Feud Along the Dearborn

by Will DuRey

  Feud Along the Dearborn

  Until the night of the fire, Stanton, Montana, was a peaceful town. It boasted a church, a school and a bank, and no longer attracted those hard-riding, hard-drinking characters who brought with them the kind of lawlessness and destruction that had been rife during its earlier frontier days. Its marshal, Silas Tasker, rejoiced in the knowledge that he had rid the town of the kind of rip-roaring reputation attributed to so many other cattle-towns across the west. But in the aftermath of the blaze that destroyed the barn on the Diamond-H ranch, a man lost his sanity, others died, and Silas found himself confronted with a feud capable of developing into an unstoppable range-war.

  By the same author

  The Hanging of Charlie Darke

  The Drummond Brand

  In the High Bitterroots

  Return to Tatanka Crossing

  A Storm in Montana

  Longhorn Justice

  Medicine Feather

  Arkansas Bushwhackers

  Jefferson’s Saddle

  Along the Tonto Rim

  The Gambler and the Law

  Lakota Justice

  Crackaway’s Quest

  Riding the Line

  To the Far Sierras

  Black Hills Gold

  Feud Along the Dearborn

  Will DuRey

  ROBERT HALE

  © Will DuRey 2018

  First published in Great Britain 2018

  ISBN 978-0-7198-2731-0

  The Crowood Press

  The Stable Block

  Crowood Lane

  Ramsbury

  Marlborough

  Wiltshire SN8 2HR

  www.bhwesterns.com

  Robert Hale is an imprint of The Crowood Press

  The right of Will DuRey to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him

  in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  All rights reserved. This e-book is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Mary Hoag chased the released horses across the yard, urging them towards the open gate that led onto the meadowland beyond. Her shouts and arm-waving, however, were virtually unnecessary; already the animals were running for their lives, panic-stricken by the flames that were leaping into the blackness above the timber building in which they’d recently been stabled. Their sounds of fright and flight, snorts, neighs and the rapid drumming hoof beats, mingled with the crackling of burning wood and the yells of Mary’s father and elder brother who were fighting the fire at her back. Matty Slade, the cook, and the other hands who had been roused from their sleep by the general hubbub and the terror-bearing shouts of ‘Fire!’ were racing from the distant bunkhouse to aid in the battle required to prevent the inferno spreading to other buildings.

  Occasional gusts of wind acted like bellows, fanning the flames, enabling them to climb and consume the walls until they flicked high above the building, slashing the black sky like the blades of angry swordsmen. Smoke curled and spread as it, too, succumbed to the vagaries of the breeze, and mixed within it was the hot ash and small fragments of burning wood capable of extending the fire to the nearby barns or even the Hoags’ home.

  With the horses careering off into the night and safe from danger, Mary hurried back across the yard to assist in the fight against the fire. She tightened the shawl that she’d flung around her shoulders before leaving the house so that it didn’t become an encumbrance when she began raising water from the well. It had been the only additional item of clothing she’d had time to collect after being roused from her bed by the barking of the house dog and the high whinnying of the trapped horses, but she had little need of it for warmth. Although she was separated from the burning building by thirty yards, she felt enshrouded by the heat it emitted. Her thoughts flew to the predicament of her father and brother, knowing that despite the intense heat and choking smoke that swirled around them, they would continue to struggle against losing the stable until all hope of saving it had gone. She could see them, little more than silhouettes against the orange light of the blazing building, striving to find a place to launch a counter-attack, some weakness in the fire that would give them a chance of defeating it and protecting the rest of their property. She hurried on, determined to do her part. She was capable of hauling the water from the ground for the men to fling against the burning timbers.

  Already it had been a day of troubles for the Hoag family, but they had been minor irritations in comparison to this conflagration. Earlier, in Stanton, Mary had been at the centre of a confrontation between her father and Walt Risby. Many people regarded Walt as a selfish, arrogant bully, a reputation which had recently been endorsed by leaving his friend, Jimmy Carson, afoot a day shy of town. To Walt it had been nothing more than a prank but with recent rumours of Arapaho raids in the area, few people had agreed with him. Mary liked Walt. He wasn’t perfect, but neither was she and, limited by the small number of young men in the vicinity, she found his antics more amusing than aggressively unkind. Since the death of her ma there was little more to her life than work from sunup to sundown; a chance meeting with Walt always brightened her day. He was flirtatious, but she didn’t suppose for one moment that she was being favoured above any other girl in the territory.

  Ben Hoag, however, didn’t share his daughter’s opinion and had given voice to his objections when he’d found them in conversation outside the general store. Several bystanders had overheard his tirade, which had not only been a rant against the young man’s character, but also a warning to stay away from his daughter.

  Although Walt’s wild reputation had been used as the stick with which to beat him, Mary knew that that was not the root cause of her father’s objection. Over the years, he and Mort Risby had had many disagreements over land and cattle, and though neither man had current cause to be at war with the other, their peace had not brought about anything more than a tenuous friendship. At home, Mary had harangued her father on the subject, laying out her own point of view, but he had been obdurate in his opinion that until Walt Risby showed some evidence of sense and humanity, he would not be welcome in their home. Rather than pacifying her father as she’d intended, Mary’s defence of the young man had made him grouchier, but it was her younger brother, Frank, who bore the brunt of their parent’s agitation.

