Maims and Mayhem
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“It’s serious, Ben,” Paul Martin announced, turning away from
the bed where Joe lay. “I don’t know if he’ll pull through this time.”
Ben reached forward and pushed back a stray lock of hair from Joe’s forehead. On
the edge of the set, the hairdresser gave an anguished sigh. Didn’t he have any
idea of how long it took to arrange those curls? The time and effort to achieve
just the perfect degree of tousled perfection? Mind you, with the other three
members of the Cartwright family, all he had to do was wash the rugs at 40
degrees on the gentle cycle and then give them a gentle shake. Ah, the wonders
of modern synthetic fibres.
The Giggly Sisters moaned softly. Much as they loved maimed Joe (and their
Bonanza tapes were decidedly worn at certain part of My Brother’s Keeper, Second
Chance, The Gift, The Friendship, Bushwhacked and The Deadly Ones) this was a
tad more serious. The blonde clutched Paw, their pet bear, and sobbed gently
into his ruff. As if in sympathy at her distress, Joe’s legs twitched piteously.
This was always a sure sign that he was in deep distress and/or incredible
agony. Nevertheless, being a man of the old west (and a Cartwright to boot) only
the smallest of moans escaped from his perfect lips. A few beads of sweat dotted
his forehead, but this only added to his overall gorgeousness.
“What do you mean?” Ben demanded. Really, his tones were a little strident for a
sickroom. “Joe always recovers! He has amazing powers of recuperation!”
“We all do!” Adam interjected. “Remember I had that bad fall in Triangle? There
I was, confined to a wheelchair one moment, right as rain the next! He’ll be
fine, Pa, don’t worry!”
Sometimes, Ben felt that Adam was just a trifle inconsiderate where his little
brother’s well-being was concerned. Adam had never satisfactorily explained just
why he had felt compelled to shoot Joe. All that nonsense about thinking his
brother was a wolf! And, by his own admission, he’d stood by and watched Joe get
beaten to a pulp in The Julia Bulette Story, before casually slinging him over
his shoulder. Sometimes Ben wondered if it wouldn’t be best if Adam moved away
from the Ponderosa for a while. That way, Joe might just conceivably live long
enough to grow into his ears.
Paul stood patiently as those thoughts ran through Ben’s mind. When the furrowed
brow unknitted itself, the doctor judged it safe to continue.
“He’s running a high fever and that wound is badly infected.” Paul looked at the
bed, where his patient tossed restlessly. Always a consummate professional, Joe
was careful to keep his legs slightly bent, so that his feet did not hang
totally over the edge.
Automatically, Ben twitched the scabby pale-blue camberwick bedspread a little
higher, covering as much of Joe as was possible. He didn’t want to offend any
maiden-lady viewers of a certain age, after all. Or dispirit teenage boys who
would probably never attain the glory that was Joe. Although all that might
prove irrelevant, if Joe was as dangerously ill as Paul Martin said
The scary Indian picture glowered down on the pitiful scene, as Adam glowered at
the Giggly Sisters, who were busily uncovering Joe, so that as much of his lean,
golden body as possible was in shot.
“And no respectable young lady would be in a gentleman’s bedchamber!” he stated
sanctimoniously.
“Then why did you keep sloping off to spout Thoreau and leave that awful Reardon
girl alone with Joe?” demanded the redhead.
“Were she the one with the mouth like a cat’s bottom?” Hoss asked innocently.
“A young lady? Alone with my son?” Ben looked horrified and Adam turned to
inspect the curtains in great detail. “She could have done anything to him!”
Paul decided it was time to intervene, before matters got too nasty. “I’d better
stay the night, Ben.”
It was not that Ben Cartwright was mean. Or even parsimonious. But he had not
become the richest man in Nevada without watching the pennies. “I’ll charge you
the out-of-season rate, Paul!” he said, in a friendly manner. The hapless doctor
sighed. Trips out to the Ponderosa always seemed to leave him out of pocket and
it was becoming increasingly difficult to make ends meet.
“I hardly think he’ll be sleeping,” the redhead protested. You had to keep on
the right side of the doctor when there wasn’t another one within a hundred
miles. There again, if the need arose, the redhead wasn’t going to hesitate to
put Paul Martin right. You didn’t want the doctor getting a big head after all!
“He’ll be keeping a vigil here by Joe’s bed with the rest of us. Won’t you?” she
added pointedly and Paul nodded weakly. He was terrified of the redhead, having
heard stories about her from other members of his profession.
“Do you really think it’s as serious as that?” Adam protested. “We could just do
as we usually do and take turns sitting by the bed, wiping his fevered brow.”
