Benedict and Brazos 6

by E. Jefferson Clay

  The Home of Great Western Fiction!

  Spargo was a mining town … but there hadn’t been any mining there for a while. The mines were in a dangerous condition, and their owner, Foley Kingston, refused to make improvements. So the miners—those who’d survived the numerous cave-ins and accidents—went on strike, and Kingston called on his old friend, Duke Benedict, to help him break it.

  Benedict’s partner, big Hank Brazos, immediately sided with the miners. And even though Benedict knew Kingston was at fault, he had to stand by him. Back in the War, Kingston had saved his life, so he owed the man.

  But there were darker forces at work in Spargo—from Kingston’s cheating wife Rhea to saloon owner Ace Beauford, who wanted to run the entire outfit all by himself. And then there was a man-mountain named Paddy Clancy, who figured to double-cross all of them!

  BENEDICT AND BRAZOS: CRY RIOT!

  By E. Jefferson Clay

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

  © 2020 by Piccadilly Publishing

  First Digital Edition: March 2020

  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 – Ambush in the Sun

  Murphy eased the Winchester forward as the three riders came into sight below. He grimaced as the sun caught fire along the barrel. Taking an experimental sighting, he framed the head of the middle horse in the cleft of the back sight and gently raised the front sight up into the notch. The blade danced as he looked over it at the rider’s face. He saw a tall, dandyish looking hombre on a flashy black horse. Not him, he decided; he didn’t look like a big-time man-killer.

  The gunsights swung to the rider on the right—a giant on an appaloosa that had an ugly hound trotting in its shade. Not him, either; he looked more like a lumberjack than a fast gun.

  That left the man on the roan.

  Murphy grunted as the third horseman came up in his sights. He was small and slender and he wore his gun low; that had to be him. Murphy felt a weakening run through him and he tensed his body against it as though he was clenching a fist. Slowly, very slowly, he lowered the gunsights to the black shirtfront and waited for his target to draw into sure range, then he frowned in surprise as an incongruous sound on that day of heat and dust and imminent death drifted up to him.

  It was the sound of music.

  Big Hank Brazos had been playing his mouth organ out of key for the past ten miles and now he seemed set to sing out of key for the next ten:

  “Oh, he’s a foul-mouthed mule-skinner man,

  And he rides with the Ku Klux Klan,

  He lives good on fatback, buzzard pie and grits,

  Shoots lawmen for fun and throws conniption fits.”

  Duke Benedict’s nose wrinkled with disgust. “Let me guess—that’s your own composition?”

  “Well, I’ll be dogged, but you’re right, Yank.” Brazos grinned, his blue eyes wide in his craggy, sun-bronzed face. “How the Sam Hill did you come to guess?”

  “Just a wild stab in the dark,” the tall and handsome Benedict replied with weary sarcasm. Benedict, who saw himself as a shining example of breeding and refinement, was fully feeling the burden of riding for too long in the company of this overgrown, illiterate Texas brush-popper who played lousy harmonica and composed lousier songs.

  Brazos, not quite as innocent as he liked to appear sometimes, winked slyly across at the cowboy who’d joined them at Hondo for the ride up to Spargo. Then he said, “You like my little song, then, Duke?”

  The rider in the broadcloth suit and bed-of-flowers vest didn’t answer. Benedict knew Brazos and all his tricks. When a trail got long, hot and boring, the big Texan liked nothing better than to try to rile a man. It was his strange way of making the time pass quicker.

  “You must be tuckered from the heat, I guess.” Brazos smiled at Chad Bowers. “Reckon another verse might cheer him some, Chad?”

  Bowers grinned. This hard-faced but easy-going cowboy was still intrigued by his chance trail companions after several hours in their company. The tall gambling man and his massive partner with the purple shirt were hardly the normal run of travelers a man was likely to meet up with in Nevada. And their off-beat appearance was matched by their behavior. Over the long, hot miles, Bowers found himself as fascinated by Duke Benedict’s educated dialogue and gentlemanly manners as by Hank Brazos’ wild stories and good spirits. He found Brazos’ music plenty entertaining; but, sensing Benedict’s mounting irritation, elected to leave it up to Brazos to decide if he should sing some more.

