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    Gilded Rage
    Gilded Rage
    Gilded Rage
    Ebook182 pages4 hours

    Gilded Rage

    By Tony Masero

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    About this ebook

    To all appearances when the stranger breezes into Tombstone he is a peaceable kind of guy not looking for any trouble and yet this is a tough silver town on the edge of a war. The friction between the Earp’s and the Clanton and McLaury gang is heating up. But the enigmatic stranger is on another kind of mission. One that takes him into the underworld environment of a different culture far removed from the dusty streets of Tombstone, one that is outside the general knowledge of most folks in town.
    The old timer who guides him on this journey is a cynical cuss but one who knows the terrain and the hard cases that populate it. For both of them it is a trip into the unknown and will take them on a dangerous journey across country in search of a stunningly beautiful and reactionary young woman who may hold the key to something far deeper than first appears.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTony Masero
    Release dateJan 28, 2015
    ISBN9781311131256
    Gilded Rage
    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

      Gilded Rage - Tony Masero

      GILDED RAGE

      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 2015 © Tony Masero

      Chapter One

      The place was jumping as usual.

      Five drunken dummies from the diggings were loosing off their .45’s into the ceiling with cuckoo clock regularity and Benny Leteef was walking around the perimeter with that cougar cub of his that he keeps on a jeweled lead like a dog. That damnable critter was as like to take a bite out of your leg if it felt a mite peckish and everybody ducked to one side when Benny patrolled.

      Up in the crib boxes along each wall the whores were busy plying their trade and you’d see them red velvet curtain fly backwards and forwards with regularity when a customer required some privacy to be about his business.

      Old Russian Bill who had his box up there reserved for him every night for nigh on two years at a cost of twenty-five dollars a night was playing at being the Russian noblemen he was supposed to be and drinking champagne from some hussy’s slipper. Funny looking guy, pretty portly with a big, heavy beard and mustache that curled up and crimped at the ends and he was always nicely dressed in a waistcoat and tail jacket. Could never say if he was bald headed or not as he always wore this fine beaver-skin top hat, like he was royalty or something. Well, I guess maybe he was, him being some kind of Ruskie lord or other.

      Down in the basement, Doc Holliday was playing faro with Bat Masterson, Lou Featherweight and a few others. That game had been going on forever and was likely to continue in that way for as long as it took. That game was for serious folk with a thousand dollar buy-in so you had to be at the top of the hill to get a seat.

      Upstairs, Doc’s buddy Wyatt was busily engaged with his amour, Sadie Marcus on a narrow double bed in their private room and the headboard was banging against the wall in a tempo like he was digging for gold. And knowing Sadie’s past predilections in that line of work, he probably was.

      Between him and the rest of the nuptial trade going on, I can tell you more seed was spilt in that place in a single night than in the whole state of Arizona.

      Where are we?

      Why the one and only Gilded Cage Theatre, that’s where, Tombstone’s most famous entertainment and relaxation center in this God-given year of 1881. This is where it really happens, you want some of that tinkly piano music and scraping violins or some old crow screeching fit to bust then you go up along to the Schiefflin Hall on Fourth and Freemont, that’s where all them classy folk end up. But if you want some twenty-four hour, red hot, ball breaking fun and fuss then you go down to Allen Street and The Gilded Cage, because that is where it is at.

      The night that Chip Connester wandered in for the first time he was just in time to see that charlatan, Doctor Lester Burnside catching bullets in his teeth. The Doc was up on the stage, taking up this pose like they do, one leg before the other, hand propped on his waist and his head held back boldly as his assistant fired off the slugs that the Doc said he was catching in his dentures. Well, the assistant would let one off from his pistol and the Doc would spit out the lead onto his hand and hold it up for all to see.

