Summary: My entry for the 2018 Camp in the Pines. At fifteen, Joe thinks he knows what it is to be a man. Unexpected events tip his ideas upside down and he finds the road home is a lot longer than he thought.

Rating: T Word Count: 10856

Summary:  A burned out stagecoach lies on its side, the victim of an Indian raid. There’s a name on the coach manifest that makes Joe Cartwright’s heart stand still. Can it be that Elizabeth Carnaby is dead? And, as the man who robbed the coach seeks personal vengeance against Ben Cartwright’s youngest son – can Joe himself survive?

Rated M.  The story is probably a PG-13 one, but for safety sake – and for the sake of one heavy duty romantic scene – I am calling it ‘M’.  Contained in that PG-13 rating would be western brutality and violence, and torture.  (101,760 words)

Wet Bottom, Warm Heart Series, links to stories within the series are included.

Summary: 12 year old Little Joe Cartwright loves black horses, especially the new black mare his brothers found and brought home. Though their father disapproves, Little Joe knows she’s the one for him and sets out to prove it. What do an apparition, a burned out ranch, a stolen fortune, a group of desperate outlaws, and Little Joe Cartwright have in common besides trouble? Mystery.

Rated PG for frightening images and western violence  (25,100 words)

Summary: Ben had taught his boys a code of honour that extended to others. They lived by it and he was proud of them, but would that code sustain him if it cost him one of his sons?

Word Count: 7208 Rating: T

Summary: A sequel to Prodigal Sons with some of the characters from that story. When Adam receives an urgent telegram, calling in a marker, he has no idea what he is riding into. A tale of brothers and the bonds that hold them together, no matter what comes against them. This story does go into OC territory, but it all ties in with our favourite family along the way.

Word Count: 39,542

Rating: T

Prodigal Sons Series, links to stories within the series are included.

Summary: It is 1875. Two years later, Joe Cartwright’s inability to cope with his wife’s death is ruining his life. His Pa thinks getting away might be the answer. Little does Ben know that his decision will put Joe’s life in danger, as well as the lives of the Ingalls’ family who take a wounded Joe in and bring the wrath of a man who hates him down on their heads.

Rated PG-13    (54,680 words)

Summary: In 2269 an archaeologist digging in the ruins of the Bodie mine on Earth discovers skeletal remains dating to 1876. On the wrist of the dead man, who is wearing a green jacket, is an alien device. Its discovery sends the crew of the Enterprise into the past to Ben Cartwright’s Ponderosa where the eddies of time and an alien menace are moving together to doom Ben’s youngest son.

Rated: PG-13   (77,500 words)

Summary: Pitching brother against brother is a cruel game, but turning father against son is even better. Long buried hatred resurfaces in an unexpected way with devastating consequences for the whole family.

Word Count: 39,834 Rating: T

Prodigal Sons Series, links to stories within the series are included.

Summary:  This story was written for the Challenge “Lorne Greene’s birthday”. It’s not a poem, it’s not a 102 words text, it’s a 2915 words short story about Ben during one very special moment of his life. I wrote this text in french, the translation was not an easy one because I wanted to keep the special atmosphere of that romance. I was helped by my English friend, who reread and corrected the text. Now you’ll be able to discover it ; I’m glad to share it with you.

Have you ever experimented that sensation that one special smell could bring so many memories ?

Rating:  K+ (2,915 words)

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: When Ben leaves on a cattle drive with two of his sons, he has no idea that when he returns home, Joe will be gone. After searching for him, he has to face the very real possibility his son will never return.

Word Count: 13,562 Rating: T

Summary:  A  sequel to ‘Wet Bottom Warm Heart’. After 11 year old Elizabeth Carnaby saved Little Joe’s life, he promised to bring her to the Ponderosa. She arrives along with a sudden winter storm that blows in not only a little fun but a whole lot of trouble, including a killer named Fleet Rowse who is looking to make easy money by lightening the load in Ben Cartwright’s safe.

Rating:  T  (82,825 words)

Wet Bottom, Warm Heart Series, links to stories within the series are included.

Summary: Adam is forced to consider what is important to him, especially when he may have lost someone that is very important to him. A Bonanza prequel story, set just after Adam returns home from college.

Word Count: 16,231

Rating: T

Summary:  For two years Adam had been living in a village of Ute Indians believing his family had died in a wagon train attack. He was settled in his new life until the day he was abducted and left to die in the desert. Now, with help from some old faces, he embarks on a desperate search for his wife, before a heart-breaking decision has to be made.

Rating: T Word Count: 54,802 words

The Many Spirits Series, links to stories within the series are included.

SUMMARY: 14 year old Joe Cartwright was just trying to do something nice for a friend. Older brother Adam didn’t see it that way. An argument between brothers sets off a series of events that turns into an unstoppable torrent of trouble, which leaves one of Ben Cartwright’s sons with a terrible task to perform and another near death, trapped in the Belly of the Whale.

Rated: PG-13 for mild language and implied adult situations, which do not occur.    WC 76,500