Four Corners of the Ponderosa

 

 

Title:  Four Corners of the Ponderosa

 

Author: Tipper

 

Disclaimer:  Own nothing and no one.

 

Parts: Six (Complete)

 

Note 1: July Challenge answer offered by KT.  Cross Mag 7 with another western.  I'm a recent (very recent) Bonanza fan, and I've only seen bits of two seasons, so I apologize in advance to real fans of the show if I don't get it quite right, but I'm already obsessed with Bonanza and can't help myself.

 

Note 2:  Just a timing note.  Now, fans of Mag 7 know very well that our time line is…flexible.  The Seven lived in a time warp that had nothing to do with real time, and, in fact, couldn't exist (real history was somewhat thinly applied).  However, it's certain it takes place sometime between 1865 and, well, 1890 (cute, eh?).  Bonanza, on the other hand, has a very definite time line.  The first episodes take place around 1859 and, of course, it lasted fourteen years, with Adam disappearing somewhere around "1865" since he left after six seasons.  Needless to say, that doesn't work for a crossover.  I want all four Cartwrights.  So, I'm taking a lesson from the Mag7 guide to history (i.e. ignoring it completely) and creating a timeline where the Central Pacific Railroad and the Southern Pacific Railroad are being built at the same time (as opposed to about fifteen years apart—but hey, it's the same people doing it), and where it's about 1866 or so.  (On a sidenote, the Mag7 town also has no real setting.  It is both a day's ride from the Mexico border and a day's ride from where Chinese laborers are building the Central Pacific.  Considering the two are a thousand or more miles apart, obviously, location is also, as noted…flexible.  So, I'm pretending that, although Ezra said the Central Pacific in the episode Chinatown, what he meant was that the Southern Pacific, which was being financed by the Big Four of the Central Pacific, and Four Corners is somewhere inside the Gila National Forest in New Mexico.)

 

Dedication: To the Round Up Girls, and our single file horseback ride, nose to butt, as the first part of this story came from that memory.

 

Description:  Ezra, Josiah, Chris and Vin are in California, running for their lives…and Josiah from a noose. Outnumbered, outgunned and without back-up, the four men are trying to get across the border into Nevada and to safety the quickest way they can…through the Ponderosa. As you might guess, the four Cartwrights are less than pleased.

 

PARTS

 

ONE

 

TWO

 

THREE

 

FOUR

 

FIVE

 

SIX (Epilogue)