Over Your Dead Body Read online

  Issuing classic fiction from Yesterday and Today!

  Nebraska 1860

  War clouds are gathering as civil unrest runs riot in the nation. In the gold rush town of Variable Breaks another war is looming.

  Belle Slaughter, released by her drink-sodden daddy from a grinding life in a Tennessee rundown shack, is aboard a snake-oil salesman’s travelling show when it blows into town. They walk straight into the flying lead of a crazy gunfight on Main Street but a drifting cowhand is on hand, in the shape of Kirby Langstrom, a man with a mean gun and attitude to match.

  Finding themselves owners of a dead man’s saloon, Belle and her grifter boss are confronted by the envious eyes of Joe Bellows and his other fellow saloonkeepers, all of them vying for the lucrative gold trade in town.

  It’s the start of a bloody battle that leads Belle and her companion on a vengeful pursuit across a country about to be torn apart by Civil War. They hunt not only a calculating enemy but also ride to preserve the life of a man whose safety could change the face of history.

  OVER YOUR DEAD BODY

  BELLE SLAUGHTER 1:

  By Tony Masero

  Copyright © 2013 by Tony Masero

  This is a Piccadilly Publishing Book

  Published by Piccadilly Publishing at Smashwords: January 2013

  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.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you’re reading the book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Published by Arrangement with the Author.

  Cover image © 2013 by Tony Masero

  Published by Arrangement with the Author.

  Chapter One

  Her beginnings were not auspicious but they were pretty damned miraculous.

  She was born around the year of 1840 into a Tennessee tumbledown perched on a hillside amidst the damp fall mists of an Appalachian forest. A squalid dump of a place where even farm hogs fought on a daily basis for existence and were not above sharing the table with the family at their mealtimes, where, it must be said, they were treated with as much equanimity as any others of the brood.

  Belle’s albino mother was a pallid and hugely overweight woman whose outer layer looked as white as morning milk fresh from the cow, the transparent skin was so thin that the structure of her venous system was visible through the surface of her bloated limbs. A gigantic creature that never ventured from the house nor let the sun’s rays fall upon her and always needed her son’s strong arm to help her rise from the rocking chair she occupied for most of her adult life.

  Belle’s father, a pig farmer of low repute, was a cadaverous and stoop-backed man with an appearance that immediately spoke of a sly and devious disposition; he was half blind from his drink problem that necessitated a daily consumption of alcohol, often of a raw hundred proof unrefined nature. Whilst her only brother, a huge hulk of a brute, was a simpleton barely able to string two words together but who would execute hogs with disproportionate glee, normally by use of an eight-pound sledge hammer when it came to pig-killing time.

  Her two sisters were of an equally backward frame of mind. The youngest, a remarkably thin and highly volatile personality, was not above casual and energetic liaisons with any passing stranger (thereby producing an endless string of illegitimate offspring) and the elder, who although apparently calm and harmless, played with rag dolls with serious intensity up to the age of twenty-five years.

  What magic of gene creation or strange mixture of obscure physics created Belle Slaughter in the middle of this is a mystery that may never be understood. How, from those grotesque origins, a design of such exquisite loveliness could be produced.

  It was apparent from the start that Belle would be a thing of beauty. A perfectly formed child who stood out from the awfulness of her home with an easy splendor equal to that of a brilliant jewel amongst the unformed lumps of the darkest coal mine.

  A bright girl from the start, with a quick mind and keen eye and although untutored her sharp mental faculties could read a person’s demeanor as easily as any student might learn from his books.

  She grew with a natural inclination for clothes of quality and taste and would pester her parents from an early age for store-bought rather than home made. Whilst her mother might secretly favor such desires her father ignored these wasteful considerations, preferring instead to invest their small income in liquor of a higher standard than his own vile home brew.

  Her wretched father hired her off at the age of eighteen years for a term of indentured service to a passing snake oil man. Daddy sold her for fifty dollars and promptly drank himself into an unconscious stupor with the cash money and whilst he lay dead to the world face down in a heap of horse manure his wife had her moronic son steal the last few remaining dollars left in his torn pockets.

  What a happy band. Their representation here serves no purpose other than to demonstrate the heights that Belle achieved and yet who can say what part they played in her subsequent rise. There were sloth and selfishness so evident in this environment, paralleled by filth and morality of the lowest order. In short there appears to be nothing to warrant consideration and yet in the depths of all these lowly attributes it was surely there that Belle developed other skills of a more practical leaning. One might consider the formation of astuteness and quick-witted cunning. Of psychological manipulation and determination. Surely though, not the least of these skills would be that of survival.

  But there we must leave this unfortunate collection of malcontents as they no longer appear nor play any part in our remaining story. Suffice to say they vanish into squalid obscurity with all the majesty their pathetic existence allows and that is their due by right of nothing more than mere presence on the planet.

