Clara Raven

By Murray Pura

Merck McIntyre had survived the Great War and dodged the Spanish Flu. Now he was back in the United States and had signed on with the U.S. Marshal. His plans were for a good career in law enforcement in his home state of Massachusetts.

 

It was The Roaring Twenties. America was recovering from a world war and wanted to party. But 1920 was the start of Prohibition. It became the law of the land. The men slated to enforce it were the U.S. Marshals, something Merck hadn't counted on. Overnight, he was on a train headed for the far-flung state of Idaho. It would be his job to stop the illegal sale of liquor in what, so far as he was concerned, was still the wild west.

 

Merck, like President Woodrow Wilson, didn't think it was a good law, and he didn't think it would work, no matter what law enforcement did. But he set out to do his best to maintain peace and order in northern Idaho. It even looked like he might achieve it.

 

Until the bootleggers showed up with their guns and their greed. They moved in fast to take over stills and make a fortune shipping booze to whoever could pay top dollar. When rival gangs appeared, they shot them down. The bullets flew and soon Merck had a regular war on his hands.

 

There were a handful of sheriffs and sheriff's deputies he could call on. But too many were dirty and he didn't trust them. Then there were the special deputies – a Basque-American named Nayara Zubiri, and another woman from Boise who went by Samantha McCain. Maybe they'd help, maybe they'd hinder, maybe they'd make all the difference. Only time and courage would tell.

• Language: English
• Publisher: MillerWords, LLC
• Release date: Oct 3, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223535980

Murray Pura

I'm born Canadian, live in the blue Canadian Rockies, sound Canadian when I talk (sort of) ... but I'm really an international guy who has traveled the world by train and boat and plane and thumb ... and I've lived in Scotland, the Middle East, Italy, Ireland, California and, most recently, New Mexico. I write in every fiction genre imaginable because I'm brimming over with stories and I want to get them out there to share with others ... romance, Amish, western, fantasy, action-adventure, historical, suspense ... I write non-fiction too, normally history, biography and spirituality. I've won awards for my novels ZO and THE WHITE BIRDS OF MORNING and have celebrated penning bestselling releases like THE WINGS OF MORNING, THE ROSE OF LANCASTER COUNTY, A ROAD CALLED LOVE and ASHTON PARK. My latest publications include BEAUTIFUL SKIN (spring 2017), ALL MY BEAUTIFUL TOMORROWS (summer 2017), GETTYSBURG (Christmas 2018), RIDE THE SKY (spring 2019), A SUN DRENCHED ELSEWHERE (fall 2019), GRACE RIDER (fall 2019) and ABIGAIL’S CHRISTMAS MIRACLE (Christmas 2019). My novels ZO, RIDE THE SKY and ABIGAIL’s CHRISTMAS MIRACLE are available as audiobooks as well. Please browse my extensive list of titles, pick out a few, write a review and drop me a line. Thanks and cheers!

Book preview

For PATRICK E. CRAIG

Writer, Co-author & Friend

No person shall on or after the date when the eighteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States goes into effect, manufacture, sell, barter, transport, import, export, deliver, furnish or possess any intoxicating liquor except as authorized in this Act, and all the provisions of this Act shall be liberally construed to the end that the use of intoxicating liquor as a beverage may be prevented.

Volstead Act 1920 Title II. Sec. 3

There won’t be no sunshine

No stars no moon

No laughter no music

‘Cept this one sad tune

Goodbye forever to my old friend Booze

Doggone I’ve got the prohibition blues

Ring Lardner

Nora Bayes, Prohibition Blues

1920

I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is strongest.

Henry David Thoreau,

On the Duty of Civil Disobedience

1849

FEBRUARY 1920

IDAHO

THIRTY YEARS AFTER STATEHOOD

1

It was always a fifty -fifty coin toss whether his Ford would start right off the bat. A number of his friends had raved about the 1920 version of the Model T and urged Merck to spend the money. He’d held off until February after he’d already relocated to Idaho. Even then, the Ford did not arrive by rail till March. By then, his black mare Forge had done a lot of the work he needed to have done and she’d done it without breaking a sweat, even after making her way through mounds of snow and ice.

Truck or no truck, half the time he continued to use Forge anyway. The roads and back trails were flinty, rocky, and rough. The Model T was not at its best on such roads. But it was getting better. Or Merck was. Choked, the Ford pickup started on the third crank like it was supposed to. No coughs or barks. Just a good growl. He headed north out of Winston under a March sky’s muddy cloudbank, snow melting under the truck’s narrow tires. Bear Grease he called the T, but couldn’t have told you why. The color? He’d never shot a black bear or eaten the meat of one in his life. But back east he’d been served hot biscuits made with bear fat a couple of times. They’d been delicious.

Winston was a decent town with a couple of thousand citizens, a lot of brothels and a lot of mountains. No saloons, of course. It had been such a rush getting back from the war, getting hired as a U.S. Marshal, then getting shipped west, Merck had barely had a chance to think it all through properly, read the newspapers, and consider different opinions. What about Prohibition?

President Wilson hadn’t liked it. He’d tried to veto it. But Congress and the Senate had brushed the President and his veto aside. All the churches and women’s temperance movements had won the day. Merck wasn’t pleased with that. He’d never been a religious man. It rankled him that the country had been forced into this situation by Baptists, and Methodists, and their reverends and bishops. He doubted Prohibition would do much good. Which was why he was making a decision today his bosses would not like.

