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Mountain Splendor: Long Hope Mountain Gal, (Peggy’s 6th novel, a mountain western), 88,465 words, 290 pages (paperback)

Ramona pretends to be a man to get her dead husband's next job assignment, guiding a group of Northerners touring the Appalachian Mountains.

Excerpt from page 10:

He watched me from the corner of his eyes as I dismounted and walked up to him.
“You Barlow?” I had a naturally deep voice for a woman. Husky some called it, but I tried to make it sound more manly.
He nodded, looked at my horse and then at my clothes, all a trademark of Jake Triplet.
“Where’s Jake?”
“Dead,” I answered, and saw a faint flicker of surprise pass over his face. I took it to mean he was calculating the loss of money as well as desperation in finding a new guide before morning.
“Who are you?”
“His kin. I come to take his place.”
“Take Jake Triplet’s place?” he said the words like he was trying to understand them
“Yeah,” I said. “Take his place.”
“You any good?”
“Half as good as Jake, thrice as dependable.”
He frowned. “You know the land?”
“Wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”
“You can shoot?”
I nodded.
“Fight?”
“Some. Never had the need, often.”
“You’re young. Not even peach fuzz on your chin, but then Jake didn’t have much either. Reckon Indians aren’t hairy. You part Indian?”
I said nothing as I watched his face. I needed money, and he needed a guide. Besides, if he didn’t take me on, he had lost his down payment to Jake, and he’d have to find somebody else on short notice.
He was thinking like I was thinking.
“Don’t reckon I have a choice but to send you. If I had a choice, I wouldn’t.”
I didn’t like him saying that, and I wanted him to know it. “I’m better’n Jake.”
“You’re better than nothing, hopefully. I’ll pay you at the end of the trip. Let you prove yourself first. I’m not throwing my money away at a snotty nose kid that’s all mouth and no do.”
What he said made me hot under the collar, but I wasn’t going to let him rile me. Jake always said a mad man had lost his control. I shook my head. “You pay me half at the start. Give one of the men the other half to pay me at the end. Tell him if he tries to cheat or not pay me, he’ll be regretting it while his blood leaks into the ground.”
“Nope. At the end.”
I turned my back to him, took the horse’s reins and swung into the saddle.
“Whoa up,” he hollered as I rode off.
I stopped and let him catch up to me on foot.
“Let’s talk about this.” He sounded wheedling, and I didn’t like that. I liked a man to talk out right.
“I don’t play games,” I said, and saw respect flicker in his eyes. “Half in the beginning and half at the end or I’m gone from here.”
He quoted a price. I shook my head. “Same as you were going to pay Jake.”
“How do you know what Jake was to be paid?”
“He told me.”
I saw hesitancy in his face and knew he was a business man that valued his dollar greatly.
“You’d better be good.” His voice was hard-edged. “Jake worked for me a long time to get that amount.”
He didn’t have to tell me how long Jake had worked for him. I knew. “I’m good,” I told him and knew I wasn’t lying.
“How did he die? Ambushed?”
“Horse killed him.” He didn’t need to know details.
“That one?”
“No.”
He turned to the sale-lot of horses. “Pick out the two best horses in there.”
I looked down into his eyes. I didn’t like him testing me, but I understood. I rode to the lot, whistled and watched as the horses moved about, kicking up the smell of fresh manure.
“The buckskin gelding, the sorrel mare.”
“Why?”
“The buckskin is muscled, tough, and don’t spook at anything. The mare is a mite timid, but alert and willing to please. The buckskin will do the job, but the mare will bust her heart for you.”
“Which one would you take?”
“Buckskin.”
“Why?”
“He’ll do the job and nothing more.”
He laughed. “What’s your name?”
“Ra Triplet,” I told him the truth. I was Ramona, but had been called Ra since I had my memory about me.
“Be here at six o’clock in the morning.”

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