Summary: How might a change in an episode early in the canon of Bonanza, change the episodes that followed? This is a collection of stories to show how life in the Cartwright family and in Virginia City would reflect the difference, while you try to figure what happened.

Rating: PG     Word Count: 28534

Summary: Instead of excitement and joy over Adam’s imminent return from school in Boston, unexpected emotions and personal fears leave the Cartwrights struggling in their welcome. This story is comprised of chapters told from a family member’s POV.

Rating: G

Words: 26442

Summary: This prequel is set a few weeks before Adam’s departure for school.  A simple request to pick up Little Joe from a neighbor’s home where the little boy is playing, ends up bringing Adam into a world of confusion over what’s going on with the wife of his father’s oldest friend.

This is the first of 2 prequels, the first taking place in the weeks before Adam left for college, and the second story showing his return. Both take a fun, yet serious look at how the Cartwright family faces problems.

Rating: K    Word Count:  26419

Summary: The Broken Ballad episode ends with many unanswered questions. Life would have changed in small and huge ways following Ed’s death. So … what happened to Will Cass, whose grief pushed him to do despicable things? How does Billy explain his reason for shooting Payson in what could be described as legal murder when Ed refused to shoot first? How do Adam and Sally make sense in the loss of their friend who simply wanted a chance at a normal life? And how do Adam and his father find common ground after Ben sided with Will Cass against his own son and continues to think Adam should have expected this outcome all along?” This story takes a realistic view of what they each faced in the hours and days after Ed’s ballad was sung at the cemetery.

There’s a twist in this story connecting Broken Ballad to an earlier episode, Blood on the Land that should prove interesting to the story.

Rating: K

Count: 16510

Summary: !5-year-old Adam is awaiting a letter from San Francisco, but his plan to  check for its arrival at Cass’ store are detoured by his father’s directive to head the opposite direction for the day instead. Something about this feels off to Adam, and he lets his frustration at being kept from his simple request billow into anger. After hearing something that seems to confirm his feeling that all is not right with this situation; he lets his emotions ride unchecked, causing a chain of  painful events he has to sort through. He settles on writing it all out just as it happened, including each step and misstep he made and the feeling that drove it. Meanwhile his father will have to examine his part it what happened as well, and we see this conclusion through Adam’s eyes as well.

Rating: K          Word Count:  16841

Summary: In the middle of a busy Christmas morning, Adam receives a request from Roy Coffee to help him investigate a possible crime in Virginia City. The case intrigues him as he follows the clues along with Roy and Paul Martin, and has a moment of agony as he begins to see the truth. In the midst of the his discoveries he receives a few unexpected reminders of the true meaning of Christmas, and is able to offer the gift of restoration.

Rating: K

Word Count: 10649

Summary: After a period of adjustment with Adam’s return from school, life has settled nicely for the Cartwrights … until a new storm cloud seems to be threatening Hoss’ usually good mood and ability to work.
Rating: G

Word Count: 12553

Summary: An unexpected visit from an old Boston shipmate, and the question he asks, prompts  Ben to think back to a time when he’d visited his brother with Adam, the winter before leaving for Missouri to join a wagon train west. Their stay had provided some great family times, while also pointing towards many obstacles Ben had never considered. It had finally prompted the biggest decision of his life. 

Rating: G

Word Count: 15626

Summary: The final story of the trilogy of stories:  Trial of Jessica Hardy, Buried Alive, and now, The Empty Casket.  The first two stories told of Adam’s disappearance after being taken as a hostage by a woman bank robber, and then his return after months spent drugged in a mental hospital. When Buried Alive ended, Adam had left Carson City following a frosty reunion with his family that had left him feeling that for everyone’s sake, he should have died as Jessica Hardy, AKA Leslie Richter, meant for him to do.  This story picks up in San Francisco, where he has gone, hoping to find something about himself that is worth saving.  He meets someone who just might understand what he’s feeling, and recognize what he’s planning to do. Can this other “man in black” save Adam from himself? 

