Enter Peter Dalton - Excerpt from Chapter 25

Peter Dalton was traveling in style. This job was a little out of his element, but if this was one of the benefits of working with a mining whiz, then he'd learn to adjust. All he needed to be set was a lady. But that would come at another time.

Why, he'd be so rich when all this was over, that the women would fall all over him. Or so he told himself.

The truth of the matter was this: Peter Dalton was a contradiction in terms. He was a quiet man, which is not to say he was soft-spoken. His motto was “walk tall and carry a big stick” and his stick held .45 caliber bullets. He was tall and lanky, with wiry blonde hair and a reddish-orange beard.

No one in the family could figure out the reason for such carrot-like color, but thought it might be from his father's side of the family. There were some Irish blokes in the mix back a generation or so, but who was to say. None of the other men were gifted with such an outrageous hue.

Dalton thought maybe his mother had participated in a little “what's good for the goose is good for the gander”. His father was notorious with the ladies, so why not, he thought.

At any rate, he was stuck with this gruesome facial hair, so he chose to make the best of it, letting it grow and grow, sometimes braiding it, sometimes not. But it made people remember him. He always stood out in a crowd. And there was no convincing him that was not always a good thing!