Benedict and Brazos 16

by E. Jefferson Clay

  The Home of Great Western Fiction!

  Trouble was brewing between the Shotgun Ranch and its rivals, the Golden Hoof – and though they wanted no part of a range war, Benedict and Brazos eventually had to choose sides.

  There was just one problem.

  As the bodies piled up, and the gunsmoke grew ever thicker, Benedict started to wonder if they’d thrown in with the right side. Brazos had no such doubts … but by then, he’d fallen head-over-heels for the Golden Hoof owner’s beautiful daughter Tracy. And Tracy could do no wrong in his eyes …

  It was then that the unthinkable happened, and Benedict and Brazos found themselves on opposing sides. In the final showdown, they’d have to go against each other, toe to toe, gun to gun …

  BENEDICT AND BRAZOS 16: BURY THE LOSERS

  By E. Jefferson Clay

  First published by Cleveland Publishing Co. Pty Ltd, New South Wales, Australia

  © 2021 by Piccadilly Publishing

  First Electronic Edition: January 2021

  Names, characters and incidents in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information or storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.

  This is a Piccadilly Publishing Book

  Series Editor: Ben Bridges

  Text © Piccadilly Publishing

  Chapter One

  Toss of the Coin

  Dust puffs eddied behind them in the crimson twilight as the two riders reined up and peered at the arrowed arms of the sign, one leaning south, the other jabbing north. “Light’s too poor to read by,” big Hank Brazos said, not prepared to admit that he couldn’t read. “What’s she say?”

  “Sunsmoke south, twenty miles,” murmured Duke Benedict. “Sandy Hollow north, fifteen.”

  “I like the sound of Sandy Hollow,” the giant Texan declared. Before he’d spent four years at bloody war and then long months on the trail of a renegade killer, he had been a simple Pecos River cowpoke. Sandy Hollow had the ring of a place where a man might be able to laze in the sun, sit talking about crops and cows for a few days, and never touch his gun except perhaps to clean it.

  “Sunsmoke appeals more to me.” Duke Benedict was as badly in need of rest as his trail partner, but their tastes of relaxation couldn’t have been more different. Benedict was hungry for soft lights, good whisky and a pretty girl’s company. Sandy Hollow didn’t sound like that sort of town.

  They argued a little, then they decided to flip a coin.

  “Heads, Sunsmoke, tails Sandy Hollow,” Benedict announced, and before the other could object, a silver coin was spinning in the air.

  “Heads—Sunsmoke!” Benedict declared, showing the coin in his palm.

  Hank Brazos was too saddle-weary to question the validity of the toss, too dry in the throat to have to listen to a wordy lecture on the virtues of trust and honesty and all the rest of the claptrap Benedict would undoubtedly heap on him if he contested the point.

  So he just shrugged and swung his appaloosa towards the south trail as a smiling Benedict slipped his double-headed silver eagle back into the slash pocket of his bed-of-flowers vest.

  Duke Benedict had won again. The tall, dashing Harvard graduate, ex-Union captain and now a gambler, gunfighter and manhunter, liked to win. But, as they pushed south for Sunsmoke, there was a sound that could have been distant thunder—or perhaps the laughter of the dark gods who controlled the destiny of men. Before two weeks had run their bloody course, winner Duke Benedict would wonder if he had lost more than any man could afford ... on one flip of a coin ...

  “Hey, Lothar!”

  “What?”

  “Did you hear somethin’ just then?”

  Lothar Redford, runty, bitter-faced gun hand, newly arrived at the Golden Hoof Ranch, straightened and cocked his head. After a long moment, as the two ranch hands helping him guard the small Coyote Gulch herd watched nervously, Redford shook his head. “I don’t hear nothin’.”

  Solly Green, the hook-nosed cowhand whose voice had first broken the silence, looked into the windy gloom beyond the darkened blobs of the sleeping beeves. His expression remained uncertain. “I dunno ...” he muttered.

  Lothar Redford came down the grassy slope towards the pair, the light from the campfire glinting on the brass cartridges in his belt. “What do you reckon you heard, Green?” His tone was sharp. His status as a gun hand didn’t give Redford any official standing on the Golden Hoof, but he talked like a ramrod.

