Dustup At Deadhorse

By Amanda Brenner

Chance Hollister is hired to find a young girl who followed her husband to the gold fields of Colorado.  Her mother has not heard from her daughter, Lucy, in three years and is not well; she wants the girl to come home before it is too late.  Chance thinks the search is a lost cause but cannot turn the woman down.  He follows the girl's trail from Missouri to Colorado and finally to the lead mining region of Kansas.  He finds Lucy, now a widow who did not want her mother to know how she had been living in the years since she left home.

     Doctor Harley Mortimore left his sweetheart to study abroad, unaware that she was carrying his child.  Years later, he returns, a bitter and resentful man who finally learns of the daughter he never knew he had.

In his earlier occupation as a lawman, Chance brought in an outlaw who spent six years in prison and vowed to give the detective a bullet for each year he was behind bars; he's out now, and determined to follow through with his plan for revenge.  

     All these people will converge in Deadhorse.

57,500 words

• Language: English
• Publisher: Loral Enterprises
• Release date: Jan 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215326152

Amanda Brenner

Amanda Brenner is a native Midwesterner who has traveled extensively throughout the United States and now lives quietly with her husband and an assortment of wildlife visitors to their urban home.  Her interest in writing began at an early age when westerns were popular attractions at the local theater.  It seemed only natural that her first novel, Trail of Vengeance, should be in that genre.  After finishing a second western, Shadow of the Rope, she began to explore a new direction and completed three contemporary mysteries involving private investigator Sid Langdon, a self-doubting magnet for offbeat clients and hapless scenarios, the latest being The Mystery of the Nourdon Blue.  Amanda enjoys learning from the books she reads, a characteristic reflected in the research she includes in her own works. Thank you for your time.  

Book preview

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,

Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit

Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,

Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it

— Omar Khayyam

CHAPTER 1

––––––––

Chance Hollister’s latest odyssey began when Matt Whittaker, his partner in the detective agency Matt had originally established in St. Louis, approached him about a case which had been brought to him by a couple, a brother and sister, who had enlisted his help in locating the woman’s daughter.

Matt could not take the case himself, he already had enough on his plate for the moment, but he hated to turn the couple away once he had heard their story and, having heard it, he knew time was of the essence.  He knew the type of search that might be necessary could be costly, and he was not dealing with wealthy people.  But when they simply told him they would pay all they had or could raise to find the girl, Matt got a sinking feeling; he would help them, he knew that much, he just wasn’t quite sure how.

At their initial consultation in his office, Matt had told them he would see what he could do and would be in touch in a few days.  After conferring with Chance, the two agreed that Chance would follow the sparse trail that was all their client could give them.

The couple in question was Mrs. Maude Burnett Darrow and her brother, Jess Burnett.  Matt and Chance met them at Mrs. Darrow’s trim Victorian on Gravois Street.  Introductions included a brief explanation as to why Matt would no longer be the agent in charge of the investigation.  After assuring the couple of his complete confidence in Chance, Matt returned to his office, leaving Chance to draw out the details he needed before definitely agreeing to become involved.

After Matt left, the three retired to a parlor cushioned by a thick Aubusson rug with furniture arranged around the style’s familiar medallion pattern, and hung with heavy draperies that encouraged the kind of whispered conversation usually reserved for funerals.

There, nestled among various potted ferns, philodendrons, and several colorations of dracaena, Chance made himself comfortable beside the fireplace in a wing chair upholstered with block-printed cotton in an East Indian floral design, as he probed for what information he could get while he considered his prospective clients.

They were not young, either of them.  Both showed signs of difficult lives spent in toil and want.  Jess Burnett, a wizened, bent man obviously not well, had spent a good part of his life as a miner in the coalfields of Pennsylvania.  Like many others who worked beside him, Jess had started in the mines as soon as he was old enough to carry a bucket of slag; eventually he went deeper into the mines to extract the black gold that fueled every type of industry.

Room and pillar mines had been part of the coalfields as long as anyone could remember.  The first mining operation, so they said, was called Coal Hill, and was set up at Mount Washington, across the Monongahela River from what had become the city of Pittsburgh.  Coal was first carved out of that seam and actually sent by canoe to a military garrison nearby. Those were the old days.  Jess could only remember his crew pushing heavy carts into the darkness, with only their head lamps for light, sometimes trudging through water until they could use dynamite or hand tools to break a vein of coal into chunks they dumped into carts, which they would then drag up to the surface.  They worked shifts, sometimes for ten days at a time, when they might go down before sunrise on a given day and return to the surface anywhere from seven to twelve hours later. 

They all knew the risks they faced from the dust all around them; most men wore bandanas or other masks in an attempt to minimize the effects of the dust, knowing these were pitifully ineffective, but it was all they had.  Still, the mines provided a good living while they were able to work, barring sickness or accident, and that was as far as they chose to plan.

