OUT OF THE DARKNESS
OTHER TITLES BY ROBERT D. MCKEE
Killing Blood (2016)
Dakota Trails (2017)
OUT OF THE DARKNESS
ROBERT D. MCKEE
FIVE STAR
A part of Gale, a Cengage Company
Copyright © 2017 by Robert D. McKee
Five Star™ Publishing, a part of Gale, a Cengage Company.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously.
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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Names: McKee, Robert D., 1948– author.
Title: Out of the darkness / Robert D. McKee.
Description: First edition. | Waterville, Maine : Five Star Publishing, [2017]
Identifiers: LCCN 2016057801 (print) | LCCN 2017005914 (ebook) | ISBN 9781432834197 (hardcover) | ISBN 1432834193 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781432836924 (ebook) | ISBN 1432836927 (ebook) | ISBN 9781432834173 (ebook) | ISBN 1432834177 (ebook)
eISBN-13: 978-1-4328-3417-3 eISBN-10: 1-43283417-7
Subjects: LCSH: Frontier and pioneer life—Wyoming—Fiction. | City and town Life—Wyoming—Fiction. | Public prosecutors—Fiction. | Physicians—Fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Historical. | FICTION / Legal. | GSAFD: Legal stories.
Classification: LCC PS3613.C55255 O88 2017 (print) | LCC PS3613.C55255 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016057801
First Edition. First Printing: June 2017
This title is available as an e-book.
ISBN-13: 978-1-4328-3417-3 ISBN-10: 1-43283417-7
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Printed in the United States of America
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For Kathy
PART ONE: CHESTER’S DECISION
CHAPTER ONE
Micah McConners had been back in his hometown of Probity, Wyoming, less than fifteen minutes when the peaceful afternoon was cracked open by a gunshot. He could tell it came from around the corner on Main Street, so Micah, being curious, edged in closer to the buildings and started in that direction. The second shot, though, brought him to a stop. By the sound of it, the gunfire was getting closer, and his natural curiosity began to drain.
It was August 1900 and central Wyoming was mostly civilized. From time to time a band of young Indians would ride around the countryside raising a little havoc, and trains were robbed often enough to cause the railroad barons back East some sleepless nights, but the land’s wildness, for the most part, had been tamed.
Micah’s father, John, used to tell stories of the old days when about everyone wore a sidearm. During those unruly times, gunfights in the streets were not uncommon, but now, times were modern, and such things were rare. After all, it was almost the twentieth century. Some wrongly believed the new century had begun on January 1, 1900, but Micah knew it wouldn’t really start for another four months.
As Micah reminded himself that times were less wild now than in his father’s day, he heard a third shot, and that pretty much took away whatever curiosity he had left. He decided it would be wise to duck between the buildings until he could determine what was going on. As that prudent thought came to mind, a riderless horse raced around the corner at full gallop.
“What the hell’s going on?” Micah asked out loud, and as soon as he said it, he saw. He wasn’t certain what he was seeing, but he sure knew what it was that made that horse run.
A man on a large blue bicycle was coming down the middle of the street, and he was gaining on the galloping horse. Micah had never seen a bicycle move so fast, but its speed was not the only wonder of it. Micah blinked to make sure his eyes were working, and then he looked again. His eyes had not lied. The man astride the bicycle was not moving his legs. The cycle was not being pedaled. The sound of a million bumblebees came from the two-wheeled contraption. A fourth bang disrupted the peaceful afternoon, and a puff of blue smoke erupted from beneath the bicycle’s seat.
A group of a dozen men, women, and children rounded the corner down the street. Some were shaking their fists; others were cheering. One irate man shouted, “Doc, damn your hide. If that horse gets hurt, I’m-a gonna take you apart.”
Doc?
Micah couldn’t tell by looking because the man wore a long duster, a small-billed cap, and huge goggles over his eyes, but, yes, causing a panic in the middle of downtown was something Micah’s best friend, Chester Hedstrom, M.D., was apt to do.
Micah stepped into the street and waved his arms. The man must have seen him because he brought the cycle to a quick stop on the dirt street and sent a plume of dust twenty feet into the afternoon sky.
“Chester?” Micah asked, trying to peer into the goggles. “Is that you inside there?”
The man pulled a lever on the machine’s cross bar, causing it to sputter, gasp, and fall silent.
“Micah.” The rider swung his right leg over the rear of the cycle and lowered a stand. He pulled the goggles to the top of his head and grabbed Micah in a bear hug. “You made it. Hooray.” He spun Micah around and did a little jig. “Home at last. Home at last,” he sang.
Micah and Chester had corresponded earlier in the month. It had been arranged that Chester would meet Micah at the train station upon his return, and Micah would stay at Chester’s house until he could find a place of his own. Micah had been admitted to the bar two days earlier, and he was returning to Probity to begin his career as an attorney-at-law.
