Benedict and Brazos 3

by E. Jefferson Clay

  But if Bindale was something less than the squared-jaw-of-action type of lawman one might wish for, he was at least able to supply some information when Benedict identified himself and told him what had brought him to his town.

  Bindale lost some of his dreamy look and dropped his boot heels to the boards when the matter of the Antigua’s rustled stock was raised.

  “Mighty peculiar about them there cows you know, Benedict.” He scratched the back of his scalp and spat over the edge of the gallery into the dust. “You might even say it’s kinda spooky.”

  Benedict propped a boot up on the porch and leant an elbow on his knee. “Spooky, Sheriff? How do you mean?”

  Bindale spread his hands. “Why, just the way them beeves seemed to up and disappear. That’s what happened to every bunch they’ve lost over the past couple of months— just vanished! You knew o’ course that there’s been other rustlin’ raids besides the one Boyd Larsen come to investigate?”

  Benedict nodded. Gordon had told him of the previous raids. Apparently Nathan Kendrick had only decided to lodge a claim against the insurance company when the rustlers had finally made a really big strike.

  “I know from Larsen’s report to head office that he conferred with you about the rustling, Sheriff. Do you have any idea why Larsen was killed?”

  “Nary a one. Unless of course he was gettin’ too close to the thieves.”

  “Do you know a man named Salazar?”

  Bindale didn’t even bother to conceal his alarm at the mere mention of that name. “I do, but I wish I didn’t, Benedict. That there pilgrim’s about the orneriest Mex varmint north of the border. He’s wanted all over for just about every crime in the book, but mostly for cuttin’ folks’ throats.”

  Benedict didn’t waste time asking what Bindale personally may have ever done to attempt to bring Salazar to justice. Bindale looked as if the limit of his capacity would be to run in a Saturday night drunk. Provided he was very drunk.

  He said, “Have you any idea where this Salazar hangs his hat?”

  “Hangs it all over I guess; down in Mexico when he’s killin’ somebody for money, up in the hills when he’s rustlin’, west down along the flat country when he takes it in his head to knock over a few stages. But I reckon in between times he does his drinkin’ down at Candelaria.”

  “Candelaria? That’s some miles to the southwest, near the border of the Rancho Antigua, isn’t it?”

  Bindale nodded and Benedict looked south. It seemed Candelaria might be worth a visit when he was through with Arroyo and Rancho Antigua.

  He spent a further half hour with Bindale, fleshing out what he already knew from Henry Gordon and Boyd Larsen’s reports. One thing he found significant was that Bindale and Arroyo seemed more puzzled than anything else by the rustling at Rancho Antigua. This stemmed from the fact that the Antigua men, under the leadership of ramrod Juan Romero, had a formidable record against rustlers. Apparently until a few months ago, nobody ever got away with as much as one Antigua cow, then suddenly a hundred cows had vanished, followed by a half-dozen major raids, all of them successful for the rustlers.

  Before leaving the lawman to go to lunch, Benedict asked about Keechez, the man referred to briefly in Boyd Larsen’s diary as the man who’d given him the information on Bo Rangle. Bindale knew the man. He told him that the Candelaria resident had disappeared, and under prompting, the sheriff recollected he must have vanished just about the same day that Boyd Larsen was killed up in Sabinosa.

  Benedict had plenty to occupy his mind as he put himself around a passable steak in the Golden Spoon eatery. Over the meal he made a halfhearted attempt to charm the rather unattractive waitress and engaged a whiskery old bum in conversation. All he gleaned from the girl was that it was singularly pleasant down by the Slave River by moonlight, and from the old barfly that “Somethin’ mighty queer is agoin’ on out there at Rancho Antigua.” He paid his own and the old man’s tab and went out into the main street again.

  With a fresh cigar, he strolled along the shady side of the main stem, considering whether he should ride out to the Antigua that evening or not. He finally decided to wait until next day to give Brazos a chance to settle in out there. As the Reb had not come back to Arroyo yet, it seemed like he’d got the job he went after.

