Under a Pumpkin Sky
by VStarTraveler

Summary: Several years after the end of the series, a strange event in the sky and John's nemesis Fergus MacLeish cause problems for the Cannons and the Apaches. Readers may wish to read "The Fight" and then "The Ride" drabble fics before reading this story since it contains spoilers from those stories. This story was written for the Writers Anonymous 2016 Halloween Challenge.

Short Primer for the Fandom Blind: "The High Chaparral" was a TV western that premiered on September 10, 1967. In the show, the Cannon family moved to southern Arizona in the early 1870s during a period of Apache unrest to establish a cattle ranch. Mrs. Cannon was killed in the first episode and the ranch was in danger of being lost. John Cannon, the owner and patriarch, proposed an alliance with a neighbor, Don Sebastian Montoya, on the south side of the border, to fend off attacks from hostiles and bandits. Don Sebastian agreed, proposing that the alliance be sealed by marriage to his near spinster daughter, Victoria, who was in her early 30s and who had fallen for the American. John reluctantly agreed despite his misgivings and his grief for his late wife, and a very fragile peace not sanctioned by the U.S. Army was made with the local tribes based on cooperation and trust.

It took time, but Victoria eventually won John's love and that of his 20-year old son Billy Blue. She was assisted and sometimes hampered in this effort by her slightly younger brother Manolito and John's younger brother Buck, two good-natured ne'er-do-wells who slowly matured and became the focus of many of the show's episodes due to their popularity. There was also a very good supporting cast in the bunkhouse and other recurring characters. Blue left following season 3 and was replaced to some degree by Wind, a young half-breed who was soon welcomed to the ranch.

Due to changes in TV demographics and the gradual phasing out of the TV western, "The High Chaparral" was cancelled in 1971 after Season 4 and 98 episodes despite still having good ratings.

Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction, written entirely for fun and not for profit. This interpretation of "The High Chaparral" is entirely my own, and "The High Chaparral" and all of its various components remain the property of their respective owners.

Several years after the series ended:

"Mamá! Come quick! The sky!"

The clouds over High Chaparral Ranch had been dark and ominous throughout the late September afternoon, so Victoria went out the front door of the ranch house to see the children and what she expected would be a fantastic sunset that the day had brought them.

She caught her breath and her hand flew to her mouth as she saw the most brilliant reddish-orange sky she had ever seen. Unlike typical sunsets that transition from bright colors near the horizon to bright blues overhead, the turbulent reddish-orange looked like a field of fire, extending over the low-hanging clouds to directly overhead and beyond before changing to a dark gray shading and then to almost black in the east.

Both children grabbed their mother and her arms went around them, pulling them close and holding them tight.

"I'm scared, Mamá!" cried the girl.

"What's wrong, Mamá? Is the sky on fire?" asked the boy frantically.

Their mother looked apprehensively at the flaming heaven and shook her head as she replied, "I don't know, children, but don't be scared. It will be okay."

She hoped in her heart that she was telling the truth.

~HC~

A week later, a number of the Apache tribes had gathered in southeastern Arizona.

The chiefs sat around the council fire as the medicine men practiced their tribal magics and divinations to determine why the sky spirits were so angry.

As darkness finally fell and the spirits' anger subsided, the old medicine man in the black bowler hat sporting the woven band with two feathers slowly uncrossed his legs and rose. Looking at the other men, he spoke quietly with them for a few moments before stepping toward the fire and half circle of leaders sitting on the other side with the many braves behind them.

Speaking in the language of the Apaches, he said, "Brothers, the great spirits do not wish to tell us now of the cause of their anger. Nor do they wish to tell us the length of its duration. Instead, their fires cleanse the heavens as they wait for us to recognize what has angered them so mightily. They will relax their great vexation with us when we admit to the harm we have caused them—"

Seeing the somewhat perturbed look that the great chief Geronimo was giving him, the wise old man continued, "—or discover the evils of those who have hurt them so grievously."

The other medicine men were nodding in agreement at this brilliant summation as Geronimo slowly nodded, too. He stood and raised his arms in front of the campfire and the braves of the Apache nation.

