Vengeance for the Seven Miners (Preview)

Chapter One

Ernest Chatfield slung his pike, digging it deep into the sides of B3, the third shaft in from the western entrance of the Stillwater Mining Company’s network of shafts. The candles were flickering, sweat and dirt caking to mud on his neck and arms. It smelled of long-rotting animals soaked into the depths of the Stillwater range, bad breath from rotting teeth, flatulence, and fatigue. The men grunted and farted as they worked, snorting and coughing in that din of labor and misery.

Ernest knew how they felt. He shared their long days, their exhausted nights. He shared their shattered sense of self, once determined young family men committed to staking out their fortunes in the gold boom They’d come with dreams of paradise among the pines, and found a lonesome crew of doomed moles, digging their own graves.

No, Ernest thought, not for us, not anymore. We’re close, closer with every minute and every shovelful of all this hard rock and sharp flake. The dust filled his lungs, the heat plastering his black hair to his grimy face. His hands ached, callouses hardened and throbbing. We’re close, he reminded himself, close and getting closer.

Ernest retreated once again into the refuge of his imagination. It was so often his only respite working for the Stillwater Mining Corporation. Instead of toiling in that mineshaft, back aching and arms burning, he was at home with Minnie and the twins. Walker and Tommy would look up at him with those big, round eyes, believing in his dream even when his own faith seemed ready to crumble. They gave him faith, they were what he believed in and their mother, Minnie.

Instead of the ugly, muscled, tawny men around him, Ernest was once again in the arms of his wife. And she loved him as she did when they were children, in ways which they’d seemed to have left somewhere east of Nevada’s Stillwater Range. She was still the pale, blue-eyed brunette he’d fallen in love with, before those eyes became so distant. Before, even in his fantasy, she looked away.

Ernest tried not to think about it, focusing on the remedy instead of the malady. I’ve disappointed her, Ernest had to remind himself, I know that. She’s no wide-eyed four-year-old. She knows a failure when she sees one. No doubt her hopes were higher than the alter. But the long trip out from Nebraska, the twins’ difficult birth, facing Indians, and wild animals and starvation, had only strengthened her resolve. 

Ernest wanted to believe that it had only strengthened their bond, and it had in many ways. But it had taken too long, Ernest couldn’t wonder that she doubted him or their future.

I should have told her, Ernest told himself. I should have told her how close we were. But she’ll forgive me once I give her the good news. She’ll understand. Nobody means more to me than she and our wonderful boys. The others feel the same for their own families, and that propelled us to our agreement, our pact.

Nobody was to say a thing, it was the only way to keep the matter secure. With seven men came seven wives, and that was a risk none of them or their children could afford.

One slip, one bit of idle chatter, could bring this mountain down on all of our heads. They’ll agree when all is said and done. They’ll see that we were right. And it won’t be long now.

A familiar voice barked out of the darkness. “Spades, up, mongrels!” Victor Pelt’s voice rang through the chambers, a frightful baritone. He never addressed the workers but with commands, and any of those commands could get a man killed.

The men within earshot stopped, the din straggling to an end as they looked up, many wiping their brows. Ernest glanced at his friend Bob Moss, and he could read Bob’s concern. Bob and Ernest along with the five others all had special reason to be concerned as Victor Pelt stepped out of the nearest stretch shaft. His balding head was beaded with sweat, another sign of how little time he spent in the mines.

“Chatfield,” he barked, “Moss …” Ernest’s heart skipped a beat, his eyes locking on Bob’s. “Harris, Melvoyne, Irving, Norbert, and Toddson.” A long silence filled the shaft as the men of those names shared worried looks. Victor cracked a little smile. “Come with me.” Victor turned and stepped out of the shaft, Ernest and the other men turning to follow him. The others looked at them with curious pity, seeming to know that no good would come out of what was going to happen. But unlike Ernest and the others, they could have little idea of why.

Ernest took his place with the six others, Bob behind him, as they filed out toward the light. He glanced back at Bob, who looked at him with a little shake of his head. Bob whispered, “What do we do?”

But Ernest could only shake his head. None of them knew where they were being led, so it was too early to even consider a plan. They could hardly just besiege their head foreman outside the shaft. Big and fearsome as Victor Pelt was, whatever rumors there were about what he’d done and what he could do, Ernest knew he could hardly lead a mob into an instant move of preventative rage. There could be no execution with a trail, and there still wasn’t even a charge.

