Benedict and Brazos 19

by E. Jefferson Clay

  But this would be only a temporary delay in his plans, he told himself sternly. A few peaceful days to rest and recover in these idyllic surroundings, and then it would be decision time.

  He was so wrong.

  Chapter Three – Resurrection Day

  Resurrection was a mean little town, unpainted and dusty and sprawling untidily across a broad alkali flat with the Tumbleweed Hills to the east and the Slave River running like a sluggish brown snake to the west. It had been given its name in the early days of the wagon trains by a forgotten evangelist, more in hope than with any real anticipation of resurrection of any kind. In Winchester County, where most towns either prospered or faded into weed-choked ghosters, Resurrection had stubbornly refused to either develop or die. With the exception of one or two cattle outfits, most notably the Shiloh which encompassed most of the top grazeland in the region, there wasn’t enough cattle trade to sustain a town its size; yet it managed to survive because it stood squarely on the main east-west trail that brought the settlers from the war-ravaged east before they scattered to all points of the compass across the opening west.

  The town was blurred with dust and heat-haze as the small Shiloh wagon and the tall man astride the fancy black horse crossed the Slave River bridge and made towards the steep slope leading up to the town. A water wagon was moving slowly down Keeno Street, spraying water to keep down the dust. But Resurrection’s summer dust seldom stayed down for long. Soon it would rise under the stir of boots and hoofs and wagon wheels to hang thick and sluggish in the hot air before drifting slowly over the rooftops of the Can Can Saloon, the Traveler’s Rest Hotel, the City Jailhouse and the smaller saloons, then down across the Acme Corral, the Willigan Brothers’ Wagon Depot, the stage and freight yards in Southend Street and Mother Casey’s Rooming House for Single Gentlemen. Finally the dust would settle on the humpies and lean-tos on the fringes of town.

  It was hardly a sight to cheer the weary traveler on a hot summer’s day, but Hank Brazos had always been a relatively easy man to please, and dust, heat and the silent, canvas-shrouded figure behind him in the buckboard notwithstanding, he felt moved to lighten his last mile with a song:

  “Bury me lonesome,

  Bury me deep,

  Bury me in a nightshirt,

  So a man can get some sleep.”

  Trotting in the shade of the vehicle with his pink tongue lolling, the Texan’s trail hound began to give his version of a prance, cheered as always by the sound of his master’s voice. From experience, Bullpup knew that when Brazos got to singing, good times were just around the corner. And good times to the dog meant dishes of cold beer, cats to terrorize, and maybe, with luck, a fat towner or two to nip on the heels. Just to keep boredom at bay.

  But Benedict, riding up front so the wheel-lifted dust wouldn’t taint his spotless broadcloth suit and highly polished black boots, showed no appreciation of his trail partner’s musical talents.

  “A touch inappropriate, wouldn’t you say, Johnny Reb?” he said, leaning forward in the saddle against the slope.

  “What’s that, Yank?” Brazos said.

  “Your wailing about burials seems out of place in the company of our friend, wouldn’t you say?”

  There were many times when Brazos didn’t understand what Benedict was saying with his ten-dollar words, but just as often he acted a lot thicker than nature made him when it suited his purpose—as it did now.

  “Bullpup ain’t got no feelin’s, Yank,” he said innocently. “Hell, you’ve said that yourself more times than I can rem—”

  “I’m referring to Monk.”

  “Why didn’t you say so?” The Texan looked back over his shoulder and shrugged. “Seems to me old Brady Monk ain’t objectin’ none.” He waited to see if this would draw a response. When it didn’t, he added, “Anyway, mebbe I’m singin’ with Brady in mind, Yank. I mean he’s been one mighty busy varmint one way and another, killin’ and robbin’ and all that stuff. Seems to me that if anybody could use some rest, it’d be him.”

  Benedict sighed. “He isn’t the only one. It seems to me that I could use a little rest from what one might term Texas discordancy. There are worse fates than getting shot full of holes.”

  Brazos couldn’t think up a suitable retort to that barb, so he settled for another verse:

  “Bury me in Texas,

  Bury me in the West,

  Bury me a’layin’ down,

  That’s the way they say is best.”

  A complaint was on Duke Benedict’s lips, but he bit it back as they approached Resurrection’s main street.

