THE HEART OF THE PONDEROSA
............... the eyelids fluttered a few times and then slowly, the
flame within those emerald green eyes was extinguished and the life in his
body expired.
The people who had been standing around the bed with expressions of anxiety,
were now replaced with hollow beings. Nothing held them upright except the
pure
feelings of sorrow and loss.
The silver haired man sitting closest to him, once a strong and powerful
man was reduced to a frail and fragile old man within minutes. When the heart
of the man on
the bed had stopped beating, the old man's spirit was also lost. There
were no soothing words of comfort that would bring back the life of the one
he treasured, no
touch that would make the pain go away.
To his left, a slightly younger man, about 34 years of age, now felt as
if he had been pierced by a spear through the heart. No passages of Shakespeare
came to mind when he tried to find an answer of why him and not me.
An even larger man stood to his left and though his body radiated muscle
and power, despite all his physical attributes, he failed to bring back
the life of the man he so cherished. His body slumped
not from exhaustion, but from the pressure of having
to go on with life without him. He didn't know if he could do it.
A small Cantonese man stood in the shadows of the doorway watching the
scene played out before him. No herbal remedy existed in his hidden closet,
that would
enable this situation to turn into a happy one. Tears slowly slid down
his face for the one he could almost call "son".
*********************************************************************
The next morning, a gust of wind blew down an empty Virginian City street.
No one walked the street, no dog was barking at passer-by’s. The doors to
the saloon
remained silent and the remainder of businesses in town were closed. The
only sound that could be heard was that of the church bell tolling, signalling
that a great loss
had been suffered. However, the graveyard remained empty.
A few miles away underneath a large tree beside a crystal clear blue lake,
the citizens of Virginia City gathered.
A small pine box lay beside a freshly dug grave. Three men were seated
a short distance from the hole, seated because their legs refused to hold
them up at this most
saddest of occasions.
On top of the pine box lay flowers, a photograph of a young woman with
curly brown hair and emerald green eyes. Beside it lay the photograph of
a black and white
pinto horse and a left-handed gun belt complete with pearl handled pistol.
The minister stood before everyone and read a sermon of praise and kind
words about the one that lay in the box. But today, even his own sermon
could not bring
solace to him or anyone else in the congregation.
Roy Coffee stood silently and looked at the coffin beside him deputy Clem.
He would miss those occasional games of checkers in his jailhouse on Sunday
afternoon's. And the fights he would routinely break up at the "Bucket
of Blood" saloon. His town would be very quiet for a very long time he thought
to himself.
A few young girls clung to each other near the giant tree, thinking about
how the Saturday night dances would never be the same again. Paul Martin,
the local physician had also been standing amongst the crowd and wept tears
of sorrow at the thought that his efforts had not been enough to help this
family he was so often part of. He would have to close the cover on his
thickest medical file forever.
If someone were to take a photograph of this scene, it would as if time
stood still. No one moved, no one talked except the minister. The only thoughts
people had
were that the person who meant the most to everyone there today, had finally
gone to dwell in the house of the lord with his mother.
A few weeks later, a drifter happened to be walking down the road beside
the lake, when he spotted the two headstones laying side by side each other
at the lake.
The first as he read said MARIE CARTWRIGHT - Loved Always by her family.
The second, had a few more words on it, it read:
JOSEPH FRANCIS CARTWRIGHT
31ST OCTOBER 1842
TO 12TH NOVEMBER 1864
22 YEARS - GONE TO HIS MOTHER
KEEP HIM SAFE O'LORD FOR HE IS
THE HEART OF THE PONDEROSA.
JULES
Yeah I know you all hate me for posting this up – this is the first piece
of bonanza anything that I wrote about 2 years Ago but have been too afraid
to post it up
anywhere – Please be gentle – I would never deliberately kill him off
in
Any of my other fan-fic stories.
Anybody need a tissue ???????????????????
RETURN TO LIBRARY