"Let all Apache braves be on watch for these things that anger the sky spirits, both within and without. When the cause is discovered, the discoverer must come to us at once so we can determine the changes that must be made so they will be appeased."

Sitting a few rows back, one of the youngest braves, Geronimo's grandson, Choddi, promised himself that he would discover and correct that cause.

~HC~

Late October, that same year:

Victoria Montoya Cannon straightened her raven hair and her dress before entering her husband's office. She'd just finished putting the children to bed and reading them a goodnight story after they'd swarmed their father a bit earlier.

John was busy going over the books.

"Are Betsy and Bobby asleep, Victoria?"

"Yes, finally! I need their energy."

John gave a knowing nod in agreement. Pushing the ledger away, he stood and took her in his arms for a welcomed kiss and a scarce moment of privacy.

Holding her, he said, "You go on up to bed and I'll be there in just a few minutes. I'm almost done."

With a slight grin, she shook her head slowly. "Oh, no, Mr. Cannon, I'm here on business."

"Oh, Mrs. Cannon?"

A little nod. "Yes, it's less than a month to our annual Thanksgiving feast, so I'm here to talk to you about collecting our annual lease payment."

John groaned. "No-oo. Can't we just forget that this year so I don't have to have anything to do with him?"

She smiled. "Seeing that you feel that way about it and considering that I told Mrs. MacLeish that I wanted to pay for an extra one this year—"

John's look of pending doom worsened. "Victoria, you know I don't want to do anything to enrich that squatter. It's High Chaparral land and—"

"And we agreed to the arrangement we worked out."

"Yes, against my better judgment, but I still don't want to have anything to do with Fergus MacLeish."

"I thought you might feel that way so I happen to have a wonderful idea…"

~HC~

Fergus MacLeish and his family lived on the ranch northwest of the High Chaparral. Unfortunately, part of the ranch wasn't quite far enough to the northwest.

Born in Scotland in the mid-1830s, the teen had moved to the States with his parents in the late 1840s during the early part of the Scottish economic depression. They'd settled in Chicago a couple of years later in a very Scottish neighborhood and he eventually met and fell in love with a beautiful young lass from a few streets over.

Unfortunately, her father had been opposed to the union and had married her off to someone with actual prospects. However, like Laban with Jacob, he'd seen the young MacLeish lad as a way of eliminating one of his major problems. He'd ultimately convinced Fergus to marry his rather homely older daughter, who he'd feared would be a spinster dependent on him forever.

To the surprise of most, the marriage had been successful with the birth of five children over the next six years. There might have been a sixth, but the young man was drafted to serve in the Union Army during the War Between the States. Not having $300 to hire a replacement, he'd served in the artillery for three years until the war ended.

A few years after the war, the family moved to the Arizona territory. On arriving, he made a claim for acreage for a ranch, but his survey was a little off so about 100 acres, including his home, was on High Chaparral property. Since the Cannons hadn't yet arrived to take possession of their land, the deed wasn't contested until later.

This had become a major point of contention between the MacLeishes and the Cannons for the first couple of years after the Cannons finally arrived, but after Mrs. MacLeish's death, they'd finally worked out an arrangement at Victoria's insistence for an open-ended, long-term lease.

The payment would be one choice turkey per year.

~HC~

It was the morning after Victoria's "business meeting" and Uncles Buck and Manolito were seated on the buckboard with little Bobby and Betsy crammed in between them. They were on their way to the MacLeish place to get the turkeys, saving John the trouble of making the trip and the headache of having to see Fergus MacLeish.

The men were taking turns telling the children ever more fanciful tales of their adventures with Indians, outlaws, and other assorted characters in Arizona and Mexico. Buck was just starting another story when the MacLeish home came into view.

On seeing a couple of children about their own age sitting with an older man, Bobby and Betsy became even more excited, Uncle Buck's story completely forgotten.

The man in his late 40s wearing a derby hat covering a head of gray hair and sporting gray wraparound sideburns and a mustache rose from where he sat on the porch and reluctantly came out to meet them.

"Buck. Mano," said Fergus MacLeish solemnly, nodding to his guests. "And these are John and Victoria's little ones?"

