A Need for Violence

Book 2: Battling Harrigans of the Frontier

by Dusty Richards

Genres: Historical Fiction; Westerns

Synopsis

The latest installment in Spur Award and Will Rogers Medallion Award-winning author Dusty Richards’ newest action-packed western series, The Fighting Harrigans of the Frontier.
 
Spring, 1850. After a brutally long winter in the Rockies, Mack Harrigan and his growing family have learned to manage the harsh realities of frontier life. Their new friends, the Shoshone, have taught them the skills they need to survive in this rugged land, from tracking and hunting to fishing and foraging. But the skills they need most are those of the Shoshone warrior—when their camp is attacked by an enemy tribe. . . .
 
Sometimes there is a need for violence. This is one of those times.
 
The attackers are merciless. They crush the skulls of their victims. Slice off their scalps. And kidnap children as prisoners of war. The Harrigans are horrified by the bloodshed and brutality of the attack—and are determined to fight back alongside the Shoshone. But their mission to save the children will ultimately send the battling Harrigans even deeper into the wild frontier. Farther west than most dare to travel. And closer to finding the American dream—if they survive. . . .

Release date: November 28, 2023

Publisher: Pinnacle Books

Print pages: 304

Sample

A balmy morning in early spring found Mackworth “Mack” Harrigan sitting alone, staring but not seeing the stunning boulder-studded vista before him, a promontory jutting into space holding him as if in a giant, cupped hand, offering him to the world of the West. He had an awful lot to chew on.

He was thinking, Here I am, late of Harrigan Falls, Ohio, no longer anchored to any one spot, but drifting in the great Western frontier with my family. He reckoned that, all in all, he could not be happier.

Maybe happy was not the best word for it. Maybe it was contentment. Yes, he nodded. He was contented. He knew it could not last, should not last, for nothing got done in life, in his purview, without movement, motion, and effort. To him, those things seemed to be the opposite of contentment.

Nonetheless, he sighed and stretched his lean legs out before him, repositioning work-hardened hands on the cool gray rock behind him as he leaned back. For the moment, contentment ruled.

Having spent the previous hour, rare precious time to spend alone, gazing into the vast purpled place, he knew it teemed with life, though none was visible so early in the morning. He’d gazed at all that glorious nothing.

And yet, with a wry grin, he asked himself, wasn’t it everything, too? All at the same time? Seeing none of the splendor of the place, but knowing it was there?

Gradually the vista awakened, and he was treated to a brightening dawn sky cast westward from the rising sun behind him.

His thoughts circled back to land on something of far more import to him—his family. He was still married to the sweetheart of his youth, Elspeth “Ell,” and they were blessed with five children. The eldest, strong, thoughtful and curious Kane, was now sixteen; no longer the middle child, Meghan was thirteen; fiery little Fitch was seven; and the twins, Henry and Hattie, were born healthy and well just three months before. His entire brood were all, by the grace of God, in fine fettle.

Mack had never thought he’d be so lucky as to have not only the three wonderful children he’d known for so long, but now, twins! The very idea of it made him smile.

He and Ell enjoyed being parents, though he had to admit the appearance of the twins had rattled him to his boots. Ell had kept the pregnancy hidden from him for quite some time on the trail west. Just as well. They had battled daily to endure life on that ill-chosen wagon train headed by the vile drunkard wagon boss, Ricker Briggs. In the end, Mack had laid him low in a hand-to-hand death match after the brute had attacked Meghan.

Mack’s thoughts turned to that time.

Though everyone on the meager little train had benefited from Briggs’s unfortunate death, for his pains Mack was thrown to the wolves once they reached the foul stink pit of a trading post in the midst of a blizzard. The others on the wagon train, never fond of the kind, generous Harrigan clan, had told the Northland Fur Company’s trading post ruthless, uncouth sluggard managert that Mack had murdered Briggs without just cause. His companions, leering fellows more curs than men, were fur-wrapped trappers who did more drinking and fighting than trapping. They all spent the winter holed up at the trading post, exploiting the local Indian population in every way possible.

