Stringer and Brodie: Dancing with the Devil

By Tony Masero

Two men from different sides of the conflict.
One in blue, the other gray.
But the long Civil War is over and both are sick of the violence and death they encountered. Can they escape it though?
A family life that’s destroyed encourages them to set out and track down the perpetrators – a matter of honor but also they are both flat broke and there might be a reward.
Despite their early allegiances on the battlefield they find they are not so different and as for the violence and death, well, that just follows close behind them when the devil calls the tune.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tony Masero
• Release date: Sep 24, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005137830

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

STRINGER AND BRODIE:

Dancing with the Devil

Tony Masero

Two men from different sides of the conflict.

One in blue, the other gray.

But the long Civil War is over and both are sick of the violence and death they encountered. Can they escape it though?

A family life that’s destroyed encourages them to set out and track down the perpetrators – a matter of honor but also they are both flat broke and there might be a reward.

Despite their early allegiances on the battlefield they find they are not so different and as for the violence and death, well, that just follows close behind them when the devil calls the tune.

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 2021

Smashwords Edition

Prologue

‘You want me, you can damn well come out and get me!’

Slowfoot Pike swayed drunkenly in the middle of Main Street, his stumbling feet rotating one way as his body looped awkwardly another and his ragged duster flapped and tangled like a defeated flag around his legs. There was something disconnected about the whole physical act and yet Slowfoot somehow managed to stay upright as his slurred tirade continued.

‘Come on out, you sunufabitch!’

He punctuated the invitation with a pistol shot from the Colt Open Top he was waving in vague circles above his head.

‘How many’s that he’s let off?’ asked Brodie Middenhoff, the redheaded deputy who was casting a rueful eye around the edge of the window blind.

‘Five,’ answered his partner and town marshal, Stringer Bone.

‘One more and he’s empty.’

The two sat casually and untroubled in the marshal’s office. Stringer with both polished boots crossed over and hooked on the molded edge of the desk, whilst Brodie sat over by the window chawing tobacco and occasionally idly watching Slowfoot’s antics.

‘I’m a ready teddy!’ bawled Slowfoot. ‘I eat b’ar for breakfast and serpaints for supper; I spits venom and bile between my teeth. When I breaks wind, you best not breath deep, that foul air will kill a man at forty paces!’

‘Oh, Lord!’ sighed Brodie. ‘Will he never let up?’

‘Such a low and crude dog,’ muttered Stringer, an erudite and sometimes sophisticated man with a college education back east. ‘I’m getting a little tired of his tongue.’

‘Well, give him a minute. He lets off that final shot and he’s yours for the taking.’

‘Yes indeed,’ mumbled Stringer, sliding his Colt from the holster and easing the hammer into half cock so he could flip open the cylinder cover and check the load.

Slowfoot meanwhile was distracted by a passing cur dog that loped cautiously out from a side alley across from him and had the obvious intention of passing over to the other side of the road. Slowfoot frowned; leaning forward precariously he squinted blurrily and studied the dog’s progress.

‘You ain’t nothing but a pesky yella dawg,’ he growled. ‘Like that damned lawman in there.’

Slowfoot squinted and raised the pistol, aiming with one wayward eye and clutching the pistol with whiskey trembling fingers.

‘Goddamn!’ he cursed the animal. ‘Will you keep still?’

The beast, wafer thin with the rib bones sticking out from its sides and mangy hair falling out in clumps, watched Slowfoot curiously as it squatted down in front of him and began a serious scratch behind one chewed ear.

Slowfoot squeezed the trigger and the gun banged and sent his last bullet winging far behind the dog, leaving it to erupt in a volcanic gout of dust over by the distant pharmacy’s porch step.

‘There it is,’ Brodie allowed and Stringer swung his boots down from the desk. ‘Go get him, tiger.’

Stringer puffed air, straightened his jacket and crossed the room heading for the door, ‘You going to put some fresh coffee on?’ he asked his deputy.

‘Well, sure,’ Brodie answered, a touch indifferently. ‘When I know if you’re coming back in one piece.’

Stringer looked away in disgust, ‘It’s your job, Brodie. You’re the deputy, you do that stuff whatever the damned situation.’

‘Yeah, I know,’ growled Brodie, angrily starting to get his dander up. ‘Sweep up, do the dishes, swill out the cells, cook your food, make the coffee, that’s all I am to you, ain’t it. A blasted home help!’

‘Well, I have to say,’ Stringer stood a moment, his hand on the door latch, as he contemplated the notion with a wry smile, ‘You do have a certain charm.’

