Benedict and Brazos 20

by E. Jefferson Clay

  “To a lot of guesswork so far. But it’s educated guesswork.” Benedict paused to arrange his thoughts. “We can assume that Fenner got too close to the killers last night, and they dispatched him. They probably felt they had no choice. But once the deed was done, they decided to confer with their employer, presumably rancher Cleve Garroway. It seems they first informed Brand, who chose to accompany them out to the Big G spread. If Garroway is calling the shots, then I believe we can expect one of two things. He shall either instruct them to lie low, or he may decide that we are dangerous to his safety and must be eliminated.”

  “Eliminated?”

  “Killed.”

  “Figgered that’s what you meant. So what do we do?”

  “We wait.”

  “After what them bastards did to Fenner? Seems to me it’d be best to get in first—ride to the Big G and nail ’em there.”

  “Uncertain and untidy,” Benedict said. “I think my suggestion has more merit, Johnny Reb.”

  “Guess you could be right,” Brazos decided after giving it some heavy thought. He nodded then and straightened. “Yeah, all right. And mebbe it’d be best if I took up a lookout on the west side to keep an eye on things. If I see anybody comin’ in from the Big G, I’ll hustle in and tip you off.”

  “A splendid suggestion. And while you are thus occupied, I can be hunting for additional clues to the killers. I could question Trogg about that thousand dollars he was paid to lie about Dusty, and of course I could make sure Miss Belinda is comfortable.”

  “Of course,” Brazos grinned as he walked to his horse. “Tell me, Benedict, how come you always get the toughest jobs while I draw the easy ones?”

  Benedict matched Brazos’ smile. “I suppose you’re just lucky, Johnny Reb.”

  It had taken several hours to figure out the best plan of action, but Cleve Garroway didn’t regret a moment of it.

  He’d had a bad moment or two when Raven, Brand and the others had ridden in at mid-morning to tell him about the latest developments in town. But now, having decided on a course of action, it was time for a badly needed drink, and Galloway smiled as he looked at the somber face of Marshal Milt Brand.

  “Relax, Milt,” Garroway said. “It’ll work out fine. Trust Raven.”

  “Oh, I trust him right enough,” said the lawman, who just a year ago would probably have shot a man like Raven on sight. “I’m just worryin’ about the prospect of two more killings in town, that’s all. That sort of thing can—”

  “Three,” breathed Raven, sipping his watered whisky.

  Brand blinked. “Benedict, Brazos ... who’s the third?”

  “The livin’ dead man of course,” the killer murmured. “Lane. They’re all in this together. We don’t know how much Brazos and Benedict know, and we don’t know how much they told Lane. But he goes, too. Right, Cleve?”

  “Right,” Garroway said without hesitation, then he crossed to Raven. “You did the right thing in coming direct to me and not worrying about Hawkin and James. Now the plan we’ve hatched together will work. But I don’t want any changes.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “You’re a top gun and a vain man, Raven. I saw the way you looked when you were talking about Benedict. You’d like to take him on and prove yourself to be the better man, wouldn’t you?”

  “I can do it.”

  “But you won’t try, will you? We’re in this for bigger stakes than vanity, Raven. Have I got your word that you’ll play it the way we decided?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Not good enough. I want a direct yes.”

  “All right, you’ve damn well got it,” the killer said testily. He threw his glass into the fireplace and started for the door. “All right, let’s go back and get it over with.”

  Her slim fingers brushed against her bodice, and it seemed quite by accident that another button came undone. Seated at his desk, ramrod-erect and flushed, J. Repose Buckhout waited, wondering if another button would pop free.

  Apparently unaware of her increasing exposure, Chastity Brown leaned forward and smiled. “Won’t you please consider selling to Jubal, Mr. Buckhout honey?” she purred. “For my sake? You see, I have my heart set on Jubal doin’ well for himself. And if you’d sell like you promised, I’d be ever so grateful.”

  Buckhout panted. “How grateful?”

  Another button slipped free.

  “Really grateful, Mr. Buckhout honey.”