  For the best part of a week, Frank’s mood had been sullen, his attention to tasks around the ranch suffering from his lax attitude. It was an attitude that rankled his father and angry words had been exchanged more than once during the preceding days, but that night Ben Hoag had predicted that if his son didn’t change his ways, he would end up a ne’er-do-well like Walt Risby and had ordered him to take the night-watch, nursing the herd on the home slopes that overlooked the ranch.

  Now, as she raised a bucketful of water from the well, Mary wondered why her younger brother hadn’t returned to the ranch – the fire would be visible for many miles. It was even possible that the whinnying of the frightened horses could have reached him on the hillside, before disturbing the sleepers in the house. She cast a glance over her shoulder. Only an ominous darkness lay beyond the yard rails. Despite the fire’s heat, it seemed to Mary that her body shivered with a sudden chill, a portent of more trouble.

  The trouble, however, wasn’t
at Mary’s back, it was being carried on the latest gust of wind blowing along the valley. A glowing ember, collected from the crumbling stable, was floating across the ranch-yard like a giant firefly and became entangled in the folds of her cotton nightdress. Instantly, the material began to burn. Alarmed, she started to beat the flames with her hands, but they didn’t diminish. Instead, they grew with frightening speed. By the time her first scream reached the men-folk, she was a flaming torch. Her clothing and hair were aflame, and the torment of her pain echoed in the cries that were receding from screams to horrible, gargled moans.

  A moment of stunned disbelief transfixed Ben Hoag and his eldest son, Tom. Then they ran, the battle to save the stable overtaken by their need to protect something more precious. Tom held a thick horse-blanket that he’d rescued from the stable, and while he was yet ten strides from his sister, prepared to throw it over her. The men who were racing from the bunkhouse, changed course, too. Young Chet Taylor, reached Mary first. He began scooping dirt over her in an effort to extinguish the flames that still leapt around her body.

  Mary writhed on the ground, her right arm raised towards Chet in supplication. Like the rest of her body, it was charred and blistered, twisted as though melted into disfigurement. Her eyes were wide, protruding in an ugly, haunted manner, and her mouth too, was agape as though needing to give voice to a thousand screams, but only low moans of hellish torment were able to escape.

  Chet ceased his labour when Tom smothered Mary under the blanket. Tom hoped this action would kill the flames and save his sister from further injury, but he really wasn’t sure if he was helping or heaping more distress upon her. In truth, he had no knowledge of the best course of action to follow. Over the years, there had been minor burns a-plenty, treatable with salves of aloe vera or chamomile, sometimes with mutton tallow and beeswax or even the white of an egg, but Mary’s injuries were of an altogether different nature. He had never seen anyone consumed by fire and although covering his sister with the blanket successfully extinguished the flames, he was sure he was inflicting further damage. He had the notion that he was tearing the skin from her body. ‘Get the doctor,’ he yelled to no one in particular.

  It was Chet who accepted the command, running off to the corral behind the bunkhouse where the working ponies were kept. It wasn’t that he was the best rider, simply that he welcomed the opportunity to put distance between himself and Mary. He’d carried a secret torch for his boss’s daughter since arriving at the ranch, and the sight of her suffering and his inability to end it, filled him with horror. He hadn’t the skills to provide Mary with any measure of comfort, but he was willing and able to fetch the one person who perhaps could. Nothing could be done now to save the stable and it seemed that the fear of it spreading to the other buildings had been dismissed because, as he saddled up, he could hear Ben Hoag insisting that his daughter was taken to the house. Chet couldn’t imagine how that could be achieved without inflicting even more pain on the injured girl, all he knew was that it was essential to get Doc Brewster back to the ranch quickly.

  Stanton was a four-mile ride. Chet spurred the cayuse under him as soon as he was on its back. The horse was at full gallop before they passed through the open gate. As he turned the horse towards town he was aware of another rider coming down from the northern slopes at a reckless speed. He guessed it was Frank Hoag, summoned away from his night-watch of the cattle by the leaping flames but he didn’t slacken his pace to inform him of his sister’s injury. He yelled in the horse’s ear and rode pell-mell in search of the doctor.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Mary Hoag died before the sun had climbed above the eastern horizon to spread its light on the jumble of buildings that constituted the Diamond-H ranch. Abraham Brewster, the long-serving doctor to the township of Stanton, had reached the place less than an hour earlier, his old, two-wheeled buggy slewing to an awkward halt at the end of a frantic journey. The doctor had driven in Chet Taylor’s wake, his vehicle bouncing, swinging and swerving over every inch of the four-mile journey as his old mare tried to keep pace with the cowboy’s onrushing pony. The smell of burning wood had filled his nostrils for almost half the distance and when he’d clattered up to the ranch-house door, he’d leapt from the buggy with as much agility as his old bones permitted, leaving Chet to tend to the lathered animals.