And by the time the crime occurred, it would be too late for any due process at all, itself merely a rumor in the Utah Territory.

Ernest squinted in the glare of the sunlight. Looking up at the sun, he judged it to be just after twelve o’clock, almost one-half into the workday. Around them, miners shuffled from one place to the next, mules and carts stood ready to carry off loads of gold. Nearby, huge stone grinders worked around the clock to fill those carts and get those mules moving.

Nobody dared to ask, as there wasn’t any reason and no need. Victor led them on a long walk up and around the ridge to a second shaft, one Ernest didn’t even realize had been dug. Victor led the man to the entrance, unremarkable in every way except for its position, removed and secluded by two ridges on each side.

A red-tailed hawk circled above, crying out. It seemed the very picture of freedom and success, removed from the scramble on the face of the Earth.

Victor said, “Yer new assignments. Chatfield, you like to chat …” Victor broke a little smile. “You head the crew. I’ll send someone back at six, bring you out.” Bob and the others looked at Ernest, and Ernest turned from them back to Victor. “Any…questions?”

Ernest glanced at the others and they all shook their heads. There was no question in Ernest’s mind nor, he could tell, in any of theirs. Bob seemed to know, and there was little doubt about who he and the others would blame for it.

Ernest turned to lead the men, the first into the new mine shaft. It was right and fitting, as the other men’s sad stares told him, that Ernest should be first into the shaft, and the last one out of it.

Ernest thought, Why not? This is my doing, if I’m right. They’d followed me before, and now they’re following me yet again, perhaps for the last time. A cold dread curled in Ernest’s stomach as the darkness surrounded him as if he was stepping into his own grave. Still, was I wrong? Is this the life they came here to pursue? Is this any kind of life at all? I only thank God my Minnie, or the twins will never have to work in such a place.

Minnie.

A cold chill ran through Ernest’s blood at the mere thought of her name, to picture her with the kids back in their little shack homes provided by the Stillwater Mining Company.

No, Ernest silently reassured himself, don’t even think it! Every day is dangerous in the mines, but every day I’ve come out, every night I’ve kissed my children goodnight and every morning I’ve woken up in my wife’s arms.

The shaft seemed unsteady, hastily dug. The support beams weren’t straight, there was still dust in the air. But none of that mattered. Neither Ernest nor Bob nor anyone could afford to do anything but take a position toward the end of the shaft and keep digging. A wheelbarrow was waiting to carry out excess rocks and dirt.

Bob looked at Ernest and gave a deep sigh. The two men took positions not far from one another. Earnest raised his spike, Bob pushed his shovel, and each did what they had to do. The work went on only for a few minutes before things went very wrong, very quickly.

One support beam creaked, and it fell unnaturally fast and, it seemed, from the bottom instead of from the top. It was hard to tell, because the horizontal support beam was fast to collapse next to it, the shaft quickly collapsing. Another lateral beam crumbled, its relative horizontal beam falling into the shaft. The men screamed, dropping their shovels and picks and racing back toward the entrance.

“Wait,” Ernest said, “keep your tools, don’t – don’t drop your tools!” But the men were already panicking in their race toward the entrance.

Too late.

In front of him, the last lateral support collapsed, followed by a chain effect. The heavy beam smashing down onto Bob, hitting him flat on the head. The shaft closed up over him, the hideous creak of the beam succumbing to his muffled scream.

“Bob! Hold on, Bob!” His legs kicked in the mud as Ernest pulled at the fallen beam. His hands were muddy and slipped and he fell back. The little candle near him was flickering with the lack of oxygen. “I’ll get you out, Bob, hold on! Hold on, buddy!” He tried to wield his pike, but there wasn’t enough room. He clawed at that wall of mud with his useless iron spike, Bob’s legs spasming beneath him.

Ernest fell to his knees and grabbed one of Bob’s legs, trying to pull him free, but his muddy hands only slipped on the man’s quivering, dying legs. Too soon, they came to a fateful rest.

“We’re close, Bob, we’re so close! Hold on…just a little bit more!”

Ernest knew he was done for, buried behind several walls of collapsed rock and earth. If he could get past the wall in front of him, there would be five more.

Have to try, Ernest told himself, have to make it back to Minnie and the twins!

