Chapter One - The Sumner Farm, Montana, 1877
The Sumner residence was a single storey log cabin on a flat plain just a day’s trek from Hell’s Gate Village by the Clark Fork river, in between the Rattlesnake Mountains to the north and the Bitterroot Mountains to the south.
Daniel and Clara Sumner with their newborn son Conrad lived in tranquil peace, isolated enough to be able to walk around freely and near enough to civilisation to not be forgotten. Their modest log cabin held a functional kitchen, a sitting room by an open fire, a room to the back which was a nursery for Conrad and adjacent to that, Daniel and Clara’s bedroom with its easterly facing window, which let in too much light in the morning for Daniel and not enough for Clara. The Sumners were early rising folk. Their bed was made come 5:30am no matter the season and they took great pleasure in serving the Lord peacefully by enjoying the bounteous resources of the land and giving praise to Him with prayers of thanks and in the love they gave each other. They held hands when in town, talking freely and openly about any topic they wished, and they cared not for raised eyebrows of the townsfolk. Daniel and Clara did not believe that praise of the Lord should be sombre and serious as the world was hard and tough enough already, instead they believed in life and laughter. The Sumner household was a perfect slice of the world and they felt truly blessed to be alive and free.
The winter had come in strong on the heels of autumn and the barn that Daniel had been constructing beside their home had yet to be finished. The structure had been erected and was secure, however the roof was missing and Daniel desperately wanted to break the back of the work before winter tightened its grip. It was a race against time and so he rose even earlier and worked even later each day.
On this day, the sky was cloudless and the air biting. Daniel worked in the doorway of the barn, sawing furiously at a large beam. Inside the house, Clara sat in her rocking chair breastfeeding Conrad and looking at her man outside braving the elements to construct a larger, safer home for them all. She rocked slowly, draped in two thick shawls with Conrad suckling neatly and the fire next to her crackling away.
Clara looked down at the baby, gently holding onto her breast as he fed and she fell in love with him all over again. Conrad, with his tiny hands and his tiny ears. She pulled the shawl over his head so that only his cheek and little nose were visible. She looked back out to her man and said quietly to God, “I don’t want anything more.”
Daniel’s work was back-breaking but he took to his task with great vigour, spurred on by the vision of the spring months when the barn would be finished and when he and Clara could take their supper out under the stars and watch as Conrad tried to walk and tumble onto the soft ground. He thought about that vision of heaven and also about the reality he was in. He imagined, correctly, that Clara was watching him work while she rocked their son to sleep. He hoped that she would see how hard he toiled and how dedicated he was. He prayed to God to enlighten her and show her that above all else, their welfare was his only thought. And God spoke to him and told him that it was so; thus his muscles did not ache from the work, his fingers did not grow numb from the cold and his lungs did not burn from the sharp winter air. He was so enraptured with his life and his work that he did not see the rider approaching from far over the plain, emerging from the blinding white snow like a drop of ink on a blank page.
*
From inside the house, and through the dull window pane, Clara could not see the rider. She could not see beyond Daniel working away by the barn. She began to whisper a lullaby to Conrad who had finished feeding and was dozing in her arms.
When I was a little boy, I lived by myself,
And all the bread and cheese I got I put upon a shelf;
The rats and the mice, they made such a strife,
I was forced to go to London to buy me a wife.
The streets were so broad, and the lanes were so narrow,
I was forced to bring my wife home in a wheelbarrow;
The wheelbarrow broke, and my wife had a fall,
And down came the wheelbarrow, wife and all.
Clara finished a third repetition and kissed the baby softly enough to keep him asleep, but tender enough to filter into his dream world and tell him that he was safe. She looked up and, through the window she finally saw the figure approaching Daniel. Her contented smile fell away and she stopped rocking in her chair.
*
Daniel’s blade finally cut through the beam and the two lumps fell heavily into the snow. He stood tall and stretched, releasing the tension in his muscles. He exhaled and wiped the sweat from his brow. When he took his eyes from the heavens and back to the horizon, he saw the dark rider approaching some fifty yards away. Daniel’s expression changed. The furrow in his brow from exertion disappeared and his breathing slowed. His eyes became sad and still.
The rider approached, cloaked in a thick black bear skin and wearing a wide brimmed hat which obscured his face. It mattered not to Daniel. He knew exactly who the rider was. Somehow The Devil had found Daniel Sumner. He sighed and turned to look at the house. He saw that Clara had risen from her chair and was looking out at the two men. Daniel’s smile was loaded with melancholy and sorrow and he hoped that his regret and love would carry over the distance between them.
Inside the house, Clara only saw Daniel turn and look at her, his expression mired by the murky window. She held the baby tight to her breast and watched as Daniel turned from her to face the stranger. She watched as they engaged in conversation for a few moments and watched as Daniel slowly placed the saw across the bench and put his hands behind his back. For a few seconds she believed her dread at the stranger’s arrival to be ill-founded. She was wrong. The stranger, lightning fast, swung what looked like a large rifle from his waist and crashed the butt into Daniel’s head, splitting it open and sending him slumping down into the snow. Clara screamed, awakening Conrad and causing him to scream too. She pulled the baby in tightly and tried to smother his cries by shushing him. She looked out to see the stranger dragging Daniel into the barn by his feet, all the while looking over to the house, directly at her. She had to hide.
