Calder Country

Book 4: Calder Brand

by Janet Dailey

Genres: Sagas; 20th Century Romance

Synopsis

1920s, Blue Moon, Montana. The small cattle town is alight with the excitement of cars, telephones, and airplanes. But as new inventions and new roles for women collide with Prohibition and the rising battle between gangsters and the FBI, Blue Moon finds itself—and some of its most infamous residents and powerful families—at a crossroads, and in battles of their own, between hearts and minds . . .

Heir to the Hollister Ranch on his mother’s side, Mason Dollarhide is back home after a five-year prison sentence for smuggling bootleg liquor. Cynical and daring, he’s already up to his old tricks, having his goods trafficked to him by plane. . . . Until the pilot is injured in a crash and captured by federal agents.

Ruby Weaver learned to fly from her smuggler father. To keep him out of prison, she agrees to take over his route and go undercover to help the Feds break up a bootlegging ring. Mason is only one part of that large operation, but he’s the rugged, rebellious, and tantalizingly irreverent part that makes an impression. Against her better judgement, Ruby finds herself falling for him, fighting an attraction that could jeopardize them both, while harboring a secret that could destroy any hope of a future together . . .

Mason has never met a woman quite like Ruby. Not only is she brave and beautiful, but she somehow understands his ways—and may even inspire him to change them. The first step will be trusting her enough to open his heart . . .

While the fire between Ruby and Mason smolders, other star-crossed Blue Moon romances blaze, as old family rivalries between the Dollarhides and the Calders continue. But when tables unexpectedly turn, some dreams may go up in smoke . . .     

The epic tale of the settling of the American West comes to vivid life in this inspiring saga of love, hope, and endurance.

Release date: July 23, 2024

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 256

Sample

AT TWENTY-SEVEN MINUTES PAST MIDNIGHT, THE CHICAGO, MILWAUKEE, St. Paul, and Pacific passenger train pulled into the Miles City depot. Running late, it paused just long enough to let a solitary figure descend from the second-class coach. After a last-minute call of “All aboard” and a blast from its whistle, it picked up speed and raced off into the night, bound for the Dakotas and points east.

Mason Dollarhide gazed up and down the empty platform. A solitary light burning in the closed station house was the only sign of life. He’d wired his arrival time to his mother, but he should have known that she wouldn’t have sent anybody to meet him. Amelia Hollister Dollarhide had probably grown forgetful in the five years since he’d seen her. Or more likely, she hadn’t forgiven him for getting arrested and sent to prison, leaving her to live with his disgrace and run their ranch alone.

Miles City had grown in Mason’s absence. But some things didn’t change. At this late hour, lights along Main Street told him that, despite the government edict, the brothels were still thriving. He hadn’t been with a woman in more than five years, and the urge was there, like a hot coal smoldering in his belly. But that indulgence would have to wait.

On his release from the old State Prison at Deer Lodge, he’d been given fifty dollars cash, a shoddy, ill-fitting suit, and a pair of cheap shoes that pinched his feet. He’d spent a good part of the money on the train ticket; prices had gone up since he’d last traveled. What remained would be barely enough to buy him a few fingers of illegal moonshine and a private room with clean sheets on the bed.

Tomorrow morning, when the bank opened, all that would change.

Shouldering his duffel, which held little more than his work boots, a change of underwear, and a few toiletries, he ambled down the platform, taking time to stretch his cramped legs. He’d gone no more than a few steps when he realized he was being followed.

A furtive glance told him there were two men behind him—unkempt, ill-dressed thugs, husky but obviously none too bright. Otherwise they wouldn’t be sneaking up on a man who had ex-convict written all over him.

He slowed his pace, letting them get close before he turned around. “Gentlemen,” he asked politely, “is there something I can do for you?”

The pair looked startled, maybe because their quarry had shown no fear. Recovering, the bigger man flashed a knife. Glancing at the smaller man, Mason glimpsed a baseball bat. “We’ll take that bag off your hands, mister, along with anything that’s in your pockets. Play nice now, or we’ll gut you like a pig.”

