Lady Winchester

When Kate Winchester's husband, Ira, ends up near death on the floor of their Idaho ranch house, it's plain his would-be killers aren't through. Now Kate must make a choice - between her Quaker upbringing and the thought of taking up a gun to save Ira's life...and perhaps her own. It's a race against time to find out who wants Ira dead, and why.

 Author's Note

I am a writer of fiction. Most of you know I try to keep things as close as I can to the way they were. But because I am foremost a writer of fiction, once in a while I use the name of a mountain range or a road or a stream before it was actually named, simply for reader benefit. In this book, there is a strong possibility I not only named a road but created one before its time. Little Indian Road, east of Blackfoot, may or may not have existed in 1885, but for aesthetic value it does exist within the pages of this book.

The town of Blackfoot I faithfully recreated as nearly as I could, but for a town without the infamy of a Denver or Tombstone or Virginia City it was hard to find all I needed to accomplish that. In cases where I couldn't pinpoint the original location of a business, I put it where it best suited my needs. Yet every business listed in the book did exist in 1885. That much we know. And the doctor's office really was located inside the Commercial Hotel, just off the railroad tracks. The big new courthouse sat on the outskirts of town, like it does in the book, and the insane asylum was purposely placed far away from the rest of the population and stood there like a mysterious fortress, looked at with awe by local children and citizens.

As for the locations in the book, the side-canyon off of Wolverine Road and such, they are all real. As a family, we picnicked in that particular side canyon and waded in the creek there in the 1970's. My own family now carries that tradition on. There was a time those rocks were infested with snakes, although humans with little knowledge of their impact on ecology have managed to nearly wipe them out now. We can thank them for the mice that come to visit in the night!

The Irving Wolfe ranch in the book sits where Wallace and Marlene Reid's place is now, just off Reid Road. Farther west up the road can be found a yellow two story home in which location the Winchesters fictionally resided.

In 1984 I came up with the idea for Lady Winchester while working in a potato factory. I had a picture in my mind back then of how she would look. But I never could find her. I began writing the book, wondering how I would ever locate this woman who had to be so precisely beautiful and yet strong. Then one day in a fabric store my eyes fell upon Geri Berg. I knew instantly that here, at last, was Lady Winchester. I was an unpublished author at the time and didn't dare walk up to her and ask her if I could paint her portrait. She probably would have called the police. But miraculously enough I ran into her on a medical call a few years later and had the chance to meet her first, then later spring the proposal on her. To my delight, Geri said yes.

Several long years later, the book is done. Geri is not only on the cover but it is her inside as well, as far as I am concerned. I hope she agrees, at least a little bit. Here is to her family for being so patient with me. They let me borrow their "lady" for a few years, and I couldn't have found a more fitting lady.