*
Daniel’s vision returned and he saw, in his delirium, the structure of the barn overhead swinging and whirling as The Devil dragged him by his ankle. He tried to shout and protest but the pain in his head and jaw prevented him. He blinked rapidly, trying to pull his world into focus and snap his consciousness back into place. He had almost orientated himself when he saw, overhead, a rope ascend into the rafters, swing over a beam and hang down above him. The Devil stopped dragging him and Daniel knew what was about to happen. He began to shake his head and murmur a prayer to God to spare him and his family. The Devil bent down and picked Daniel up by the lapels. He was staring The Devil in the face and he could not quite believe his eyes. The Devil was a boy of no more than fifteen years of age: soft pale skin, blue eyes, blonde hair. Daniel tried to speak, but The Devil shushed him by stroking his face with one hand, while wrapping the noose around his neck with the other. Daniel looked deep into the boy’s eyes searching for reason, or salvation. He saw no sympathy and no remorse. If the boy had feelings of compassion, then they were not for mankind. Daniel began to mouth his prayer once more as The Devil pulled down on the rope as if ringing a bell in a cathedral. Daniel shot up ten feet into the air, swaying, gurgling, thrashing, eyes bulging and hands clawing at his neck and the knot. The Devil tied the rope off and walked out of the barn, making towards the house. Daniel kicked and thrashed harder, desperate to break free and go to his family’s aid, but his life force depleted all the quicker for his protestations.
*
Clara tried to stifle her sobs, but her whimpering could not be trammelled. The warmth of her breast and the closeness at which she held Conrad had assuaged his earlier screams and he had fallen back to sleep. After seeing her dearest love struck down, Clara had sought to hide under the bed, as she used to do as a child to escape her brothers and sisters when they came searching for her during their games of hide-and-seek. There were better places to hide, but in her primal fear she had instinctively gone there, back to the safe and happy place of her youth.
Clara held the baby tightly and looked out from under the hanging cotton valance. She saw the front door open and a pair of boots she knew were not Daniel’s step across the threshold. They halted in the doorway and she knew that the stranger was on the hunt for her. The left foot tapped pensively, the spur chiming elegantly. She slowly lifted a hand off of Conrad’s head and cupped her own mouth to stifle further any treacherous whimpers that might escape. The boots left the doorway and walked away into the kitchen. Clara looked at the open doorway and the thick snow outside. She thought about crawling out from under the bed and running out into the wild. But to where? She needed to leave. Terror was gripping her, but her practical nature fought back. She looked from under the bed to see if she could reach for some nearby shoes to better serve her escape through the snow. She saw none to hand, but instead saw the butt of Daniel’s shotgun resting against the dresser. She could fight. She gently rested Conrad onto the boards under the bed and prepared to crawl out towards the gun by the dresser. She angled herself and threw a last look back towards the open doorway at the end of the hall. The stranger’s boots were there. She froze in terror. The boots walked up to the bed.
*
Daniel’s vision was fading and his legs no longer thrashed. His fingers were raw and bleeding from pulling and scratching at the coarse rope. He was in his final moments when he saw The Devil walk out of the house, mount his horse and ride off into the blinding white plain without caring to look back. A spark of life ignited inside Daniel and he kicked and struggled harder. Above him, the beam began to creak and move. He struggled on.
*
Clara’s hands quivered as they reached out and gripped onto the edge of a floorboard. Her knuckles bent and her fingers contorted as she managed to drag herself along the floor by her fingertips alone. All colour had fallen from her vision and the walls seemed to twist and contort as she moved slowly across the room. She could not quite understand why her dress felt so wet when it hadn’t been raining and why breathing was becoming more and more laboured. Ahead of her, the brightness of the doorway seemed to her to be the gateway into heaven and she assumed that to gain entrance, one must be penitent and arrive on one’s belly. She pulled herself towards the light and towards heaven, all the while her life blood flowing from the large gash across her throat.
*
The beam cracked and Daniel fell to the ground, landing awkwardly on his ankles and buckling in pain. He crawled across the ground, still unable to remove the noose from his neck. Like his wife, he assumed the light of the doorway to be the entrance to heaven and as his life faded, he crawled out of the barn and like Clara who had dragged herself out of the house and onto the porch, he found himself not in heaven, but in a hell of freezing snow. Their eyes grew accustomed to the light. Clara saw the barn and Daniel dragging himself across the ground. Daniel saw Clara gurgling and spluttering as she slithered down the porch steps and onto the snow. He could see the blood from her neck seeping out. There was to be no salvation for the two lovers. Clara managed to crawl a few feet towards Daniel before finally stopping and rolling onto her back. Daniel crawled towards her, but his will finally left him and he slumped down face first into the snow, arms outstretched and tantalisingly close, yet agonisingly far from the touch of Clara’s bloodstained fingers. They lay there in the snow, together and apart, and they both closed their eyes.
This is the complete first chapter of 'Maria & The Devil' by Graham Thomas - if you would like to learn more about this novel, listen to music that inspired the writing and perhaps pick up a copy for yourself, hit the button below to head over to the mothership