Benedict and Brazos 2

by E. Jefferson Clay

  “What’s so funny, old-timer?” Brazos wanted to know.

  “The look on fat Shallert’s mug when he went down with them bullets in his great fat belly.” Rickey chuckled, jabbing an unsteady finger at the dead outlaw leader. He was a little lightheaded from pain now, but still full of pep and ginger.

  “That’ll learn you to leave peaceable folks be, fat boy!”

  “I reckon he might live,” Brazos opined dryly to Benedict.

  “I’d say you could bet money on that,” Benedict agreed, holding his nose and looking distastefully towards the fireplace. “Come on, let’s get him outside before we all pass out.”

  Brazos responded readily. Motioning Benedict aside he hoisted the little man up effortlessly and headed briskly for the door. McCoy was burning in earnest now. The badman hadn’t been all that sweet-smelling on the hoof and barbecuing wasn’t improving the aroma one little bit.

  Two – Blood and Sawdust

  Benedict sat in his shirt-sleeves with his chair tilted back against the wall of the porch and his boot-tips just touching the floor, cleaning one of his Colts. Pushing the oily rag through the barrel with a cleaning rod, he forced it through time after time and held the muzzle to his eye to peer up the dark mirror-shine of the barrel. He tested the action and replaced the Peacemaker in its holster, wincing slightly at the soreness in his shoulder.

  Jesse Rickey appeared in the doorway beside him wearing a canvas apron, a flask of whisky dangling from his hand. From behind him came the aromatic smell of bacon and eggs and coffee. An iron constitution, expert treatment from Benedict and liberal doses of rye, had made the old hardcase just about as good as new.

  “Breakfast’s just about ready, son.”

  “Good,” Benedict nodded. He could use a square meal, having already been up two hours cleaning up the wreckage of last night.

  Rickey disappeared back inside and Benedict turned his head as Brazos and Bullpup came into sight from beyond the barn. With a shovel in his fists, Brazos was stripped to the waist and coated in sweat from his labor. The early morning sun climbing out of the Ghost Mountains struck him fully, and the hard-sculptured massiveness of his gleaming torso reminded Benedict of a bronze he’d seen in New York once of the Farnese Hercules.

  “Finished?” Benedict dropped the chair-legs to the boards and stood up.

  Brazos nodded, propped the shovel against the wall, then crossed to the well pump to sluice off the sweat. Last night they’d toted the three dead men outside into the yard and this morning had hauled them up to the gulch behind the barn, Brazos volunteering to fill in the graves in deference to Benedict’s shoulder crease.

  Finishing his wash, Brazos pulled on his shirt and strolled across to the gallery. “You fixin’ to report them killin’s to the law in Harmony, Yank?” he said, hitching at his belt.

  Benedict shook his head.

  “There isn't any law in Harmony. Jesse says they haven’t had a sheriff in that man’s town for six months since the last one got his head shot off.”

  Brazos leant against an upright. “Sounds like one tough town this Harmony, what with them wild cowboys Jesse was talkin’ about and the miners from Whipple Creek and suchlike.”

  Benedict came erect, his expression thoughtful. “Yes, a tough town ... and you know, that’s had me doing some thinking, Reb ...”

  “’Bout what?”

  “They need a lawman in there.” A deliberate pause, then, “And we need work and a grubstake. Badly.”

  It took a long moment for that to sink in.

  “You ain’t figgerin’ on us takin’ on law work?”

  “You’re quick today, Reb.”

  “But goddam it all, Yank, we ain’t—”

  “I know, we’re not exactly the type,” Benedict cut him off, the possibilities of his idea taking hold of him now. “But it seems to me we can’t exactly afford to be choosy right now. Besides, there are a lot worse things a man could be doing than sheriffing a hick town for a few weeks. Matter of fact I rather feel it would suit me.”

  Brazos scowled. “You?”

  “Well, of course.”

  “But—”

  “But you won’t be left out, Hank old partner, definitely not. You see, I’ve been thinking it all out. We’ll need to be smart and subtle to land this job. We’ll need to convince Harmony that it needs a sheriff rightaway—like they would should some wild varmint suddenly show up in there and start raising Cain.”

  “A wild character?” Brazos could figure out the way Benedict’s crafty mind was working now. “Me?”

