The mountain man

High on the desolate shoulder of Smoky Butte, Joan French plays her violin beneath junipers, turning the desert’s heat, silence, and distant lava hills into strange, haunting music. Raised on a remote rancho by her devoted father and two brothers, Joan has been shaped as much by the wilderness as by books or lessons. Independent, imaginative, and drawn toward adventure, she is as untamed as the landscape she calls home.

Her closest companion is an iron-gray stallion that answers to no one else. But when a dust-covered horseman approaches through the junipers, Joan’s peaceful solitude vanishes. Masked and quick with a .45, she confronts the exhausted stranger before he can surprise her. Who he is, why he has crossed the burning desert, and what trouble may follow him promise a gripping frontier tale of courage, danger, and fiercely guarded secrets.