The Lost Brother’s Avenger (Preview)

Chapter One

Coeur d’Alene Mountains, Idaho

1900

“Gah!” 

Something big hit Peter McClary’s back, sending him sprawling over the rocky trail in a shower of pebbles. He yelled in pain as he hit the ground and tumbled down the steep hill. Something stabbed his shoulder, and he rolled to a stop and looked up to see a mountain lion’s massive head looming over his own. 

Two weirdly beautiful golden eyes were focused on him, as if he was a oversized mouse.

He stared in terror as the puma’s snarling mouth gaped open, fangs like curved daggers hovering inches over his face. He prayed and fumbled for his gun. The cat’s breath was hot on his skin as he pulled the trigger.

Pop.

The cat screamed like a banshee from Hell, a hair-raising sound that went through him like a jolt of lightning. It scratched off him, tearing his flesh in its haste to escape. It fled into the pines, twenty feet in one bound, and was gone.

Peter scrambled to his feet and pointed the revolver at the trees with shaking hands, but there was nothing there. He turned wild eyes this way and that, searching for the slightest twitch of a leaf. His eyes zoomed from the pines on the right side of the trail, to the firs on the other side. 

Not a breath of air was moving, and it was suddenly so quiet that he couldn’t even hear birds. There was nothing out there anymore.

Or at least nothing that he could see.

He staggered backward and dropped the gun. It bounced on the rocks with a clatter. His trembling legs collapsed under him, landing him on his bottom on the stony ground. He winced and grabbed his shoulder, because the instant the danger was past, the pain screamed for attention. 

He glanced down at himself. The cat had slashed his jacket and ripped his sleeve almost off his body. He took off his rucksack and shouldered out of his coat. His shirt sleeve had been torn at the shoulder and was flapping open, exposing most of his upper arm. He had long, ugly scratch marks, four ragged puncture wounds in his skin, and his arm and chest were already red with blood.

He swore and ripped the rest of his shirt sleeve off, then wound it around his arm and tied it off as tight as he could with one hand and his teeth. He glanced nervously at the trees as he grabbed the gun, tucked it into his belt, and pulled himself upright.

He pulled a hand over his eyes in despair. Without his horse, he was alone and lost in the Coeur d’Alene Mountains, far from any town. His feet were all he had, and despite a sudden wave of exhaustion, he needed to start moving them.

He stumbled down the rocky slope. He’d crested a mountain pass and was just now getting down to the tree line. He raised his eyes and surveyed the tattered curtain of iron-gray clouds drifting over the mountain tops. The huge range marched all the way to the blue horizon. 

He was lost.

His most urgent need was to get to water. He had to go downhill. His best chance of survival, of finding other people, was to find a creek. 

He moved to the side of the narrow trail, grabbing at tree branches to steady himself as he lurched down the sloping path. It was barely visible, just a series of bare patches between rocks and tufts of grass, and if it started snowing, he wouldn’t be able to see it at all.

He glanced up at the clouds again. They were dark gray and heavy, and he gasped for air as he picked up his pace. He was sure feeling the loss of his horse, Pal. He frowned as he grabbed for another tree limb. Pal had slipped on a rocky slope and broken his leg. He’d had to shoot him.

Peter pulled his hand over his eyes and blinked back tears. He knew he’d had to do it, that it was only to spare his horse suffering. But it had half killed him to do it, and he’d cried after.

He’d never had a horse in his life that wasn’t mostly a pet. He felt like a murderer.

Something cold touched his cheek, and he glanced up and groaned to see big, fat snowflakes spiraling down from the leaden sky. He had to hurry.

He took a quicker step, but a hidden tree root in the trail threw him off balance and almost sent him sprawling down the slope. He flailed, grabbed at a pine branch, and barely saved himself. 

Closing his eyes, he clung to the branch, swaying on his trembling legs. His head was spinning, and when he opened his eyes, he saw that new blood had broken through his jacket and was slowly spreading over his sleeve.