Mason’s pockets were empty except for the few dollars that remained after buying his train ticket and a cheese sandwich at one of the stops. The contents of the duffel were worthless. He could hand it over without regret. But after five years behind bars, where a man could barely take a piss without supervision, a little action might be just what he needed.

He straightened to his full height of six-foot-two. “I’ve got a better idea,” he said, holding up the duffel. “If you want this bag, you can take it away from me.”

The two thugs glanced at each other. For an instant, Mason thought they might turn tail, which would have been a disappointment, since he was itching for a fight. But then the knife blade flashed in the moonlight as the big man came at him.

Mason swung the duffel hard. The blow knocked the man off balance, leaving him open to a crushing belly blow from Mason’s fist. The breath whooshed out of him. He staggered backward, still gripping the knife.

Mason dropped the duffel at his feet and flexed his fingers. The impact with the man’s gut had hurt his hand, but the pain felt good. In his prison time, he’d missed the thrill of an all-out fight with no guards wading in to break it up.

Now the smaller man charged in with a baseball bat. In a lightning move, he cracked the bat across Mason’s wrist. Pain shot up Mason’s arm. He lunged for the little man and aimed a hammer punch at his jaw. His doubled fist found its target with a satisfying crunch.

The man with the knife came at him again. Mason felt the blade slice into his cheek as he ducked. Adrenaline surged. He swung a solid kick to the man’s groin, a move he’d learned in prison, where there was no such thing as a fair fight. The man grunted and doubled over, dropping the knife.

Scooping up the weapon, Mason flung it past the far side of the tracks. Blood from the knife cut drizzled down his cheek. He would tend to it later.

The smaller man had retreated to the edge of the platform. He crouched there, whimpering and cradling his jaw, the fight gone out of him. As Mason swung toward the big man, emotions held back for five long years burst in him like floodwater through a broken dam. The chain gangs, the bullies, the long nights, the isolation, the vermin, the constant humiliation—memories crashed in on him, driving him to an uncontrolled rage. His first punch knocked the big man off his feet. Then Mason was on top of him, his fists pummeling the man’s face, his head, his body, pouring fury into every blow.

“Please stop, mister.” The voice filtered through his awareness. It was the smaller man, standing somewhere behind him, pleading. “Please, mister, don’t kill him. He’s my brother. He can’t hurt you no more.”

Don’t kill him . . . he’s my brother. Somehow the words got through. Mason forced himself back onto his heels. His enemy lay on the platform, his face purpled with bruises, his eyes swollen, his nose and lip bloodied. With effort, Mason pushed to his feet. The big man was stirring, trying to get up. His brother moved to his side, tugging at his arms and supporting him as he struggled to his feet.

Mason stepped back. “Take him and get out of here.” His voice was a growl. “Don’t ever come near me again.” Picking up the duffel, he watched the pair stumble away, the big man leaning on his brother.

He had a brother of his own, Mason reminded himself—a half-brother by the same father. But if he were to find Blake Dollarhide lying beaten and helpless somewhere, Mason would just walk away and leave him to bleed. And Blake would no doubt do the same to him.

Mason had a son, too—a son Blake had raised as his own. Joseph would be nineteen now, on the cusp of manhood. A bright, handsome boy to make any man proud. But after Mason’s arrest, Joseph had disavowed all kinship between them. Any hope for a reconciliation would be asking too much.

The cut on Mason’s cheek stung, but it didn’t feel deep. Rummaging in the duffel, he found a clean sock and pressed it to the wound. The blood was already beginning to clot. With a bit of cleaning, it would heal fine. And one more scar wasn’t going to make much difference in his looks.

Finding a pump outside the station house, he wet the sock and did the best he could to sponge away the blood. Then he left the platform and headed down Main Street. He’d meant to find a bar and pay under the table for a few fingers of moonshine before turning in. But he soon gave up on that idea. The few bars surviving as speakeasys had gone underground with Prohibition and wouldn’t be easy to find. Besides, he looked like hell. If word got around that Mason Dollarhide had turned up in town, dressed like a bum, bleeding from a knife wound, and searching for a drink of illegal booze, it was bound to be bad for future business. He’d be smart to lie low until he could show up in style.

