by Tony Masero
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Smoke Tallen started out with a rough deal in life.
He and his two orphaned buddies came from the wrong side of the tracks and soon begin a life of crime that follows the outlaw trail.
Ace is the wild one and Kennedy the brains but once Smoke finds himself a girl the cracks start to show and things begin to change for the worst.
It’s difficult making a break with the past and with some success other pains follow. A mysterious near-death shooting brings a confusing mess of murder and trouble with it and before long Smoke must turn again back to the old ways he has left behind.
In the rough and gritty days that follow, Smoke wreaks a merciless and bloody path of bitter vengeance to protect all he loves and has worked for.
HARD EDGED
Originally published under the title The Left Eye Gang
By Tony Masero
Copyright © 2015 by Tony Masero
Cover Copyright © 2015 by Tony Masero
First Kindle Edition: December 2015
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.
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This is a Piccadilly Publishing Book
Text © Piccadilly Publishing
Published by Arrangement with the Author.
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter One
‘You got three seconds left to breathe. Enjoy them! One…. Two….’
‘And did you?’
‘Sure, I did. You don’t mess with something like that. I put that suckers eyeball out through the back of his skull, sure as winking.’
I looked over Left-Eye’s shoulder at the prison wall behind him. He’d marked off every day of every week of every year there. It was like a great masterpiece scratched into the grimy adobe plaster blackened by eons of damp and dirt. The mural started up in the top left hand corner where it was all grey and old and ended up white and pristine over the head of his bunk. He’d scribed that with his thumbnail thirty years before back in 1840 and progressed through the years with a sharp stick from the yard, a spoon handle and eventually the little clandestine pocketknife with which he had fashioned a model six-gun out of some winter kindling. The guards never knew about that last one and I often pondered as to whether Left-Eye had intended to use it for some sort of escape plan. Well, he never did, as he was still sitting there opposite me, and the dummy gun was kept hidden away in a place that even I didn’t know about.
I’d lain across the cell from him for the past three years and viewed that wall. Some places the weeks didn’t add up but I guessed that was where Left-Eye had forgotten a day or two in a moment of depression and lost his place. There was always Sunday church service though to put him back on track.
Thirty years he had done inside here. Thirty years of bust-‘em-up, break-you-down, kiss-your-life-goodbye hard times. Man, I don’t know how he did it.
He was old now. Worn down and beaten in body but the gleam in his eye still told you he was alive in that bowed frame. The brain crackled with energy under the hairy lowered brows, deep wrinkles and skin the dry color of parchment.
And he taught me everything I know.
Left-Eye Buchinski, hell of a guy. I never did find out his first name, everybody knew him as Left-Eye; even the prison guards called him that. He got the name through the fact that he always popped his victims through the Left-Eye; it was kind of a gunslingers trademark you might say.
‘See,’ he would tell me. ‘You have to mean what you say. Folks don’t respect you unless you keep the faith. What else have you except your word, a man don’t amount to nothing without his given word.’
Wished I’d remembered that sometimes since.
How it all started with Left-Eye I can’t recall too well now. They’d put me in the same cell as him when I was a newbie busted for some stupid misdemeanor. Ace and I borrowed a horse. Well, I say borrowed, you have to understand I use the term loosely here. A couple of seventeen-year-old kids. It was kind of stupid really, trouble was the danged thing belonged to a judge’s daughter and that really upset the old fellow, so he made sure we did real time for the offence.
What the old fart didn’t know was that me and Ace had taken nigh on a hundred and twenty ponies before that one. Nobody knew that except me and Ace and he wasn’t about to say anything.
They had Ace holed up in there as well but he was being held elsewhere in another cell. We had been good buddies since the orphanage and had made out way by petty pilfering and worked up to the ponies which we sold on to a Mexican down in Rio Barolo. It was lucrative for a while, until we nabbed the judge’s prized four-year old, that was.
Still, back to Left-Eye.
He kind of took a liking to me and we got on along just fine. It was a mean old place, the Denby State Pen. A shitty dank hole, with damp walls and little light. Just one slit window up high on the wall that allowed a sliver of sunlight in. It was an old prison and had at one time been a Mexican jail when they owned the country, before that they said the place had been built by the Conquistadors as protection against the Indians but I couldn’t vouch for that.
Anyway, like I say, he taught me the way of things.
He was a clever old son-of-a-gun, Left-Eye; he had me playing this kid’s game. You know the one where you throw up a stone and catch it on the back of your hand, but before you do you have to snatch up another from those left on the table. We did that for hours, me progressing with the number I picked up the faster I got. He said it was all about speed, dexterity and hand and eye co-ordination.
Then he would blindfold me and have me identifying every piece of that fake gun he had made. So I would know the piece and work it in total darkness. Not like the real thing I know but when I got out and got me a genuine gun it was a miracle how it fit in my hand and I could empty, clean and load the thing real fast with my eyes shut. Stood me in good stead in a few scrapes I can tell you.
