Category: Prequel
Any time before the episode, A Rose for Lotta
When Lies Wound a Broken Heart (by Missjudy)
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
A Different Kind of Desert (by McFair)
Summary: Fifteen-year-old Joe Cartwright dropped his gaze to the vast forest before him with its tall pines, low bushes, and tangled undergrowth – all of them buried in three to four foot high drifts. He was alone. All around him was silence and snow. Winter was a whole different kind of desert.
Rated: PG-13 for mild language and Western violence and brutality
Word count: 20,913
A Man That Studieth Revenge (mcfair_58)
Summary: A WHB & WHN for ‘The Last Haircut’, ‘Marie, My Love’, and ‘The Hayburner’ with a nod to ‘The Truckee Strip’ and ‘The Crucible’. Everyone in Virginia City knew Duke Miller had gotten away with murder, but there were few who knew he had done it before. At the heart of his hate lay one man and but a single goal: the complete and total destruction of Joe Cartwright.
Rated PG-13 for Western brutality and lots of angst and SJS
Word count: 72,114
Let’s Stay Together (by Annie K Cowgirl)
Summary: A thunderstorm brings two brothers together. Pre-series story.
Rating: K
Word count: 897
The Duet (by DJK)
Summary: Adam cannot avoid singing a duet on Christmas Eve, and Hoss cannot avoid a damsel in distress.
rating K words: 1158
A Thawing Heart (by BluewindFarm)
Summary: An old cowpoke went riding out one bright and snow-filled day, and found something he didn’t know he was missing.
Rating: G
Word Count: 1,115
The Christmas Tree Surprise (by wx4rmk)
Summary: Ben sets out to surprise his sons at Christmas. However, when things take a turn for the worst, Ben does something he has failed to do in a long time.
Rating: G
Word Count: 1,000
Christmas Spirit (by AC1830)
Summary: Little Joe learns something special about Christmas, with the help of his brothers.
Rating: T, WC 947
Moments – A Brother’s Decision (by Missjudy)
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
Camping Trip (by Arien)
Summary: The brothers go camping, and there’s nothing better than telling a ‘ghost story’ around a camp fire, unless you try to tell the tale with these brothers.
Rating: G (1,220 words)
