iceangelmkx's Bonanza Fanfics

UPDATE: “My Sweet Stranger” is now linked and available to read!  Remember, though, you must be 18 years or older to read!

Well, before I begin, I decided against the fic thing for the Shindig mainly due to lack of time this week.  However, I still would like to use the idea I have in mind at another time.

However, I have completed the other two challenge stories for the month!  The R-Rated one for the Chaps and Spurs Challenge, titled ‘My Sweet Stranger,’ will be link from here soon.  Meanwhile, if you have access to BonanzaBrand’s R forum, give it a read!

Meanwhile, while you’re here, here’s the fic from the Sakes Alive Challenge.  Enjoy!

—

The Burma Rarity: The Thoughts of The Chief

Most days standing here tend to be quite boring. You wait everyday from sun up to sun down, hoping those on the passing stages actually buy your goods, or what I like to call, ‘heap cheap.’ A man has to learn a living some way.

However, today was, well, one of the most interesting days since I started my business. It all began when a buckboard with two men came rolling by. Then later, these two young men, one small and one large, came up to me to try to sell a green piece of glass that looked like a gem. They only assumed that I didn’t speak English and tried any way they could to make me understand. I already knew from the beginning that they wanted to trade in the piece for grub. I amused myself by letting them continued to assume this, especially when the big one attempted sign language.

“Am I to understand that you wish to dispose of this in exchange for food?” I nearly smiled at their reaction. I allowed them to eat of course and I placed the ‘gem’ amongst the others.

Later, close to the middle of the day, an older man came on his horse. He asked me about two men on the buckboard along with two other young men… one small and one large. I had seen the buckboard earlier and both that and the two young men who traded the gem had headed north towards Reno.

Immediately after, the first stage of the day came. There were few, but one particularly caught my attention… a pretty young blonde girl in a red dress. She began looking at my merchandise and that’s when I decided to try to sell the items in my ‘heap cheap’ basket. Perhaps she will like the green glass I received today. Normally I sell for ten, but for her… I’ll sell for five.

Then she offered to gamble for it. I love to gamble. Course then, she wanted to play a new game I never played before. ‘The Shell Game,’ she called it, where she placed a tiny pea in one of three walnut shells. She quickly moved them around and I had to guess where the pea was.

Let’s just say I’ll never play that game again! I played it twice and not only lost the gem, but she also took my war bonnet! Now I had to find a way to earn back the money I lost.

Later, the two men on the buckboard came by. They asked me about the green gem, but I had told them I already sold it to the girl. Then they asked me where she went.

That’s when I realized how I can earn my money back…

“In times of stress such as this, my memory sometimes fails me.” I brush my hand in the palm of the other, hinting what I need.

The two men gave me ten dollars. I smile. “It all comes back to me now. She was on the stage coach bound for Virginia City.”

They thank me and leave. I stare at the money for another moment before placing it in my pocket. A man has to learn a living some way.

About one hour later, the two young men, one small and one large, arrived again along with the older man I saw earlier. Must’ve been their father. Just like with the other two men, they ask about the gem. I describe the girl they were looking for.

“But in times of stress such as this, my memory sometimes fails me.”

“Would a ten dollar help relieve the stress,” the older man said as the money was passed over to me. The smile I had earlier came back. “To Virginia City.” I pointed. And they headed that way.

The sun had not set yet, but that was the end of that interesting day. I made quite a profit from the money I lost, plus the people I’ve seen today entertained me quite well.

However, there is one thing I wonder… what was the interest in this green gem they had? I guess that is something I’ll never know.

The End

Here’s the new story mentioned in my previous post.  I couldn’t think of a good title, so I settled with the one mentioned here.

—

“The Calf”

Adam Cartwright let out an exasperated sigh as he tightened his grip around the lasso that was in his hands. “Let’s try this… one more time,” he muttered under his breath.

The young calf in front of him stared up at him as though it was challenging him. The day had gone fine up until now. Sixteen year old Adam spent most of the afternoon branding calves with the two cowpokes that were with him. The morning had been spent gathering up the calves who have not received the Ponderosa brand yet.

