I’m pleased to announce that my new novel The Pain and The Sorrow is already in print! This is the story of New Mexico Territory’s serial killer Charles Kennedy and his teenage wife, the girl who endured years of his abuse before finally reporting his nefarious activities to the authorities. 
Order it from your favorite bookseller or online! Here are two online sources: Amazon, Barnes and Noble.
Category: fiction
OLD BILL – 1 of 6
Old Bill and the two mules had been stumbling south, half-blinded by snow, for three days. When he came over the top of the rise and looked into the valley below, he passed his hand over his face. He must be hallucinating.
He looked again. Sure enough, that was a valley below. The snow was thinner there. A herd of elk had worked large patches clear. The wolves patrolling in the snow beyond the herd were breaking through, snow almost to their hocks.
He studied the layout. Elk, snow melt for water. Bound to be Injuns. He passed his hand over his face again, warming his eyes, and looked again. Sure enough, smoke rose near the hills at the valley’s southern end.
He was coming in peace with little more than the mules and his clothes. They’d feed him, sure. Had probably already seen him. “C’mon, you mules,” he said.
SLICK
The rain was behind him and gaining fast.
Timothy looked back, down the valley, and kicked at the mule, but it was hot and the mule had been going for a long time. Its pace quickened for a few yards, then dropped back into an easy trot.
The boy groaned and looked back again. His mother had told him to take his slicker, but he’d been in a hurry. “C’mon Boss,” he begged, but the mule just flicked its ears and jogged onward.
Somehow, they made it to the barn before the clouds reached them. Timothy turned the mule into the stall and made a dash for the house. The first raindrops bit into the dust as he reached the steps.
His mother opened the door. “Get wet?” she asked meaningfully.
He grinned at her. “Dry as a bone!” he said.
from Moreno Valley Sketches II
THE SERIAL KILLER NOVEL
My novel about New Mexico Territory’s serial killer Charles Kennedy and the teenage wife who turned him in is now available for pre-order!
The Pain and the Sorrow is set in the 1860’s in Taos, New Mexico Territory and the mountains east of Taos. It tells the story of a teenage Hispanic girl who marries an American man who turns out to . . . . Click here or on the cover image to find out more!
Published by Sunstone Press, The Pain and the Sorrow will be available on or before August 1.
COMFORT IN SORROW (in honor of Father’s Day)
“I suppose he had to go,” she said. She was sitting on the front steps, her father beside her.
He nodded. “He was killing the chickens next door. They won’t stop once they taste blood.”
“He was so beautiful,” she said. “And he loved to be brushed and petted. And sit by me while I did my homework.”
He touched her hair. “I’m sorry,” he said.
She nodded, her eyes filling. “I wish it didn’t have to be this way,” she said. “I don’t want another dog ever again.”
He put his arm around her. He suspected that the neighbor’s dog was pregnant, probably by the male who had just gone to the vet to be put down. By the time those puppies were born, she should be ready for another dog. He pulled her closer. There was no point in saying anything about that right now, though.
From Moreno Valley Sketches II
HOLLOW
Lucien Maxwell, single largest landowner in New Mexico Territory, stepped from the Middaugh Mercantile porch into early June sunlight and gazed unseeing across the green valley. On the flanks of Baldy Mountain, construction workers scurried like ants around a long wooden aquaduct-like structure. When finished, the flume it held would carry water from the Red River’s source to Baldy Mountain’s base. Then high pressure hoses would spray the sides of the gulches that drained the mountain, flushing out gravel and the gold the miners hoped it contained.
They were calling the flume the Big Ditch. It was a first for New Mexico Territory. Maxwell was a major investor, likely to make a substantial return both from water sales and from men wanting to buy mining rights. Yet all he could see was the letter in his hand.
Kit Carson was dead. Kit, the companion of so many of Lucien’s wilderness adventures, always so full of energy, so confident in his quiet-spoken way, with his sixth sense for trouble and how to meet it. Yes, Kit had been ill, but it was still incomprehensible that he could be gone. Lucien Maxwell gazed at the men scrambling across the hillside opposite and could feel no joy in their activity and its outcomes. It all seemed rather hollow, somehow.