  He spent another hour yarning with a clutch of seedy old-timers on the hotel porch, then feeling the need of refreshment, made his way along to the Big Wheel Saloon.

  He strolled into the barroom with his customary poise, glancing left and right at the denizens loafing about. The barman, an ugly brute of a man with a cast in one eye, looked over his immaculate figure with surly displeasure. Benedict slapped a hand on the mahogany and smiled.

  “A glass of Robbie Burns’s whisky, thank you, barkeep.”

  The barkeep, a coarse-mannered pig of a man who prided himself as something of a wit, winked heavily at a couple of drinkers nearby, then in a rough but unmistakable mime of Benedict’s Harvard tones, replied:

  “I am so sorry, but I am regrettably out of Robbie Burns at the moment. Would a glass of Old Ned suit?”

  Benedict didn’t stop smiling. He was well aware that his appearance and his polished accent often jarred on the ears of hard cases such as this. But he believed dearly in the right of a man to talk and act any way he pleased and never made any attempt to modify his almost foreign sounding speech to conform to the idiom of the frontier. On top of that, he’d taken an instant dislike to the man behind the bar.

  “No, I’m very much afraid Old Ned wouldn’t suit, fellow,” he smiled, laying the accent on a little heavier still. “You see, Old Ned is a half-distilled blend of rat poison and swamp water and I strongly suspect that anybody who offers it for public consumption is nothing but a jackass.”

  The barman, who had been wiping the bar with a big blue rag, stopped and stared. It took him some time to realize he’d been smilingly insulted. Conscious of the expectant eyes of his admirers upon him, he threw his cloth aside and thrust his belligerent face close to Benedict’s.

  “Are you lookin’ to get that pretty beak of yours busted, panty-waist?”

  Benedict was not. What he was actually looking for, was a target for his blurring right elbow. He found it, seemingly by chance in the barman’s broad, coarse-pored nose.

  Crimson splashed, the barkeep sagged and went white. Before he could gather his senses, Benedict got two handfuls of coarse black hair, then thumped the already squashed nose into the mahogany once or twice and let him go.

  The barman disappeared with a crash. Benedict carefully inspected his fingernails. He dearly loved a little violence to keep the appetite sharp, but unless it was completely unavoidable never risked his gunfighter’s valuable hands on hard heads. In the barkeep’s case, he hadn’t had to.

  The Big Wheel was totally silent for a full ten seconds before a rustling and grunting behind the bar revealed that the barman was coming to.

  A man sniggered when the battered head finally showed above the level of the mahogany. The man looked as if he’d just lost an argument with a runaway stage.

  “Ah there you are, my good fellow,” Benedict said amiably. “Now shall we try it again? Do you have any Robbie Burns whisky?”

  The man blinked his eyes, gasping. “I ... I might jest have a bottle in back.”

  “Good chap. Well, fetch it if you please. At the double.” The man went down the bar at the double, vanished for a brief moment, then returned at the double, clutching a bottle of Robbie Burns.

  Benedict took his drink to a corner table and lit a fresh cigar. He felt on top of the world; nothing like a little light exercise to sharpen a man up. And there might be something gained by his little dust-up with the barkeep. There were times when stirring things up produced results and he’d well and truly stirred things up here this afternoon.

  Later, he joined in a game of poker, lost a few dollars: and kept on with his questioning without learning much that was new. It was approaching dusk
when he finally quit the saloon with the intention of heading back for Garcia’s Rooming House. It had been a long day, but now it was time for a bath, a change of clothes, another meal at the eatery, and then maybe the luxury of an early night to be fresh for tomorrow.

  As he crossed the saloon porch, he saw a fat little Mexican stepping down from a small brown mare at the hitch rack. The horse’s rump wore a big scrolled “A” brand.

  Benedict stopped and put on his friendliest smile. “Buenos noches, Señor.”

  The portly little Mexican smiled in cheery response and twisted the reins around the rail. “A pleasant evening, is it not, Señor?”

  “Indeed it is.” Benedict nodded at the horse. “You’re from the Rancho Antigua, amigo?”