A rustling in the branches on the far side of the trail brought his eyes up again. He scanned the trees and pulled the revolver out of his belt.

His gaze moved back and forth. He licked his lips.

Nothing.

He backed down the trail slowly, keeping the revolver trained on the bushes, then turned and scrambled down another decline as fast as he could. He slipped on a patch of pebbles and almost fell again, but he skated over the ground and kept going. He had to get out of there, had to find water, or he was dead anyway.

The snowflakes started to come down thick and fast. Soon they looked like clouds, turning the air white, making it hard to see far. The cold air raised goosebumps on the exposed skin of his wounded arm, and his panting breath formed clouds in front of him. He couldn’t feel his feet and the ends of his fingers anymore.

Peter swallowed a sob as he hustled along. He was scared. It was his first time away from home, and everything that could go wrong, had. He’d been nervous starting out, and now he was near panic.

He’d left home to look for his older brother Adam. Adam had left home to find work when their Pa died. His brother had written letters for a while, but he hadn’t heard from Adam in months. It wasn’t like him.

It was plain to him that something was bad wrong. So he’d saddled his horse and filled his saddlebag with food and set out to find him.

Peter pulled his mouth down in despair. The search so far had been a disaster. He not only hadn’t found his brother, he’d gotten himself hopelessly lost in the mountains, he’d killed his horse, and he’d been attacked by a mountain lion. Now he was wounded, losing blood. He knew enough to know he was in real trouble. 

He glanced down at the deepening red stain on his shirt. He had to stop the bleeding. But that was hard when you had to move fast. 

He reached out for another branch as the trail plunged another twenty feet. But his feet flew out from under him, and this time the branch broke under his hand, and he fell. He hit the ground hard and rolled down the steep drop in an avalanche of rocks and pebbles. He came to a stop far below, groaned, and looked up through his sandy hair. He was lying at the bottom of a narrow ravine, and his rucksack was on the ground five feet away and busted open. 

He struggled to his hands and knees and crawled over. His beef jerky and hardtack were scattered over the ground, and he wiped the grit off them with trembling hands and stuffed them back into the sack. There were only a few left, and if he didn’t find help soon, he was going to have to start hunting for game, if he could. It was that or start eating tree bark.

He slung the pack over his back and staggered off down the trail. It was fast disappearing in the snow, but as he rounded a sharp curve, the sight of a long, low roof peeking through the trees made him almost yell in relief. He broke into a slogging run, because the steep trail had dumped out onto a big, flat, cleared meadow. But as he got closer, he slowed to a walk, then stopped.

It was an abandoned logging camp, and it was easy to see why. Something bad had happened here. The biggest building, a long, low clapboard hall that had likely been the mill, was more than half open to the sky. It looked like the roof had burned off, and he frowned as his eyes moved around the rest of the empty compound.

He gazed around him in disappointment. His brother worked in a logging camp, and he’d kinda hoped he’d find Adam at this one. But it was plain the camp had been deserted a while ago. There wasn’t a soul there, and rusted tools were scattered everywhere, as if the men using them had dropped them and taken to their heels. It made his skin prickle, and he was already feeling like he might pass out.

But a logging camp had to have water nearby, and he kept moving. He staggered through the abandoned camp, passing shacks and rotting piles of lumber, until he found the creek on the other side. He dropped to his knees in the snow, pulled his canteen out of his pack, and filled it up, then took a deep pull of the ice-cold water. When he’d drunk his fill, he filled it up again and returned to what looked like the most undamaged shack in the place to spend the night.

He pushed the creaking door open and paused on the dark threshold. At first he couldn’t see anything, but as his eyes adjusted he saw that everything in the little room had been tossed. A table and two chairs were lying on the dirt floor, shards from a broken glass lamp were scattered on the ground beside them.

