Category: Family
Stories that focus on the entire family
I’m Already There (by Wrangler)
Summary: Little Joe doesn’t know what to do with himself when Pa is delayed and can’t make his seventeenth birthday. A simple sweet tale.
Rating T, WC 3326,
If Your Heart Cries Out Tonight (by Wrangler)
Summary: Little Joe reflects back to when he challenged an important decision that his father made. Now, at seventeen, he discovers why Pa was right.
Rating T WC 10,225,
The Weaker Sex (by Pat D in PA)
Summary: Marie Cartwright comes home from assisting a neighboring woman to find … Written for the 3rd Quarter Chaps and Spurs Challenge.
Rating: K/G
Word Count: 2,067
Maude (by BettyHT)
Summary: Hoss wants Maude, but she and Adam develop an unlikely relationship. Eventually Hoss benefits from the couple’s relationship in a way no one could ever have predicted but only after they experience a series of adventures.
Rating: PG Word count: 24,152
The Burden of Guilt (by CareBear)
Summary: Adam carries a self-enforced burden of guilt, haunted by memories of the past that are dredged to the surface by Delphine’s death.
Rating: T (violence) Word Count: 6823
High Stakes in Ragtown (by DJK)
Summary: The Carwright brothers stopped in Ragtown for a bath, food, and a trip to the saloon. They picked the wrong saloon. Of course, Opal did not think so.
Rating: T/PG13 Word count: 12,217
The Infinite Curse of a Lonely Heart (by Pat D in PA)
Summary: Unrequited affection, if not actually love, permeates this prequel tale of the Cartwrights as a church social becomes an unexpected source of disappointment and frustration for some, and wonder for others. Written for the 2025 Ponderosa Paddlewheel Poker Tournament.
Rating: K+/T Word Count: 13,275
Not Til We Find Him (by Patina)
Summary:. A missing son, a father’s search. A WHIB and WHI for The Crucible.
Rating: T Word Count: 5,353
If at First You Don’t Succeed; or, A Lesson in the Cartwright Way (by JC)
Summary: There are a few simple rules for growing up Cartwright: 1. Never underestimate your father. 2. Don’t forget the first rule.
Rating: K Word Count: 1195
First Drive (by Puchi Ann)
Summary: There’s a first time for everything and everyone.
Rating:K+/T Word Count: 12,449
The Zephyr (by Wrangler)
Summary: When a man seeking revenge traps Pa in a mine, Little Joe races against time to find him. Adam, Hoss, and Hop Sing must then rescue them both.
Rating T, WC 23,175
The Fragrance of Violets (by McFair)
Summary: A shadowed room, thick with the scent of incense, reverberates with the whispers of the Ancestors. What do they seek, and can anyone defy their mystic call? For He Xing—known to the white man as Hop Sing—questions crowd the silence, yet only one answer emerges, undeniable and unyielding. Xuè hǎi xuè chóu. Blood revenge.
Rating: T+ Word Count: 55,685
In This Life (by Wrangler)
Summary: When Joe arrived in Savannah to be Clay’s best man he never knew he’d be running for his life after contracting yellow fever. Now home, he recounts the terrifying details to his family.
Rating T, WC 47,230
The Devil’s Hold (by Wrangler)
Summary: The lives of the Cartwrights are turned upside down when Joe falls into an old well setting the stage for more mystery and danger.
Rating T WC 38,900
The Third Son (by Wrangler)
Summary: The Cartwrights find mystery and danger when Little Joe is gifted a strange present by Ben’s late uncle; which proves to be a curse when Joe is attacked. Rating T, WC 41,000 The Third Son Series: The Third Son The Devil’s Hold Payback
