“Listen,” Benedict cut him off. “I have no stomach for fighting a woman, but I’d have no compunction about gunning down a greedy, self-seeking bastard like you if my hand was forced. You’ve lost out, Ridge. Your murderous scheme has come unstuck. Go back while you still can, and take these saloon sweepings with you.”
The sound of hooves behind brought Ridge’s head twisting around to see some of the men already turning back. Whisky and bravado had worn away and the mob had calmed down in the face of one man’s courage. Fury twisted Ridge’s features as he slewed his horse out of the path of the turning vehicle. Then, as he moved past Creek and Huck, blocking them from Benedict’s view, he gave an almost imperceptible nod.
It was money, not loyalty, that prompted Monty Huck to jerk up his rifle. Ridge had promised them two hundred each to cut Benedict down if things went against them. With Ridge blocking him off from Benedict and dust rising around them from wheels and hoofs, it seemed an easy enough two hundred to earn for an ex-outlaw who was far above average with a gun ...
Neither Benedict nor Brazos saw Ridge’s subtle signal to his henchmen, but the hidden Texan had a hawk’s-eye view of Monty Huck’s sudden movement, and his reaction was lightning-swift.
He froze the sights on Monty Huck’s broad chest, and as Ridge spurred clear to give his man a clear field of fire, Brazos stroked the trigger.
The rifle bucked and Brazos watched Huck pitch from the saddle with his hard-hitter hat rolling under the hoofs of the startled horses. Slower than Huck, ugly Joe Creek had his rifle up to his shoulder, but Huck’s crashing fall and the crack of the shot threw him off-balance, giving the fast-drawing Benedict time to go into action.
Benedict’s six-gun thundered and Creek slewed in the saddle, clutching a bloody shoulder, his unfired rifle falling to the ground. Brazos leaped from cover. Holding the rifle at his hips he worked the trigger and lever to send three shots tearing the earth of the trail in front of the lead horsemen, sending their horses rearing.
“Ride out!” the Texan bellowed. Cordite smoke wreathing his big body, he made a frightening sight against the evening sky. The rifle jerked menacingly. “Now!”
“And take your dead man with you, Ridge,” Benedict snarled, white-lipped in his anger. “And by God I’ll see that you answer for this, mister—before a judge and jury.”
No man spoke as Tanner and Ridge dismounted to load Huck’s lifeless body into the rear of the wagon. Fear was a living thing on that shadowed stretch of trail, and it etched the faces of the Holloways and Troy Ridge as deeply as it did any other. They had come out here in their numbers to see killing done, but the sight of one dead man had robbed them of their courage. They had ridden out as a mob, and now they were nothing but frightened rabble.
Brazos waited until the retreating cavalcade reached the bottom of the slope before striding back to his appaloosa to ride swiftly down to the trail. The Texan’s saddle-brown young face was grim as he paused to stare down at the dark, damp stain in the yellow dust.
“One I owe you, Johnny Reb,” Benedict murmured.
Brazos didn’t reply. Destiny seemed to have decreed that a one-time Texas cowboy should ride the violent trails of the West, but he had no more taste for blood-letting than did Benedict. A man had died in Resurrection last night and another had fallen here today, but the heaviest weight to carry was the feeling that it wasn’t finished. Because their guns had done the killing, they were involved, willingly or otherwise, until it was finished.
Benedict touched match flame to his cigar. “We’d better get back to the house.”
Chapter Nine – Father and Son
The next morning, Troy Ridge sat in his office at the back of the Can Can Saloon rubbing his forehead where the bad ache was deep seated.
It was quiet at the Can Can, unnaturally quiet for eleven o’clock in the morning. The regulars were doing their drinking at the Buckaroo or the Red Bull. They were being kept away from their customary watering place by the rumors and the smell of trouble that seemed to have settled over the big, plush saloon like a pall.
