Summary: The family has a house guest for a week who doesn’t act at all as they expected. Hoss thought he would have a friend, but their guest chose to attach to another family member.
Rating: PG  Word count: 2,212

Fury

Ninety pounds of various shades of brown with droopy eyes and with a tail that dragged, the dog walked in behind Hoss and immediately dropped to the floor as if exhausted. The head stayed up though as if challenging anyone who walked too close. The ears were at full alert so no sound in the room would escape the dog’s notice even if he looked like he was about to go to sleep otherwise. Looking at the dog in disgust, Hoss took off his hat and gunbelt as Adam looked over at the two of them. He was pleased that as he moved his head, there was still only one image of Hoss and of the dog.

“Did you make him run all the way from town?”

“Run? I don’t think this dog can run. I had to lift him into the wagon. At least he jumped down on his own when we got here. Can’t rightly say why they call him ‘Fury’ because it seems he’s more peaceful than ferocious. He doesn’t hardly have the energy to bark.”

“He looks more sleepy than peaceful.”

Adam stood to limp over to take a look at the dog they had agreed to watch for a week. Speaking to the dog, he made Hoss smile.

“You look tired, boy. You want to come over to the fireplace and rest easy. Must have been exhausting riding in that wagon all the way from town.”

“Lucky for you he can’t understand what you’re a saying or he might bite you in the ankle.”

“Well, that would require him to move which he doesn’t seem inclined at all to do.”

“You seem to be moving a mite better.”

A few days earlier, Adam had been injured breaking horses when one had slipped and thrown him over its head and into a corral fence. Suffering from a head injury, a sprained left wrist, and a bruised knee, he hadn’t been able to do any work since then. This was the first day he had been able to eat and not retch it all back up. That news he happily shared with Hoss.

“So your head’s getting better. That’s real good. Doc didn’t know how well you were going to recover from that. He said we all had better get used to taking better care of our brains seeing as we only had one each.”

“I recall him saying that and then wondering aloud if we did. I wanted to laugh, but it wasn’t a good idea at the time.”

“Nah, it wouldn’t have been. He was a mite peeved that you got hurt again so soon after the last time he was here.”

“It could have happened to anyone. No one knew the horse would slip when it was bucking, and I’d fly over its head like that.”

“I’m glad the horse wasn’t hurt. It would have been a shame to lose it.”

“Lose what?”

Joe walked into the house after putting the team of horses in the corral.

“The horse that bucked Adam off. I said I’m glad the horse wasn’t hurt.”

“The horse didn’t buck me off. He slipped and that’s when I went flying. It could have happened to anyone.”

Limping back to his chair to sit down again, Adam frowned as his brothers laughed. Fury stood and followed behind Adam lying down next to his chair. Looking down at the dog stretched out on the floor and looking comfortable there, Adam pursed his lips.

“Well, you do have good taste, Fury. Do you do any tricks? How about rolling over? Can you do that?”

Pausing for a moment, Adam smiled.

“Oh, boy, Fury, that was fast. Next time, roll over a little more slowly so my brothers can see it. You’re faster than lightning, and I doubt they could see what you did. Whoa, you did it again. Fury, I guess you can’t help yourself. You’re just too fast.”

Sitting on the settee, Joe leaned back and shook his head.

“You’re lucky that dog doesn’t understand English or especially sarcasm. He’d likely do what many would like to do to you for your smart mouth.”

“Oh, and what’s that, Joe?”

“I think you know.”

“Fury, if you get the urge to chew on someone, feel free to chew on Joe.”

“Hey, I took the afternoon with Hoss to go pick him up and bring him here. He shouldn’t be chewing on me for anything.”

Joe had raised his voice, and Adam noticed Fury’s ears going back.

“Joe, I don’t think Fury likes loud voices. Maybe you ought to settle down?”

Seeing Adam looking at Fury, Hoss focused his attention on the dog too. Before Joe could register any more objections, he added support to what Adam had said but did so in a calm voice much like Adam was using.

“Joe, he’s right, and ifn ya don’t want him chewing on your leg, you best calm down and talk soft like.”

With a frown, Joe leaned back and stared at the fireplace. Hop Sing had been planning to bring out coffee and cookies for Adam so he brought out some for each of the brothers. Adam drank the coffee but let the cookies sit on the table in front of him as he returned to reading the book he had been reading before his brothers returned. Seeing Adam preoccupied, Joe reached for his brother’s cookies. Fury growled menacingly causing Joe to freeze with his hand above the cookies. Looking up from his book at the noise, Adam looked down at Fury.

“Joe, I suggest you back away slowly and don’t do anything to upset Fury.”

Joe slid back and Fury relaxed. Adam reached for his cookies, and there was no response from the dog. He took one cookie and placed the plate with the other cookie on the floor by Fury.

“Go ahead. You earned it.”

Fury hesitated. It appeared he was uncomfortable and not sure he ought to take a cookie from a plate. Adam reached down and slid the cookie onto the floor.

“There, is that better?”

Fury gobbled up the cookie, looked up to Adam as if to say thank you, and then rested his head on his paws again.

“Well, older brother, looks like you got a friend. I don’t know how you did it. We tried petting him and being nice to him and such, and he acted like we didn’t exist.”