It was a way of life that Jess had understood and accepted; he didn’t doubt he would still be there if he had not developed the cough that shortened his time in the mines, and that now threatened to shorten his very life.  When his condition rendered him unfit for work and his continued employment was no longer profitable, he was turned out with a meager pension.

And so, after a life spent digging black gold in the mines of Pennsylvania, his health broke, his options exhausted, Jess wrote to his only known relative, his sister, Maude.  Their parents had passed several years back, but he and Maude had kept in touch, as each had only the other for family, and she had kept him informed of all that transpired in her life.  As he both hoped and expected, Maude invited him to join her in St. Louis, and he had only recently arrived in the city. 

Now, sitting on a damask-covered loveseat in Maude’s parlor, he seemed to have trouble simply breathing.  His breath came and went in snatches punctuated by terrible coughing, which made it necessary for him to leave the room several times while Chance was there.

Maude, fidgeting on a matching damask-covered settee across from her brother, had fared a bit better, but was beginning to exhibit the pallor and generally wasted appearance of consumption, the result of years spent nursing a husband who had succumbed to the disease.  Occasionally she would delicately raise a lace-trimmed handkerchief to her mouth to muffle a slight cough.

Mrs. Darrow, Chance began, I know you explained your situation to Mr. Whittaker, but since my information from him is secondhand and possibly something may have been inadvertently omitted, I need you to tell me the story of your daughter’s disappearance.  Please tell me everything, since it’s hard to know which detail may prove significant once I begin my investigation; if, indeed, I feel there is enough of a trail to follow at all.

The implication that this man, on whom they were pinning all their hopes, and for whose services they were willing to trade everything they possessed, might in the end turn them down brought a gasp from Maude.  Jess made his way to his stricken sister and laid his wasted hand on her shoulder.  Please, Maudie, he told her, there will be a trail, I know it.  Don’t you worry.  He’ll find her; I just know it.  He has to find her; he just has to.

At her brother’s reassuring words, Maude composed herself and looked at Chance.  Her gaze affected him as her story had affected his partner:  no matter the odds, he had already determined that he would do what he could for them both.

Very well, Mr. Hollister, she said, her voice having taken on a determined tone, I will tell you everything and leave the matter in your hands and God’s.

And so, for the next two hours, the interlude interrupted only by her own gentle coughs, or Jess’s comings and goings when his fits of coughing could not be contained, to the soft ticking sound of the Gothic Birge and Fuller clock on the mantle, Maude Burnett Darrow recounted her story.

"Mr. Hollister, I’m afraid the background is long and rather complicated, but I will tell you everything because, as you said, it’s hard to know what may eventually prove to be important.

"Many years ago, when I was just a girl, I fell in love with a young man named James Lamont Haverston; everyone called him Monty, and he was the son of a local banker.  His family, however, had a degree of social prominence and lofty aspirations for their only son.  I’m afraid I didn’t fit into their plans for his future.

"To his credit, Monty wanted to marry me despite his parents’ objection, but we both knew that to do so would cause him to be disinherited.  It was a sober consideration we could not dismiss lightly, for Monty was still in school and financially dependent upon his parents.

I’m afraid it was this last point that determined our fate, for Monty’s family knew how he felt about me and were afraid the two of us might do something foolish," as his mother put it.  So his parents decided that he would complete his medical education in England, effectively separating us for several years.  Because he knew he had no alternative without the education he needed to build a career and support a wife, not to mention a family, Monty acquiesced to his parents’ wishes, even while defiantly declaring his intention to return upon graduation to marry me.

I still remember the last time I saw him, Maude said wistfully.  It was a clear, brilliant day in early fall.  Oh, we promised each other that we would write and keep in touch and pick up our lives where we had been forced to leave them to satisfy his parents’ demands.

Chance, who had been listening to Maude’s account while toying with a cup of coffee he had accepted before she began her story, looked up when she suddenly became quiet.  He saw that her eyes were glistening as she recounted the last time she had seen her former love.  After a moment, she composed herself and continued.

Mr. Hollister, even though I tried to deny it, the truth was that I understood all too well the implication of our separation; I knew at that last meeting that I would never see him again, and that time and distance would accomplish what his parents could not.  Of course, for a while, we did correspond faithfully, but eventually his letters became fewer and fewer, and then they stopped altogether.  My last letter to him came back with a notation that he had moved and had not provided a forwarding address.

Maude stopped again, and Chance realized how painful the old memories must be for her; he wondered if she would be able to continue at all, but she did.

You see, she started again, all the time we shared our letters, there was a secret I bore alone and chose not to share with Monty or anyone else.  I had not known of my condition at our last meeting, but soon it could not be ignored, because I could no longer hide the fact that I was carrying his child.