All Resurrection was quiet today, as if suffering from some kind of communal hangover, but rumors were being spread and embellished at the bars, along the streets and at the stores. Somebody had said that Stanton Claiborne was planning to ride in with his men and his gunfighters to get square for the attempted attack on Shiloh. Another persistent rumor was that the marshal from Sodaville was on his way over to investigate the killings. There were other rumors, too, but nobody seemed to know what was truth and what fiction. All everybody was certain about was that Troy Ridge was bound to be involved in any trouble that came, and nobody wanted to be standing too close.
Troy Ridge had bought his friends with money in Resurrection, and now the few drinkers in his saloon revealed just how shallow and unreliable such friendships could be.
The saloonkeeper resented the disloyalty, but today it was the least of his troubles. The man who had given up his addiction for gambling as a sop to his ambition had gambled more daringly than ever before yesterday and had lost. What weighed most heavily upon him now as he sat chafing his forehead with his cardsharp’s fingers was the total of his loss. It had taken a long time to build all he owned in Resurrection; to sell and run now would mean a tremendous loss. Yesterday he had had visions of Stanton Claiborne going down under the weight of a mob, with the Shiloh dropping into his hands like a prize. Now the dream of becoming master of Shiloh was shattered, his position in Resurrection was weakened, and his prime concern was to hang onto what he had.
It wasn’t until the painful headache finally eased some thirty minutes later and he had drunk two large bourbon whiskies, that his depression began to lift, clearing his mind so he could examine his position.
He was still wealthy and his business interests were sound. He was under a cloud with the town because it saw him today as a loser, but that would fade in time. It was true that he had goaded young Billy Holloway into his fatal brush with Shiloh at the ball, and true also that Monty and Creek had acted under his instructions when they’d thrown down on Benedict yesterday. But even if Marshal Tom Harbin came poking around, what could be proved? Ridge could hire the best counsel and he could bribe men to lie their heads off in a courtroom.
The saloonkeeper stared around his office with a growing feeling of confidence. Everything that met his eye spoke of wealth and success. It took an exceptional man to build what he had from nothing. He had taken risks and somehow he’d always come out on top. Maybe this was the biggest setback he had ever suffered, but men of his caliber always bounced back.
It was a different Troy Ridge who stepped out into the almost deserted barroom ten minutes later. He had shaved, put on his best suit, and was smoking a fifty cent cigar. He called cheerfully to a couple of bleary-eyed drunks in the corner, strolled across to the bar and held up two fingers to barkeep Slim Purdee.
“How you feelin’ now, Troy?” Purdee asked as he placed bottle and glass on the bar.
“How do I look?”
“Chipper enough, I guess.” The barman appeared to be worried as he leaned across the bar. “Troy, Seth Grimes from the telegraph office stopped in for a quick one a while back. He told me Madison did wire for the marshal yesterday.”
Ridge waited for the pain in his head to come back, then smiled broadly when he felt nothing more than a passing twinge.
“Don’t sing me any sad songs, Slim,” he drawled, lifting his glass. “I’ve heard them all.”
Troy Ridge knew for sure then that he would sweat it out and come out on top, just like always.
“Fixin’ to go up to Billy’s grave this mornin’, Ma?”
“No.”
“Fixin’ to pull out then?”
“No.”
Race Holloway stood indecisively by his mother’s camp chair near her wagon. His brother squatted on his heels nearby lethargically stirring a black pot of stew simmering on the fire. Beyond the trees that surrounded the campsite, the r
ooftops of Resurrection gleamed dully in the sun.
“What do you mean to do then, Ma?” Race asked finally.
“Wait.”
“For what?”
Ma Holloway was staring off into the distance at the dusty cottonwoods that marked Resurrection’s Boothill.
“I ain’t sure,” she conceded after a brooding silence. “Justice, retribution ... I just don’t know. All I know is I can’t just drive away and leave Billy up yonder, not with Claiborne walkin’ free and Billy’s blood on his head.”
Race Holloway sighed. He was as hard a hater as his mother, but he also recognized his limitations. If Stanton Claiborne were dead at his feet he would spit on his corpse. But hate and iron sinews were no match for men who handled guns like Benedict and Brazos.
“That could be a long wait, Ma.”
She eyed him balefully. “Then we’ll wait a long time.”
“Whatever you say, Ma.”