  “You’re a natural for the part, Reb. You hit town, raise the dust and then I show up, smooth as silk, take this wild character apart—and would it or would it not immediately occur to the good folks of Harmony that I should be wearing the sheriff’s badge?”

  Benedict struck a pose to show how well he might fill a sheriff’s boots, but Brazos was unimpressed and started raising objections. He was still arguing when Jesse called them in to eat, but by the time they’d worked their way through a breakfast of thick slabs of bacon, fresh eggs, lashings of Johnny cakes and maple syrup, he was beginning to feel that as usual, Benedict was getting the best of him.

  “I still don’t see why it cain’t be the other way round,” he complained as he pushed back from the table, “you the hell-raiser and me the hero. Why the hell do you always have to be the hero?”

  “Be reasonable, Reb,” Benedict said condescendingly, ‘it’s plain as paint I’m suited for the role, whereas—in all respect—I just don’t think anybody would take you seriously with a star on that purple shirt, do you?”

  “He’s right you know, son,” Rickey said to the scowling Brazos. “You just ain’t got the cut of a sheriff nohow.”

  “All right, I don’t give a blue-eyed damn,” Brazos muttered, getting to his feet. For a moment there he’d seen himself in the role of a lawman and it had rather appealed to him. He had to agree though, that Benedict was the obvious choice. “Well, c’mon, if we’re goin’ to go job-huntin’ we might as well get started.”

  The matter settled, they went to their room to pack. Jesse suggested that Benedict cool his heels at the house until tonight while Brazos raised the necessary dust in Harmony, but Benedict decided he might as well get the ride over with and rest up just out of town until Brazos had completed his part of the job.

  He stuck to that decision for just ten minutes, which was how long it was before Rickey’s daughter arrived back from her visit to her Aunt May’s. Following the old man out into the yard as he hurried out to welcome his daughter back, Benedict and Brazos gaped at the lithe girl who stepped down off a little paint pony to greet her father with a kiss.

  She was about eighteen and had a Plains complexion like wild roses, huge sparkling cornflower blue eyes, soft golden ringlets, and had the grace and quickness of an antelope. She blushed and smiled at him and she took even worldly Duke Benedict’s breath away.

  Right then and there, even before Jesse had finished telling the girl what had happened, and she came forward to thank them, Benedict had decided to stay on until that night. Brazos couldn’t blame him, but the girl’s arrival seemed to emphasize his feeling that he was getting the sticky end of the whole deal. Not only was he supposed to play the heavy in Harmony, but while he was doing it and maybe getting his face punched in, the Yank would be out here on the porch sitting with little Betty and doubtless reciting Shakespeare to her as only he could.

  “Why, seems as though my little Betty has took quite a shine to your pard,” Rickey observed some minutes later when Brazos was ready to ride out. “Sure do make a handsome couple, don’t they?”

  Miss Betty made the handsome and Benedict the couple as far as Brazos was concerned. He felt just a little better after Jesse had shaken hands warmly with him and lovely Betty had given him a big kiss for what he’d done for her pa. He even managed to grin as he headed his horse for the gate.

  “Well, I’ll see you tonight sometime then, Ya
nk.”

  Benedict waved vaguely. He was hardly conscious of what Brazos had said, for mundane matters like money and sheriffing jobs and the hunt for Bo Rangle and the rest seemed pretty unimportant to him just at that moment as he gazed entranced down at lovely Betty Rickey as the girl stood beside him waving Brazos off.

  It seemed just about then that his shoulder began to ache some. Maybe he wouldn’t be fit enough to ride into Harmony tonight he mused—though when Betty Rickey felt his intense gaze upon her and looked up and blushed and smiled so prettily—he had to admit in all honesty that bullet crease or no bullet crease, he’d never really felt better in his life.

  Lars Lindgren was not an easy man to surprise or impress. At seventy years of age and weathered as gray as a horned toad, he figured he’d seen just about every breed of man or beast come stomping into his Harmony livery-stable at one time or another. Yet there he was that hot high noon, gaping in downright astonishment at what had to be the most curious trio to sashay through his doorway in many a hard working year.

  The big man was unusual enough with massive shoulders, a purple shirt open to his belt, a mouth-organ dangling on a rawhide cord about his neck and the bluest eyes Lingren had seen in seventy years.

