Benedict and Brazos 17

by E. Jefferson Clay

The sudden appearance of the horseman and the dog startled the cattle. Benedict saw them too late and yelled at the dog to heel. But Bullpup was already on his way, barking playfully and enjoying the pandemonium as the cattle struggled to their feet and ran, tossing wide-spread horns, across the granite shelves. The calves fled after them, their tails curled high.

  Reining his handsome black to a halt, Benedict shouted at the dog again, but to no avail. Brazos could have held the hound with a word, despite Bullpup’s inborn desire to scare up a little fun with anything that might appear along the trail. But, though Bullpup had been working hard all day hunting for the trail of the stolen stock, he still wasn’t accustomed to reacting to orders from Benedict.

  Eyes bleak, a thin film of sweat glistening on his face, Benedict watched as the dog hurried the wild cattle over a distant ridge. Then the hound turned and came loping back, pink tongue lolling, looking like he’d done something praiseworthy.

  But there was no praise from the tall man astride the black horse. Nor was there any censure. For, right at that moment, Benedict was too played out and disgusted to give vent to his feelings.

  It was hopeless. He had to face up to that fact now. He’d been riding the wild country around Cross Hollow since first light. They’d combed the limestone strip for hours on end without picking up the tracks again. Then they’d taken broad sweeps through the surrounding mountain country in the hope of stumbling on the route taken by the stolen Rocking T cattle. A half hour back, the dog had picked up cattle scent and as they’d followed it south, Benedict had been able to pick out the occasional hoofprint here and there. He’d been optimistic when he’d ridden into the little valley, but the sight of the wild cattle had dashed him.

  Saddle leather creaked as Benedict stepped down to stretch his legs. Squatting on his haunches, Bullpup looked up at him expectantly, ready to push on.

  The hard look went out of Benedict’s eyes as he rested a hand against the saddle and looked down at the dog. It wasn’t the dog’s fault, he conceded grudgingly. It was just that he didn’t know how to work him the way Brazos did. Brazos could just talk to him and have him ready to swim, bark, play dead, climb trees or whatever else he might have in mind. The dog had run himself into the ground today trying to follow Benedict’s inept directions, and a man couldn’t ask more than that.

  Bullpup looked at him suspiciously as Benedict took off his twenty-dollar hat, unbuckled his water canteen and poured some water into it. He set the hat on the rocks before the dog and Bullpup growled, suspecting treachery.

  Benedict hunkered down beside him. “It’s not poison, cretin.”

  The dog rolled his eyes and took an experimental lap. The water went down all right. He started to drink in earnest, and almost absently Benedict reached out and rubbed his ears. The dog went on drinking.

  “Cretin,” Benedict said again as he rose, but his tone was almost affectionate. He tugged out his silver cigar case, lit a Red Man and started thinking hard.

  What came next? It was growing all too plain that he might ride around here until doomsday without cutting the sign of the stolen stock. And there certainly seemed nothing to be gained by returning to Galloway, unless it was to make an attempt to crack Brazos out of jail ...

  He turned and stared back the way he’d come. According to Brazos’ map and information furnished by Holloway before he left the jailhouse yesterday, the Rocking T Ranch lay some ten miles due east of Cross Hollow. Holloway had told him the spread was run by just a girl and an old man, which explained why they hadn’t set out after the rustled beeves themselves. But, seeing as it was their cattle that had been stolen, he wondered if they might be able to furnish him with some kind of a lead on the rustling. Amy had mentioned yesterday that there were some wild characters up in the Misty Mountains, and if the Rocking T even half suspected that somebody from up here had been responsible for the theft, Benedict could go and check it out.

  It was a slim chance, but he needed a better plan of action than wearing himself down to the nub out here in country that could swallow every last cow in Keogh County.

  It was worth a try at least, he told himself, retrieving his hat and swinging up. But if he drew a blank at the Rocking T, then there would be no alternative but to get Brazos out of his cell the hard way.

  He’d gone fifty yards before he realized the dog wasn’t following. “Come on, damn it!” he called, reining in and snapping his fingers.

  But the dog stayed put, swinging his eyes south, then bringing them back to Benedict as if trying to convey that they’d already scoured the country north and they should be travelling in the opposite direction.

