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    Go Lightly Rider
    Go Lightly Rider
    Go Lightly Rider
    Ebook156 pages2 hours

    Go Lightly Rider

    By Tony Masero

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    About this ebook

    Texas 1870
    Eight years hard time leaves the world a whole new place when Cairns gets out.
    And it’s not just the world that’s changed; there are parts of Cairns that are missing as well. What happened to his estranged wife, Adele, for instance? It means a ride back into a life he would rather forget, one that resurrects all the bloody aspects of Cairns’ old past.
    There are some powerful people waiting at the end of the road that don’t like Cairns poking into their business. People with big plans that he’s starting to upset with all his questions.
    It is a dangerous undertaking that leads Cairns on a murderous trail prompting a recall to the gun he had hoped to leave behind. The unpleasant deal he uncovers leaves those he loves with no place to go and Cairns has only one recourse and that’s to make a stand.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTony Masero
    Release dateOct 3, 2013
    ISBN9781301990320
    Go Lightly Rider
    Author

    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.

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      Book preview

      Go Lightly Rider - Tony Masero

      GO LIGHTLY RIDER

      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 2013 © Tony Masero

      Chapter One

      Over the gateway to the inner courtyard of the penitentiary at Almas Perdidas, set into a cracked adobe arch, hangs a small brass bell. It is new and shiny and sparkles in the pale shaft of a dawn light. It is the only bright thing in this bleak place, and it is there because the last one was stolen. Stolen? From a prison! Well, its not surprising really, although the prison is set in the middle of a dusty nowhere it is still home to some of the vilest villains and worst thieves the State has managed to bring to justice.

      It is called the ‘Release Bell’ and it chimes whenever a prisoner is due to make an exit at the end of his sentence. An idea of the warden’s, a way of turning the knife a little and making the rest of the convict’s lives even a tad more arduous than they already are. There’s nothing like knowing that someone else is getting out when you have the rest of your sentence to serve.

      It rings.

      Cairns Golightly hears the fairytale tinkle and knows it is for him. A gentle ring like a communion bell that sounds somewhat out of place in the darkness of the dank cell he inhabits along with four other rough fellows.

      They are a day late.

      Cairns knows this, as today is the second of September 1870, the first day of the month being the only date he’s been concerned with for the past eight years that he’s suffered incarceration in Almas Perdidas.

      Cairns is a rugged man in his forty-fifth year; his shoulders having filled out by work in the prison quarry but his frame kept lean by the miserable diet on offer. His hair is graying now and cropped short to the prison regulation length, supposedly an attempt to stop the spread of lice amongst the prison population. In reality the shorn locks are sold to a mattress maker in Austin, the better to line the pockets of the prison staff. Strangely, the men are allowed to keep their facial hair and it has become the fashion to grow expansive mustaches and extravagant beards. Cairns’ beard is thick and curly although it is chopped short beneath his jaw.

      Square featured and stern, Cairns waits patiently for the guards. He has learnt a lot of patience over the eight years.

      His sentence was issued at Culver City and handed down by Judge Walter Adur for the crime of highway robbery. One of the Wells Fargo stages out of Dewitt Junction carrying a wage packet to the silver miners up in Callaway. Cairns had made a good run of it and it had taken the posse two weeks to track him down and even then he had taken flight by leaping his pony from a cliff top into the broad waters of the Colorado River. They’d saved him, pulled him out half drowned but his horse and all the ill-gotten gains had gone to the bottom.

      At least that’s what they thought.

      The two guards eventually appear beyond the straps of iron grillwork that front the cell. Big men, not particularly big on brain matter but full of muscle and meanness.

      ‘Golightly,’ one grunts, rattling the ring of keys as he works the lock. ‘Get up here.’

      His cell mates utter envious grunts of farewell, nothing special just a nod at the niceties. Golightly ignores them, they have meant little to him during his stay and still don’t. He rises from his bunk, the quarry dust silting from his stained prison outfit of striped wool shirt and pants. It has been over a month since they have been allowed to bathe and their filthy bodies and clothes fill the cell with a rank smell that the prisoners have long ago gotten past noticing.

      With a silent sigh of relief, Cairns hears the cell gate slam behind him and follows the guards down the long and gloomy corridor outside.

      The release clerk is waiting for him.

      A fastidious man, he holds a handkerchief to his nose as Cairns is ushered in.

      Small, with his pomaded hair center parted, he wears an immaculate light gray suit. A high celluloid wing collar and neat tie with a little jeweled stickpin holding it perfectly in place. He looks so impeccable that there is something almost waxwork about the tiny figure occupying the far side of the desk.

      He sniffs and wrinkles his nose at the stink wafting across from Cairns.

      ‘Prisoner 14599, Cairns Golightly,’ he says in a bored, yet distantly official voice. He is a man full of his own self-importance and blandly ignorant of any fellow feeling towards the prisoner standing before him. ‘Your sentence is served and you are now due for release.’

      ‘My sentence was up yesterday,’ Cairns complains in a low voice.

