HANGING POSSE
By JULES
Author’s Notes:
The idea
for this story belongs to Theresa Green.
It was her inspiring thoughts that led me to believe that most
Fan-fiction authors have an obsession with their characters that are rarely understood
by their husbands, partners, families and friends.
Although the characters might differ from story to story
and fandom to fandom, we all have been told that we are strange, our thoughts
stranger and our passion in such pursuits unnatural.
Our
families scream that they cannot contact us by phone because we are tying up
the line while on the internet reading.
They tell us that the people we declare to love so much are fictional
and don’t exist.
Please
don’t ask how a mobile phone got in
Theresa,
I thank you from the bottom of my heart as your story is truly one of the
funniest things I have read to date.
My husband even threatened to book an appointment for a psychiatrist
because I was laughing so hard at the computer screen.
I decided
rather than get upset, I would get even and
immortalize him forever as a character in my stories. Forever to remain trapped there in a world he
does not understand and declares should not exist.
So John,
dear, this is for you………….. and I do love you, but you
should know better than to cross your author wife. and so this is what
happened…………Place: Front door of the
Ponderosa Ranch
Time of
Day: Just before dawn………….
“Ben! Ben
Cartwright!” Sheriff Roy Coffee shouted, hammering his fist on the front door
of the Ponderosa homestead, as loudly as he dared. “Ben, you must come and see
this! Ben Cartwright!”
The door
opened so suddenly that
Ben was
dressed in his maroon coloured robe, his silver hair with a
mind of its own, was disheveled. The
man looked extremely tired and very annoyed.
There were beads of sweat on his brow and upper lip.
“What day
is it today,
Sheriff
Coffee frowned. Was Ben losing his
marbles? “Umm. . . Tuesday, Ben.”
“And what
time of day is it,
“An hour
or so before dawn, I reckon,”
“Precisely! And
yet, despite knowledge of that, you stand before me now. There had better be a
bloody good explanation!”
“
“If
someone looks to have died, call Doc Martin and have Paul poke whoever the poor
bastard is in the ribs a few times and be done with it,” Ben stated firmly. “If someone is in trouble, then for the love
of God, find another good citizen of
“Ben, there is. A large body of men – strange
looking men – has been spotted approaching your place,”
Ben’s demeanour altered immediately. “Indians?”
“No, Ben.
Not Indians. They are altogether more
bizarre than that. Maybe
if you was to take a look for yourself?”
Ben ran
his hand down his haggard face and sighed deeply, looking back longingly into the
bedroom. “Alright,” he said. “Give me a
few minutes.” He shut the door.
News of
their timing could not have been worse.
He heard muffled voices from inside the bedroom and then a few moments
later, Ben emerged wearing his normal work clothes and leather vest, with his
boots in his hand.
“Lead on,
**************************************************************
The large
group of strangers outside the sturdy, homestead of the
Ponderosa were indeed a motley crew.
The citizens of
They were
men, but their attire was outlandish in the extreme. Their pants and shirts and
jackets came in all sorts of colours and
textures. Not a single one of them wore
a vest or gun belt.
Some of them wore glasses in front of their
eyes. They did not move like an organized group – on the contrary they milled
about like people in a market place – but there was a determined expression on
every single face. It was as if these
men were not used to confrontation, but would brazen it out it if they had to.
“Have we
got the readings on this place, yet?” one of them at the front of the group
asked.
“Yeah, yeah. Just coming.” A second man holding some kind of box in front
of him, squinted down at the object and then tapped
the front with a finger. Here we go. . .”
“Angst reading?”
“Very low, Dennis. Very low indeed. Only three-point-two milliscreams.”
“Ah!
Good! A comedy universe, mate. Just
what we need. Don’t want anyone getting hurt, do we. What about the
Little Joe lust level?”
John
pressed a button and tapped the front of the box once again, a frown furrowing
his brows. “The needle seems to have gone off the scale!”
“Struth! What about the romance reading? What kind of levels of
kissing and fooling around are we dealing with here?”
Once
again, John pressed another button. He yelped as the smoke started to pour out
of the box. He tossed it onto the floor
and gestured for everyone to stand back.