  Brazos decided he should and filled his lungs:

  “Oh, he lives in a house on the hill,

  And he’s got him a squaw named Cripple Creek Jill.

  She’s happy and greasy and eats vittles for four,

  Weighs five hundred pounds and sleeps on the floor.”

  Echoes of Brazos’ last notes bouncing from the high ridge before them, were suddenly engulfed by the brutal crash of a rifle. Benedict and Brazos saw a puff of smoke atop the ridge, then swung in their saddles as Bowers slid to the ground, his Stetson rolling like a cartwheel down the slope.

  Reacting with the blinding speed of a man who had often been a target, Hank Brazos ripped his Winchester from its scabbard with a curse—but he wasn’t nearly as quick as Benedict whose twin Peacemakers cut loose at the drygulcher’s position in a rolling roar.

  Atop the ridge, Murphy clawed dirt frantically as the rider he’d picked as a tinhorn in a fancy vest worked his guns with lightning speed. Snarling lead hornets whined all about him, powdering rock crowns and tearing at the earth.

  He’d shot the wrong man. This realization hit Murphy like a kick in the stomach as the Peacemakers continued to belch lead. Only a gunslinger could work guns like that. Damnit, couldn’t he do anything right? Then he cursed aloud as a rock fragment split his cheek and suddenly he was frightened. It was time to get to hell and away.

  But haste and fear made him careless. As he twisted away from the low, rocky balustrade where he’d waited three hours for his man to show up, he humped his back an inch too high—and Benedict put a slug through his shoulder blade. Murphy, jerked half-erect by the slamming impact of the bullet, screamed in agony. Then the Winchester in Hank Brazos’ big hands spewed flame and something went through Murphy’s body like a rod of fire.

  The ambusher dropped the rifle from nerveless hands and turned slowly on putty legs, his arms crossed over his body as if to stop the lead. But slugs kept coming, spinning him around and sending him over the balustrade. He hit the downslope on his head and went end over end all the way down to the trail.

  Slowly the gunsmoke drifted away, mingling with the dust the dry-gulcher had raised on his quick trip down. The rumbling echoes of the guns faded and suddenly the day was emptied of sound.

  Hot guns still held at the ready, Hank Brazos and Duke Benedict exchanged grim-faced glances. Veterans of the War Between the States and now saddle-partners in the hunt for one of the deadliest desperadoes ever to steal two hundred thousand dollars in gold bullion, they were no strangers to danger or violent death. Even so, they were shaken by this sudden eruption of violence that had snuffed out two lives in a hand
ful of seconds on a quiet Nevada afternoon.

  “You had better check him out,” Benedict said finally, inclining his head up-trail. “I’ll cover you in case there are any more of the breed skulking about.”

  Brazos grunted, heeled his appaloosa up to the dead ambusher and swung down.

  The dead man was short and red-headed. His ugly face was pocked with the scars of severe acne. His rig was denim, and the old .45 handgun in his belt was rusty. He carried only five dollars on him. Despite his ugliness, he didn’t look like a dry-gulcher to Brazos.

  Frowning, Brazos climbed the ridge with his dog, Bullpup, to make double-sure the man was alone. He found the ambusher’s horse cached in the trees and rode the animal back down to the trail, where Benedict was just finishing going through the things he’d taken from Bowers’ pockets.

  “Eleven dollars and a letter from his mother in California,” Benedict said bitterly as he came erect. “Who the devil would want to kill a man like that? Why?”

  Brazos shook his big head. The whole thing seemed pointless, crazy. If he or Benedict had been shot at he would have understood it, what with the enemies they had. But Bowers was just an out-of-work cowpoke, heading up Spargo way hunting work.