Mack’s protests fell on the uncaring ears of braying, drunk men and they had ambushed Mack. In the trading post manager’s role as what passed for local white law, he had held a mockery of a trial and found Mack guilty. They beat Mack and locked him, unconscious, in the hide storage shed, a foul, gappy structure with stacks of frozen animal hides awaiting shipment out—in the spring.

As thin luck would have it, the next day an army patrol swung by the trading post on its way back to its home base of Fort Woolsey, several days ride from the trading post. Mack’s only thoughts were for his family, and specifically for his wife and daughter. He tried reasoning with the officer in charge of the patrol, a steely young man named Captain Swann, but he would have none of it. Mack railed and fought, but they dragged him out of there and lashed him to a horse, to be tried at Fort Woolsey.

On the way to the fort, they were attacked, pinned down in the open by a rogue band of outlaw Indians the patrol had been tracking for some time, without success.

Through good luck and bold action, Mack, though wounded in the melee, was able to save himself and the wounded Swann. The rest of the soldiers met their maker in that massacre. Mack rode hell for leather, thundering for Fort Woolsey, holding the unconscious young man before him in the saddle.

More dead than alive, Mack and Swann were tended to at the fort and Mack’s luck finally turned. The fort commander, Colonel Chase, had been acquainted with the vile wagon boss, Ricker Briggs, and knew it was highly likely Mack was telling the bald truth.

Mack was a lousy patient, and the army had its hands full until he was well enough to depart and reunite with his family. Far too soon, he departed on a fresh mount, with the Army’s gratitude for having saved the life of young Swann.

Mack rode not for the trading post but for the wintering grounds of the Shoshone, a band whose chief, Stalks-the-Night, had made their acquaintance at the trading post when Ell had intervened on his behalf. She’d realized he was being taken advantage of by the vile trading post boss.

As the army patrol had led him away from the trading post, Chief Stalks-the-Night had said he would take care of Mack’s family and would take them to his wintering grounds northwest of the trading post.

That was all Mack had heard. Despite a brutal storm moving in fast and low, he departed the fort and rode in what he’d hoped was the direction of those wintering grounds.

He’d been roving hard for weeks when he came upon a naked man, greased in honey and dung, lashed tight to a log deep in bear country. The once-burly old fellow with his great cloud of a beard fluttering soon became recognizable to Mack. It was none other than mountain man Bearpaw Jones—the very man who had warned Mack several times back in St. Louis to not join Ricker Briggs’s train but instead to wait until spring to head west.

Mack groaned at the memory, but continued thinking of all his family had experienced.

Back in St. Louis, he had felt they could not wait, and so, going against what his gut told him, what Bearpaw had told him, and what Ell had expressed strong concern about, he joined Briggs’s wagon train. That poor decision had been the beginning of all the bad things the Harrigans experienced as they roved westward on the frontier.

Mack smiled. Thanks to the kindness of Chief Stalks-the-Night, they had some of their possessions, and most important of all, their lives, including the two new lives of the twins. The Shoshone had taken their birth as a sign of good luck and had given them the names Mighty Creek, for Henry, and Silent Calf, for Hattie.

“What’s next, then, Mack?” he said out loud as he continued looking out at the stunning vista before him.

“That’s what I was going to ask you, Papa,” said a voice from behind.

Mack turned to see his beautiful daughter, Meghan, looking down at him. Once more he saw that somehow without him knowing it, she had become a woman these past few months with the Shoshone.

She wore an interesting mix of back East clothing and Indian garb. Her shirt was one her mother had sewn and her skirt had been made of soft doeskin.

“I didn’t hear you, daughter.”

“That’s good,” said Meghan, smiling. “I’ve been working with Bright Owl on my stalking skills.”

“Bright Owl, eh?” Mack watched his daughter’s cheeks redden. Just like a Harrigan, he thought. Can never hide our feelings. Always betrayed by red cheeks and red ears.

“Papa, he’s just a friend. He’s Kane’s friend, too.”

“I know, I know.” Mack winked at her and patted the stone surface beside him. “I was teasing you.”

