Hard Rain Must Fall

By Tony Masero

Rain. It never stops.
It just keeps coming, until it seems the whole of Yoma County will flood. One man rides out of that downpour. A man carrying a Colt on his hip and a mission in his heart. He is to find no warm welcome awaiting him at his destination.
Steven Arc is a backs wood boy who grew up hard in the woods of Wisconsin with no more abilities than a quick wit and a sure-shot’s eye. It isn’t until he joins the 7th Wisconsin Iron Brigade that he finds a true home. But then, as luck would have it, this is 1860 and the country is preparing for Civil War.
Captured and imprisoned in the stinking prison pit called Andersonville, where savage gangs fight piteously over a crust of bread. It is only there that Arc finds out who his real friends are. But when that hell ends, that’s when Arc’s war really begins.
A ride down to a damp little town in New Mexico finds dark shades from the past lying in wait. Before the rain stops a river of blood will flow in the flooded gutters as old friends and enemies fight it out over a secret payload.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tony Masero
• Release date: Jul 26, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301751983

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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HARD RAIN MUST FALL

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 personalities 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

Steven Arc entered the world one sultry day in the August of 1838, he was born into a poor frontier family who owned no more than a shotgun smallholding cleared from the deep forests of Wisconsin.

Two younger siblings followed him in quick succession, a sister and brother. Both died young however, the boy of pneumonia and the little girl by drowning in one of the shallow lakes that lay at the foot of the property.

Arc’s family origins, other than the French name, were unknown past his grandfather, the late Louis Francoise d’Arc who had originally trapped his way down from the Canadian border after being one of the band under the trader Dominique Duchame who had first settled Fox Valley in the northern part of Wisconsin. Grandpere Louis d’Arc being in his lonesome heart no more than a frustrated mountain man and tiring of the company he experienced under Duchame’s direction made his way southwest. He found the wildness and serenity of the western uplands more to his liking and settled there in what was later to become Buffalo County, staking out the limits of his property long before the civilizing influence of any New England Yankees arrived.

Arc grew up to be a small, proud boy with a round open face which gave him a childish appearance even in later life, a look that was to be the source of much conflict once he came to an age where he was able to take offence at jibes about his stature and baby faced looks. He learnt then to hold his own in a fistfight and proved a capable scrapper whatever size his opponent.

His father, a lean hardworking man, was not unkind in nature but driven by their subsistence level to work the fields from daybreak until dark which left him little time to enjoy his son’s company. There were few neighbors and the nearest town some eighteen miles away over poor roads meant for an isolated existence that often left the young Arc very much to his own devices. An experience that had forged in him a degree of self-reliance echoing his grandfather’s earlier independence.

Originally his father had taken on an indentured girl to help about the place. But in the course of time he bedded her and she became pregnant. Being a righteous man, the two of them then both walked the long miles to town, their only form of transport having been an elderly mule that passed on during a severe cold spell the past winter.

On arrival he duly made his mark at the advocates office and signed away her remaining period of service. They wed the same day in the town chapel and began their walk back home the next. Little changed for his new wife once she was free of her inscribed servitude, she had married into a desperate life, working hard and long hours under the bark shingled roof in the sprawling single storied log cabin they called home. They had little money, barely enough to even afford a necessary milk cow, and so of necessity every task was completed by the use of hard manual labor. Land clearance and ploughing, only accomplished by dint of backbreaking effort from the whole family. They sowed and reaped, winnowed and stored in a relentless repetition where days meant nothing and only seasons counted for something.

It fell to Arc, once he was of an age, to hunt for the pot. At first he used a slingshot to bring down rabbits and small birds. But eventually his father allowed him use of the old Marine Infantry musket his long deceased grandfather had carried when he first came to the country. A cumbersome weapon for a small boy with a kick like a mule when fired. Arc persevered though with the frowning intensity that was to be a recognizable feature throughout his lifetime and he proved to be a good shot bringing deer and wild turkey to the table.

