Benedict just shrugged. The clash with Troy Ridge and his toughs had faded into the background after a big win at the poker tables and a little wine and romance with a bright-eyed girl named Jenny.
“You must be lightning with that gun of yours, Duke,” the boy said, rising from the bench. “How about showing me a trick or two?”
“I doubt if the colonel would approve,” Benedict said.
“Can you use a gun at all, Lonnie?” Brazos asked.
“No, Hank. The old man says I can start wearing a Colt when I’m twenty-one, not before. Hell, a man could get himself killed a dozen times by then. How about it, Duke?”
Benedict looked at Brazos and the big man spread his hands. “Wouldn’t hurt none, I reckon, Yank. A man’s got to be able to use a six-gun sooner or later.”
Benedict glanced at the house, then nodded. “All right, Lonnie. Let’s begin at the beginning ...”
Puffing on his Bull Durham cigarette, Hank Brazos watched intently as Benedict set about demonstrating the basics of gun craft to the boy, and he was reminded afresh of how good the Yank was with a six-gun. The Texan himself was no mean hand with a Colt, but from the first moment he saw Benedict draw a Peacemaker, he’d come to understand fully the enormous gulf that separated a man who was merely good with a gun and the true gunfighter. Duke Benedict had been born to use a gun. Perhaps he’d also been born to do magical things with a deck of cards, and to get himself into more trouble with pretty girls than any ten men, but with the gun was where his true genius lay. Even now, showing the goggle-eyed boy how to clear a Colt and fire, the Yank was all style and speed. Brazos had never seen the man who was as fast as Benedict, which was just as well, for those lightning Peacemakers had saved the Texan’s hide on more than one occasion.
Benedict was a good tutor, in fact he’d taught Brazos a few short-cuts in his time. But the Texan quickly realized that Lonnie Claiborne would never be more than average with a handgun. Gun talent was something you were born with, and the boy plainly didn’t have it. Still, as Brazos strongly believed, every man should be able to use a gun.
Absorbed as they were in what was going on, no one saw the tall figure emerge from the front doors of the mansion and stare across at them. Dressed severely in dark pants and a tight-fitting waistcoat, Stanton Claiborne watched for a minute, then started across the lawn. The boss of Shiloh was frowning hard.
“And what is the meaning of this, might I ask?”
All heads turned and Lonnie Claiborne’s face immediately took on a defensive look.
“Duke is just showing me a few things with a six-gun,” Lonnie said.
“I hope you don’t object, Colonel,” Benedict said, angling his Colt at the ground.
“I do indeed,” the rancher replied, drawing up before them. “I have no desire to see my son become a gunfighter.”
“There isn’t much chance of that,” Benedict said. “I was merely showing Lonnie some of the basics. Everybody should know them.”
“I don’t propose to argue this in front of my children,” Claiborne said sternly. “Lonnie, Emma, you will kindly leave us alone.”
Emma tugged at her brother’s sleeve, but Lonnie stayed put.
“Old man, I’m sick of getting shoved aside every time you want to talk about something you don’t think I should hear,” the boy said angrily.
The color drained from Claiborne’s face. “Old man?” he breathed. “You—you dare address your father with such disrespect? You, a mere boy?”
“Boy?” Lonnie challenged, ignoring Emma’s frightened, pleading look. He hit his chest with his fist. “Take another look, old man. I’m not a boy any longer. I’m a man and it’s damned high time you started treating me like one.”
“Be silent, sir!”
The wild, ungovernable temper that both Benedict and Brazos had sensed in Lonnie Claiborne the last time they had seen him clash with his father worked the boy’s face into a contorted mask.
“Die!” he spat venomously, starting to back away. He was shaking violently and his eyes seemed to have lost all color. “Die—and the last thing you’ll hear is me laughing!”
Claiborne lifted his silver-topped cane. “Come back here, sir!”
Lonnie swung towards the house, eyes glittering. “Go rot in hell!”
