Benedict and Brazos 18

by E. Jefferson Clay

  “Some durned posse, eh, Yank?” Brazos said ruefully as they picked up the sign and followed it north.

  Duke Benedict could only nod in full agreement. Yet Benedict felt a strange sense of confidence as they rode through the thin sunlight of the Misty Mountains. This could prove to be the last hunt. They had dogged Bo Rangle over thousands of miles, had buried his dead, had spat out their hatred in a dozen gun smoke showdowns. But it had always ended with the elusive Rangle on the loose. However, this time it was going to be different. Yes, either he or Bo Rangle would be dead.

  Benedict of course had no way of knowing that exactly the same feeling was preoccupying the giant Texan as he rode point, following the killers’ sign.

  Now it was up to the dark god that controls the destiny of men to make a choice between gold and the grave.

  Chapter Four

  The Trail Leads North

  Benedict and Brazos examined the place in the red-cliffed canyon where the outlaws had rested.

  All the city-bred Benedict saw were footprints, hoofmarks where the horses had been tied, and a scattering of cigar and cigarette butts. But Hank Brazos saw much more, and Benedict listened in awe with the others as the giant Texan built a cigarette and deciphered the sign.

  “They spent an hour here,” Brazos said, sounding as sure of himself as if he had been squatting in the trees nearby, watching. “One of ’em is packin’ lead. They dug a bullet out of him sittin’ there on that log, then wrapped him up with bits of a torn shirt. Somebody cracked a can of beans and there was some drinkin’. Don’t know how much drinkin’, but I can still smell whisky ...” He puffed his Bull Durham to life and added, “Rangle’s still with ’em.”

  Duke Benedict would have liked to query some of Brazos’ matter-of-fact declarations, but he didn’t. Experience had taught him that Brazos never made a mistake in matters like this, and on the rare occasion when Benedict might challenge him on a point, the Texan took great delight in providing proof of his sign-reading, spelling it out slowly as if explaining something to a backward child.

  But Tara Killane, a lovely, improbable figure in this wild setting with her golden hair blowing around her face in the chill dawn wind, showed some doubt. “How can you be so sure Bo is still with the outlaws, Hank?”

  “Simple, Missy.” Brazos’ tone was respectful. Tara Killane might have been involved in what had happened in Whetstone last night but she was still a woman, and Brazos knew only one way to treat a woman ... like a lady. He moved a short distance away to point to a footprint in the sand. “That’s Rangle’s footprint.”

  The girl leaned from the saddle to study the blurred mark. She frowned, unconvinced, and Brazos gave a small smile.

  “Benedict shot Rangle in the right leg four months ago in a place called Dinnebito Wash in New Mexico. Ever since, Rangle’s walked with a turn-in of the right foot. Mebbe you’ve noticed?”

  She nodded. “Yes, but I never really thought about it until now.” She smiled. “I believe you know your business, Hank.”

  “Let’s push on,” Benedict said curtly. “While we’re wasting time talking, they’re putting in miles.”

  They followed the trail down the canyon, then put their horses into a lope on reaching open country.

  Both Benedict and Brazos had magnificent mounts. Benedict’s black was a thoroughbred, a “hunter” as he liked to call it, though Brazos never quite knew what that meant. Brazos’ giant appaloosa didn’t have the black’s fine, graceful lines, but the horse had a barrel chest, thick, muscular legs, and he could run as long and as far as Bullpup, which meant as long as a man could sit a saddle.

  The mounts of their companions were something less in quality, but were good, durable horses nonetheless. Tara Killane rode a long-legged sorrel gelding that had been a present from the man they were hunting. Nick Beecher and Reb Cody rode a pair of Indian paints, small, ugly horses but full of stamina. Doc Skine, who hadn’t forked a saddle since coming to live in Whetstone, had bought a useful-looking roan mare from the liveryman for the journey, while Benedict and Brazos had chipped in to purchase a Roman-nosed buckskin for Peter the Great, who’d never owned a horse in his life.

  They covered five miles before halting to rest their horses. The riders dismounted by a stand of dogwood, slipped their mounts’ bits and eased the saddle girths. Arapahoe Valley stretched into the golden distance ahead.