  Today being Sunday, there were plenty of people on Keeno Street to witness their arrival. Situated as it was on the Kansas trail, Resurrection got to see just about every breed of traveler—families of sun-bleached Scandinavian immigrants, bitter faced drifters and badmen on the dodge, drummers, empire-builders, bums, captains of industry, and strange men who looked as if they had come from nowhere and were hell-bent on getting to no place in particular.

  Even so, there was enough that was unusual about the new arrivals to interrupt conversations on the shaded porches of the Can Can, the Buckaroo and the Red Bull Saloons, and the hotel. Townspeople weighed the two strangers with experienced eyes and made their judgments.

  “Gunfighters,” decided blacksmith Billy Tanner, taking note of Duke Benedict’s brace of white-handled Peacemakers and the well-worn Colt .45 resting comfortably on Hank Brazos’ hip.

  “First one looks more like a gamblin’ dude to me,” said barber Toby Dick, sucking on a briar pipe. “The other? Well, he looks like somebody who mebbe totes locomotives around for the exercise. Get a look at them shoulders, will you?”

  But, as the cavalcade approached the city jailhouse, attention went to the wagon. There seemed to be something familiar about that vehicle, but it wasn’t until it was drawing to a halt out front of the law office that Lees Jansen, in for the day from the Bar S, recognized it.

  “Seems to me there’s only one wagon hereabouts with a cut-under front like that,” Jansen drawled to his companions on the porch of the Resurrection general store across the street. “And that comes from Shiloh.”

  It was then that simple Sunday afternoon curiosity turned into something else. Eyes tightened and lips thinned as townspeople watched the two tall strangers step down, and there was something ugly in the face of stage man Kirk Stratton.

  “That’s a Shiloh wagon right enough,” the heavy-set towner said. “And if them two jaspers are gun hands like they look, then it must mean Claiborne’s fixin’ to get ready for more trouble.”

  “Son of a bitch!” another man spat.

  Pausing on the jailhouse gallery, Benedict and Brazos noted the hostile stares and wondered about it as they entered the law office.

  They had been told at the ranch that Chad Madison was the man they wanted to see. But the sheriff was away this afternoon, and in his place was a lean, lugubrious turnkey named Ham Sheppard.

  The turnkey was cordial enough at first, and genuinely impressed when acquainted with the reason for their visit. There was a large wanted dodger displaying the maverick face of Brady Monk on the wall behind the desk, and news had reached Resurrection days earlier about the triple killing and robbery in Broadman’s Bend. Sheppard would be happy to take delivery of Monk’s body, and he would have the sheriff set the wheels in motion quickly to enable them to claim the reward money of five hundred dollars.

  “Never mind the reward, Mr. Sheppard,” Benedict told him, standing in the doorway with one shoulder leaning against the frame. “Monk left two widows in Broadman’s Bend last week. Have it divided equally between them.”

  The turnkey blinked. “You don’t want the reward?” He gaped from the tall figure in the doorway to the hulking giant perched on the edge of his desk, then he grinned. “Glory be, you fellers must be a new breed of bounty hunter I ain’t heard about yet.”

  “We ain’t bounty-hunters,” Brazos grunted out, but he wasn’t move
d to elaborate further. Had he done so, he could have told Ham Sheppard that their sole reason for tracking Brady Monk crossed more than a hundred miles of hard country was entirely due to three bullet-riddled corpses of simple, Godfearing people back in Broadman’s Bend. But Sheppard didn’t look to be a sensitive man. Besides, they were serving at the bars along Keeno Street and the day wasn’t any younger.

  Brazos fingered his hat back from his thick yellow thatch that fell like a banner across his broad brow, and said:

  “You want anythin’ else from us, joker?”

  “Hell, I guess I know enough at least to tell the sheriff,” the man replied. “But mebbe just one thing. Where can we find you if Sheriff Madison wants to know anythin’ else?”

  “We’re spending a few days at Shiloh Ranch,” Benedict said.

  The temperature in the law office seemed to drop. Ham Sheppard stopped smiling and didn’t look friendly any more as he got slowly to his feet.

  “You’re stayin’ at Shiloh?” he asked woodenly.

  Benedict cast a curious glance at Brazos, then nodded.

