He wasn’t going to make it to the door, he realized, and now he could hear running footsteps coming down the corridor. Bracing himself against the wall, he lifted the Colt that seemed to weigh a ton. Somebody was shouting his name, but it was difficult to identify the voice in all that hellish racket, which he realized was probably only going on inside his head.
Then the figure showed in the doorway and he fired. He missed by six feet, which was all to the good considering the silhouette in his blurred vision belonged to Duke Benedict.
“Johnny Reb!” Benedict hollered. “They’re here!”
“Here?” he mumbled. “Who?”
Benedict limped towards him, trailing blood, with three men rushing through the door after him. Suddenly Brazos’ vision cleared and he saw the militiamen’s blue jackets, the peaked caps, the eager faces.
“Fallon met the train five miles up the line, Reb,” laughed Benedict, grabbing his arm. “They went through the gunmen like a hot knife through butter ... ”
The voice faded. Brazos had no sensation of falling. All he knew was that the hard boards felt like satin sheets, his last sensation was that of Bullpup’s sandpaper tongue anxiously rasping his face.
The first occasion when Hank Brazos, Duke Benedict and Caleb Flint took a stroll together from the Frontier Hotel in Capital City where they had spent a week recuperating, forced Tom Fallon to call out his militia to control the crowds.
Relaxing in pampered comfort in the hotel, the three hadn’t realized that, with the full story of Rachel’s abduction and the siege of Taloga featured in every newspaper in the land, they were now the heroes of the Territory. Captives had been taken in Taloga, and in light of the admissions made by the surviving gunfighters, the infamy of Foley Whitney and Jake Larsen had been exposed, and the plotters now languished in the big stone prison behind the governor’s palace awaiting trial. Drum was no more, the governor and his lovely lady had been reunited, and the Territory had solid reason to believe that it was facing the brightest days in its history. So why should they show restraint when the three men directly responsible for all this, along with Tom Fallon, should suddenly appear?
Naturally Brazos and Caleb Flint couldn’t get back to the safety and peace of the hotel quickly enough while, just as naturally, Benedict reveled in the adulation, signing autographs on the hotel porch and blowing kisses to the pretty girls until exhaustion caught up with him and Brazos and Dixie Troop had to assist him inside.
Next time they left the hotel was quietly, by night and accompanied by Tom Fallon. Brazos and Benedict knew where they were going and why, but Caleb Flint did not. On the way to the Territorial Penitentiary by coach however, Fallon did reveal that Arnell had granted Flint full amnesty as a reward for the part he had played in the events in the south. He then went on to reveal that he was leaving the Territory and taking up a Washington post—providing he could find a man with the ability to fill his job. And that was a job where the leading qualifications were leadership and gun speed.
“You’re leavin’ Rachel, Fallon?” Flint asked, surprised.
“I always meant to, just as soon as I felt I could leave Capital City in safe hands, Caleb,” the marshal replied. “We took the vow during the siege at the Last Hope, that if we survived, we’d part once and for all.”
Caleb Flint’s mind filled with ironic responses, but he didn’t voice any of them. His cynicism and harshness seemed to have been left behind in Taloga, along with a copious amount of his blood.
The carriage wheeled into the big, torch-lit courtyard of the penitentiary where guards appeared to show the visitors through to Cell Block Six where the Drum survivors were being held.
There were precious few, five in all. An estimated four had escaped the militiamen in Taloga, while fifteen gunfighters had been buried there, including Kain Shacklock and Monroe McGuire.
Passing the cells, Flint stared impersonally at men he had ridden with once, seemingly an eternity ago. In turn he looked in on Segura, Boy Challinor, Pig Denver and Joe Clayton before reaching the fifth and last cell in the row.
Holly sat on the narrow cell bunk staring through the bars at him, his eyes burning above his silver mask.
“You!” Flint gasped, and the image of the woman and the boy falling in the farmhouse doorway flashed before his eyes. He stared accusingly at his companions. “Why didn’t you tell me he didn’t die?”
