By Kristy McCaffrey
***Yet another interruption to my series on Women's Sexuality. The final part will post next week. :-)
I'm so excited to share a BRAND NEW, never-before-published short novella ~ The Crow and the Bear. If you read The Crow and the Coyote, a spooky Old West romance that was released last Halloween (in the Cowboys, Creatures and Calico Vol. 2 anthology and more recently as a single sell), then you might remember that hero Jack Boggs had two brothers, Callum and Kit. This tale features Cal. I'm still brewing a story for Kit.
The idea for The Crow and the Bear came to me during the summer when my family and I visited Silverton, Colorado, an old mining town situated in an imposing valley of the Rocky Mountains. While touring the local museum I became fascinated by the Tommyknockers.
A Tommyknocker is a type of troll spirit who lives underground and was therefore of great concern to miners. The term originated in the British Isles, but superstitions surrounding the beings filtered into other places. Miners in Colorado took great care to appease the Knockers by leaving a bit of their lunch out for the sprites.
A Tommyknocker is a type of troll spirit who lives underground and was therefore of great concern to miners. The term originated in the British Isles, but superstitions surrounding the beings filtered into other places. Miners in Colorado took great care to appease the Knockers by leaving a bit of their lunch out for the sprites.
Standing about two feet tall with a grizzled appearance, many believe that Snow White’s dwarves were Tommyknockers. They usually wear standard miner’s garb and are responsible for any mischief that might befall a miner, such as losing tools and food.
The name derives from the knocking on mine walls that precedes a cave-in, which is usually just the creaking of earth and timbers before failing. Some miners believed the Knockers were malevolent beings, but others took them to be practical jokers.
In Cornish folklore, the Knockers were spirits of those who had died in previous mine accidents and were now trying to help the living, by warning of impending dangers. As an offering of thanks, miners usually cast the last bite of their lunch pastie (a type of meat pie) into the mines for the Knockers.
In the 1820’s, Welsh immigrants to Pennsylvania brought tales of the Knockers with them and their presence soon spread all the way to California. Belief in the Knockers remained well into the 20th century. During the closing of a mine in 1956, a petition was circulated by the miners to set the Knockers free (so they could move to another mine) before sealing the entrances, and the owners complied.
Bounty hunter Callum Boggs—sometimes called Crow—arrives in
the mining town of Silverton on a cold October day in search of a man who has
committed unspeakable crimes. Skilled in the technique of dream scouting, Crow
has narrowed the location of the criminal to Silas Ravine. No normal man would
dare to venture into this region, where so many gruesome and unexplained
murders have taken place—a piece of land forever haunted where Death still
walks. But Crow is no normal man...
Jennie Livingstone knows her papa is in trouble. When none
of the local men will come to her aid, she must accept a newly-arrived stranger—a
half-Comanche bounty hunter—as her only ally. As they head into the mountains
to track Jennie’s father, she can hear more than the whispers of man. The mines
carry spirits, and her only hope in navigating the living and the dead lies
with the Crow.
But is Jennie prepared for the consequences of where her
fate with Callum Boggs may lead? And is she the woman who can hold fast to the
Crow’s heart after all his years alone? Bewitched by the beautiful young woman,
Callum must do everything he can to stay one step ahead of the spirits that can’t
rest—just to keep Jennie and himself alive.
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