There was something like a cot on the back wall, and Peter moved toward it hopefully. But the light from the open door showed that it was black with mildew and rotted through in spots, and he slumped against the wall in despair.

He stumbled out and moved to the other shacks. He settled on a tool shed that had a locking door and a couple of plank boards inside that he could throw on the ground and curl up on. The ground was wet and cold, and he wanted a dry spot to sleep.

He locked the rickety door, threw his pack down, and laid on the boards. They were hard and uncomfortable, but at least he was inside some kind of shelter. 

He closed his eyes and turned over on his uninjured side. His shoulder had stopped bleeding, and that was good, but it ached and stung and he was scared it would get infected. 

But he dropped off like he’d been hit in the head despite everything. He was weak and exhausted, and he was out before he knew it.

He didn’t know how long he slept, but he didn’t sleep deeply or well. A scrabbling sound woke him up. He opened his eyes and frowned, because for a second he didn’t remember where he was. He just knew it was cold and dark and he ached in every limb. He raised his head.

Something was pulling at that rickety shack door, trying to pry it open. It was some kind of animal, and a jolt of panic electrified Peter’s spine as he grabbed for his gun. 

“Yeeah!” he shouted and pointed the gun barrel at the door. “Git, git, git!”

The shaking stopped abruptly, and there was a long, heavy moment of silence. Then it started again worse than ever, and the shack trembled.

Peter swallowed a sob. It was that catamount come back for him, he knew it. It had trailed him all the way down the mountain, and if he didn’t kill it, it would get him sooner or later.

He pulled the trigger and the revolver jumped: pop pop pop.

There was a snarl on the other side, then that weird shriek, that scream like a woman’s that turned his blood to ice. There was more scrabbling, then silence.

Peter climbed to his feet, holding the gun out in front of him, and slowly opened the door. It was deep night outside, and the clouds had rolled away. A brilliant moon lit up the camp almost as bright as day, and when he looked back the way he’d come, he saw a long, dark figure loping across the snow. He only glimpsed it for a second before it disappeared into the forest.

He slammed the door shut again and locked it with trembling hands. He slumped down onto the boards and stretched out. He was exhausted, but he wasn’t getting any more sleep that night. He didn’t dare. That cat was stalking him, and if he stayed there, it’d come back.

He’d wait until daylight, then go down the mountain. Surely somebody had to live nearby.

Anybody.

Chapter Two

Orrin Hatchett pulled his mount to a stop, and the pack mule behind him brayed its protest at the change in pace. His horse’s ears were pricked up, and it was staring down the trail ahead of him as if it could see something he didn’t. There were enough things in the high country to kill a man that it wasn’t wise to ignore the warning.

His mount snorted and danced sideways, and Orrin tilted his head to listen. At first the only thing he heard was the wind sighing through the pines, but soon he caught it: a low, fretful mumbling from somewhere on the slope below.

He climbed off his horse and pulled his rifle from its scabbard before going to investigate. The trail was barely a thread between massive pine trees, and it plunged steeply from where he stood, down three hundred yards to the edge of a river.

He moved down the trail, slowly and warily. As he went, the sound became louder and clearer. It was a boy’s voice, and he frowned and picked up his pace.

The voice was feverish, mumbling. “I thought Adam might be there. No, no… it was empty.”

He pushed a fir branch aside and spat out a shocked curse. A boy who looked not yet twenty was lying a dozen yards below him, splayed out on the water’s edge. He lowered the gun and hurried down to the bank, kneeling beside him.

“Boy, are you all right?”

But he could see the truth for himself. The kid was burning up with fever, delirious. His eyes were too bright, his brow hot and red, and he kept on mumbling nonsense.

“It tried to kill me. I had to shoot.”

Orrin’s frown deepened as his eyes moved to a blood-soaked bandage on the kid’s right shoulder. There was the trouble. Something had got hold of the boy, and the wound was infected. He fumbled with the bandage, and when he tossed it away, he grimaced to see the claw marks on the kid’s shoulder. The wound was red, puffy, and oozing. 