Keeping his face in shadow, he checked into an older backstreet hotel where nobody was likely to recognize him. He’d hoped for a room with a private bath, but the only accommodation he could afford had a shared bath down the hall. Everything had gone up in price since his arrest ended the life he’d known—a life he was determined to get back, starting tomorrow.

The bathroom was empty, but there was no tub, and the hour was too late to ask for one. Mason splashed himself as clean as he could, returned to his room, and sank into the bliss of clean sheets, a warm blanket, and a padded mattress. No clanging of iron doors or moaned curses of prisoners. No snores from his cellmate. No squealing, scampering rats. No midnight inspections or communal showers. For the first time in five years, he was free.

Mason had expected to fall asleep at once. But his mind was churning with plans. His prison time hadn’t been entirely wasted. He’d met other men there—men who, like him, had been sentenced for trafficking in illegal liquor, home-brewed or smuggled from Canada.

Mason had listened and learned, especially from the more recent arrivals. His former operation, trucking in crates of bottled Canadian whiskey and selling them out of his barn, was small-time now. And hiring local help, as he had done, carried a high risk of getting caught. If bootlegging had been big business back then, it was even bigger now. But even in a backwater like Eastern Montana, a man who was serious about getting rich these days needed access to a big-city network. An up-front cut paid to the right connections would enable him to tap into the market, find buyers, and arrange for delivery. Once trust was established, much of the business could be handled by wire or a simple telephone call.

Mason had emerged from prison with an education; but the lessons hadn’t been free. He’d paid for information with favors— everything from delivering cigarettes and messages to serving as protection for his mentor, Julius Taviani, who was doing ten years for violating the Eighteenth Amendment, which prohibited the production, importation, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages.

Taviani’s sentence was double Mason’s because he’d controlled a much bigger market, including a private source with a secret route from the Canadian border—for which he’d gone to jail rather than divulge. A diminutive, graying man who looked more like a bank clerk than a bootleg king, he was in frequent touch with his team of lawyers who, he insisted, would soon have him cleared of all charges.

Meanwhile, Mason had served as the man’s unofficial bodyguard in exchange for a master course on how to set up and run a successful bootlegging operation. All that he’d learned, including contact information, he had committed to memory. The startup would take time, which he had, and cash, which, for now, would have to come from the ranch income. Once the bootlegging operation was bringing in good money, the cattle would serve as a front for the real business.

His strong-willed mother might be an impediment, especially since she was the legal owner of the ranch. Maybe he could persuade her to retire and move to someplace like Helena, where she could live in a stylish town house and enjoy social activities such as shopping, restaurants, and the theater. At the very least he needed to get power of attorney, something she’d never been trusting enough to give him.

Toward dawn, he drifted off. He was awakened by the mutter of voices and the sound of footsteps outside his door. For an instant he struggled to remember where he was. But then it all came back to him. He was in Miles City. And he was free to start his new life.

The morning light pouring through the cheap calico curtains told him he’d overslept and would likely have to wait for the bathroom. He sat up and swung his legs to the floor. His heel kicked the metal chamber pot, partly hidden under the bed. He pulled it into view and made do with it.

The bank wouldn’t open until nine o’clock. Until then, his prison-issued suit would have to suffice. But once he withdrew enough cash to spend on a bath, a good barbering, and a quality suit of clothes, he would begin to feel like himself again. He’d noticed a couple of taxicabs parked along the street last night. He would take one home to the ranch, on the far side of Blue Moon. The ride was long and wouldn’t be cheap. But once he accessed the ranch funds, he could afford to arrive in comfort and style.

Downstairs, he spent his last dollar on a simple breakfast of coffee, toast, and fried eggs. By the time he’d finished eating, it was almost nine o’clock.

He cut through an alley to the bank, which had just opened. Jason Coppersmith, the balding, middle-aged assistant to the bank president, recognized him at once.

“Mr. Dollarhide.” There was no mention of how Mason looked or where he’d been. The man was nothing if not discreet. “How good of you to stop by. What can I do for you?”

“I’d like to withdraw some cash from the Hollister Ranch account,” Mason said. “Five hundred dollars should be enough for now.”