  He sighed and told Benedict about the dry-gulcher. Benedict went along to inspect the corpse while Brazos loaded Bowers’ body onto his horse and lashed it in place. Leading Bowers’ mount, his own appaloosa and the ambusher’s sorrel, he then went up the trail to Benedict who was lighting a cigar and frowning down at the ambusher’s corpse.

  “What do you make of him, Yank?” Brazos asked.

  Benedict shook his head. “Puzzling, Reb. He doesn’t appear like the gunman breed. He looks more like a laborer.”

  “A miner, mebbe?”

  Benedict looked at him sharply. “What makes you say that?”

  Brazos gestured at the ridge. “His tracks come in from the east. Spargo’s east.”

  “Could be a miner, I suppose. But that still doesn’t tell us much, does it?”

  “Mebbe it does,” Brazos said, his face creased and knotted in thought. “Mebbe this sidewinder wasn’t after Bowers. Mebbe he was after us.”

  “How the devil do you arrive at that conclusion?”

  Massive shoulders shrugging under his faded purple shirt, Brazos said, “Well, we don’t even know what we’re buyin’ into in Spargo. Mebbe this feller could—”

  “Damnation!” Benedict cut him off. “You’re not starting in on that again, are you?” He shook his head. “When you get an idea into that thick skull of yours it takes dynamite to shift it. I suppose you’ve still got that ‘hunch’ about Spargo, have you?”

  Hank Brazos scowled and folded his arms, sunlight glinting from the mouth organ he wore on a rawhide cord around his neck. He wasn’t anxious to resume the argument they’d had in Hondo before pulling out, for Benedict had made him feel a fool then and could doubtless do so again. But he still didn’t feel right about this whole deal ...

  Yesterday in Hondo, Benedict had received a letter from the mining town of Spargo. The two had already spent ten days in Hondo, where the trail of the outlaw they’d been hunting had gone cold, and Foley Kingston had heard they were there. Kingston, who’d served in the Union Army with Benedict, was the biggest man in Spargo from what Brazos could gather. Among other things he was the owner of the silver mine that supported the town. In his letter, Kingston had told Benedict he was in big trouble and needed his help. There was no explanation of the trouble or of what sort of help he needed, and right then and there Brazos had developed his “hunch” that they should turn the request down. Benedict over-rode him, and now here they were, a day’s ride from Spargo, and two men were dead. If that didn’t back up a man’s hunch then Brazos didn’t know what did ...

  He said, “All I’m sayin’ is I don’t like buyin’ into somethin’ blind.”

  “You have already said that,” Benedict complained. “Let’s ride.”

  Brazos sighed but didn’t argue. He knew he had to stick with Benedict, just the way Benedict had stuck with him throughout their long hunt for Bo Rangle.

  Their chase of Bo Rangle dated back to the dying days of the Civil War and a place called Pea Ridge where forces of Confederate and Union troops had fought a bloody battle over a shipment of gold. In the end the gold was snatched away by the infamous Rangle’s Raiders. Rebel Sergeant Hank Brazos and Federal Captain Duke Benedict were the sole survivors of one hundred and fifty men. Chance had brought them together at war’s end and now they hunted Rangle and the gold brave men had died for. From vastly different backgrounds, Benedict and Brazos disagreed on just about everything under the sun, but their partnership worked, and if Benedict was determined to go on to Spargo, then Brazos had no option but to stick with him, regardless of hunches, dry-gulchers or whatever.

  “What are you doing?” Benedict asked as he saw Brazos hefting the dry-gulcher’s body across his shoulder.

  Brazos dumped the riddled corpse across the sorrel and pulled his lariat from the appaloosa. “Can’t leave him here.”

  “Why not?” Benedict jerked his thumb at Bowers. “Don’t tell me he wouldn’t have left him to rot.”

  “It won’t hurt us none to take him into Spargo with us,” Brazos replied, taking a final pull on the ropes that lashed the dead man to his horse before mounting his appaloosa. “Even dry-gulchers have kin.”

  “Is that a fact?”

  “So I’m told,” Brazos murmured and led the way out.

