Book Extract: Battle Mountain by C.J. Box

I’m so pleased to be welcoming C.J. Box to Novel Kicks and the blog tour for his book, Battle Mountain.

Can Joe Pickett stop an old friend throwing his life away in order to gain revenge? The gripping new novel from #1 New York Times bestseller C.J. Box.

The campaign of hate and vengeance that a pair of violent criminals wreaked on Wyoming Game Warden Joe Pickett and his friend, falconer Nate Romanowski, left both men in tatters, but it was Nate who came closest to losing everything.

Facing his lowest ebb, Nate decided the only option was to drop out of society. Taking only his birds, he went off-grid to rediscover his true self… and prepare for his own revenge.

When Joe is called on to help the governor, whose son-in-law is missing in the Sierra Madre mountains, the investigation takes a darker turn when Joe and Nate’s very different journeys unexpectedly converge.

All will come to a head at Battle Mountain, but in a struggle neither of them would ever have seen coming, can both Joe and Nate survive?

C.J. Box has kindly shared an extract from Battle Mountain with us today. We hope you enjoy. 

*****beginning of extract*****

PART ONE

“He mounted like a rocket, curved over in splendid parabola, dived down through cumulus of pigeons. One bird fell back, gashed dead, looking astonished, like a man falling out of a tree. The ground came up and crushed it.”
—J. A. Baker, The Peregrine

CHAPTER ONE

Seven Months Before

Nate Romanowski was thigh-high in the icy water of North Piney Creek under the craggy profile of the snow-covered Wyoming Range. He was there to kill a man named Axel Soledad,
whom he’d pursued in a state of unhinged fury for months.

Soledad had left a trail of death and destruction behind him in his hunger for revenge against Nate and Joe Pickett. The cost had been catastrophic.

Liv. The blood, the body.

Nate blamed himself for his wife’s death. He blamed Axel Soledad more.

It was mid-April and the ice was finally breaking up. Large three-inch-thick platters of it bobbed along the surface, carried by the current. As he crossed the creek, he kept one eye upriver so he could spot the largest chunks floating his way and dodge them, lest they knock him off-balance. Even though he wore a pair of waders that he’d purchased at a fly-fishing shop in Pinedale, a small town with a welcome sign that announced that it was All the Civilization You Need, the water was so cold that his legs had gone numb and he could barely feel his feet. The water in the freestone river was so clear he could see the rounded maroon and beige river rocks between his boots.

Nate was tall, blond, and rangy. His eyes were icy blue and piercing and they peered out from a high-altitude windburned face with high cheekbones and a hatchet-like nose. He wore his long hair tied back in a ponytail with a leather falcon’s jess.

Under his parka was the weight of a Freedom Arms .454 Casull handgun loaded with five rounds. Half a box of spare cartridges was in his parka pocket. He doubted he’d need them. Five rounds meant five dead bodies, and from what he’d learned, there were only four people at his destination.

At over seven thousand feet in the mountains, it was still winter. Crusty snow clogged the pine tree–lined banks, and the first green shoots emerging from the snowpack were at least a month away. It was twenty-two degrees Fahrenheit and every breath he exhaled was in the form of a condensation cloud.

The night before, Nate had learned through a barroom conversation in Big Piney that a man matching Soledad’s description had been holed up in a bizarre rental property on the west bank of Piney Creek. The property belonged to a marina owner from the Ozarks who was a Wild West aficionado. The Missourian had purchased a onetime line shack on a small private holding and transformed it into a mini frontier village with a two-story lodge, false-front outbuildings, and a serve-yourself saloon.

People would go crazy for it, the owner had announced. The locals in Big Piney and Pinedale had been less impressed. The property was so isolated that very few tourists ever booked it, and those who did were lucky to find it. It sounded like the perfect place for Soledad.

Soledad had shown up in the town of Big Piney a week ago with three others, Nate had learned—two men in their mid-thirties and a woman who appeared to be Soledad’s girlfriend. They’d arrived in an older-model Honda Civic with Colorado plates.

