Blood Ridden

By Tony Masero

A hard-bitten Western tale of harsh revenge.
Marshal Arnwood Deal is a lawman man equipped with both decency and honor but when he receives word that his much loved and respected family have been cruelly murdered, he lays aside his star and follows a trail of reprisal that takes him beyond the borderlines of any code.
The road is filled with violence even before a fiercely angered Arnwood finds himself amongst the ruins of his family home. In seeking out the culprits and exacting his bitter form of justice, the Marshal’s estranged sister must be brought into play whilst he is forced to discover he also has a fight against both the law, in the shape of a deputized boyhood friend and a cruel outlaw that is the nastiest piece of work that ever strapped on iron.
Throw in an indifferent sheriff, keen to have Arnwood in lockup and a vengeful gang of bad men determined to see the marshal buried six-feet under and you have a foment of ferocious trouble just waiting to explode.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tony Masero
• Release date: Apr 12, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311081834

Tony Masero

It’s not such a big step from pictures to writing.And that’s how it started out for me. I’ve illustrated more Western book covers than I care to mention and been doing it for a long time. No hardship, I hasten to add, I love the genre and have since a kid, although originally I made my name painting the cover art for other people, now at least, I manage to create covers for my own books.A long-term closet writer, only comparatively recently, with a family grown and the availability of self-publishing have I managed to be able to write and get my stories out there.As I did when illustrating, research counts a lot and has inspired many of my Westerns and Thrillers to have a basis in historical fact or at least weave their tale around the seeds of factual content.Having such a visual background, mostly it’s a matter of describing the pictures I see in my head and translating them to the written page. I guess that’s why one of my early four-star reviewers described the book like a ‘Western movie, fast paced and full of action.’I enjoy writing them; I hope folks enjoy reading the results.

Book preview

BLOOD RIDDEN

Tony Masero

Cover Illustration: Tony Masero

A Hand Painted Western

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

Publishers Note: This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and events other than historical are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to real person, places, or events is coincidental.

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2014 © Tony Masero

Chapter One

The outlaw Kazoo Jack was holed up in an old prospector’s cabin down in the valley.

Arnwood Deal, the Marshal who had been on his tail for three weeks, now sat in an advantageous position with good cover and holding the high ground.

It was a rocky-sided vale, with a tumble of ochre rubble stretching away from Arnwood and falling in a haphazard spill to the valley floor. He had the shade on this side of the valley whilst down below the sun beat hot and Arnwood knew it must be as steamy as hell inside the thinly planked tin roof cabin.

He could wait.

Arnwood rested his rifle up against the boulder in front of him and settled back. Kazoo would come out at some time; it was just a matter of waiting.

The outlaw could doubtless hear the creek rippling along outside his door and the temptation of that liquid sound would draw him out when he was dry enough.

Arnwood eased his body; it had been a long ride over some rough country and he stretched and wriggled his shoulders into a niche in the rocks to try and bring some comfort to his long limbs.

He was a tall man standing at six foot three inches and was of a robust build. Physically he was lean with stringy, hard muscled broad shoulders and of an outwardly calm disposition. A spell as a bare-knuckle sportsman had left him with a beaten yet homey face that marked him out as a fellow who had seen something of the world and yet was one to be reckoned with. He was also a man of upright values, the kind that had been imbued in him by his father, who was a moral man of strong opinions.

Arnwood loved and respected his father, who, although a devout churchgoing man and pacifist, had readily joined the Union under a no-slavery banner and fought bravely with distinction during the Civil War. He had lost an arm at the first Bull Run, yet continued to fight and had participated with merit at the battles of Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville and Gettysburg. Quitting the army as a colonel, ‘Wing’ Dean as they called him after the loss of the arm, had settled back down to farming and raising his family.

Arnwood was the eldest of two children; he had a sister Millie, who had proved something of a disappointment to their parents. Only Arnwood’s mother, Emily, had any contact with Millie now. Their mother was a forbearing woman, quiet and understanding. An attractive lady, she lived in the shadow of her esteemed and respected husband, yet each loved the other dearly and it was a good marriage.