  Benedict and Brazos stood smoking and looking out over the valley. It had been a blazing mid-summer day when they had been here last, riding with an Army detail from Fort Such. Bo Rangle had retrieved the wagon load of gold from Colorado, and with twenty armed desperadoes was making a determined bid to drive his way through the Rockies for Nevada. A series of bloody skirmishes had reduced Rangle’s twenty to a handful, but far to the north the renegade had given them the slip, cached the gold and fled south. In their mind’s eye they were seeing all the graves, not those of Rangle’s butchers who had been left for the buzzards and wolves, but of the eleven troopers who had never made it back to Fort Such.

  Their smokes finished, they exchanged a glance, then signaled to the others to mount up. They rode through the morning and into the afternoon. The sign was easy to follow. When they halted briefly in mid-afternoon, Brazos told Benedict that the outlaws were making good time but were not travelling at their pace. He calculated that they had reduced Rangle’s lead to some four hours. The outlaws were making no attempt to cover their sign, proof positive that Rangle didn’t expect pursuit from Whetstone.

  “Shall we push on through the night?” asked Benedict. He liked to consider himself the boss of their two-man partnership, but he was usually obliged to defer to the Texan on the trail.

  The slanting sunlight gleaming on his craggy, sun-bronzed, young face, Brazos adjusted the bandage around his yellow thatch. “Reckon not,” he grunted. “We’re gonna be played out by dark. Even though it looks like they’re makin’ a bee-line north, we can’t run the risk of missin’ the sign by night.” He turned and looked at the others who were resting. “Besides, with this bunch, we don’t want to run the risk of comin’ on Rangle unexpected. I reckon we’ll camp until midnight, then push on when the moon is high, travellin’ slow and cautious.”

  Benedict nodded in agreement. He drew on his cigar, crimson etching his classic features. After a while he said, “It seems obvious that he is heading for the gold.”

  “I reckon.”

  Benedict studied Brazos’ profile and seemed about to speak, but he shrugged and turned away, walking slowly back to the horses.

  Watching him, Brazos felt the old tightness in his belly. He’d ridden with Benedict for so long that there were times when he was sure he could tell what was going on in his mind. Right now Benedict was thinking of that two hundred thousand and what would happen if they got their hands on it. The Yank figured that having lost his entire company fighting for that gold at Pea Ridge, he had some sort of a right to it. But as far as Brazos was concerned, it still belonged to the Confederate States of America, and Brazos was determined to see that it was turned over to General Forrest who was still in Mexico attempting to rebuild the Southern Army. How would it pan out? Would one of them back down? Or might it come to a gunsmoke showdown between two totally different men who disagreed about practically everything under the sun, but who had somehow developed a strong bond of friendship?

  It was something big Hank Brazos hadn’t thought about in a long time, and he didn’t want to think about it now. “Time to move on!” he called as he ground out his butt under his heel.

  They rode on as the sun slipped towards the western rim, its slanting rays throwing their shadows long across the land. They topped a rocky, cedar-covered ridge and went loping down a long slope towards a willow-fringed stream. In the fading light, the water looked like gold running between green banks. When they drew closer, the gold turned to silver.

  With the stream behind them, the cavalcade wound through a series of low, scrub-covered hills. Benedict an
d Brazos rode cautiously, hands on gun butts, eyes ceaselessly playing over the terrain. This was the kind of country that could harbor a hundred ambushers who you wouldn’t be able to see until it was too late. But they passed through the hilly stretch and drove across a broad, buffalo-grass flat as the sun fell from sight in a welter of rose and gold.

  It was incredibly still around them now. Away to the south, a pair of buzzards flapped away to their nocturnal roost, and to the north, some two thousand feet above the valley floor, a lone eagle soared, the sun which they could no longer see striking fire from its wings.

  Doc Skine was coughing a lot now and Peter the Great drooped in the saddle from weariness. But Brazos took his time selecting a campsite. He wanted a place where they could light a fire, but it had to be situated so the fire couldn’t be seen. He didn’t want a campfire acting as a beacon for badmen or the fierce Sioux who still roamed the wilder stretches of Arapahoe Valley.

  It was fully dark when Brazos finally found the place he’d been looking for, a deep cave set in the side of a frowning hill, flanked by heavy trees with a tiny spring gurgling from the rocks close by.