  Watching the little drama being played out in the late afternoon quiet of the funeral parlor from behind the drapes in the embalming room, Jubal Trogg sweated. In the wake of Tim Fenner’s grisly death, Trogg, feeling that the “boom” old Buckhout had sensed might well be on its way, had decided that if they didn’t pin him down to signing away his business today they never would. Through grim necessity he’d agreed to let Chastity work on his employer. She’d hinted at it several times before, but he didn’t want her flaunting herself before old Heavy Belly. But desperate needs called for desperate measures, and he sensed deep down that if he didn’t let Chastity work on Buckhout, she mightn’t be his much longer.

  Buckhout was on his feet, trembling with lust. Jubal couldn’t look. He saw Chastity backing away provocatively, then he put his hands over his eyes. Was it worth it? he asked himself as he listening to the panting and the slither of steps on the highly polished linoleum. Couldn’t he and Chastity be happy together on his wages? Of course not, his inner voice told him. Every penny he made went to buy her presents, and she still called him stingy. He simply had to get hold of the business, then tie her down for keeps with a wedding ring.

  What seemed an eternity passed before Jubal Trogg heard Buckhout’s long, drawn-out sigh. What the devil were they doing? Dare he look? Dare he not look?

  He looked.

  Buckhout was sitting in the chair again. There was something in his hand. Why, that rotten old lecher! It was a strip from Chastity’s dress. Jaw jutting out, Jubal started forward, but then Chastity appeared in the doorway, a smile on her flushed face.

  “Jubie, baby, we must have been born lucky!”

  He blinked his eyes stupidly. “Huh?”

  She stepped aside to give him a clear view of the man in the chair. “Look!”

  Buckhout was staring at nothing. He didn’t move or breathe.

  “Must’ve been his heart, honey,” Chastity whispered over his shoulder. “The old villain got too excited ...”

  Sweat was dripping down Trogg’s fat face and splashing onto the floor. His luck had been so bad over the past few days that he couldn’t believe it had taken a dramatic turn for the better.

  The old skinflint was dead. Now there was no need to fork out hard cash for the business. It was his for the taking, for he knew that Repose had no kin, nobody to leave the parlor to.

  Jubal turned slowly to Chastity, a dawning smile on his face. The smile broadened and became a laugh, then they were hugging and dancing and crying out like any sweet young couple might upon being blessed with sudden good fortune.

  In the excitement of the moment, Duke Benedict was forgotten as they hurried from the parlor with the intention of informing the law of Buckhout’s demise. Then they would buy the biggest bottle of champagne in town and throw a magnificent party for just two.

  So much for the plans of young lovers. Seated on the upstairs balcony of the Arkansas Hotel with Belinda Whitney, Duke Benedict had been watching the Dignified Funerals building for two hours. Now, catching a glimpse of the couple leaving the building by the side entrance, he excused himself to Belinda, put on his hat and went down the stairs fast.

  Chapter Ten – The Hostage

  DUSK WAS CREEPING across Spearhead County when the old army field glasses picked up a column of trail dust in the distance.

  Realizing it would take several minutes before he could identify the riders, Hank Brazos put the glasses down and tugged out his sack of Bull Durham. The rocky slope around him was littered with butts after one of t
he longest, hottest and most boring days the Texan had sweated through. Twelve hours of heat and dust, with only his dog and a curious yellow beaked buzzard for company and with not one traveler along the Wilson’s Pass trail to break the monotony. That column of dust out there now offered the first stir of hope that the long day hadn’t been wasted. But if he didn’t hit pay dirt, he decided, he would have no option but to head back for Spearhead. It would be dark in half an hour and there was no point in keeping watch after that. Maybe the Yank might have turned up something, he mused, setting fire to his cigarette.

  He was halfway through the smoke when the horsemen emerged from the mouth of a red-walled canyon, went around a stand of cottonwood, then rode along a straight strip of trail that angled almost directly towards Brazos.

  The Texan lifted the glasses to his eyes and the men jumped into sharp focus. The lead rider was a stranger, a lithe, slope-shouldered man with the look of a half-breed about him. The next was another Brazos hadn’t seen before, a hulking giant of a man.