In seconds the box exploded, showering the assembled men with tiny bits
of plastic and metal.
John
glanced at Dennis. “I think that answers my question.”
“Yeah. So whose
universe do you think we are in? Susan’s?”
John
shook his head. “Nah! Angst reading’s too low. What
about your wife’s world?”
Dennis
looked around him. “H’m. Not sure. Close, but not
quite. It just feels a bit too. . . quiet. You know
what I mean?”
John
grimaced. “Oh, don’t talk to me about the quiet, mate. Not after the
Dennis
nodded sympathetically.
“Yeah! Anyway,”
continued John glancing round at the men surrounding them. “I think we’d better
keep our minds on the game in hand. Whose universe are we in?”
“Get out
the Authorial Analysis meter. That’ll help.”
“Ah,
yes!” John reached into a back pocket and produced another strange device. He
pressed a button and waved the machine around in the air. “This should do the
trick.” He pressed a second button and a spool of paper churned out of the
little box. “Here we go,” he said, reading from the list. “Over-reliance on
semi-colons; tendency to use compound sentences; occasional lapses into
modernisms; heavily dialogue-dependant text; virtually negligible plot;
unrealistic portrayals of inter-racial relationships; unhealthy fascination
with Little Joe’s anatomy; overuse of innuendo; worryingly comprehensive
knowledge of medical practices and herbal remedies. . . Oh, gods, Dennis! This all points in one direction!”
The two
men spoke in unison.
“JULES!”
John
pinched the bridge of his nose, realising even as he
did so that the fact that he was pinching the bridge of his nose should have
told him that he was in Julie’s territory.
Her
characters were always pinching the bridges of their noses when they were exasperated; and there was
another one of those sodding semi-colons!
I mean,
how pretentious can you get? He must stay on his guard – if he were not
careful, he would find himself in the midst of one of those sentences –
convoluted in the extreme, pointless and over-elaborate – that littered the
work of Jules - the result no doubt of reading too much.
He would
find that the narrative viewpoint had been shifted,
with no subtlety whatsoever, mind you, into an internal monologue, probably
in italics. I must stay alert! These men are depending on me! Dennis and
the others are depending on me. . .
Aware
that the men were starting at him with puzzled expressions, Dennis gathered his
composure. “Right,” he said decisively, “we need to find to get a little organized
here.” He pulled a long piece of paper out of his pocket.
“Now,
John?” He began to run a finger down the long, long list. “Ah, yes! Here it is!
Can someone find. . .” He turned round and found himself face to face – well,
no – face to chest, with a very tall man indeed. He looked up.
. . and up. . . into hazel eyes and a hairy face and an expression of
benevolent, if somewhat tired, kindliness.
“Yes.” The accent was definitely Australian.
“We would
appear to have materialised in your wife’s Fan
Fiction universe.”
“I know.”
Dennis
looked at him. “Really, mate? How can you tell?”
John held
up one finger. “Listen. Can you hear that?”
Dennis
strained his hearing. “What am I listening for?”
John
frowned at the crowd of men, chattering and complaining amongst themselves.
“RIGHT! LET’S HAVE
A BIT OF HUSH, PLEASE!” His voice could have been heard all over the
ranch. The crowd settled down, looking
expectantly at the big man. “NOW, EVERYONE LISTEN CAREFULLY!”
To a man,
they remained silent, struggling to hear whatever it was that John wanted them
to observe. On the very edge of hearing there was a whirring noise.
“Who can
tell me,” said John in less strident tones, “what that sound is?”
There was
a pause. Hesitantly, one or two hands were raised.
John
continued. “Now we did this last week didn’t we – the positive correlation
between Fan Fiction Character Corruption and the Effect on Authors Families.”
He raised his eyebrows expectantly and looked around at the crowd.
“It’s
always the same hands every time, isn’t it! Come on,
now! Think about the graph that I drew on the board – revs per minute plotted
against Bonanza time-line references. Yes? Remember? Now, what is that sound?”
A few
more hands were raised. Suddenly there was a beeping noise from the back of the
crowd.