      Man, they were laughing fit to break a blood vessel in the hall. Shoot! Everybody could hear it from the sound alone that the fellow was firing off blanks and this performer had a mouthful of lead he’d slipped inside to spit out when the gun went off. The Doc didn’t seem to notice the humor he was causing until one bright spark; I think it was one of them drunks, offered to fire him up from the audience. The drunk was standing, barely balanced, on his bench seat in the auditorium and weaving about, staring blurry eyed up at the Doc and leveling his big old Colt in the general direction of the stage.

      ‘Hold still, damn you!’ cried the drunk. ‘Will you stop moving about, Doc, I aim to put one smack in your pie hole but you keep moving and I might miss and put it in your brainpan by mistake.’

      Well, I never seen two bodies leave a vaudeville stage in such a hurry before. They was gone before they could even drop the curtain.

      The drunk fired anyway, he whooped and hollered and fell off his perch, although he didn’t hit nothing of interest on his way down save the top arch of the proscenium.

      But I digress, it’s Chip I was bringing to mind.

      Young fella then, probably a war baby, maybe twenty, twenty-one years old, I ain’t too sure which. A fair looking country kind of boy with long hair like a girl’s, he was tall and broad shouldered and clean shaven which was an unusual sight back then and gave him an even more boyish look than his years allowed. Innocent and vacant looking as if he still had barn straw stuck in that long hair. A plain but neat dresser, store bought jacket and pants under a long duster coat, nothing about him you’d take note of except that he had a build that looked as if he could handle a blunt plough all day or dig a deep well with a wooden shovel.

      A strong laboring kind of looking fella, you get my meaning?

      Well, them chippies was all over him like a diaper rash soon as he fronted the bar and called for a beer. Maybe it was Marble Annie made the first move, I ain’t positive but she was always a baby snatcher so it probably was. I know Big Beaver Bess was involved but was soon sidelined and maybe that mulatto, the one they call Sugar Cane was in there too. Anyway those two were soon shunted aside and it was Marble Annie, who found pride of place. She got her name from her pale skin; mind you she never saw much of the daylight so I guess she had that to blame. White as snow she was but big-legged with it, lot of meat shaking on those bones and she wore pink tights under her skirts that she held hiked up over her waist just so every potential client could see the pleasures in store. Even as Chip took his schooner in one hand, Marble Annie was at his elbow. She didn’t say nothing, just grinned meaningfully and flicked her eyebrows up and down a few times.

      Poor Chip looked bemused, he didn’t know what to make of it, him being an innocent and all.

      Then, Hot Pepper took a hand. A Mex girl, all dark fire with curly black hair down to her waist and earrings, rings and bracelets and glittery stuff like them Latin gal’s go for. She wheedles her way into Chip’s other elbow, whispering enticing promises that actually made the kid blush up to his earlobes. That said it all to them whores, this sucker was a virgin and that information was like honey to a bee. They both wanted to teach this innocent kid the facts of life.

      Don’t ask me why. I been around a long time and I still ain’t figured out the female mind or what motivates them. All I can tell you is that these two soiled doves was getting all het up over who was going to have first go at the new boy. I don’t think it was about the money no more; it seemed to be more a matter of honor or pride. Maybe it was some kind of maternal instinct, who can figure it? I sure can’t.

      So, Marble Annie lets off, giving Hot Pepper some grief of the verbal sort and before you know it they’re at it. Nails is raking, hair is pulled and both ladies is spitting venom and getting down to it right then and there. They is screaming and cursing and although Annie is a big girl and statuesque with it, Pepper is small and fast.

      The rest of the guys at the bar back away and start off with urging them on and taking side bets as to which of them sporting ladies will take the day.

      Then Chip does a strange thing. He sets down his beer and steps right in and separates the two just as Annie has pulled out a long steel hatpin from her feathered bonnet and Pepper slipped a dagger from her garter.

      ‘Hold on, ladies!’ he calls loudly. ‘You should know one thing before you continue.’

      Both them womens stay their hand and look at him, wondering what’s coming next.