‘Get out there and do your damned job,’ rumbled Brodie.

‘Be back in a minute,’ grinned Stringer, swinging the door wide.

Slowfoot stood waiting for him outside and he leered at Stringer from under an unkempt basin-cut fringe of hair, ‘’Bout time too,’ he sniffed.

‘Are you coming peaceable, Pike, or do I have to give you some trouble?’

Slowfoot jutted out his unshaven jaw and fixed Stringer with a glaring eye, ‘The only thing you ever gave any trouble to was your ma and that was when she squeezed you out.’

‘You ill-mannered pig!’ spat Stringer, in high-pitched distain. ‘You dare to speak about my revered mother like that?’

He drew his Colt and levered back the hammer, taking a straight-armed aim at Slowfoot’s head.

‘I know your pistol’s empty Slowfoot, so we have no contest though I’ve a mind to save the townsfolk’s the cost of your jail time.’

‘That so?’ Slowfoot grinned evilly and reached in back under his duster and whipped out another six-shooter he had couched in his belt. ‘Didn’t reckon on this did you, Sheriff?’

Stringer jaw tightened at sight of the pistol. ‘Brodie!’ he called over his shoulder.

‘What? What is it now?’ answered Brodie irritably from inside the office.

‘Get out here,’ ordered Stringer. ‘And don’t come without your gun.’

‘Oh, shoot! Stringer, can’t you do a damned thing yourself? I just got the coffee on.’

‘Give me strength!’ complained Stringer in a breathless whisper.

‘Watcha gonna do now, hotshot?’ blurted Slowfoot with a self-confident grin that exposed brown teeth and the gaps between.

Both men had their pistols leveled at each other and they stood fifteen paces apart. Slowfoot’s arm wavered and Stringer’s was rock steady.

‘Give it up, Slowfoot,’ advised the Sheriff. ‘You’re too fool drunk to do any damage.’

‘Go to hell,’ and with that, Slowfoot fired.

Trouble was he was so drunk he had forgotten which hand held the loaded gun and which the empty one. The hammer fell on used brass as he squeezed the wrong trigger. ‘What the devil?’ he mumbled, confused by what he thought was a misfire; he cocked and fired the empty gun again.

Stringer hauled off and let him have one in reply. Slowfoot was frowning at the time and Stringer’s lead parted that frown right down the middle and made an awful mess of the skull behind it.

Slowfoot just keeled over and dropped down on his back, rigid as a railroad tie and lay dead and still in the dust cloud he had raised.

‘What d’y’all want?’ asked Brodie, finally coming out of the office with a shotgun clasped in his hands.

‘You’re kinda late, Brodie.’

Brodie looked down at Slowfoot’s spread-eagled form, ‘Never doubted you, Stringer. Lookee there, another heinous villain bites the dust at the hands of the redoubtable marshal of our county. Beats me why your name ain’t in the newspaper each and every day.’

Stringer calmly emptied the used shell casing and replaced the missing cartridge with a fresh one in the cylinder, ‘You made that coffee yet?’

‘Bet your ass I have.’

‘Good, then you can clean up this mess out here in the street now.’

‘Always with the orders. Stringer, I swear you ain’t changed an ounce since we first met.’

Stringer snorted a laugh at the distant memory, ‘My, wasn’t that a whole while back?’

‘Sure was, you had a mite more empathy and sympathetic consideration in them days.’

Stringer arched an eyebrow at Brodie’s sudden unlikely show of verbal style. But it gave Stringer pause for thought. Was it true, he wondered? Had he changed that much, come to that, had they both changed that much? When was it they had first met, sometime after the war, he recalled. Yes, it had been after the surrender and he was decommissioned and on his own after three years on the line.

Broke as well, with barely a cent to his name, he remembered….

Chapter One

The pawnbroker took one look at the lean figure in the shabby blue uniform across the counter and knew what he had here.

‘Just out?’ he asked.

‘That’s right,’ agreed Stringer Bone, the now ex-captain of horse.

‘Well, captain, what can I do for you?’

‘I need some duds.’

‘Sure thing, we’ve got plenty,’ the pawnbroker waved a hand at the collected rails hanging with secondhand clothing. ‘As long as you got the wherewithal.’

Stringer compressed his lips and took off his cavalry hat, he tugged and pulled out the crossed sabre badge from the crown and tossed it on the counter, ‘What’s that worth? It’s gold, my pa gave it me when I made first-lieutenant.’

‘State of things right now, not much,’ said the pawnbroker, wrinkling his nose and toying with the emblem with his forefinger but not picking it up.