“Don’t forget your Ester, Bob, or little Nancy! I’m gonna get you back to them, Bob, I will, I…I swear it!” But that massive wall of rock and mud was impervious, and the more wildly he tore at it, the more futile his efforts proved themselves to be. The cold chill of the grave seemed almost upon him.

The flickering light of the candle went out, and Ernest knew what that meant. He’d soon be snuffed out as well. Every miner lived in the expectation of being buried alive, just as every seaman lived knowing they would be drowned. But that expectation had always been balanced by hope, luck, and love, or by the grace of God.

For Ernest Chatfield, all of them were about to run out.

The darkness frightened him, and he clawed at that wall with greater desperation. A large rock finally fell from the wall, revealing more mud and rock behind it. Ernest fell back, the rock landing hard on his leg, smashing the bone.

Pain shot through his body, instantly nauseating, and dizzying. Ernest pushed the rock from his leg, but the pain remained. Hot blood soaked through his pant leg just as cold sweat poured down his face. He laid back, certainty and terror taking him over, all at once: mind, body, and soul.

He was laying in pure, pitch darkness, deep in the Earth. He couldn’t save Bob, nor himself, nor any of the others. In a very real way, he was responsible for their deaths. He’d led them into that shaft in more ways than one, and he’d never leave them out.

Ernest couldn’t help but imagine his own family getting the news, of Bobby’s Ester and Nancy, the other women and children who would live with the horror of what they were about to experience. They’d never truly overcome the terror of what had been wrought, and they would likely never know the true author of the deed, or why those seven men, in particular, had to die.

But it would matter to little Ernest or Bob or the others. The air became thin in his lungs, his heart beating faster as it succumbed to the natural panic of encroaching death. Leaning back in the mud, panting for his last breaths, knowing all that he’d lost and was leaving behind. Ernest Chatfield could only sob in terror, in guilt and shame, and self-pity that he could hardly deny.

No, he thought, not now, not…when we were so close! Every day is dangerous in the mines, but every day I’ve come out, every night I’ve kissed my children goodnight, and every morning I’ve woken up in my wife’s arms.

Until now.

Chapter Two

Minnie Chatfield had a terrible feeling in the pit of her stomach. There was no reason to think anything was wrong. And in fact, she’d had that feeling so many times before that she’d come to expect it. The life of a miner’s wife was filled with tension and dread, and that hadn’t surprised Minnie one bit. The trip to Nevada had been treacherous and difficult, her children had pushed her nearly to the brink of death. The summers were brutally hot, the winters were miserably cold. The animals and Indians seemed to be ever-present. Snakes and scorpions and huge insects were only the sweet reminders of everything they’d been through together, as a family and as a community.

Minnie could brush a scorpion out the front door, and she could shoot a California grizzly if it gave her no choice. But those are nothing compared to their real enemies, and that was mainly because Minnie still wasn’t sure what or who or why those enemies were prowling around.

Her husband, Ernest, had been acting strangely. She’d mentioned it to Ester, whose husband Bob was Ernest’s closest friend among the miners. She had noticed something similar in her own husband, some mumbling aspect of his temper which seemed somehow dishonest. Both women agreed that wives could sense such things, and the two female friends agreed that it was something to be concerned about.

The rattlesnake stew filled the little house with the oaky smells of the bubbling broth, chunks of skinned snake tenderizing with the carrots and potatoes. Ingredients for a lovely dandelion salad were ready to chop and toss, after just a quick respite with Ester and the kids. But it was nearing sundown, and their husbands would be home soon.

But there were so many things to be concerned about. Working in the mines had known to play tricks with a man’s mind. Both Minnie and Ester, her blonde hair short over her deep brown eyes, had already considered it. But this was known to strike lone miners who were given to delirium, driven by isolation to misery and even madness. Both Minnie and Ester agreed that their husbands were not faced with such isolation. Both women were loving, dutiful wives, and neither could imagine giving more to their husbands or children.

And neither had a concern for their husband’s faithfulness. Neither man could have the time or the inclination. They were loving dutiful husbands.

The earthquakes were a concern, and few people knew anything about them. The local Washoe Indians seemed aggravated, and their raids continued to come closer and closer to the mines, Shoshone scouts spotted, and extra guns positioned around miles-long area owned by the Stillwater Mining Company.