  “You’re friends of Claiborne’s?” Sheppard demanded.

  A small frown creased Benedict’s dark brows. “It seems to me, Sheppard, that I detect a sudden note of hostility in your tone. Do you mind telling me why?”

  “I asked a simple question,” Sheppard said. “Are you friends of Claiborne’s?”

  “You could say that I guess,” supplied Brazos. “Why?”

  “I’m here to ask questions, not answer them,” Sheppard snapped.

  “Wrong, my friend ...” Benedict’s voice was soft, silky smooth. “It seems all too obvious that you have something on your chest, and I suggest you get it off. If there is something wrong with our being associated with Shiloh Ranch, I would be very interested to hear about it.”

  Sheppard looked from one to the other, then he dropped his gaze and shuffled his big range boots.

  “You better talk to the sheriff about Shiloh. Him and me have different points of view on that outfit.”

  “They told me the sheriff is a friend of the Claibornes, that he is keeping company with Miss Emma,” Benedict pressed on. “You sound as though you’re not a friend, Sheppard. Is that so?”

  Sheppard looked up, hot-eyed. “I told you that you can talk to the—”

  “No, joker,” Brazos cut in, sliding off the desk and seeming to fill the room with his great bulk. He stabbed a finger at Sheppard’s skinny chest. “Let’s hear it from you. What have you got against Shiloh?”

  The turnkey was afraid now. He was out of his depth and knew it. He looked anxiously at the door, then his gaze returned to Brazos. His narrow shoulders slumped in resignation.

  “It’s just that Claiborne ain’t liked here in Resurrection,” he muttered. “He’s ... he’s too high-and-mighty to suit plain folks. He’s got a habit of treatin’ us like dirt ... and that sure is mortal hard to take from the likes of him.”

  “The likes of him?” Benedict clipped out. “And what precisely does that mean?”

  Sheppard looked at him. “You’re North, ain’t you, Mr. Benedict?”

  “I am.”

  “Then I guess you’d understand. Claiborne was a rich slaver. It was his breed we whupped in the war, and now they’re back lordin’ it over us like it was them that won instead of us.”

  “Ahh.” Benedict’s soft sigh spoke volumes. Now it was all plain. The peace had been signed almost a year ago, but it took longer than that for hatred to die, and it seemed hate was dying hard and slow in Resurrection.

  Benedict glanced at Brazos and noted that the Texan’s jaw had set rock-hard, and the smoke of old battles was in his stormy blue eyes. Two steps carried Benedict to the big man.

  “Let it be, Johnny Reb,” he said quietly. “It isn’t worth it.”

  “You reckon not?” Brazos gritted, his eyes drilling at the turnkey. “Mebbe this jaybird needs straightenin’ out about a few things.”

  “Doubtless, doubtless,” Benedict replied. “But what have you achieved when you have bested a fool?”

  “What did you call me?” Sheppard flared.

  Benedict turned slowly from Brazos, placed the heels of his hands on the edge of the desk, and pushed his face close to Sheppard’s.

  “I said you’re a fool, Sheppard. And if you want embellishment, I can add that you are a moronic, imbecilic mendicant—as is every man who by word or deed would try to fan the embers of a fire that engulfed four million souls.” His voice dropped lower. “If you want satisfaction for what I admit is an insult, I am at your disposal.”

  It took a long moment for that to sink in. Then Sheppard’s jaw dropped open and he said, “Glory be, Mr. Benedict, I don’t want to tangle with you.”

  “In that case, keep your stupid mouth shut when you are around your betters,” Benedict said in a voice as cold as ice. Then, his white smile suddenly flashing, he turned and,bguiding Brazos by the arm, walked out to the porch.

  The big Texan was still angry, but he was able to execute a tight grin.

  “Thanks, Yank. I guess a man’s a fool to let himself get riled when somebody starts shootin’ off his mouth that way, but—”

  “You were riled and I was riled,” Benedict said, tugging down the lapels of his coat. He shrugged. “Perhaps it was because we saw it all that we allow such talk to ruffle us. But a man doesn’t let it ruin his day when a dog yaps at him on the street, Texan, so I suggest we forget Turnkey Bigmouth and get on with the main purpose of our visit.”

