Concluding novel in the Valediction For Revenge saga of Jethro Spring, featuring the life of a one time army interpreter charged with the murder of the officer responsible for the death of the interpreter's parents. Set once more in southwestern Colorado, The Silver Yoke revisits the tragedy of Gunnar's Mine, this time for different reasons. Once again, Jethro, known in Colorado as Jason Frost, throws himself at the gigantic mining octopus responsible for the death of his friend, Gunnar Einarssen, the original owner of Jethro Spring's valuable gold mine. This time, however, it's not an unequal battle -- like those from the fugitive's past -- and his enemy's mighty Empire is rocked to its core. The question becomes who will survive? Or perhaps even better: Who carries The Silver Yoke?
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CHEEK, ROLAND. The Silver Yoke. Skyline Publishing Co., pap., $14.95. ISBN 0-918981-13-1.
Roland finishes the Valediction for Revenge series with the sixth volume: The Silver Yoke. He continues the story of Jethro Spring, the mixed son of an Indian mother and a mountain man father. After being responsible for the death of his sweetheart's father, Jethro leaves his homestead and returns to Leadville, Colorado, where he owns a mine he inherited from his good friend Gunnar Einarssen. Burdened with guilt Jethro tries to drown himself in alcohol, but when the Amalgamated Minerals & Mining Company wants to buy
his mine, he swears off liquor. Amalgamated Minerals & Mining killed his friend Gunnar, and Jethro intends to exact revenge. But Jethro will be paying back Amalgamated for more than Gunnar's life; the company is owned by the Burroughs family, and a member of that family is Jethro's sworn enemy. It will be poetic justice to ruin Amalgamated and Ellis Burroughs, the man who nearly destroyed Jethro and married the only woman he ever loved. This novel has lots of action, a terrific villain you love to hate, the smell of dust and dynamite, and a man sworn to bleed his enemies, not of blood but of money, the only thing they love.
1st chapter excerpt
One post of the abandoned mine's hoist was splintered, its gallows frame sagging and creaking with the wind. A discarded whiskey bottle lay in a puddle left from the previous night's deluge. A strange-style, calf-length moccasin boot with a hole worn through the sole also lay in the puddle. The boot was occupied.
Lewis surveyed the discarded bottle, broken gallows frame, and mud-splattered drunk who huddled against the hoist post. "Derelicts, the three," he muttered, kicking the unconscious man. He kicked harder. "Up and about, you."
Lewis crouched and jerked the collar of the ragged Union Army greatcoat from the grimy neck, then fingered for a pulse.
The derelict waved feebly and muttered, "Go 'way."
"Come on you. Let's go." Receiving no response, Lewis shook the sprawling man. "Let's go, I say. Get up. It's a fine day. Come on."
Instead, the drunk scrambled under an angle brace. Lewis grabbed him by one moccasined foot and yanked. Without laces, the boot slipped free; there was no stocking beneath. Cursing beneath his breath, Lewis tossed the boot aside and seized the bare foot to jerk. The canvas trousers on that leg was ripped from ankle to knee; the trouser leg slid halfway up the intoxicated man's thigh as he was dragged from his shelter. The man scrambled back for his refuge, only to be kicked in the ribs for the effort.
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