Rage of the Mountain Man Read Online Free

Arnold Cabbott. Wade Tanner, my—ah—chief enforcer, shall we say. You have good news for me, Wade?
    “A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mr. Cabbott. Yes, Mr. Lathrop. That dynamite worked splendidly. You should have no difficulty obtaining the desired property now, and the others, without a rallying figure, should capitulate readily.”
    Arnold Cabbott blinked at this cultured speech pouring from under the large, wide nose, past rabbity teeth that heightened a certain rodentlike appearance. Tanner looked the part of the lowliest of common gunmen, yet talked like a gentlemen. If only his boastful preamble proved true, their troubles would be over.
    “You are absolutely sure of that?”
    “Oh, yes, sir. Smoke Jensen is now just a memory.”

    For Sally Jensen, the avalanche was the final straw. She was not one to make issues out of frivolous discomforts, but the snow slide that had nearly claimed the life of her husband and many of his workers hardened Sally’s determination to escape the rigors of the past winter. Hands still worked to dig out the imprisoned livestock and their damaged bunkhouse. With the stove dislodged, no cooking could be done in the men’s quarters. Sally did double duty, helped by Cynthia Patterson, to serve hot, filling meals to the ranch employees.
    She put down a skillet now to peer through the open rear door and up the face of the mountain that, to her way of thinking, had betrayed them. Was that a blackened smudge she saw against the sparkling white of the snow ledge? Her eyes watered at the brightness and strain. There appeared to be two—no, three—dark spots. Her vision was no longer as sharp as when their children had been the age of Bobby Harris. Smoke would be able to tell, Sally assured herself. But first she must make it clear to him how badly she needed to get away from the basin.
    Turning from the stove, she spoke with hands on hips. “Kirby, we simply have to get out of here.”
    That got Smoke’s immediate attention. She never called him by his given name unless a situation had reached the critical level. “I’ve been thinking along those lines myself,” he allowed neutrally.
    “Well, I’m glad. Because I’m convinced we need to get as far away from these mountains and that dreadful snow as possible.”
    Smoke cocked a raven eyebrow. “Meaning where?” Sally took a deep breath. “New Hampshire. My father’s place. It’s been years since I’ve spent more than a day or two there. Longer still since you visited. He would be so pleased, and so would mother.”
    Astonishment registered on Smoke’s face. He viewed any country north, south, east, or west of the Rocky Mountains with suspicion. But particularly east. And he considered anywhere east of the Mississippi River with abhorrence. People didn’t know how to live right back there.
    Fact was, to Smoke they seemed only to exist. Odd creatures, they chose to spend their lives bunched up on top of one another in tall, narrow row houses, on tiny plots of ground not fitting even to grow a kitchen garden. And they had cities with two, three times the population of the entire state of Colorado. No, definitely not the place for them to go. He opened his mouth to say so, but Sally rushed on, eager to sell her idea.
    “In his last letter, father grew almost poetic when he described the coming of spring in the Green Mountains.” 
    Mountains? Smoke thought, faintly amused at the use of the term. More like worn-down hills. “I was thinking of New Orleans,” Smoke managed to insert. He hoped to distract Sally from her temporary madness by offering a trip to her favorite city. Sally called New Orleans “the most civilized town in America.”
    For a moment, her blue eyes glowed as she considered the Vieux Carre, and all those tiny balconies with their ornate wrought-iron banisters and the gaily painted shutters at the narrow windows. The spanking clean carriages and Hansom cabs that twinkled around Jackson Square. The