“We had our reasons,” Benedict drawled, then drew his Colt and passed it to the big man butt first. “Holly’s been condemned to death. He’s all yours, Flint.”
“What do you mean?”
“We’ve talked it over, and feel we owe you Holly.”
“This is law and order?” Flint asked angrily.
“Of a kind,” Fallon said. “Well?”
Flint looked at the man he had hated so much. Then he shook his head, thrust the gun away and walked off.
Three men exchanged grins behind the gunfighter’s broad back before they followed him out. Flint was surprised to see them still smiling when they reached the first steel door. “Somethin’ funny?” he growled.
“These are smiles of relief, Caleb,” said Benedict. “You just passed a test.”
“What sort of test?”
Fallon didn’t answer until they had walked through to the open courtyard. “I reckoned you were the man for my job, Caleb,” he said quietly. “But before I could be certain, I had to make sure the old hard ways of an eye-for-an-eye were truly behind you.” He paused, jerking a thumb back at the stone walls. “That was the toughest test we could figure, but you passed it with flying colors. Want the lawman’s job?”
Caleb Flint smiled, perhaps the first genuine smile that had been seen on his face since an eager young veteran had returned home from the wars to find his girl had married another man. Yes, he wanted the job and a chance to atone—more than he’d ever wanted anything. He didn’t speak, and he couldn’t speak just then, but the pressure of his hand as he silently shook hands with each man in turn was more eloquent than words.
“Looks like you got yourself a new marshal, Fallon,” Brazos grinned as they followed Flint towards the carriage.
“Reckon so, Hank,” Fallon agreed happily.
Brazos frowned at Benedict. “Handin’ Flint a gun wasn’t part of what we agreed on, Benedict. That was goin’ a bit far, wasn’t it?”
“You think so?”
“Was it loaded?”
“That’s something you’ll never know, cowboy.”
Hank Brazos sighed as he took out his tobacco sack. The Yank was getting back to his uppity ways, he realized, which meant that no matter how much life changed, some things always remained the same.
And the strange part of it was that he doubted if he’d want it any other way.
He whistled up his dog.
“I need a drink,” he said.
About the Author
E. Jefferson Clay was just one of many pseudonyms used by New South Wales-born Paul Wheelahan (1930-2018). Starting off as a comic-book writer/illustrator, Paul created The Panther and The Raven before moving on to a long and distinguished career as a western writer. Under the names Emerson Dodge, Brett McKinley, E. Jefferson Clay, Ben Jefferson and others, he penned more than 800 westerns and could, at his height, turn out a full-length western in just four days.
The son of a mounted policeman, Paul initially worked as a powder monkey on the Oaky River Dam project. By 1955, however, he was drawing Davy Crockett—Frontier Scout. In 1963 he began his long association with Australian publisher Cleveland Pty. Co. Ltd. As prolific as he was as a western writer, however, he also managed to write for TV, creating shows like Runaways and contributing scripts to perennial favorites like A Country Practice. At the time of his death, in December 2018, he was writing his autobiography, Never Ride Back … which was also the title of his very first western.
You can read more about Paul here.
The Benedict and Brazos Series
by E. Jefferson Clay
Aces Wild
A Badge for Brazos
The Big Ranchero
Stage to Nowhere
Adios, Bandido
Cry Riot!
Fools’ Frontier
A Six-Gun Says Goodbye
The Living Legend
Diablo Valley
Never Ride West
Shoot and Be Damned
Wardlock’s Legion
Kid Chaney’s Express
Madigan’s Last Stand
Bury the Losers
The Buzzard Breed
Bo Rangle’s Boothill
Echoes of Shiloh
Born to Hang
Fool With A Fast Gun
Two Guns to Glory
Gunhawks on the Loose
The Glory Hunters
Nobody Kills Like Ketchell
Wear Black for Billy Quinn
Caleb Flint, Killer
… And more to come!
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