  The glasses went to the third rider and Brazos felt his breath catch. Tall and lean in the saddle was the city marshal of Spearhead, Milt Brand.

  Pay dirt. But who was the fourth horseman?

  Shifting the glasses from Brand, Brazos brought the last rider into focus and immediately felt his stomach tighten. Instinct had tabbed the two lead riders as hardcases. The same instinct warned him that the fourth horseman was more than just another rough customer. With his ice-cold features, tied-down gun and silky way of sitting a saddle, he had the look of a true killer.

  Motionless, the Texan followed the slow progress of the oncoming riders for the time it took them to cover another hundred yards. Then he bellied back from the rim and came erect. A dozen strides took him to the grove where the appaloosa was tied. His battle-scarred trail hound sat up and looked at him questioningly.

  “Looks like she could be a busy night buildin’ up, ugly,” Brazos grunted, filling leather. “Let’s go find the Yank.”

  Elroy Smart counted his matches. Only five left. In the deepening gloom of Dead Horse Canyon, he could see the scatter of dead matches all around him where he crouched by the little pile of timber and brush that was just waiting the touch of flame to convert it into a fire. He must have struck at least a score of matches in the past half hour, but he hadn’t had the nerve to put one of them to the rolled-up wad of greasy paper at the fire’s base.

  If he kept this up, he wouldn’t have any matches left for his signal fire. He’d been here for five days without the sight or sound of a renegade. Prior to the Comanche attack on him that day, he’d seen no Indian sign, suggesting that the trio that had attacked him had been an isolated group. The Texan who’d brought him the fresh supply of food had assured him that he wouldn’t be here much longer, but who could believe a man who would take such liberties with a state official and cause the postponement of a hanging?

  All good, solid reasons for applying the match. So why was he hesitating? Was he man or mouse, hangman or coward?

  He struck the match. His fingers shook. The yellow flame almost touched the paper, then he drew it back. He could feel the heat beginning to warm his finger and thumb. Another second or so and the flame would die.

  With a groan, he thrust the match against the paper and immediately flames leaped up through the dry twigs. It had been growing chill down in the canyon with the sunlight fading from the sky; now the little fire exuded a warmth that Elroy Smart felt on his face, his body and his hands. But not inside.

  Inside he was thinking: Maybe there had been renegade sign that he hadn’t noticed?

  He shivered violently, afraid to let the fire continue to burn, but more afraid of putting it out. Experiencing some of the same fear he’d often mocked in those he’d executed so willingly on his gallows, he comforted himself with a vision of retribution for a certain massive Texan and a fancy dressed dude when he escaped from this accursed place. How high he would hang them!

  “Jube, honey?”

  The girl’s voice echoed hollowly inside the gloomy funeral parlor. With one dainty foot inside the side door and the other on the stoop, Chastity Brown called again. “Jubie? You there, baby?”

  No answer.

  Impatience contorted the girl’s honey-gold face and she forced herself to step across the cold polished linoleum that covered the floor in the parlor of Dignified Funerals. Two hours had passed since the hangman had surprised her and Jubal in her bedroom, after which the grim-jawed hangman and the hastily dressed Trogg had left with the executioner’s insistence that he wanted only a few private words with Jubal. A woman could be expected to wait awhile for her lover, particularly when their future looked so rosy—but after two hours, a vivacious red-blooded girl like round hipped Chastity was likely to become more than a little impatient.

  “Jubal! If you’re here, answer me right away!”

  Still no response. She peered into the embalming room and saw the canvas-covered Tim Fenner. She wrinkled her nose. A failure. She could never understand why Dusty had bothered with him.

  She went to the door of the office. J. Repose Buckhout still occupied his chair, as still as a board. Silly old goat. Why hadn’t he sold out without all the fuss? Then she wouldn’t have had to get him all excited and he might still be alive.

  Checking out the remaining empty rooms, she shrugged and went back to the stoop. Music was tinkling at the Big Dipper and she was beginning to feel the restlessness that always came with night. After a minute, she started in the direction of the Big Dipper with the sensuous walk that drove the men of Spearhead crazy. If Jubal Trogg thought she was going to sit around all night waiting for him, he had another think coming.