  The great appaloosa horse with its brilliantly spotted blue hide and hostile eye was even less commonplace. But it was the dog that really had Lindgren shaking in his boots. It was quite obviously a man-eater, with slavering jaws and built like a buffalo bull with all the weight in head and forequarters and none in hips or hind legs. The yellow eyes surveyed the liveryman with total ferocity, and the way he licked his chops brought the man out in a cold sweat.

  “Tend my hoss and dog,” Hank Brazos said nonchalantly, and flipping the man a coin, sauntered out paying scant heed to Lindgren’s yell when Bullpup growled menacingly.

  “He’s just a little dry is all,” he called back and went off down the street.

  Not a bad-looking town he decided by the time he’d strolled down Front Street and back to the big, imposing Rawhide Saloon. A town with possibilities by the look of it. There were stores, saloons, hotels, a stage depot, post office and even a library. He wondered if the local bloods were as impressive as the town itself.

  It didn’t take him long to find out, for the Rawhide was where the local talent hung out. At least rugged Boon Donovan classed himself as talent and when the big stranger sauntered in, picked him immediately as the likeliest-looking pilgrim in the room, then helped himself to Donovan’s beer, Boon was more than ready to meet him halfway.

  “You lookin’ for a busted beak, mister?” he challenged, bristling. He was a big slab of a man with fierce black eyes and a breath to cripple a kitten.

  “Why, I surely am,” Brazos replied amiably. He’d come to town to make himself unpopular and this looked like the time and the place to start. “I’m a world-beater, card-cheater and champion eater,” he assured Donovan. “How’d you like a kick in the crutch?”

  Donovan’s response was predictable. He swung one from the floor. Brazos ducked, grabbed the man in a bull-dogger’s hold and threw him over the bar to disappear with a mighty crash. Brazos grinned, picked up Donovan’s mug and drained it dry.

  Grunting, Donovan struggled to his groggy feet and swiped at him over the bar. Brazos moved fast. His big fist smashed Donovan’s head and Donovan’s head smashed Mick Clayton’s bar mirror.

  That was the final straw as far as Clayton was concerned. With a determined glint in his Irish eye, he grabbed up the keg bung, lifted the bar flap and went for the troublemaker with a lunge.

  The barman missed with his first swipe and didn’t get another. Few men ever got a second go at Brazos. Wearing an astonished look at such temerity from a lowly barkeep as the bung missed his tousled head by a whisker, Brazos let fly with a booming right cross and Clayton joined Donovan among the sawdust and cigar butts.

  Brazos sauntered down the bar, quaffed a half-pint of somebody else’s beer and turned to face the room, waiting for the next onslaught. He was having the time of his life.

  “C’mon, boys,” he invited the half-filled bar-room with a crooked, almost amiable grin. “One of you’s bound to get lucky sooner or later.”

  There were no takers. The Rawhide’s barflies gaped at him in an awed silence that was suddenly shattered as the rear door crashed open and Dutch Amy came through with her four bouncers.

  The owner of the Rawhide had been out back supervising the unloading of a keg wagon when the noise of violence wafted out. Two hundred pounds of all American womanhood with the ugliest face and the biggest pair of shoulders in the room, Dutch Amy sized up the scene with one glance, gave vent to a massive sigh, and rolled up her sleeves.

  “All right you jokers,” she growled around the cigar that was never out of her mouth and never lit, “Tip him out!”

  They headed for the bar four abreast, thick muscular men with big fists bunched and hard faces set in determined lines. Amy brought up the rear with heavy tread, while at the bar Brazos took another pull of beer, spat on his hands, rubbed them together and grinned. These boys, he said delightedly to himself, looked as if they might know what it was all about.

  Red-headed Olan Pike got to Brazos first and swung a lethal left. Brazos swayed skillfully, and the big fist missed his craggy, sun bronzed face by a good twelve inches. Brazos hooked to the jaw. The blow travelled no more than six inches, yet knocked Dutch Amy’s rocky-jawed bouncer as cold as a Rocky Mountain winter.

  Pike’s fellow bruisers hesitated as the room shook to the vibrations of two hundred pounds of bouncer measuring his length on the floor alongside Donovan. It was a long time since anybody had seen Olan Pike on the deck. Nobody had ever seen him go down on the one punch.