How he knew so much about modern weapons I don’t know, as when he was cock-of-the-walk they was still using powder and ball and a cartridge hadn’t been invented yet. But know he did and he said the principles were still the same when you faced a man down, whether it was an old-fashioned flash-in-the-pan flintlock or a brand new Colt S.A. Army .44.
I was real sad when we parted but he had done his time and they let him out.
Somehow he had managed to get himself a new suit and hat and he looked real dapper as he changed out of his prison outfit and dressed up in his going out clothes. It was weird though, like looking at a whole different person. I ain’t sure I’d have recognized him if I’d seen him on the road outside after knowing him so long in prison stripes. The suit was a tad large on his skinny frame but you could tell that in his day he had walked tall and been a man to be reckoned with. There was still that calm presence about him despite the humility thirty years inside had impressed on him.
He rasped a cough, as the damp of that place had ruined his chest over the years, and then he shook my hand with both of his in a close paternal way when the guard came to the door of the cell to get him. He was like tha
t to me, kind of the pa I never knew. I almost wept I remember.
‘Never hesitate,’ were his last words. ‘Put it where it counts and be the first to do it. You’ll go far, Smoke. I know you will.’
Then he ran a finger around the brim of his hat in a fashion he must have done years before. Gave me a little smile, maybe a little sadness there too, took a deep breath and stepped outside.
Once he left the prison gate he never made it past the steps so they told me.
Must have been a Sharps rifle fired from some distance out.
An old enemy’s revenge or payback by the son or even grandson of one of his earlier victims I suppose.
Whoever it was, they were a sure shot and from nigh on eight hundred yards they placed the slug neat as a button into his left eye. Took most of his head with it when it went, so leastways, Left-Eye never knew a thing about it.
He died with the breath of freedom on his lips and his faith set on an uncertain future.
Hope I can say the same when my time comes.
Chapter Two
We raised some hell when we got out, that I can tell you.
Me, Ace and Kennedy. We’d all been together in the orphanage and come out the other end as friends.
Ace was the wild one, crazy as a raccoon with a bug up its ass. Kennedy was the quiet one; he was more into learning and such. Taught himself to read and write in the orphanage, which was no mean feat. And me, Smoke Tallen, well I’ll be so bold as to say I was a natural born leader. That ain’t any bragging on my part, it just fell out that way. The other two looked to me for direction and that’s how it panned out when we took to the outlaw trail.
The first place we hit was a country Investment and Loan bank. Not a place you’d spit on as you passed by in a regular fashion, just a sit-up-and-beg counter, a dumb-boy clerk and his greasy boss. But we cleaned them out without so much as a murmur. It was easy. We couldn’t believe how easy and we came out with a sack full of cash. I don’t think it was much, maybe five hundred and fifty dollars all told. But it was the kick of getting away with it, hell that was a rush alright. A real charge.
We blew that green in two days in Tucson. Ate what we wanted, drank all we could and sashayed with some fine looking gals until the cash ran out.
Then we looked around for the next number.
Man, it’s some years back now but I believe the next hit was an Overland stage. Nine hundred dollars of fresh mint on that one.
I first saw Annie May on a later job, I can’t remember which now. She never knew it was me of course, me having the bandana pulled up over my face. But I swear, she was the prettiest thing I ever saw. Young, maybe seventeen, eighteen-years-old at the time. Nervous as hell, of course, what with us rough road agents coming on strong all around.
I can see her face still, regular oval shaped with clear skin, blond hair piled under her bonnet and eyes that held me trapped as fast as that old prison cell in Denby. Lord, I was lost. The other guys couldn’t figure me out. Why was I fumbling around and struck so dumb? They never saw it of course, to them she was just another passenger on the coach but for me, lightning had struck. I was going to have me that girl.
There was a coolness to her nature, despite the obvious fear evident amongst all the passengers and stagecoach hands. It struck me right off that here was a creature with character. Naturally, I declined her purse when she offered it. I just looked at her like a pole-axed steer. It was Ace that stepped in and with a disparaging look at me snatched the purse from the girl’s hands.
I took it back from him and with a gentle nod in Annie May’s direction gave it to her.
‘Believe this is yours, ma’am.’
Yeah, I know, but I used to come out with dumb shit like that then. As if I was some sort of cavalier of the road, a highwayman with class. What a joke!
She smiled, just the hint of a lifted corner of her mouth. God! I loved that woman right off, I swear I did.
Well, we been married ten year now, so I guess I did.
~*~
We partied a lot back then. Ace was hell on wheels when he was into the liquor. He killed a man in San Antone one time. Fellow upset his drink and Ace lost it he was so drunk and he just pulled out his piece and blew that fellow away. It was in a crowded bar and the dead man had friends in there, a whole parcel of them so us other two had to step in and support our partner.
