War Rider

by Tony Masero

  WAR 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 2011 Tony Masero

  Chapter One

  Ahlen Best sat in the grubby cantina with a bowl of refried beans, some kind of meat he could only guess at and a few stale nixtamal tortillas. All of it lying untouched on the table in front of him.

  He looked along the barrel of the Winchester leveled at him and sighed. The Johnny Reb soldier who held it appeared the worse for wear. Unshaven and sour looking, with a battered sweat-stained forage cap and the remainder of his grey uniform patched and frayed.

  “That’s a fine weapon,” Ahlen ventured calmly, taking in the golden gleam of the ‘Yellow Boy’. “New ain’t it? I heard about those lever action rifles.”

  “Shut up, blue belly,” snarled the Reb, exposing a brown row of decaying front teeth and cocking the weapon noisily.

  Ahlen opened his hands peaceably, “War’s over, friend. Take the weight off and set a while. No need for this.”

  “The hell with you!” snapped the Reb. Ahlen could see the man’s hand was trembling, a slight tremor, whether nervy from anger or anticipation Ahlen was not sure. “Maybe you say it’s over,” the Reb went on. “But it ain’t over for me and my buddies here.” He jerked his head to indicate the three others leaning idly against the rough-cut plank bar behind him.

  The trio were an ugly set. Long untrimmed beards down their fronts and wearing dusty run-down civilian clothes. Blanket rolls hung looped over their shoulders and pistols were stuck into the belts buckled over their jackets. They watched, cold-eyed, making no move for their weapons, trusting their partner could handle it all on his own.

  “You got money,” said the Reb. A statement not a question. “All you Yankees got some kind of severance pay. Hand over your poke.”

  “Sure,” said Ahlen, reaching for the brass buttons on his uniform. “I don’t want no trouble, just want to get on home now.”

  “Make sure nothing else comes out, boy. I’ll blow your head clean off you try anything.”

  “I know it,” said Ahlen, fumbling inside his tunic. “I got it here someplace.”

  The Mexican woman who ran the place had laid him out a knife and a large, two-pronged metal fork when she set the bowl of beans down. A spoon would have done the job better, Ahlen considered, but maybe she thought this squalid little place needed some class. It was a heavy old iron fork, meant as an adjunct for carving a roast and as Ahlen took the small leather purse out, his other hand reached surreptitiously for the wooden handle.

  The Reb’s eyes were distracted though, they lit up as Ahlen tossed the sack on the table top in front of him and it clinked invitingly. “That’s it,” Ahlen said. “That’s all I got.”

  The Reb sniggered, “We’ll see about that,” he said, starting forward.

  “Where’d you get that rifle?” Ahlen asked suddenly. “Dumb-ass rebel loser like you couldn’t afford to buy it, that’s for sure.”

  The soldier’s eyes snapped up at the tone and his lip curled back as he snarled, “From another stupid blue-belly just like you and he’s already gone on to where you’re going.”

  His free hand reached out for the sack as his other kept the rifle level. As the reaching fingers closed over the small sack, Ahlen moved. Snatching up the carving fork, he slammed the sharp twin prongs down, clean through the back of the Reb’s hand, pinning him to the wooden table.

  The man screamed in pain and Ahlen kicked back his chair making sure to keep the Reb between himself and his companions as he snatched away the Winchester. Tossing it end over in a spinning loop, he fired as soon as he felt the butt slap into his hand.

  One of the men at the bar swung his head away, spitting blood where the shell had ripped clean through one cheek and out the other side. The other two were grappling for their pistols when Ahlen levered another shell in the chamber and fired again. He hardly took a moment to notice the second renegade slam back against the bar and slide down leaving a long trail of blood, before he fired a third time. The last Reb cried out in alarm as the sleeve of his upper arm vanished in a spray of crimson.

  “Next one moves, I make it final,” said Ahlen through the gun smoke.