  She was going to let the first good-looking man she met buy her a few drinks. Sweet Chastity wasn’t going to sit around all night waiting for any man.

  The town clock was tolling eight when Marshal Milt Brand finally showed up at the jailhouse. Sheriff Jobe Calvin was at his desk looking tense in the yellow glow of his battered desk lamp.

  Brand put his dusty hat on the rack, then walked across to the stove to pour coffee.

  “Find anythin’ on them beeves, Marshal?” Calvin asked. Brand had left a note at the office last night informing the sheriff that he would be away most of the day checking on a report that rancher Leroy O’Toole had lost a few head of cattle.

  “No luck,” Brand grunted, tasting the coffee. He grimaced, then looked sharply at the man behind the desk. “Anything wrong, Sheriff? You look jumpy. Something happen while I was away?”

  Before Calvin could answer, a soft footfall sounded in the cell block archway and the tall man Brand knew as Elroy Smart appeared. It was the first time Benedict had been seen wearing his double gun rig in Spearhead, and he presented a formidable sight in black and white as he stood there silently eyeing the marshal, his hands on his hips and a Cuban cigar in his mouth.

  Neither man spoke for a full ten seconds, then Brand’s right hand started drifting towards his gun butt.

  “I wouldn’t recommend that course of action, Marshal,” Benedict said softly. “I’ve never shot a marshal, though whether you deserve that title seems to be a matter for a certain amount of debate.”

  The edged threat in the clipped voice was unmistakable. Brand shot a questioning stare at Calvin, then jerked his head around as a pale-faced Jubal Trogg emerged from the corridor behind Benedict, followed by the shambling bulk of Hank Brazos.

  “What the hell is going on here?” Brand managed to get out after a brief silence. “Calvin, what are these men doing here?”

  Jobe Calvin’s cough sounded as if the sheriff had dust in his throat. “I guess Mr. Smart will explain, Marshal.”

  “Indeed I shall, Marshal,” Benedict murmured, moving in front of the desk. “It is my pleasure to inform you that the jig is up. With just a little persuasion on my part this afternoon, your friend Mr. Trogg experienced total recall and remembered who had paid him a thousand dollars to lie about Dusty L
ane.”

  Jubal Trogg refused to meet the lawman’s glittering eyes. He hung his head, dark bruises showing out against the pallor of his skin. Contrary to Benedict’s statement, it had taken a great deal of “persuasion” before Trogg had told the truth. In the end, he had done so only after Benedict’s promise to help him avoid a jail term for perjury. Benedict had been able to give this assurance easily enough, for it was obvious that Jubal Trogg was only a small cog in the machinery that had caused the deaths of Vic Clanton and Bart Channing. So Benedict had arranged for a welcome when the marshal returned to the jailhouse—this after Brazos had reported that Brand and three others were riding to town from the Big G.

  The marshal was obviously shaken, and Benedict was determined he wouldn’t get a chance to recover.

  “You bribed Trogg to lie about seeing Lane murder Clanton,” Benedict said in a cold, cutting voice. “And you lied about seeing Dusty Lane run from the Eastman store moments after the double murder. Today you left Spearhead in the company of three strangers, rode to the Garroway Ranch, then returned. I want to know what business took you to the Big G. I want to know what orders Garroway gave you, why you tried to lie a man onto the gallows, and why you’re a disgrace to the star on your vest.”

  Standing slump-shouldered and haggard-faced, Brand looked for all the world like a beaten man. But Milt Brand was a convincing actor when the chips were down. With a weary sigh and a defeated shrug, he seemed about to slump into a chair when suddenly his right hand went down and his six-gun hissed from leather.

  Benedict didn’t hesitate. His right shoulder dipped, his hand blurred, and suddenly the room rocked to the thunder of his Peacemaker .44.

  Benedict couldn’t run the risk of trying to wing his man. He aimed squarely for the chest and his bullet went there.

  His six-gun tumbling from nerveless fingers, Milt Brand stood staring down at the crimson stain spreading across his chest. Then he fell as if his legs had been cut from beneath him.