Cole Barlow was the last of the Shiloh hands to be interviewed by the marshal of Sodaville. When the bandy-legged cowhand walked from the front room, Harbin sat fingering his moustache and studying the notes he had taken.
A quiet man of forty-five, Marshal Tom Harbin carried a lot of weight on his six foot frame, but the fat had a solid, hard-packed look. There were bags under his eyes which were round and brown like polished pebbles under shaggy black brows. The mouth was broad and generous above a cleft chin. It was a strong face.
Pushing his notes aside, Harbin got up to go to the door. He walked slowly and deliberately, like a man accustomed to harboring his energy. His plain clothes were still dusty from his ride. The marshal had gone straight to work upon his arrival at the Shiloh ranch in the late afternoon.
“Would you come in again, gents?” he called from the doorway, and Benedict and Brazos came in from the front gallery. Harbin went back to the table, picked up his briar pipe and commenced filling the bowl with shag-cut burley.
The marshal, they had been pleased to note earlier when he had interviewed them at length, was not a man to waste words. Filling the air with dense clouds of smoke from the old briar, he told them that every man interviewed had corroborated their accounts of the circumstances surrounding Billy Holloway’s death. The marshal was not prepared to exonerate Lonnie Claiborne of all blame in the matter, but the significant factor that had emerged from the evidence was that Lonnie had plainly had no intention of using his gun on Holloway. Holloway, however, had obviously meant to kill Lonnie.
Of course the evidence was not conclusive, Harbin pointed out, but with Chad Madison having told exactly the same story, he was prepared to exonerate Benedict of all blame in the matter. Moving on to the shooting of Monty Huck, Harbin revealed that he would need corroborative evidence from others who’d been there, but he held the view that if the mob had been on its way to Shiloh to cause trouble, then Benedict and Brazos had been perfectly within their rights to take what steps they deemed necessary to protect life and property.
Appreciative of the lawman’s findings, Brazos and Benedict discussed the incidents of the past several days with Harbin at greater length, then the pressing question arose. What was the next step? There was no doubt that Troy Ridge had been the instigator of yesterday’s trouble, and Benedict and Brazos felt there could be no guarantee that more violence wouldn’t erupt if Ridge were to remain unpunished.
The marshal’s face hardened. “I’ve got no intention of letting that man off the hook, gents. As you and the sheriff pointed out, Mr. Benedict, there are several charges that can be brought against Ridge. You can rest assured I didn’t come over here just for the exercise. There’s been trouble between Shiloh and Resurrection for too long, and I’d like to put an end to it once and for all if I can.” Then Harbin frowned. “But jailing Ridge mightn’t bring peace and harmony even so ...”
In response to their puzzled looks, the marshal explained. It took two to make a fight and two to make a peace. He wasn’t at all certain that things would be much better between the ranch and Resurrection with Troy Ridge out of the picture, mainly because of Claiborne’s attitude. The marshal respected the colonel, but expressed grave reservations concerning his willingness to bury the hatchet.
They were reservations Benedict and Brazos shared, for yesterday’s incident had enraged Stanton Claiborne far more than had the shooting at the Foundation Day ball. The way Claiborne saw the matter, a mob of towners had meant to attack the Shiloh ranch and the cattleman had already expressed a willingness to ride into town in force and “teach those Yankee scum a lesson they won’t quickly forget.” And if Brazos, Benedict and Chad Madison hadn’t been present to talk him out of it, he might have done just that. They couldn’t blame Claiborne for his anger, but his proposed retaliation was certainly no solution. The whole bloody business had already gone too far and it was time to put the lid on it.
But would the colonel co-operate? Would he be prepared to give his assurance that he would do his utmost to improve Shiloh-Resurrection relations, if and when they could do something about Troy Ridge? There was only one way to find out. The three went to the study where Claiborne was having coffee with his son.
Again demonstrating his blunt, no-nonsense approach, Marshal Harbin spelled it out clearly. Would the colonel cooperate in a bid to take the heat out of the feud?
Grim-faced behind his desk, Claiborne had one big question he wanted answered before committing himself. What penalty did Harbin expect Troy Ridge to incur, providing he was found guilty of the various charges?