The boy stormed towards the mansion at a plunging walk, unsteady on his feet like a drunk. His father started after him, but then Brazos’ wide bulk blocked his path. For a moment it seemed as if the rancher might lash at the Texan with his cane, but his daughter’s voice held him.
“Father!”
Claiborne turned slowly. “I shan’t tolerate this,” he whispered. Then, in a louder voice: “The boy is crazy! He—”
“How dare you, Father!”
Three pairs of astounded eyes looked at the girl. Emma Claiborne was no longer the soft and gentle girl Benedict and Brazos had come to know; now she displayed all the defiance of a vixen protecting a cub.
“You will withdraw that remark, Father,” she cried. “You must never say that about Lonnie. I won’t let anybody say that about him.”
“Emma,” Claiborne got out after a stunned moment. “How dare you talk to me that way? My own, sweet Emma—”
“Lonnie isn’t crazy,” the girl shot back at him. “Say it, Father. Say he isn’t.”
Seconds passed in silence; then, to the astonishment of Benedict and Brazos, Stanton Claiborne dropped his gaze as if he could no longer brave the accusation he saw in his daughter’s eyes.
“I ... I’m sorry, Emma,” he muttered. “I shouldn’t have said what I did. I ... I withdraw the remark.”
Tears were brimming in the girl’s blue eyes as she glanced swiftly at the two silent men. Then she was running for the house, her golden hair streaming behind her.
For a short time it was quite still on the green lawns, with the dark shadows of the poplars lengthening now to encroach on the house’s wide gallery. Standing in silence, Benedict and Brazos sensed they had witnessed something coming to a head here that might have been building up for a long time. They had seen Claiborne’s hard handling of his son, who showed a broad streak of instability in his makeup. And they had noted the touching bond between brother and sister. Because they had played roles in precipitating this family clash, each was uncomfortable as Colonel Stanton Claiborne began to speak to Benedict.
“So this is how you repay my hospitality, sir? Undermining my authority, turning my own son against me.”
It was time for Benedict to say what was on his mind or backwater, and he wasn’t the retreating kind.
“I’m sorry if my attempt to teach your son how to protect himself triggered this off, Claiborne,” he said quietly. “But you are too severe with the boy.”
“The Yank’s right, Colonel,” Brazos said. “You don’t break a colt by beatin’ him over the head and puttin’ hobbles on him so’s he can’t even kick when he gets the urge.”
Claiborne straightened to his full height, looking much as he must have when he commanded a regiment. “So now I am to be instructed on how to raise my son by a pair of gunfighters?’
“Call us what you crave, Colonel,” Benedict said brusquely. “But nothing will alter the fact that you’re driving Lonnie into a corner he’ll be forced to break out of sooner or later.” He paused, then went on, “Just as nothing will alter the fact that your arrogance in your dealings in this county will reap bitter fruit.”
Hank Brazos was forced to clear his throat to ease his tension. Though completely in accord with what Benedict had said, the Texan was a little in awe of Stanton Claiborne. During the war, it had been simple, rugged men like Brazos who had done the fighting, and educated, remote men of the Claiborne breed who’d told them when, where and how they were to fight. Some of the legacy of their comparative roles still lingered.
With Benedict it was different. He respected Claiborne, even liked the man despite his autocratic ways. But Benedict belonged to Claiborne’s own class. The son of
a wealthy and socially prominent Boston banker, Benedict’s had been a privileged upbringing, and his career as a Federal captain had been distinguished. He was speaking to the cattleman as an equal.
“I’m sorry if I’ve offended you, Colonel,” Benedict said after a silence. “However, as you’ve been kind enough to grant us your hospitality, I feel obliged to repay you by telling you a few home truths that apparently nobody else dares to put into words. If by so doing I earn your displeasure, I’m prepared to leave Shiloh immediately.”
The last part of Benedict’s statement seemed to ease some of the iron tensions in Stanton Claiborne’s face. The man stared from Benedict to Brazos and then he sighed, tapping the cane against his leg.