The only thing worse was the banditos, unfettered by the wars against them by the gringos, as they called the whites. They’d prevailed only eleven years before at that fabled mission already called The Alamo, and the pressure of the changing times had created an outlaw class of Mexicans, attacking in gangs under rogue warlords. They stayed away from bigger white towns like nearby Fallon, but the mines were miles out of town, and safety from them was hardly guaranteed, even among themselves.

Still, they tended to strike at lone travelers, and like the Paiute, they shied away from the Stillwater Mining Company. Unlike the miners, the mining companies had real power which even the Mexicans and the local tribes seemed to know they couldn’t contend with.

But the mining colonies also offered a treasured prize which would make an attack worth the risk; a colony of ready white women and children. If captured, they could be sold as slaves or as human cattle to be sold or traded for things of greater value. A white boy child could be worth a rifle or perhaps a horse from some passing traveler. And the white women remained objects of fascination to both Indians and Mexicans. They were prized as conquests, and having a white wife boosted the status of men in either culture. They had a prettiness of face, a fairness, and softness of skin, an exotic manner to men of other cultures which they seemed to find irresistible.

And, of course, there was the matter of the white men. To steal their women and children was a great blow to them, to their stability as a race, and to their manhood. Such a blow had lingering savory rewards for the spiteful bandito or Shoshone warrior. It was a death by a thousand cuts.

There were also men of the company, some of the miners, and some of the men who hired them. The foreman, Victor Pelt was a frightening presence. And both Minnie and Ester agreed that few women on the site were safe with him and his goons around. He had three men at his beck and call, and they were loyal to him only for fear of their own lives.

Minnie knew just how they felt.

But watching the twins play with little Nancy, two years their junior and a source of endless fascination to them. They tickled and delighted her, encouraging her to play along with their imaginary family of monkeys, whose childish dramas played out in the living room of her little house. The Stillwater Mining Company had offered houses to their miners and their families, and it had been enticing. But the houses were all very small and drab with only four rooms: two bedrooms, a common room, and a kitchen. The communal outhouses were nearby and accessible to all two dozen houses, the attendant smells only then beginning to be collectively offensive. It was yet another comfort the Stillwater Mining Company had forgotten about. Other forgotten perks had included small ownership consideration in the company, which business complications had obstructed time and again.

Minnie didn’t trust Alvin Ivars or any of the men who ran the company under him. He’d done nothing but lie, cheat, and work his men to the bone. Their lives meant little more to them than their utility to the company. But that was the way with most men of business, it had long struck Minnie and Ester. They were glad enough to be married to better men; hard-working men with greater integrity than resources, greater strength than greed.

“Spring won’t last,” Ester said, gazing at her little two-year-old daughter, making monkey noises with the twins. Minnie knew just what she meant, and she had to agree. The best time of the year was fast giving way to the oppressive heat, ready to beat down on them from every direction. It was inescapable, pulsing up from the ground itself as it rained down from above, a great hot fist to wrap around them and crush them its weight.

“It won’t be long,” Ernest had been saying, more and more frequently. It was as if he felt he could curb the angry sun, that he could shelter them from the firestorm that fast seemed to be barreling down on them all.

Minnie could only hope he was right. It wasn’t that she needed the great wealth that her husband had always promised her. She didn’t need for him to be any great success to prove himself to her. But she did want to move her children to greater comfort, as other women had. She did want to remove her husband from the confines of those long, dark shafts, which she knew he hated. She wanted everything for him which he wanted for himself and for her and for their kids.

That curl of dread returned to her stomach, one every miner’s wife had to live with. He was in constant danger, and to remove him to safety was her greatest hope. She longed for a good night’s sleep without dreaming of his demise. It was his dream too, Minnie knew that. And she knew that, with every passing day, that simple dream grew less and less likely. The miner lived a life of playing the dangerous, gambling with his life. Every day was another flip of a card, a roll of the dice, and eventually, the snake eyes would roll up and the man’s game would be over.

“Well,” Minnie said. “We should get back to cleaning.”

“Cleaning,” Ester repeated. “Only for it to become dirty the next minute, with all the digging and that wind! I sometimes think I’m in that mine myself.”

“Let’s both thank our lucky stars, Ester. I just wish our men didn’t have to toil down there.”

Ester nodded, her attention quickly falling to the children. “Our little monkeys. Whatever would we do without them?”