Merck had never expected to wind up in Idaho. When the war ended he was twenty. An officer who’d led men in combat and engaged in trench warfare. No decorations. Just alive, and a lot tougher and smarter than he’d been in 1917. He had dodged the Spanish flu, signed up with the U.S. Marshals, and sworn his oath on the Holy Bible – I will faithfully execute all lawful precepts, so help me God – including a few caveats with the oath that he spoke aloud in his own head. He was given a silver shield with an eagle on top and the words US MARSHAL engraved on it. An older style badge, which made it even more worthy in Merck’s eyes. Though he didn’t intend to wear it.

They were glad to have a young, fit, savvy vet. Born in Boston, Merck hoped to spend his career in the east. But the oath he signed off on was for the northern district of Idaho. The moment Prohibition became the law of the country on January 17th, 1920, he was sent to what he considered the tail end of the country.

Merck hardly knew anything about the place. Statehood 1890. Gold rush. Silver rush. Lead that was important to the war effort. Gave women the vote in 1896. Already had statewide prohibition in 1916. There’d been arrests going on for years. They said he’d work with local sheriffs and deputies. The law in Idaho hadn’t cooperated with him yet. A sheriff named Crick had been blunt when Merck showed up on a snowfall day in early February, the third or fourth as he remembered it, detraining in Boise with Forge.

Don’t need an easterner out here, or a Fed, Sheriff Crick had rumbled like iron wheels over rails. He had hair down to his shoulders, looking like an 1876 Hickok from forty-four years before. In fact, he had .44 Colts with ivory grips on each hip in a cross-draw rig just like Hickok, though Hickok had favored the Colt Navy cap and ball. But Crick’s face wasn’t trim like the legendary lawman’s, it was a bush and thistles of beard.

The sheriff stood high in his boots, scarred and scraped miner’s boots, almost as high as Merck who was two inches over six feet in socks. He wore what looked like a thick coat of white and gray wolf pelts. His hat, a Boss of the Plains Stetson with its wide brim and large flat crown, gave him more height. Merck had been told the sheriff’s nickname was Tall Crick. No surprise in that.

Been putting away bootleggers going on four years now. What’s a dandy like you gonna show us? Crick shook his head at Merck’s attire. Underneath a Boston policeman’s huge brown buffalo coat, which was not fastened, Merck was dressed in a gray tweed suit, vest, a gray felt derby hat, a dark string tie, and had polished black boots on his feet. He carried a silver-topped cane in his black-gloved hands. Ya think you’re Bat Masterson, do ya? Even got the mustache. Except you’re dark red as hour old blood. Anyone ever call ya Red?

Merck kept his expression flat as the snowflakes covered them on the depot platform. None living.

S’that so? Well, Bat and his kind are long dead and gone. It’s all dime westerns myth now.

Bat’s alive, sheriff, Merck replied. Makes his home in New York City. Wyatt Earp’s still with us too.

He had no intention of telling Crick the truth – Bat Masterson had been his childhood hero, he’d met him twice, had his signature on the flyleaf of a book about gunslingers of the Old West, and had deliberately styled himself after the famous lawman.

Crick shook his head again as if it made no sense that Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson should be above ground. Well, so, ya won’t be hanging around here, Marshal Dandy. Ya won’t be my headache. You’re going north to Winston. I want you keeping an eye on the border. Liquor and spirits are getting in here from Canada. Make some arrests. Put men behind bars. Make a name for yourself. Did you go to France with the boys?

I did, sheriff, Merck replied.

Pick up a rifle? Shoot it?

I did.

Well, so, that’s about the only thing you’ve got going for you, far as I’m concerned. Crick growled big, like a big dog would growl. What kinda name is Merck anyhow?

My mother is from Bordeaux, France, sheriff. She named me Mercredi. It’s French for Wednesday.

Wednesday McIntyre.

Mercredi McIntyre, Merck corrected.

Mercredi McIntyre. Scottish and French, eh? God help us.

I’m not your problem, remember? Merck had decided to clear the air from the start. You know I’m not under your authority, Sheriff Crick. You do know that, don’t you?

The sheriff had frowned, deep lines quickly crisscrossing his face. Do as you please. Just don’t drag me or my boys into anything. And stay on the right side of the law, Wednesday McIntyre. There’s some fearsome bribery going on. He paused and squinted. Where’s your guns? Or you just gonna sweet talk them bootleggers into shutting things down?

Talk is better than guns. I’ve already seen too many men die because there wasn’t enough talk.

I sure don’t need preachin’ to. Where are your heaters?

My side arm’s in a shoulder holster. Rifle’s on my saddle.

"What are they?"

Colt 1911 under my arm. War issue. The rifle’s a Browning Automatic Rifle.

Tall Crick grunted. That BAR a war issue too?

Merck nodded. I had use of it for about three months.

What’s wrong with a lever?

A BAR is more accurate. And faster with the bullets.

What about a Springfield? Or an Enfield?

My BAR has a story.

Tall Crick kept his eyes dark. All right, Wednesday McIntyre. Another day.

"Over