“You just don’t understand,” Claiborne said unevenly. “About my son, I mean. I’ll concede that I’m hard on Lonnie, but it’s because I must be, because I fear ...” His voice faded and he shook his head. “You don’t understand …”
“Then help us understand, Colonel,” Brazos suggested. “Why do you ride the kid the way you do?”
“I don’t see why I should confide in you,” Claiborne retorted. He hesitated, studying them, then he lowered himself to the bench where Emma and Lonnie had been sitting. He nodded then, looking up at them with his hands resting on the silver top of the cane. “Perhaps I’m being foolish. You saved my children’s lives. You’ve also shown yourselves as being men of strength and will. Lonnie thinks a great deal of you ...”
He looked away then, staring out over a landscape that was turning gold and lavender in the late afternoon light. “Lonnie’s mother, as I told you, was murdered before the boy’s eyes. He tried to go to her aid but was felled by a blow to the head from a rifle butt and left for dead. When he recovered, he remained in the house for five days with his mother’s body.”
He paused, then looked up at them again. “He was never the same after that experience. I fear that his mind was affected.” His gesture encompassed the Shiloh ranch. “This is all to be Lonnie’s. I want him to be strong, to be fit to take over when I’m gone. So I keep the boy on a short leash, gentlemen, for no other reason than that I want to preserve his safety ... and his sanity. Have I made myself clear?”
Two uncomfortable men exchanged a long stare. Then it was Benedict’s turn to clear his throat.
“I’m sorry, Colonel. We just didn’t know …”
Claiborne seemed not to hear as he got to his feet. “As for the other thing you mentioned, my relationships with the town ... well, I can’t change what I am. I’m a Southerner who came out of the war with wealth and I live in a county populated by poor and envious Northerners. There are those who want to take what I have and who will stop at almost nothing to bring me down. I shall of course resist them as I have in the past. Now, gentlemen, I trust you will excuse me.”
They watched him walk slowly towards the house, the military carriage still there.
Benedict and Brazos stood in silence long after the colonel had disappeared, each with his own thoughts. From across the grassland flats came the evening calls of larks and longspurs. Small, fleecy red clouds edged with gold were sailing slowly across the purple of the evening sky, looking one moment like ships, then like swans, then like fantastic monsters made of cotton wool against a silken backdrop.
A crow flew across the bunkhouses to perch on a tree close by, his throaty voice breaking the silence as Benedict finally turned and reached for a cigar.
“Well, Johnny Reb, there it is.”
“Yeah,” Brazos said, looking down thoughtfully at his hound who had slept comfortably throughout the harrowing scene. Then he said, “Well, at least we know the set-up.”
Smoke gusted from Benedict’s lips as he applied a light to his Cuban cigarillo. “Indeed we do, though now I’m wondering if it might have been better if we’d been left in ignorance.”
“How come?”
“They are fine people, Reb, all of them. Fine people with large problems. And because they have been kind to us, it could prove difficult for us to saddle up and ride off when the time comes.”
“You mean you’re thinkin’ we might stick around a spell?”
Benedict studied his glowing cigar tip. “What I think I mean is, as they say in the book of Proverbs: ‘Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish and wine unto those that be of heavy heart.’”
The Texan’s brow furrowed. “What’s that mean?”
“It means that we both need a little whisky.”
“I’ll go along with that.”
Chapter Six – “I Dance With Death”
Stripped to the waist, lean, dark-eyed Troy Ridge was shaving over the basin in his office at the rear of the Can Can Saloon by the last rays of daylight. The razor slid smoothly over his cheek and then there was a knock on the door.
“Come!”
Monty Huck entered the room, blinking after the bright lights of the barroom. “You want me to make a light, Troy?”
Ridge grunted and continued shaving as his head bouncer and bodyguard went to the desk lamp. The light that flooded the room highlighted the black bruise down the side of the burly Huck’s jaw where he’d been hit with the hardest punch of his bouncer’s career the previous day.
Huck adjusted the lamp wick and then looked at his employer’s lean but muscular back. “Woodruff has dropped a hundred at the wheel, Troy. He wants to get another fifty on the slate.”
Ridge rinsed the razor in the soapy water. “He’s in the red already, isn’t he?”
