Slashed Star
By Tony Masero
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About this ebook
Arizona 1880. It should have been a happy start, a ferocious range war finally settled by a marriage contract. There was certainly some love in the offing but it was only of a forbidden kind.
A callous murder and a madman with a machete sets off a chain of bloody death that Pedro Delrey must follow to its deadly end. He rides in pursuit of the killers with a heart full of bitterness and a mind set on exacting a particularly cold kind of vengeance. Gunmen and Pinkerton agents cross his path in a violent pursuit that will take Delrey towards a final and ghastly meeting with the face of death itself.
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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Slashed Star - Tony Masero
SLASHED STAR
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 2011 Tony Masero
Author’s Note
The story that follows is the compilation of a number of diverse sources, the mainstay of which is a volume discovered in France over thirty years ago. The provenance of the records kept in this diary is unknown. How it came to be in the foreign capital is also a mystery and although diligent attempts have been made to discover its origin and its journey overseas they have so far been without success. The author has taken the liberty to research the limited writings found in this notebook and amplify and expand them with additional text from recorded diaries kept in the offices of the Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Record and also files maintained in the manuscript collections of the Carnegie Centre in Phoenix, and the Kayho County Records Office. The author would like to give grateful thanks to the staff in these establishments for their most generous and unstinting help.
The text is presented in an approachable fashion for the modern reader and where the progression of particular events is unknown, educated guesses have necessarily been made to enable completion of the manuscript.
Chapter One
It was the grandest wedding held in the whole of Arizona Territory during the year of 1880, or it might even have been for the whole new decade if records are to be believed.
Eight hundred people were invited from across Kayho County and even more from over the border in Mexico. It was common knowledge that every one of the guests breathed a hearty sigh of relief over this prospective ceremony. At long last the two warring cattle barons were making a peace of sorts and the matter would finally be laid to rest. When the truce was sealed with this wedding pact then the Territory’s inhabitants believed that everything would get back to how it used to be in calmer days.
There had never been such a wedding procession seen in the State before. A long rolling chain of open topped prairie wagons reminiscent of the settling days many years before. Stripped of their canvas the bare metal ribs were garlanded with ribbons, flying flags and colorful bunches of wild ocotillo, alfalfa and yellow zinnia. Every wagon was bursting with festive folk, laughing and singing as they went. One high-sided flat bed, hosted twenty-five full kegs of imported German beer especially brought in from Santa Fe just for the festivities. A one-legged veteran played tap-man. Corp Tavistock, still dressed in his old grey Confederate uniform, kept himself busy hopping from one side to the other on his wooden leg as he dispensed full jugs along the length of the train.
An old Conestoga wagon bed sported an entire fiddle and banjo band that played continuously. Even the Reverend Gilmore’s little reed organ had been loaded up on the back and old Mrs. Leatherstone sat up there playing a lot more lively than she did during Sunday service.
They had wanted to set out earlier; this party from the Double-M, but everything has taken longer than expected.
The owner of the giant one million acre enterprise, Michael Moriarty had shown remarkable reticence given his normal irritable Irish temperament, the leeway he allowed was, in truth, one that he would suffer for this one day only. It was after all, his daughter, Eleanor’s wedding day and this put him in a forgiving mood.
He followed behind in the dust at the rear of the party, a tall, rangy, sinewy man on a chestnut pony, his pale blue eyes ever watchful and missing nothing.
The sun beat down hard on the trail back there but Moriarty was immune to the heat and dust, he has lived with it for forty-eight years and it made little impression on his leathery hide.
Four of his working riders accompanied him but not one amongst them spoke or offered any word of conviviality, their eyes were busy, alert to the surrounding countryside. These men knew it was only a wedding of convenience and although the young Eleanor, riding on a wagon bed up ahead, was alive with naive expectations they all knew there was no more to this bonding than the settling of a tiresome and costly feud that has gone on for over three years.
The two spreads, the Double-M and Alfonso Delrey’s Hard-T, together covered an area the size of a small country. Each needed an expensive army of working cowhands to maintain the two great ranches. The logistics were of enormous proportions. Some two thousand corralled wild mustangs alone, the wild creatures brought down from their haunts in the high pastures, needed breaking to the saddle in the Hard-T, all of them a necessity to constantly renew the pool of mounts.
The vast beef herds were spread across miles of open plain and they had to be counted, branded and cared for. Allotments of house vegetables, chickens and pigs for the ranch and bunkhouse requirements needed tending, and water and feed for the stock had to be dispensed.
Maintenance was a continuing manual task, from finding aquifers and digging artesian wells to excavating post-holes and repairing miles of wire fencing. In all it was a busy set of tasks that could well do without the distraction of range war.
But neither of these giant complexes had arisen from thin air, each owner had fought his own separate hard battle to build up his estate, fighting not only the local hostile tribes and vagabond rustlers but also the wildness of terrain and vagaries of weather. Those events had ingrained their harshness into both men and each had little time for more than the practical necessities of survival.
In her eighteenth year, Eleanor had no concept of being used as a pawn in all of this, nor would she have felt particularly demeaned by the almost mediaeval contract if she had fully understood its implications. It was the norm in this wild and developing country for the woman invariably to take second place and fulfill a subservient role laid out by men.
She stood, in the foremost wagon bed and expected no less as she clutched at the bobbing seatback in front where her friend and companion, Estrella Decastro, sat next to their driver. Eleanor loosened her bonnet and let the hot air take her golden curls, fanning them out behind her like a halo.
Oh, Estrella. Have you seen him? Do you know what he looks like? I saw him at church on Sunday; he’s back from Mexico now. Oh, I do declare, he is so handsome. Dark haired with the whitest teeth you’ve ever seen.
