Benedict and Brazos 1

by E. Jefferson Clay

  “Just a run-in with a passel of cowpokes at Red Fork,” he explained. Then, nonchalantly jerking a thumb at his bullet-burned shoulder, “And this here little memento I picked up just outa town. Drygulched. But all that ain’t important, Yank. Name your poison.”

  “Bourbon’s been poisoning me for years.”

  “A bottle of bourbon!” Brazos bellowed, slamming a fist down on the tinny bar of the Shotgun and sending myopic little barman Charlie Bird scuttling for the shelves. “A bottle of bourbon for Hank Brazos and his old pard Duke Benedict!”

  Old pards? No, they’d never been that, and likely never could be, this footloose young Texan with the barn-door shoulders and the handsome, expensively educated Easterner with the Yankee accent and the gambler’s eyes. Yet as they repaired to a table and lifted glasses, each in his own way was conscious of the bond between them that was perhaps even stronger than friendship, maybe even stronger than blood. For what could be stronger than a tie born in the savage heat of battle, forged in blood, hammered by the cannon’s steel and tempered in the blood of comrades? No, what bound them was stronger than friendship; they were bound forever by memory of the dead...

  “Well, what do we drink to, Yank?”

  Duke Benedict’s face grew grave. “Why, I guess we should drink to Pea Ridge, Reb.”

  “Pea Ridge,” Brazos replied, lifting his glass and the name sent memory swirling back.

  Pea Ridge...

  Three – Angry Grow the Guns

  The rooster crowed as if this morning were just like any other and flapped its wings against the smoky gray sky of dawn.

  The tent tops of John Leo Brett’s 6th Texas Brigade were dimly outlined by the gray eastern smudge. It revealed the thirty silent mounted men in the butternut gray of the Confederacy and the small, four-wheeled wagon.

  Again the rooster crowed. In the command tent, a solitary lamp burned.

  John Leo Brett’s face was the same tired gray as his uniform as he stared across his desk at Lieutenant Tom Flint and Sergeant Brazos. The South was in its death agonies, the glorious dream a nightmare. Its defeat was written there, in the haggard, once handsome face of a man of thirty-five who looked closer to sixty.

  “Any last questions?”

  The small lieutenant and the wide-shouldered young sergeant shook their heads. They’d gone over the plan of action already a dozen times with Brett during the long sleepless night just past. They were to leave at first light with the wagon and make their way down the two-mile length of Channing Valley. The brigade’s artillery would cover their progress the length of the valley to Pea Ridge, which may or may not be in the hands of the Federals. They were to cross Pea Ridge and then drive west from bloody Georgia; west across the Mississippi, southwest across the vast uncertainty of Texas, south across the Rio Grande into Mexico, where the Southern General Nathan Forrest had repaired to set up the Second Confederacy which would rise to take the place of the beaten and glorious First.

  Into Forrest’s hands they were to deliver the contents of the wagon: two hundred thousand dollars in gold pieces, the final wealth of the South. If they failed, the South would never rise again.

  No, there were no questions.

  A salute, a handshake, then out into the chill gray morning. The detail moved off. The rooster crowed a third time, its piercing cry carrying far in the hushed morning, all the way across the shell-torn hills to the blue ranks of the enemy—where Captain Duke Benedict of the 10th Vermont Militia shaved with the aid of a small mirror propped against a scarred tree trunk and a flickering stub of candle.

  The stubble-jawed soldiers squatting about in the gloom watched the officer with puzzled, admiring eyes. Most of them were too wearied by battle even to wash, yet there was the captain, shaving his good-looking pan exactly the way he had every morning as far back as any of them could remember. There was no doubt about it, the captain was one hell of a dandy, but by God he was a soldier to follow, and those fifty who were riding with him that historic week in Georgia were ready to ride with him to the gates of hell if need be.

  Benedict finished his toilet, buttoned up his dark blue jacket and snuffed out the candle. He took out his service pistol, and was checking it when Lieutenant Miller spoke.

  “Where to today, Captain?”

