Joe's Canine Friends, Part One

Letting Go

Written 2/11/04 to 3/15/04

DISCLAIMER: Nope. I don't even own the plot, should there be one. It was my sister's idea-I had a brain block back when I first started writing Bonanza stories, and she thought of this. So thanks. Again. :)

"…And don't forget about the paper I want you to write about your summer. Make sure it's at least two pages long, although you may write more if you wish," Miss Jones said.

"Yes, ma'am," the students in her one-room school-house chorused. Although there was one brown-haired boy in the second row who was sure he could find some way to worm out of the task.

"Alright, then. Class dismissed, and have a good summer!" Miss Jones called after her students as they stood up from their desks and hurried towards the door. She was sure that nobody heard beyond the 'class dismissed' part in their eagerness to get out.

The first one out the door had been Joe Cartwright, known as Little Joe to friends and family. Right behind the ten-year-old had been his best friend, Mitch Devlin. Although Mitch was a year older than Joe, the two boys got along very well.

"Whatcha gonna do this summer besides chores, Joe?" asked Mitch.

"I dunno," Joe answered as he mounted his pony, whose name was Starlight. "Maybe play some pranks on Hoss and Adam to keep from dying of boredom. That'd be fun." Joe giggled as he remembered the time he considered it a good idea to put a snake under the covers with Adam, his oldest brother. It hadn't turned out to be such a good idea after all, even if the snake wasn't venomous, and Joe had narrowly avoided getting spanked. He'd have to be very careful not to get caught next time.

After a moment of reminiscing, Joe invited Mitch over to his home, the Ponderosa, to celebrate summer vacation. Little Joe knew that his father would probably have a fit, but he also knew that his pa would forgive him in the end. It would probably mean a few days of sitting uncomfortably, but it would be worth it to have some fun with Mitch.

"Well, actually, Joe, I've kinda been meanin' to talk to you about that for a while, but it just slipped my mind…" Mitch said. Joe could tell this conversation wasn't going to be a happy one.

"So, what is it?" Joe prompted, eager to get it over with.

"Uh, well, my grandmother in San Francisco is sick, see, and my parents agreed to spend the summer with her and I sorta have to go along… sorry. I don't really want to but… you know how it is, right?"

Actually, Joe didn't know how it was. He didn't have a sick grandmother in San Francisco. He didn't even have a healthy grandmother in San Francisco! But he couldn't tell Mitch that he was crushed by his not being there in Eagle Station for the whole summer. Joe could tell that Mitch felt bad enough as it was.

Joe smiled as best he could and said, "Sure, I understand. Have a good time in San Francisco."

"Good time? Are you kidding? I'm gonna have to spend all my time in a smelly hospital room with a grouchy ol' lady and you're telling me to have a good time?" Mitch said rather loudly. Joe laughed and glanced around to make sure that nobody had overheard their conversation.

"Well, bye," said Joe. "When will you be coming back?"

"The day before school starts again—at night, I think," Mitch replied.

"So I'll see you in September, then?"

"I guess so. Bye."

Joe waved as they went their separate ways. Joe couldn't believe that he wouldn't see Mitch again for three whole months, especially since they had never been away from each other for that long before. Joe figured that he would have to think up some really good tricks to pull on his brothers so that he'd have something decent to tell Mitch when he came back.

Joe rode off towards home alone. Normally, he'd have his sixteen-year-old brother, Hoss, to ride home with. But since Ben had allowed him to skip the last day of school in order to help with some chores around the ranch, Joe had no one.

He had ridden for a while and was now on Ponderosa land. It was the biggest spread in Nevada territory, and Joe was very proud to live there. Adam had told him once that he could remember a time when it was so peaceful and quiet, a right pleasant place to live. "Then," Adam had said. "You were born and everything changed." Joe had been so mad…

Suddenly, a shot interrupted Joe's thoughts. Starlight got a little nervous at the sound and Joe just barely managed to stay on. Then he rode off in the direction that the shot had come from.

As he rode, Joe wondered two things. First, what had the person shot? And second, what was that person doing on Ponderosa land? Joe knew that if his father, Ben Cartwright, were ever to find out that someone was hunting—or even worse, poaching—on his land, he definitely didn't want to be around when they met.

Joe rode after the echoing noise as fast he could. Of course, Starlight couldn't go very fast and Joe got impatient when it took a full ten minutes just to find the spot where someone had obviously been poaching.

There was a dead wolf right in the middle of a clearing.

Little Joe leapt off his horse and slowly walked up to the still form of what had once been a very majestic and beautiful animal. He bent down and rubbed the wolf's neck to make sure that it was really dead (which probably wasn't the smartest way to find out). Luckily for Joe and unluckily for the wolf, the canine was really, truly dead. He sighed. Even though wolves were infamous for stealing people's chickens and other such things, Joe hated the sight of a dead animal. But there was nothing he could do about it now, so he remounted Starlight and prepared to head for home.

Just before he rode off towards the house, Joe heard a whining sound. He stopped and listened. There it was again—a soft, high-pitched whining sound. Joe dismounted and walked over to the bush where he thought the sound was coming from. Wondering what it could possibly be, Joe pushed the branches aside. They scratched at his arms, but he seemed oblivious to the pain when he saw what was making the whining sound.

It was six tiny wolf pups, each no bigger than the size of his hand, and they were all crying for their deceased mother.

In a way, Joe knew how the pups felt. When he was five, his own mother, Marie, had fallen from her horse and died. It had been the worst day of his short life, to see his mother so limp in his Pa's arms…

There wasn't much that Joe could clearly remember about Marie, now that he was ten. He did recall that she had been very beautiful and had sung him to sleep every night. Joe also remembered the times she would take him onto her lap and tell him all about her native New Orleans.

Joe, suddenly coming back from his reverie, glanced around for any sign of the pups' father. There was no one there except the wolf's body. Joe sighed. What would the wolf pups do? They would surely starve to death, if a larger animal didn't get them first. Joe shuddered at the thought and figured that there was only one thing to do—take the wolf pups home. The question was, how?

Little Joe's conscious began an all-out war. The angelic side told the boy to bring the pups home and tell his father about what had happened. Of all people, surely Pa could think of something?

The devilish side said that Joe should bring the pups home and try to raise them in secret. They would make great guard dogs, even better than the blood-hounds there were around these parts. And, if he trained them right, maybe they wouldn't bite anyone and be content with living off the Cartwrights' table scraps. To Joe, this seemed quite probable.

In the end, Joe's devilish side won out—as it usually did. So he scooped the six crying, squirming wolf pups into his arms and gently dumped them in his saddle bags along with his school books and the math test he had just barely passed. True, Joe wasn't the worst of students, but he certainly wasn't the best, either.

Joe finally mounted Starlight and headed for home, still listening to the soft, muffled cried of the pups in his saddle bags.

Me: Hehe, methinks this is going to be a lot of trouble for Little Joe...

Dick: You wrote it... don't you know?

Me: Oh, everybody, this is Dick. He's my Personal Reviewer Replier, or PRR, for short. I stole him straight out of the Batman genre.

Dick: I'm only doing this because she threatened to help Catwoman escape from the Pen if I didn't.

Me: Did NOT! Anyway, review, please! I like reviews, but I haven't been getting many lately. I wonder why...?