Coppersmith’s expression did not change. “Would you kindly step into my office, Mr. Dollarhide? There’s something you need to see.”

Nerves prickling, Mason followed the man to his office behind the row of teller windows. As in the past, he’d expected to be handed the cash without question. Was something wrong?

The office was small and impersonal, the walls bare except for a calendar, a modest-sized desk, a metal file cabinet, and three chairs. Most of the desktop was taken up by a tray of papers and a large, leatherbound book which Mason recognized as an account ledger.

Coppersmith stepped behind the desk, opened the ledger, and leafed through the pages. The account names were listed alphabetically. It didn’t take him long to find the page he was looking for. He turned the ledger around so that Mason could see it from his side of the desk. “Here you are, Mr. Dollarhide. Take a look. I’ll be happy to answer any questions you might have.”

Mason stared down at the page, scanning the lines and columns—the dates, the deposits from cattle sales, the withdrawals, mostly for ranch expenses, he surmised. Then, abruptly, the entries ended with a large withdrawal and a stamp that said ACCOUNT CLOSED.

Mason felt his stomach drop as if he’d swallowed a twenty-pound lead weight. This couldn’t be happening.

“Two years ago, your mother came in here, cashed out the account, and closed it,” Coppersmith said. “We suspected something might be wrong, and we tried to change her mind. But it was her money and her right to take it. There was nothing we could do.” He shook his head. “I take it she didn’t let you know what she’d done.”

Mason forced himself to speak calmly. “I only got a few letters from her, and none of them mentioned this. She’s managed the ranch for decades, ever since her father died. She’s always done fine. I just assumed she was angry. You know my mother. She’s not one to let go of a grudge.”

“I understand,” Coppersmith said. “But I suggest you go home and get to the bottom of this. Your mother isn’t getting any younger. She could be ill or under the influence of someone who’s out to take advantage of her.”

“Of course.” Mason’s plan to enjoy a clandestine drink of Canadian whiskey, groomed and dressed like a gentleman, was swiftly evaporating. “I’ll be heading right home. But first, I’m going to need your help with a small matter.”

Twenty minutes later, with the help of a one-hundred-dollar short-term loan from the bank, Mason was on the road back to Blue Moon and the ranch, which lay a few miles beyond the town. The taxi, a rusting Model T, had clearly seen better days, as had the driver, whose ravaged face bore the physical and emotional scars of war.

The taxi rattled along the unpaved road, leaving a trail of dust to settle in its wake. Mason sat in the back seat, hunched low as the cab neared the small town of Blue Moon. He cursed the prison staff for neglecting to give him a hat. The vehicle was missing its canvas top, which left Mason’s prison-pale skin bare to the brutal sun and exposed his downtrodden condition for all to see. There was more traffic on the road than he remembered, mostly autos and trucks these days, with an occasional horse-drawn buggy or farm wagon. Sooner or later, he was bound to pass someone who recognized him. Then, in the way of small towns, the word would spread that Mason Dollarhide had come back, sneaking into town like a whipped dog.

But that was the least of his worries. What had his mother done with the money from the bank? There’d been more than fifty thousand dollars in the account, including the income from his whiskey sales, which he’d mixed with the ranch funds to hide it from the authorities.

Had the money been stolen? he wondered. Had Amelia squirreled it away out of spite or distrust? And then there was the most pressing question of all—if the money was gone, what would happen to his plans to start a new business?

Mason hunched lower in the seat as the taxi passed the turnoff to the Calder Ranch. He had little doubt that Webb Calder would still be in charge, or that he would be wealthier than ever, damn his greedy, grasping hide. Aside from sharing the same father, Mason and Blake had one other thing in common—their hatred of the Calders and all they stood for.

Webb’s father, Benteen Calder, had been among the first to settle this part of Montana. He had consolidated the land grants so he and his men could claim the biggest plot of ranchland in the territory. Webb had continued the Calder practice of land grabbing, taking advantage of bad luck and hardship to expand the family kingdom. His teenage son, Chase, would no doubt grow up to do the same.