The thought of doing this made Adam yawn hugely. He always fell asleep when it
was his turn to watch over Joe.
“It’s a good thing I made lots of cloths when it was raining last week,” Hop
Sing said, popping into the room, bearing a huge pile of neatly hemmed cloths.
The redhead solemnly handed her sister one of the cloths, took one herself and
they soaked them in the basin of cold water sitting there very conveniently.
Together, with infinite tenderness, they began to wipe down Joe’s body.
“Hold on!” Ben protested. “This isn’t the way it’s done! That’s my job!” He
flourished the fringed yellow duster that had somehow survived and made its way
from the ghost town of Martinville in Twilight Town to Lone Pine in Bushwhacked.
Yellow wasn’t the redhead’s favourite colour (along with green, but that’s
another story) but she had to admit that Joe wore the cloth with great aplomb.
“You’ve got to cover him up!” he cried. “It’ll help break his fever.”
“Fiddlesticks!” cried the redhead, who’d had similar discussions with her
mythical husband on many occasions. “You need to strip him off, let the air get
to him.” She eyed Paul. “Isn’t that right?”
Now, truth be told, Paul wasn’t too sure. He couldn’t quite remember doing
fevers in college. Was that the term he’d been billiards champion? Or the term
he’d spent mastering satin stitch and Algerian eyes before winning the
‘All-comers’ class at the summer show? Or had he simply slept through that
lecture? “Err,” he said. In theory, Ben paid his bills, although as a myriad of
attentive viewers can testify, no money was actually ever seen to exchange
hands. However, the redhead was fiercesome and kept subjecting Joe to
increasingly inventive maims in her stories. In desperation, he looked to the
blonde for succour.
“My husband’s a doctor!” she said cheerily, whipping the bed clothes down to
hip-level, having a keen sense of propriety. She did wonder why the nice
patchwork quilts were relegated to the bunkhouse, leaving poor, darling Joe with
the rather threadbare bedspread. Or perhaps the ranch hands actually made the
quilts, during those periods when the bunk house simply disappeared for several
weeks on end? Well, it would give them something constructive to do.
Paul was getting rather hot and bothered. Dealing with a dangerously ill patient
was one thing, but add Ben, his elder two sons, the Giggly sisters and a bear
into the mix – his temperature rose several degrees just thinking about it! How
he wished the girls would mop him off with one of those handy damp cloths that
abounded on the Ponderosa!
“Don’t forget about me!” Hop Sing hissed. Goodness, the hours he put in, slaving
over a hot stove, just to ensure there was enough calf’s foot jelly on hand,
just in case Joe indulged in yet another accident. Although Ben was finding it
increasingly difficult to explain to would-be cattle buyers why so many of his
beeves were slightly deficient in the foot area.
Patting Joe’s shoulder lovingly, Ben moved over to Joe’s desk, which had
cunningly located itself next to the window. Sighing deeply, he took out the
current volume of “Joe’s Big Book of Danger” and began to annotate the details
of this latest life-threatening injury. Thank heavens he’d started to
cross-reference all his youngest son’s many and varied maims! Otherwise, he
would simply have lost count of the number of times Joe had lain dangerously ill
with pneumonia. Never pleuro-pneumonia, interestingly enough. Automatically, Ben
rapped the wooden surface of the desk with his knuckles. No sense in tempting
fate after all! There were enough fanfic writers with vivid imaginations out
there and they certainly did not need any encouragement.
“Aren’t you all over-reacting just a little?” Adam asked. “After all, I managed
to drag Cain half way across the desert in The Crucible, after being abused and
seriously debilitated. And I managed just fine!”
“I hope you’re not suggesting we put a ridiculous headband on Joe?” the blonde
said firmly, giving him a look that struck fear into the hearts of onlookers at
fifty paces.
“What else was I supposed to do?” he protested. “It was boiling hot and all my
Toupee Toffee had melted! It was the only way I could keep my rug on!”
For some time, Hoss had been sitting quietly in a chair, watching as Joe
suffered bravely, wincing as the occasional agonised gasp burst out.
“You’ve gotta do something, Doc!” he pleaded. “What about that marvellous
medicine I rode all the way to Genoa for?”
Paul looked mortified. “That was another Doctor altogether!” he hissed.
“Doc Hickman,” elucidated the redhead. “Good medicine, dreadful bedside manner.”
“Called away by one of those frightfully convenient childbirth emergencies!”
added the blonde. “Doc Martin invented the Wonder Salve TM. You know – heals all
known maims without a trace!”