Mano returned the nod, introducing the young Cannon children, and then Fergus introduced his oldest son Robbie's kids. The children, unaware of the tension in the air, ran away to play together while the adults took care of the serious business of turkeys. Fergus always felt as if he was being fleeced over the arrangement, but at least those Cannons were paying for one this year.

When the turkeys were selected and the cages were tied down on the back of the buckboard, all the children came running back when called.

"What's that?" asked Betsy, pointing to a pumpkin and another seemingly horribly mutilated one sitting on the rail a few feet away.

"It's a jacker-lantern," replied little Nellie MacLeish, "and it's for Halloween."

"What's a jacker-lantern?" asked Bobby.

"What's Halloween?" asked Betsy.

Her grandfather didn't like the Cannons very much but he was a natural storyteller, so he scooped up four-year old Nellie and set her down on his knee as he said in his Scottish brogue, "Well, if your uncles have a few minutes, young Cannons, I'll tell you a bit about jack-o'-lanterns and Halloween and how it's celebrated in the Old Country."

With nods from Buck and Mano, the children gathered around Fergus and listened to his story of ghosts in haunted castles and how the lairds of the castles used bonfires and 'neep' jack-o'-lanterns to keep the spirits away on Halloween, or Samhain, as it was originally called.

"The original Scottish 'neep' jack-o'-lanterns were really small since they were made from turnips, but thanks to our cousins the Irish, we learned to use pumpkins, too, where we could grow 'em since they could be so much larger and stronger. You see, the veil between this world and the spirit realm is thinnest then, and the dead often try to slip through for a little visit," said Fergus mysteriously. "And the ghosts can be—"

The children were wide eyed as Fergus finished, "—anywhere!"

Then, he turned to the pumpkin and they watched as he continued carving on it. With Buck and Mano watching, too, he carved a fanciful eye and then started working on a mouth with a crooked grin.

"Can we carve jack-o'-lanterns, too, Uncle Buck?" asked Bobby.

"Can we, Uncle Mano?" piped in Betsy.

A few minutes later, the uncles were putting two nice-sized pumpkins in the back of the buckboard with the caged turkeys, and Fergus MacLeish was smiling as he put a few more of John Cannon's coins in his pocket.

With a rather reluctant promise that the children would be able to get together and play again sometime soon, the buckboard was departing just as the new Mrs. MacLeish, who seemed to be almost as shrewish as the first, came out to castigate her husband of the past few years for his latest infraction.

Then it was Buck and Mano's turn to smile.

~HC~

That evening after dinner, there was great excitement on the front porch of the Cannon home as the off-duty bunkhouse boys joined the family to watch the jack-o'-lantern carving contest between the team of Buck and Bobby and that of Mano and Betsy. John and Victoria were appointed by the children to be the judges.

"I declare, that's about the best impersonation of Buck Cannon that I've ever seen!" exclaimed Sam Butler, the foreman, as the boys laughed.

Betsy turned and glared at him. "That's not Uncle Buck! It's a, a—what is it, Uncle Mano?"

"Betsy, it's a gargoyle like on the cathedrals in some of the big cities in Mexico and Europe."

Another round of laughter followed.

"Well, that other one looks almost just like Manolito," teased Joe, Sam's brother.

Bobby put his little fists on his hips as he took a turn glaring at the younger Butler. "It's an aran-gee-tang like Uncle Buck saw one time."

"Yeah, I see'd that aran-gee-tang in Richmon' in a circus a'fore the war," declared Buck. "It wus a strange lookin' thing if I ever see'd one."

"Children, I think Uncle Buck means an orangutan," said Victoria, pronouncing the word carefully.

"Uh huh, that's what I said, an aran-gee-tang," replied Buck, looking a bit puzzled. "Well, I's thinkin' we're through, if you are, Miss Betsy?"

With her agreement, the children's parents took a close look at both of the carved pumpkins before whispering together for a moment. As Victoria smiled, John said, "This was an excellent contest and both of our teams did a great job. It was so great, in fact, that your judging committee has determined—"

John paused for a moment for dramatic effect as Victoria smiled even brighter. Looking around, he continued, "That it's a tie!"