Arnwood had been seventeen when his father went off to war and he had remained as the protector and breadwinner of the family until his pa had returned five years later. It had been an arduous time for the young man and although doing something to fashion his later character it was during this period that his younger sister had gone astray and Arnwood still felt a sense of guilt about that.

He thought about his family as he waited for Kazoo Jack to make his play.

It was pleasant in the secure warm shade and Arnwood had to be sure he did not drop off and fall asleep at his post. It would not happen though, the Marshal was a disciplined and careful man and he knew that despite the temptation he would not surrender and would maintain a sharp watch.

He had worn a star for three years and before that served as militia captain for an earlier three. Arnwood was no amateur when it came to tracking down creatures like Kazoo Jack.

The outlaw was a dark soul and known as a virulent rapist and had earned his name, so they said, by playing a rousing march on the kazoo as he had lifted the skirts and had his way with a settler’s wife across an overturned barrel whilst the settler husband was forced to watch. Both parties were massacred when Kazoo Jack was done with them.

The door of the shed opened a crack.

Arnwood caught the movement and rearranged his body position so he could slide out the rifle and take aim down the barrel and lay the sight on the widening gap. By rights he should give out a cry of warning – This is the law! Come out with your hands up! – or some such. But Arnwood had leant the foolishness of such gestures early. When dealing with the ungodly it served no purpose to treat them as honorable beings. They despised such notice and thought it only weakness.

A shape appeared at the crack, the outline of a black sombrero and under it an unshaven mustachioed face squinting into the sunlight.

Arnwood levered back the hammer on his rifle and eased his cheek against the stock. He could smell the gun oil from the hot metal close to his nostrils and the feel of the grip snug in his hand. His finger looped carefully around the trigger.

The shadow in the doorway rose up as Kazoo Jack stood and slid half his body out to peer up and down the valley.

‘I could take you now,’ thought Arnwood. ‘But I will wait.’

The figure below eased forward, he wore a grubby white shirt stained with trail dust and over it a black leather vest. The long sleeved shirt was gathered in at the cuffs by leather wrist guards and in one hand the outlaw carried a cocked Remington pistol down by his side. A bell-bottomed striped pants leg with heeled Mexican boots stepped out tentatively as if testing the water of a pool on a cool day.

Satisfied, the outlaw walked free of the cabin, intent on making his way to the creek.

Arnwood allowed the breath to leave his lips in a gentle sigh and squeezed the trigger.

When he got down there, Kazoo was writhing on the ground clutching at the hole in his thigh. His pistol lay in the dust next to his fallen sombrero.

‘Damn you!’ Kazoo cursed as Arnwood’s shadow fell across him. ‘Goddamn you for that!’

He was spitting angry and in great pain, both hands clutched over the trickling wound in his leg.

Arnwood kicked the Remington out of reach with his toe, still keeping the rifle on the wincing outlaw. ‘You’re lucky,’ Arnwood said. ‘It could have been a mite higher.’

‘I’ll see you in hell, lawman,’ growled the wounded man.

‘Okay, Kazoo, I’m going to put some irons on you, so just belly-up and put your hands behind your back.’

‘Hell, lawman. Can’t you see I ain’t going nowhere? Least you can do is let me keep my mitts in front.’

‘Be quiet and roll over,’ said Arnwood, menacingly jabbing the rifle barrel at his prisoner.

‘You are the dang-tootiness, most ornery….’ Mumbled Kazoo as he struggled to get over on his front.

The hidden knife that Kazoo had kept under him came into sight as he eased over then swung back slashing out with the blade. But Arnwood was ready, the rifle butt nipped down and connected with outlaw’s jaw with an ugly sounding crack and sent the outlaw’s head flying back.

Arnwood stepped across the body, his foot down on the knife hand, locking it under the sole of his boot. The Marshal squashed the rifle barrel under the dazed outlaw’s nostrils.

‘Now hear me, fool,’ said Arnwood sharply. ‘I’d just as soon finish it here and now than drag your sorry ass all the way back for judgment. So make another play like that and you are underground, you understand me?’