John’s
gaze swept the throng like a hawk. “RIGHT! How many
times do I have to tell you to switch your mobile ‘phones off in lessons?” He started to walk towards the source of the beeping, huge
strides eating up the ground.
The
hapless mobile-owner found himself looking up into a
stern face. “Let’s have it then. You know the rules,” said the tall man,
holding his hand out. “I don’t know how you are getting a signal in
Pressing a button on the ‘phone and putting it to his ear,
John continued, “Hello? Who is this..?
No. . . he can’t talk now.
He’s busy. . . No, I can’t put him on. . . He’ll call you back later. No! No!
I’m not taking any messages! Goodbye.” He handed the phone to the other man.
“Don’t
let it happen again!” Turning back to the crowd he went on, “Now, where were
we? Oh, yes! That noise. Come on now, boys! What is that sound? Think about
that graph. What could that sound be, eh? Yes, you there with the moustache! Yes, you!”
“Sound of
the phone lines being clogged up again, sir.”
“Yes!
Well done that man!” Turning to Dennis he continued. “No-one makes a connection
more swiftly or types on a keyboard more often than my wife!”
“Bugger!”
one of the other men shouted out in frustration.
“’Bugger’
being the operative word, mate!” John
said.
“Exactly!” Dennis
agreed.
“Right!”
somebody in the back said. “And having established
exactly where we are and what we are up against, what are we going to do?”
“Leave
that to me,” said John, setting his jaw determinedly. “I have a plan. Our main
weapon is surprise. Surprise and fear… our two main weapons are surprise, fear
and—”
Dennis
took hold of his arm. “Steady on, John. This is Bonanza, not Monty Python, you know.”
The tall
man shook his head. “Sorry! Don’t know what came over me. Don’t even like Monty
Python!”
Dennis
glanced round at the huge crowd of men around them. “We can’t take all this lot
in with us. They’ll think we’re invading!”
John
thought for a moment. “It’s going to be tough in there. We need only the most
dedicated and determined men.”
“And
women!” shouted two voices over the others.
“Women?” John looked
round to locate the voices.
“Yes,”
one woman said, introducing the other as her sister. The two women politely eased their way to the
front. “We are going in there with you!” The accent was American.
“But this
is The Revenge of the Fan Fiction Husbands, madam. Who are you
two ladies?”
“We are
Fan Fiction sisters.”
“Sisters?”
“Yes! Out
sister spends every spare waking moment on that computer, half the time writing
to your wife and others, I might add!” One of the sisters poked John on the
arm. “How is she going to get out and meet people if she spends all her time
with Fan Fiction, eh?
“But—”
“Enough already! We
are coming with you! It’s the only way I’m going to get any action taken
against these people!”
John
shrugged, recognising that he was
not going to win that particular battle. “Okay, but we need some kind of
selection procedure for the rest of them. I’m not just taking anyone along.
This could be bloody. We need only those men. . . er, persons who are ruthless and cold-blooded.”
“We could
take everyone who is a lawyer,” suggested Dennis.
“Or a tax
inspector?” said another man with a receding hairline.
“No, no!”
said John. “I was thinking of a different kind of selection criterion.” He took
a deep breath and bellowed at the top of his voice. “RIGHT!
CAN YOU ALL HEAR ME? GOOD!
Now, I
want everyone to listen carefully. We’re not all going into the house, alright.
I’m only taking the most dedicated. Those who have suffered
the most. So, please step over there,” he gestured to a space to one
side, “if your wife,” there was a squeak, “or sister, owns a poster of Adam or
Little Joe.”
Almost
the entire crowd started to move towards the space.
“STOP! STOP!
Alright, forget that. Not selective enough, obviously. Okay! BACK AGAIN, PLEASE!
Right! Move across if. . .” he thought for a second, “if your wife knows the
date of Michael Landon’s birthday.”
This time
three-quarters of the crowd chanted in unison “October 31st” and started to
walk.
“NO! NO!
BACK AGAIN! STOP! STOP! Jeez!” John rolled his eyes. “Step forward if. . . if.