The children were extremely excited at their mutual victory, and understanding smiles lit the rest of the faces as everyone clapped.

"Can we put candles in them now like Mr. MacLeish said?" asked Bobby.

"Yes, and you can watch them for a little bit," agreed Victoria, handing her brother and brother-in-law the candles and matches, "but you have to go to bed very soon."

Moments later, the gathered crowd was admiring the two glowing jack-o'-lanterns.

~HC~

About that same time, a small Apache hunting party was returning home and was passing in the foothills a bit west of the ranch house. As they did, Choddi, one of the members of the party, looked off in the distance at the farm house he'd once visited so long ago. With the new moon that night, it was quite dark so he didn't expect to see the house, but then again, he didn't expect to see what he saw either.

Signaling the others, the young man stared at a pair of orange glows in the distance. He was immediately off, followed silently by the others as they approached the house to get a closer look at the strange sight.

Shaking their heads in disbelief, the group quickly retreated, as stealthily as they'd come. Early the next morning they arrived in their village and told their tale.

The medicine man in the Bowler hat seemed lost in thought and the pause extended for a couple of minutes before he looked up and started to give very careful recommendations. The great chief Geronimo listened closely and then slowly nodded in agreement.

~HC~

That evening, Wednesday, October 31, the now usual fiercely colored sunset took on a pumpkin orange color.

"Mamá, the sunset is just like our jack-o'-lanterns!" called Bobby. "The sky likes our carvings!"

"Can we light them on our side of the house where we can look out our bedroom window at them some more before we go to sleep?" asked Betsy.

The children's uncles were moving the carved pumpkins even before Victoria could object. Pedro and Joe rolled a couple of barrels over and tipped them up so Buck and Mano could sit the lanterns down on top where the children might have a good view. Buck struck a match and lit the first one, and then handed the still burning matchstick to Mano, who did the same for the other.

"Uncle Buck, can you tell us a story before bedtime while we look at our jack-o'-lanterns?"

"Wye, sure, I's can tell you a story—"

The children, their parents, and the off-duty bunkhouse boys gathered around as Buck began a tale of ghosts in a "hainted house" in the hills of "western Virginny."

Both children were sitting on their parents' laps as Buck's tale concluded with a little howl from his erstwhile protagonist. Betsy clutched at her father while Bobby made a show of being brave.

As the clapping concluded, Bobby asked, "Can you tell us one, too, Uncle Mano?"

"No, no," interrupted Victoria. "It's bedtime!" She let them get one more look at their jack-o'-lanterns and then asked John to bring them up while she went upstairs to get things ready for them to go to bed.

"Will the candles burn a while, Uncle Buck? We want to be able to watch them for a while from our window," whispered Bobby as his father spoke with Sam.

"Yeah, I's thinkin' so," agreed Buck, and Mano nodded.

Moments later, John took the children upstairs to bed as the brightly colored sunset slowly faded to darkness.

~HC~

Victoria allowed one more "last look" out the window and then John led them in their nightly prayers and put them to bed. Soon after their door closed, Bobby ever-so-quietly slipped out of bed to peek out the bedroom window again.

Betsy joined him a moment later and they cautiously pulled the thin curtain open so they could look out to see their glowing pumpkins without their parents hearing.

The flickering glow soon had a lulling effect on Betsy, who kneeled and put her arms and chin on the sill of the open window. Bobby's blinks were slowing, too, until he saw something strange. He blinked hard, again, and then a third time to be sure he was awake, and then gently poked his sister, saying "Shhh!" as he did.

"Wha-at?" she whispered, barely awake.

Bobby's finger pointed just beyond the jack-o'-lanterns to a gray ghost that was quietly floating just above the ground. Betsy's eyes widened as she pointed to a second ghost just a few feet away from the first.

The children looked at each other in fear.

"Should we call Mamá or Papá?" asked Betsy at a whisper.

"No," replied an equally quiet Bobby, determined to be as brave as Uncles Buck and Mano. "The jack-o'-lanterns will keep the ghosts away like Mr. MacLeish said. Let's see what happens."