Harbin couldn’t be specific, but he guessed five years in prison, possibly more.
Claiborne went white. “Five years? The man plotted to murder us all and you say five years, sir?” He slammed the desk with the flat of his hand. “Not good enough, Marshal Harbin, not nearly good enough. If ever a man has earned the rope, that Yankee carpetbagger has. And that is what I expect, sir. I want Troy Ridge dead.”
Benedict and Brazos exchanged a glance as the marshal tried to reason with the furious rancher. It was as they had feared all along. Claiborne was probably as much to blame for the feud as anybody else. Two men had died and all the colonel could think of was retribution.
The debate grew heated, then Lonnie suddenly broke in.
“I don’t see what all the fuss is about,” the boy declared. “It’s crystal clear to me that father is right. Ridge tried to kill us so we have to kill him to protect ourselves. And we could do it easily. Duke, you or Hank could brace that Yankee no-good and gun him down in a fair fight. The marshal here couldn’t do a thing about it because—”
“Lonnie!” Claiborne snapped. “This is no concern of yours.”
Lonnie moved to the desk. “But don’t you see, Father? I’m on your side. I’m trying to help.”
“I don’t need your help.”
The boy’s face fell, and he looked pleadingly at Benedict and Brazos. “Don’t you see what I’m trying to do?”
“I think I do, Lonnie,” Benedict said. “But what you’re suggesting is stupid ... though you, Colonel, must bear the brunt of the blame.”
“Don’t take any notice of him, Father,” Lonnie said heatedly. “I know you’re right and I’m prepared to back you all the—”
“Oh, stop talking like a fool, boy,” Claiborne barked impatiently. “Don’t you think I have problems enough without your childish carrying on? Kindly leave the room and let us get on with this business.”
What transpired then, Benedict and Brazos had seen enacted before. The boy, hurt, went into a furious outburst of rage, then his father’s hard tongue drove him from the room. But Lonnie’s rage seemed wilder than before, so wild in fact that it shook them all, including Claiborne, who reached for the whisky decanter with a shaking hand after the door had banged behind Lonnie with a loud crash.
“That boy,” Claiborne said unevenly, “is getting more and more uncontrollable every—”
“A blind man could see what he was doing, Claiborne,” Benedict said harshly. “
He doesn’t want anybody killed. He was just saying what he thought you wanted him to say. Why can’t you—”
“Enough, Mr. Benedict,” Harbin interrupted. “This wrangling is getting us nowhere, and I have a job to do. Now, Colonel, I’m riding into Resurrection to talk to some people, then I’ll almost certainly place Ridge under arrest. From then on, due process of the law will take over and the man will be put away where he can’t do any further harm to you. But before I leave, I want your guarantee that you’ll do nothing to cause any further disturbance. Do I have that assurance?”
Plainly exhausted by the furious scene with his son, Claiborne leaned back in his chair. “What if you can’t amass sufficient evidence to convict Ridge? What then?”
“I think he will, Colonel,” Benedict said. “We’ll be with the marshal to give him any assistance he might require.”
“And I’d like to say you’re a lucky man to have had these two gents to help you out, Colonel,” the marshal put in. “When they leave here, they, like me, want to know that this bloody business is over and done with. Your word, sir.”
Claiborne’s head dipped. “It seems I have little choice. Very well, you have my word. Now kindly leave. I wish to be alone.”
Dusk was settling across the rangeland as the three men walked across the gallery to the hitchrail. Nobody spoke until they were mounted, then the lawman shook his head as he looked back at the house.
“Poison,” Tom Harbin muttered.
“How’s that, Marshal?” Brazos asked.
“Hate,” Harbin sighed, moving his horse away from the rack. “It’s poisoned the air around this stretch of the county. And that’s one thing you can’t fight with a gun or a stack of law books.”
They rode down the carriageway, the marshal and Benedict side by side, Brazos bringing up the rear. Turning to look back at the house, Brazos saw a face at an upstairs window. He lifted a hand but drew no response. Lonnie Claiborne was staring directly down at them, but the blue eyes in the white face were like those of a blind man.
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