  There was little talk as they set about the business of off-saddling, tending to the horses and getting a fire going. Benedict sent Beecher off to keep lookout from the top of the hill, and Brazos dumped bacon into a skillet, then set about making Johnny cakes.

  The meal finished, Cody went up to relieve Beecher while the others set about giving the horses rubdowns to guard against their catching a chill.

  Brazos smiled at the girl as she came across to tend her gelding. “It’s all right, Miss Tara,” he said. “I’ll see to your poke.”

  The girl’s eyes widened in surprise, then she smiled. “That’s very sweet of you, Hank.”

  “That’s him,” Benedict said caustically, working on his horse nearby, “sweet as cabbage ... and with the shortest memory in the West.” He flicked a cold glance at Brazos. “Let her tend her own horse, Johnny Reb.”

  “Ain’t no trouble,” Brazos said mildly.

  “I said let her do it herself. Nobody gets privileged treatment on this trip, and that goes double for her.”

  Tara glanced from one to the other, then started towards her mount again. “It’s all right, Hank, I can do—”

  She broke off as Brazos placed a hand on her arm, then took the curry brush from her hand. He looked straight at Benedict as he spoke. “I said I’ll handle it, Missy.”

  Gray eyes glittering, Benedict stopped his brushing. “What are you trying to prove, Brazos? Are you forgetting what she did in Whetstone?”

  “No, I ain’t forgettin’,” Brazos replied. “But I ain’t forgettin’ she’s a lady either, Yank.” Then he spoke gently to the girl. “Go back to the fire, Miss Tara. It’s gettin’ cold.”

  Tara glanced at Benedict, then, at a light pressure on her arm, she turned and walked back to the fire where Skine and Peter the Great sat drinking coffee.

  Benedict watched her tall, long-legged figure with hard eyes, then he sucked in a deep breath. “You’re a fool, Johnny Reb,” he grated. “Have I ever told you that before?”

  “More times than I can count, I reckon.”

  “The wise, my bucolic friend, shall inherit glory, but shame shall be the promotion of fools.”

  Brazos started working on the appaloosa again. “What’s that mean?”

  “It means, in a nutshell, that anybody as stupid as you is too dumb to stay alive.”

  The Texan grinned. “You been tellin’ me that off and on for nigh on a year now, Yank, but I’m still alive and kickin’.”

  “Thanks to me.”

  “Sure, I owe everythin’ to you, Yank.”

  Benedict bit his lip and fell silent. Brazos completed his chores and slouched back to the fire. He was grinning as he hunkered down to pour coffee, then he turned to Skine.

  “How are you feelin’, Doc?”

  “I feel fine,” said Skine, looking anything but.

  Brazos grunted. “Well, you’d better catch some shuteye. We’ll be pushin’ on around midnight.”

  Skine nodded, got to his feet and moved deeper into the cave to his bedroll. Brazos came erect and spoke to Peter the Great. “We’re gonna need more wood, little feller. How about lookin’ about for some?”

  “On my way, big feller.” The little man smacked his lips as he set his mug aside. “Good coffee. You make coffee almost as good as I do. Not too much I could teach you about cookin’ either.”

  Brazos stood smiling as the tiny fellow scuttled away. Then he turned with his mug and moved across to where the girl sat on her blankets to one side of the cavern entrance.

  “More coffee, Missy?”

  “No, thanks,” Tara said with a smile. Then she glanced across at Benedict as he came back to the fire and sat down. “I’m sorry I caused an argument between you and Duke.”

  “Hell, that was no argument. That’s how we carry on when we’re goin’ good—”

  The girl patted the blanket beside her. Brazos hesitated for a moment, then hunkered down. She studied his profile as he sipped from his battered tin pannikin. Then she said curiously: “Are you and Duke friends or enemies, Hank?”

  “A bit of both, Missy.”

  “You ... you seem so different in every way.”

  “Reckon that’s true enough.”

  “Yet you’ve been together for a long time. Why?”

  Bullpup came across from the fire to squat in front of Brazos. The big man absently stroked the hound’s iron head and his rugged face was sober now. “Mainly on account of we’ve both got the same job to do, Missy.”

  “To kill Bo?”

  “Correct.”

  “He ... he told me a lot about both of you when we were together. He hates you two more than anybody.”

