From The Horses’ Mouth
Cochise stood in the barn and wondered. It wasn’t the
easiest job in the world being a regular Bonanza horse, especially for him.
For, rather like his owner’s bedroom, Cochise changed. Oh, not just stalls,
although that did happen, too, but he changed pattern regularly.
Most of the time, he was black and white, with a solid black
tail and an attractive white snip on the right side of his neck. But
worryingly, on several of the stock long-shots, he was decidedly grey and
white, and in later series, he had a white tail and a different pattern of
patches!
It was a worry. Cochise eyed his stable mates. It wasn’t
fair; they didn’t change appearance all the time. Chubb was always big and
black; Sport always had 4 white stockings and a blaze and Buck…
Well, Buck was totally scatty. Cochise had heard the Giggly
Sisters say he should be lobotomised, whatever that meant. Certainly, every day
Hoss came into the barn and gave him a dose of industrial strength
tranquiliser.
The other thing that really worried Cochise was this
business of his gender. He was a gelding – he knew that for a fact. Any
eagle-eyed viewer could see that clearly at the beginning of Marie My Love. So why had Ben referred
to him as a mare? He wasn’t the only one. A whole legion of fanfic writers did
the same thing.
Cooch shook his neck in a worried sort of way and ducked his
head, just to check in case things had changed during the last commercial
break. Things on the Ponderosa had a habit of doing that, he’d noticed. Like
the bunkhouse, for example. Sometimes it was next to the kitchen, sometimes at
the right hand side of the house and, on other occasions it simply wasn’t there
at all. No wonder the Cartwrights were reluctant to go in there! Of course,
when they did, disaster was sure to follow. There was that time in Showdown when Adam had got a nasty crack
across the head in the bunkhouse… But at least one thing was as it should be.
Cochise sighed in relief: yes, he was definitely a gelding!
It was getting late, but Cochise was still wide-awake. Must
have been that extra cup of coffee he’d shared with Joe.
In his stall, Sport pawed nervously at the ground. Not
because he was wired up on caffeine, but because he was basically rather
jittery. Some people thought he wore a martingale, but that wasn’t right, he
thought. A breastplate, yes, but not a martingale. Sport tossed his head
temperamentally and wondered how people knew his name. He’d watched all first
six series closely and couldn’t recall a single instance of Adam calling him
anything. Nor had Joe, that time he’d ridden the chestnut during The Crucible. Sport looked across at
Cochise and gave a rather contemptuous flick of his mane. As Joe was clearly
the best rider in the family, Sport thought that they made a splendid pair.
After all, he was a much more fitting mount that that little painted pony.
Cochise ignored this look, content in the knowledge that Joe
would never desert him. After all, they were perfectly suited, both being just
a tad smaller than the others. And what other horse in the show was the right
height to allow Joe to do his famous swing mount? No, the director knew how much
the viewers enjoyed that athletic display and there was no way he’d allow that
to change! He knew which side his bread was buttered on.
Meanwhile, Buck snoozed happily in his stall. He sometimes
felt rather hard done by, for Ben could perhaps best be described as a
reluctant rider. He certainly didn’t appreciate when Buck forgot that he was
supposed to be standing still and wandered off while the patriarch of the
Ponderosa was mounting. Of course, Buck had his share of worries too. There was
that time he’d had an ill-advised permanent wave which hadn’t really worked.
The evidence was there for everyone to see in The Gift. Ben had been so embarrassed by that little mistake that
he’d eventually left poor Buck in the middle of the
However, there was one thing that set Buck apart from the
other horses on the Ponderosa and that was his unique bridle, embellished with
several shiny medallions. It went particularly well with the silver conchos on
Ben’s waistcoat and they made a splendid pair. Inevitably, there was a downside
to this particular bridle. In the first place, it was an absolute devil to get
on, especially when combined with Buck’s flyaway forelock, which often was so
uncontrollable it had to be tucked firmly under his browband. In the second
place, it took ages to polish and ranch hands had been known to dash into the
bunkhouse just before it disappeared in order to escape this tedious chore.
In the other stall, Chubb was having a little lie down. He had
to do this fairly frequently, as his back and legs were frequently killing him.
First of all there was the weight of the Western saddle, then Hoss came and sat
on him! Hoss’ riding had improved from the opening series, where he had flapped
his arms around like a chicken, but he was no lightweight to carry.
It was a pity that he was only ridden by Hoss, he thought.
But in fanfic, he was assured that he was ridden double regularly, and he was
quite grateful that this didn’t happen in actuality. But then, he consoled
himself, it was usually dinky Little Joe who was being carried and Sport had
managed to carry both Joe and Adam without suffering any ill effects in MBK.