By his own trial and error and then with the help of a friendly Chippewa tribe, that shared the waters of the nearby lake, which had so sadly taken his sister, Arc learned how to move in the wild. He studied the tracks and signs left by various beasts noting their particular peculiarities and at the same time honing the skills of silence and patience necessary for a successful hunter. The rivers thereabouts abounded with trout so by watching the patient Indians he learned how to stand knee deep in the waters and catch fish by hand or with a branch scoop net. He began to wearing the buckskin and moccasins as his Indian friends did and became as good as any native moving as a shadow without leaving a mark of his passage throughout the open countryside or crowded forest.

Although their life was an existence of constant struggle against the elements and wooded terrain it created a hardy folk and not knowing anything else their lot was accepted by the small family without complaint. And in this way the years passed as one season followed another with only the disaster of natural calamities marking one years difference from another.

Arc’s chance for experience of the wider world came one day in his seventeenth year when a hefty Conestoga wagon drawn by six brawny oxen pulled up outside their lonely farmstead. The drover, a white bearded frisky old fellow named Jacob Barnes, was hauling household supplies to a series of small town stores along a hundred and fifty mile route. He rested his oxen at the lakeside and gladly accepted the commonplace offering of frontier hospitality, so staying with them overnight. During the evening meal he offered to take Arc along as cattle man, his own help having left some weeks before to take a better paying job as a clerk in one of the stores they had delivered to.

He’ll have some dollars in his purse when he comes home, Barnes promised. Five dollars all told, you have my word on it. With that prospect Arc’s father agreed to the transaction and the boy set out next day walking along beside the oxen, learning as he went to crack the long bullwhip over the heads of the oxen to urge them on. It was a slow journey over roads no more than tracks, the beasts stumbling along through the rough country as they struggled to drag the heavy load over hard rock and mud amidst the dense forests.

Barnes proved to be a friendly and entertaining old soul and he taught Arc a string of traditional songs as they made their leisurely way along and then, later, he would tell stories and tall tales around their nightly campfires. Arc came to feel a great affection for the old man never having known such adult companionship before. But he missed his grandfather’s musket as their fare was a boring mix of beans, salt pork and coffee, which did little for his constitution or his taste buds. He had noticed the flintlock carried in a bucket next to the driver’s seat and asked to be allowed to furnish something more exciting for the pot. The old man was doubtful at first but eventually, after careful exactitude as to how to load and prime the weapon, he set a branch some hundred yards off as target for the first shot. Arc cleaved it neatly and with no further ado became regular supplier for their table.

Not far from their first port of call, a store in the small township of Lavender, Arc was sent off one afternoon to see what he could bring down for their evening meal whilst Barnes carried slowly along the trail planning to meet him up ahead later on.

Arc climbed through the stands of white pine and hemlock that bordered the road and up onto the sandstone cliffs beyond. He was in search of roosting birds in the hope of some eggs but finding nothing, the rugged cliffs being bare of anything except dust, he carried on up to the summit. From there he could see over the treetops and down into the forest road far below. He saw three riders approaching along the road and watched as they drew up alongside the wagon.

They were not particularly evil men, more roving chancers than confirmed villains. They saw the old lonely drover as easy pickings and sought to take what they could from his supplies. Their intention was not to rob him of everything but only to take a few tasteables and their theft being of a casual nature they saw no danger of retribution in the prospect. But Barnes resisted, he had no weapon other than his whip as Arc had taken the rifle. But the years had proved him able with the long bullwhip and he cracked it like a gunshot over his protagonist’s head in warning.

You boys just get along, he growled. There’s nothing here for you. I ain’t carrying anything ‘cept possibles for farmers and their wives.

You got some sugar though, I bet, grinned one. I got a liking for something sweet right now. You got candy in there, old fella?

Barnes looked at them grimly. You’d best stand off, I say. I’ll split you open you touch my load.

They laughed in the confidence of their numbers and one hitched his horse around and lifted the flap at the back of the wagon.

Lookee here, he cackled. He got boxes of stuff in here. Old man you ain’t going to miss a little something, are you now? I reckon you might have liquor and some baccy in there too. Lord, looks like there’s plenty to go round.

The bullwhip whistled through the air its end snapping over the rider’s wrist. He snatched it back with a howl of pain and sucked at the red weal the plaited hide had left. Damn you, old man! he bellowed as he pulled at the pistol