“Sorry I wasn’t there when the train pulled in,” Chester said, “but I went for a ride and lost track of the time.” He gave Micah one more spin and set him down. Micah hurried to straighten his suitcoat and hat. He was no dandy, but concern for his appearance became habitual after three years in the offices of the fastidious Judge Roscoe Pullum. It was under the tutelage of Judge Pullum in Cheyenne that Micah had read for the bar.
At six feet two, Chester was taller than Micah by almost three inches. And Micah figured Chester must outweigh him by at least forty pounds. Chester was a big, friendly man who didn’t know his own strength, and he was always whacking people on the back hard enough to knock off their hats or grabbing them around the shoulder and twisting their clothes.
Chester slapped Micah’s back now. “How was your trip?” he asked, but before there was time to answer, he moved on to another topic. Keeping up with Chester’s conversation always required a fleet mind. “What do you think?” He extended both hands, palms up, toward the bicycle. “It’s a beauty, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Micah said, “it is. But what is it?”
“Why, it’s a moto-cycle, of course. Haven’t you ever heard of moto-cycles?”
Micah had read quite a lot about the new internal combustion engines being used to power carriages, and now that he thought about it, he remembered reading something about the engines’ also being attached to bicyc
les. But he’d never seen one, and little Probity, Wyoming, was the last place he ever expected he would.
By now the crowd had caught up, and the man who’d threatened Chester a moment earlier shouted as he ran by. “As soon as I catch that horse, Doc, I’ll be back.” He jabbed a thick index finger in Chester’s direction. The man was barrel-chested and way too heavy. As he ran, a purple blood vessel pulsed between his eyes.
“He’ll be back,” Chester said with a chuckle, “if he doesn’t die of apoplexy first.”
The rest of the people milled around the moto-cycle, but no one, not even the children, ventured too close.
“Step aside, folks,” Chester said, shooing them away. “There’ll be time enough later for all of you to see this fabulous machine. But right now Attorney McConners and I have an important appointment, and we mustn’t be late.”
Chester lifted the cycle off its stand and threw a leg over. With a smile, he patted the cross bar and said, “Al-l-l aboard.”
“What?” Micah wasn’t sure he’d heard right. “You expect me to get on that thing?”
“Of course.”
Micah felt his eyes widen, and he shook his head.
“Oh, come on, Micah. You need to be open to new experiences. It’s a new age. Prepare yourself for it.”
“Yes, climb on,” someone shouted. “Give ’er a try.” The rest of the group then chorused their encouragement.
Holding to his chest the carpetbag that contained everything he owned in the world, Micah inched himself side-saddle onto the moto-cycle’s center rail. Chester pulled down his goggles and pushed off.
There were conventional pedals on the contraption, but Chester only had to pedal them a half-dozen times before the motor beneath his seat caught and the machine lurched forward, giving Micah a stomach-churning rush.
Micah squeezed his eyes closed, but he could feel Chester, who had always been a showman, turn the thing around and ride back past the cheering onlookers.
“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Micah said, once he’d mustered the courage to speak. There was a vibrato to his voice that had nothing to do with the moto-cycle’s shaking.
“What do you mean you can’t believe it? Why, it’s exhilarating. Open your eyes, for God’s sake. Stop being such a coward.”
Micah had never thought of himself as a coward, but maybe that was what he was. If being a coward meant keeping his eyes closed while sitting on this fool’s device, he was more than prepared to live with the burden of cowardice.
“Micah,” Chester said, “if you don’t open your eyes, I promise you, I’ll see how fast this thing can go.” Micah felt Chester reach beneath him and push the cross bar’s speed lever forward. The motor sputtered and fired off another of its bangs, and the machine sped up.
“All right, all right,” Micah said. “I’m opening them.” And he did, with reluctance, one lid at a time.
“There now, that’s not so bad, is it?”
The buildings sped by. Micah had gone that fast on horseback, and trains went that fast and more, but on this small contrivance it was different. After a bit, though, his heart skittered down to a more normal rate, and he admitted, “No, I guess it’s not so bad. Where’d you get it, anyway?”
“My Uncle Oscar in Brooklyn builds them. He’s talking to a fella out of Springfield, Massachusetts, about building them for sale. When I was back East earlier in the summer, he let me ride one. It was such a thrill, I made him promise to build his next one for me. So he did and shipped it out. It arrived this morning. I had to install the wheels, but that was no problem.”
Chester veered to avoid a rut, and Micah almost toppled off. “Damn, Chester, be careful!” he shouted.
“Sorry,” Chester said with nonchalance. “Uncle Oscar expects to be producing them for the open market within the next year or two. I’ve already invested.”
Chester’s parents had left him a sizeable inheritance. Investing portions of it in hare-brained inventions was something Chester did with regularity. He once lost five thousand dollars in an electric machine that was supposed to milk a cow. When the prototype was built and attached to the cow’s udders, it sent out such a jolt of electricity that ol’ Bossie keeled over dead on the spot. To make matters worse, the falling cow landed on the machine and smashed it beyond repair.