Rating: K+
Word Count: 28,000
Part of The Trial of Jessica Hardy Series, links to all stories included within

Summary: This is a sequel to The Trial of Jessica Hardy. Four months have passed since Adam’s disappearance and presumed death, and life has taken on a more normal flow for the Cartwright’s who have conquered their grief to find joy again.  But just as things begin to even out, a series of coincidences and incidents bring them  back to the woman accused of  causing Adam’s death. The Cartwrights will become instrumental in helping others, while learning the truth of what happened to Adam. 
Rating: T – But only for adult themes and conversations. No overt situations
Word Count:  32615
Part of The Trial of Jessica Hardy Series, links to all the stories included within

Summary: Virginia City is in the middle of a trial for a woman charged with bank robbery, kidnapping and murder. There are two factors whipping the town into a frenzy of activity: If convicted, Jessica Hardy could be the first woman sentenced to hang in the United States. The second part that has left the community in turmoil is that the person she’s accused of kidnapping and murdering, is Adam Cartwright.  The story is told from her perspective as she tries to convince the people on the jury that Adam was not the man they thought him to be; a man so tired and hateful of his family that he would use unthinkable methods to get away from them.
Rating: G  but with adult themes
Word Count: 12,600
Part of The Trial of Jessica Hardy Series, all links to the stories included within

Summary: A cold ride home in the pelting snow, followed by a sweet conversation with his father, gives Adam a memorable Christmas Eve.

Rating: G

Word Count: 6734

Summary: A fellow rancher asks Adam to look in on his daughter’s family who lives in California, where Adam is about to travel with a small herd. A problem has arisen is that this daughter has fallen ill while visiting her parents in Virginia City, leaving her husband with a farm to run and two young children to care for, at the busiest time of year. While that seems easy enough, the other information Adam is given about the situation at that home, and the request being made of him, is anything but simple. What he finds on arrival changes, and the roles he must assume to get this family through the frightening times, revisits feelings he’s been contending with for some time.

Rating:  K (General)

Word Count:  32505

Summary: When Ben finds Adam to let him know it’s time to head home from a neighbor’s party, he can see that his son is upset and trying to hide it. Although his son won’t offer any information, Ben suspects Marie knows what happened, and once home, they’re able to put together the pieces of what 15 yr old boy overheard, and why he looked so stricken. The truth makes Ben seek Adam out for a father-son talk.

Rating: K           Word Count: 6024

Summary:  The Triangle episode has always bothered me. It showed an upbeat Adam who was always chipper and jolly. Yet he’d been seriously injured, and was not having optimal outcomes when it came to walking again. He would certainly have gone through some very dark times while considering his future in a wheel chair.  In addition, he had to have felt Laura’s coolness and emotional absence, since she loved Will. This is my personal adaptation of that episode with a little backstory. It is a realistic and gritty look at the likely medical outcomes of the fall; the emotional battles Adam would have faced, and the power of brotherly love.

Rating: K

Word Count: 17425

Summary: Ben’s presence with his family is sporadic and brief. Adam is feeling frazzled with running the ranch and caring for his brothers. Hop Sing is holding his breath wondering if the family can ever be the same, and Little Joe has heard something in town that his very young heart believes, despite all evidence to the contrary. (A prequel)

Rating: K

Word Count: 9990

Summary: Moments is my new series of stories taking a look at situations that affected the Cartwrights deeply and personally. In this one, we see how something learned in the midst of a decision Adam had to make when he and  Hoss were younger, sheds light on a a question posed in a canon episode. Part 1 is a prequel called October Snow, describing the events as youngsters. Part 2 is entitled Hard Decisions and has Hoss recalling that memory to help his father and brother  understand Adam’s decision in a “what happens during” scene from a familiar episode. Each of the Moments stories are separate with no need to read others in the same series to understand.

Rating: G  Word Count: 9858

Summary: How can two lovely women showing up in Virginia City, a meeting to award a lucrative timber contract for the Transcontinental Railroad and the Cartwrights fit together? Find out in this mystery.

