Dust Devils

By Tony Masero

It might be that Marshal Cap Briggs wears a badge but now he is stepping outside the normal bounds of his office and turning his back on convention. Alone he discovered the prize but for the testing mission he has in mind he needs men. Men from his past with those special abilities he knows he can trust.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tony Masero
• Release date: Jul 6, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215430996

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

DUST DEVILS

Tony Masero

It might be that Marshal Cap Briggs wears a badge but now he is stepping outside the normal bounds of his office and turning his back on convention. Alone he discovered the prize but for the testing mission he has in mind he needs men. Men from his past with those special abilities he knows he can trust.

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 2023

A Smashwords Edition

Chapter 1

It was a dark moonless night when the lone rider rode in and tethered his horse at the hitching rail. This one-horse town had been christened twenty years earlier and for some reason back then they had called it ‘Justified Springs’, although there was no real justification whatsoever for calling it that, as there were no natural springs anywhere nearby. The place was composed solely of two lonely buildings that stood together on the flat open plain, their weathered and decaying false fronts stood tall and made up all there was to be said of this small community. One was a hardware and grocery store that was now dark and shuttered, the other a rather poor rooming and drinking house that had chinks of light showing through the gaps in the swing doors. They did have a rather crude hand-painted sign hanging above the door that proclaimed the place was called ‘End of the Road’ – and nobody could argue with that as it surely was.

A stopover place, you might more truly say. Travellers making their way west would pick up supplies here before they hit the desert crossing. So a lonely location between all those coming and all those going but right now, with traffic stilled by the dark, the township seemed to be all the more lonely as a result. It was a purgatorial sentinel of isolation standing alone on a bleak and arid landscape with only one enigmatic visitor who was now stopping at the door.

When the doors swung back in the gloomy saloon there was a brief moment of chill, as if someone had opened the icehouse and allowed a breath of cold to whisper in. No more than a second but it turned heads expectantly.

The lone figure that entered was of average height, not brawny but solidly built. He stood a moment, then stepped to one side of the doorway taking out a sack of Bull Durham and rolling himself a loose-leaf cigarette. All the while his eyes spanned the dark interior, flicking pale in the shadow of his low-slung hat brim as he quartered the room.

He wore a black, thigh-length and wide-lapelled wool overcoat, almost military in its outlook but with the shoulders and breast tainted by grit and travel dust. The pants below were pressed into knee-high cavalry boots whose curved tops cupped his knees. The boots were worn but surprisingly clean and at the ankles, deep leather tops rode over rowel spurs, big sharp wheels that clipped the ground as he moved. Those same spurs sported small silver decorations on the metal heelband in the form of the four aces and they shone with the glitter of a snake’s eyes in the shadows.

The man moved back the tails of his coat and reached into the small pocket of his waistcoat for a match and as he did so the silver watch chain across his middle swayed and shone. The movement also revealed the bone white grips of a long-barreled 9-inch .44 Smith and Wesson resting high in the black gun belt at his waist.

He struck the match and set it to his hand-rolled and by the light, a momentary glow in the cupped hands that lighted his face, it could be seen that his sharp cut features were lined and weathered and a curly white mustache and beard marked his chin.

Moving between the tables he was watched by the few card players and cowboys taking their ease as he made his way towards a long bar that was the only serious source of light in the woeful place and the hanging oil lamps there reflected greasily from the bottles racked behind the bar.

Unperturbed by the silence surrounding his presence the man headed for the counter followed by a whirling cloud of cigarette smoke shining white in the lamplight.

The bartender watched his arrival with hands spread wide on the bar top and with a jerk of his chin silently requested the stranger to name his needs.

‘Whiskey,’ rasped the man, his low voice as dry and harsh as a desert wind. ‘The best you got.’

The bartender did not take his eyes from the man as he reached below the counter and brought out a labeled bottle and set up a glass and poured.

‘Four-year old Bonded, that do you?’ asked the barman.

The man nodded and cupped the glass, raising it and sipping at the rim.