That alone was hard enough. A couple of calves attempted to wander away from the small herd. With only three of them working including Adam trying to round up over a dozen calves, it almost seemed impossible.

However, Adam was not going to let any mistakes happen, that he would make sure of. This was only the second time that he was doing this work without his father by his side, and he wanted to be able to prove to him that he would get the job done without any more guidance.

One of the cowpokes, Tom, looked over at Adam. “Ya gonna go for it anytime now?” he called out.

Adam spoke without turning away from the calf. “I’m just waiting for the right moment.”

Soon, the young man felt reach and he began spinning the lasso above his head. He took a couple of slow steps forward, still keeping his eyes on the calf. “Come on now… stay where you are this time…”

After a couple of more spins, Adam quickly threw the rope forward. Almost immediately, the little calf let out a ‘moo’ before backing away. The rope ends up missing him just by a few inches.

Adam gritted his teeth in frustration, doing all he can to not yell out. It was the fifth time that the animal managed to dodge away from the rope. All the other ones only took one or two tries without too much of a fuss, but this one… it was different.

Ira, the second cowpoke, cocked his head while chewing a piece of hay in between his teeth. “You sure you don’t need any help, Adam?” he asked.

Adam took a deep breath before turning to Ira. “No, I don’t need help.” He tried to sound calm, but it obviously didn’t work out as it came out more like he was annoyed.

“Kind of looks like ya do,” Tom replied as he rolled the handle of the branding iron in between his hands. “That’s the fifth time ya missed. I don’t mind ya takin’ forever, but-”

“You want to leave before the sun sets,” Adam finished with more frustration in his voice. “That’s what you said the fourth time I missed.”

Deciding to ignore the two then, Adam readjusted the lasso before taking a few steps towards the calf who was now eating some of the grass on the ground. Good, that should keep him distracted.

Without any more hesitation, Adam began to swing the rope again. However, the whistling noise it produced caught the calf’s attention and Adam cursed at himself again. Hopefully, he wouldn’t miss for the sixth time.

Adam soon threw the rope. This time, he aimed it a little farther than he intended, hoping that the calf would fall for it.

Instead, the calf stepped sideways as though it knew where the rope was heading, and it once again landed on the ground.

Now much more frustrated than ever, Adam grabbed his gray Stetson from his head and threw it down in the grass. “That’s it!” he called out before stomping over to the calf.

Tom and Ira watched with curiosity, knowing that Adam was going to try to get the cow by hand this time. Both of them wondered if they should go and help the young lad, but they had the feeling that he was just going to end up pushing them away.

“Get over here you stubborn-” Adam barely said as he reached over for the calf. The animal let out another ‘moo’ as it began to run off from the young man.

“Come back here!” Adam called out as he began to chase the calf around the corral. At one point, the animal attempted to get itself lost within the other herd trying to hide from it’s chaser. The problem was, though, that it was the only one with a white rump.

The already-branded calves ran out of the way as Adam run through the small crowd, keeping his eye on the stubborn animal. Then, the calf made a quick turn and he tried to do the same. However, the turn made him suddenly lose his footing. Before he knew it, Adam found himself face first in wet mud left behind by the early morning rain.

Tom and Ira tried to suppress their laughs as much as possible as they walked over to Adam. “Told ya we shoulda helped,” Tom said.

Ignoring him, Adam slowly turned on his back, his eyes closed to protect them from the mud on his face. With his forearm, he wiped the mud away from them.

Adam then felt a hot breath over his forehead. Unsure of where it came from, he opened his eyes, only to be met by a pair of dark brown eyes that belonged to the calf, who let out another low moo.

“You know,” Adam began to say to the calf. “You are going to make a nice, wonderful steak one of these days.”

So finally, after getting himself back up, the young man felt defeated and let the two cowpokes take care of branding the animal.

—

The sun had finished setting by the time Adam rode in. The lanterns were lit within the house and around the porch, so it was easy for the young man to notice his father sitting on the rocking chair with an open book in hand.

Slowly, Adam guided his horse towards one of the hitching posts before dismounting. By then, Ben had noted his son returning and began to walk over to greet him.