Well he knew of Bright Owl, the son of Chief Stalks-the-Night, and a year or so older than Kane. The young men were blood brothers, having formed a fast, deep bond when they’d been forced to survive a blizzard together while on the trail looking for Mack.

Yet if it hadn’t been for Mack and Bearpaw Jones, Kane and Bright Owl might have perished. That the chief had been willing to send his own son to accompany Kane on the dubious rescue mission was yet another reminder of the kindness and matter-of-fact generosity of the Shoshone toward Mack and his family.

Of course it had helped that a very pregnant Ell, assisted by Meghan, had helped nurse the tribe through a sickness that had laid many of their kind low. The Harrigan women had been ably assisted by Red Dove, the Indian woman they had rescued from near-death enslavement to Ricker Briggs.

In an interesting turn of events, during the long winter, the widowed Chief Stalks-the-Night and Red Dove had become close.

Meghan settled beside Mack, stretching out her legs beside his. He noted she had grown taller since they left Ohio, and he sighed. What a long, strange, and unexpected adventure it had been so far.

As with all of them, Mack had spent a busy winter learning new skills shared with them by the Shoshone. In particular, he and Kane were keen to learn as much as they could of the wild world surrounding them—hunting, fishing, and foraging techniques; skills useful in battle, be it with another man or with the not-uncommon fights with bears, mountain lions, and the like.

Of all the Harrigans, it seemed Fitch had taken life among the Shoshone with a relish none of them could match. The fierce, fiery little boy, nearly eight years old, had in recent weeks refused to speak in any tongue but that of the Shoshone, and he refused to respond to requests made to him in English.

It was annoying and frustrating, particularly for Ell when she needed the boy’s help. Mack ginned, for it had proven useful in one regard. It had helped all the Harrigans learn the Shoshone language even quicker.

“Did your mother have any luck in getting Fitch to help her with the chores?”

“Oh, you mean the chores you and Kane somehow don’t have to do anymore?”

“But—”

“No buts!” Meghan’s face was reddening as she looked at her father, holding up her finger just the same way Ell did when Mack stepped in something he should have known to avoid with her. My word, he thought. Mother and daughter are so much alike.

“Just because I was born a girl doesn’t mean I am not as interested in fishing and hunting as you and Kane!”

“You never said so before, Meghan.”

“I know.” She sighed. “Because I’m not, really. But”—she looked at him again—“it also doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be asked! Why should I be stuck doing things Kane is perfectly suited to doing? Things like helping Ma clean or tending to the twins or cooking or doing the laundry? It’s not fair.”

Mack knew better than to say anything. That he didn’t really agree with his daughter was something he was not about to say. She could be as frightening as Ell when you got her riled. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t see her point, either.

“Tell you what,” he said, pushing strands of hair out of her face that had slipped free of the rawhide thongs holding her two long braids, as the women of the tribe wore their hair. “I’ll talk with Kane and convince him the two of us need to help out more around the teepee. Okay?”

“I guess.” She shrugged. “I don’t think it’ll do any good. You know how he is.”

Mack had to agree. Kane was a different sort, always had been. If something within a hundred yards of him crawled, sniffed, growled, slithered, flew, or hopped, he wanted to know about it. He was always drawing pictures of critters and making notes about them. Mack wasn’t certain to what end such notions would lead the boy, but as a pastime it seemed harmless enough.

The moments of quiet rumination alone and then with his eldest daughter jerked to a quick, short halt with the thumping of small feet thudding toward them from the winding trail that led to this spot.

Mack tensed and turned, not expecting much more than children at play. In this he was not surprised, for emerging from out of the low shrubby cover and thin pines leaped the Harrigan’s surprisingly resilient hound, Grinner, wearing his perpetual lopsided grin. Right behind scrambled his constant companion, Fitch Harrigan, he of the Shoshone-only lingo.

“Pa! Pa!”

Mack saw the odd look on his son’s face and rose to his knees.

The boy did not shout his name again and leaped at him as he often did, but hissed, “Pa!” in a hoarse whisper. His eyes were wide and his color was white on his cheeks, unusual for a Harrigan.