  Another impatient yell failed to budge the dog. Then, with a burst of inspiration, Benedict pointed his finger north and yelled, “Coyotes!”

  It worked. Coyotes were the ancestral enemies of every Texas dog ever whelped. Without even a backward glance south, Bullpup sped past the horse and went quartering ahead through the brush, hunting. Kicking his horse into a lope, Benedict gave a small smile around his cigar. That hound wasn’t really much smarter than his master; they’d both believe just about any fool thing a man told them.

  Chapter Four

  Connie Moon Goes Courtin’

  Deputy Sheriff Andy Warren came through the archway leading from the cells. He was wearing moleskin trousers, a blue flannel shirt, and the contents of a plate of Mulligan stew.

  The sheriff was seated with his chair tilted back, spooning the juice from a can of peaches into his mouth. He took one startled look at the deputy and the chair forelegs banged down hard.

  “He’s gone too damned far this time, Sheriff!” the horse faced Warren mouthed furiously, grabbing a towel to swab at his shirt front. “I swear I’m gonna go back in there, unlock that door and paste him!”

  “I reckon we both know you won’t do that, don’t we, Andy?” Holloway said quietly, getting to his feet and setting the can aside.

  Warren met his eyes and flushed. They both knew the deputy wouldn’t step inside that cell for a hundred dollars. Hank Brazos was big enough to break a man in half—and his mood had been obviously worsening as the long day dragged by. The slow-drawling, laconic Texan they’d arrested yesterday was a totally different proposition to the man who’d been restlessly pacing his cell all day long, chafing at the confinement like a caged animal. Brazos was getting proddier by the hour, and both lawmen had the uncomfortable feeling that somehow they’d grabbed a tiger by the tail.

  Holloway stood looking through at the cells. Warren brushed angrily with the towel and growled, “Well, we ain’t gonna let him get away with this, are we?”

  Holloway looked at him. “What did you say to him?”

  “Nothin’.”

  “Come on, Andy. You’ve been needling him every chance, ever since we arrested him. Was it something about Texas?”

  Andy Warren’s scowl deepened. The deputy was a border Kansan, and that breed hated Texans as naturally as a rattlesnake hates water.

  “You want to hear what them bastards done along the border during the war, Sheriff?” he growled, flinging the towel aside.

  Holloway nodded. The deputy had just answered his question. “You went looking for trouble and you got it, Andy. You’d better leave him be.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Warren muttered, tugging out his tobacco pouch and grimacing when he saw it was damp. “Seems to me we could do worse than see it all the way through, Sheriff. Let ’em hang him.”

  “That’s crazy talk and you know it. We both know he had nothing to do with the rustling, and the judge will know it, too. He’ll go free, but at least folks won’t be able to go around saying we’ve been sitting on our duffs as far as the rustlers are concerned. That’s all that matters ... though I’m beginning to wonder if the whole damned thing was worth it now ...”

  Warren looked at him closely. “You havin’ second thoughts, sheriff? Hell, you seemed keen enough when we spotted him and figured out how we might do ourselves some—”


  “I know, I know,” Holloway said impatiently. “And it was a damned good idea with the election coming up. But I figured he was just some out-of-work cowpoke. I wasn’t counting on him having a friend here, especially not a pilgrim like that Benedict.”

  “Hell, is that all you’re worryin’ about? That fancy man don’t look like much to me no how.” The deputy was still young enough and vain enough to be envious of such striking looks at Benedict’s.

  “Fancy right enough,” Holloway grunted, moving to the doorway to look out over the street. “Fancy and damned dangerous.”

  Warren’s face showed his surprise. “Dangerous? With them flash clothes and that way of talkin’ like he’s a goddamned parson or a schoolteacher or somethin’? If you ask me, he’s just a damn dandy.”

  Holloway sighed. “Sometimes I doubt that I’ll ever make any sort of a lawman out of you, Andy. Didn’t you see the way he wears those guns? And if you’d looked closely at that good-looking pan of his, you’d have seen the scars. That pilgrim has been through it all, mister, and I tell you he’s dangerous.”