‘Should be good, it come a long way,’ assured the barman. ‘Passing through?’ he asked, his curiosity getting the better of him.

The stranger flicked a glance in the barman’s direction as he tossed coin on the counter, ‘Ain’t we all?’ he murmured.

The bartender caught the drift and didn’t press it, he said, ‘That all you need? We got eats if you want ‘em.’

The man shook his head negatively and sipped some more.

The barman turned to leave, heading down the bar to the more familiar social company of his customers.

‘You got a man around here called William Williams?’ asked the stranger, stopping the barman in his tracks.

‘Maybe you mean Billy Williams?’

‘William Robert Williams,’ agreed the stranger. ‘Goes by Billy Bob, that will be him.’

‘Sure, he ain’t in just yet awhile. You got business with him?’

The stranger sighed in irritation at the inquisitive query and rested an elbow on the bar top as he studied the barman with a calculating eye. Then he picked up the bottle by the neck and the unfinished glass and moved off to an empty table, ‘You just tell him I’m waiting on him when he gets in.’

‘Who shall I say?’

‘Briggs. Cap Briggs.’

‘Okay mister, I’ll tell him. There ain’t going to be any trouble is there?’

‘Not from me,’ said Cap, taking his seat and turning it so he could keep the door and most of the room under his eye.

Nervous now, the barman scurried along the bar back to his cronies grouped at the far end.

Cap tipped back his chair and watched him go with a tightly amused smile playing on his lips.

‘You the law, mister?’ a voice called from amongst the shadowed gathering at the far end.

‘That would be correct,’ agreed Cap, flipping his coat lapel back to show the badge underneath. ‘US Marshal, so you boys best behave.’

There was a rustle of conversation at that and the air of tension in the place went up a notch.

Cap eased back in the chair that creaked under his weight and poured himself another glassful of liquor. He stubbed out what was left of his hand-rolled and waited.

A silence descended over the room until a steadily repeated thump on the sidewalk outside was heard. Another bumping noise and then a stumbled crash as if something has been dropped; a string of curses filled the air outside before the thumping begun again.

A whisper ran around the room and those few seated near Cap left their seats hurriedly and disappeared into the furthest shadows.

The swing doors crashed back to reveal a man dressed in a long duster. His head appeared too small for his body and was covered by a pale domed hat with a wide round brim. The pomaded hair was cut neatly under the hat and slicked down each side of his ears and as he pushed the doors wide he hollered loudly, ‘Scraggings! How many times I told you, you need a lamp out here. Body could break his neck staggering over them loose boards.’

Below the hem of his duster one leg was whole the other a thick wooden peg leg that was the root cause of all the thumping.

Cap heard it then, the almost breathless sound of the occupants whispering amongst themselves, ‘It’s Billy Bob, he’s here.’

‘Set me up a stiff one, Scraggings,’ called Billy Bob, striding into the room with his wooden leg resounding hollowly on the floorboards. ‘I dang near broke my good leg getting up them porch step.’

‘Y – You got a v - visitor, Billy Bob,’ replied the bartender cautiously.

‘That so?’ says Billy Bob, unfazed and continuing his march towards the bar.

‘Sure, fellow sitting there.’

Billy Bob pivoted on his wooden leg to take in the figure at the table calmly watching him.

‘Howdy, Billy Bob,’ said Cap.

For a moment Billy Bob was taken aback and he froze in place, squinting into the shadows.

‘No! It ain’t.’

‘Sure is, how goes it you one-legged old fool?’

‘Cap! Cap Briggs, well damn me, it’s been a whole danged while. Hell if I know how long.’

Cap rose from his chair and held out his hand for the other man to shake, ‘Come set a while, Billy Bob.’

The two took a seat facing each other and Cap called out, ‘Bartender, another glass here, if you will.’

‘What on earth brings you this way?’ asked Billy Bob settling himself awkwardly. He was a big man under the duster, round and fat his body covered with two heavy jackets and a thick woolen comforter.

‘You do and a few other things.’

Cap poured a drink into the glass the hovering bartender has brought across.