Putting money in an engine-powered bicycle seemed less insane than many of Chester’s investments.
“I suppose something like this could have some commercial success,” Micah allowed, “at least until the fad wore off.”
“Fad!” Chester’s shout into Micah’s ear was almost loud enough to drown out the buzz of the engine. “Motorization, Attorney McConners, is the coming thing. Believe me, this is no passing fad.” He shook an index finger at the heavens for emphasis and almost lost control.
“Keep,” Micah said through clenched teeth, “your hands on the handlebars.”
At the moment he said that, a small bulldog ran from the sidewalk and began snapping at Chester’s ankle.
“Get away, damn you.” Chester kicked at the dog, but the more he kicked, the more the tiny dog snapped.
“Chester,” Micah said. “Uh, Chester?”
“Back. Get back.” Chester kicked again.
In his attempts to discourage the dog, Chester had allowed the moto-cycle to drift to the right-hand side of the street, and they were now headed toward a large watering trough.
“Chester, for God’s sake, look out.”
But it was too late. They struck the trough head on, and Micah was catapulted, arms flailing, over the handlebars and into the water. He came up sputtering, not believing what had happened. Chester had been thrown from the machine as well but landed to one side of the trough and was dry and unhurt.
“Well,” Chester said, lifting his goggles, “that was exciting, wasn’t it?”
Micah said nothing as he stood and stepped from the trough. The brim of his hat hung in front of his eyes. With every step, he felt a squish inside his boots.
“Wait, Micah,” Chester called, “you forgot this.”
Micah turned and saw Chester push his sleeves up, reach down into the water, and pull out the carpetbag.
“My,” Chester said, handing it over, “that’s a bit of a mess, isn’t it?”
Still Micah said nothing. He took the bag, walked to the boardwalk, and sat down.
The moto-cycle’s engine had stopped, and it lay lifeless on its side. Chester crossed to it with small, tentative steps, as though approaching an injured pet. After a moment, he said, “Well, good news.” There was a joviality in his voice that Micah resented. “Except for a slightly bent front wheel, everything looks fine. I can fix the wheel easily enough.” He shook his head and clucked a couple of times. “It’s not rideable right now, though.”
“Gosh,” Micah said, pouring water from his boot, “that’s too bad.”
Chester must have recognized a tone in Micah’s voice. “Now, no need for sarcasm. This sort of thing could happen to anyone.”
Micah glanced at the group that had begun to form around the trough. At first they’d shown concern for the men’s safety, but now, as Micah knew they would, they began to snicker.
Chester had that effect on people. Although he was well respected in the community, he was always making people laugh without intending to.
Micah wrung out his socks and draped them over the tops of his boots. He’d been about to ask Chester where they were going when the dog came at them; now he did ask.
Chester, who was bending over his moto-cycle, stood without saying a word. He was as stiff as a two-by-four.
“Chester,” Micah repeated, “what was this engagement you said we couldn’t be late for? Where were you taking me before you decided we should stop off for a swim?”
Chester cleared his throat, then stroked his chin. “It’s, er . . . a . . .” he stuttered, “supposed to be a surprise.”
“Seeing the bottom of that horse trough was surprise enough for
me, thanks. Where were we going?”
“Well, if you insist on knowing,” Chester said with indignation, “the city council got together and decided to throw you a welcome-home party. They’ve planned a picnic in the park and invited over fifty of the most prominent citizens in the county.” He pulled his watch from his vest pocket, shook it, and held it to his ear. “And we better get a move-on, too. They’ll all be waiting.”
CHAPTER TWO
Micah ignored, as best he could, the embarrassment of marching into the park wearing a soaking-wet wool suit. It was far from how he’d envisioned his first encounter as a young attorney with the citizenry of Probity, but there wasn’t anything he could do. He had nothing to change into; everything he owned was drenched. He had considered going right to Chester’s house and locking himself inside, but as much as he would’ve liked to have done that, he couldn’t overlook the fact that all these people had turned out to welcome him home. Instead, he sauntered in as though not a thing was out of the ordinary. When the mayor asked him about his soggy condition, Micah merely rolled his eyes, jerked a thumb toward Chester Hedstrom, and everyone in the crowd gave out an understanding chuckle.
At first Micah had been furious with Chester, but now, as he milled about in the warm afternoon sunshine, his chill dissipated and so did his anger. That’s the way it had always been. He might often get angry with Chester, but he could never stay angry with him long.
Micah scanned the crowd. There were a lot of people here. He recognized almost everyone. All the local officials were present. Reginald Barker, who was chairman of the county commissioners; Henry Thompson, mayor; Brad Collins, the sheriff; and Earl Anderson, the county attorney. Plus there were bankers and businessmen, farmers and ranchers—everyone Micah had known since he was ten years old. But he didn’t kid himself. Most of these people were here because they had known his father. John McConners, who had opened his general store in 1886 when the town was new, had been one of the best-liked men around. He’d died four years earlier, but folks in Probity didn’t forget.
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