. .” his voice was desperate now, “if your wife owns Bonanza pyjamas, Adam socks, a cardboard Little Joe, a Hoss doll, a model
of Cochise or any of the other horses from the show, knows so much about Bonanza that you have to resort to
cheating in order to beat her at any trivia game.”
The crowd
muttered in confusion. “What about Bonanza
coffee mugs?” asked one of the Fan Fiction sisters. “Do they count?”
“Life-size
cardboard cut-outs, complete with replica gun belts
and hats on?” shouted a man at the back.
Dennis looked sidelong at the John. “Did you say ‘cheating’?”
Dennis
whistled. “Cheating and winning is not very Australian, is it John!”
“No,”
said John with a smirk. “We Aussies usually cheat and blame it on someone else
anyway!”
“Ha!”
Dennis elbowed him in the ribs. “Nice one!”
John shot
two of the husbands both a dark look when they started to have a minor
disagreement of their own. “If you two colonials don’t behave, I’ll leave you
behind!”
Two men
pulled faces behind John’s back as the big man tried again.
“Look,
this is the last time, alright. LISTEN! Move over there if your wife owns at
least four items of Bonanza
merchandise.”
There was
a certain amount of counting on fingers and muttering under breath from the
crowd. Dennis could just about catch most of the comments. Duvet cover. . . mug. . . pencil case. . . poster. . . calendar. .
. After a minute or two, a large, but not overwhelming sub-section of
the crowd had moved to one side.
“At
last!” said John. “The rest of you stay here and wait, please. We’ll be back
soon.” He turned to his elite band. “Now men. . . erm, and you, two ladies. . . remember – this may be
a comedy universe, but keep your wits about you! There is always the possibility
of,” he lowered his voice ominously, “slapstick!”
Several
members of the group winced.
“Come on
then,” said John leading the way. He turned back suddenly. “Oh, can someone
pass me that sports bag, please? Thanks. We won’t get far without that,” he
added cryptically.
He lugged
an enormous, battered, bag over his broad shoulder and, humming and whistling
simultaneously in a manner that would drive any reasonable person to
distraction, led them towards the front door of the homestead.
*****************************************************
Ben
Cartwright watched as a smaller group of the men began approaching the house
from the other side
of the yard. He had built this ranch up
from nothing but his hands in the bare earth, but he had never seen such a
strange collection of men.
They did
not have the air of criminals. Nor did they show the humility and awe that Ben
had seen in those who sought for him to fix some pending disaster in their
lives. His curiosity was piqued.
The
leader of the men stepped right up to Ben, seemingly fearless in the face of
someone
highly respected in
these parts. The man’s face was
expressionless, but Ben could sense a great deal of emotion behind the mask of
calm. Ben stood up to confront the
man and was disappointed to find that he had to look up a long way to meet the
man’s gaze.
“Greetings, strangers! What brings you to the Ponderosa?”
“We want
a word with you, Benny!”
The
stranger did not seemed bothered by Sheriff Coffee placing his hand on his gun in
a
warning gesture.
“Yeah!” A voice
rang out from the small crowd of strangers. “You tell him, John!”
“Yes! And
tell him to get them other ones to get out here pronto! The
skinny, weedy one. He’s the trouble maker! And his long drink of water brother, dressed
in black!”
Several
voices took up the cry.
“Morbid bastard!”
“Just ‘cos he has got brains and uses them to beat the baddies!.”
“Why does
he always wear only black, that’s what I want to know! Bloody
ridiculous!”
John held
up his hand for quiet. When he spoke his voice was perfectly calm.
“If you
don’t mind, Mr Cartwright, we’d like our wives back, please!”
“And
sister!” came the two women’s voices from the back.
“Your
wives?” said Ben.
“And sister! Don’t forget
sister!” the two female voices chimed in again.
“Yeah, alright, madam. And sister!” said John. “We want them back right now, and believe you
me, sunshine, we are not taking no for an answer!”
Ben frowned. “I’m afraid that I have no idea what you—”
“Oh,
don’t play the innocent with me, Mr Big Shot Rancher! You know exactly what I
mean! For years you’ve been luring our women away with your three sons and all
your hard earned wealth. Somehow they
thought choosing that Michael What’s-his-name and that Pernell
long-drink-of-water character to play your sons and, BAM! That’s it! All of a
sudden the shirtless, dragged-through-a-bush-backwards look is where it’s at!”
