C. J Petit

Jed Morgan, his brother, sister and parents were enjoying a family picnic in the pastures a few hundred yards from their ranch house. The large herd was grazing peeacfully out of sight and Jed had his eyes on his mother's apple pie as she slid her knife into the golden crust. Then their heads all popped up at the sound of gunfire from the east. Each of them stood and turned in that direction, wondering who was firing the shots. Their ranch hands were...

Before the wagons left the Laramie Plains, a quiet epidemic began infecting some of the settlers. It was a disease without a cure and threatened to create havoc among the families. It started as just a passing remark, but soon word of a recent discovery surrounding Idaho City, just three hundred miles away, inspired intense gold rush fever in many of the men. The first to become infected was Joe's fellow scout, Chuck Lynch. They would reach the turnoff...

Bryn felt sickened as he felt the ground shake, knowing that one of the two shafts had collapsed. Now, he stood in the pump room and watched the two thrumming pumps as they pulled water out of the deep mines. He knew that one of them would strain when the water became fouled with coal dust and debris from the collapse and if it was pump number two, it would mean that his father and older brothers were probably dead. It seem like hours as he watched...

"As the temperatures rose, so did the surge of fortune hunters. They also brought more trouble to Boise County and Idaha City, so Sheriff Fulmer added more deputies to keep the peace. But before the year ended, the sheriff's office would need to hire more lawmen to replace those it lost. And one of the new deputies would cause even greater changes that would impact the country as well as Joe and Faith's future" -- Back cover.

After finally crossing the South Platte River, the wagon train headed north toward Lodge Pole Cree where they expected to find another set of ruts leading west to Oregon. As he and Faith led their tent-cart away from Julesburg, Joe wondered if he wasn't defying fate by leaving Colorado behind. The magnetic attraction that had pulled him south hadn't diminished. But he still felt an obligation to the folks, even those who would never consider him a...

"It hadn't been a bad winter, but the townsfolk of Idaho City were anxious for spring to arrive. Like everyone else, Joe would appreciate the warmer weather and longer days. But he and Sheriff Fulmer both dreaded the influx of gold hunters and the trouble they would bring. They needed more good men, but after losing two deputies, not a single acceptable candidate had applied. As Joe rode toward Centreville on a frigid February morning, he knew the...

Dylan knew that the boiler was about to blow apart and that if he didn't act fast, he and the others in the pump room at the #3 mine would all die. The engine operator was panicking but had fallen in his haste to escape a scalding death, so Dylan lifted his heavy shovel as high as his twelve-year-old arms could manage and swung it in a fast arc to the thundering machine. It may kill him, but he had to try. Even as the shovel's steel head slammed into...

Eggs. Ben simply wanted to buy some eggs for breakfast and found that the only place he could buy any was if he visited the chicken farm owned by the woman named Chicken Charlie, who was a pariah in Miles City. He thought he understood why after his confrontation with the scary woman the first day he'd arrived in town, but he soon found out that it wasn't her fault at all. The whole town seemed to want her out and someone wanted her dead.

Lee Ryan knew horses. He had his herd and his ranch and even had his eye on a redheaded lass that would make everything perfect. The only thing that stood in the way of having everything he ever wanted was, of all things, hay. He didn't need it, but someone else did, and it was that need that shook his world.