  Benedict put the revolver away, looked west. “Pea Ridge,” he said. “It seems there might be a nest of Johnny Reb snipers over there. We’re to clean it out.”

  Pea Ridge. The listening men turned the name over in their minds. It sounded like an easy detail. About time they drew one.

  Had there been no fog they would never have made it, for with the Union artillery in command of the northern ridges of Channing Valley, and their own guns snarling from the south, the valley was a no-man’s land, a place of death and horror. But they’d gambled on the fog and it was there today as it had been every morning, perhaps a little thicker from the hellish smoke that drifted down from the ridges where the cannons stormed.

  Riding at the head of the detail at the side of Lieutenant Flint, Hank Brazos found it almost impossible to think in the shuddering thunder of the guns. All he knew was that they’d ridden three quarters the length of the valley without losing a man, and that Pea Ridge could be only a few hundred yards ahead. Soon they would be able to see it rising out of the fog.

  Upon reaching the ridge, they would have to leave the safety of the fog screen and rush up the naked, shell-pocked slopes in full sight of the Union guns. That slope would likely be the most dangerous strip of trail between Georgia and Mexico: if they made that, they believed they could make it all the way.

  The horsemen ducked instinctively as a shell whistled low. The noise of the barrage was increasing. Looking up towards the ridges they could see the Union positions wrapped in seething gunsmoke which glowed with dust-red patches. The red patches spread out, devoured the smoke and curtained the sky and made a deep cliff face of red as the attack intensified. The Confederate batteries retaliated and the whole valley shook.

  Minutes later they emerged from the fog and went up the slopes of Pea Ridge at a run. Immediately the Union guns lowered their aim. Around them the earth began to erupt.

  A soldier in a Confederate battery position fifty yards to the left of the column stuck his head out from the earth and gave them a shout of encouragement as they passed, slashing whips at the wagon horses. Almost in the same instant, the battery position was hit, blown into the air like a bursting triangle, and the dark fragments were pieces of guns and metal and bodies of the crew. Another shell struck and the column was hit. Another. Slabs of timber falling to the earth. Pieces of a bunker roof. A horse tumbling from the sky. The broken body of a man blown into the air, fell down and was immediately torn into the air again by a second blast.

  Then they were in the trees. The shells continued to search, but without accuracy. They were safe.

  They hauled up briefly atop the ridge to spell the horses for a moment and take stock. They’d lost seven men with two wounded. Not good, but it could have been much worse. The sergeant and the lieutenant exchanged a silent glance. They were going to make it.

  They moved on and the sounds of the guns were dimming behind them, when, incredibly, from higher up the slopes of Pea Ridge, came the thin, tinny and unforgettable sound of a trumpet signaling attack.

  They swept down from a line of magnolias, a line of shouting, blue-clad soldiers led by a handsome officer with an upraised saber that reflected the crimson light of the morning.

  “Hurrah!” they shouted. “Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!”

  There was no time to retreat, no time to run, no time for anything but fight. The guns exploded from the ranks of blue and answered back from the gray. A speeding Federal cavalryman went down with a jagged scream that seemed to hang in the air. Trooper Billy-Joe Ashbrook of South Carolina fell and died without a sound, gone in a moment after almost four years of war. The ragged fire stuttered out, smoke rose thick; blue and gray figures fell.

&
nbsp; Then they came together in a storm of screams and shots and the bite of cold steel. Sergeant Hank Brazos became oblivious of anybody but those who wore blue. The smoke was choking thick now. He shot a man in the face at five feet, then another, yet another. A Yankee rushed past him with a long rifle and a gleaming bayonet. Brazos whirled. Too late. The bayonet pierced the heart of Lieutenant Tom Flint who’d just got to his feet after being unhorsed.

  The soldier reefed the dripping bayonet free and his face, an ugly mask of triumph, swung at Brazos. Brazos triggered and the hammer only clicked. The big Yankee snarled and rushed. Brazos side-stepped, grabbed the rifle. The Yankee fought him. He was a strong man, but the Confederate sergeant was doubly strong. He reefed the gun away and ripped the man apart with his own blade. He swung and threw it at another rushing figure. The spearing weapon thudded into the man’s chest and he fell. Brazos snatched up a fallen gun and he was firing again.

