The Color Red and Blue and Purple
By
K.K. Shaulis
After seventeen years of living with him, Ben Cartwright could see a scheme of his baby son’s coming from a mile away. Of course, there were two things he didn’t know yet. How much trouble his baby son’s scheme was going to cause and how much it was going to cost him. He took a deep breath as he wrapped his buckskin Buck’s reins around the top rail of the fence and moved to stand beside his baby son Joseph alias Little Joe. “What’s that container sitting by the tree over there?” Ben asked clapping Joe on the shoulder and pointing to the “container” in question.
“Oh, that, Pa?” Joe grinned broadly turning his head to look at his father. “Miracle Growth…it’s the newest thing on the market, Pa. Just look ‘it the size of that bull.”
“Yeah, I’m been meaning to talk to you about what’s going on here,” Ben cleared his throat resting his forearms on the top rail of the fence and leaning ever so slightly forward to study the animal Joe had indicated.
“What’s going on here, Pa?” Clearly Joe was excited about whatever it was because his tone, his face and his body language all said so. “Oh, really…really big things are going on here, Pa….
“Like the bull?” Ben looked at him skeptically.
“Nah, not just the bull,” Joe rolled his eyes. “I’m talkin’ big, big business, Pa, with big, big profits. Oh, Pa, I can see it all now…” he put his left arm around his father’s shoulders and, turning him slightly around, indicated the vast open grassland behind them with his right hand. “Huge herds of Cartwright colossal cattle…”
“Cartwright colossal cattle?”
“…as far as the eye can see, Pa…Cartwright colossal cattle all over the Ponderosa except from for the lake and the trees, of course …”
“Of course,” Ben crossed his arms over his chest and nodded his head, listening to his youngest.
“And from all that Cartwright colossal cattle, we’ll make big steaks… colossal steaks, Pa, Cartwrights colossal steaks, Pa,…steaks so colossal, so tender and so juicy that they’ll be known all over the world and we can sell them to all the fancy restaurants and …wait…a minute,” Joe’s brain was working overtime again. “…Forget that, Pa…maybe we can open our own restaurant…may be in San Francisco and then Chicago and then New York, Paris, London, who knows? We could call them the Ponderosa steakhouse or…maybe Bonanza steakhouse so the ranch doesn’t git ta be a big tourist attraction and we have people running all over it and…wait… Hop Sing could let us use that recipe for apple pie and… we’ll put your picture on the menu as the founding father and….” Joe stopped abruptly since he found it hard to speak with his father’s hand over his mouth.
“Joseph,” Ben’s voice was soft and calm, “I know that you are excited about this…”
Joe nodded his head in the affirmative.
“…But do you have any notion how we are gonna feed all these colossal Cartwright cattle? What about all the grass that these animals are gonna eat?” Ben slowly removed his hand from his son’s face.
Joe twisted his face around testing to see if everything still worked before he said, “But, Pa, we have enough grass…”
“…for normal size cattle, Joseph. If all of them are the size of that …er…bull...well…it would only be a matter of months before we’d be stripped clean of anything green on the Ponderosa!’ Ben stated matter-of-factly.
“But there are other benefits you know, Pa,” Joe interrupted.
Ben raised his eyebrows in a question.
“Think of how happy the cows will be,” he giggled then sobered quickly as he noticed that his Pa did not find the humor in it at all.
“Happy cows,” Ben took a deep breath as he closed his eyes and shook his head. “Happy cows? The cows will ‘stampede,’” Ben emphasized this word with his tone, “When they see the size of him not to mention the color, Joseph. Why is he red anyway?”
Joe shrugged his shoulders and smiled weakly. “Must be a side effect but you’ve got to admit he does stand out in the crowd.”
“So I take it that he’s the only one that you’ve fed this Miracle Growth to so far since no other cow seems to be that jolly shade of red?” Ben roared in his youngest’s ear.
“Absolutely, Pa,” Joe tried to reassure him. “He’s one of a kind.”
“Hmmm,” Ben stared at the bull thinking for a moment or two. “Don’t you have a friend in Minnesota that has a little house and a whole mess of pretty little daughters?”
“Charles Ingalls?” Joe straightened up and looked at Ben in wonderment.
“Yes, that’s him. Good hearted soul. His hair’s worse looking than yours though,” Ben frowned at his youngest’s shaggy curly brown mop. “Do ya think maybe he could contact that great big fella that lives near him about taking Big Red off our hands?”
“You mean Mr. Edwards?” Joe still wasn’t quite sure who his father was talking about let alone what this had to do with the bull.
“No,” Ben shook his head. “I mean the big, big, big guy. You know, the lumberjack with that big blue ox.”
“Hey, Pa,” Joe snapped his fingers, the wheels turning in his head again. “You’re right! Big Red might be perfect for Paul Bunyan. He might be looking for a way to diversify his herd… Do some cross breeding…And Babe might appreciate a little help with the ladies himself,” he propped his left elbow on the fence and rested his chin in the heel of his left hand.
Ben sighed deeply, looked up at heaven and walked back over to Buck. We start with one scheme and here we end up with a totally different one. Well, that’s Joseph, he chuckled to himself. “I’ll send a wire to Paul and head back to the house! Don’t be late for supper!” he yelled to his youngest as he swung himself up into the saddle.
“…I guess if you cross a blue cow with a red bull, you’d get purple,” Joe didn’t notice his father ride off into the sunset. He just kept talking to himself. “Hmmm, wonder if there’d be any interest in something big and mean and purple way up there in Minnesota...like a mascot of some kind…But, hey, maybe we could come up with other colors too…Maybe green for Christmas and orange for Halloween…maybe even designer colors…”
The End
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© July 9, 2006, “The Color Red and Blue and Purple” by K.K. Shaulis.
All international rights reserved to the story by the author. I do not claim
any ownership or copyright in the Cartwright characters created by David
Dortort.