The Mexican girl curved a skeptical eyebrow as she half turned in the seat to face Eleanor. She smiled up at the eager girl. You think so? Sounds like he might bite into an apple with fortitude then, even if he has no other attributes,
she laughed, and then suddenly contrite as she saw her friends pout of dismay. No, no I am teasing you, Eleanor. I have yet to see this Don Pedro Delrey.
Well, you’ll see soon enough. Make your eyes pop, I swear.
I hope he is all you wish for, dear friend. Let it be a marriage made in heaven.
Thank you, Estrella. I do hope so. I do, I really do.
Put on your bonnet, Eleanor. You will burn that pale skin of yours and your handsome lover will not like to see your pretty face looking as red as a Mescalero Apache.
Tch! You fuss so, Estrella. Today, you will see, it is impossible for anything bad to happen.
Eleanor knew little of the world outside of her ranch house home. Her doting father had made sure she had benefitted from imported tutors for her education and all her clothing requirements were courtesy of a mail order catalogue.
Her mother, a tender creature worn out by the harsh environment and cruel lifestyle, had died when Eleanor was quite young but Michael Moriarty recognized early his girl’s need for female company and he had met that need with the young Estrella. Found running half wild in the foothills, the eight-year-old Estrella had proved to be the lone survivor of an ambushed Overland stage. The occupants stripped, cruelly tortured and slaughtered by a renegade Apache band. Where she had been going, or even where she had come from, no one knew. Traumatized, she remembered nothing of her origins, only her name. Estrella Decastro.
She was probably of an equal age to Eleanor and although as unlike as chalk and cheese the two had become firm friends over the years. Both pretty in their way, the one fair and pale, and the other dark haired and dusky. Although their natural differences were deeper and more marked than just skin color. Eleanor was fanciful in her thinking whilst Estrella’s early experiences had honed her wits to a harder and more pragmatic edge.
Lookee here!
Col Tavistock called from up high, where he balanced awkwardly astride two of his barrels. Its the Hard-T, they’re a-coming out to meet us.
Sure enough, the dust cloud ahead heralded the approach of a band of riders. Whooping and sombrero waving the group of vaqueros whirled into sight and surrounded the now stationary wagons. In their midst, bare-headed and dressed in his best traje de charro suit of tight fitting black covered with fine silver decoration, rode the twenty-eight year old Pedro Delrey. Around his middle he sported a maroon cummerbund sash with a bone-handled revolver in a cross-draw gun belt. He was mounted on a fine paint stallion and reared the wild-eyed creature in a whirling demonstration of flamboyant horsemanship.
Oh, my!
gasped Eleanor. Will you look at that?
"Aiee, muy hombre." agreed Estrella, her eyes squinting at the silhouetted figure that approached them out of the bright sunlight.
Senoras,
the tall figure said, half-bowing from his seat on the high walled, silver plate Mexican saddle. "Such a pleasure to see you, I am Pedro Delrey, son of Alfonso Delrey, patron of the Hard-T."
Eleanor curtsied daintily from the back of the flatbed. Why thank you, senor. I am Miss Eleanor Moriarty and this here is my friend Miss Estrella Decastro.
This was the first meeting of the engaged couple, their nuptials being arranged by the two major protagonists over a bottle of best Irish whisky without any consideration of the young people’s feelings in the matter. It was considered a matter of politics much too important to bring anything as flighty as emotions into.
Charming.
Pedro reached over and taking Eleanor’s small hand in his, bowed his head and kissed her fingers. Even as he did so, his eye slid over and he caught Estrella studying him. She felt a sudden blow as if she has been struck by a bolt of electricity as their eyes met. In the space of barely a second, a million unspoken messages flew instinctively between them. Estrella’s hand rose instinctively to cover her mouth as she bit back a surprised gasp of shock. But nothing could hide the flush that rushed up from the nape of her neck to bring a rosy bloom to her cheeks.
You see,
said Eleanor with a smile of pleasure as she noticed Estrella’s response. I told you. Isn’t he just the prettiest thing?
Pedro looked away, mildly embarrassed and then, recovering himself he said, Come ladies, that is more than enough flattery. I will go and greet the Senor Moriarty then you must follow me down to our hacienda.
Pedro rode along the long line of wagons, smiling and waving at the friendly greetings as he passed. Michael Moriarty quietly awaited his arrival. He sat unmoving and in the stoic silence to be expected of a powerful landowner. They eyed each other cautiously until Moriarty broke the silence.
Some beast you’ve got there between your legs. They tell me you’re something of a rider when you’re in the saddle.
Pedro shrugged, his success with the ladies was well known but this day he tactfully refused to be baited. A gift. A leaving present from friends in Mexico City.
He held his hand out across the gap between them. I am Pedro Delrey.
Moriarty hesitated for a moment then clasped Pedro’s outstretched hand. Been a long while since a Delrey and a Moriarty met each other without a gun in their hand,
he observed coolly.
Pedro said nothing but kept his calculating eyes fixed calmly on the other man. Neither gave the other an inch in this silent test of male dominance.
Moriarty shook his head, a slow smile playing on his lips Time will tell, I guess. Time will tell.
How do you mean, senor?
Maybe I’m just wondering what kind of a husband you’ll make my daughter, Don Pedro.
I will do my duty, senor Moriarty.
That's all a man can ask. Just make sure you keep to it, I wouldn’t like anything to go amiss with my girl. She’s a treasure to me, you’d best know that.
Have no fear, we....
They were interrupted as Moriarty’s head wrangler, Carter Allison, rode up. Allison was a fresh faced young man, not much more than a boy really, fair haired and eager to please. He carried an almost invisible growth of hair on his upper lip in an attempt at manhood but despite his