  “Well, that’s sure enough a river that runs two ways.” Brazos turned to look at her, his brow rutted. “How come you got yourself mixed up with a dirty, butcherin’ polecat like that, Miss Tara?”

  “Do you really want to know?”

  “I’m mighty curious.”

  She linked her hands around her drawn-up knees and stared at the dancing flames. “Do you know what it’s like to be poor and alone, Hank?”

  “I’ve had a taste of it.”

  “So have I. I think it’s worse for a girl. You see, my parents died when I was a child. I was kept in a workhouse in Houston until I was fifteen, then I ran away.” She smiled bitterly. “I thought the workhouse was terrible, but I didn’t realize how good it was until I found out what it was like to be a girl alone with no money, no family and no way of making a living except ...” She paused, then went on: “Well, I tried that way for a little while ... until a man attacked me one night.” She shrugged. “I killed him with a knife. He was carrying a great deal of money. I took the money and ran. After that there were a lot of men and a lot of stealing, then came two years in a Kansas prison. I met Bo in Colorado. He was strong, he liked me, we were the same. That’s it, Hank. Not a pretty story, is it?”

  Brazos was watching Peter the Great as the little man came back to the fire carrying one piece of rotted wood.

  “Not pretty,” he agreed. “But I guess I can understand it well enough.”

  She looked at him in surprise. “You’re not disgusted? You really do understand, don’t you?”

  He looked at her. “Sure I do. Just like I understand how you want him dead after what he did in Whetstone.” He smiled, patted her arm and got to his feet. “I’d better go help that runt collect the wood, Tara. You just take it easy and don’t worry about nothin’, you hear?”

  She smiled up at him. “I wish I’d met somebody like you a long time ago, Hank.”

  Brazos blushed, then he caught Benedict’s hard stare as he walked across to where Chalkey was stumbling around in the gloom of the trees. He could understand Benedict’s attitude towards the girl well enough, but Benedict wouldn’t be so ready to condemn others if he hadn’t had it so easy himself.
It would be damned hard for somebody like the Yank, reared with a silver spoon in his mouth and the whole world handed to him on a platter, to know what it could be like to be lonesome and broke with nobody in the world to turn to. Maybe, if things turned out all right, he might be able to do something to help the girl when it was all over ...

  “I’m the oldest and the littlest in the posse,” Peter the Great said to Brazos with his foolish grin. “But I got more ginger than everybody else put together. I’m the best-lookin’, too, and it wouldn’t surprise me none if I ain’t the randiest. How come I just natcherly get to be the first in everythin’?”

  “You’re last at collectin’ firewood,” Brazos said with a wide grin.

  Chapter Five

  Killing Time

  Bo Rangle brushed his fingers over the faint hoof impression in the earth. “Injun,” he said.

  “You sure?” asked Rack Stonehill.

  Rangle uncoiled to his feet. “Dead sure. They’re headin’ north, too, same direction as us.”

  “How many do you figure?”

  “Hard to tell, but I’ll take a look around ...” Rangle turned to stare at the high ridge behind them. In the early morning light, he could see the blocky figure of Hud York sitting his saddle on the spine of the ridge, staring south through his field glasses. Rangle frowned. “Thought you told him to scan north, Stonehill?”

  “Hud’s a careful man. We can’t be dead certain nobody followed us from Whetstone.”

  Giving a shrug, Rangle walked away from the group, eyes on the ground.

  The outlaws had made camp in a grassy saucer at the base of the ridge. In the early morning light, the valley opened out in wide, timbered sweeps to the blue hills to the north. Under the spreading branches of oaks, plants grew tall and pale. On the flat, the grass was lush and thick. Sagebrush shone with old silver leaves and the oaks wore hoods of autumn gold.

  Rack Stonehill watched Rangle for a while, then he moved back to the fire. Gus Page and Horace Dunbar were still eating, and Bishop, Clanton and Checker were saddling the horses. Brick Whitehead was pouring a shot of whisky for Chaney South who’d had a hard night in the saddle with his wounded leg. It had been mainly to give the wounded outlaw a rest that Stonehill had elected to make camp an hour back. Rangle had objected, but Stonehill had insisted. As things had panned out, it was just as well they’d halted, otherwise the Indian sign might have escaped even the sharp eyes of trailwise Rangle.