“We’ll not even give that the slightest consideration,” Minnie said. “Maybe this is why life gives us so much to do, so we can reflect on such things all the less so.”

“I know, I know,” Ester said, “and you’re right, Minnie. You’re such a…a strong person.”

“No stronger than you, my good friend. We’re both just…hanging on, after all.”

A cluster of knocks fell on the door. Hairs stood up on the back of Minnie’s neck as she and Ester shared a glance. The knocks fell fast and hard, and they told Minnie that there was no time to waste. She stood and hurried across the room to open the front door as Ester knelt to pick up her young child.

Minnie pulled open the front door to reveal Jemima Reid, older than either Minnie or Ester by at least ten years, red hair shaggy over her bony face. Her green eyes were alight with panic, head almost quivering.

Minnie took her by the hand to pull her into the house. “Jemima, come in! What is it?”

But Jemima used her superior weight to pull Minnie out of the house. “Minnie, a moment…away from the children.” Minnie turned to Ester, who held Nancy with the twins gathering around her, still acting the part of the two monkeys, clueless about the purpose of the visit. Minnie felt as if she already knew.

Minnie said to Ester, “Watch the children,” already knowing she’d be torn from them. For how long, or if she’d ever return, she could not know. Several feet from the house, one in a long line of such cabins, Minnie faced her fate.

“Your man, and Esters, and five others…they…they’ve been in an accident.”

“No, Jemena, no!”

Jemena nodded. “My own Charlie too.” After a miserable silence, Jemena’s hand clenching Minnie’s. “They…they tried to dig ‘em out.” A flush of heat passed through Minnie’s body, her heart ready to explode in her chest. “First one they found…he was already gone. And the others, all deeper in…”

“They…they can still dig,” Minnie rasped with increasing desperation. “We’ll go now, gather the women and dig!”

“They done all they could, they said.”

“Who, Jemena, who said?”

“Alvers’ man, Pelt. And they did, Minnie. They dug all day, they say.”

“All day? When did this happen?”

Jemena shook her head. “I ain’t sure, it’s all so confusing! But after all this time, from what they seen an’ they say…they’re gone, Minnie, our men, the fathers of our children…I…we …” Jemena collapsed into Minnie’s arms, quivering and tearful.

The door opened behind her and Ester asked, “Minnie? What’s…what’s wrong?” Only then did it hit Minnie what the answer was, once she knew she would have to put words to it. She would have to tell her children. She would have to be strong for them all. It was the sum of her greatest fears, and the price of their ambition had finally been called for collection. It was more brutal and hurtful than anything she’d ever imagined, and Minnie felt instantly ready to succumb to indescribable anguish. She wanted to fall into a heap of quivering misery, as her friend before her was doing. She wanted not to be strong, to be safe and protected in her husband’s arms.

But she knew that was not to be. And her only choice was to be strong, not weak. Minnie knew instantly that she would have to lead her family in her husband’s absence. She’d have to be strong for her friends in the absence of their husbands. After so many years of struggle, relief was not around the bend as her now-late husband had thought and hoped and reassured her. Instead, the worst crisis was about to face her down. The firestorm was just beginning to break.

Chapter Three

The days which followed had been a frenzy of panic and shared misery. Minnie, Ester, Jemena, and other women consoled each other and their children, the minutes crawled by without respite. The twins seemed shocked, clinging to one another even more than they ever had before. They were quiet, lacking their usual playfulness. But they were also more protective of little Nancy, instinctively answering the call of honor which echoed in their father’s absence. He’d lived and died in their surface, they seemed to realize even then.

He’d be so proud of them, Minnie couldn’t help but think. And they will be so proud of him. I’ll make it so, I’ll never let them forget who their father was, or what he lived for.

But even then, there were terrible questions still lingering about the accident. Minnie didn’t even want to think about it, the rumors that were already going around. It seemed to her that her fellow widows were looking for some reason for the unreasonable, something or someone to blame. She knew the impulse because she shared it. That was how and why she tried to resist it. It was too easy to blame others, even God, for what had happened. But it seemed to Minnie like the twisted hopes of crushed hearts and battered minds. And none of it would bring their husbands back to them, fathers back to their children.

And there were other questions for Minnie and the other six frightened widows. She knew the doubt in their hearts, worries about where they’d be able to live and how they would eat and feed their children. These were real and pressing problems, but even then, there was no time to see to them. It was all too fast, all too soon. There was no time to think, to feel, to reason, or to rhyme. All they could do was to press on, to be strong for their children, and to face that terrible collection of broken hearts and lost souls gathered around the collapsed entrance of that ill-fated shaft.