Paul flashed her an appreciative smile. His amazing salve that allowed Joe to
return to his devastating good looks, no matter how many times he was cut over
the left eyebrow. “It’s nothing,” he murmured modestly.
“Why not dissolve it in some water an’ give it to Punkin?” Hoss suggested.
“Iffen it works on the outside, why it seems to me it might work on the inside
too?”
Everyone stood in stunned silence for a moment as they translated this into
English. And then the room was a hive of activity. “Good thinking, Batman,” the
redhead muttered, and the blonde shook her head. Her sister did tend to get her
shows a little confused when she was seriously stressed.
In no time at all, a pot of the Wonder Salve TM was found in the depths of
Paul’s Gladstone bag and its contents decanted into a pan of boiling water. It
smelt heavenly, unlike most medicinal brews and they all drew in deep, soothing
breaths. “You could sell this as an inhalant, too,” the blonde told him. “You
could start the craze for homeopathic medicine all by yourself.”
Smiling broadly, Paul nodded. The only part of that statement that he’d
understood was the bit about a craze, and he understood that well enough. Why,
look at the way his new footwear was selling. It was just a pity his supplier
had spelt his name wrongly…
Once the Wonder Salve TM was dissolved, Paul took a cup and eyed it dubiously.
The sisters could understand why. If it did happen to be poisonous, they didn’t
want to try it on Joe. “Here, Adam,” said the redhead, holding his nose firmly.
“You try it.” The blonde, in a movement so well coordinated that it might have
been rehearsed, tipped the brew down Adam’s throat.
Naturally, he coughed and choked and complained vigorously, but after a short
time, Adam was still alive and well (“better luck next time,” the blonde
consoled her sister) so they decided to chance it on Joe.
The Cartwrights looked surprised as the redhead appropriated a syringe from
Paul’s bag and filled it with the new drug. However, they could quite see why
she’d done it as she gently squirted it, bit by bit, into Joe’s mouth, so he
didn’t choke. It was clear she had done this more than once! Well, her oldest
daughter did have a life threatening condition that required her to do all sorts
of things she’d rather not.
Slowly, but surely, Joe came around. Ever mindful of the fans, he knew what was
expected of him and wasn’t about to disappoint. If ever a situation called for a
touching Joe/Pa moment, this was it!
Opening his eyes slowly, Joe gazed up into his father’s face. “Pa?” he whispered
gently and the sound engineer frantically twiddled the dials on his recording
equipment. Clearing his throat slightly, Joe managed a slightly louder “Pa!”
this time enthused with a little trill of wonder and happiness.
“Everything’s alright, Joseph!” Ben soothed. “You’re going to be just fine!” And
I’ve got a long evening ahead of me, updating your Big Book of Danger. Never
know when we’ll have to use the salve again.
Joe tugged urgently at his father’s sleeve. “Pa!” he demanded urgently and his
father bent down.
“That Reardon girl? The one that was left alone with me when I was delirious?”
“What about her, son?”
Joe looked embarrassed. How could he possibly tell his father about his deepest,
darkest fear? The one that returned to haunt him night after night? Better just
forget about it, he told himself. The Cartwrights were good at that, after all.
It wasn’t every family that cheerfully strode out each morning over the very
ground where their mother/wife had been tragically squished.
“I think Joe’s a little concerned about who took care of his, err ‘personal
needs’!” Adam said, trying very hard to keep a straight face. His top lip
disappeared completely as he watched the look of horror on Joe’s face. The girls
shot Adam a look that promised retribution sometime very soon, and Paw growled.
Patting Joe reassuringly on the shoulder, Ben said, “Not to worry, son. It
wasn’t her. I looked after your personal needs.”
“Wow,” commented the redhead. They all looked at her. “For the first time on
screen, someone mentions going to the loo on Bonanza.”
Joe looked stunned. This just wiped out one memorable remark he’d made about
that very subject, a few years hence. Now what was he going to say instead?
However, Joe needn’t have worried, for continuity were on the job. For once.
“Sorry, boys,” the director called from off the set. “We seem to have missed
that last bit and we don’t have time for a re-take, so we’ll just leave it
there, okay?”
“You can always rely on continuity,” Joe commented. “They make everything
right.” He settled back on his pillows, secure in the knowledge that although
his bedroom might move around, his bed would always be too short and the scary
Indian would forever scowl down upon him. And although his little green jacket
had been hopelessly mangled, Joe knew that next week it would be restored to its
pristine state. Yes, continuity was a wonderful thing.
The End
Giggly Sisters Productions
September 2003