That was something else that worried Cochise. In MBK, when he had been brought back to the
ranch he’d been jolly pleased to see Adam. Pity it wasn’t Joe, but then, Joe
might have been annoyed that he’d panicked and run away. But then, after
stroking him soothingly, Adam had tied him to the hitching rail and gone away
with that strange Irish girl with the petted mouth. Yet later, he had been
nowhere in sight when the shootout began. Who had put him away? Cochise
couldn’t remember, and it was something that gave him nightmares.
When morning came, and Joe came into the barn carrying the
harness for the wagon horses, Cochise snorted in surprise. For, suddenly, the
matched pair of blue roan wagon horses had miraculously appeared. They hadn’t
been in the barn the previous night, he was sure. Worried again, he had another
quick check, and was relieved that he was still a gelding and did still have a
black tail!
Where did all these spare horses come from, and where did
they go in between times? Did they go to the same place as the bunkhouses? Were
the horses all doped up to the eyeballs so that they didn’t panic when
appearing and disappearing? And where did all those horses come from in Prime of Life? Why were there always so many horses in the corral when it
was in shot, and where did they go when it wasn’t in shot? Was the Ponderosa in
the middle of a temporal vortex similar to the Bermuda Triangle?
Of course, the Cartwrights seemed to spend an inordinate
amount of time horse breaking, usually endangering life and limb. Or rather the
stuntman's life and limbs. In fact, Joe was so fond of this activity that in The Hayburner he toddled off to the
neighbours and kindly broke in some horses for them, before riding to victory
in a race. Of course, the winning margin might have been bigger if Joe's
sticky-out ears hadn't provided so much wind-resistance. Cochise sniggered
softly as he remembered how Joe’s pants had split during one particularly
violent fall from a horse, revealing the white flag of surrender! Or had that
been his stunt double?
Looking around the barn, Cochise wondered where the wagon,
the buckboard, the buggy and even the surrey went when they weren't being used.
He looked carefully around, but there was no trace of any of the vehicles. Of
course, they did take up quite a bit of room, so perhaps Ben had commissioned a
disappearing carriage house to save space.
The barn was a large and cavernous building, which had
played a pivotal role in the dramatic denouements of The Deadly Ones, Escape to
the Ponderosa and The Friendship.
Occasionally, a neighbouring barn was used, but this was generally only if a
tragic death was about to take place, such as in The Truckee Strip. Of course, the barn served equally well as a
setting for lighter moments, such as the bunny hotel of Ponderosa Explosion and the alternative sleeping accommodation for
Joe and Ben in Maestro Hoss. Cochise
had always wondered exactly why Joe had woken up entangled in the bridle, but
the youngest Cartwright had remained tantalisingly tight-lipped about that.
Strangely enough, for such a large building, there were remarkably few horses
stabled there.
A silent, stressed looking ranch hand came into the barn and
began to saddle them up. Soon, they were ready for action. Sport checked that
he was indeed wearing a breastplate and not a martingale, and was delighted to
see it was so. He put his ears back and nipped at the hand tightening the
cinch. “See here, Cochise,” he said, in a bossy tone. “Don’t you go around
trying to tell everyone about the life we lead. We’ll just keep it to
ourselves.”
“What do you mean?” Cochise asked, offended. As if he would
tell anyone about his doubts and worries.
“You’re always gabbing,” Chubb put in. He was standing with
one hind leg resting, in preparation for Hoss mounting. “All that neighing, and
all that champing at the bit! Don’t think we don’t know what you’re trying to
do!”
“I can’t help it,” Cochise returned. “I have a very delicate
mouth and the bit makes me drool something rotten. If I don’t champ, I get
sore.”
“We’ve heard it all before,” sighed Buck, who was feeling
quite laid back now. The tranquiliser was kicking in. He looked down at his
legs curiously. “Is it just me,” he asked, “or do my legs go all bandy when I’m
on this stuff?” For once, the other three horses remained silent. Buck was a
kindly creature, if a bit dozy, but his legs did have an alarming tendency to
go in four completely different directions.
All things considered, Cochise thought, they had a pretty
decent life on the Ponderosa. He was just rather glad that the alarming-looking
horse Joe had bought in The Gift had never arrived. It had clearly
escaped from the circus, with its albino eyes and predilection for rearing as
if hearing distant music. Not that Cochise had anything against circuses, per
say. He just hadn’t forgotten all the fuss with that elephant in Old Sheba.
It was just as well that there wasn’t a mirror in the barn,
for Cochise would have most alarmed to see that the white snip on the
right-hand side of his neck had completely vanished and his tail had turned
white overnight. Joe looked a bit concerned, but continuity assured him no one
would ever notice.
June 2003