  They left the place of death behind and rode with the afternoon sun at their backs. A breeze rose, taking some of the brutal heat out of the day. Birds sang in the trees as they passed and a great mass of billowing white clouds climbed over the Bucksaw Mountains, looking almost too white to be real against the deep blue of the sky.

  After a couple of miles, Brazos lifted his mouth organ, blew a few reedy bars in an attempt to cheer himself up, but then he dropped the harmonica and slouched in his saddle, building a smoke.

  Benedict nodded understandingly behind him. Most times Benedict didn’t want to know what Hank Brazos was thinking, but he believed he knew exactly what the big man’s feelings were at that moment. And he was right: Benedict was enjoying the beauty around him and thinking that it was too nice a day to die. Even for a dry-gulcher.

  Foley Kingston turned sharply from the liquor cabinet as his wife swept into the huge, chandeliered dining room.

  “Well, you finally condescended to come down,” he snapped. “I’ve been holding supper twenty minutes.”

  “What a gracious greeting, darling,” the woman replied, smiling icily, then pirouetting before him to show off her dress. “Do you like this, Foley? It just arrived today from San Francisco.”

  “How goddamn much does that cost me?”

  Ignoring the question, Rhea Kingston turned her back on her husband to admire her reflection in the long wall mirror beneath the Du Lesse mural. The first lady of Spargo looked even more beautiful than usual tonight and she knew it. Taller than average and built on the long, slender lines of a thoroughbred, she was sheathed in a floor-length, clinging creation of finest white taffeta, cut daringly low to reveal the sculptured perfection of her magnificent breasts. Her rich auburn hair was piled high and long diamond ear-rings dangled from aristocratic ears. She executed the cruel, knowing smile of a woman sure of her power when she saw Kingston’s expression change from anger to desire in the mirror.

  “My chair, Foley,” she said, turning to the table.

  Resentment brought a flush of blood to Kingston’s face. He didn’t mind holding a chair for a woman but he hated being ordered to. “We don’t have any goddamn company tonight,” he growled. Then, “Ring for the servants if you want somebody to pull your chair out.”

  Slanted green eyes glittered and the deeply cleft bosom lifted. “My chair, Foley.”

  Foley Kingston didn’t give in ... not right away. The owner of Spargo’s Motherlode Mine was the most powerful man in a hundred
miles and hadn’t grown used to being bossed by a woman, even after two stormy years of marriage. His first wife had never tried it, but then she hadn’t been anything like Rhea.

  He was able to stand his ground until he made the mistake of lifting his gaze from the array of expensive silver and china to her face. Immediately his stubbornness and determination dissolved. She was irresistibly beautiful. Cursing his weakness, he pulled out her chair. As she seated herself he kissed her naked shoulder. She flinched.

  “Really, Foley, don’t you think it’s much too hot for that sort of thing?”

  “Hot?” Kingston snapped, angry and embarrassed as he went to his chair and sat down hard. “I don’t think it’s the heat we have to worry about in this house, Rhea. Every time I touch you lately it seems you freeze up like Christmas in—”

  “Please, darling, I’m not in the mood to hear about my shortcomings in bed this evening.”

  The mouth of the tall, iron-faced man became a steel trap as he pushed himself halfway out of his chair.

  “By God, Rhea, sometimes you talk like a whore—damned if you don’t.”

  “I’ll have turtle,” she said.

  Kingston’s eyes bugged. “What?” Then he noticed that Pancho the Mexican houseboy had come in, soundlessly as always. Rhea was ordering soup.

  “By glory, someday I’ll maim you for creeping up on me like that, wetback!” he snarled, turning his fury on the less formidable target.

  “Oh, let the man be, Foley,” Rhea said, bored. “There is no need to take it out on the servants just because your gunfighter hasn’t arrived.”

  “I am not worried, and Duke Benedict is not a gunfighter.”

  She smiled mockingly. “Oh, no, that’s right, he is a former comrade-in-arms and man of distinction, isn’t he?”

  “As a matter of fact, he is very much a man of distinction.”