Final Debt

By Tony Masero

Simeon Norstrad is not a man to fool with. He is the disturbed leader of a tough work gang and he runs his backwoods lumberjack camp like a cruel dictator.
The two Lapain brothers, just downriver at the sawmill, are drawn into Norstrad’s insane world when Joe Lapain discovers that his reckless younger brother is working as a debt collector for the town’s devious casino owner. When the owner runs foul of Norstrad and calls in the young gunman to help, that’s when Joe is pulled into the troubled world of the madman and the green pine woods of Wisconsin are set to have their silence shattered by a violence stained with blood.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tony Masero
• Release date: Oct 18, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370278725

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

FINAL DEBT

Tony Masero

Simeon Norstrad is not a man to fool with. He is the disturbed leader of a tough work gang and he runs his backwoods lumberjack camp like a cruel dictator.

The two Lapain brothers, just downriver at the sawmill, are drawn into Norstrad’s insane world when Joe Lapain discovers that his reckless younger brother is working as a debt collector for the town’s devious casino owner. When the owner runs foul of Norstrad and calls in the young gunman to help, that’s when Joe is pulled into the troubled world of the madman and the green pine woods of Wisconsin are set to have their silence shattered by a violence stained with blood.

Cover Illustration: Tony Masero

Names, characters and incidents in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations,

or persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

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 or storage and retrieval system, without the

written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.

Copyright © Tony Masero 2017

Chapter One

Simeon Norstrad was not only ugly but at over six and a half feet tall, he was a broad shouldered giant with a pair of dangling arms striated with hard muscle and snake-like veins. In fact he bore a lot of resemblance to a simian primate that might have escaped a travelling circus and been exiled to the northern pine forests of Wisconsin.

Folks knew he was a temperamental creature prone to wild and dangerous swings in mood and when he showed up at the camp picnic everybody felt distinctly uncomfortable. The day had been fine up until then. Shanty Boy, the organizer, had seen to everything and the whole party had travelled in buggies and buckboard wagons out from the Jonah Town timber camp and headed for the tree-lined pastures and shaded groves alongside Lake Quatrain. The lake at this time of year was mostly free of the bugs that infested the place during high summer but although the fall months were approaching the weather was still warm enough for folks to sit outside.

Tablecloths were spread on the grassy slope running down to the water and the womenfolk unloaded the feast of pies and cakes they had been preparing over the past few days. Children ran and tumbled at the forest edge, some with hoops and others with baseball bat and ball but every one with a hearty sandwich clenched in one hand whilst they played. A barrel was broached and the strong home made beer that the ‘Whistle Punk’, Emil Andersen brewed was distributed liberally. The older ones gathered together in nostalgic mood and sung remembered songs from the old country whilst an accordion player accompanied them. It was mostly music and the sounds of laughter that filled the forest edge and ran out across the still waters of the lake.

These were lumberjack families, the children and grandchildren of Scandinavian immigrants that made up the woodcutters and woodhicks that worked in the dense Wyoming forests that surrounded Jonah Town. With axe and cross-cut saw they felled the giant pine trees, arduously cutting through the massive tree trunks, some of them well over twenty feet in diameter. They were a sturdy group of people, tall and strong and none of them faint hearted. Every man working on the logging crew had his particular skill and ability in the forest. They worked as a team so when the experienced high-climbers, fallers and buckers were done and the trees lopped and felled then the choke setters and chasers took over, these were the younger beginners in the trade, their task to fit steel cable and oversee the skidding of logs to the riverbank flume.

Once on the waters of the Boniface River then the catty-men and river pigs played their part and with nimble footwork on studded boots and a hooked peavey pole in their hands they rode the mighty shoals of wood downriver, clearing log jams as they went down to the Constantine levy and the lumber sawmill and township stationed there. The Constantine Land and Lumber Company employed many of the family men at the picnic but there were a few independents amongst them, not the least of which was the unwelcome Simeon Norstrad.

He was an unwholesome character, ill tempered and brutish, who lived with his extended family and work gang deep in the woods and away from the rest of society. They had all heard the stories about the wild things that went on around the Norstrad homestead, they were a law to themselves and there were whispers of terrible crimes, killings and even deviant relationships that reached town but these were only spoken of in hushed tones. Norstrad was accredited with an almost demon-like ability to know what was going on and therefore any conversation concerning the Nostrad community was a secretive affair discussed in whispers.

