Rocky Mountain Man

He was free. Truly free. Gratitude stung his eyes. His throat thickened so he could not swallow. He looked behind him to make sure it was still real. Sure enough, the locked gate reflected the bold fire left from the setting sun. A guard in the tower overhead was watching with a rifle leaning against his shoulder. There was no mistaking the message in the man’s gaze—move along.

Duncan did. He followed the road, for it would lead through mountains and valleys and towns. It would lead him home.

As the last light bled from the sky and stained the faces of the great mountains so it looked as if they were crying tears, Duncan ambled past the owl in the tree. He lifted his tired feet and walked until the prison was nothing more than a small glint of light in the distance. He did not stop until there was no sign of it at all. Until that hellish place was good and truly behind him.

Only then did he kneel and untie the cheap shoes the prison had presented him with. The stiff new clothes rustled and tugged uncomfortably at his skin, the garments courtesy of the Montana territory. How generous. Bitterness welled up, draining his spirit and darkening the twilight. Stars winked to life as he cupped his hands as he knelt beside a small creek and let the coolness trickle over his skin.

The gurgling sound of the rushing water made his vision blur and the thickness in his throat grow worse. He’d never noticed before, but the music from a creek was a beautiful sound. He filled his palm with the fresh goodness and sipped.

He swore he’d never tasted anything more delicious. The clear, clean water wet his tongue, trickled down his throat and refreshed him. It had been too long since he’d tasted such water. While he drank his fill, he considered the grove surrounding him. Pines stretched upward, their sparse limbs and long, fine needles casting just enough cover from view of the road, although he’d encountered no other late-night traveler.

By the looks of things, he was not the only creature to visit the creek. In the damp yellow-brown clay, he recognized the small clefted tracks of deer and antelope and the larger elk, and the wide pads with claw marks of the great black bear. That told him fishing was good here. Yes, it would be a fine place to spend the night.

As he had not done since he was twenty-one, he chose a slim pine branch and broke it to use as a spear. He sharpened it well against the useful edge of a granite rock and chose a quiet place to wait, in an eddy where the creek widened before it whispered down an incline.

His eyes grew accustomed to the night as the last twilight shadows vanished. The pale, luminous darkness was like an old friend. He stirred the quiet water slowly, startling the resting fish. He speared a ten-inch summer trout on the first try.

Gratitude. It filled him like the slow, sweet scents of the night. It brought him hope as he watched the stars flicker to life between the coming clouds and the reach of the silent pines. Rain scented the night breeze, while Duncan cleaned the fish, built a fire and gathered wild onions and lemon grass greens for seasoning, as his grandfather had taught him.

While the fish roasted above an open flame, he made a shelter for the night. By the time raindrops stirred the pine needles overhead, Duncan turned the trout on the spit until it was done. Rain sang with the wind’s moaning accompaniment to tap a rhythm against the earth, while, beneath the thickest of the spreading pine boughs, he remained dry as he ate. The moist, tender meat tasted so good, his mouth ached with the flavors of the seasoned trout. Nothing beat wild lemon grass, his ma used to say.

Ma. I get to see you again. His chest filled with the old grief he’d locked away, for he hadn’t seen her since his sentencing. He allowed himself to remember, to pull out the image of that sad time and look at it. It had been a dark day, for he’d been awaiting transport from Dewey to the territorial prison, and his mother had come to see him.

A regal, proud woman, she’d worn a calico dress, her long dark braids coiled and hidden beneath the matching sunbonnet. No one could ever mistake her for being just a farmer’s wife. She was a warrior’s daughter. Her dark almond eyes, her delicate bronze face, her voice low and sonorous, spoke of strength.

She’d come to comfort him. She’d come to vow she would prove his innocence at any cost.

Through the bars of steel caging him in, he’d seen at once the future. His mother risking all the good that had finally come into her life on the impossible. No jury was going to believe him, for he was a half-breed, and the woman accusing him was the prettiest daughter of the finest family in the county.

The young lady was lying—he’d never touched her—but the chances of proving that…well, there was no way to prove it absolutely. Folks believed what they wanted to, and it was easier to see him as a rapist and a violent felon than to find a seemingly perfect lady guilty of perjury. A daughter of a judge didn’t lie.

He’d wanted to save his mother endless heartache. She’d had a happy life and she should not risk it. He’d done the right thing in telling her to leave and to never look back. To return to her house and her husband and tend her garden and raise her horses and live her days in happiness. To forget she had a son. For he’d been all but as good as dead.

After the first day laboring in the brutal winter cold, he’d realized that he’d told his mother the truth. The young man he’d been, the boy she’d raised, was dead. Only a man as hard and fierce as a Montana blizzard could survive. Only a man without heart or soul would last long in endless labor and brutal conditions. He was no longer Duncan Hennessey, Standing Tall, son of Summer Rose, grandson of Gray Wolf.

He stepped out from under the shelter. But as he lifted his face to the rain and let the soothing coolness wash the day’s grime from his skin, Duncan felt alive. He shucked off the government-issue trousers and button-up shirt, scratchy and rough with cheap starch, and the creek water rushed over his toes. The rain washed over him. And he dared to hope that maybe a part of that young man he used to be had survived.

Lightning burned through the angry clouds. He let thunder crash through him. The years of despair and defeat sluiced away and he lifted his arms to the sky, welcoming the deluge as it pounded over him. Hope winged up within him.

He was Duncan Hennessey, a free man, and he was going home. After what was behind him, what lay ahead could only be better. He had family waiting for him. A life to return to. A future to build. Joy lifted him up like the steam from the warm and wet earth.

Joy, he marveled at the emotion. From this moment on, what despair could there be for a man who had his life, his family and his hope returned to him?