  They were galvanized into action by the booming voice of their employer.

  “Don’t just stand there you clabber-footed polecats,’’ Dutch Amy bellowed at the top of leather lungs. “Grind him under! Mash him! Pulverize him!”

  With grinding, mashing and pulverizing firmly in mind, Parsons, Corbett and Tyler came in together. Brazos flattened Tyler’s handsome beak with a straight left then socked at the inviting target of Chet Corbett’s meaty visage.

  Corbett ducked, Brazos swung off balance and pretty Boy Tyler slammed in with a clubbing fist to the side of his neck. Brazos gasped, ducked then drove an elbow into Tyler’s midriff.

  Tyler went staggering back, and as he did Corbett let fly with a terrific swinging forearm that knocked Brazos clean off his feet.

  Brazos was rolling and coming up again before they could nail him there. There was the salt taste of blood in his mouth and a ringing in his ears now. The accumulated blows were beginning to take effect. He punched at a hairy red face and gasped as knuckles found his ribs. He swung aside from a whistling hook and kicked a man in the crutch with every ounce of his strength.

  The battle surged to and fro. Chairs splintered and crashed, tables went over with their loads of bottles and glasses. A piece of the bar collapsed as a booming right put Pretty Boy Tyler down for the count and the unlit kerosene lamps of the bar-room danced on their chains as the saloon shook to the tempo of the brawl.

  There were only three of them left now, Brazos, Parsons and Corbett. Fast running out of steam, Brazos wasn’t as nimble getting out of the way of fists and boots as he had been. They were getting to him. He would have to finish it off quick, or finish it up on the floor.

  Yet no sooner had he made this decision than he found himself staring at the floor from a distance of six inches. He couldn’t believe he was down. Then he realized that it wasn’t Corbett or Parsons who’d floored him but the stalwart woman chiming into the fray with the aid of a broken chair leg. The whole side of his head was on fire. A boot crashed into his ribs and he twisted frantically. He drew up his knees struggling to rise and another boot hit him in the back driving his face into the floorboards.

  Spitting blood and sawdust, Brazos rolled violently as the boot came down again. He seized
Scott Parsons’ foot, twisted savagely with iron-fingered hands. There was a crack of bone followed by a scream as the leg snapped and Parsons went down. Brazos swung to his feet and hung his bruised and battered face squarely on the end of Chet Corbett’s right fist.

  Ignoring the stunning blow, Brazos snatched up a light chair and splintered it across Corbett’s face. The bullyboy staggered, glassy-eyed and a solid right to the jaw put him down and out.

  Chest heaving, blood trickling from his nose and the corner of his mouth, Brazos surveyed the scene of carnage about him with the satisfied air of an artist upon the completion of a masterpiece. He bent to retrieve his hat and something landed across his backside with a whack that made him jump two feet. He whirled indignantly and realized he’d forgotten the woman.

  “Your mother sleeps in freight cars,” Dutch Amy informed him cholerically and swung a heavy chair leg again with every intention of braining him.

  Brazos grabbed the descending chair leg, wrenched it away, the other hand pivoting Dutch Amy’s two hundred pounds around like she was a Texas twister. Whack! The chair leg slammed across Dutch’s wide rear end.

  Dutch Amy went purple, but she didn’t holler. She might have been ugly, foul-tempered almost universally unpopular and she certainly didn’t bathe as often as a girl might, but nobody could say she wasn’t tough.

  “Now leave that be a lesson to you, ma’am,’’ Brazos said, wagging his finger. “Womenfolks shouldn’t never oughta interfere when the boys are funnin’ it up.” He tipped his hat and grinned. “Fine town you got here, ma’am.”

  He turned and went out, a big, long-legged, heavy shouldered figure spitting blood from a loose tooth, and every eye in the bar-room swung to Dutch Amy as the batwings flapped to silence behind his broad back.

  They waited for the explosion but it didn’t come. Dutch Amy just went on standing there among her slowly recovering bouncers chewing on a cold cigar, rubbing her sturdy hindquarters and staring at the batwings. Her battered pan was slowly losing its choleric purple and Dutch’s thinking machinery was working. But hard.