Lead flew everywhere. When my gun was out I emptied and reloaded without looking, (thanks again Left-Eye) keeping my attention on those with ambition enough to try and nail me. That’s when I saw the way out and shot up the chandelier in there. Took me three slugs to hit the chain holding her up but that brought the great glass monster down and started a fire as the oil lamps went off in a blaze. Everybody lit out then as that blazing lamp oil exploded and flew in every direction all over the place. There was fellows running with their tails on fire and barmen throwing barrels of beer on the flames trying to put her out. It was a dandy piece of mayhem alright. But it got us clear and we laughed ourselves hoarse as we rode away.
We was invincible or at least thought we was.
After that we started getting attention. The Left-Eye Gang we was called, I named it such out of respect for my old mentor. That got us into the newspapers and before long we was the scourge of the West, striking at payrolls, banks and any damned thing that had money as a name tag.
We prospered and it seemed the law couldn’t touch us. Others came along and joined our band all wanting to be a part of the success the Left-Eye Gang enjoyed. We had twenty riders with us and our greatest moment was when we took on a town with three banks and hit all of them on the same day.
That was in Paloma Springs alongside the copper mines they had there. A lot of cash was flowing through the town what with new business and the mining companies. So Kennedy and I figured out a plan and we went in there and took out the sheriff’s office first, hung him and his deputies out to dry, we had them placed buck-naked in their own cells.
Then, as planned, we split into three groups and hit each bank separately at the same time. Ace took the Western Central, Kennedy the Copper and Coal Union and I had the Mainstream Loan. Ace as usual blew his top and slew some bodies in the Western Central, about this time he was getting real temperamental and I feared some for his sanity. Ace would just lose his grip and become some kind of demented animal, I feared he was killing out of a personal pleasure and taking full delight in seeing blood flow. It upset me a deal to see him going this way and although we were still tight there was an unnerving atmosphere arising within the gang.
Ace was developing his own faction. A group of men who were as wild as he and would spend all their takings on some crazy bullshit. They would pay people to do degrading things, like getting whores to strip to their bare chests then ride them like racehorses piggyback style. Catch up some old drunks and pay them good money to drink their own urine. It was kind of sick to my way of thinking and something I wanted no part of.
We lost some men there at Paloma Springs. A party of townspeople backed by some of the miners made a stand and came out onto Main Street in an armed posse and ready to put us down. We lost five men in all. Three from Kennedy’s crew and two from Ace’s.
That really pissed Ace off.
I’d never seen him go so crazy but I just left him fuming in my dust and rode away with my own team with all our saddlebags packed tight with golden eagles. We had come and done what we planned to do and I could see no joy in making more of it. You take your chances and risk the result. Only later did I hear how he went back the next day early, him and his remaining crew. They set that town alight, starting fires in the outer houses and then breaking open the mine store and stealing sticks of dynamite. I never saw it but it must have been hell, those bodies riding through the burning town hurling blasters in all directions and shooting at whatever moved.
Ace killed the sheriff and his men, had them drawn up outside the jailhouse and shot each one in the back of the head execution sty
le. There was some other killings and rape as well, so I heard. They near razed that town to the ground.
So we didn’t come out of that one too well.
Got called all sorts of heinous names by the news press, even raised complaints as far north as Washington, so I believe.
Not my finest hour, I confess and it left me with a desire to back away.
It tied in quite well as it happened. Just then Annie May told me we were to have a child.
~*~
I should perhaps explain how it was with Annie May.
At first we were all just youngsters enjoying a good time. She knew or at least must have guessed that we were getting our cash not by strictly legal means but we were having such a fine time and back then it was all a good natured scene. We joked a lot, sung and enjoyed each other’s company. I took Annie May to dances and courted her as if I were a regular cowpoke.
She was alone like me, her folks having passed some years earlier and she lived with a maiden aunt who naturally didn’t care for me at all. But that rebellious streak that lived in Annie May allowed her to sneak off and see me sometimes and she came whatever her exasperated aunt would say.
I wasn’t too well versed in proper courting, mostly having found my way in the hands of saloon night-time gals up until then so I approached Annie May like some hayseed general-store clerk. I brung her flowers and candy and just kept on at her until I broke down her reserve and she finally came out walking with me regular.
Then she met the others and we all hit it off. It was a good time. A fun time. There was a lot of laughter and we would all go riding and picnicking and she never knew what we got up to after I took her home.
It came out in the end, of course. But I sugared the pill and made it all seem as if it wasn’t as bad as it was. I played the card of happy roustabout just up for some fun and games and making a little on the side if I could. Whether she guessed the reality I couldn’t say. Maybe she just loved me and through those eyes the world is rosy.