What the older man saw surprised him. Never did he expect his adolescent boy to be caked with almost-dry mud. “What happened to you?” he exclaimed.

Adam sighed wearily as he hitched his horse. “You really don’t want to know.”

“Calves gave you a rough time?”

Adam tilted his head thoughtfully. “You could say that.” He then began to walk towards the house, feeling very tired. “Right now, I’m going to go upstairs, wash up, and change into nice, clean clothes.”

“At least take your boots off before you go inside. You know how Marie and Hop Sing feel about that.”

“I know I know,” Adam uttered as he reached the door. Once he did, he quickly kicked his boots off before setting them aside. He would take care of them in the morning, he decided.

“Pa, could you do me a favor?” Adam suddenly asked.

Ben folded his arms a bit, feeling curious. “What is it?”

“The next time you want to send me up to the North pasture for branding… don’t.”

Slightly hearing the irritation in Adam’s voice, Ben decided then that it was best not to ask about it as his oldest son opened the door and walked inside the house.

The End

My latest challenge story for this month’s ‘Chaps and Spurs Literacy Challenge’ is complete!  And once again, it’s another one that got finished in two hours like the one in March (of course, though, this new story is a bit shorter).

For this story, it’s more of a ‘Just For Fun’ type thing.  Nothing too serious that adds to, well, anything.  Just another ‘ordinary’ day on the ranch you can say.

The new story is currenly untitled, but as soon as I think of one (which I’m sure will be by the end of the week), I’ll provide the link.

Also, The Sakes Alive Challenge is up and at it again… this time, an R-Rated version.   The episode of the month is ‘Day of the Dragon,’ which makes me very happy because it’s my 7th favorite episode.  Pretty much right away, two ideas came in my head.  However, I’ve already made my decision on which one to use.  Since this challenge requires a story that’s 1,000 words or less, the one I didn’t choose… I have a feeling it’s going to go beyond 1,000 words.  The chosen story will be posted most likely either tomorrow night, Thursday, or Friday.

Another challenge at BonanzaBrand has been posted much sooner than I imagined.  This one is called ‘Sakes Alive Challenge.’  Basically, what’s done is that we write a short story that’s 1000 words or less (a bit of challenge for me ).  In the story, we are to write it in the point of view of another character that wasn’t the main focus of a particular episode.

In this case, the episode was ‘Dark Star’ (of all episodes. ) – so basically, the POV would be from a character other than Joe.

It was mentioned that it would be from another Cartwright POV, but then someone bought up perhaps writing a POV from Tirza.  I didn’t write a Tirza POV, but from Spiro, the main bad guy of the episode.

The link on the side will only lead you back to this post since I have the (very) short story posted here.

One thing to note – I replaced gio/gyo with ‘Gorjer.’  In my short research, I couldn’t find the real meaning of the original word and was only getting Chinese companies (in the end, I think the writers made the word up).  ‘Gorjer’ is an actual Gypsy word meaning ‘Non-Gypsy.’

—

DARK STAR: THE THOUGHTS OF SPIRO

“Remember this face, Gorjer… it will be the last one you’ll see in this world.”

That was what I promised to Joe Cartwright earlier this afternoon, and I intend to keep that. I’ve waited much too long to finally win Tirza for myself. Now this Gorjer shows up and wrecks it all. Not only that, but he humiliates me in front of her in our fight! I should’ve killed him then, but it’s no matter… soon, he will pay for his insolence!

Now I stand in the dark shadows and watched as Tirza danced to the music, keeping up with the tempo. The other Gypsies watch with wide eyes, unsure of what to think. Cartwright and his family are near, and I try to withhold the urge to throw my knife at him upon seeing how he looks at her.

The pace of the music became faster and faster until suddenly, a loud crack of thunder was heard and lightning flashes. All was still as the other gypsies looked on nervously. Tirza gazed at them… she knew what they thinking.

She then moved towards a small group… they cower in fear. Fools… do they really believe she is a witch after all this time? If she truly was one, wouldn’t more bad luck and curses befall us by now?