  “Si, Señor, I am Pancho Pino, vaquero.” Pino looked curiously at the tall gringo. “Is there something, Señor?”

  “Matter of fact there is, amigo. You see, I’m a stranger in town and could be I’ll be looking around for work. I hear that the Antigua is the biggest ranch in a hundred miles. Do you know if they’re hiring at the moment?”

  Pino shook his head. “I do not think so, Señor.”

  “That’s too bad.” Benedict looked at the man keenly. “They’re not hiring anybody, is that it?”

  “Well, when you say anybody, Señor ... just today Señor Kendrick signed on a new horse wrangler ... but that was only because the job was open and this man rode in asking for work. I do not think ...”

  Pino broke off as the tall American flipped him a silver coin and went down the steps. “Señor, I do not understand ...”

  “Buy yourself some chilies, amigo,” Benedict called back over his shoulder and was smiling to himself as he strolled down the street. It sounded like Brazos had landed his job on the Antigua; that was encouraging.

  Somehow thoughts of stolen cattle, Hank Brazos and early nights vanished the moment he swung through the courtyard gate of the rooming house and saw the girl working the handle of the pump in the yard. It was Jana Garcia, the sloe-eyed daughter of the proprietress who had been friendly and charming when he’d booked in that morning.

  He swept off his hat and walked across to her. She was wearing a different dress to the one she’d been wearing when he checked in. It was cleaner, brighter, and there was considerably less of it.

  “Buenos noches, Señorita Jana.”

  “Buenos noches, Señor.”

  “It is a fine night, is it not?”

  The girl looked straight up at the bright yellow moon. She stretched her arms and took a deep breath which probably did Benedict as much good as it did her. “Si, it is indeed a very fine night.”

  “An ideal night for a stroll by the river perhaps?”

  “The Señor is bold.”

  “The Señorita is beautiful.”

  “You really think so, Señor?”

  “I am certain of it, Señorita. My arm?”

  They passed out through the adobe gateway and strolled arm-in-arm through the quiet street. The night smelt of honeysuckle, roses and sweet grasses. It was spring in Spanish Valley and Benedict decided that for tonight at least, a young man’s fancy had no business turning to thoughts of cattle rustlers and dead insurance investigators and unromantic subjects like Bo Rangle ...

  Five – Rancho Antigua

  The old sorrel gave Brazos little trouble as he got the speculum fitted into the animal’s mouth, but when he suddenly forced the jaws wide open with the spreading device and notched the ratchet to hold them that way, the horse started to panic.

  “Hold his head steady, dammit!” he barked to the two Mexican vaqueros.

  “He don’t like it, Señor Brazos,” Manuelita Orlando observed.

  “He don’t have to goddam like it. Just hold him.”

  “Ees mucho more easy said than done, Señor Brazos,” Pancho Pino chimed in, sweating profusely as he struggled to hold the horse. “He ees going to keek me if I don’ let him go.”

  “And I’ll keek you if you do, vaquero, and believe me I can keek harder than this old bottle-nose.”

  Pancho Pino believed him, so applied himself a little more rigorously to his job and the old sorrel quietened down some.

  Brazos went to the fence of the corral and selected the right file from the tool bag. He wiped sweat from his forehead and glanced across at the town trail. No sign of the Yank yet, but he figured it was too early. Benedict kept gambler’s hours whenever he could get away with it: late to bed, late to rise, and the hell with health, wealth and wisdom.

  As he headed back for the horse, he glanced up at the house and saw Brenda Kendrick standing on the upper gallery. She appeared to be watching him. He gave a friendly wave, but the girl spun on her heel and disappeared.

  About to set to work on the old horse again, he looked up at the sound of jingling harness and the clump of hooves. Ramrod Juan Romero swung down and dropped the lines over a corral post. With athletic ease, the Mexican vaulted the railing, landing inside the corral like a graceful animal. Brazos nodded to him and went on with his task.

  “What are you doing?” Romero demanded. “This horse is finished.”

  “Señor Brazos fix the teeths,” supplied Pancho Pino.

