Debra
Petersen (Debra P.)
THE HAT IN THE WATER
DEBRA P.
FEEDBACK: Any and all strongly encouraged!
A
strong gust of wind blew through the pine trees and almost lifted Joe Cartwright’s
hat right off of his head. Joe managed to catch the hat and hold it on
until the wind died down. Then he drew his green jacket more closely
around him and turned to look back to where his brother Hoss was riding behind
him.
“Let’s
get a move on, big brother,” he said. “We don’t want to keep Adam
waiting. And the sooner we meet up with him the sooner we can head
home. It’ll be so good to flop down in front of a nice warm fire.
It’s way too early in the season for it to be getting this chilly.”
“You
got that right, sure enough,” Hoss answered. “With the fall startin’ out
this cold I just hope it don’t mean a long hard winter comin’ on.”
“Amen
to that!,” Joe replied, and the two of them continued on their way at a faster
clip.
Hoss
and Joe had spent much of the day checking the line shacks in the area to see
what supplies needed to be stocked before bad weather set in. Their older
brother Adam had been marking trees to be cut for the last phase of their
current lumber contract, which he was anxious to see completed while the
weather held. They
were to meet by a pond which was known to the Cartwrights as Little Lake
Elizabeth in honor of Ben’s first wife. Ben had wanted her name to be
associated with some appropriate spot on the Ponderosa in consideration of the
way she had encouraged him to pursue his dream of coming west, and he felt she
would have loved the intimate seclusion of this particular spot.
Joe
and Hoss wound their way through the woods following the course of a rapidly
flowing stream until they came within sight of the spot where it broadened out,
forming the pond. As they neared their destination Joe spied the tall
sorrel horse, in full tack, standing a little away from the water’s edge and
quietly grazing on the grasses there.
“Sport’s
here already, so Adam must be pretty close by,” he ventured. Joe put his
hand to his mouth. “Adam! Hey, Adam!,” he shouted. There was
no reply.
“Well,
like you say, he can’t be too far off,” Hoss put in. “We might just as
well sit down over there and wait for him.” He gestured toward a
spot close to the water where a couple of old dead trees had fallen.
Their trunks would make a good place to rest themselves. Joe readily
agreed and the two of them dismounted.
As
they walked toward the spot Joe suddenly stopped. His right hand reached
out to grab Hoss’ arm while his left hand pointed toward the water.
“Look, Hoss! Look there!” There was alarm in his voice and in his
eyes. As Hoss’ gaze followed the gesture and he spied what had caught his
brother’s eye, his own face took on an expression of dismay. There,
floating on the water some distance from the shore, was a black hat with silver
studs decorating the band.
Adam’s
hat.
For
just a moment Hoss and Joe stood there staring, absorbing the implications of
what they were seeing.
Finally
Hoss spoke in a hesitant voice.“Joe, do ya think...?”
“I
don’t know, Hoss!,” Joe shot back a little too sharply. “Come on. Let’s
check it out!” He hurried forward with Hoss right next to him.
As
they neared the water’s edge they felt the ground beneath their feet becoming
quite muddy and slick. Joe found himself beginning to slide, and he
reached out to grasp his brother’s arm to keep from falling. Hoss grabbed
him to steady him.
“Careful
there, little brother,” he said, “you don’t wanna...” Hoss didn’t finish
the sentence. His eyes were focused on a spot a few yards ahead of them
at the very edge of the pond. Joe turned his gaze toward the same
spot...and felt something catch in his throat.
The
mud showed definite marks of someone’s boots sliding and scrambling...and the
marks appeared to go all the way into the water itself.
“Oh
no,” Joe whispered in an unsteady voice. “It looks like...”
“Like
Adam was walkin’ there, started slidin’ and couldn’t stop himself,” Hoss
continued for him in a low voice.
Something
seemed to click inside Joe, galvanizing him into action. “Come on,
Hoss! We’ve gotta find him! Maybe it’s not too late!”
