Montana Women Writers

Macrae’s Gold, by Catherine Browning

In 1907 Alexander Macrae, a man intent on saving his family land, is hired by the Pinkerton Company to protect a shipment of gold heading by train to the Pacific Northwest for the Great Northern Railroad.  While passing through NW Montana, thieves kill a man and steal the payroll, escaping into the wilderness of the Rocky Mountains.  Alex is too late to stop the murder and theft but sees the men riding off into the woods and gives chase.  His goal is to follow the money.

            Alex’s path leads him to Bigfork, Montana and into an acquaintance with Mariah Saunders, a young woman intent on proving herself in spite of family rules and society’s strictures. While enlisting the aid of local law enforcement, Alex finds himself thrown into Mariah’s company.  But when she overhears Alex and her father discussing the theft, and determines to secretly join the search, it starts a chain of events that are disastrous.

            When the payroll is finally found Alex is tempted to keep the payroll in order to dig himself out of his growing financial crisis. But his affection for Mariah is growing, and he is faced with a dilemma:  keep the gold and lose Mariah, or keep Mariah and lose his land?

From the Bavarian Alps and Scandinavia to the Rocky Mountain West, “Voices in the Past” follows the journeys of a family over 200 years of adventures and trials.

A BRAND NEW STAND-ALONE BOOK FROM M.F. ERLER

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