“Boy, can you hear me?”

At that, the boy’s bright blue eyes rolled up to his, and they brightened. “Pa,” he mumbled, “Pa.”

Orrin flinched as if he’d been stabbed. He pulled back and scowled at the boy as tears stung his eyes. He dashed them away with a profanity and glanced up at the sky until he calmed down.

Because in that split-second, he was kneeling over Joshua again, running his hands over his son’s face as his eyes rolled up and fixed themselves on the sky.

Meeting this boy brought it back to him, because this boy could be Joshua’s twin. He had the same straight, sandy hair, the same bright blue eyes. And Joshua’s last words had been the same:

Pa.

Orrin dashed his hand across his eyes and grumbled under his breath. He didn’t want to get tangled up with a stranger’s problems, but he didn’t have much time to make a decision. Leaving the kid out in the freezing cold was the same as killing him. He gave the kid fifty-fifty odds of dying anyway, but those odds jumped to a hundred percent if he didn’t get him inside. 

“Aw, blast him.”

Orrin stood and glanced up the slope. He had a few rolls of cloth and some whiskey he could use to tend the wound until he could get the boy to his cabin.

Orrin climbed back up the steep hill, then led his animals down to the water’s edge. He fumbled in his saddle bag until he found what he needed, then dipped a cup full of water from the creek and knelt by the boy’s side.

The kid rolled his head and mumbled, “Something bad happened there.”

Orrin pressed the lip of the cup to the kid’s mouth and watched in frowning concern as the boy gulped it down. He probably hadn’t had a drink for hours. Maybe a day or more.

Orrin soaked a bandage with creek water and washed the kid’s arm as clean as he could. Then he uncorked a whiskey bottle, soaked the bandage with alcohol, and bent over him. The kid was wandering in his mind, but on the off chance he could understand, Orrin announced:

“This is medicine. It’s gonna sting.”

He slopped the alcohol over the kid’s shoulder and raised his bushy brows to see that the only thing the boy did was make a face. He knew good and well it was burning like fire, but the kid was so far gone he hardly felt it. 

He needed to get him to his cabin, fast.

The boy’s hands waved weakly in the air. “It was gonna kill me. I had to shoot.”

Orrin glanced at him. “I’m gonna put you on my mule. Here we go.” 

He hoisted the kid up in his arms and grunted as he carried him over to the pack mule. He slung the boy over its back like a sack of salt, then walked around to the other side to pull one leg over the saddle. He straightened the boy up, pulled him down over the mule’s neck, then dug a blanket out of his pack and draped it over the kid’s shoulders.

His mule Balthazar looked back at him over its shoulder, and he replied to the unspoken comment. “I know,” he grunted as he tied the kid’s wrists together around Balthazar’s neck. “I don’t wanna hear any complaints outta you.”

The mule twitched its ears and pulled its lips back from its teeth, but it didn’t kick or bray, and that was a mercy. Balthazar was good on mountain trails, but he was a fractious, bad-tempered son of a gun.

That was why that mule and him got along so well. They understood one another.

“Come on, you old glue pot.”

Orrin picked up his whiskey bottle, took a slug, and wiped his mouth. Then he climbed up onto his horse and sent it across the ice-cold creek, slow, careful, and at the shallowest point he could find. The horse’s hooves splashed through the icy water, and Orrin pulled his jacket collar up around his ears.

He glanced back over his shoulder as his horse climbed out of the creek and surged up the opposite bank. The mule followed along patiently, and Orrin sighed in relief. Sometimes, animals understood when a man was sick or in pain. Even the cussed ones. 

And that was a good thing, because it was starting to snow again. Orrin looked up at the heavy gray clouds. Big flakes were coming down in flurries, and another few inches would hide the trail even from him and make it dangerous to come down the mountain.

