his father was overwhelmingly palpable. “Can I do something for you? Get you a book? Maybe some tea?”

“No, son, no more tea. But there is one thing you can do for me.” He fingered one of the leaves that had come home with him. A smile ghosted across his face then disappeared.

“Sure. What is it? Another blanket?”

“No, but this is something right in your line, young man. Teach Buck to ground tie, would you?”

The end

Author’s note: Both buckskins ridden over Bonanza’s duration by Lorne Greene had more in common than their coloring. Neither one would ground tie (that means ‘stay put as though they were tied to the ground by their dropped reins’). If you watch closely, every time Ben Cartwright got off his horse out on the open range, there was something edible close by that would keep the horse in place. Other times, a hand is seen just out of camera range, reaching for the reins.