Ben
looked affronted but before he could object, the big man continued.
“And it’s
not just those two is it! Oh, no! I’ve got men out there, poor neglected men,
whose wives are smitten by. . . by Clay! And he’s not
but been seen except in one episode!
“I really
do not—” began Ben, but could not get a word in edgeways.
“And do
you know who really winds us up? The one who drives us up the bloody
wall? Eh? LITTLE JOE! LITTLE JOE!” Ben noticed a vein pulsing on the
side of the man’s head.
“I mean
at least there is a certain machismo about Hoss,” John explained. “At least a
bloke can look at Hoss and think, yeah, big shoulders, rugged features, tall,
manly blah, blah, blah. . . At least a bloke can see why his wife is attracted.
And Adam!
He’s got wiry black hair that ain’t even real! He pounces around the room, spilling poetry
and classic music! He doesn’t even
fight with a proper with a gun and tells others that there is a better way of
sorting out things than fighting! He
stands around posing like a bloody ballet dancer, and they still want to go
to bed with him!”
“Yeah!” A roar of
support surged up from the crowd of strangers.
John, turned to his
supporters.
“And do
you know what my wife made me do? Do you know? I’ll tell you. My wife made me
watch two whole episodes of Bonanza one evening while I was eating
dinner in front of the T.V. before I even knew what was happening. And it was on football
night too.”
There
were horrified gasps from the crowd. Dennis had to be led to a chair for a bit
of a sit-down. Being forced to watch that stuff when there was an important
football game on TV? No wonder John was full of angst. Oh, how he had suffered!
“Yeah!”
continued John. He turned back to Ben. “So this is what we want.
Ben
looked confused. He had barely
understood a word these men had shouted at him
in apparent anger and
frustration.
“Anyway,
we would appreciate it if you and your. . . your. . .
sons would stop being so irritatingly alluring and allow our wives—”
“And
sisters!”
“—and
sister, yes, to focus on us for a change.
Ben
struggled to comprehend what the man was telling him. It did not make sense. “These women of whom you speak. Where are they?”
John
gestured with a huge sweep of his arm. “They’re out there, Benny! Thousands of
them! Tens of thousands! All with bloody silly pen-names, learning to write in
Cantonese and emailing each other with salacious comments concerning Little
Joe’s body.
Ben’s
eyebrows shot up.
“And
making up stories to fill in all the bits where the episodes missed out,” John
continued. “Like what happened after Joe rode away from Julia’s Palace. Or why
Adam was accused of committing murder when he supposed to be picking up
supplies from the General Store.
And these
women are always putting you lot in Alternative Universes where.
. . where. . .” John struggled for a moment.
“Where Ben
is running for political office and getting threatened by using Little Joe and
Adam,,” called a voice from the crowd.
“Or Joe
getting hurt in a train accident and almost getting kidnapped and held for
random as well by baddies who can’t read!” shouted another.
“Or how
Marie died and what you had to do to bring up your boys on your own!”
“Yeah,
yeah!” said John, regaining his confidence. “And. . . and
you wouldn’t believe how many times they have had you re-married for a fourth, fifth
or twenty-seventh time!”
Ben
paled. “Remarried. . ?”
“Oh yes!”
said John. “Many’s the story
in which they conveniently have Adam getting married and then something
happening to spoil it. Or Little Joe
where the woman are dressed in blue and die on the way
to the church when they are thrown from a wagon!”
“You
mean. . ?”
“Yeah! What has Adam got anyway, his own personal
harem so he can play hide-the-sausage?”
Ben was
aghast. “Adam? You mean, my son Adam?”
“Yep!”
Ben shook
his head in disbelief. “But Adam wouldn’t do something like that to a young
lady!”
“In this
universe he certainly would. But there are countless stories out there, Benny
me old mate, in which Adam or Joe are keeping a young lady warm at night!”
“No!” Ben
was horror-struck. “I sure they admire the ladies from afar, of course, but
their behaviour and feelings are purely platonic, I
assure you!”