He frowned as he swayed in the saddle. It was kind of a miracle he’d found the kid at all. He hadn’t been so high up in the mountains in months. He’d just gone up in the high country to check on some traps he’d set. He wouldn’t be up that way again until spring.

The boy’s mumbling, fretful voice broke in on his thoughts. “So cold. So thirsty.”

Orrin turned to look at the boy and called, “I’ll get you some water when we reach my cabin. Just hang on and be patient. It ain’t real far.”

They plodded on for another hour as the snow fell thick and fast. But even its thick white mantle couldn’t hide the ugly, broken stands of burned trees, or the clearings with trees broken in half and blasted white as human bones.

Orrin’s mouth twisted as he turned his head to study them. They were just one more sign of the savage timber wars that had upended the place. His mountain used to be one of the prettiest, quietest places God ever made. But that was before the big lumber companies had discovered it had one of the biggest white pine forests in the country. 

“Soft gold,” they called those trees, and they were like gold: Cheap, versatile, easy to mill, easy to work. Valuable in a country with dreams of expansion and a big demand for bridges, houses, ships, businesses, and railroad ties.

Orrin glared out into the forest without seeing it. The big mills had descended on the place like a plague of locusts. The first thing they’d done was drive out all the wildcat mills, and then they’d started fighting one another. Gangs of masked men would ride into logging camps at night and set the place on fire. They’d kill the loggers and disappear into the forest, and nobody ever got arrested.

It made him sick, and it was criminal, but nobody was gonna get arrested for it unless it was one of the small fry. The big boys paying those night riders would never be charged. They sure weren’t going to jail. Half the time they had the local sheriffs paid off.

He made a bitter face. It only reinforced what he’d known all his life. If you had enough money, you didn’t have to worry about the law. You could do whatever you wanted and get away scot-free.

This was only the most recent example of many.

He pressed on, going fast enough to get them to the cabin before nightfall, and slow enough to make the ride possible for the boy. The snow slacked off a little in the late afternoon, and Orrin pulled his horse up as they neared a logging camp halfway down the mountain. It had been as busy as a hive of bees as few months before when he’d come up to trade pelts for lumber and nails. 

He gazed around the empty compound in frowning dismay. The mill and half the surrounding outbuildings were charred black. A loose cabin shutter creaked in the breeze, and snow swirled across the yard. 

But there were no other signs of life in the deserted yard. A camp of about fifty men was silent and bare. Snow sifted down onto the ruined buildings, and the only movement was the wind.

Orrin scowled at the scene, then nudged his horse to move on. The snow in that mill yard was probably covering more than piles of lumber. But there were some things a lone man couldn’t fix all by himself. He couldn’t fight a big timber company, or take on a gang of hired thugs all by himself. 

He was an old man living alone. The best he could hope for was to live out his days in peace on the mountain where he’d raised his family and buried his wife and son.

He’d seen his days. He’d go to his family soon enough, and afterwards the world would have to crash on without him.

It would have to solve its own problems.

Chapter Three

Pa.

Peter rolled his head and mumbled. He was sweating and shaking so hard that his teeth chattered. His father’s kind face appeared and reappeared over his bed in the dim room. Sometimes it looked like his father, but other times it looked like a bushy-haired old man with a tanned, wrinkled face, a hook nose, big eyebrows, and a handlebar mustache.

Pa, don’t leave me.

Somebody was washing his bare shoulder, and he pushed the hands away feebly. He wanted to say, “Leave me alone,” but he wasn’t sure if he had or not. He was trembling uncontrollably, and it was hard to make himself understood.

His big brother Adam came in and sat down at his bedside to grin at him and slap his arm. “Hear you’ve been playing puny,” he joked. “But I know you’re just laying out to keep from doing chores.”

Peter frowned and licked his lips. Where have you been, Adam? Why did you stop writing? I’ve been worried sick. Worried something bad had happened to you.

I had to come looking for you.

Where have you been? 

