Beware of the Law

Summary

Deep within a frost-latticed forest, taciturn lumberjack Jules Grandin stumbles upon prohibition agent McRae—rib-cracked, bullet-bitten, bleeding amber sap of law and life—hauling the half-corpse to the nearest lantern-glow: Rose LeBarbe’s cedar-scented threshold. Rose, whose bloodline secretly ferments contraband, cleanses McRae’s wounds while her sire nightly ferries crates of liquid moonlight through catacomb coves. Rum-runners, discovering their clandestine lake of gin evaporated, blame the LeBarbe patriarch and mark him for a watery grave. McRae, resurrected by morphine and vengeance, rises to shield the very smuggler blood that once poisoned his ledgers. Meanwhile Ann, Jules’s capricious sweetheart, trades loyalty for liberty, only to crawl back when the gun-smoke clears; McRae’s heart, however, has migrated to Rose’s steadier pulse. Bullets, betrayals, and boreal winds converge until the axe of justice splits the barrels, revealing a tableau of severed loyalties stitched by reluctant love.

Synopsis

Jules Grandin, a woodsman, finds McRae, a prohibition agent, seriously wounded. He calls for help in taking care of him, from Rose LeBarbe, sister to Ann, his sweetheart. Unknown to Rose, her father is making daily visits to the rum-runners' secret storehouse. When they discover that much of their goods is missing, they determine to get him and dispose of him, as they have of several others in their way. McRae recovers from his wound in time to be of service in saving the girls' father, and Ann who has double-crossed Jules, repents and goes back to him. McRae, of course, has fallen in love with Rose.