  Matty Slade was on the porch with Buck Downs, another ranch-hand, but they had no words of greeting to offer the doctor as he hurried past and into the house. There was little need for words however, their sunken-eyed expressions were sufficient to convey the hopelessness of the situation before the medical man even opened the door.

  Mary lay on the table, a pillow under her head. She was unconscious; pain and shock had taken away her senses. For her father this was both a blessing and a worry; the deep, preternatural sounds that had issued forth from his daughter’s mouth when they’d carried her inside were now at an end, but the ensuing silence only generated a different cause for alarm, one which he could barely contemplate. Ben’s wide-eyed stare emphasised for Abe Brewster the fear that gripped the rancher; that never having asked for help in the past, he had no idea how to ask or beg for it now that he needed it so badly.

  Abe Brewster noted the unexpected trails on the rancher’s cheeks, two thin lines that had washed a way through the smoke and ash particles covering his face. Ben Hoag had no remembrance of shedding tears, but they’d fallen steadily while he’d tended to his daughter. He was a tough man, had been hard in the rearing of his sons, but his daughter had forever been the recipient of his tenderness. His inability to cure her or even offer comfort, put him in desperate straits. It was Matty Slade who’d advised covering her with a soothing ointment and, unable to find anything better, had brought lard from his cookhouse supplies. Ben had applied it thickly, agonizing over every handful, unsure of the efficacy of the treatment, fearing he was inflicting greater harm to the horrifically-damaged, slight body. Now, Mary lay still and ghastly white and all her father’s hopes for her recovery were vested in Abe Brewster’s knowledge.

  It wasn’t enough. Neither Abe’s experience nor anything his bag contained, were capable of assisting Mary’s fight against her injuries. Her heart succumbed to the excessive demands placed on it by her failing organs. She died without ever regaining consciousness, her final convulsion witnessed by Doc Brewster, her father and her brothers.

  Frank had reached the ranch, riding as though all the demons of Hell were at his back. In the house, the sight of his sister’s ruined body provided unwanted confirmation of the news Matty Slade had imparted beyond the door. He found it difficult to drag his gaze away from the blistered face twisted by the agonies she’d suffered. Transfixed, his inability to find any words capable of expressing his inner desolation only added to the heavy silence within the room.

  It was Abe Brewster who spoke first. Gathering his hat and bag, he prepared to leave. ‘I’m sorry, Ben, but no matter how quickly I’d got here, I wouldn’t have been able to save her. The damage was too severe.’

  Ben Hoag raised his eyes from the spot on the floor he’d been staring at for several minutes, but his gaze didn’t settle on the doctor’s face. Instead, he was looking over his shoulder at his youngest son who remained rooted to the spot a couple of steps inside the room. ‘Where were you?’ he asked, his voice quiet but deep, like the rumble of distant, approaching thunder. ‘Why didn’t you raise a warning? Up on the hillside you must have seen the flames before anyone else. Why didn’t you come to help? Were you asleep?’

  ‘Pa!’ It was Tom who interjected, annoyed by the gruffness in his father’s voice. He knew that Mary had always been the old man’s favourite, but he wasn’t the only one affected by her loss. This was not the time to renew the petty argument that had led to Frank’s earlier abasement, riding night-guard. Whatever reason he had for his absence from fighting the fire, its explanation could wait for another day.

  Ben Hoag wiped aside his eldest son’s intervention with a wav
e of his arm. He rose to his feet and took a couple of steps towards Frank, his head thrust forward in characteristically aggressive style. ‘Your sister’s dead because she was doing your job,’ he snapped at the youngest Hoag, anger blazing in his eyes. ‘Where were you?’

  Colour rose in Frank Hoag’s face. In his whole life, he couldn’t recall one word of praise from his father. From childhood, he’d worked hard and become as capable a ranch-hand as any of those employed in recent years. He earned his keep; working cattle, repairing fences and breaking-in horses from day-break to sun-down, but only his mistakes attracted his father’s attention. The rest of the time he was just doing what was expected of him, attending to the multitude of chores that were necessary to maintain the profitability of the small ranch.

  Again, Tom was first to respond. He was the senior son by eight years. He couldn’t remember a day when he hadn’t worked alongside his father, not only learning the essential physical skills but also adhering to his parent’s philosophy that if their inheritance was to have any value after he’d gone, then the development of the ranch ought to be the primary concern of his sons. Until his younger brother’s recent bouts of moodiness, Ben’s un-encouraging manner had barely mattered to Tom. Indeed, he had always been too busy to recognize the trait and although Frank’s increasingly voluble grumbling had forced him to recognize his father’s unyielding attitude, it hadn’t persuaded him that there was any fault in his behaviour. Lately, however, it had become necessary for Tom to act as buffer between his father and younger brother. ‘It was an accident, Pa. Mary’s decision to fight the fire had nothing to do with Frank’s absence. She was as eager as you and I to protect the stock.’