Stringer and Brodie 4: A Sting in the Devil's Tail

By Tony Masero

In this the last of the Stringer and Brodie quartet, Governor Coke the new Texas governor is serious about balancing the books. Amidst the confusion Stringer and Brodie are unsure if they still have a job but there is an anomaly discovered in the government’s accounts. Cash is missing, a large amount of cash. With Stringer indisposed and a pretty nurse set on capturing his heart it is up to his partner to answer the call. A coded message sends Brodie undercover to join a gang of hooligans where an even darker force is waiting to unleash a day of reckoning.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tony Masero
• Release date: Sep 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215753873

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 4:

A Sting in the Devil’s Tail

Tony Masero

In this last of the Stringer and Brodie quartet, Governor Coke the new Texas governor is serious about balancing the books. Amidst the confusion Stringer and Brodie are unsure if they still have a job but there is an anomaly discovered in the government’s accounts. Cash is missing, a large amount of cash. With Stringer indisposed and whilst a pretty nurse is set on capturing the marshal’s heart it is up to his partner to answer the call. A coded message sends Brodie undercover to join a gang of hooligans where an even darker force is waiting to unleash a day of reckoning.

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

Smashwords Edition

Chapter One

It hadn’t worked out quite as well as they had hoped.

As Brodie looked down at the pale sweating face of Stringer he could not believe a man could fade so fast in only a few days.

‘What the hell happened?’ he asked plump Doc Willoughby, jerking his chin towards his wounded partner.

‘It mortified,’ explained the doctor bluntly.

‘How so?’ asked a puzzled Brodie. ‘The other day he was doing fine, looked like he was on the road to recovery.’

‘You can never tell with these things,’ mumbled Willoughby as he measured careful drips of chloroform onto a filter. ‘Some deep seated septicity flaring up and spreading fast.’

Brodie frowned looking down at his partner writhing on the sweat stained sheets, ‘So what now?’

Willoughby brushed back the hank of white hair hanging over his brow, ‘It has to come off.’

‘Hot damn!’ cursed Brodie in disbelief. ‘You’re going to take his arm off?’

‘And you’ll have to help me.’

‘Me! But I ain’t no sawbones.’

Willoughby rolled up his shirtsleeves, ‘You’re all I’ve got, Brodie. It has to be you.’

With precision and a very sharp blade it took only ten minutes for Doc Willoughby to separate Stringer’s left arm from his body.

Luckily the doctor had served in front line aid stations during the recent war where amputations were a regular speedy solution to the ghastly wounds inflicted by shell and the minié ball. A quick cut down to the bone high on Stringer’s arm near the shoulder and a surgical saw to clean the ends of smashed bone whilst Brodie, under the Doc’s direction, tied off the various veins with silk ligatures. Then a covering flap of flesh was sewn up and the chloroformed figure of a wan Stringer left to recuperate.

Tired out, Brodie assisted, he himself was still recovering after climbing down Perdition’s Rim with his barely conscious partner strapped to his back. Brodie had used ‘hoppus’, the deer hunter’s technique of carrying dead deer by fastening front and rear legs on each side of the body and so with gun belts and Stringer’s serape Brodie attempted the same before hoisting him on his back. In such a fashion with Stringer awkwardly carried behind him like a backpack he had scaled down the treacherous rock face. Fortunately, the horses left below had not wandered far and once Brodie reached the base of the rocky climb he recovered the beasts and mounted them both up before racing as fast as possible back to Canton Town.

By then Stringer was rambling feverishly and the doctor’s examination proved that shirt material had entered along with Buck O’Brien’s bullet and after two days on the mountain the doctor was fearful they were too late. Although Willoughby did his best, in the end he could not save the arm.

At first it had looked as if Stringer had been saved the loss. The wound across his chest and upper arm had been savage and Doc Willoughby had strapped him up but sadly, days later it proved not to be the case and the infected wound in his arm had not improved. Willoughby considered that the only possible option to save Stringer’s life was a complete removal of the arm before gangrene set in.

Once the exhausted Brodie saw that all had been done for the pale form of his companion, he left to go sleep solidly for the next forty-eight hours.

On awakening after his ordeal, a shaky Brodie washed the sleep from his eyes and set out to find himself a decent meal.