  Green knotted bushy brows. “Ain’t sure for certain, Lothar. But mebbe it sounded like a hoof knockin’ against a rock.”

  Lothar Redford sighed and said sarcastically, “The only thing knockin’ about here, mister, is your knees.”

  Solly Green fixed a bleak stare on the gunman. Just on principle, the workhands on the big Golden Hoof disliked and distrusted the hard-mouthed gunslinger breed, even if Ethan Kinraine had hired men like Redford for their own protection during the range war with the rival Shotgun Ranch.

  “You sayin’ I’m hearin’ things now?” Green said. “You reckon I’m jumpy?”

  Redford met Green’s stare for a moment, then backed down a little. “All I’m sayin’ is that settin’ around here ain’t doin’ nobody no good. Mebbe we better take a turn of the basin.”

  Solly Green and Toby Hackett exchanged a glance, then nodded in agreement. Maybe sitting around was playing on their nerves.

  “Will you come with us, Lothar?” Hackett asked.

  Lothar Redford made an impatient sound in his throat. He’d never had much respect for the cowpuncher breed, but their obvious tension on a night as quiet as this was beginning to wear on him.

  “All right,” he said, checking his Colt. “We’ll take a look on foot. Who knows? We might flush Solly’s spook.”

  Green glared at Redford’s back as the gunman walked off, then he and Hackett followed.

  “Damn little upstart!” Green muttered, careful to keep his voice low. “Don’t even know one end of a brandin’ iron from another and he gets around like he’s God Almighty.”

  They walked from the cookfire embers and the chuckwagon, then through the bedded herd. The wind hissing down through the gulch was cold against their faces.

  “He’s only doin’ his job, man,” Hackett said mildly. Toby Hackett was an easy-going beanpole always ready to see the best in everybody. “He don’t mean half of what he says.”

  Stepping over the summer-bleached buffalo grass, Redford heard the murmur of their voices and his upper lip curled in contempt. Frightened of their own shadows, he thought. No wonder the Golden Hoof Ranch had been coming off second best against the Shotgun. He wondered how they’d go in a really tight situation. Then Redford came to an abrupt stop, holding up his left hand, his Colt at the ready in his right. The cowhands halted behind him, eyes searching the gloom.

  “What is it, Redford?” Hackett breathed.

  Lothar Redford didn’t answer immediately, not certain if he had really heard something above the normal night sounds. Then, “Take a look in them cottonwoods yonder, Toby. We’ll give you cover.”

  Hackett swallowed, but to show he was no coward, he moved off to the dark stand of timber and disappeared. A minute or so later he came back, grinning with relief.

  “Clean, Lothar. Ain’t nothin’ there.”

  “Uh-huh.” But Redford still wasn’t fully at ease. He inclined his head at the dark shape of a ridge some fifty yards ahead. “C’mon. We
’ll check the ridge, then work back down to the creek.”

  There was nothing at the ridge but wind-blown grass and the dark blob of sagebrush.

  Redford was grinning as they headed for the creek. Funny how a couple of jumpy partners could get you going. Minutes back, he’d sensed something alien in the atmosphere, but now the feeling was gone. Of course, he hadn’t really expected trouble tonight, not when it was common knowledge that the Golden Hoof had hired Erskine Getty and himself to bolster the spread’s defenses. The Shotgun men were just a bunch of cowhands. They wouldn’t be fool enough to tangle with bona fide gun handlers.

  He thought about his employer, Ethan Kilraine. The rancher was a hard man but a fair one. By now, of course, Ethan Kilraine and the Shotgun bosses, the Hardcastle brothers, must have realized that a range war was a lot easier to trigger off than stop. Not that Redford was anxious to see it halted quickly—not when he was collecting a hundred dollars a month just for keeping an eye on a few cows and some jumpy cowhands.

  They reached the creek and Redford drew up to peer at the boulder-strewn bank on the far side. Hackett was staring back in the direction of the herd, and Solly Green had one hand pressed to his side, complaining about a stitch. At that moment a soft-nosed .44 slug smashed into the back of Green’s head. He was dead before he had time to be surprised.