“Sixty bucks.”
The saloonkeeper half-smiled. “Give it to him.”
“I have my doubts if he’ll be able to get it back to us, Troy.”
“He’ll pay—one way or another. Let him have it.”
“Right, Troy,” Huck said, and went out.
The saloonkeeper plied his razor again, working carefully around his pencil line moustache. He too doubted that storekeeper Ezra Woodruff could make his notes good, but these days Ridge was less interested in fattening his bank balance than he was in currying favor and support among the citizens of Resurrection. With two saloons and various business interests, including two small ranches in the county, Ridge had comfortably passed the point where he had to worry about fifty dollars here or a hundred there. His sights were on bigger things, and the biggest thing in Winchester County was the Shiloh ranch.
It had become perfectly clear to Ridge during his last discussion with Stanton Claiborne that the cattleman would never sell out. So, what money had failed to achieve, he hoped to gain by pressure. The saloonkeeper still had no clear idea as to when and how he would use that support, but various plans were turning over in his mind, and he was confident of ultimate success.
Finishing with the razor, he slipped into a silk shirt and put on his bed-of-flowers vest. Next he buckled on the shoulder harness with the short-barreled Saturday Night Special flat against his side. Then he shrugged into his coat. Making a final check of his appearance in the mirror, he adjusted his four-in-hand tie, then went through to the barroom.
The big chandelier had been lit and Professor Milton Jones was at the piano, his long, bony fingers rippling over the keyboard. As usual, the Can Can was well patronized. Besides being the biggest and best saloon in town, customers were drawn here because they were made to feel welcome by Ridge himself and right down through the bouncers, house dealers, barmen and percentage girls. A man could get anything he wanted at the Can Can, and credit was no problem.
Customers greeted the saloonkeeper respectfully as he made his way through the room. Ridge returned each greeting with a smile. The dealers nodded from their layouts and Troy Ridge nodded back. He noted that the professor was beating out the Yankee Civil War tune, “We Will Hang Jeff Davis From A Sour Apple Tree—” Ridge smiled approvingly. With the pictures of Grant, Sherman and Sheridan lining the walls, no stranger could remain long in doubt as to where sectional loyalty lay in the Can Can.
Ridge sat down at his private table to the rig
ht of the piano and lifted three fingers to one of the barkeepers. There was a deck of cards on the table and he began to sort them by suit and number. The barman came over with three fingers of bourbon, and Troy Ridge dealt himself a solitaire hand. He loved playing cards, but he always played alone now. He’d been a big gambler in his day, but gambling no longer held much of a thrill. These days he preferred betting on sure things.
He had been at his table with his cards and whisky, watching the night building up for some ten minutes when the loud voice from the far corner attracted his attention. Turning in his chair, he saw that the noisy customer was a stranger. He was young and proddy looking, with washed-out blue eyes. Judging by the way he was banging the table and talking to the men with him, he was getting steamed up about something.
Ridge turned back to his game. If the kid got too noisy, Monty would take care of him. Locals could raise a degree of hell in the Can Can, but strangers got firm treatment.
His hands paused in the dealing when he thought of the two strangers yesterday who’d jolted him so severely. The saloonkeeper’s eyes narrowed. He’d heard that Benedict and Brazos were just passing through after having been drawn here on the trail of the killer Brady Monk. He hoped this was so.
He was just finishing his drink when Monty Huck crossed to his table and drew out a chair. The bruiser’s usually bland face showed a trace of excitement as he leaned forward. “Troy, that joker over there makin’ all the racket. You noticed him?”
“Yes. What’s he so excited about?”
“Claiborne.”
“What?”
“I’ve just been talkin’ with him, Troy. His name’s Holloway. He and his folks are camped out by the windmill. They’re on their way west. He’s been tellin’ the boys as how Claiborne killed his brother and his father in the war. He’s talkin’ wild about squarin’ accounts.”
Troy Ridge turned slowly and studied the flushed face of the young stranger across the room. Ridge’s dark eyes were bright when he brought his gaze back to his henchman.
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