Norstrad’s unexpected arrival at the picnic was a surprise and he came with one of his women, an unhinged black-haired, gypsy type called Elisabet who was one of the harem he kept around him and called his wives. A slender woman dressed in tight fitting and brightly colored clothes, her dark eyes flashing a challenge to every man that met her gaze and moving her body provocatively before them with a latent sensuality displayed in every gesture.

‘So!’ Norstrad called boldly as he appeared and swayed a drunken path over to the beer barrel. ‘You do not invite Norstrad to your little picnic but I am here anyway.’

He spoke to no one in particular but yet to everyone. His already drunken and bloodshot eyes frowned below heavy dark eyebrows and his flushed lips curled as he held out an expectant mug waiting for the ‘Whistle Punk’ to fill it.

Emil Asland was an important man in the camp; he was the one who controlled the signals to the ‘Donkey Puncher’, Aksel Tupp, who controlled the steam-powered winch that dragged the giant logs away. Aksel was out of sight of the workings when he worked the winch and relied on Emil’s keen eye to keep men safe from the thrashing cable with his coded messages on the steam whistle. As a result both men filled respected roles in the community.

‘Is it good this year, Emil?’ Norstrad asked, leaning forward unsteadily as the ‘Whistle Punk’ complied and opened the tap over the mug. There was no doubt in Emil’s mind, as he smelt the strong alcoholic vapors coming off the big man, Norstrad had been well into his liquor already and probably for a few days at that.

‘As it ever is,’ Emil answered evenly, yet with eyes downcast and not meeting the other man’s.

The gathering had gone quiet now and people’s attentions had wandered off, not wanting to be involved with the irascible Norstrad. They knew how bad he could be when he was sober and how much worse he was when in his cups. The mood had changed from contentment to gloom amongst the picnickers and it was as if dark thunderclouds had blown up and threatened to inundate the lake after Norstrad and his consort’s arrival, the children had all instinctively quieted and the accordion player put away his instrument.

‘Get me something to eat,’ Norstrad slurred to his woman as he gulped down the mug of beer.

With a flurry of skirts, Elisabet spun around and made her way across to the nearest convenient spread tablecloth that happened to be surrounded by the seated Belbo family. With a malevolent grin full of confidence at her man’s power, Elisabet knelt and gathered a plateful of cold fried chicken legs and slices of sourdough bread from basket bowls placed on the family’s cloth. No one argued with her but the womenfolk in the group stared back unafraid of her challenging look.

‘You can spare it can’t you?’ Elisabet smiled slyly, watching then archly from under greasy coils of her hanging locks. Then she extended her tongue in a long curve and licked her upper lip provocatively at the menfolk in the group. ‘I know I can.’

‘Get away, you willful bitch,’ hissed Ma Belbo, forthright head of the family and seated across from her at the tablecloth. ‘Take what you would steal and get from my sight.’

‘Oh, lardy-dah,’ sneered Elisabet. ‘Jonah Town is so much better than the rest of us, ain’t it?’

With that she took a chicken leg from the basket and sucked its entire length into her mouth with a slurping sound. ‘Do so like something with meat on the bone,’ she teased. ‘Any of you boys like to oblige?’

In disgust, Ma Belbo, a big woman with sleeves rolled back over brawny arms, swept up a glass of beer and threw it full in Elisabet’s face. ‘Wash your mouth out with that, slut!’ Ma Belbo snapped.

Elisabet screamed and leapt back, her teeth bared in anger. ‘Why, you Jonah Town cow!’

The youngest son of the family, eighteen year old Billy leapt to his feet, ‘Best not speak to ma like that,’ he advised. ‘Just take what you want and get gone.’

‘What’s going on?’ growled Norstrad, staggering across and looming over the group. ‘Elisabet, I have tole you t’get me some feeds.’

‘Look what he done,’ whined Elisabet, staring up tearfully at the giant figure standing over her. ‘Threw beer all over this nice dress you bought me.’

‘Did what?’ roared Norstrad.