  The single shot was the signal for more. Rearing up from behind the rocks, dark figures let loose with a thunderous volley of gunfire.

  Displaying lightning-quick reactions, Lothar Redford survived that first vicious lead storm, throwing himself violently to one side with nothing worse than a slug in the leg. Rolling to reach the cover of a jutting stone, he triggered twice and heard a man gasp in agony as his lead found a billet.

  Toby Hackett had got his gun clear, too, and was blasting back at the gun flashes. But Hackett’s fire was wild. He was a simple, hard-working cowhand whose calloused hands could fix a bridle, rope a steer and wield a branding iron with consummate skill, but which were clumsy and thick on a gun. Three times his old Dragoon Colt bucked against the crotch of his hand, then lead punched him back on legs that had no feeling, until he went down on his spine, firing at the sky and not knowing it.

  Lothar Redford, protected by his little boulder, fired at a crouching figure, missed, then raised himself slightly to get a better look. A mistake. The .45 slug hit him in the chest and blew a big hole in his back. Redford’s six-gun tumbled from nerveless fingers.

  The firing ceased abruptly and soon there came the sound of hoofbeats that faded into the night.

  “A hundred dollars,” Ethan Kilraine muttered. “A hundred dollars for a man’s life. I feel almost ashamed to send it.”

  “It’s more than most bosses would pay out, Mr. Kilraine,” Erskine Getty declared.

  “You knew Redford’s mother?”

  “No. But from what I knew of Lothar, she won’t exactly be sittin’ pretty. That hundred and your letter will help her along plenty, you can be sure of that.”

  The cattleman’s eyes fell on the three envelopes before him. Each envelope contained a hundred dollars and a letter to the next-of-kin of the three Golden Hoof men who had died at Coyote Gulch during the night. It had taken Kilraine over two hours to compose the letters behind his big desk at the Golden Hoof ranch house. They weren’t the first such letters he had been obliged to write over the past several months.

  Getty stood patiently before the big desk. The late Lothar Redford’s partner was a dandyish little man with a neatly clipped ginger moustache and pale, washed-out eyes.

  Getty had led the Golden Hoof men out to Coyote Gulch last night when the distant stutter of guns had breached the night’s silence. They had found Redford, Green and Hackett shot to death along the banks of Coyote Creek. Fifty head of primes were missing. Getty had wanted to instigate a search for the cattle and the killers but Kilraine had refused him permission. In heavy mood, Ethan Kilraine had declared that he had lost enough men for one day.

  Finally the cattleman stirred. “All right, Getty, see that these letters get to town, will you?”

  The little gunman picked up the envelopes. “Is that all you want me to do, Mr. Kilraine?”

  “At the moment, yes.”

  His dissatisfaction showing plainly, Getty turned and made for the door. Like many little men, he tried to make himself appear taller, walking very erect on three-inch heels. When he opened the door, the sound of voices from the front gallery drifted in. There was no work being done on the Golden Hoof today. The cowhands were gathered around the house talking of the night’s events. The words “Hardcastle” and “Shotgun” peppered their dialogue.

  Alone in the big room, Ethan Kilraine rubbed his hands wearily across his face, then set about putting the writing materials away. A tall, heavy-shouldered man of fifty, Kilraine’s movements were slow and deliberate. Ethan Kilraine never hurried. He was thorough and hard-working, a combination of characteristics that had enabled him to build the Golden Hoof from open buffalo country into the finest spread in Box Butte County within ten years.

  The room reflected his success. There was deep carpet. Expensive tapestries and oil paintings ornamented the walls. Behind the desk, rows of books flanked the fireplace, and Ethan Kilraine had read every one. Above the fireplace was the oil painting of a handsome, auburn-haired woman. Mary Kilraine had been dead more than five years, and Ethan had not looked at another woman in all that time. He had made the ranch and his daughter his whole life, but neither had succeeded in completely filling the void his wife had left behind.

  He was standing at the sideboard pouring a badly needed whisky when he heard the sound of steps in the hallway.

  Moments later his daughter came in, followed by ramrod Sam Fieldman.