  At around this time Belle had developed into a young creature that showed all the promise of the woman she was to become. Her hair was golden, not white gold but that mellow warmth that high carat value metal tinged with copper holds. She kept it trained back in ringlets, as was the fashion, at least as she had seen in the torn page from a mail order catalogue that a twist of seed had once arrived in.

  She was still a little plump then, a burgeoning young woman and covered with the tender gloss of childish fat that would slender away as the years progressed. Her breasts were large already, full and round and far beyond any symptoms of adolescent development. But it was her face that turned all eyes. Full lipped, her ample mouth curved invitingly and the teasing habit she had of allowing the merest tip of her tongue to run along her lips only created an ever more growing aura of inviting sensuality.

  In her large sea-green eyes, if one looked carefully, one might discover the intelligent calculation that was to play such a part in her future. They were of the strangest nature those eyes, at times they might appear to glow with a throbbing resonance and for those who took note of such things could change with her mood from that of storm driven turbulence to the warmth found on the shores of some exotic beach.

  All this was framed in a splendid body, straight and erect with a natural aura of health and vitality. She carried herself well with an outward display that, although attractive, yet still gave warning that this was not a personality to be trifled with. Beyond her years in this respect she bore a confidence that was somewhat unnerving for those of an older generation.

  So it was fo
r her new employer.

  The snake oil man was called Tim Leatherbetter, of Leatherbetter’s Elixir and Potion. His wagon said it boldly, painted on the side in extravagant gold-edged lettering with the intriguing amplification that it was a secret extraction composed of Enhydris chinensis an element found only in the Chinese Water Snake, a remedy recently imported by the teems of Asian workers on the country’s railroads.

  He had purchased the young girl to be used as example of the efficacy of his mixture, which was in truth a compilation of no more than sugared sarsaparilla laced with opium and a dash of morphine. Any travelling dispenser of such medication needed a show to attract custom and Belle was to be used as part of that extravagance. Leatherbetter also took along with him his mother, an apparently bow-backed ancient of seventy-two years, yet still she was a deceptively lively old woman who, acting as a shill would secretly blend in with the audience and be the first to purchase a bottle, then after one sip she would throw aside her cane and demonstrate a jig in the street. Thus proving the power of the potion before the more gullible of the onlookers.

  It was Belle’s task to stand in a simple, if somewhat revealing, shift of supposedly Greek origin and pose to one side of the salesman holding aloft a vial, so giving credible antiquity to Leatherbetter’s wares as he spoke profusely on the blessings of his discovery. At least this is what he told her. In reality it was for reasons of a more basic nature that he displayed her.

  No one, not man or woman, could ignore the elegant magnificence of such a creature. Heads were turned at Belle’s appearance and in truth, Leatherbetter began to have doubts as to her value as his words appeared to vanish above the heads of the crowd when all attention focused on the appearance of the young woman. Men paled and swallowed hard as she stepped up onto the stage, the fluttering and gauzy gown at once displaying a turn of leg and perhaps a glimpse of handsome ankle. They would buy bottles merely for the pleasure of seeing Belle lean forward and present them with their buy, the deeply cut gown revealing the cleft of her ample bosom and raising more than simple interest in the body of the male buyer.

  Leatherbetter was in his forty-fifth year and an avaricious man, he was of slender build with a not very pretty, long featured horse face but with a certain charismatic boldness that some women found attractive. He dressed the part in a dandified vest and long tailed coat. Wore a diamond stickpin in his tie and a tall stovepipe hat with a green scarf tied around. He would take of the hat and wave it dramatically, causing the scarf end to fly out and amplify his words as he preached his potion.

  He claimed he was of Irish origin, there being many Irish immigrants coming into the country at about this time and Tim saw an opportunity to appeal to their nationalism by sporting the green. His antecedents came from County Limerick so he said but in reality his father had been an illiterate petty thief who had escaped hanging by the merest chance and fled to America as a result.

  One might venture supposition as to why he made no advances of a more personal nature to Belle. It was not that he was adverse to the female gender; by far the opposite was true. Perhaps it was his mother’s presence that dissuaded him. Old Ma Leatherbetter was not above a rap across the earlobe for her son if he displeased her. And she came to care for Belle as the daughter she had never had, part mother and grandmother, Ma Leatherbetter fulfilled an eventual role in Belle’s life as that of confidant and adviser.

  More though perhaps, it was the stern yet hidden quality that Belle possessed and enabled her to keep the snake oil man at bay over the few years they travelled together, this strange ability she had to attract and yet at the same time repel with ease any unwarranted approach.

  Her first encounter with Kirby Langstrom, who was also to play an important role in her life, came in the small township of Variable Breaks.

  Small town, yes, but growing. It was this that attracted Leatherbetter to the place. The advent of the discovery of gold in the not too distant mountains had brought a flood of prospectors and with them the trade that enhanced the town’s coffers.