Shedding his jacket hurriedly he proceded to do a flat dive into the
water. Hoss followed right after him.
The
coldness of the water shocked them and they immediately bobbed to the surface,
gasping for air. Intent on their grave task they wasted no time plunging
back beneath the surface. Joe managed to open his eyes under the water,
but he spied no trace of the familiar figure he hoped desperately to see.
He stayed under for as long as he was able, then came up again for air.
As
he was treading water he was thinking back to that morning after breakfast and
the last words he had exchanged with Adam before they all rode out to their
day’s work. Adam had made some casual comment regarding the list of
things to be checked for at each line shack and, as too often happened, Joe
heard it as a criticism of him, a questioning of whether he was up to the
responsibility.
“I
know what we have to check for... all right?!,” he had snapped.
Adam
had just looked at him for a few seconds, then, declining the bait, had simply
said “Sure, Joe,” and turned away to mount his horse.
It
hurt Joe to think that the words of that uncomfortable exchange might be the
last ones he would ever say to his brother...or hear from him. Adam
could be irritatingly bossy, to be sure, but somehow the idea of him not being
there was...unimaginable. Joe was suddenly and poignantly aware of just
how much he relied on his oldest brother. Somehow, with Adam around, you
just knew things were going to come out all right in the end . Projecting
that aura of reassurance was something Adam must have learned from their
pa. They couldn’t lose him this way. They just couldn’t.
Hoss’
head broke the surface and, after catching his breath, he began to glance
around seeking Joe. Their eyes met, each of them asking the same
unspoken question, the answer to which was all too obvious. Neither of
them had met with any luck. Joe made a motion with his hand indicating
going under again. Hoss nodded in reply and they each took in a big gulp
of air and sank once more beneath the surface.
A
number of times they submerged...they lost track of exactly how many
times...and each time they both came back up without finding anything.
Finally, exhausted, discouraged and very, very cold they both latched onto a
long, thick branch that had broken off of a tree and now extended from the bank
well out into the water. They looked at each other, each praying to find
some sign of hope in the other’s eyes but finding none.
“Any
trace at all?” Joe finally said.
“Not
a thing.” Hoss shook his head sadly. “Joe, I hate to say it, heck I
hate to even think it, but if Adam’s been under the water all this time...and
we don’t even know how long he might’ve been there before we came by...I’m
afraid there won’t be a dang thing we can do for him, even if we was to
find him.”
Hearing
Hoss say it only confirmed what Joe had been thinking himself. He found
himself almost ready to burst into tears. Suddenly the image of
their father came into his mind and a new thought came with it, adding to his
distress.
“Oh
God, Hoss. How are we ever going to break this to Pa?”
“Break
what to Pa?,” another voice cut in.
At
the sound of that voice Joe felt his heart leap with something more than just
the effect of being suddenly startled. He and Hoss both abruptly turned
their heads toward the source of the sound and their eyes grew wide with joyous
disbelief.
Adam
stood there on the bank of the pond, bare headed, his arms crossed over his
chest, looking down at his brothers with an expression in which curiosity and
amusement were mixed in equal measure. His boots and the lower part of
his pants appeared soaked and heavily spattered with mud.
“Adam!,”
Joe exclaimed when he found his voice. “You didn’t fall into the pond!”
“Obviously,”
Adam responded. “But why would you think that I...?” The answer suddenly
occurred to him. “Of course...my hat.”
“Yeah,
the hat...and the boot marks in the mud right there.” Joe was still
clinging to the tree branch, and his relief at seeing his brother was beginning
to be tempered by the thought of all the anxiety and effort that he and Hoss
had undergone...for nothing. “What happened? It sure looked like
you must have slid right into the water.”
“Well,
it started when a gust of wind blew the hat right off my head and it landed out
there.” Adam gestured with his arm toward a spot a little away from the
shoreline. “I found a long, thin branch and tried to use that to retrieve
it.” He indicated his pants. “And as you can see I got myself pretty
dirtied up doing it. That’s how I left those marks in the mud.”
