[Montacroix Royal Family Series 03] - The Outlaw
Read [Montacroix Royal Family Series 03] - The Outlaw Online
Authors: JoAnn Ross
Tags: #Men Of Whiskey River, #Rogues
"Who is he?"
The familiar indigo eyes of the man in the picture were so vivid Noel could almost feel the black fire emanating from them. It was him! The man from her dream. The man whose touch had proven both soothing and arousing at the same time.
"Wolfe Longwalker. Whiskey River's most famous—or infamous—citizen. He was hanged as an outlaw." The shop owner answered Noel's question.
Into Noel's mind came the image of a single figure seated tall astride a horse, his hands tied behind his back, an ugly noose around his neck.
"He was also a writer," the woman continued, and pointed to some of Wolfe's books. Noel picked up several to buy, when another book caught her eye. "
Rogues Across Time
." She read the gold inlaid lettering out loud. When she turned a page and came face-to-face with Wolfe's glowering visage, she imagined she could feel the book growing warm in her hand.
"I'll buy it," she said.
And suddenly, very clearly, she saw Wolfe smiling at her
….
Dear Reader,
Over the years, I've received letters asking when I was going to write a book about Princess Noel, the youngest daughter in my Montacroix royal family. I always answer that I plan to do that, as soon as I find the right man for her.
When I first saw Wolfe Longwalker, seated astride a horse in the rain, with a rope around his neck, rigidly refusing to surrender to his captors, even at the moment of his hanging, I knew I'd finally found the man capable of teaching this intelligent woman, whom the paparazzi has dubbed The Ice Princess, the true meaning of passion.
In
The Outlaw
, I had the unique opportunity to return to the scene of my January MIRA title,
Confessions
. Set in the remote, rugged Arizona mountain area, this book kicks off my MEN OF WHISKEY RIVER series.
I envision Whiskey River as a romantic, magical place. A place where anything can happen. (And often does.) A town like Brigadoon, hidden in the mists, just waiting to be discovered.
I hope you enjoy Princess Noel's wild, out-of-time adventure in historical Whiskey River. I also hope you'll visit again, when the witch of Whiskey River starts brewing up trouble. And romance. The MEN OF WHISKEY RIVER return this fall.
Happy reading!
I love hearing from readers. You can write to me at HC 31, Box 428, Happy Jack, AZ 86024, E-mail to [email protected] or visit on my Home Page on the World Wide Web at http://www.comet.net/writers/joann
ISBN 0-373-25685-X
THE OUTLAW
Copyright © 1996 by JoAnn Ross.
ROGUES
THE COWBOY
Kristine Rolofson
January 1996
THE PIRATE
Kate Hoffmann
March 1996
THE OUTLAW
JoAnn Ross
May 1996
THE KNIGHT
Sandy Steen
July 1996
THE HIGHWAYMAN
Madeline Harper
September 1996
THE OUTLAW
The folklore of the Wild American West could not be complete without the outlaw. Portrayed as romantic heroes of the "wild, wild West" in dime novels and the
Police Gazette
(reportedly read by half the male population in America in the late nineteenth century), their violent exploits blaze on in the ballads and myths of a nation.
Wolfe Longwalker was the illegitimate son of an Irish-American cavalry officer and a Navajo mother who died after giving birth to him on the tribe's notorious forced walk to imprisonment at Fort Sumner. Wolfe eventually obtained revenge against his father's people. Not with bows and arrows, but with the formidable power of the white man's words. His stories of Indian life in the Arizona territory became worldwide bestsellers.
Despite his literary success, he was later convicted of murdering a family of white settlers—a crime dubbed "The Massacre at Whiskey River" by the
Gazette
—and sentenced to death by hanging. Before the sentence could be carried out, he escaped, eluding his captors for twelve days. But in the end, he was recaptured. And hanged.
Prologue
Arizona Territory, 1896
It rained the day they hanged Wolfe Longwalker.
It was a cold spring afternoon, with an icy rain falling unceasingly from a darkened sky. Thunder boomed from anvil-shaped gunmetal-gray clouds. The dirt road leading through Whiskey River had turned to thick mud—a red mire that smelled like horse dung and made a loud sucking sound as boots slogged through it.
Normally, such filthy weather would have kept the population of the isolated western town indoors drinking whiskey and brawling in the saloons or seeking pleasures of the flesh in the town's bordellos. But it wasn't every day a horse-stealing, murdering half-breed was going to be hanged.
Not even in Whiskey River.
The fact that Longwalker had been a thorn in the community's hide—or, as one drunken cowhand pointed out succinctly, another more vital anatomical part—made the day even more special.
The public hanging was being treated as a holiday. The bank and the general store were closed, as were the mines and sawmills, so workers could attend the hanging. Reporters for newspapers throughout the territory were on hand to record the event. The militia, having traveled from the territorial capital of Prescott, marched in precise formation through the muddy street.
The short, uneven expanse of warped and weathered boardwalk had been claimed by the women: ranchers' wives in bright, flower-sprigged calico skirts and starched white shirtwaists; farmers' and miners' wives in rough, pigeon-brown homespun; and prostitutes decked out in shiny, lace-trimmed satin and feathered hats all stood shoulder to shoulder in an atypically feminine unity.
"It's such a damn waste," one hennaed fallen dove complained. Crying openly, she blew her nose on a man's red-and-white bandanna.
Although no one answered, more than one so-called respectable female was seen surreptitiously dabbing her eyes with the corner of a lace-trimmed handkerchief.
The rain continued to fall.
The man responsible for the large turnout sat rigidly astride his blood bay mare, his hands tied behind his back. Wolfe Longwalker was wearing the same clothing he'd been wearing when captured two days earlier—buckskin trousers and a pair of bark-brown boots. His long jet hair was held back from his forehead with a red cotton headband. Rain ran in rivulets down a rigidly muscled chest the hue of burnished Arizona copper.
Normally, in bright sunlight, Wolfe's eyes were a dark blue, betraying his cavalryman father's Irish roots. On this overcast day, they appeared as black and hard as obsidian.
Appearing disinterested in the proceedings, Wolfe kept those dark eyes directed straight ahead as he looked out across the fierce red landscape where the Dineh—The People,
his
people—had once roamed with impunity.
A familiar cold anger flowed through his veins. As if sensing Wolfe's mood, the mare's nostrils flared, but she remained obediently still.
"Any last words?" a man sitting on a buckskin gelding asked.
Jess Buchanan, the territorial marshal who'd finally succeeded in tracking Wolfe down, was wearing a yellow oilskin slicker. Water streamed off the brim of his fawn Stetson, dripped from his thick handlebar mustache. Beneath the slicker, he was wearing a Colt .45 Peacemaker in a hand-tooled leather holster; in his hands he was holding a thick, braided rawhide rope.
Wolfe did not turn his gaze away from
Dook' o' oosliid
, one of the four mountains that marked the boundaries of the sacred Navajo earth.
"It is a waste of breath to talk to a coyote." He refused to look at his captor.
Despite the chill in the air, Buchanan's cheeks flushed a hot crimson, as if with fever. "Then you'd better start praying to the Great Spirit, Longwalker," he growled as he attempted to slip the heavy rope over Wolfe's dark head.
The mare snorted and nervously sidestepped. Cursing, the lawman tried again as the mostly drunk rabble began chanting its impatience with the delay.
"Quit jawin' and hang the murderin' Injun," one cowboy called out. He spit a long stream of Bull Durham juice into the mud.
"Send the son-of-a-bitch savage on his way to the happy hunting ground," a miner shouted. That suggestion received a burst of hearty laughter.