Then, she moved and extended her hand to Cartwright. Almost immediately, he took her hand, and she lead him away into the darkness of the woods. As the rest of the group are now distracted, I sneaked over to one of the wagons. I slowly took a rifle in hand before following the two ‘lovebirds.’

Moving like a cat, I followed their tracks, making sure to keep a far distance so that I wasn’t detected. After what seemed liked sometime, I came across some large rocks. As I moved closer to them, I can hear Tirza’s breathless voice; “Hold me… hold me… Little Joe…”

I knew what was happening before I saw them. Anger flared up in me as I saw that Gorjer’s arms around her… and she returned the gesture. It wouldn’t matter soon… I shall end it.

The hammer of my rifle was already clicked back, ready to fire. As Tirza and Cartwright moved their heads to share a kiss, I raised my gun to his back.

Before I even had the chance to pull the trigger, I heard a wolf howling in the distance, which immediately caught my attention for a moment. As the calls echoed into the night, an idea came to me.

The Gypsies had made Tirza believe for a long time that she was a witch, and also cursed to change into a werewolf on a full moon. Perhaps I can further make her believe that… perhaps then, she will do anything… even face a painful exorcism… to crawl back to us…

But more importantly, she will crawl back to me.

I smirked at Tirza and her Gorjer as I lowered my gun.

Enjoy your Moonlit Rock of Love for now, I thought. This isn’t over yet.

For this month’s challenge at BonanzaBrand, it focused on R-Rated story.  This one took me most of yesterday to write, but it’s now completed and available to read at the library.  It’s a Hoss story called ‘The Stagecoach’ featuring Bessie Sue Hightower from ‘Any Friend of Walter’s!‘

And remember, you must be 18 years or older to read!

My thoughts on my fanfics in the last few days is kind of becoming a jumbled mess in my head, so I thought a good way to sort them out is to write it here.

Surprise… I’m still writing both Adam and Hoss’ blind dates in ‘The Matchmaker.’  I figured that, at this point, I should go ahead and write the aftermaths of the Cartwright brothers’ night out.  Perhaps it’ll be a way for me to get better inspiration on writing it all out.  Course, I’m a little stingy… I have this thing where I have to write my fic in order.  I guess it’s because I have this little fear that if I do hold off on one scene and get so intrigued by the conclusion that I’ll get excited about completely it and post it… only to realize that I didn’t finish a scene.   Well, we’ll see what happens.

And even after that great advice, I suddenly feel a little hesitant about my Adam and Rebecca story… again.  I don’t know, maybe it’s because a lot of the ‘it won’t work’ comments outbalance it or something.  With that, I figured that the only way it would work between them is if Adam converts to Judiasm.  Darn, I just want it to work somehow without having Adam convert. =\  I thought about replacing Rebecca with an original character, but I’m not too sure just yet.  I guess we’ll see what happens.

However, the ideas seem to be flowing pretty well for ‘The Hero of Virginia City’ (although based on one of my old stories, I have been coming up with plenty of original ideas which should separate the two stories).  Just the other night, I finally came up with the name of the girl involved along with name and members of the gang that plays a role in the story, along with their motivation.  Actually, there will be two original females in the story, one of them who I actually created last year for a series that’s now nixed (Judy from ‘A Taste of Strawberries’ was part of that series too).  They will have a bit of a bigger role than my previous characters in my Bonanza fics, but my main concern is to make sure that their roles don’t overshadow the Cartwrights who are, of course, the guys everyone is more interested in.   Oh yes, and I’ll be sure they don’t turn into Mary Sues either.   I learned that valuable lesson six years ago.

While I take care of those stories, I will also be anticipating the April fic challenge at BonanzaBrand, which is supposed to be R-Rated for that month.

Rarely do I ever write and finish a story in one day… but tonight, that’s exactly what happened.

The last week was a bit rough.  Not only did I feel exhausted, but there were a few major changes going on at work due to getting a bunch of new corporate guys… mostly I don’t like it, and I think half of their new ideas are very unnecessary.  Calling a manager a GSL instead of an MOD over the intercom?  For someone who’s been working there for two years, that’ll take a while to get used to.  Heck we introduced ‘rewards cards’ in October and I’m STILL trying to get used to asking the customers if they want to sign up for one.  Then again, I mostly work registry than cashiering.