Somebody was pressing a cup to his lips, and he raised a shaking hand and drank greedily. He was so thirsty, but the liquid he was drinking didn’t taste like water. It was warm and tasted like dirt and old roots, and he made a face but didn’t spit it out. He knew the taste of mountain medicine.

The cup withdrew, and Peter lowered his head onto the pillow. He was freezing in spite of the quilts piled up on him. They were weighing him down, and he picked at the fabric fretfully. 

A woman’s eerie scream pierced the room, and he looked up in horror to see a catamount up on his bed, snarling at him, batting at him with its massive paw. He yelled out, and the old man appeared and held him down as he thrashed and flailed. 

“You’re inside my cabin, boy,” the old man grunted. “There’s no catamount here! Go to sleep.”

He looked around in confusion. The cat was gone, and he frowned at the old man, but he was too weak to fight, or even stay conscious for long. He collapsed onto the pillow, and the world went dark. He dreamed he was slumped over a mule and swaying back and forth like a bag of potatoes. Snow was falling everywhere, and two yellow eyes watched him from the cover of the trees.

He woke to feel somebody rubbing his hands, then his feet, then his hands again. It made them hurt, and he writhed and moaned until the cup reappeared at his lips. He gulped down the nasty-tasting water greedily and opened his eyes to see a roaring fire behind the old man bending over him.

He frowned and mumbled, “Who are you,” but no sound came out. He closed his eyes and sank into sleep again. 

* * * * *

Orrin sighed and stared down at the boy in frowning pity. He set the cup of herbal tea down on the beside table and rubbed warmth into the kid’s hands. He was doing his best, but he’d been wrestling the angel of death for two days. The boy didn’t seem to have deep frostbite, but he was still burning up with fever, shaking with chills, and out of his head in spite of all he’d done. 

He’d lanced the boil that had set up in the boy’s shoulder, he’d washed the wound with water and whiskey, he’d smeared honey over the gashes, and he’d poured willow bark tea down the kid’s throat to lower his fever. 

But he was running out of tricks.

 He pulled a hand over his face and stared at the kid in mingled sympathy and resentment. He was too old to be sitting up all day and night playing nursemaid to a stranger. 

That cabin of his wouldn’t tend itself. There were chores to do and repairs to make, and all that had to wait while he sat up day and night with this kid. The boy wasn’t his responsibility. 

If there’d been anybody else to hand him off to, he would’ve. But there wasn’t anybody else. There was nobody but him. His nearest neighbor was ten miles away down the mountain.

Orrin stood up and paced restlessly across the cabin. He’d made a big fire in the fireplace to keep the kid warm, and it was hot as a blacksmith’s forge in that little cabin even with the snow outside. He mopped his neck with a handkerchief and swore under his breath. He was sweating like a pig.

He glanced at the kid again. 

After all the work I’ve put in, I’m gonna be mad if the kid doesn’t make it.

Resentment and frustration surged up in his chest. 

I knew the minute I clapped eyes on that boy this would happen. He looks just like Joshua. If he dies, it’ll kill me. Just kill me dead. It’ll be like living it all over again.

His mouth twisted, and he turned and paced the room again. He wasn’t much of a praying man, but when you’d done all you could and it wasn’t enough, it was a good time to start.

He clasped his hands and bowed his head. He searched in his memory for the right words, but ended up just blurting out, “Lord, I need Your help. I got a boy here who’s trying to die on me. I don’t know what else to do for him. Me, I’ve lived my life and I’m ready to go any time You say. But he’s too young to finish up like this. I’d take it as a real favor if You could tell the angel of death to come back home and leave this boy alone. It’s not his time, Lord. Amen.”

He rubbed his nose and glanced at the boy. Nothing had changed.

Orrin sighed and went to sit by the fire. He poked at the coals and threw on wood as the wind howled outside. It was blowing up a bit of a storm out there, and the wind moaned and shrieked in the chimney and made the flames jump like they were alive.