Rating: K     Word Count: 50488

Summary: Ben took the leadership of his wagon train when the group decided to keep moving to Fort Laramie after the tragedy at Ash Hollow. With their journey nearly complete, Ben rides ahead to make arrangements with the cavalry at the fort, leaving others to move the wagons the 15 miles from the final campsite. He’s excited to see his group arrive, but soon realizes all is not well.

Rating: K      Word Count: 16,263

Summary: Adam’s unexpected illness; an unexpected visitor, and Ben’s unexpected reaction to a developing situation leaves the Cartwright home in upheaval. Can the information this stranger holds, bring healing to old and new wounds? 

Rating: G    Word Count: 25743

Summary:  Adam’s life begins to fall apart after a lie told by another student at Harvard results in him being expelled. He struggles to understand how he could have done everything right and still lose everything he worked so hard to accomplish. He must listen to the wisdom of those who love him, look deep into his own heart and find the truths and lessons that forged his character into the man he became.

Rating: T

Word Count: 30021

Summary: The Cartwright family should have returned to normal after Señor and Delores Tenino left for Mexico, but it hasn’t. Hoss, Adam and Joe have been surly and avoiding one another since the lovely young woman left, and Ben can’t understand what’s driving it. He senses that what had started as a competition to win the young lady’s heart, had left some unexpected wounds behind. When circumstances and harsh words fracture his family even more, Ben decides he must force his sons to take stock of what they’re about to lose, in the one way he thinks will work. A What Happened Later story, for Ponderosa Matador.

Rating: K Word Count:  22,960

Summary: Ben is enjoying a hunting trip with Adam when it takes an unexpected turn and forces a detour to the cabin in the woods where the Cartwrights first lived and trapped on the Ponderosa. Adam has not been there since he was a child, and Ben is filled with trepidation over how his son might remember those days. All seems well, even though a few of Ben’s memories leave him wondering what his son is thinking. Then a vivid dream about a incident from Adam’s childhood leaves him thoroughly shaken, and he finally finds out just what Adam thought of his early years on the Ponderosa. This story occurs a year after Adam got back from school in Boston.

Rating: K  Word Count: 20,876

Summary: Ben, Hoss and Little Joe head to Boston to be with Adam after receiving the devastating news that the entire Wadsworth family had perished at sea.  The Wadsworths had adopted Adam into their family when he’d been a student, and they’d renewed their support and friendship when he’d returned to marry Melinda and start a family twelve years later. Ben and the two brother find Adam coping, but staggering under the weight of his pain. Adding to his loss, Adam may lose his command over Wadsworth Engineering–the firm he’d helped make into a thriving business–when Frank Wadsworth’s will names an heir. Will this accumulation of loss be the final straw for Adam? Can the love and support of his family: his father and brothers from the West, and his grandfather, wife and children in the East, sustain him as he faces the absence of even more people he’d loved?

Rating: PG  (52,135 words)

One Step Closer Series, links to stories within the series are included.

Summary: Adam is running the ranch alone while his family takes a spring trip to San Francisco. All has gone well, but a change in the weather heralds an unexpected chain of events that Adam must deal with. When Ben, Hoss, and Joe return, they find an empty ranch…and a mystery.

Rating: K  WC:  30,700

Summary:   Adam has been away at school for two years when he starts having vivid dreams about his youngest brother. He wonders why his memories center around Little Joe even while he misses his entire family. What he is about to find out will shake his certainty about many things and make him look for a clue hidden in his dreams.

Rating: K (Word Count 22490)

Summary:  In this early prequel, Ben Cartwright and 4-year-old Adam stop in Cleveland where pay was good at the docks. Ben hopes to earn enough to start the final leg of their journey to Missouri, and a wagon train west. But a couple at their boarding house have plans for Adam that don’t include Ben. The story ends 26 years later as Ben helps Adam recall the ordeal and the outcome.

Rating:  K (27,135 words)

Summary:  Farmer Perkins and Sam Bryant are dead and Ben is safe, yet his sons are at odds. Little Joe and Adam’s argument tears them apart, and Hoss realizes that while his father survived, the bond between his other brothers died at dawn. Ben wants to solve things but must step back to let his sons find their way back to each other.

Rating  K  (20,920 words)