{"id":14457,"date":"2017-07-23T01:35:35","date_gmt":"2017-07-23T05:35:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/?p=14457"},"modified":"2025-09-25T15:41:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T19:41:08","slug":"short-trip-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/?p=14457","title":{"rendered":"Short Trip Home (by Arien)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Summary<\/strong>: What could possibly happen to the Cartwright boys between home and Virginia City?<\/p>\n

Rating: K+ \u00a0\u00a0Word Count: 908<\/p>\n

A\/N<\/strong>: I put the blame for this squarely on Nanuk. So, if there be pitchforks after reading it, just know it was her prompt.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Short Trip Home<\/strong><\/p>\n

Adam, caked in blood and grime, staggered through the front door as Ben looked on in horror.<\/p>\n

\u201cAdam! What happened to you?\u201d Ben asked, rushing to his son. He looked Adam over to see if he could find the source of the bleeding.\u00a0 \u201cThere\u2019s blood all over you! Where are your brothers? They were supposed to go with you to Virginia City.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pulling away from his pa, Adam hobbled the settee and collapsed. He looked like he\u2019d aged thirty years since he left for Virginia City. \u201cPa, they\u2019ll be along in a minute. They\u2019re putting the horses away. So far, the horses are the only ones that weren\u2019t hurt.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYour brothers\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAre in about the same shape I\u2019m in,\u201d Adam said as he\u00a0 covered his eyes with his arm.\u00a0 \u201cAnd, no, you don\u2019t need to send for Doctor Martin, either.\u201d<\/p>\n

They both looked up as the front door banged open, and Hoss and Joe came inside.<\/p>\n

\u201cHoss, Joe! What in the blazes happened to you?\u201d Ben asked. He\u2019d thought Adam was exaggerating about the conditions of Hoss and Joe. Sadly, he wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Joe, covered in torn clothes, blood, and leaves sticking out of his hair, shuffled towards an empty chair before easing into it. \u201cPa, it wasn\u2019t our fault. Honest.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cJoseph\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPa, he ain\u2019t lyin\u2019,\u201d Hoss said as he took he took off his new hat and stuck a finger through the hole in the front.<\/p>\n

Ben looked at his sons and, while covered in blood, he couldn\u2019t find a single cut on them. He took a deep breath and tried to remain calm. \u201cWill someone please explain to me what, exactly happened this afternoon? All you were supposed to do was go into town to run errands. You look like you were run over by a herd of buffalo!\u201d<\/p>\n

Joe picked leaves out of his hair, \u00a0said, \u201cPa, you\u2019re not too far off. We did go into town, but a cliff magically appeared between Virginia City and \u2013\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cJoseph, I may be getting old, but I am not getting senile. A cliff doesn\u2019t just magically appear! It\u2019s as flat as a pancake between here and town!\u201d Ben said. He pinched the bridge of his nose and said, \u201cWill you please start making some sense?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut, Pa!\u201d Joe said as he watched a spider drop from his hair. He flicked the spider and watched as it landed by the fireplace before it scurried away. \u201cI\u2019m not making it up. Ask Hoss and Adam!\u201d<\/p>\n

Hoss looked up at Ben. \u201cPa, it was the dangedest thing. We was on our way back when this cliff showed up about halfway between here and town.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAdam,\u201d Ben said, exasperated, \u201csurely, you can tell me what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adam lowered his arm and sat up slowly, scratching at a patch of dried blood on his cheek. He looked as baffled as Ben felt.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, I promise we\u2019re not making it up. A cliff really did appear out of nowhere. When it showed up, so did a freak gust of wind that knocked us off the horses and down into the ravine,\u201d Adam said. \u201cWe rolled through God only knows what before managing to land at the bottom.\u201d<\/p>\n

Joe looked at Adam. \u201cOlder Brother, I think wearing the God knows what. I know I certainly have about half of it up my -\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cJoseph, that is enough!\u201d Ben said. He could feel his blood pressure going up.<\/p>\n

\u201cSorry, Pa,\u201d Joe said. \u201cBut like Adam said, we rolled all the way to the bottom of that stupid ravine. Once we got down there, we could hear all this clacking going on.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cClacking?\u201d<\/p>\n

Hoss said, \u201cYes, sir, clacking. Like a telegraph machine, sorta. The clacking stopped, and we could hear this woman laughing. Kinda mean like. We heard, plain as day, a woman\u2019s voice saying something about SAS and SJS and SHS.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cApparently, it stands for Suffering Adam Syndrome and Suffering Joe Syndrome. We asked,\u201d Adam said when he saw his father\u2019s confused look. \u201cSHS is Suffering Hoss Syndrome. She said she had a \u201cplot\u201d she was working on and that she writes about us. The reason we\u2019d been mishap-free for so long is because she took a break.\u201d<\/p>\n

The dull throb behind Ben\u2019s eyes began to turn into a full blown migraine.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen she got through explaining, she said she needed to turn in and shut down something called a laptop. When she did that, the cliff and cuts disappeared, and we were back on horses,\u201d Joe said, bringing an end to their sad tale. He poked a finger through a hole in his shirt. \u201cThe blood and torn clothes didn\u2019t disappear, though, for some reason.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPersonally, I think each of you had one too many beers while you were in town. Now, what I want each if you to do is get cleaned up and go to bed. I\u2019ll check on you in a bit to see if I need to send for Paul Martin,\u201d Ben said. He watched his sons slowly climb the stairs, their muffled complaints drifted downwards.<\/p>\n

Ben shook his head and leaned over and picked up Hoss\u2019 ruined hat. Magic cliff indeed, he thought. He looked up when he heard Joe say his name.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, and Pa?\u201d Joe said as he leaned over the rail at the top of the stairs. \u201cShe also said there was something called Suffering Ben Syndrome. Night!\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Tags:\u00a0 Adam Cartwright<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Summary: What could possibly happen to the Cartwright boys between home and Virginia City?<\/p>\n

Rating: K+ \u00a0\u00a0Word Count: 908<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9526,"featured_media":14429,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"template-full-width-post.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[1005,4,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adam-cartwright","category-humor","category-short-stories","wpcat-1005-id","wpcat-4-id","wpcat-8-id"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Summer-story-pics.png?fit=700%2C563&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9526"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14457\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}