He found that the small town of Canton had returned to a calmer atmosphere now the vying gangs of Ribley’s and O’Brien’s were gone. Brodie strolled along the boardwalk between passing townsfolk, who still looked at him with an air of suspicion as if it had been he who had been responsible for all the recent mayhem. Brodie ignored them, he knew his task as lawman often called for this kind of resentment from the public, that was until trouble came knocking on their door and then they were only too pleased to see the Marshal’s badge on his shirt. Brodie concentrated on looking for somewhere open where he could get a wholesome and much needed breakfast when two men suddenly confronted him. Automatically Brodie’s hand moved towards the grip of his pistol.

‘No need for that, Mr. Middenhoff. It is Marshal Brodie Middenhoff, I trust?’

The man who spoke was a stern-faced individual dressed in a long frock coat and with a drooping dark mustache over his upper lip, unusually so considering the fair hair that topped his head under the flat-brimmed hat he wore. His companion was a shorter tubby gent neatly dressed in a suit and bowler hat with a bookish look about him.

‘Who are you?’ Brodie asked the mustache.

‘Name’s Levi Morrison, Special Agent and this is Jonas Moresby. We’d like a word if we may?’

‘What does the Pinkerton Agency want with me?’

Morrison allowed a slight smile, ‘Shall we discuss it over coffee?’

‘Sure, that’s the best offer I’ve had over the past few days.’

The restaurant was a few doors away down the sidewalk and Morrison led the way with the smaller Jonas Moresby hurrying to keep up. He was a chubby, red-faced man who appeared to find either the process of walking fast or the tension of the moment bringing on a sweat that beaded his brow.

They found themselves a table and when served with cups of coffee Morrison leaned forward and spoke in a low confidential voice.

‘We find ourselves in a tricky situation, Marshal. We’ve just come up from Austin and I don’t know if you’ve heard what’s been going in the Capitol right now?’

‘Ain’t had time, been plenty going on right here.’

Levi nodded, ‘I heard some of it. How’s your partner faring?’

‘Lost a wing but he’ll survive I guess.’

‘Too bad. Well, it’s also a real mess in Austin.’

‘A real mess,’ repeated Moresby, mopping his brow with a large colorful handkerchief.

‘Damndest thing the way it is, the outgoing Governor Davis won’t give way, says the recent election was rigged and his opponent, one Richard Cole along with all his supporters is set to break into the government building to take up his post.’

‘Armed men at his back too,’ breathed the fearful Moresby nervously.

‘Looks like Cole will get in as he’s popular, set to bring back the mastery of the white race here in Texas and that’s an encouragement to the pro-slavery brigade. It seems he intends to break up Reconstruction by any means possible and has the support to do it.’

Brodie sipped his coffee and tipped back the peak of his Confederate cap. He took the implication from Levi Morrison’s attitude that he had no particular political axe to grind and followed his own inclinations. ‘Sounds to me like politician’s playing their usual games.’

Levi nodded agreement, ‘Even so, we’re here on another matter altogether.’ He paused before looking Brodie squarely in the eye. ‘It’s about Jesse Delray.’

Brodie breathed a long sigh and set aside his coffee mug, ‘Somehow I guessed that one would make a show sometime soon.’

‘He’s been your go-between with the Governor’s office for a few years now, hasn’t he?’

‘He has that,’ Brodie agreed.

Levi eyed his closely, ‘Do I detect from your tone some differences between you two?’

Brodie scratched fingers through his bristly red beard, ‘Let’s just put it this way, I never felt comfortable around him for some reason. He always played it straight as far as I could tell but something about him bugged me. Couldn’t explain what exactly just a feeling I had. Why, what’s his problem?’

Levi shrugged, ‘No problem except that he’s gone.’

‘You mean – like left?’

‘That’s it, his desk was emptied, all his files and records disappeared. All I found in the corner of one drawer was this torn off piece of onionskin. It has some scribbled note but I can’t make head nor tail of it.’

Brodie unrolled the scrap and saw a bunch of letters that seemed to be a random example of the alphabet without meaning, ‘Make no sense to me,’ he shrugged.

‘Well that’s all we got.’

‘You must understand,’ Moresby interrupted eagerly. ‘We have been sent down here by President Grant himself to audit the state’s accounts.’

Brodie nodded, ‘I heard the audit was coming.’