  Warren usually accepted his superior’s opinions, for they were almost always sound. “You can be that sure, just by lookin’ at a joker, Sheriff?”

  “Well, not exactly,” Holloway was forced to admit. He rubbed his hand over his jaw and looked sober. “You see, when I was up town just now, I bumped into Amy Miles. We got to talking about Benedict, and it turns out she knows him from way back.”

  The deputy was all ears now. “And?”

  The sheriff rubbed his jaw some more. “Those guns aren’t just ornaments, Andy. That fellow is famous further east. Seems he’s lowered the shades on more than one bad man with those irons. Also, according to Amy, he got himself decorated half a dozen times during the war.”

  “I’ll be damned!” Warren was looking really worried now, for the deputy, a bully and a braggart, lacked the stomach to tangle with anybody who could handle himself. He moved across to the sheriff’s side and said quietly, “We don’t want no trouble with a pilgrim that’s as tough as you say he is, Sheriff. I mean—”

  “I know what you mean,” Holloway cut him off. “But it’s too late to back water now. We just can’t release Brazos. Folks would want to know why and we can’t afford to be made to look foolish right now.”

  “Well, what are we gonna do?”

  Holloway thought about that for a while. “Maybe, when he comes back to Galloway, I could see him and sort of hint that his partner isn’t in any real trouble. I could even tell him that our case against him ain’t as strong as we thought. Maybe that would hold him until we have the hearing. Then, with Brazos set loose, it’d be all over.”

  The deputy brightened. “Sounds fair enough, Sheriff.” Then he grinned slyly. “That’d give the Texan a couple of more days to sweat, wouldn’t it?”

  Holloway put a hard stare on his deputy. “I said forget about the Texan, Warren. Leave him be.”

  “Whatever you say, Sheriff,” Warren pouted. “But if you knew how it was along the border durin’ the war, then you’d understand why—”

  “I’m not damn well interested in what happened in the war, Warren,” Holloway said impatiently. “Have you got that?”

  Warren nodded, looking down at his stained shirt front. “All right,” Holloway said. “You keep that in mind tonight. I’ve got to attend the council meeting and I don’t want you going near that cell and spouting off. Understand?” Warren said he did, then he gave his word that he would leave the prisoner alone during the sheriff’s absence. At the time, the deputy meant it. But several hours later, with Holloway at the meeting, boredom and temptation got the better of Galloway’s Texas-hating deputy sheriff.

  Connie Moon’s mind couldn’t have been on his job, otherwise he wouldn’t have let the trapped marten get its teeth into his hand. The man roared with pain and anger and smashed the animal’s head with the cudgel he carried specifically for that purpose. But that wasn’t enough for Connie Moon. With blood dripping from his hand, he started in to beat the small body with vicious, grunting thumps until his brother grabbed him by the arm.

  “That’s enough, durn it, Connie!” There wasn’t an ounce of squeamishness in Zeke Moon’s makeup, but he didn’t like to see a good pelt spoiled. “You’re gonna ruin him.”

  Connie gave the little body another couple of good thumps just to show he wasn’t taking orders from anybody, then he stepped back, sucking his wound while his brother took the animal from the trap.

  Connie Moon had a lean, rangy physique. His hair was a dirty corn-yellow and worn shoulder-length, mountain style. His face was narrow and pale with close-set eyes of an odd light blue, wolf teeth, and a long, jutting jaw that was never stubble-free. Dressed in bloodstained, greasy trousers, calf boots and a fringed buckskin jacket, and wearing a Colt rig, Connie Moon looked exactly what he was: a dangerous man of the wilds.

  “Look at that!” Zeke Moon said in disgust, lifting the animal aloft. “You done ripped the danged fur down the flank. It won’t fetch more than fifty cents now.”

  Unmistakably Connie’s brother, Zeke Moon was five years older, fifty pounds heavier and appreciably less vicious by nature. But like Connie, the bigger man was mountain-born and bred. He seemed tame only in comparison with his younger brother. In Galloway, which he visited only rarely, Zeke Moon was given the widest of berths by one and all. “Animals” was the word heard most frequently in conjunction with the Moon name in Galloway, and it fitted. Rumor had it that both Moons were killers, and anybody seeing them even for the first time could well believe it.