  Along with the discovery came the sort who lived along the fringes. The predators and chancers who would wait with the tenacity of preying birds along the sidelines, ready for some poor soul to strike his mother lode and whilst he was in the throes of jubilation at such riches, they would integrate themselves. Becoming those sort of fair-weather friends with the inherent capacity to leach much more than blood from the unsuspecting.

  Bevies of travelling whores followed the workers. Rough and ready creatures with a short-lived lifespan that consisted of offering their painted bodies for a few dollars and caring little for themselves or anybody else for that matter. Usually poor creatures, battered by their profession they worked in the dark servicing a steady chain of dust covered men with hard hands and hearts to match.

  Liquor merchants arrived too with no more than a bar built of planks and sawhorses set up in the street or on the outskirts. From there they would eventually advance to a tarpaulin-covered open-air establishment and from that it was an easy step to a shingled shed and thence finally, a proper saloon structure with garish frontage and imported champagne.

  With the drink merchants came the other sort of pastime, those dealers and cardsharps who offered lucky chance to the miners as an alternative to advancement through labor. They arrived with their marked decks and hidden aces, their loaded dice and imbalanced roulette wheels. In all a gambler’s spinning wheel of risk that took fate away as an option and replaced it with a certainty for the house.

  Killers came. Not men who murdered for profit but rather drifting conscience-less souls who would snuff out a life with no more forethought than one might give at the demise of a housefly. Their lives being built around the score they kept, the scalps they took and the heads they could mount. Like big game hunters they prowled the countryside seeking an opponent who was, in their puerile estimation, sufficiently large enough to slay. A prize, that would they thought, mark them out as better than the rest and reassure their own high opinion of themselves.

  How such types do proliferate in a land without order and proper justice and there was none to be found in Variable Breaks. The advance of the mining community had come without warning and at first the small town was only too pleased to have the business. But as it became apparent that the wild drinking, whoring and random deaths associated with the gold strike were to become a daily event the townspeople began to regret having no police officer to maintain the peace.

  Notwithstanding such concerns, each of these invasions brought with them cash revenue and soon a proper bank was set up, an assay office and smelting works, a town newspaper and even a regular stage run. Such modernity amazed the locals who gaped in awe at the speed in which change came to their one-time sleepy little backwater town.

  The population doubled and then trebled. Tent encampments sprung up alongside simple wooden structures that were crudely built and often burnt down. It was a reckless and wild birth born on the fever and lust for yellow dust, it came like a whirlwind and like all transient things built on such shallow foundations would disappear with equal speed once the claims had given up their all.

  It was in such a situation that Leatherbetter came to set up shop.

  Chapter Two

  A shootout was in progress as Leatherbetter drove his wagon into the town. The fight was taking place outside one of the newly constructed saloons. Reed-Them-and-Weep was the name painted in a shaky hand above the door. The misspelling due to the fact that the board had been hand-painted personally by the owner, one Acer Crest, a tall bald-headed man of poor learning, large muscle and yet still a crafty master full of business acumen.

  He stood at the entranceway, his brawny arms folded across the wide front of the long apron that trailed to his ankles. His sleeves were rolled up displaying his mighty bunched biceps and a frown of consternation was bending his brow. Acer flicked at his drooping moustache irritably and straightened his hairpiece, a habit he had when troubled. He was annoyed
with himself for an oversight. The two challengers forcibly evicted not moments before, he had only just realized had not yet paid their bar bill.

  ‘Wait on there!’ he bawled at the two, who were weaving drunkenly in the street. One had a six-shooter in his hand whilst the other was still trying to pull a .44 pistol from where it was lodged in his pants top. ‘Hold on you two!’ bellowed Acer again.

  Stroking a careful hand over his center-parted and slicked down black hairpiece, Acer stepped from the sidewalk and strode over to the pair of drunks, who turned with half-lidded eyes and extended chins and stared at him in dumb query.

  ‘You fellows have to pay your way,’ Acer demanded, towering menacingly over them. ‘You owe me for a bottle. Now who’s going to settle up?’

  The men leaned forward precariously, teetering on their toes as they tried to assess the meaning of Acer’s words through a fog of alcohol.

  ‘He sh-aying what I think he’s sh-aying?’ one slurred to the other.

  His opponent, an old timer wearing a beat-up hat with the tattered brim folded up in front, burped and shrugged.

  ‘Shoot!’ he replied in equally blurred tones. ‘I dunno.’

  ‘You bums better fork out,’ warned Acer. ‘Or I’ll beat the living daylights out of the both of you.’

  An interested crowd had begun to gather at the altercation and the boardwalks were beginning to fill with onlookers. It was a busy time of day just after lunch and contented passersby full of their meal were more than ready for a little entertainment.

  Leatherbetter had pulled up short of the affray as the watching crowd ebbed into the street in front of him and Belle came from inside the wagon to sit alongside the drummer on the driving seat and see what was happening.

  ‘Did you sh-ay ‘shoot’?’ asked the first drunk.

  ‘I sh-aid I dunno,’ answered his adversary.

  ‘Dunno what?’