‘The incoming governor is also agreeable to this, it seems he favors a reconsideration of financial matters after the recent administration. Well, a number of anomalies appeared immediately when I started work.’

‘Mr. Moresby’s the accountant,’ Levi interjected by way of introduction. ‘I’m just a minder.’

‘You mean cash gone missing?’

‘Yes indeed, a fair amount I would say.’

‘You’re telling me this has something to do with Jesse? Well, the last time I saw him he was heading off to make deposit in the government bank account with five thousand dollars in his hand.’

‘Indeed but I fear it never arrived there.’

‘So you’re saying Jesse’s run off with a bundle of money?’

‘It may be,’ said Levi cautiously. ‘We were kind of hoping that as you knew the fellow you might track him down and ask him.’

‘I see but with all this commotion going on in the Capitol I ain’t even sure Stringer and I still have a job. We always operated under a special commission from the Governor’s office but now you have a new governor, I don’t know where we stand.’

‘There is no problem there,’ said Moresby, a little pompously. ‘I have the authority given by the President himself to take on whatever assistance I may need. With that commission I can authorize you to act on this warrant and find Delray.’

Brodie turned to Levi, ‘Why can’t you take this on? You Pinkerton boys are fair at the manhunt game so I’m told.’

‘Sorry,’ apologized Levi. ‘My orders are to watch over Mr. Moresby here, it’s a little tense in the city just now and what he’s discovering ain’t going to make him any more popular.’

‘There’s more than the five thousand dollars gone missing then?’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Moresby. ‘A substantial amount, more like twenty thousand I believe and maybe even more I haven’t completed the audit yet but at least this is what I’ve discovered so far.’

Brodie studied them both then scratched through his beard, ‘Don’t suppose you guys would have some form of identification, would you? Just so I know you’re who you say you are.’

Levi smiled, delved in his shirt pocket and brought out a folded sheet, ‘Here you are, signed and sealed by the President himself.’

‘Fair enough,’ said Brodie studying the sheet and handing it back. ‘Now, if you boys don’t mind I figure on getting me a meal right now, been a while since I ate decent.’

‘What about Jesse Delray?’ pressed Moresby.

Levi pushed back his chair and climbed to his feet, leaning over to whisper in Moresby’s ear, ‘Don’t you worry, Mr. Moresby, I believe that the Marshal here is already on the case.’ Levi tipped his hat, ‘Enjoy your meal, Brodie.’

After he had eaten, a well satisfied Brodie strolled across to the doctor’s house to see how Stringer was faring.

He was propped up by pillows and his face almost as pale as the sheets he lay on but Brodie was surprised to see a pretty young woman perched on the edge of the bed with the hoop of a silvered bustle dress gathered about her. She was carefully shaving Stringer with a cutthroat razor and trimming his mustache and short beard with small scissors.

‘See you’re being taken care of,’ observed Brodie.

Stringer smiled thinly and answered barely above a whisper, ‘This here is Miss Delaware July and Doc Willoughby’s arranged for her to take up nursing duties seeing as you’ll be busy elsewhere.’

Delaware twisted her position on the edge of the bed and smiled at Brodie. She was in her late teens with the bluest of blue eyes and piled blond hair that bounced in ringlets; her neckline was lined with lace and a jet necklace tied with a ribbon was at her throat. She was a definite beauty and Brodie almost wished he were sick enough to warrant her attentions.

‘Mister Middenhoff,’ she lowered her head in coy greeting.

‘Miss Delaware be obliged if you call me Brodie.’

‘Sure thing,’ she giggled girlishly. ‘Say, I’m just finishing up here, I’ll leave you fellows alone but make sure you don’t tire him out – Brodie.’

‘Do my best,’ grinned Brodie, although his smile came out as something of a leer. Turning quickly to Stringer as Delaware swept from the room, her full skirts rustling through the doorway. ‘How did you do it?’ asked Brodie.

‘Do what?’

‘Get that good looking gal to look after you.’

Stringer rolled his head away on the pillow in disgust, ‘It’s usually you who’s first in line. You want to go courting with her then go check it out with Willoughby, that’s his niece.’

Brodie frowned thoughtfully for a moment, ‘What did you mean by what you said earlier - that ‘You’ll be busy elsewhere’?’

Stringer waved his one good