  Tracy Kilraine was the image of the woman in the painting. Beautiful by any standards, with tawny, golden-red hair worn loose to the shoulders, and with vivid, compelling green eyes, Tracy would have attracted attention anywhere, and out here in frontier Montana, hers was the sort of unattainable loveliness that filled lonely men’s dreams. Half the male population of the county was at least a little in love with the cattleman’s daughter, and there were men from lowly cowhands to rich businessmen ready to run for the nearest preacher should lovely Tracy so much as nod her head. Being somewhat vain, Tracy enjoyed all the adulation, but though she was now twenty-three, she had only kept serious company with one man, and that romance had ended abruptly several months ago.

  “Why, thank you, Father,” she smiled brightly, neatly taking the glass from Kilraine’s hand. “You must have known I needed this.”

  The look the rancher gave his daughter was both reproving and indulgent. Tracy Kilraine had always been a lovely, bewildering mystery to her father, as indeed she was to most men. Mercurial, vibrant, given to explosions of fire and moments of winning tenderness, Tracy went her own way, making her own decisions—with the powerful cattle king most often like putty in her hands.

  “Drink, Sam?” he asked the ramrod.

  “Thanks, boss.” Fieldman’s manner was grave. He’d just returned from Sunsmoke after delivering the three bodies to the undertaker.

  Kilraine poured two drinks, turned to his daughter and lifted his glass. “To three good men.”

  They drank to the tapping of Tracy’s foot. The girl stood behind the desk, one hand on her hip and her head tilted back as she watched the ramrod. Finally she said:

  “Well, tell him, Sam.”

  “Tell me what?” Kilraine said quickly. “Not more bad news?”

  “Good news,” Tracy said. “Sam ...”

  “Well, I don’t know for sure if it’s good news or bad, Mr. Kilraine,” the tall, rawboned ramrod said in his quiet way. “I was just tellin’ her how I saw a couple of fellers in town. They were drinkin’ at the Wagon Wheel. Gunfighters, Mr. Kilraine.”

  Kilraine sighed. “Not interested, Sam,” he murmured, moving to the window to gaze over his kingdom of grass and hills.

  “
Of course you’re interested, Father,” Tracy insisted. “What did you say their names were, Sam?”

  “Benedict and Brazos,” the ramrod replied, watching Kilraine’s broad back. Then he added grudgingly, “They look like the real thing, Mr. Kilraine. There’s a rumor goin’ around that they cleaned up the Hole in the Wall Gang down in Boot a couple of weeks back. And they look like they could have just done that.”

  Kilraine turned. “What kind of foolishness is this? Gunmen aren’t the answer to our problems with the Shotgun. Surely that was proved last night.”

  “The sheriff says he can’t do anything about last night,” Tracy said pointedly.

  “Barney Vint says as how he’s sorry, Mr. Kilraine,” Fieldman added. “I reckon what he meant was that he was washin’ his hands of the whole thing between us and the Shotgun.” Sam’s face clouded. “Martin Hardcastle was in town today. He even had the gall to come to the funeral parlor to pay his respects. Told me that the Shotgun had nothin’ to do with last night. Said it must’ve been rustlers up from Wyomin’ that took our stock.”

  Kilraine’s heavy shoulders sagged. There had been a time when he had regarded young Martin Hardcastle as a friend. He’d never had any time for young Barlow Hardcastle, but Martin had always seemed genuine. He still found it hard to believe that Martin could kill so viciously, but of course it was even harder to believe the story about outside rustlers.

  “Can I pour you another drink, Father?” Tracy asked.

  “No ... no, thank you.” He looked at her and, seeing the familiar determined set of her face, he lifted a big hand. “Now, Tracy, don’t start in on me about hiring more gunmen to worsen an already bad situation. I’ve just finished writing to the kin of those dead men and—”

  “Honestly,” she cut him off impatiently, “to listen to you anybody might think you actually believe I want this terrible war to continue, when all I want is to stop it.”

  He crossed to her, his manner repentant. “I know, I know, honey. You’ve been a big help to me over the past months, so much so that I don’t know if I could have got through it without you. But I fail to see how putting more gunfighters on the payroll is going to help.”