{"id":3989,"date":"2008-04-01T12:00:49","date_gmt":"2008-04-01T16:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/?p=3989"},"modified":"2026-07-30T14:25:17","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T18:25:17","slug":"hoss-north-and-south","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/?p=3989","title":{"rendered":"Hoss, North and South (by Writing Woman)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"label\" style=\"color: #000000;\">Summary: \u00a0<\/span>Written for the April Chaps and Spurs Challenge. While on a cattle drive headed east, Hoss becomes involved in the war between the North and South.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"label\" style=\"color: #000000;\">Rated:<\/span><span style=\"color: #000000;\">\u00a0K \u00a0WC \u00a0625<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>HOSS, NORTH AND SOUTH<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Hoss sat quietly on his horse, listening.<\/strong> He could hear the fighting in the distance and remembered his father\u2019s caution not to get involved in the\u00a0<strong>conflict<\/strong>. Pa wouldn\u2019t even call it a war, but men were dying north and south. After all, that\u2019s why he was on this cattle drive and not Adam or Joe. His\u00a0<strong>brothers<\/strong>\u00a0had ties north and south, but Hoss wasn\u2019t supposed to have either. This was one of the few occasions when Pa was wrong, dead wrong.<\/p>\n<p>He slowly slid out of the saddle and led Chub into the trees. The trees were much smaller than back home and they didn\u2019t provide much cover for the large man. As he walked he listened to the sound of the evening breeze. It was easy for him to tell the difference between the sound of the wind through the trees and the sound of someone crawling slowly through the leaves. Hoss was following a blood trail. It would have been difficult for anyone else to follow, but not him. He was an expert at this and certainly more expert than the one he followed. He walked slow and steadily and eventually came across a body in the underbrush. He carefully moved away the branches. It looked as though the young man had tried to hide himself, but he couldn\u2019t hide from Hoss. It wasn\u2019t anything to be ashamed of, most men couldn\u2019t hide from the large man.<\/p>\n<p>The man rolled over slowly and pulled out a gun. Hoss heard the fatal click of the hammer, but there was no bullet. The gun was as empty as the eyes of the man who was holding it. Those eyes rolled closed as Hoss lifted him up.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSteady now,\u201d he said half to the young man and also to the dark bay horse. He could hear the sounds of others approaching, but his\u00a0<strong>conscience<\/strong>\u00a0wouldn\u2019t let him abandon the wounded young man. The wounded man must have heard the soldiers approaching as well, because he shifted his weight and stood straight. It was a matter of\u00a0<strong>honor<\/strong>\u00a0with him. He wouldn\u2019t let the enemy see him weak. He\u2019d face the end straight on, just as his father and his brothers before him had.\u00a0 He thought himself big enough to handle his end, but that\u2019s not what Hoss saw. Hoss saw a wounded boy not even Joe\u2019s age wearing scraps of what was once a uniform, bleeding from his wounds and barely able to stand. Hoss shifted his weight and turned to face the approaching men.<\/p>\n<p>All the soldiers saw was the large cowboy\u00a0<strong>stalwart<\/strong>\u00a0in both intent and demeanor blocking their way.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou go on now,\u201d he said, \u201cthis boy ain\u2019t gonna be fightin\u2019 any more.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOut of the way.\u201d Ordered the sergeant.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI said there wasn\u2019t gonna be any more fightin\u2019.\u201d Hoss repeated.<\/p>\n<p>And there wasn\u2019t. Ben and several of the hands rode up behind the soldiers. Ben Cartwright got down off his horse walked into the trees and addressed the sergeant,<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSergeant, you want to kill that boy or do you want your men to eat beef for dinner?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That wasn\u2019t a difficult choice for a group of soldiers that had been going without rations or pay for the latter part of the war.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI guess we\u2019d rather eat, sir.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo would I.\u201d Said Hoss.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Disclaimer:\u00a0All publicly recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Summary: \u00a0While on a cattle drive headed east, Hoss becomes involved in the war between the North and South. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Rated:\u00a0K \u00a0WC \u00a0625<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":129,"featured_media":2192,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"template-full-width-post.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[39,1006,8,40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chaps-spurs","category-hoss-cartwright","category-short-stories","category-challenges","wpcat-39-id","wpcat-1006-id","wpcat-8-id","wpcat-40-id"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/hoss1.jpeg?fit=300%2C168&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3989","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/129"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3989\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bonanzabrand.info\/library\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}