  The Reb before him was tugging at the buried fork in desperation and cursing loudly. Ahlen swung the rifle butt around and hit him hard in the jaw and the man tumbled down unconscious below the table, his hand still nailed to the wood.

  “Ruined my meal,” complained Ahlen, looking at the congealed cold mess in his bowl. “Dammit! I ain’t eaten in two days, you know that?” he asked the question of the remaining soldiers but neither of them was paying him any attention. One was sobbing, making gurgling noises into teeth filled fingers; the other was clutching his torn arm and raising his eyes heavenwards in agony.

  Working the fork free, Ahlen reclaimed his money purse and picking up his tote bag he made his way to the door.

  “I got a ways to go, boys, so I’ll take my leave of you now,” he said, turning at the low doorway. “Guess I’ll expropriate this fine Winchester rifle in lieu of the vittles and inconvenience. Now you all take care and give up this wayward behavior, we all got to live together in peace these days. Ain’t that right?”

  Chapter Two

  It was in the April of 1867 that Ahlen Best finally made it home.

  Almost two years to the day when Lee had surrendered to Grant at the Appomattox Court House and the long bloody Civil War had come to an end. An event that Ahlen Best gave little thought to now as he stood on the forward deck of the flatbed ferryboat, ‘Fontenelle’.

  He was done with all that.

  The last two years of the war and the subsequent months of wandering along the Mexican border country had seen him reduced to a leaner version of his earlier tall and broad shouldered self and he was looking forward to building up his resources again. He had worked the woods as a lumberjack before the war and been a strong and sturdy fellow. A giant of a man, standing a good six foot five and able to hew timber all day long, but now, even his dusty and well-worn Union uniform seemed to hang loose from his thinner frame.

  It felt good to be back, that much was obvious, from both his fond glances over the broad waters of the smooth lake and the slight smile of anticipation that played across his lips.

  Mistake Island and all it meant to him filled his mind. He knew the little island had been isolated by an error of measurement made during the mapping of the 45th parallel back in the treaty of 1812 and had become a contentious site until the treaty was ratified. Now it remained a far northern outpost for the newly rejoined United States as it stood alone on the Lake Cross borderline between Minnesota and Canada West.

  Ahlen remembered it with fond affection. The town where he had grown up. A pleasant island place, prosperous, thanks to its situation where the lake’s feeder, the Long Bend River narrowed and allowed cut logs to be floated downriver by the company’s catty-men and trapped in a mill boom between the island and the Canadian shoreline. There the massed timbers were corralled to be stripped and milled on the island's sawmills and transported south, back across the lake to the mainland.

  As he stood on the deck, Ahlen was surprised to note t
he absence of traffic on the fifty-seven mile wide expanse of lake. Usually, at this time of year, there were heavy cargo ships to-ing and fro-ing all day long with their stacked loads of cut lumber. Now only this fifty-ton stern wheeled packet was making the crossing, its twin funnels trailing lines of dark smoke into the pristine blue sky behind them. But he let the thought slide as he breathed the fresh, clean breeze blowing towards him from off the far shore where steeply rising and densely forested slopes were reflected in the smooth waters of the lake.

  “God’s own country,” breathed Ahlen, praising the view, primarily for himself but he said it out loud anyway.

  “Surely is,” agreed a voice from behind.

  He turned and saw a slender Negro man sitting there amongst the stacked crates of supplies. The fellow was dressed in a broad-brimmed; flat topped black hat and a thigh long frock coat with the blue pants of the infantry stuffed into a single knee-high boot. The other pants leg disappeared into the cup of a hand shaped wooden leg just below the knee. At his waist under a fashionable vest was a cross-draw, high holstered and well used .44 Colt, and leaning against his left thigh rested an equally well-used six stringed guitar.

  “Howdy,” said Ahlen. “On your way to the island?”