Unfortunately, as they watched, they slowly realized their jack-o'-lanterns appeared to be less powerful than those used by the Scottish lairds and Irish lords. The first ghost arrived just behind the barrel with the gargoyle pumpkin. The ghost slowly grew in size until it was about the same height as the pumpkin, which suddenly began to float up and away.

Even Bobby was scared speechless as the second ghost did the same as the first, with the orangutan pumpkin drifting up off the barrel and then silently floating away.

The twins trembled in fear as they held each other's hands while watching the ghosts and their jack-o'-lanterns slowly and silently floating away from the ranch house. Moments later, ghosts and pumpkins disappeared from view.

Both children quickly scampered back to bed and pulled their bedsheets over their heads. Victoria and John, hearing a strange noise, peeked in a few moments later, but seeing all in order, silently closed the door again.

~HC~

The next morning, the children rose and told their mother about the ghosts they'd seen and how their jack-o'-lanterns had been taken, floating out into the desert beyond the ranch house.

"Children, just because Uncle Buck or others tell fanciful tales around the jack-o'-lanterns or the fire pit, we don't normally do that," answered Victoria.

"But we're telling the truth, Mamá! Go look for our jack-o'-lanterns and you'll see."

She took the children to the table where Isabella placed breakfast in front of them. As they started to eat, Victoria stepped outside and looked at the barrels where the jack-o'-lanterns had been placed. The big pumpkins were indeed gone but in their place were two much smaller pumpkin gourds with the tops removed. Her mouth dropped open in surprise when she saw that both were filled with agave sugar candy. Smiling, she picked up the little gourds and took them inside to the children.

~HC~

Later that morning, John approached Buck and Mano with his mouth set hard and giving them a serious glare as he held something behind his back.

"What's wrong, Brother John?"

"Buck, Victoria says the children were scared and telling strange tales after your stories and little stunt last night. I don't want you two filling their heads with crazy stories and giving them nightmares. That goes for both of you, understood?"

"John, you know we'd never do anything to harm our little niece and nephew," said Mano, with a hint of a hurt expression.

John's own expression turned a bit more sour as he threw something at Buck's stomach and then another at Mano's. They caught their wet, balled-up bed sheets, and then looked back at John with increasingly sheepish looking expressions.

"Then how do you explain those conveniently cut little slits in your bedsheets that Violeta found in today's wash? Two in each, about 3-inches apart? Don't tell me the two of you were sneaking around out there in the desert pretending to be ghosts. The watcher on guard on the roof could have shot you both dead!"

"No, no, Brother John, Reno knew not to do─"

The look Mano was giving Buck at giving away their accomplice finally got through to him.

"─uh, that."

"Why?" huffed John, shaking his head slowly and knowing he was going to have to speak with Reno when he was done.

Not catching the rhetorical nature of John's statement, Mano justified, "John, Buck saw how the pumpkin was getting nasty inside, so we knew it wouldn't last another night."

"We knowed the kids would be looking out their window, so we's decided to play ghosts to give 'em a little scare and make their jack-o'-lanterns disappear so they wouldn't be all upset about havin' to throw 'em away," finished Buck.

John was now nodding in frustration, but Mano finished, "But John, we didn't take them. By the time we got there, there were little gourd pumpkins on the barrels and the jack-o'-lanterns were gone so we just slipped away."

"We looked this mornin', John, and them gourds had that agave sugar candy in 'em. We's thinking the A-paches stole 'em!"

~HC~

Some miles away in the Apache village, Geronimo and the medicine man were listening to the tale told by the braves.

"Grandfather, the evil pumpkin spirits were taken away by other spirits that floated on the wind," explained Choddi. "I saw these little sky spirits floating just above the earth, fighting with the evil glowing spirits, until suddenly the little sky spirits overcame the evil spirits and put them out. Then the sky spirits disappeared, too, so I left the gifts as we'd been instructed."

The man in the bowler hat was nodding his head. "Our braves have done well. They were not possessed by the evil spirits since the little sky spirits were on their side and overcame the evil ones. The offerings that were left may please the Cannons who were tricked by the evil ones. We must now wait and see if the great sky spirits are happy and allow the heavens to begin to heal."

