Where are you from?
My parents ran from Poland during the Galician Slaughter, but I was born in Vienna, and my family emigrated to the United States when I was just an infant. We ended up trapping in the wilderness of Utah Territory, where I live now.
What is your job?
I ride the Pony Express! (well, I rode the Pony Express, as a boy, of course…until it was shut down because the stations for nearly a hundred miles were burnt to the ground, and the stock run off, and…we won’t go there. Too gory. )
Are you a people person or a lone wolf?
Definitely a lone wolf, unless, of course, it’s Xavier who I get to spend time with!
Do you have any special powers or skills?
I’m pretty good at dzhigitovka, Cossack trick riding, and I’m also very good with my shashka, my Cossack sword.
Who is your closest friend?
That would have to be Dancing Wolf. He’s a Shoshone Indian, and we are the same age.
Who is your love interest?
Xavier Arguello, a Californio, and heir to the Rancho de las Pulgas, the biggest old Spanish land grant in the San Francisco Bay Area.
What is your favorite thing about Xavier?
Hmmm…that’s a hard one. It would have to be the way he holds me when I think the world’s going to end, and murmurs love words in Spanish…he’s incredibly sexy. Did you know, ‘te quiero‘, in Español, means both ‘I love you’, and ‘I want you’? That’s how close they’re linked to a Latino.
What is the most annoying thing about Xavier?
He’s always trying to protect me and talk me out of doing things I love…which, I admit, might be dangerous. 🙂
Describe Xavier in three words.
Strong, sensitive and loving.
Describe yourself in three words.
Free, impetuous, caring
Do you have pets?
My Mustang is called Dzie?. He was given to me by my father’s blood brother, Chief of the local Shoshone tribe when I was ten.
What is your favorite food?
That would have to be zurek. The recipe is in the back of A Long Trail Rolling!
What is your favorite way to travel?
By horse, of course!
What is the best advice anyone ever gave you?
Papa told me again and again to never get excited in a fight. If I kept breathing, my brain would keep me alive. It’s worked, so far. Thanks, Papa!
Blurb:
She didn’t expect to become a target…but she is one now.
Aleksandra is alone and running to prevent her father’s killer from discovering their family secret. Disguised as a Pony Express rider in 1860’s Utah Territory, she winds up in even deeper trouble when she rides full speed into the Paiute Indian War. Can she and Xavier, her Californio boss, escape the Indians on the warpath, as well as evade the man who’s already killed Aleksandra’s father—and set his sights on her?
Excerpt:
Lookout Pass, she reminded herself as she neared the summit. Glancing north to the distant white tops of the Onaqui Mountains, she swallowed hard as she thought again of her papa and the fossil he’d fossicked for her from its rocky ledges.
The spotted pony broke into a lope over the crest of the hill and began the mile-long descent. Aleksandra’s thoughts filled with memories, she was absentmindedly fingering the fossil inside the medicine bag hung about her neck when she felt the first arrow whizz past her head.
Her heart stopped in its tracks and she flung herself to the left side of the Palouse’s neck in a Cossack hang, lying flat against his side.
‘Yah! Yah! Let’s go, Scout!’ she shouted, throwing the reins at him.
He needed little urging to run full tilt down the steep and treacherously rocky trail as the yells of Indian warriors echoed through the narrow valley. The arrows came hard and fast from the southwest, screaming like a mad bunch of hornets.
Smart. Her lips curved in the hint of a wry grin.
The Indians had placed themselves between the trail and the setting sun, so Aleksandra couldn’t see her attackers in the glimpses she stole, from beneath Scout’s neck, of the world whizzing past. With the ground only three feet from her head, the scent of sage filled her nostrils when Scout crashed through a clump of brush. Briefly considering letting go of one of her death-grip holds onto the racing horse to pull a gun from her holster, something akin to suicide, she tightened her lip in a grimace and stayed put, trusting far more in the Palouse’s speed and handiness to save them. Knowing her weight hanging off to one side had to put him off his best, she tried to stay out of his way, keeping as still as possible, tucked down on the side of the skidding and leaping beast. Praying the cinch would hold, she sent fervent thanks to the pony selectors for their choice of horses.
How I’d love to have my bow and arrows, but I only need to get us through to Doc Faust at Rush—
The Palouse interrupted her musings as he threw up his head and reared, angrily trumpeting and shaking his head for a moment, nearly dropping Aleksandra, then resumed his headlong rush down the hill. When he carried on, she heard whistling sounds with every breath and turned her face forward to see where the noise was coming from.
Then she saw the arrow.
Tagline:
She didn’t expect to become a target—but she is one now!
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Publisher Blue Mist Publishing
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