      ‘Apologies,’ the clerk says, with an off-hand dismissive wave. ‘My wife’s birthday, I couldn’t get away.’ He licks his lips and offers a little smile, ‘I can offer you a bill of credit if you like? A day in lieu of your next visit.’

      He laughs an amused chuckle and looks sparkly eyed at the guards standing alongside Cairns who both stare dumbly ahead, no hint of intelligence or interest showing in their stony features.

      ‘I won’t be back,’ Cairns promises.

      The clerk hums loudly in a display of disbelief and turns a hefty ledger in Cairns direction.

      ‘Sign it, or make your mark. We have to show you left here in one piece.’

      Cairns takes the pen and scribbles his name, ending the signature with the letters ‘F.U.’

      ‘F.U.’ says the clerk, studying the writing as he turns the ledger back. ‘What is that?’

      ‘It’s the Fellowship Union,’ explains Cairns. ‘A few of us prisoners got together and formed a religious discussion group.’

      ‘Oh, really,’ says the clerk, rounding his eyes in surprise. ‘Most commendable. I must bring it to the warden’s attention. He does like to hear of such things. It is nice to know our correctional facility is developing character amongst the inmates.’

      It does, of course, meant nothing of the kind. The ‘F’ signifies a basic carnal function and the ’U’ as an abbreviated acronym identifies the clerk. The significance goes way over the head of the clerk though.

      ‘We retain your prison garb; the authorities allow the return of your old possessions minus any weapons of course. Everything’s over there.’ With his nose tilted in distain, the clerk indicates an old carton, stained and dirty, the corners crumbling and falling apart.

      Cairns goes across and collects the box. Eight years have done their work and the moth eaten gear inside is coated in a layer of thick ocher dust and spider’s webs. But on the top lies a solitary yellowing envelope.

      ‘What’s this?’ asks Cairns.

      The clerk raises an eyebrow and a slight frown crosses his brow. ‘A telegraph communication. It arrived some time back, maybe a year since. I quite forgot about it. As you know, prisoners are not allowed contact with the outside world so the missive was kept here until your release.’ He turns his attention back to the ledger, writing notations alongside Cairn’s name. ‘It’s the influence, you see, Golightly. We cannot have the unsavory bringing their immoral ways any further into civilized society. They have already done enough harm, therefore inmates remain incommunicado during their stay with us.’

      He blots and then slams the ledger shut. He scribbles out a form and hands the release slip to Cairns.

      ‘Very well, Golightly. You are officially released and may leave now. Guards, see the prisoner out, will you?’

      The heavy wooden doors of the prison creak and come together with a thunderous thump behind him and Cairns is left looking back at the prison exterior. The same streaked gray outer walls that he last saw so many years before when he arrived and they don’t seemed to have changed throughout his stay in the slightest.

      He turns to look at the road leading away. A dusty track surrounded on all sides by an open and endlessly flat landscape of arid sand. Nothing braves the desolate view, no tree or shrub, no house or hill. Nothing, save the great stone block of the penitentiary.

      Cairns begins to walk. Thirteen miles of this desert faces him before there is any life. The nearest town, an outpost of a few shacks aptly named Desert View, circles the only spring of fresh water in a fifty-mile radius.

      The clothes feel strange on his back as if they belong to somebody else. He has lived so long in the thin wool shirt and pants of the prison garb that real clothes are a restriction. He has broadened out as well and his shoulders and muscled biceps stretch the faded shirt and frayed jacket. The pants though, hang low on his hips and he realizes that there isn’t a spare ounce of fat on him. No love handles to hold up his pants. He tightens the friable leather belt as much as he can and the tired leather snaps and falls apart. Cairns is left with only his hands to keep his pants up.

      Mice or some rodents have been at his boots, they are chewed at the toe and heel, the freed leather coming away at the soles. His hat is a scarecrow’s; it’s brim moth-holed and rotting.

      Nothing is left of his former self. All his possessions are gone, not a cent remains in his pocket and the guards have lifted anything of value he had once owned long ago. They have not even given him a canteen of water to make this arduous hike through the desert.

      It is oven-hot out here.

      A morning sun beats down, the roasting dust heating his feet and the blinding light reflected from the pale dust dazzling his eyes. Cairns throat and mouth are empty of moisture and he breathes the dry air tiredly, knowing only the road ahead as he stumbles on.

      Three hour later after trailing through the blistering heat, Cairns leaden feet trip and he falls. His outstretched hands buried in the baking sand as he tries to save himself, the grains so hot they burn his flesh. With hanging head, he lumbers to his feet and struggles on, one hand covered in his armpit against the heat and the other clutching his waistband to hold his pants up.

      In such a way, and more dead than alive he finally weaves his way into the township.

      It is dusk and a setting sun the color of a heated brand plunges slowly into the cooling well of a purple horizon.

      The streets are empty. A few lights coming on here and there at cabin windows and by their light Cairns sees the horse trough outside the town’s saloon. He staggers over and dives over the lip, already the taste of water on his swollen tongue.

      The trough is empty. Dry, the bottom covered only by a thin trail

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