‘You may have me, you tin-starred ass. But my boys will see you dead, they ain’t here now but they’ll be coming, you can bet on it.’

‘Well, I’m all a-quiver at the news. They come and they’ll be joining you at the hanging party, I’ll be bound. There’s paper on the lot of them, isn’t there? Cal Remont, Barney B. Doolittle and the one they call, Hass. Yeah, I know them and I’ll be waiting.’

Kazoo, who was indeed something of a fool, used a cuss-word in reply that was truly offensive to the Marshal.

Arnwood allowed his cold grey eyes to harden; he reached down and slipped the knife from the trapped hand. Then, as he stepped back he slammed his boot into the man’s wounded thigh.

Kazoo screamed piteously and grabbed at his tender leg.

‘Don’t you cuss me out,’ snarled Arnwood. ‘You don’t take the Lord’s name in vain and you don’t take mine either. Now do like I say. On your belly.’

Arnwood did little to ease Kazoo’s suffering on the way back to Cottonwood. He tied off the outlaw’s wound and sat him on his pony with the manacles on his wrists behind his back and led the pony by hand.

Kazoo bitched the whole way but Arnwood ignored him and maintained a somber silence until they reached the town’s outskirts.

Cottonwood was a small settlement at the foot of a curving range of high hills. Water ran down and was the reason for the settlement as the run of water, something between a creek and a small river, ran past the lower town and brought sustenance to the locals and their farmlands.

A string of cottonwoods marched along the banks and had given the town its name. There was no other claim to fame unless you included the passing of Senator David Crockett back in late ‘35 when he had camped overnight there on his way down to meet his destiny and become a hero at The Alamo. A brief visit and of no remark yet one that was remembered with pride by the townspeople.

Arnwood pulled up at the overlook and turned a stern eye on Kazoo.

‘Now you listen up,’ he said, looking hard at the recalcitrant outlaw. ‘I been listening to you cussing and whining the whole way and I ain’t said a thing about that. You got it all off your chest. Well, that’s fine but from now on you shut your mouth and hold your water, you hear me?’

‘And why, in damnation should I do that?’ spat the outlaw. ‘I’m hurting, goddamn it. You ain’t done a thing to ease this hole in my leg, so why should I hold my water?’

‘Because there’s folks down there that don’t take to your foul mouth and errant ways. This here is civilized country and I won’t brook none of your mean behavior. You cause a fuss and bother and I shall break your head, you understand me?’

Kazoo snorted a disparaging and dismissive laugh, ‘Aw! You can just go to hell, you damned asswipe lawman.’

Grim-faced, Arnwood urged his pony over alongside, ‘You know, you are the dumbest piece of horseflesh I ever come across.’

With that he whipped out his revolver and brought it down hard on Kazoo’s head leaving a cleaving dent in the sombrero’s crown as the stunned Kazoo wavered and toppled forward to hunch dazedly over the pony’s shoulder.

‘Now, set up straight,’ said Arnwood, grasping his shoulder and pulling the outlaw up into an upright position. ‘You want more, I’ll be glad to oblige.’

With that, he geed up his beast and set off down the incline dragging the outlaw’s pony behind by the lead rein.

Arnwood had closed up shop when he left to take after the outlaw and he was surprised to see a smart cavalry pony tied off at the hitching rail outside his office and all the shuttered windows open.

It was quiet in town, as it usually was, but Arnwood noted the few people about were watching him solemnly from the sidewalks as he made his way up the center of Main Street. He tipped his hat in greeting to those he knew but only met a minimal nod of recognition in return, almost as if the folks were too embarrassed to recognize him.

It was not the greeting he had expected and the appearance of the cavalry horse outside the office worried him.

He guessed there was some bad news awaiting him and the townspeople had already heard it.

Troubled, Arnwood pulled up and tied off his pony at the hitching rail next to the army horse. He did not hesitate to give any the niceties to the still dazed outlaw, but merely grasped him by his leather vest and pulled him from the saddle to drop heavily to the ground. Kazoo groaned and squirmed, spitting dust from his mouth.

‘Get up and get inside,’ ordered Arnwood. ‘And don’t say a