Becky Sims issued the following challenge in a writer's group:

"Perhaps Randy would be willing to give us a two-page story on the moment Chad Cooper [Laredo] walks into a saloon yelling 'Joe!  Your horse just keeled over and died in the middle of the street!' and Joe Cartwright is standing at the bar?"  [Chad's Texas Ranger partner in the western series Laredo was also named Joe, making crossover stories problematic]

Becky told me later she expected a heart-wrenching scene.  This ain't that.  I leave heart-wrenching to Becky who has great Bonanza fanfic posted on this and other Bonanza lists.

        Joe Riley looked up from his beer as Chad walked into the saloon yelling,  "Joe! Your horse just keeled over and died in the middle of the street!"

        Joe responded calmly, used to his partner's attempts to get him riled up just to find out he was in the midst of some foolish joke or another.  "Give it up Chad. I just left Buttermilk in the Ranger stable and she was perfectly fine.  You're not going to get me to go running out in the street just so you can get a chance to sweet-talk Emily behind my back".  Joe nodded toward the pretty barmaid who was even now stroking his biceps with admiration.

        "Don't blame me, it was Reese who ran into the office looking to tell you. I told him I'd check here."  Chad was surprised.  Reese generally wasn't smart enough to put one over on Chad.

        Just then they heard Reese's gravel voice behind Chad, "Not that Joe.  You think Riley's the only Joe in Texas?  I was looking for that fella I met in the Captain's office this morning.  He had gray-streaked hair and was wearing a green jacket.  That's him," Reese added, pointing at a man meeting that description standing at the end of the bar.

        The sound of Reese's loud, coarse voice prompted Joe Cartwright to look up.  He recognized the old Ranger from Parmalee's office.  He stepped forward,  beer in hand.  "You talking about a black and white pinto horse?"

        "That's right mister," Reese responded.  "Sorry about your horse but I thought you'd want to get your gear off him before they haul him off to the renderer.  They gotta move him, he's blocking the street.  But since you're a friend of the Captain, I'd be happy to grab it up for you if you want."

        "I'd really appreciate that Mr. Bennett," Joe said as he sat down at the closest table.

        Chad got a beer of his own and joined Cartwright at his table.  He put out his hand, "Chad Cooper, I'm another of the Rangers hereabouts.  Real sorry about your horse.  You don't seem too surprised.  Was he doing poorly?"

        Cartwright shrugged, "He was slowly going blind.  A tumor the vet said.  He wasn't in pain but he told me not to ride him near any cliffs because he could go at any time.  I'm tired of  riding pintos so I thought I'd ride him down this way and when he went, get me a nice sensible looking chestnut or bay horse."

        Chad found this a little confusing.  "Where you from that they don't have bays and chestnuts, only pintos?"

        Joe smiled.  "I'm from a ranch outside Virginia City in Nevada.  It's not that there's only pintos around.  It's my Pa.  He got it in his head we've had enough tragedy in our lives what with all the women in our lives dying, so he's tried to protect me from the sorrow of losing a good horse.  When I was sixteen, I wanted a flashy horse.  You know how kids are.  Got this great pinto named Cochise.  Six or so years later he got sand colic real bad.  I was up all night tending him.  I fell asleep out in the barn next to his stall.  When I woke up, there was this perfectly healthy pinto in Cochise's stall.  Of course, I knew it wasn't Cochise but my father was so pleased about the switch, telling me how I'd saved my horse and all,  I  didn't have the heart to tell him I could see the difference."

        Joe took a swig of his beer and put his feet up on the empty chair next to him.

        "He's been doing it ever since.  This one that died out there on the street is the sixth Cochise I've had and I've only had him for a few months.  I think one of my father's lady friends, Victoria Barkley in Stockton, she raises them.  My horse starts to do poorly and Pa just puts in an order is how I figure it.  At least, Heath or Nick Barkley seem to show up every time my horse gets sick.  The one before this one wasn't even that bad off.  Just had a serious stone bruise but my pa was afraid it was navicular disease.  Sure enough, three days later he was gone and there was a new Cochise in his stall.  This one doesn't even look that much like the previous one, he's an overo and the one before him was a tobiano.  I think my Pa's getting careless in his old age."  Joe's voice indicated a tolerant fondness not clear from his words.

        "Anyway, I'm over thirty now and tired of riding flashy pintos.  So I figure if this horse died in Texas, I could get me a horse I could tie up at one of the establishments in Virginia City without everyone in town knowing Joe Cartwright was being entertained by a lady of the evening."

        Chad nodded, he could identify with that.  He was just lucky all the interesting establishments in Laredo were within walking distance of the Ranger barracks so his flashy black horse with the blaze and one white sock didn't announce to the world, and the Captain, what he was up to.  Kept him from being identified by a few husbands too.