John
nodded. “Yeah, yeah. . . Whatever. . . But my point is,
that Little Joe and Adam have to stop attracting our women, so that we can
enjoy our lives again without our wives calling out the wrong name in bed, do
you understand?”
“Erm, well, I do not—”
“I don’t
care how you do it, but we want the attention of our women focused on us at the
weekend, alright?”
“But—”
At this point
Dennis reached down into the blue sports bag and produced a strange-looking
gadget. “And just to make sure that you do your best, I’ve brought along this.”
“This,”
continued Dennis, “is a laptop computer – my laptop computer, actually,
although my wife seems to have half-hinched it – on
which there is a fiendishly clever bit of software.”
If it
works – and I was assured by the fifteen-year old on the Customer Support Desk
that it would, as long as I’d loaded patch 3.1.67 – will have a devastating
effect on the world of Fan Fiction.”
The
assembled husbands and two sisters looked hopeful.
“Oh,
yes!” continued Dennis, warming to his subject. “This software can sense Fan
Fiction stories being written anywhere in the universe, and it contains a
database of words and phrases that are not permitted to be written. Anyone using one of these phrases will find
that their computer spontaneously combusts and their modem connection to
FanFiction.Net crashes every time.”
“What is
in the database?” asked John.
“Ah, hold
on a second,” said Dennis, pressing a few buttons on the computer. “It’s quite
a comprehensive list. I carried out an analysis of FF.Net and so on, and came
up with the following forbidden phrases: High cheekbones.”
Several
husbands nodded approvingly.
“Bronzed and tanned skin,” Dennis continued. “Sculpted abdominal muscles;
leanly muscled thighs. . .”
The crowd
murmured their approval.
“. . . chestnut, locks and curls of hair; broad, heavily
muscled shoulders…” Dennis glanced at Ben as he spoke.
“Tousled
hair falling across emerald green, sensual eyes. . . The list goes on and
on.”
“I swear
to God if I see another “brushed a stray
curl out of his eyes” I am going
to pluck Little
Joe’s head as bald as a chicken,” came the outcry from one disgruntled husband.
One of
the two sisters now piped up again. “You’d better add something about collarbones,
honey! And slender hands! Definitely something about shirtless
Joe!”
“And forearms
corded with muscle!” shouted another voice.
“And
don’t forget slim hips!” called a second.
“And hairy
chests!” called a voice at the back.
Everyone turned to stare. “She’s
into Adam! What can I say?” The man shrugged apologetically.
“Right! Yes! Okay,
okay!” shouted Dennis. “I’ll add all of those to the database. No problem!”
Turning back to Ben he added, “So do you understand, Benny? No captivating our
women anymore, or you may find yourself a little short
of plotlines and character development.”
Then
remembering whose universe he was standing in, John corrected himself. “Well, you probably wouldn’t notice that, but. . . but. . . there’ll be no sex! Pass the message on to
Adam and Little Joe. They won’t get
their hands on a single date for weeks if they lure my wife to the keyboard.
Understand?”
Ben
decided that the best way to deal with this madman was to humour him. “Yes, of
course. I will give them the message straight away.” As soon as the situation was much
calmer, he would
have
John
nodded decisively. “Good! That’s sorted then.” He turned away and stalked
across the room. Dennis and the rest of the crew struggled to keep up with his
long steps.
“What’s
next then, boss?” asked Dennis.
John’s
face was a picture of iron determination. “Well, Dennis, we seem to have sorted
out the world of Fan Fiction, but there is a whole lot
of distractions out there that could muck up our plans.”
“Yeah!”
agreed a man in the back. “So what are we going to do?”
John
stopped and turned to Dennis. He took a deep breath. “Dennis, we are going to
crash every Michael Landon and Bonanza website on the Internet!”
Dennis
smiled grimly. “Yeah!”
It was
going to be a long night!
***********************************************************
THE END
Thank you goes to Leesa and Susan for lending me their partners and families for this
story. No offence to any individual is intended. We all love our families and partners.
First story I have ever written for Bonanza where I mention the boys but you don’t see
them. Strange.
JULES