‘That’ll be all,’ said Cap, staring icily up at the barman.

The barman nodded effusively, ‘Sure, sure thing,’ he said, scurrying off.

‘Must be you’re exciting all the locals,’ noticed Billy Bob, reaching for his glass. ‘They don’t get much traffic through here.’

‘You seen Wiley?’ asked Cap.

‘Wiley? Wiley Smiles? Damn me, Cap I ain’t seen him for years. He’s got a place north of here somewhere, maybe, forty-fifty miles. Last I seen him he got hisself wed and was danged well full of it. Got a kid on the way and was all into making a crib and playpen. You know how he was, always making something. Who’d have thought it, huh? Wiley Smiles getting all domesticated?’

Cap sipped his liquor and studied Billy Bob over the rim of his glass, ‘How about you?’

‘Me? Hell, I ain’t changed much, got me an Indian gal for the night hours and a two-bit homestead. Keep some chickens and hogs, you could say nowadays I generally lead a real exciting life.’

‘How about Lewinsky, Charms and Jelly Collstead, you know where they are?’

‘Say what is this about, Cap? I ain’t seen those boys since the war ended; we don’t have no jolly get-togethers if that’s what you mean. Hell if I know where they are now.’

‘You feel the cold or something, Billy Bob. You got an awful lot of garments on there.’

Billy Bob sniffed defensively, ‘I like my comforts, don’t get much of such like around here.’

‘You think you can get off your fat ass and find those other boys for me?’

Billy Bob frowned and threw back his drink in one take, ‘Cap, I ain’t seen you in a coon’s age. Best you tell me what’s on your mind.’

Cap flicked back his lapel to show his badge, ‘I’m the law now, Billy Bob. Been a US Marshal for nigh on eight years.’

Billy Bob downturned his lips showing some muted surprise, ‘That a fact.’

Cap leaned forward across the table, intensity in both his eyes and in his hushed voice, ‘But I got a plan, Billy Bob.’

Taking up the bottle, Billy Bob poured them both another drink, ‘So what does that have to do with me and the rest of the old platoon.’

‘I need men I can trust, men who ain’t afraid of nothing. You was all the best in the troop back during the war so I reckon I’d take first call with you fellas.’

Billy Bob chewed his lower lip and studied Cap, ‘Cap, I ain’t up to no night hawking and galloping about nowadays. You said it; I’m fat and I like it that way. Sounds like you need some younger bloods for whatever you got in mind.’

‘Billy Bob, you were the best noncom I ever had in the army. Smart and quick on the uptake, you corralled them others real fine using your humor instead of your fists and I’m guessing you ain’t lost it yet.’

Billy Bob tilted his head to one side suspiciously but even so was pleased with the compliment, ‘Right nice of you to say it, Cap. But all them days of raising hell is in the past now.’

‘I don’t intend to raise hell, Billy Bob, I just intend some simple downright thievery.’

Billy Bob chuckled a rusty laugh, ‘You don’t say and you an officer of the law and all. Come on, Cap, this ain’t like you.’

Cap nodded, his hat brim lowering over his eyes, his teeth gritted as he promised quietly, ‘It is now.’

Billy Bob looked at him curiously, ‘What happened, Cap?’

‘That don’t matter none. I got a peach of a job in mind. A sweet number with a pot of gold at the end, enough to keep us all in clover for the rest of our days.’

Billy Bob rubbed his fat jowls, ‘I don’t know, Cap,’ he said doubtfully.

‘You ain’t never seen the like of this but it’ll take some cunning and determination, that’s why I’m calling on you and the others.’

Billy Bob puffed air and settled back in his chair, ‘I don’t believe it, no, siree, I don’t. Captain Lester Briggs. Surely the straightest officer me and the others ever had in that danged conflict. Kept us safe through murder and mayhem right up until the end and now you’re turning turtle and heading for the darker side of things.’

Cap pushed back his chair with a scrape across the floor, ‘Nice to see you again, Billy Bob. Sorry to take up your time.’