The Avenging Trail

Summary

Havens Falls, a cataract of axe-shattered pine and half-frozen ambition, swallows Gaston Olaf the moment his boot heel strikes its sawdust streets: a taciturn colossus with glaciers for eyes, he fells a spruce with the same unruffled grace he will later wield on human deceit. Rose Havens—whose surname is both birthright and curse—glides through the camp like a lantern in fog, her calfskin gloves hiding title deeds that men would happily kill for. Lefty Red, a twitchy marionette of sinew and spite, mistakes her delicacy for weakness; Olaf’s flying peavey handle corrects the misapprehension, splintering Red’s ulna and the town’s equilibrium. Enter Dave Taggart, capitalist in wolf’s clothing, whose smile arrives a full second before his teeth; he promotes Olaf to foreman not out of gratitude but as movable scaffolding for a grand swindle—he covets Rose’s virgin white-pine stand, the iron-banded safe in her parlor, and the woman herself, though not in that order. While winter tightens its frozen tourniquet around the valley, Taggart spins a cat’s-cradle of forged liens, midnight survey crews, and a false-flag engagement to Rose, all meant to culminate when the river ice thaws and carries evidence—and perhaps bodies—out to sea. Olaf, half-drowned in loyalty and half-awakened by desire, unearths the plot through a sequence of lantern-lit ledger columns, blood-spattered bark chips, and a deaf-mute scaler who communicates treachery via whittled cedar figurines. The final reckoning arrives amid spring drives, roaring logjams, and a barn converted to courtroom: axes become gavels, chains turn into nooses, and Rose’s inherited land is either salvation or graveyard depending on which man staggers out upright through the sawmill door.

Synopsis

Lumberjack Gaston Olaf is newly arrived in the lumber camp of Havens Falls, but it isn't long before he finds himself coming to the rescue of the lovely Rose Havens, who is being pursued by the nasty Lefty Red. Impressed by Olaf's actions, lumber boss Dave Taggart hires Olaf to be foreman of his band of rogue lumbermen. Taggart, however, has his own plans for Rose, and not the same kind that Lefty had--he's after a valuable stand of wood on Rose's property and hatches a scheme that will allow him to not only get the wood but the land it stands on and Rose's safe in the bargain. while ensuring that both Rose and Olaf remain unaware of his plan.