I guess I should be grateful though… I still have a job, and our store is one of the few retail places these days that’s actually still hiring.

Anyway, at least work today was good.  Not even an hour into my shift, a smile spread across my face… I FINALLY got the inspiration for that challenge I mentioned in my last journal.  What stunk, however, was that I never got to write it down in those remaining six hours of my shift.  The only thing I was able to do was keep thinking about it while keeping busy in hopes of time going fast, a challenge in itself.

Soon, I was home and after feeding the cat and having a quick dinner of a bagel with turkey and iced coffee (I’ll be up all night now, LOL), I got typing.  Two hours later, the story was complete and not even a half hour ago, I posted it up in the challenge thread at BonanzaBrand.

I’ll be posting it at the library soon enough and link it from here.  I’m not too sure about the title yet, but I think I’m going to call it, ‘The Scent of Leather and Bay Rum.‘

That’s all for now.

*UPDATE*

‘The Scent of Leather and Bay Rum’ is now avaliable at the BonanzaBrand Library!

It’s past midnight, I have work in less than 9 1/2 hours, and I’m still up.  I can’t help being a night owl!

Just to update on a couple of things involving my fanfics.

I actually wrote 3-pages worth of my other Adam story, ‘The Older Sister.’  I just had one of those spur-of-the-moments and just had to write it out before I forgot.  I’m not sure when I’ll have that story out since I still need to flush out a few things, but hey, it’s a start.  Once I fix a few errors, I may post up a teaser.

Speaking of Adam, after writing ‘A Taste of Strawberries,’ I had a couple of people request me to write an R-Rated Adam fic.  I’d love to do one, but I just need to find the inspiration (however, I may or may not have the inspiration to write a Hoss one, but I need to watch ‘The Impostors’ again and figure out if he actually would’ve gone though with it… probably not, but we’ll see).

So basically, I’m writing a few stories at the same time… ‘The Matchmaker,’ which is my main focus right now… ‘The Longing,’ my Adam and Rebecca story (the title is only temporary)… ‘The Hero,’ which is now actually titled ‘The Hero of Virginia City.’  Now adding ‘The Older Sister’ to the list.

Now, BonanzaBrand is having a monthly challenge for a 2000 word or less story based on five words (it changes from G through PG-13 rated to R-Rated every other month).  So depending on my inspiration, you may or may not seeing a story every month from me.

So yeah, a lot of fics to go through, but I like it.  The real challenge now is to find a way to stop my boyfriend from pulling me away from the computer every time I want to write. 

Last night, while staying up very late despite having to go to work the next morning (I’m THAT dedicated! ), I finally completed my latest story, ‘A Taste of Strawberries!’  It was part of a Valentine challenge over at BonanzaBrand, and I decided that it was fine time that I released such a fic.

The story is now avaliable to read exclusively at the Fan Fiction Library of BonanzaBrand (a link is provided on the side of this page).  And remember, you must be 18 years or older to read.  You have been warned!

I’ll be bringing my full focus back to ‘The Matchmaker.’  Course, you never know if I’ll pop up with another story beforehand again.

At this point, I highly doubt that I’ll have ‘The Matchmaker’ done in time for Valentine’s Day.  But that’s okay… it really could be a good read for anytime of the year.  I’m still working on Adam’s date (and I have actually written more since my last update).  However, I did begin Hoss’ date so that I’m not constantly stuck in one place the whole time.

In the mean time, there was a recent BonanzaBrand challenge to write an R-rated fanfic for Valentine’s Day, and I’m definitely up for it.  Once I get an idea going, it should be up by the end of this month… since that’s the deadline.

Also, I began writing another fic, ‘The Hero.’  I can already tell that this fic will be a long one, and since I plan to have it released around next Christmas, I figured that now was the best time to start.  It’s better than starting it in, say, November, and trying to rush it out before December.

That’s all for now.