Al Alvers himself stood in front of the huge crowd which had gathered. Victor Pelt and his men stood with guns out, a show of defensive force. They seemed to have caught wind of the grumblings. The surviving miners, over two-dozen strong, and their families, stood clustered, arm in arm. Minnie clung to the twins, Ester and Nancy and Jemena, and hers and the other new fatherless families clung to one another to fill that unfillable void.

Al ran his fingers through his long, brown mustache, top hap in his other hand as he held court over his minions and his dominion.

“We’re a family,” he said, clearing his throat as he went on with his eulogy. “We all share the same loss. W all grieve with one heart.” Minnie looked down and pulled the twins closer. She didn’t want to meet Al Alvers in the eye. “Of course, to lose a father, a husband…I don’t mean to reduce that. I had a wife once, and her loss, when she was birthing my own son …” Dark silence interrupted him.

The twins sniffled in Minnie’s affectionate grip, instincts bringing her arms closer. “”

“But let us take heart,” Al said with new strength in his booming baritone. “These men were heroes! They gave their all to enrich their families, to enrich the territory, the entire country!”

You, Minnie, thought but didn’t say.

“They were men with a shared dream, and that’s a dream all of us gathered here today also share. It’s what brings us together! It’s what makes us Americans…and it’s what makes us Stillwater Mining!”

No applause rose up to meet him, as Al seemed to expect. He cleared his throat and went on, “Our respectful silence is only just and right on this solemn occasion.” Al looked back at the sealed shaft behind him, seeming to share a quick glance with his underling, Victor Pelt, as he returned his attention to the crowd. Victor did the same, fingers craning around the handle and the trigger of his Colt rifle.

“And we all know that these men cared more for their fellows, for their families, and for their country, than to ask that any more lives be given in any…ill-founded effort to undo what God Himself has wrought. These men are resting in peace now, and it is for us to let them rest…and to give testimony to their sacrifice. Let this remain hallowed ground among us. Owning this parcel of the Stillwater Range, we are dedicated to preserving their memory here, and to doing that memory justice.”

Minnie and Ester shared a glance, and Minnie recognized the suspicious look in her old friend’s eyes. Minnie knew what her friend was thinking and what she could be facing. Minnie and five other widowed and fatherless families were facing the same thing.

And a quick glance at the other families told Minnie that they knew something was afoot, and that they could be the next ones to be crushed.

---

“Vengeance for the Seven Miners” is an Amazon Best-Selling novel, check it out here!

With the future he was planning completely out of reach anymore, Buck Darwin accepts his cousin’s proposal to come and work at their family’s mines in Stillwater. His return is oddly timed, coinciding with a shaft collapse that claims the lives of seven miners. Before too long Buck will find that there is mystery surrounding the collapse, and many suspect foul play. Buck is obliged to clear up his family’s name from any suspicion and secure its future as a law-abiding American dynasty. Will he manage to keep his sense of loyalty to his family when confronted with irrefutable evidence presented by the most striking woman he has ever met?

Among those in Stillwater who second-guess the circumstances of the accident are the miner’s seven widows, led by the feisty Minnie Chatfield. To his astonishment, Buck will witness the women in a campaign to work in the mines in their late husbands’ place, as a way to keep their homes and provide for their children. When Buck and Minnie join forces to solve the mystery of the shaft’s cave-in, none of them can predict the instant attraction that is about to spark between them. With their investigation leading them down a dark and dangerous road, and the odds stacked against them, will they manage to discover what is really at the heart of the mine?

Corruption and dignity, divided loyalties, and ruthless chicanery, all weave a tale of justice and retribution. Everyone has their own agenda, but trust will be necessary to keep the innocent together and alive, while desert justice is meted out. In the midst of this chaos, will Rose and Buck’s love have a chance to blossom, or will they join the others as nameless victims in a cavernous mountain grave?

A pulse-pounding drama, which will make you turn the pages with bated breath until the very last word. A must-read for fans of Western action and romance.

“Vengeance for the Seven Miners” is a historical adventure novel of approximately 80,000 words. No cliffhangers, only pure unadulterated action.

Get your copy from Amazon!