Pat Pfeiffer – författare

In 1799, Charles Bruneau decides to adventure with fur trader, Pierre Dubois. Both are shocked when Charle''s wife, Jazelle, declares she is going with them. She dresses as a coureur de bois, picks up her paddle, regrets the misery, but never the going. They follow the fur traders through raging rivers, and over treacherous portages. Pierre seeks his Indian wife and son. Jazelle''s goal is to be the first white woman to cross America to the Far Sea. She trusts the amulet that saved her from the guillotine will protect her.

At Sault Sainte Marie, drunken, lustful traders discover Jazelle is a woman and she''s put up for bids. A storm on Lake Superior destroys their canoe. To reach Minnesota, they must cross the Savannah Portage-six days mired in swamp to their waists. At Rice Lake Pierre deserts them. There they meet Charles''s cousin, Paul Bruneau, and are taken in by the friendly Chippewa at Mud River. Paul teaches Charles to trap, but they are lied about and driven from the village.

Captured by Hadatsa Sioux, they realized they will be tortured and killed. Anishanaabe rips Jazelle''s tunic from neck to waist. Will the amulet save them?

In 1862, historical figure Electa Bryan comes to a remote Indian Agency in what is now Western Montana to teach native children. Instead she finds deprivation and lonelinessuntil she meets suave, handsome Henry Plummer and falls hopelessly in love. Rejecting her sisters warning, she marries this stranger and moves to Bannack City. There, they pursue their vision of turning a primitive territory filled with greed, murder and mayhem into a civilized state, with Henry as governor. As sheriff, he is away from home most of the time enforcing the law, searching for a mysterious silver lode, or in the saloons. Electa is neglected and regimented, but blindly ignores the signs he is not all he seems, devotedly believing all he says. Until she meets Pearl.

At Electas death in 1912, her son, Vernon Maxwell, inherits an eagle feather and a fortune. He sets out to learn why she left her husband so precipitously and why Henry was hanged for supposedly heading a gang of road agents who were killing innocent people and robbing gold shipment. What is the password he must know to secure his inheritanceHenrys stolen gold? More importantly, can he discover his mothers hidden past?

During the French Revolution, Jazelle l`Heaureau, of both royal and common blood, is betrothed to Laurent Picard. The man she loves, Charles Bruneau, chateau manager, battles customs and new laws to marry her before Picard, and save the chateau for her. While Charles is away fighting for his king the chateau is commandeered by the French Army under the command of Lieutenant Cardin, who appropriates Jazelle for himself. Wounded, Charles cannot keep her safe from Cardin, but her Uncle Fromert l''Heaureau can. Or is Fromert her father? Jazelle is sentenced to the guillotine. Will use of the family motto, We Conspire to Survive, and an American Indian totem allow her to escape? Will Charles return in time for the family to sail for the New France in Canada?

Outside the prison the bright spring sun blinded Jazelle. She stumbled forward behind ten others prisoners, a bayonet pricking her back. She felt blood warm against her skin. Feet stumbled behind her. The street was just wide enough for people to stand three or four deep, pressed against buildings. Jeering men and women waved red, white and blue cockades. Shouting, laughing, calling names, hurling curses. The prisoners shuffled down the steps onto the cobbles.

Jazelle looked ahead. The guillotine blocked the end of the street, reaching to heaven, its iron frame black as hell, sunlight sparkling off the knife. Except at the blade end.

Her throat constricted. She gasped for breath, pressed a fist against her chest, forced a breath

"I felt my eyebrows curl, knew I had only minutes to escape the flames. In a blanket of smoke, I stumbled down the bluff to the river. A solid blanket of flame lay across the Flathead. I clawed up the trailaround the houseflames crackling around my bootspast the spring. Felt plowed ground. Forced open swollen eyes to peer into smoke. Dropped into my escape hole. Smoke. Leaped out and ran. Fire roared behind me. Make itbreathecan make ithit barbed wire, fell flat to crawl under. Lost my hat. Reached for it. Stupid. Dont need hatcrawled under the fence and groped my way to the tracks, slid down the bank to the culvert. A storm of smoke funneling though it nearly flattened me. Where now?"

Harry Younger went to Montana thinking it would be a love affair. Instead, it was war. Join him as he battles the Spirit of the Aknissal to keep his dream.

If you enjoy Roughin It In Montana, dont miss The Sheriffs Wifecoming soon.