While one of the men had retrieved the keys to the place from a local realtor who served as the owner’s agent, the man behind the wheel had gotten out of the Honda and walked stiffly around on a pair of crutches. That was undoubtedly Soledad. Nate had no idea who the other three were, but one of Soledad’s traits was col- lecting hangers-on. This certainly fit the pattern.

The drinks he had bought for the talkative realtor last night had been well worth it, Nate thought.

He’d found out during midnight reconnaissance that the re- mote lodge could be accessed off a county road and then a two- track that ended at the house. The only way to approach would be to drive his Jeep right up to the front door, which was not a good plan.

Rather, Nate stayed on a rough path that hugged the curves of North Piney Creek. He’d found a place to hide his vehicle off- road. Then he’d left it at three in the morning and worked his way downstream along the tangled bank of the creek. It had been hard going—there was no game trail or natural path—and he’d had to bushwhack through frozen brush and outstretched tree roots. For about half a mile, the creek had been frozen solid and he could slide his way along the top of it. But when he saw black openings in the ice ahead of him in the moonlight, and the surface began to crack under his weight, he realized that the only way he was going to be able to proceed was to get into the water.

When he did, the cold shocked him even through the waders, but Nate didn’t mind. Like most prey, including big game, Soledad would never expect a threat to come from the water.

As the sun lit up the tops of the pine trees in a warm orange, the lodge came into view around a bend in the creek. The buildings were dark and squarish, and no artificial light shone from any of the windows.

Nate hugged the right bank, keeping the thick brush between him and the structures as he approached the enclave. It was as it had been described to him: a two-level wooden clapboard building and a small jumble of faux-Western businesses. A thin line of woodsmoke clung to the top of a chimney pipe and looked like a vaporous flag.

An older-model Honda sedan was parked on the side of the lodge.

Nate found himself shaking, and he stepped out of the creek onto the icy rocks to calm himself. He looked hard at the lodge, trying to guess which room Soledad would be in.

So, he thought. It has come down to this.

“Get ready, Axel,” he whispered.

*****end of extract*****

About C.J. Box –

C.J. Box is the author of over 30 novels including the Joe Pickett and Cassie Dewell series. He has won Edgar, Anthony, Macavity, Gumshoe and Barry Awards, as well as numerous other US and international awards for literature.

Two television series based on his novels have been produced (Big Skyon ABC/Disney+ and Joe Picketton Paramount+) with him serving as Executive Producer for both series.

He and his wife Laurie live on their ranch in Wyoming.

Say hello to C.J. Box via his website, Instagram, Twitter (X) and Facebook.

Battle Mountain is the latest novel in the Joe Pickett series and was released by Head of Zeus (Aries) on 6th March 2025. Click to buy on Amazon UK, Barnes and Noble and Waterstones. Click to follow Head of Zeus on Instagram and TikTok. You can also find out more information on their titles via their website. Aries Fiction can also be found on Facebook and Twitter (X). 

by

Laura

I’m Laura. I started Novel Kicks in 2009. I wanted a place to post my writing as well as give other writers like me the opportunity to do the same. There is also a monthly book club, a writing room which features writing prompts, book reviews, competitions, author interviews and guest posts.

I grew up by the sea (my favourite place in the world) and I currently live in Hampshire. I am married to Chris, have a cat named Buddy and I would love to be a writer. I’m trying to write the novel I’ve talked so much about writing if only I could stop pressing delete. I’ve loved writing since creative writing classes in primary school. I have always wanted to see my teacher Miss Sayers again and thank her for the encouragement. When not trying to write the novel or writing snippets of stories on anything I can get my hands on, I love reading, dancing like a loon and singing to myself very badly. My current obsession is Once Upon a Time and I would be happy to live with magic in the enchanted forest surrounded by all those wonderful stories provided that world also included Harry Potter. I love reading chick lit. contemporary fiction and novels with mystery.