“What’s the matter, son?” said Mack, lifting the slight but wiry youth into his arms.

“Pa!” Again the youth whispered the word, then swiveled his head around behind them, back to the trail toward the camp.

“What is all this, Fitch? Tell me now!”

“Pa, quiet! They might hear!”

“Who? said Mack, also glancing up the trail.

“The . . . Indians!”

Mack smiled. “Son, our best friends and hosts are Indians.”

“No, the other ones! They’re all over the place. Kane and Bright Owl told me to fetch you!”

“Are they friendly?”

Fitch shook his head. “I don’t think so. They’re shooting arrows. I heard somebody scream.” The little, tough child began to shake and weep, and his breath caught in his throat.

Mack stood and looked at Meghan. Her eyes just like Ell’s were wide.

“You two stay here . . . down below that ledge. Get into the small caves and overhangs there.”

“But Papa!”

“No, Meghan. Do it. I need someone to watch over him.”

Fitch had recovered from his moment of tearfulness and growled. “I don’t need no woman taking care of me! I’m Shoshone!”

“No,” Mac said harshly. “No, Fitch. You are not. You are a Harrigan. And you are my son. Now do as you’re told!” Making for the trail, he added, “Besides, not even the Shoshone are fearless.”

In a half crouch, he turned. “Meghan, stay hidden and safe.” He looked directly into her eyes and she nodded, already beginning to gather in the feisty Fitch.

“And take that dog with you,” said Mack, nodding toward Grinner. Though how the girl was going to manage Fitch and the hound, he knew not.

“Stay safe!” were his last words, and then he bolted as fast as he was able back up the trail toward the Shoshone’s winter village and the Harrigan home for the past several months, wondering what he would find back at the camp.

It did not take Mack long to find out the situation was not a fanciful notion spun in Fitch’s mind—a notion he doubted but hoped would be true.

He heard the crack of a rifle shot and far ahead, shouts, then the chilling scream of a woman. The loud ululating cries of men sounded still far ahead. Their voices were hoarse, high and low, all converging, meeting in shouts and growls—the sounds men make when they come together in battle.

All this he heard as he ran as if Hades hounds were on his heels. His stovepipe boots hammered the worn earth of the trail. All about him springtime in the mountains burgeoned. Aspen were threatening to bud, the sky was blue, but it held the promise of something different from winter skies, something welcome, refreshing and warm. Songbirds had become more active, winging from Ponderosa pine to the safety of thickets of scrub as hunting hawks and eagles winged low.

Mack saw and heard none of it, nothing save for the trail ahead, and the vision of his wife and children in harm’s way. The sounds of battle were goads driving him onward.

Before he reached the familiar, comfortable village running at full effort, Mack saw his first evidence the day would not end as he had hoped. A dead man, slumped at the base of a tree, stared ahead at nothing, his hands rested on the earth to either side of him, palms up as if to say, “What else would you ask of me?”

Mack slowed, realizing this man was beyond help, for he wore a red-welling bullet hole in the middle of his forehead. Mack could see the dead man was an Indian, but unfamiliar. The ornamentation and the beading and fringe-work of the man’s buckskins was similar to that of clothes worn by the Shoshone, but the way the man wore his hair was odd, bristling upward in a grease-stiffened peak, as if a small porcupine were perched atop his head. Seeing that, Mack knew who the man might be, and thus who the attackers could be.

All this came to him in a sliver of a moment as he bent to snatch up the dead man’s rifle. It was a familiar enough weapon, and he hastily slipped free his own sheathed knife, seeing that his hands were trembling as he hacked away a pouch worn around the man’s neck. Its flap flopped open to reveal balls and patch and powder horn. It would have to do until Mack could get to his own weapons.

He loosed the pouch from the dead man and shoved off again, the village a hundred yards ahead though the brush. This took mere moments, but they agonized him.

The sounds of battle ahead made him envision his family dying in a fusillade, the last thing they saw leering faces of kill-crazy attackers. He shook off the grim vision with a growl and pounded the trail harder toward screams and billows of black smoke.