  Connie lashed out with his cudgel to knock the carcass from his brother’s hand. “What damn good is fifty cents?” He glowered at Zeke, then stooped to heft the pole on which was strung the rest of their meagre catch, muttering, “Fifty dirty cents!”

  Zeke sighed as he hunkered down to reset the snare. Connie wasn’t easy to get along with at the best of times, and over the past few weeks he’d been near impossible. It was three weeks since Connie had visited the Rocking T Ranch across Tennessee Hill, and he’d been acting meaner than a stick-poked polecat ever since. If that girl over there didn’t start sparking up to Connie soon, Zeke Moon reckoned his brother might end up doing something really foolish.

  It had been Zeke’s intention to walk down to the Sweet Creek to see if they could catch a trout or two after they finished their snare run. But Connie didn’t look like he’d be interested in fishing. Besides, Zeke had just about had a bellyful of his brother for one day.

  “Let’s get home,” he grunted and, without waiting for Connie to reply, led the way through the trees.

  It was fifteen minutes through the pines, pinons and golden mountain aspen to “home.”

  The Moon house stood on a broad, flat shelf gouged by nature from the north face of Tennessee Hill. It was a sprawling clapboard and chip-tiled eyesore built by Old Man Moon years before, when the Misty Mountains were still crawling with Indians. Old Man Moon was a better hunter and moonshiner than he was a carpenter, and over the years, the porches had sagged and the walls had leaned. Here and there the brothers had rammed poles against the walls. The west wall of the house, long and windowless, served as a drying area for their pelts. In winter time, the wall was always covered with the stretched hides of fur-bearing animals, along with any number of wolf scalps for which the Moons received bounty. The stink in winter was something staggering and it was even worse in summer. But there were only two decent skins on the wall today. The hunting and trapping hadn’t been good lately, mainly because Connie wasn’t pulling his weight.

  Zeke crossed to the side of the house to dump his catch pole on the long, bloodstained cleaning bench near the west wall, and Connie slouched to the rusted old pump. Connie Moon drank greedily, letting the water run down his filthy jacket. His brother noticed that, as Connie drank, he stared over the treetops in the direction of the Rocking T Ranch. A pair of hogs came grunting around the north corner of the house, spotte
d Connie, then turned and disappeared. Lately Connie had taken to putting his boot to anything and everything that got in his way, including the Moon hogs.

  Familiar steps and the hard banging of a hickory crutch sounded from the house and a skinny, wasted figure appeared in the doorway.

  “About time you loafin’ varmints got back!” Old Man Moon’s voice was thick with moonshine and twanged like a badly strung guitar. “I’ve had your chow a’simmerin’ for over an hour and—”

  His voice broke off as he saw the sparse catch lying on the skinning bench. “Tarnal and damnation, is that all you got?”

  “Just ain’t much about these days, Pa,” Zeke said mildly, walking towards the door. “You know that.”

  “How the hell would he know?” Connie spat, flinging the battered tin pannikin aside. “He ain’t been a hundred yards from the house in a month—settin’ around on his skinny old rump drinkin’ and runnin’ off at the mouth.”

  Old Man Moon’s washed-out blue eyes stared balefully at his younger offspring as Connie crossed the yard with his slouching gait. “That’s right, you young whelp,” the old man said bitterly. “Hard-mouth your poor old daddy, just on account of he’s old and poorly and just ain’t up to cuttin’ it like he used to be. But your time’ll come. You’ll be old and sickly yourself some day and when that time comes, I only hope and pray you got some ungrateful whelp like yourself to scorn and despise you.”

  “Not much chance of that, the way he’s been goin’,” drawled Zeke.

  Connie propped on the bottom step, eyes drilling at his brother. “And just what do you mean by that, Zeke?”

  “You know what I mean,” replied Zeke. “The way you’ve been backin’ and fillin’ with that jade from the Rockin’ T, you ain’t never gonna get yourself married up, let alone whelp no kids of your own.”

  Muscles crawled like little snakes under the stubbled skin of Connie Moon’s lean jaw. “You lookin’ for to get your mangy face hit, brother?”