The taxi was coming into Blue Moon, a town that had known days of boom and bust before settling into quiet obscurity. The place didn’t appear to have changed much in the five years Mason had been gone. The grocery store, which also functioned as a gas station and a post office, was as he remembered it. Next door was a café, and, next to that, a roadhouse called Jake’s Place, with a private gaming room in the rear and rooms upstairs where Jake’s so-called nieces plied their trade. There was also a hardware and dry-goods store, an abandoned grain elevator, and a schoolhouse for the children who lived in town and on the surrounding farms and ranches. Nearby was the sheriff’s office and the adjoining jail, where Mason had spent time before being bound over for trial in Miles City.

Three boys on bicycles were coming up the road toward him. Torn by an unaccustomed longing, Mason couldn’t tear his gaze away from them. But as they drew closer, he could tell that none of them was old enough to be his son. Joseph would be tall now, his body filling out to become a man’s.

The boys appeared to be excited about something. They were pumping their bikes hard, glancing up at the sky as they rode. Only as the overhead drone of an engine reached his ears did he understand why. Looking back over his shoulder, Mason could see the biplane—a Curtiss JN-4, the model known as a “Jenny”—coming from the direction of Miles City to swoop in low over the town.

As the plane passed overhead, paper leaflets came fluttering down to scatter like a flock of white pigeons. The boys had stopped their bikes and were scrambling to catch as many leaflets as they could grab with their eager hands.

Mason understood what was going on. Barnstormers were nothing new, even to this small town. They flew around the country, putting on airshows and offering plane rides to the locals for a few precious dollars. Among the leaflets there might be one marked with a special stamp, entitling the finder to a free ride. That was the reason the boys were clambering after the leaflets.

As the taxi pulled around them and drove on, Mason happened to glance down at his feet. One of the leaflets had landed on the floor of the vehicle, the edge just touching his shoe. Reaching down, he picked it up and read the printed message:

Below the message was the print of a rubber stamp framed and lettered in red ink.

Mason stared at the stamp. Evidently he had found the lucky ticket for a free plane ride—or rather, it had found him. Somewhere, the Fates must be laughing.

Today, of all days, with so much going wrong, the last thing he needed was a free plane ride. He thought about ordering the driver back to where the boys were and offering them the ticket. But there were three boys and only one ticket. They’d probably fight over it. Why cause trouble?

He tapped the driver’s shoulder. “Could you use this ticket for a free plane ride today?” he asked.

The driver shook his head. “Not me. You couldn’t get me up in one of those contraptions for a million dollars. I saw too many of ’em go down over France.”

As the taxi moved beyond the town and neared the ranch, Mason folded the leaflet and slipped it into his vest pocket. He had no plans to use the free ticket.

His gaze swept the familiar hayfields and barbed wire fences, the grazing red-and-white Hereford cattle, and the towering Lombardy poplars planted in long rows along the property lines to serve as windbreaks.

Minutes from now, he’d be arriving at the Hollister Ranch to face his mother.

Anything could happen.

As the biplane swooped low over the sprawling ranch complex, Ruby Weaver scattered the last packet of leaflets advertising the afternoon show. As the papers fluttered to the ground she gazed past the edge of the cockpit, struck by the immense spread of buildings, corrals, pastures, and vast herds of cattle below. Everyone in Montana had heard of the Calders and their Triple C Ranch—the biggest in the state. But Ruby was seeing it for the first time. From the air, the place looked more like a town—or even a kingdom—than the property of a single, powerful family. How could anyone be rich enough to own all that land, that grand house, and all those horses and cattle?

But that question shouldn’t concern her. All that mattered was flying the plane, putting on a show, and moving on to the next town.

The sound of the engine was too loud for conversation. As the plane began to climb, Ruby signaled to her father, who was piloting the aircraft from the tandem cockpit behind her, that she had no more leaflets to drop. It was time to land, eat the lunch they’d packed, refuel the plane, top off the radiator, and fill the tires before the show.

Ruby checked her seat belt for the descent and landing. The biplane was a training model, built to carry an instructor and a student, one behind the other. In her cockpit, the stick and foot pedal bar moved in ghostly sync with the ones her father was using to control the aircraft.

As the climb leveled off, he reached forward and touched her shoulder. Ruby knew what he expected. It would be up to her to take the controls and pilot the . . .