  “That I am,” said the man, stomping up beside Ahlen and offering his hand. “Name’s Keb Hawkins, late of the 1st Kansas.”

  “Ahlen Best.” Ahlen took the hand and they shook. A firm handshake, but he noticed the Negro’s palm was smooth as silk and it was clear the man had not seen time as a manual worker. No cotton picker had an uncalloused palm that soft. A gambler might, Ahlen considered. Either that, or a gunfighter.

  “See you were an army man too?” Hawkins offered, the question inherent.

  “Sure,” agreed Ahlen abruptly, unwilling to expand.

  Hawkins studied him ruefully for a moment. “Yeah, I know. Best forgotten now, huh?”

  “That’s the nub of it,” said Ahlen.

  They stared out across the water at the approaching landfall for a moment in silence, and then Ahlen asked, with a nod at the guitar. “You some kind of entertainment man?”

  Hawkins snuffled a laugh. “Guess you could call me that. I got me a job over there on the island.”

  “Well,” said Ahlen. “You’ll find it a nice enough place to be alright.”

  “That right. How long you been away?”

  “Been a while. Getting on for seven years now.”

  Hawkins blew a low whistle. “That’s a long time. Things might have changed some.”

  “Ah, I doubt it. Mistake is different, kind of place where time don’t amount to much. Tranquil, you know? And, boy, am I ready for some of that.”

  “I hear you,” said Hawkins, fingering a bluesy sounding riff on his guitar. “Coming home, huh? Ain’t nothing finer.” He almost sung the words in a soft mellow voice.

  “You got that right,” agreed Ahlen.

  A voice hollered down to them from the wheelhouse window. “You boys best stand aside now. We’ll be docking soon enough and the crew’ll be busy unloading down there.”

  They waved at the captain in reply and stepped back as crewmen came forward and began untying the crates in preparation for docking.

  “Well, I’ll be seeing you,” said Hawkins. “Guess I’ll be collecting up my possibles.”

  “Sure enough, we’ll see each other again I reckon, Mistake ain’t a place you can get lost in.”

  With that Ahlen turned away to watch their approach to the island. He carried little himself, no more than his gunnysack, which held a Navy Colt pistol, ammunition belt and a change of shirt. His brand new ‘Yellow Boy’ Winchester though, he kept out of a new found and fond habit, always close to hand.

  Chapter Three

  When Ahlen came ashore, right away he could see things had certainly changed in Mistake.

  No sooner had he stepped down from the gangplank than two seriously drunk layabouts staggered onto the dock in front of him. One, oblivious to who watched and to the women present amongst the disembarking passengers, unbuttoned and urinated freely over the edge into the water. His companion flopped cross-legged to the wooden boards and shouted blurred abuse in the foulest language to all and sundry.

  It offended Ahlen to see such behavior. Although he had left the army some of the old discipline still stuck to him and he walked up behind the urinator, his lip curled in distaste. “You know,” he said to the man’s back. “I reckon any inebriate who dangles his pecker in front of folk like that should take a long sobering drink in his own damned discharge.”

  So saying, he placed his boot in the fellow’s backside and gave a hearty shove. The unsuspecting drunk arched forward off-balance and with a soft cry of distress tumbled down into the stinking garbage strewn waters below.

  His partner clawed his way to his feet as he saw his companion disappear over the edge.

  “What the hell you doing?” he slurred, raising his fists in an unsteady pugilists stance. “Can’t do that to my buddy. I’m going to take you on, soldier boy!”

  He weaved forward, swinging wildly and Ahlen sidestepped the blow easily. He went to walk on by but the man continued after him determinedly and swung again, striking Ahlen a blow on the shoulder. Without altering his pace, Ahlen back-armed the man with a powerful backward swing and the man staggered awkwardly away. His tripping feet finally slipping on the wet edge of the dock and, cartwheeling his arms desperately, he followed his friend and took the plunge.

  Without a second glance, Ahlen walked on placidly into the main street of the town.