“Yeah, me and Hoss even tried to throw sticks for him to fetch, and all those dog kind of things, but he didn’t want to do any of them.”

“Maybe he doesn’t like being petted or fetching sticks.”

“That’s crazy talk, Adam. All dogs like that stuff.”

Joe looked to Hoss for confirmation, and his big brother nodded.

“Well, Pa should be back from Carson City soon. I think I’ll wait outside for him. It’s a nice day, and I’m tired of sitting inside.”

“Me and Joe got some work to do Do you suppose you could watch over ole Fury seeing as how he seems ta like ya best?”

They got a shrug in response. Picking up his book, Adam looked down at Fury.

“All right with you if we go outside to wait for Pa?”

Fury stood up. Adam limped toward the front door, and Fury followed. Hoss and Joe looked at each other and raised their hands in mock surrender as if to say they had no idea what was going on. They followed the two out the door and headed to the barn as Adam settled into a chair on the porch. As soon as Adam was settled in the chair with his book, Fury lay down beside him. As Adam read, a passage in the book, it seemed a bit odd to him. He read it aloud to see if it made more sense. It did, but he noticed that Fury sat up and seemed to be listening. He read more aloud, and Fury stayed that way.

“Hmm, you like good books, do you? Well, I like to read, and I like to talk. You make a wonderful audience too. No arguments. No catcalls. Just quiet attention. I like that.”

For the next hour, Adam read softly, and Fury listened. When Ben rode into the yard, he saw Adam sitting with a large dog at his side. It surprised him because usually, it was Hoss who became the constant companion to any dog that showed up at their place. When he walked into the barn to put Buck away, Hoss and Joe filled him in on the strange dog they had agreed to board for a week. He told them about how things had gone on his trip.

“Unfortunately, we finished after the banks had closed so I’m carrying the money with me. I felt like I had a target on my back the whole ride home. I took a different route than the usual though to make it difficult if anyone tried to follow me. All I want to do now is get this inside and in the safe.”

They heard voices then though and moved to the barn doors cautiously because the voices didn’t sound friendly. Staying out of sight, they saw that two men had pulled their pistols on Adam and were demanding to know where Ben was with the money. Ben handed his pistol to Joe and told him to get around to one side and told Hoss to get the rifle from his saddle and take the other side. He took off his gunbelt and prepared to walk outside to distract the two men. It never happened.

The two men moved closer to Adam threatening him. Fury launched himself at the closest man and slashed at his face and gun hand disarming him and making him grab for his wounded face. Then Fury immediately attacked the other man who was shocked by what had happened. Before he had a chance to fire his pistol at Fury or Adam, Fury knocked him down and stood on him trying to get to his throat as the man desperately tried to protect himself. Adam quickly got the first man’s pistol and before Fury killed the second man, Adam called him off. Ben and the others ran to them, and Hop Sing came from the house.

“I think these two men need some medical care before you bring them to the sheriff.”

Fury walked back to the porch and sat beside the chair where Adam had been. Adam looked at him and walked back to the chair, picked up his book, and sat down.

“I guess you earned this.”

After finding his place, he began reading aloud. Joe looked at Adam and shook his head.

“Adam, he saved your life. You shouldn’t punish him like that.”

Adam and Fury ignored Joe. Adam kept reading, and Fury sat at his side attentive and alert. After a moment, Fury moved closer to rest his head on Adam’s thigh as if to hear better with the noise of the others talking. Ben and Hoss looked at each other and shrugged. Apparently, the two were made for each other.

For the next week, Fury was Adam’s companion. Adam moved to the downstairs bedroom so he could more easily let Fury outside when he needed to go. He read to him, gave him food and water when he wanted it, and sat on the porch with him when the weather was nice. Fury didn’t leave his side sitting next to him at the dining table which did make Joe nervous. Trying to make friends with the dog, Joe tried to give him some table scraps. He wouldn’t take them, but Adam asked Joe if he would hand them over. He did and Adam gave them to Fury by dropping them on the floor next to him. Fury gobbled them up. Although he didn’t make any overt gesture to show he appreciated Joe’s gesture, he didn’t growl at Joe anymore and showed no more of the aggressive stances toward Joe that he had done earlier.

At the end of the week, Fury’s owners showed up looking at each of the Cartwrights and were relieved when they saw no bandages. Fury was resting next to Adam on the porch looking content until his owner called him. He stood, looked back once at Adam, and then walked slowly to his owner’s carriage where he was lifted into the back.

“You did real well with him, better than anyone ever did.”

Fury’s owner pulled money from his pocket to pay Hoss and Joe, but they declined.

“Fury stopped a robbery and saved us more money than you could ever pay us.”

“He did? He must really like you then.”

“It’s Adam he likes. He was protecting him.”

“Well, ain’t that something. I thought it might be Hoss he would latch onto. Well, at least he picked somebody. He can be hard to take care of unless he decides he’s got a friend. I’m glad he got one here. Can I bring him here again if I need somebody to watch him while I’m gone?”

Everyone looked at Adam who shrugged.

“Sure. I’d be happy to have my friend visit again.”