Geronimo and the braves nodded at the wisdom spoken by the old man.

The old medicine man just hoped things would soon return to normal.

~HC~

A few miles to the northwest, it was around noon when Fergus MacLeish and his oldest son Robbie finally awoke, much to the irritation of their wives. After they ate and got a cup of coffee, the two men moved out to the barn where Fergus pulled a big balled up cloth out of the nook in the storage room. Moving it around a bit, he found what he was seeking. He then reached in his pocket, pulled out a needle and thread, and started trying to darn the holes in the spare bedsheets before Mrs. MacLeish found that they were missing.

"Pa, did you see the guy on the roof? He was looking right at us but was so scared he didn't do anything! Was it always like that in the Old Country? Did you always play tricks like that and scare your neighbors when you were little?"

Fergus nodded as he looked at his son with a very serious expression and said in a low voice, "Yes, Robbie, generally…unless the real ghosts got there first."

~The End~

Author's Notes:

First, thanks to everyone who reads this story and to all who review, comment, follow, or favorite it. Your support is greatly appreciated!

Second, this story is set in the summer and fall of 1883, approximately seven years after the series ended, with the backdrop of this story being based on a true event. On August 27, 1883, a volcano in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) named Krakatoa exploded in a massive eruption that destroyed over 70% of the island and its surrounding archipelago. The explosion was reportedly heard several thousand miles away in central Australia. Between the eruption and the tsunamis that followed, approximately 36,000 people were killed, with some estimates being much higher.

The dust and debris thrown into the sky blocked out the sun for several days in the immediate area and lowered global temperatures slightly for the next year or so, but it was the sunsets and sometimes sunrises that drew the most attention from people around the world. They were often fiery red or orange for months after the explosion, and the colorations of the sun and the moon were also affected. According to Simon Winchester's great book, Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883, and a little interpolation by this author, it took about a month for the dust and the brilliant sunsets to reach Tucson's latitude.

Regarding Halloween, it was not a holiday typically celebrated in America during this period but it was slowly being established in some areas, with Irish immigrants in particular bringing their tradition of jack-o'-lanterns with them to the new world. By 1866, the Daily News of Kingston, Ontario, reported:

"The old time custom of keeping up Hallowe'en was not forgotten last night by the youngsters of the city.
They had their maskings and their merry-makings, and perambulated the streets
after dark in a way which was no doubt amusing to themselves.
There was a great sacrifice of pumpkins from which to make transparent heads and face,
lighted up by the unfailing two inches of tallow candle."

Due to its large Scotch-Irish population, I believe Fergus' placement in Chicago during the same period soon after the war would have seen similar results.

Geronimo was also active during this period until his final surrender three years later in 1886, but due to lack of time to research it properly, I'm not sure if he was actively leading one of his famed "revolts" during the period of this particular story. His fictional grandson, Choddi, was a creation of the series writers in "Ten Little Indians" from Season 2 of The High Chaparral. Choddi would have been a young man of about 20 by the time of this story.

Fergus MacLeish, portrayed by Christopher Carey, was also a recurring character on the show, with his backstory and the "annual lease payment" derived by the author's imagination with the second part based on the events that would likely have followed those of the 1968 Thanksgiving episode "For What We Are About To Receive." I originally had claimed him to be of Irish descent but really appreciate sharp-eyed readers catching and pointing out the mistake which I've tried to correct and reconcile in the current version of the story.

Mathilda Calnan, who was considerably older than Mr. Carey, played Mrs. MacLeish in Episode 1:07, "A Quiet Day in Tucson." She was not included in the cast of "For What We Are About to Receive." Instead, John gave Fergus his condolences on Mrs. MacLeish's passing, so I've rewritten a couple of sentences to account for this after rewatching and catching that exchange.

Thanks again for reading and for your support, and to those who have left reviews that have allowed me to make some minor corrections. Thanks, too, to the staff at Writers Anonymous for sponsoring the contest that led me to consider developing this Halloween-centered story. I hope to have another High Chaparral-themed story in the works sometime soon.

¡Vaya con Dios, mis amigos!

VST