  Things were different here too he noticed.

  The once clean Main Street was crowded now, churned into mud and littered with reeking piles of horse and cattle droppings. Where homely shops had catered for regular household needs there now stood gaudily painted shop fronts proudly promising that every kind of earthly desire could be sated within.

  Standing cheek by jowl, saloons, casinos and pleasure houses burst with noisy and riotous custom that overflowed out into the street. Parades of flaunting whores strutted, displaying their wares brazenly on the boardwalks outside seedy walk-in cribs barely hidden down dingy alleyways. Even the lesser services were doing a good trade. Boot makers, attorneys, sign writers and barbershops. Tattoo parlors, Chinee laundries and bathhouses. Every available surface of these establishments sported a wind blown range of tattered handbills, advertising everything from snake oil to dentistry.

  Large amongst these bills was a garish poster that proclaimed Mister Deed Langstrom was up for re-election as county sheriff and one and all should support him in his office.

  Ahlen remembered Deed Langstrom, a small, gritty little fellow, once deputy to the old sheriff, Brad Collins, who had run the town under a firm yet flexible hand for many years before Ahlen had enlisted. He wondered what had become of the old lawman.

  Ahlen walked the center of the busy street, plugging through the mire and making his way to the far end of town. He dodged through the mill of jostling people, amidst the noisy row of tinkling piano music and raucously shouted singing issuing from the saloons.

  A fight fell off the sidewalk and into his path. Two saloon girls who screamed at each other and fought with long hat pins in the rutted mud whilst a crowd of men stood by and watched, laughing and urging the women on.

  - ‘What the hell has happened here?’ - he wondered as he made his way through the chaotic maelstrom.

  There was something else new at the edge of town. Large corrals, the fencing reaching away into the distance. Empty now but Argo estimated they were built to hold hundreds of head of livestock.

  Things changed for the better once he cleared the town outskirts. Here it was more as he remembered. Neat houses set back from the tree-lined road. Picket fences and well-maintained front yards, where flowers blossomed and porch swings hung silent in the shade.

  Ahlen stepped aside as he heard the sound of hoof beats behind him on the road, he was expecting the rider to pass on
by but the pony pulled to a stop.

  “Well, as I live and breath! Ain’t it Ahlen Best I see before me?”

  Ahlen turned to look up at the rider. A short, stumpy fellow with a grizzled chin and a star attached to his vest.

  “Deed Langstrom. Well, sir, I’ve been seeing your name pasted all over town.”

  Langstrom leant down and they shook. “Mighty good to see you, Ahlen. We were all proud of you. What you did an’ all. A regular hero. Man! Your folks will be mighty pleased to see you, that’s for sure. They been waxing lyrical about you getting that medal ever since news reached us.”

  Ahlen shrugged. “Nothing to get excited about, there were a lot of other fellows there did a sight more than me.”

  “Hell! Boy, don’t you go belittling yourself. Not many people can say they got the Medal of Honor from the hand of the President himself. They don’t give that out to every Tom, Dick and Harry, I’ll be bound.”

  Ahlen looked down at his boots, not wishing to discuss it more. It had been a wild thing, a crazy thing to do. He could recall now the Tennessee skyline on that day in 1864 as he rampaged on ahead of his platoon, his blood up and his senses lost. Then running right into the rebel general. The poor fellow was lost as it turned out, separated from his staff, and all he had with him as support was a lone standard bearer. Ahlen dropped the flagman with a single shot from his Springfield then covered the general with his pistol. A Confederate Brigadier General and a treasured Johnny Reb battle flag all in one day. His platoon could not believe it when they caught up and saw him leading his prisoner with the flag draped across his shoulder.

  They gave him a battlefield commission after that. Jumped from sergeant to second lieutenant with the Medal of Honor thrown in for good measure, all because of stupid luck and a crazy moment. Ahlen would rather forget it all.