  Time swept by. Now they were driving the Yankees back up the slope, then it was they who were being driven.

  The 6th Texas Brigade broke, reformed, broke again. They took cover and for hours the guns held sway. They grew impatient, the attacks began again with sabers, bayonets, fists and boots and stones. There was a madness in the conflict that wouldn’t let either faction retreat or surrender. They were evenly matched in numbers and hatred. Men died, horses fell, the hours dragged on. The sounds from the valley dimmed, the main impact of the battle was passing them by, yet still they raged on, the tattered gray remnants led by a youthful giant of a sergeant, the Federals inspired again and again by the handsome captain they’d followed for so long, and now seemed destined to follow all the way to the grave.

  It was mid-afternoon. Hank Brazos lay in a shell crater with two companions. Three men alive out of thirty-two.

  Ninety feet up the slope, the overturned wagon lay, the heavy steel plated trunk containing the gold upturned in a ditch. Another sixty feet beyond that, behind a fallen tree, the remnants of the Union force sniped down at their position. There were four men behind that tree with Captain Duke Benedict; five men left of fifty. The factions had cut one another to shreds and now it seemed they would go on fighting until nobody was left. That was war. They didn’t question it. They were men who’d long since ceased to question this madness...

  And kill themselves to the last man they certainly would have, but for what happened an hour later. Another charge from the same line of magnolias, but no trumpet blew this time, no blue uniforms in the sun. Nor any gray. For the horde of horsemen that came charging down with blazing guns, hurdling the dead and dying, and shouting a fierce battle cry that had nothing to do with North or South, were not soldiers. They were bearded, wild-eyed men in buckskin and even before the chant of, “Rangle! Rangle!” washed down over the stunned and battle-numbed survivors below, both Federals and Rebels had guessed who they were.

  Rangle’s Raiders! A rag-tail band of marauding privateers who fought for neither North nor South but who preyed upon both, the offal and scum sweepings of a dozen borders banded together to rape and plunder under the leadership of a man whose name had become a stench in the nostrils of every fighting man, whether he be Union or Confederate: Bo Rangle, one time outlaw and killer, now leader of the most despised band of hellions on either side of the Mississippi.

  The Union handful took the first full brunt of the Raiders’ charge and though having already fought themselves to a standstill, they fought on bravely again, aided by the guns of Hank Brazos and his two men. A dozen marauders fell in that first brutal clash and there was astonishment in Rangle’s ranks at the fierceness of the resistance. Yet defeat was inevitable and finally, with his last man dead, Captain Duke Benedict was driven from cover. A gun in each hand, he came backing down past the overturned gold wagon, blasting back at the enemy every step. In the shell crater at Brazos’ elbow, a man swung his rifle at the blue-clad figure, but Brazos knocked it down.

  “You don’t back shoot a brave soldier!” he snapped. Then cupping his hands to his mouth, he roared. “Hey, Yank. Git on down here!”

  Benedict turned his head in astonishment. As he did, Brazos showed his head and shoulders, and with a gun in each hand, sent snarling lead screaming past him to cut down a pair of charging renegades. That was enough for Benedict. Punching off two more shots, he ducked low and dashed for the crater, covering the last ten feet in a long, diving leap. Landing inside the crater, he rolled on his shoulders and came to his feet, still with his six-guns in hand.

  “Thanks, Reb,” was all he said—was all he had time to say as Bo Rangle led his men towards the crater in what was meant to be a final charge.

  But it didn’t turn out that way. The marauder charge ran into a vicious scythe of fire that blasted six more men into eternity and cut down more than that number of horses. Amazed, Rangle withdrew to regroup, then after a minute, charged again.

  This time they almost made it, getting to within twenty feet of the crater, but again the fire of Brazos and Benedict broke the attack and drove them back.