        But Chad was curious about something else Cartwright had said.  "What did you mean when you said that about all the women in your lives dying?"

        Joe leaned back in his chair.  "Oh, that's the Cartwright curse.  Any Cartwright gets married, the woman is doomed.  My father buried three wives.  We even get engaged or seriously interested in a woman, we might as well start planning her funeral.  First time I really fell in love I was barely eighteen.  Of course, she was totally unsuitable.  She was at least thirty, the madame of a high class bordello and I think she'd had an illicit relationship with my father.  But I was determined to defy my family and marry her.  She was killed by a shady fellow who'd worked for her."

        Chad was intrigued.  "I had a woman like that when I was seventeen.  She was twenty-seven and she took a new young lover every year.  Her husband was a boxer in the fight game in New Orleans.  When he found out, he beat the crap out of me just like he had all the others.  But being with an experienced woman like that can give a young man lots of confidence about his ability to please women as he goes through life."

        Joe nodded in agreement.  "You're right about that. But still, it can put a damper on things knowing if you get too serious about a woman she's going to die."

        "All of them?"  Chad figured maybe he was being put on by someone better at it than Reese.

        "Well, not all.  Some have the sense to cut things off before they're marked for banishment.  I was in love with a gypsy girl once.  I think she loved me, but she gave me some nonsense about me being a tree and her being a fish or a bird or something.  I figure now that her being a gypsy, maybe she was sensitive to curses and knew when to get out."

        "So you can get engaged or even married, knowing it won't last after the passion fades?"  Chad was thinking there were some advantages to this curse.  "I wouldn't mind having something like that on my head.  The time a nice girl's most likely to give you that good loving is when you're engaged and she figures you're almost married so anything goes.  They stop being so loving when you try to drag out the engagement too long."  Chad thought regretfully of sweet Caroline in Spanish Wells.  And of the buckshot he'd picked out of his backside from her father's shotgun.  "And they wouldn't have to die.  You could break things off before the wedding knowing you were saving her life.  A guilt-free break-up."  Chad was feeling real envious.

        Joe shook his head.  "I think the whole thing's worked a hardship on my father's mind.  He's a good man but the stress of it all has given him some strange ways."

        "Like what?"

        "Well, we have more money than God, but ever since my brothers and I were grown we've had to wear the same damn clothes every day for a year or more at a time.  I think my father wants things predictable and steady around him.  I've been wearing this stupid green jacket for years.  I think that's what caused my brother Adam to move to Boston.  He got tired of wearing black.  And my brother Hoss . . . ."

        Joe's voice wavered as he thought of his late, good-natured brother. "A friend of my Pa's gave him this huge, ridiculous hat.  It was some guy  named Bob Hopi, something like that.  Anyway, Hoss was stuck with wearing that stupid hat for thirteen years.  I think it's what finally killed him."

        Now there was something Chad could identify with.  "My Captain's the same way.  He likes to be able to pick his Rangers out in a brawl.  We only get a different change of clothes once a year.  I liked this black leather vest when I picked it out last fall but I'm sure sick of it now.  And my partner Joe was stuck wearing a pink shirt all of the past year when the red shirt he picked faded out."

        Chad and Joe sighed in mutual understanding.  They finished their beers.  Chad stood up, "Hey Cartwright, I know a guy who's selling a real nice bay horse.  Sturdy, high spirited, but real undistinguished looking.  Want to take a look?"

        Joe stood up and clapped Chad on the back.  "I'd be obliged Ranger.  And maybe afterwards I could buy you supper and you could show me where you go for a good time in this town."

        They went out the door together so caught up in their new friendship that Joe didn't even notice the big wagon carrying a lifeless black and white form on its way to the renderers.

Note: For those few who don't know, it was reported that when the Bonanza cast went in for a wardrobe fitting, as a joke Dan Blocker tried on a hat worn by Bob Hope in "Son of Paleface" a comedy western.  Much to his chagrin, he was forced to wear it for his entire run of the series.

There were at least five or six regular Cochises and some stunt doubles during the course of Bonanza's run.  My favorite was a predominately black one ridden in season eleven.  (You can see him in "Decision at Los Robles")  Overo and tobiano are two different pinto color patterns.

Joe had an affair with a Madam in "The Julia Bulette Story" (and it is broadly but indirectly suggested that Ben had been with her as well.)  Joe was in love with a gypsy girl in one of the early season episodes and she broke things off with him using the line cited above, basically saying he had roots and she was a wanderer.

It is, of course, common (for purposes of continuity and usage of stock footage) for western series characters to wear the same clothes all season.  They did so in Laredo and Bonanza.