As he topped the last slight rise, looking left and right the entire time, any ember of hope of the battle being a minor skirmish winked out as he ran. His view of the village was one of chaos. People swarmed in all directions.

He ducked low and made for the northern edge of the camp where his family’s teepee sat. So far it looked not afire. It was a hodge-podge affair of tent and lean-to involving their wagon, parked for the winter alongside their home and yet part of it as well. It was the annex, as Kane called it, a place where they stored what they had as well as where he slept.

Fitch had started out sleeping there, too, but he became untrustworthy, sneaking out in the middle of the night to prowl the camp with Grinner. That set off the other dogs of the camp, and soon Grinner and the boy had to spend their nights in the tent proper with the rest of the family. Kane didn’t mind one bit. Fitch had become a burr under the older boy’s saddle blanket.

Before he’d made it a dozen strides, Mack heard a low, growling, bark of a word to his right. Ducking low out of instinct, he held up the rifle and looked that way. Rushing at him was a lean, tall warrior wearing a hair style similar to that of the dead man. Growling, he kept voicing the same word. Nearly unintelligible, it was nothing Mack could pick out, but from the sound and his sneering, grim look, it was obvious the man meant him ill.

He also didn’t appear to be carrying a gun. His hands were filled—a small belt ax in one and a wide-bladed knife in the other. And he was closing in fast.

Mack set himself low, legs spread, and pulled the rifle up to his shoulder and thumbed back the hammer. The face of the oncoming brute showed his shock, but it was far too late for change. Mack touched the trigger.

Nothing happened.

The man barreled for him faster, his malice-filled smile wider, his growling words louder.

Mack dropped the gun and raised his own knife.

The attacker had been a solid eight feet away when he launched himself at Mack. He led with his knife, intending to lacerate Mack’s face, likely from the neck up.

Mack had other plans.

He dropped low to his knees, and the brute sailed close overhead, his grunting and growling pinching off. Mack used the man’s momentum for his own means, whipping up his knife and sliding the honed tip of the broad blade through the man’s buckskin tunic and puncturing his muscled gut with a sudden spray of red gore.

The attacker’s momentum slowed, and though it carried Mack backward, it soon dwindled. As he began to topple from the weight, he braced himself, throwing his left leg to the side. With a heave and shout he shoved up and back, the knife sinking to his knuckles.

Mack fell over backward as the brute slid from his blade and writhed, thrashing his buckskin-clad legs and flailing onto his back, his hands clutching at his gut as if he’d been handed a basket of hot coals. His screams soon became a hideous, gurgling sound.

Mack shoved, scooting on his backside away from the flailing fool, only then realizing his knife was still in his hand. Good. It will have to do. He was not about to fool with the dead man’s rifle any longer.

He left it and the bag on the earth and continued onward. Snatching up his first victim’s dropped ax, he fled the scene, leaving the brute still wriggling and flailing, his hands clawing in fury and agony at nothing and everything.

Mack sprinted onward, dodging boulders and trees as he dragged his left sleeve across his eyes to clear the fresh blood. He heard a familiar voice to his right and glanced that way. Bright Owl. And not far from the chief’s son stood Kane. Both were set for action, and judging from the bodies fouling the earth about them, they were holding their own.

Mack was torn between his fatherly urge to run to his son, his firstborn, or bolt forward to his wife and babes. As much as it pained him, he told himself, Kane is a boy no longer, but a man, taking lives and defending lives. Ell needed Mack.

He made it to the edge of the camp, and spied another warrior astride a small gray horse with black speckling and black legs. The man rode only with a blanket, no saddle, and was making with all haste for the Harrigan tent. In his left hand he held a rifle and in his teeth he held his hide reins. And clutched in his right hand, a sizzling brand waved, hissing flame and spewing smoke. The man was about to set fire to Mack’s home.

“Not today.” Mack dropped to his right knee, whipped back with the hand ax, and repeated a maneuver he’d worked on all winter in serious play with the men of the village. . . .