‘They like to make me look small,’ Elisabet continued in a woeful little girl voice and still playacting the part of a hurt innocent. ‘Just ‘cos I asked for some little bits of chicken for you.’

Norstrad’s ugly features worked as his drunken brain went through a series of inner assessments, ‘That what you like to do, is it?’ he finally asked the standing figure of young Billy Belbo. ‘Spit on my people?’

‘I ain’t a-feared of you, Simeon Norstrad,’ Billy retaliated, with more courage than he actually felt. ‘And I ain’t about to let your whore speak to my ma like that, you hear?’

‘Now wait a minute,’ said Pa Belbo, getting to his feet ready to intervene before things got any worse. ‘There’s no need for this….’

Norstrad thrust out a fisted arm as hard as an iron bar and Pa Belbo, who was a small man advancing in years and not too good on his legs, was catapulted off his feet and fell in a tumble onto the grass.

‘Hey! That’s enough,’ cried Billy, his cheeks flushed with anger.

With a sob, Ma Belbo caught up her skirts and rushed over to her fallen husband.

‘You!’ snarled Norstrad, jabbing his finger in Billy’s direction with his features screwing into an angry mask full of wrath. ‘I got complaint against you.’

‘Hold on now, Simeon,’ muttered Emil Andersen, feeling he should make some attempt at pacification. ‘This is a family picnic; let’s not have a scene. Remember we have children here.’

Norstrad barely glanced at him his attention firmly fixed on Billy Belbo, ‘Shut up, ‘Whistle Punk’. My problem is not with you it’s with this mouthy little sonofabitch here.’

Elisabet, still sitting crouched at his feet, nibbled her lower lip in excitement and feverishly urged the big man on, ‘Yeah, go on, Simeon, finish him. Don’t let him speak to you like that, go on, make him pay.’

Norstrad drew a deep breath and tossed his empty mug aside, and then he began to unstrap the gun belt at his waist. ‘Gonna teach you a lesson, kid,’ he promised, dropping the belt to the ground. ‘Drunk as I am, I can still take on any one of you and whip your ass, best you remember that.’ He swayed in a semi-circle, staring red-eyed at the watchers and challenging them all before returning his attention to Billy. ‘Come on, boy. Put up your fists and take what you got coming like a man.’

Billy needed no further urging and he lunged forward in a clumsy run, aiming to catch Norstrad unawares and encircle him with his arms and take the big man to the ground. But as nimble as a Mexican toreador and surprisingly able for a man supposedly inebriated, Norstrad swiftly twisted aside out of the way and landed a smacking blow to the side of Billy’s head as he passed by. Staggering, Billy tried to keep his balance and he shook his head to clear his dazed brain. Regaining his stance he raised his fists and lowered his chin to his chest ready to take on Norstrad’s next assault.

Norstrad barely raised his fists, he held them casually at chest height, circling and shuffling his shoulders in a loose fist-fighting stance.

‘Trouble is these days, you ain’t got the class,’ he mumbled, never taking his eyes from Billy as he rotated around him. ‘Not no more. Not you young ‘uns, you just got lip, that’s all you got.’

His massive hard-boned fist flashed out, fast as a striking snake and the clout snapped Billy’s head back.

Smack!

‘Can’t keep your pecker in your pants, or your loose mouth to yourself,’ Norstrad continued to accuse as another hard punch whacked into Billy’s face. ‘Gotta allus show you the way, ain’t I? Respect, that’s what’s called for, a bit of respect.’

Smack!

The boy stood his ground but he was bleeding from the nose now and he dizzily attempted to duck and weave away from the experienced attacks of the other man.

‘Just defeats me, it surely does,’ sighed Norstrad, stepping in and delivering a rapid one-two. The blows were heavy and found their mark in Billy’s ribs driving the wind from his lungs. The boy staggered, twisting over as Norstrad followed up with another couple of solid body blows, their thuds loud in the silent clearing.

The fair-haired Billy was a solidly built young man, standing six foot tall and full of youth and fitness from his hard work with the timber. But he was a simple lad who would rather smile than take offense and his easy nature was costing him plenty against the dour meanness of Simeon Norstrad.

The muscles were taut in Norstrad’s jaw, as the big man struck, not an ounce of pity showing in his blank eyes that were as empty and