  By now, Brazos’ and Benedict’s were the only guns that spoke from the crater, for Brazos’ last two men lay sprawled dead in the yellow mud, brave to the last.

  Twice more in the next ten minutes the raiders attacked and twice more were driven off with heavy loss of life. Dusk was settling as the two hollow-eyed defenders wearily reloaded their smoking weapons and watched the raiders grouping yet again in the trees. Brazos had dragged a box of ammunition into the shell hole with him when they’d taken refuge there, but it was almost empty. Another attack would exhaust it; another attack would be the last.

  That last attack never came. Ten minutes dragged by, another ten. Darkness crept over the land. A long way off now, the cannons muttered. Somewhere up the slopes a dying man called for his mother and a chill wind rose to rustle the trees and carry away the last of the gunsmoke.

  Then the darkness fell like a club. Stealthy footsteps sounded up the slope, drawing nearer. The men in the shell crater exchanged a glance, their faces dim ovals in the blackness.

  “Looks like they’re movin’ in to finish us off, Yank.”

  “Seems like it, Reb.” A short pregnant silence, then: “We won’t see sun-up.”

  “Reckon not.”

  “Would you do something for me, Reb?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Shake hands. If I’ve got to die, I’d as soon do it in the company of the best fighter I ever met... even if he is a Johnny Reb.”

  Their hands clasped in the gloom. “That goes for me too, Yank,” Hank Brazos said softly, then stiffened and turned at a sound close by.

  “What are you doing?” Benedict whispered, peering intently uphill. “You see anything, Reb?”

  Brazos couldn’t ... but suddenly he didn’t have to. That heavy dragging sound identified itself.

  “The box!” he gasped. “They’re takin’ the box!” He cursed. “Goddamn it, they must have known about it right along.”

  “Known about what?” Benedict asked.

  Brazos didn’t reply. Instead, he cut loose with his six-gun. Immediately a storm of shots came back from the darkness, shots that tore and raked at the earth and drove them down to hug the bottom of the crater.

  His face pressed into the mud, Brazos was conscious of a great bitterness as the lead continued to storm. He realized now that the raider attack was no accident. Bo Rangle had got wind of the shipment and had come hunting it. Jumped-up Judas, he’d rather let the goddamn Yankees have it than a rat like Rangle!

  It was a long time before the shooting finally stopped.

  They heard the raiders drifting away, and far away in the distance, the dim sound of a wagon wheel striking a rock. Yet they couldn’t be sure that all the enemy had gone, and were forced to keep to the crater until dawn. Only then, with the sickly yellow light spilling down the bloody slopes of Pea Ridge, did they realize they were safe. Bo Rangle was gone. All that was left was the dead.

  They came out
of the crater together, walked silently among the littered bodies. Pea Ridge was incredibly silent after the insanity of sound that unforgettable day. Blue uniforms lay side by side with gray. The faces of young and old stared up into the dim light.

  The battle of Pea Ridge was over.

  They stopped finally together beside the overturned wagon. Their eyes met and locked for a long silent moment. Then almost as if by a prearranged signal, each man lifted his right hand. The hands met and clasped for a long moment.

  “So long, Yank.”

  “Goodbye, Reb.”

  That was all, a handshake, a simple farewell. Yet as both men trudged slowly away from that place of death, to go their separate ways, each was aware that for as long as they lived, neither of them would forget the other and that crimson day in history they’d shared on the bloody slopes of Pea Ridge, Georgia.

  And so they parted, forever they’d thought, until Fate decreed otherwise, six months and many hundreds of miles later, in a dusty cowtown in Kansas.

  Four – Confederate Gold

  The barkeep, Charlie Bird, brought two fresh whiskies across to the table and picked up the empty bottle. It had been some reunion party.

  The barkeep beamed at the best customers he’d had in months. “And another beer for the dog, Mr. Brazos?”

  Brazos frowned down at Bullpup trying to figure out how many beers they’d already poured into the tin dish on the floor. He couldn’t recall, so he snapped his fingers to make the dog sit up. Bullpup grunted and assumed a sitting position which was marred by a thirty degree list to starboard.