Chance’s eyes narrowed at this revelation; he was beginning to see where this was going.

When my parents learned of my situation, they insisted that Monty’s parents be told and made to support the child.  I dreaded even the thought of such a confrontation, and with good cause, for the meeting with his family was unpleasant, as I knew it would be.  The gist of it was that they refused to write to Monty for confirmation, but instead called me a tramp and accused my family of attempting to extort funds to support, as they put it, her bastard child.  None of them would even consider the possibility of their son’s involvement, and they threatened us with legal action if they were ever contacted again in the matter.

Another pause, as if Maude were reliving every moment of her torment at the hands of her lover’s family.

"I tried to contact Monty through his school and wrote to him telling him of my predicament and his parents’ response.  I was sure he would stand by me, so sure of it.

"But my letter came back unopened.  I never knew if it was his decision, which I could not believe, or if the letter was intercepted and he had never seen it, which I had to believe at the time was the truth of what had happened.

"I never did find out why I never heard from him, but it was soon after this that a notice appeared in the St. Louis Gazette society pages announcing the engagement of Monty and an aristocrat’s daughter, and explaining that the couple would make their home near her family’s estate outside London.

"When I saw the notice, although it didn’t surprise me, I still sat looking at it for a long time; I remember that.  I guess I knew then what I had only suspected before, that Monty was truly gone from my life and I would have to make my way alone. 

My own education ended then, as I had to stay at home to help my mother and learn the trade that would eventually provide my only source of income.  Fortunately, I was an excellent seamstress with an uncanny skill and keen eye for emerging fashion trends.  Even more fortunately, those attributes brought continued repeat business from the more fashionable ladies of St. Louis society.  Oh, they may have whispered their disapproval of my situation, but they were practical as well, and a good dressmaker was a jewel to be treasured.

Maude stopped again, but this time her face brightened, for now she spoke of her daughter, whom she had named Lucinda.

She smiled when she explained, I named her Lucinda when I learned it was Latin for beautiful light," for I felt that she was the beautiful light that made my early turmoil worthwhile.  But mostly we just called her Lucy.

Eventually, I met and married John Darrow, mainly to give Lucy a respectable name.  John was a good man and a clerk in a dry goods store downtown.  He knew of Lucy’s background, and truly meant it when he said it didn’t matter, that we would raise her as our own.  As I had hoped, true to his word, John adopted my daughter and changed her name to his.

Maude stopped and took a deep breath, as if the worst of what she had to relate was finally over.  Then she continued.

"For many years, we were truly a family and lived quietly.  I was able to bring in a little extra income with a dressmaking shop I set up in a spare room of our house.  John’s decline, when it began, was barely noticeable at first.  He attributed his initial complaints of exhaustion to overwork, and began to work shorter hours to accommodate his condition.  One day he came home after collapsing in the store.  I summoned a physician, but he could do nothing.

The doctor was familiar enough with the appearance and symptoms of the disease, and his pronouncement was consumption, for which he advocated home care, even though he could give no hope for recovery.  After that, John took to his bed and I nursed him as well as I could for several months until his death.  Fortunately, John had an insurance policy that, while not a large sum, nevertheless helped to supplement my own income and provide a living for my daughter and myself.

For the second time, Maude’s voice lifted with a joyful lilt as she spoke of her daughter. 

"My Lucy was a lovely child; bright and inquisitive, she grew up to be a popular young lady.  But she was also restless, and often spoke of the adventure of other places she felt could all be more exciting than staid St. Louis.  Well, the lovely child grew into a beautiful young woman and eventually she met a young man, Sam Bennett, who fired her imagination with tales of the gold fields along the South Platte River in Colorado.

"Try as I might, I was unable to dissuade her, for she saw in Sam the chance at adventure she longed for.  Lucy had just turned eighteen when she and Sam were married and headed west to find their fortune in the gold fields he had told her so much about.

Oh, we wrote, of course, although months would pass before we heard from her.  But you probably know how uncertain mail can be when its very transport is uncertain.  Anyway, her letters home became fewer and farther between, until they stopping altogether; the last letter I received was sent three years ago from a town called Julesburg, in Colorado Territory.

Three years.  Chance wondered why it took the woman three years to decide on a search for the girl.  The story had stopped again, and Chance thought that was the end of it.  He was mistaken.  Maude took a final moment to compose herself, as if girding for one more hurdle she had to get through before her ordeal was finally over.

"Mr. Hollister, there is something else I didn’t tell my brother in our letters these past years, as I didn’t wish to worry him with my troubles.  Once he joined me here, I could no longer hide what was happening.  But the truth is that I have begun to see signs of the disease that claimed my husband in myself.  In caring for him, I contracted his illness, and it will now shorten my own life, to what degree I don’t yet know.  Now, with Jess’s pension, plus the interest from John’s insurance policy, and my own income, we