Joe
could believe the part about the wind blowing his brother’s hat off easily
enough, remembering how the same thing had nearly happened to him.
“But
where’d you get yourself off to? And why didn’t you answer when Joe
called?” Hoss finally overcame his own astonishment at the sight of
his brother enough to take up the questioning.
“The
reason I had so much trouble was because the branch I was using wasn’t quite
long enough, so I went to find a longer one.” Adam sounded just slightly
exasperated at having to explain something that seemed so obvious to him.
“And
then?,” Joe prodded. There was clearly more to it.
“Then
I spotted a rather large bear snooping around, and I’ve spent the last...well
I’m not sure exactly how long, but it’s a considerable amount of time...trying
to stay as still and quiet as possible to avoid being detected by him.
Fortunately, the wind was in my favor and the bear never picked up my
scent. I did hear Joe call once, but I couldn’t take the chance of
responding. It took an awfully long time for that bear to get tired
and wander off. At that point I decided to just forget about the branch
and head straight back here,” Adam explained. He came down closer to the
water and placed his foot on the end of the thick tree limb that rested on the
bank.
“So
the two of you spied the hat, jumped to the natural conclusion and plunged into
the freezing water to try to rescue me,” Adam continued. “That’s really
quite touching, I must say. It’s nice to know that my younger brothers
have enough regard for me to be willing to do that. By the way, did
either of you by any chance actually happen to retrieve the hat?”
The
slightly condescending tone that Adam was taking ruffled Joe’s spirits
some. He looked over at Hoss and saw that he seemed to feel the same way
about it. Their eyes met and it was clear that the same mischievous
thought was beginning to form in both of their minds.
“No,
Adam, I’m right sorry, but we didn’t,” Hoss replied.
“It
seems to have disappeared,” Adam said, shielding his eyes with his hand and
gazing out over the rippling water. “Well, I suppose it couldn’t be
helped. It was probably ruined anyway. It won’t be hard to get a
new one. For right now, I think you two had better get out of that icy
water before you both catch pneumonia. Here, let me help you.” He
took several careful steps out onto the tree limb and, when he was close
enough, leaned over to offer a hand to Hoss.
“Why,
thank you, older brother. That’s right kind of you,” Hoss said.
Adam
never noticed the sly grin on Hoss’ face or the matching one on Joe’s.
Hoss reached up to grasp Adam’s hand, but instead of trying to climb up out of
the water he suddenly yanked Adam forward, pulling him right off the tree
branch!
Adam
fell forward into the water with a great splash. He came up sputtering
with the sound of his brothers’ laughter ringing in his ears.
“Why,
you two scamps!,” he exclaimed, a dangerous gleam coming into his eyes.
“I ought to...” He lunged forward in Joe’s direction and attempted to
dunk his younger brother’s head under the water.
And
with that the fight was on! The three Cartwright brothers were dunking
each other, splashing each other, chasing each other, shoving each other,
ganging up on each other in various combinations, swallowing a great amount of
water in the process and, all in all, having a riotous good time.
And
then they heard the voice, like that of some Olympian god.
“WHAT
THE DEVIL IS GOING ON HERE?!,” the voice thundered.
The
three brothers immediately stopped their activity and all looked toward the
bank where the imposing figure of their father stood, scowling down at
them.
“Pa,
what are you doing here?,” Joe piped up in a small voice. The cold of the
water, unnoticed in the midst of the commotion, was beginning to get to him
again.
“I
knew you three planned to meet here to ride home together and I thought that
for once it might be nice to join you and ride with you. Is there
anything so strange about that?,” Ben replied in a stern tone.
“No,
course not, Pa,” Hoss spoke up. “In fact it’s a real nice....” His
voice trailed off under his father’s glare.
Adam
remained coolly silent.
Ben
Cartwright looked down at the three sodden, bedraggled figures standing in the
water before him and was left shaking his head. “My three grown sons,
behaving like children once again,” he muttered to himself. And this time
it isn’t even springtime!”
THE
END