  “We push open the mouth with the speculum,” confirmed Orlando. “We fix the old horse up as good as new.”

  “This horse is all through,” Romero repeated, ignoring the expert explanations. “He’s to be shot.”

  With the horse’s jaws propped open, Brazos ran a finger over the teeth.

  “A hell of a lot of hosses don’t die of old age,” he commented professionally. “They croak on account of bad teeth. This here hoss has got plenty of good years left in him yet I figure. All he needs is his teeth filed down even and kept that way so he can chew good and he’s liable to live forever and end up an old grey mule.”

  Both Pino and Orlando laughed, but Romero was not amused.

  “All right,” he said testily, “get on with it but be quick about it. I have more important jobs for you and these two loafers.”

  Brazos shrugged and went on with the job. Romero watched the whole operation closely and when Brazos was through and they’d removed the speculum and released the horse, he said, “You understand horses, hombre.”

  Brazos grunted, dabbing at his face with a bandanna.

  “Pack the tools away and put them in the harness shack,” he told the Mexicans. “Keep the horse corralled and on mash for two days till his teeth stop hurtin’.”

  “Si, Señor Brazos.”

  “At once, Señor.”

  Brazos chuckled. They were a pair of fools right enough, but they were entertaining—and a country mile friendlier than the surly Romero.

  And speaking of friendly faces, he suddenly realized another one had shown up.

  Brenda Kendrick stood leaning against the gateway with her arms folded and tapping the toe of her riding boot on the hard sand of the yard. She was wearing a yellow blouse, a form-fitting green skirt, a silver comb in her hair and a disapproving expression.

  “Mornin’, Miss Kendrick.”

  The girl ignored his greeting. “I thought you planned to destroy that horse, Juan?”

  “I did,” replied the ramrod.

  “Then what is this fellow doing?” She indicated Brazos without looking at him. “I’ve been watching from the house. He’s wasted an hour fooling with that animal and keeping Pancho and Manuelita from their chores.”

  “He says the horse is only suffering from bad teeth.”

  “That ees so, Señorita Brenda,” fat Pancho Pino supplied helpfully, returning from the adjoining corral. “We put the speculum in the mouth and Señor Brazos file all the bad teeth away and ...”

  “Thank you so much, Pancho,” the girl said acidly. “Now you’re both wanted at the house to bring in some cord wood. Pronto.”

  “Si, Señorita,” the two men chorused and scuttled for the gateway.

  Brazos fingered a packet of Bull Durham from the breast pocket of his pur
ple shirt as he crossed to the fence and leaned against it near where the girl was standing.

  He watched her curiously as he built his smoke, then when he had it burning, said quietly,

  “You don’t like me do you, Miss Kendrick?”

  The girl lifted her chin. “Surely you don’t find that surprising?”

  “Well, I do in a way. I mean, I couldn’t help what happened to Fallon, on account ...”

  “Even without that incident, I’d be opposed to your working on Antigua,” the girl cut in. “I just don’t believe you’re the type of man we want working for us.”

  Brazos grinned ruefully. “Well, that’s tellin’ me I guess.” He exhaled smoke and looked across at Romero. “But how come you don’t like me neither, ramrod? Mebbe what I done to Fallon was a little rich for Miss Kendrick, but you don’t strike me as the sensitive kind. What you got against me?”

  The girl and Romero exchanged a glance. It was only a glance, yet Brazos sensed something more than that.

  Romero’s face showed little beyond the respect of an employee towards his boss’ daughter, but there was something in the girl’s face that went further; something deep and unreadable. Brazos studied the Mexican ramrod through a haze of cigarette smoke. Yeah, Juan Romero was a pretty impressive-looking joker. He could understand just about any girl finding the ramrod attractive. But the daughter of an American cattle king and a wetback ramrod? No, he had to concede that didn’t add up.

  The moment was gone and Romero said quietly, “It is not a matter of like or dislike, cowboy. You were hired against my wishes.”

  Brazos frowned. “But how come, Romero? I’m a good hand with horses.”