Copyright © 2016 Loretta Miles Tollefson
On the Lake
They motored the boat slowly away from the dock. The sun overhead was bright but the breeze on their faces was cool. Cynthia tied her sunhat ribbons more securely. At the wheel, Harold turned and grinned at her. He’d suggested something with a narrower brim. She scowled and looked away.
Harold headed the boat toward the deep area near the dam. Cynthia hadn’t really wanted to come fishing, but she hadn’t wanted to stay in the Lodge by herself, either. She leaned back and closed her eyes.
The boat slowed, then stopped. She could hear Harold arranging his fishing gear. The sun felt good on her legs. An eagle cried overhead. Pine scented the air. She took a long breath and pulled the brim of her hat down, covering her face.
When she woke up, Harold was counting his fish. Cynthia smiled at him. “This is nice,” she said lazily.
Obsession
“Did you know the Maxwell Land Grant Company is evicting people who’ve been farming here for decades?” the Reverend Franklin Tolby demanded.
At the other end of the small pine table, Mary Tolby moved a raised biscuit from the chipped ceramic platter to her plate. “That’s terrible,” she said. “These biscuits are quite good this time. I think I’ve finally gotten used to that stove. Ruthie, eat your peas or there’ll be no dessert.”
Her husband picked absently at his food. “It’s a moral outrage,” he said. “They have no right.”
Mary looked anxiously at his pale face. Since they’d arrived in Cimarron, Franklin had been on horseback constantly, west to Elizabethtown, south to Fort Union and beyond, yet his cheeks showed no evidence of windburn or sun.
“I’ve made strawberry pie for desert,” she said. “An Indian girl came by selling berries. They’re very sweet. The result should be quite tasty.”
Franklin’s eyes focused on her for a split second, then his head snapped up, as if he were listening to something outside the house. “And the Indians,” he said. “With this much land, there’s room for them also.” He paused for a long moment, fork in the air, then said, “Excuse me,” dropped his frayed linen napkin onto the table, and hurried from the room. She heard him scrabbling through the papers on his desk as he prepared to write down whatever had just come to him.
Mary sighed and reached to cover the food on his half-empty plate with a clean napkin. “Ruthie, eat your peas,” she said absently.
Copyright © 2016 Loretta Miles Tollefson
Valley of the Eagles
It was spring in the valley of the eagles, which meant it had been raining off and on for three weeks and the usually adobe-hard clay soil was soft enough to be dug. Once Old Bill had selected a likely spot for caching the packs of beaver fur, Pepe set to work. Old Bill stood farther up the hillside, chanting in a mixture of Osage and Ute. The prayers would help keep varmints away, Bill had said: both the two-footed and four-footed kind.
It was a good location for a cache, Pepe reflected: tucked under the hillside pines and marked by a massive sandstone boulder that would be easy to identify when they returned. After the Taos alcalde had decided that the few beaver plews they’d set aside to show him were truly Old Bill’s entire winter haul, Pepe and Old Bill would slip back into the valley with a Taos trader to turn the cached furs into coin. Then Pepe would have a nice amount to take home to his wife while Old Bill gambled his own portion away.
Pepe chuckled and paused his digging to wipe his forehead with his cotton sleeve. He was always surprised at how warm it could get in this valley, as high up in the mountains as it was.
Small stones rattled past him and Old Bill came down the hillside. “War’s th’ other shovel?” he demanded in his nasal twang. “We ain’t got th’ rest o’ eternity!”
Copyright © 2016 Loretta Miles Tollefson
The Fourth Time
She could be incandescently angry and Gerald’s trip to Santa Fe and back had taken a week longer than he’d told her it would, so he braced himself as he opened the cabin door. But Suzanna barely raised her head from the rocking chair by the fire. She wasn’t rocking. Her shawl was clutched to her chest, her face drawn and gray under the smooth, creamy-brown skin. She glanced at Gerald, then turned her face back to the flames, her cheeks tracked with tears.
Gerald’s stomach clenched. “What is it?” he asked. “The children?”
Suzanna shook her head without looking at him. “The children are fine,” she said dully. She moved a hand from the shawl and placed it on her belly. The tears started again and she looked up at him bleakly. “This is the fourth time,” she said. “There will—” She closed her eyes and shook her head. “There will be no third child,” she choked, and he crossed the room, knelt beside her, and wordlessly took her into his arms.
Copyright © 2016 Loretta Miles Tollefson
Fiction and Fact From Old New Mexico 