He could not know that what lay ahead would be worse than the cruel years in prison.

Far worse.

Chapter One

Bluebonnet County, 1884

The ancient evergreens grew tall and thick, their wide limbs stretching overhead to block out the deep beautiful blue of the Montana sky.

Betsy Hunter, huddled on her buggy’s comfortable springed seat, pulled the Winchester rifle closer, so it was snug against her thigh. As many times as she’d traveled across the high prairie from her hometown of Bluebonnet to the rugged edges of the great Rocky Mountains, not one frightening thing had happened.

Still, she was jumpy. The wind moaned through the trees and those thick, dark branches swung like monstrous arms and thumped and scraped the buggy top as if those trees had come alive and were trying to get at her. Of course, it was only her fanciful thoughts getting away with her. They were trees rooted into the ground and not menacing predators with sharp claws and big teeth and an appetite for town ladies.

She was perfectly safe from the army of innocent pines and cedars and firs. Not that it made driving along this forgotten road any easier. There was always something about this part of the mountain that felt menacing.

Perhaps, it was because she knew he was close—Mr. Hennessey. A loner, a mountain man and the most rude human being she’d ever met, and since she was an optimist who believed there was something good to like in everyone, that was saying a lot.

Mr. Duncan Hennessey was the most cynical, caustic and bitter human being in existence, if he was human at all. He avoided her as if she brought an epidemic of small pox and the plague, so she didn’t see him often on her weekly trips to deliver and fetch his washing. Her first impression of the man was that he seemed more like a great black bear, although shaven and wearing a man’s clothes, snarling and growling at her from his front step.

“This is the way I want it.” He’d commanded as he’d handed her payment up front, plus additional delivery charges for driving out so far from town. “I’ll leave the bag of clothes here on the step. You come, get it, put the clean bag in its place and leave. Don’t knock on the door. Don’t try to talk to me. Just get in that frilly buggy of yours and go back where you came from.”

“But what if you need special services, like a repaired button?”

He’d seemed to rear up even taller at her perfectly necessary question, although he hadn’t actually moved a muscle. His face, his eyes and his entire mood had turned as dark as a moonless night when a storm was building.

“Just repair the damn thing and leave a note in the bag when you return the clean clothes. I’ll pay you next time around. Never—” he’d lifted his upper lip like a bear ready to attack “—never get anywhere near me, you hear?”

What a perfectly disagreeable man—no, beast. That’s what he was. Really. As if she would want to get anywhere near him! “There’s no need to shout. There is nothing wrong with my hearing,” she’d told him as sweetly as she could manage. “I’ll do as you ask, of course.”

She needed his business.

“See that you do!” His dark eyes had narrowed with a fierce threat before he’d turned and slammed the door to his log cabin shut with the force of thunder.

It was his mood that was tainting the forest, she was sure of it. Every time she drove the rutted and barely visible road, for it was always in danger of growing over, she was probably the only vehicle that used it, she could feel the hate like a dark cloud that emanated from him. It was a far-reaching cloud.

It was not only her imagination, for Morris, her faithful chestnut gelding was uneasy in his traces. He swiveled his ears and lifted his nose, scenting the wind. Alert for danger—alert for any sign of him. Morris didn’t like Mr. Hennessey, either. It was hard to imagine that anyone—or anything—could.

Oh, Lord, she’d reached the end of the road. The trees broke apart to make a sudden clearing. There was the small yard, the stable and paddock, and beyond that the little log cabin on a rise. Halfway between the stable and the house there was a bright honey pile of logs. And a man with an ax.

It was him. He had his back to her as he worked. Sunlight streamed from a hazy sky to shine on the finest pair of men’s shoulders she’d ever seen. Muscles bunched and played in smooth motion beneath skin as stunning as polished bronze. Mr. Curmudgeon himself, shirtless, his dark hair tamed at his nape with a leather thong, was splitting wood like an ordinary man, but there was nothing ordinary about her least favorite customer.

As sunlight worshiped his magnificent shape, he drew back the ax and sent it hurling toward the split log. A great rending sound echoed through the clearing as the blade of steel cracked the wood and two pieces tumbled apart.

The hairs stood up on Betsy’s nape as he set down his ax. He hadn’t looked around, but he’d sensed her presence, for he became larger and taller, if that were possible, so that he looked more than his impressive six-plus feet. His shoulders braced, his arms bowed, his big hands curled into fists. Even from her buggy seat, she saw his jaw clamp tightly and the tendons in his neck bunch.

She was early, she knew it. Judging from the grimace on Mr. Curmudgeon’s face, he was not only surprised, but also angry to see her. Well, that was too bad. He didn’t have to talk to her. She didn’t plan on saying a single word. She had his bag of clean and ironed laundry to deliver, neatly folded as always. He could be as unpleasant as he wished, it was his right and this was his property, after all.

But she didn’t have to let it bother her.

It was difficult, but she managed to nod politely as she drove past where he stood, unabashedly scowling at her unexpected arrival. She’d prepared for him not to be happy, but honestly, she’d never seen such an offensive sneer. His powerful dislike rolled over her like wind off a glacier and it seemed to dim the brightness and warmth of the sun.

Okay, he wasn’t just unhappy. He was furious. She shivered in the suddenly cool air. Where was she going to go? She was already here. Her dear horse had tensed and his soft brown coat flickered nervously as he broke his trot to speed away from the disgruntled beast starting to huff and puff, as if working himself up into a temper.

“I don’t blame you a bit,” she whispered to Morris as she pulled him to a stop in the shade of the cabin’s front door. She climbed out to calm him, the poor thing, and rubbed his forehead the way he liked.