Stringer wrenched off the gold hatband with its two acorns and threw that down. It wasn’t a hard task to separate the band from the hat, after three years of sweat, dust and gun smoke across many bloody battlefields the retaining threads were almost rotten through.

‘Best I can do for you is ten dollars and believe me, soldier, that’s being generous.’

‘That all?’ asked Stringer in disbelief.

‘War’s over, everybody’s suffering. Economy’s shot to hell and most folks ain’t got a pot to piss in. Sorry, mister, but that’s the way it is.’

Mister – the first time he had been called that in a while. Stringer had used up the last of his back pay to keep his horse. Pay was always late in coming in the Union army and Stringer’s two-month outstanding pay of two hundred and thirty-one dollars had not gone far once he had paid for the horse. ‘Chancer’ had been a fine animal though and served him well. Wounded twice, the big chested chestnut was strong and of good wind and Stringer could not bring himself to part with the loyal creature so he had bought and paid for the animal.

Now he was out of the army and back on civilian street and busted flat broke, he had no option but to take the offer.

‘Okay then,’ he said and watched with a hint of regret as the man swept the insignia off the counter and out of sight.

‘Go help yourself,’ the pawnbroker said. ‘I’ll take it out of the ten dollars.’

Stringer kept the hat, it fitted too well to part with; he chose a white cotton shirt but nothing else fitted his lean frame. It was all either too big or too small, there was nothing for it and he had to keep the hat and Union shell coat but he settled for a pair of tan pants that fitted as his own were worn at the seat and thin enough you could almost see his credentials through them. On a whim he also picked up a brightly colored woolen serape and threw that over his arm.

‘How about them boots? You want to throw those in?’ asked the pawnbroker. ‘I’ll give you good money for them.’

‘No, sir, not these,’ Stringer had the knee-high pair made special by a Mexican shoemaker when he was seconded to Department of the Gulf and served in Texas with the 19th Corp and they were the most comfortable boots he had ever worn.

He fed himself into the civilian pants and fastened on his service belt with its flap holster and Army Colt revolver. Stringer had never liked the reverse-draw right-hand regulation placement of the holster and had it adapted to a cross-draw across his belly on the belt.

‘Feel strange?’ asked the store man with a slight smile.

‘Sure does.’

‘Well, it looks right proper.’

Stringer studied himself in the long mirror, a tall man, slender of frame and stringy, a little gaunt in the features after three years at the head of a cavalry troop in the Federal army. He favored a bushy mustache running down to the chin and a little Van Dyke beard under his lip, both sideboards were full and his hair grew long over his collar.

‘I need a cut,’ he observed.

‘Barber’s down the street.’

‘Thanks, give me what I’ve got coming and I’ll head that way.’

But Stringer never made it to the barber’s he headed instead to the nearest saloon, a place called ‘The Tamed Shrew’. It was the witching hour inside, midway between breakfast and lunch and the place almost empty except for the bartender and one solitary figure at the far end of the long bar.

Stringer took off his hat and rested it and the serape on the counter. He stood a moment studying the other customer. The man was sitting quite still with a lowered head under the peak of his crumbling gray campaign cap. His face was invisible over the shot glass he held in two grubby hands, a dirty and stained Confederate cavalry cape hung over his hunched shoulders.

‘What can I get you, stranger?’ asked the barkeep.

‘Give me a small beer and a shot of something stronger.’

As the bartender busied himself, Stringer asked, ‘Where is everybody?’

‘Sheriff called up a posse, they’ve all gone out on that.’

‘What happened?’

‘Don’t rightly know,’ said the bartender setting down the drinks. ‘Town lawman just came in and called up everybody. He’s a sorry soul though, the ass couldn’t catch himself a cold, he won’t be bringing no one back.’

Stringer sipped his whiskey, it was good and he sighed with remembered pleasure as it rolled warm down his throat. It had been a while since he had tasted other than rotgut and he savored the taste. Stringer looked again at the lonely figure at the far end and with the same whim that he had picked up the serape, he asked, ‘Buy you a drink, Reb?’

The Confederate raised his head and looked back at Stringer with the palest of gray eyes from out of a face darkened by sun and grime. He was a hairy soul with a reddish beard and unkempt hair sprouting out wildly from under his battered cap. The man paused a long moment and shrugged as if making up his mind, ‘Sure, bluecoat, why not, this sucker’s already had my pocket watch in lieu of a pork chop and half a bottle.’

The bartender stood midway between them, nervously looking from one to other, ‘Now fellas,’ he said. ‘We don’t