      ‘You should know,’ Chip holds forth. ‘I am under a vow of chastity.’

      ‘You what?’ asks Annie.

      ‘Indeed, it is so,’ promises Chip in a solemn voice whilst he’s raising both hands preacher-like. ‘It is a promise made to my dear mother. A beloved lady who is so close and near to death, even now her life hangs in the balance as I speak,’ moans Chip in this mournful voice. ‘On her sick bed she has made me take this dreadful oath. I swear I have never seen two finer looking beauties as you two sweethearts and I would be sore put to choose one above the other but I am tied under a higher calling. My Ma is a dear and tender lady, frail and wan in her sickness and her desperate wish is my command, I love her so and would not offend her cherished request. So, I have sworn to stay chaste in hope she recovers and if the good Lord desires it so, then that will not be long now. One way or the other, if death calls, and He in his wisdom so wishes it then we must all obey His command, but if it is otherwise then my penance shall not have been in vain. So, I beg of you to desist, ladies. As it will do you no good.’

      Well, you know how these rough Frontier folks are about their Ma’s. Half of the audience was already weeping and the rest of them looking sad-faced with thought of their own precious mothers. These are a bunch of gritty bastards who would eat rat snake and drown puppy dogs without a second thought but you mention their Ma and the belly drops out of them. Weird, huh?

      Anyway, that pulled the stopper on it and next thing you know Chip is buying them two gals drinks and peace, if you can call it that, has returned to The Gilded Cage.

      But Chip catches my eye just then.

      He looks at me and I look at him and I swear he gives me this little wink over Annie’s shoulder. I see then what we have here, it looks to me that Chip Connester is not as dumb as he looks and has all the motions and patter to make it happen without redress to firearms. I liked that right off.

      ‘Hey, old timer,’ he says to me, once the furor has died down. ‘Buy you one?’

      ‘You may,’ says I, not liking the ‘old timer’ bit too much.

      ‘Name’s Chip Connester,’ he says, holding out his hand. We shake and I tell him my proper name but the bastard insists on the ‘old timer’ bit anyway.

      ‘Nicely handled there,’ I say, with a nod at the two whores who have already turned their attention to a couple of travelling hosiery salesmen. ‘Prime bullshit but well done.’

      He shrugs them big shoulders of his, ‘A whole whore is better than a piece of one.’

      I salute him with my fresh glass.

      ‘Maybe you can help me some,’ he says.

      ‘Maybe,’ says I. ‘What you after?’

      ‘I’m looking for someone.’

      ‘That a fact? Well, Tombstone is a silver town and has a whole parcel of folk just now, might be a hard thing to do.’

      He eyes me a moment, ‘I think maybe you keep your ear to the ground, you look like the kind of fella who knows what goes around in this town.’

      I wait expectantly, not agreeing or disagreeing but I have to allow he’s not far off the mark. Man has to make a living and the best way for me to do that is to know who’s who and what’s what.

      ‘A girl,’ he says by way of description.

      ‘Oh, my!’ says I. ‘That sure do cover a world of possibilities.’

      ‘She come here on the promise of some refined needlework but it seems like she’s disappeared since that time. No word has reached her folks back home and nobody seems to know where she is.’

      ‘Needlework!’ says I, also knowing what that can mean. It goes along with shop work, housekeeper, laundry maid, cook and all the other promises made to young female hopefuls far away. ‘That might not be where she is right now.’

      ‘I know it,’ he nods agreement. ‘But I need someone to take me to where it might be. You understand what I’m saying?’

      ‘Like a guide?’

      ‘Like a guide,’ he agrees. ‘There would be a charge involved for such labor, I take it?’

      ‘I reckon so.’

      ‘Don’t worry, I will match it.’

      ‘Who are you, buster?’ I say, suddenly unsure of this man. ‘You seem like a hick hillbilly but I detect that maybe there’s a little more involved.’

      He spreads innocent palms, ‘I

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