  Brightening visibly, Brazos led the way down the worn steps, for the “main purpose” of their visit was most definitely to sample the wares at places like the Can Can and the Buckaroo. The little set-to with the South-hating turnkey had added a sharper edge to Brazos’ already considerable thirst.

  But Ham Sheppard and his dislike for the Claibornes was anything but a rarity in the town of Resurrection, as they discovered when they mounted the gallery of the big, imposing looking Can Can Saloon to find a group of scowling men barring their way to the batwings.

  Trouble was an old companion of Hank Brazos and Duke Benedict, and both caught its smell as they halted before that volley of hard scowls. At Brazos’ side, Bullpup lifted his hackles and growled deep in his barrel chest, breaking off only when the Texan snapped his fingers.

  “There is something, gentlemen?” Benedict asked in his most polite voice, laying on the Harvard accent a little for effect.

  The men, most of whom wore the aprons and starched collars of saloon employees, said nothing. Then one pushed his way forward. He was tall and well-dressed with a narrow face, a pencil-line moustache and a sharp jaw. There was the stamp of authority about him and he sounded like a man accustomed to giving orders when he spoke with a Northern twang:

  “I’m Troy Ridge, owner of the Can Can,” he said, looking them up and down. “Can I have your names?”

  The two tall men looked at each other. The more they saw of it, the more Resurrection seemed to be shaping up as the unfriendliest town west of the Mississippi.

  Benedict slipped his fingers into the slash pockets of his watered silk vest and lifted an eyebrow. “You may indeed, mine host,” he said in the same tone of voice. “My name is Benedict and my partner is Mr. Hank Brazos. I might add that being thirsty travelers we’re in dire need of—”

  “Are you from Shiloh Ranch?”

  “You interrupted me, sir,” Benedict replied with a smile.

  “But no offence. Yes, we are from the Shiloh Ranch and—”

  “Then you’ll have to do your drinking elsewhere.”

  Duke Benedict had been rudely interrupted again. He smiled. “I’m afraid you’re mistaken, Mr. Troy. You operate a public house, and my partner and I represent the public. We shall drink here.”

  “And we’ll drink here now,” said Brazos.

  “You don’t get the idea,” Ridge snapped, a spot of color tinging each cheek. “I don’t serve Claiborne or anybody who works for him or any
of his friends.” He jerked a thumb. “So move on.”

  “Let me guess, joker,” Brazos said thinly. “You’re agin Claiborne on account he was on the losin’ side in the war, and you don’t like him bein’ out there at Shiloh actin’ like a winner?”

  Ridge’s dark eyes narrowed. “That’s only part of it, but it will do. Now get—”

  “I was on the losin’ side, too,” Brazos growled, moving forward. “But unless you step aside, you Yankees are gonna have to prove all over again that you came out on top. Move!”

  What came next happened fast. Troy Ridge stepped aside and said something to a man with arms like chunks of cord wood who lunged at Brazos. The Texan didn’t break stride. His right shoulder dipped, there was a blur of a purple-sleeved arm, and the Can Can’s top bouncer went down in a heap with his eyes rolling white in their sockets. Stepping over the man, Brazos reached for Ridge as Ridge went for his gun. But Benedict drew his right-side Colt before the man’s fingers could touch gun butt.

  Every man froze, with the exception of Brazos. Thrusting the saloonkeeper aside, he glared at a man standing before the batwings. The man held his stare for a moment, looked at Benedict’s gun, then jumped aside a split-second before the thirsty Texan would have walked over him. The batwings flapped behind the big man’s back as he strode in. The total astonishment of the Can Can men on the porch was compounded when Benedict spun his gun on his finger, dropped the weapon into his holster and smiled broadly.

  “No hard feelings, Ridge?” he grinned at the stunned saloonkeeper, extending a friendly hand. “You were decidedly in the wrong, but I’m prepared to overlook it. I suggest we shake hands and forget all about it.”

  Troy Ridge’s face was haggard as he took Benedict’s outstretched hand. A big man in Resurrection with aspirations to be the biggest, he wasn’t accustomed to losing, but he was smart enough to know when to throw in his cards and cut his losses. The demolition of his top bruiser and the lightning draw and total self-assurance of the tall man in the gambler’s suit told him that this was one hand he had to concede.