He had finished writing and was blotting the page when Virgil came through from the cells and stood in the archway. “Have they quietened down any?” Bourne asked.
“Benedict’s still cuttin’ the Texan up for throwin’ the punch. He’s got a tongue like a razor, Bourne.”
“I never met one of that kind that wasn’t mouthy.”
“Have you figured just what kind he is yet, Bourne?”
“Dude, gambler, womanizer.”
Virgil crossed to the desk and opened the top drawer. Benedict’s handsome pair of ivory-handled Peacemaker .44s lay resting in their hand-tooled black holsters. Virgil Murdock fingered the cold ivory for a moment, then banged the drawer shut.
“More than that, Bourne,” he said. “And we both know it.”
“You still believe they’re outlaws?”
“We’ll soon know, I guess. How long do you mean to hold them?”
“Until I hear from Archangel.”
“How’s Morg?”
“Sore—in more ways than one. I sent him home. Maybe he’ll learn a lesson from tonight. Personal issues and the law don’t mix.”
Bourne Murdock’s voice held a lecturing tone. It often did when he talked with his brothers. They rarely resented this, for in their clannish ways that excluded all outsiders and sometimes even their women, the Murdock brothers gave Bourne the respect they had once all showed their iron-mouthed father. It was Bourne who had secured the sheriff’s post here, Bourne who had brought his brothers here to join him, Bourne who was the rock in their lives. Stricter than even their father had been and as uncompromising as a hard-shell preacher purging a sinner, he was respected not merely because he was the eldest, but for what he was.
“Stacey out on watch?” Virgil asked after a silence.
“Yeah.”
“Want me to go join him? I reckon we can be sure Sudden will show up mighty soon now.”
Bourne leant back in his straight-backed chair, the watchchain across his vest twinkling in the light. “I’ve often wondered why Sudden seemed so sure I framed him, Virge. His coming back has made me think about it again. It was just as you said, wasn’t it?”
“Of course. It’s all there in the records.”
“Yeah, I was looking through them today.” The sheriff wrapped his big strong fingers together on the desk-top. “Just thought I’d be double sure. The whole thing’s bound to be chewed over again when Sudden gets back.”
“You still want us to bring him in if he shows, Bourne?”
“Yeah.”
“That could be risky if he’s got a bunch behind him.”
“We’re the law. We have to take risks.”
Before Virgil could reply, steps sounded on the jailhouse porch. The lawmen put their hands on their gun butts as they faced the door. There was nervousness in Babylon these uncertain days and it reached all the way to the law office.
Bourne let his gun go and came erect with a startled exclamation when his wife walked in, toting a covered tray. “Tara! What are you doing out this time of night?”
Lovelier than ever with her cheeks glowing from the cold, Tara Murdock smiled brightly at her somber husband. “Why, I’ve brought the prisoners’ supper of course, Bourne.”
Muscles worked along the sheriff’s lean jaw. “Virge!” he grated. “Get to your duty!”
Virgil nodded and bent a searching look on the woman as he went out, but Tara didn’t meet his eyes. Her gaze was locked with her husband’s, bright and defiant now.
Bourne came slowly around the desk and lifted the white-lined cloth covering the tray. A plate of freshly cooked flapjacks, a jar of maple syrup, a pot of coffee. He let the cloth drop wordlessly. Tara pouted.
“Bourne, you’re wearing your preacher look again.”
“What is this, Tara?” he grated. “Are you playing some kind of foolish game?”
“I’m bringing food to the prisoners. You expect us to do that.”
“You’ve never done it before, only Addie.”
“Perhaps I decided it was time I shared some of the chores.”
He sucked in a deep breath. There had been a stormy argument earlier when Murdock had discovered that his wife had been seen in public with Duke Benedict. Though he’d never been able to dominate his spirited wife the way he could others, Bourne had thought he’d at least convinced her of the impropriety of sharing her company, no matter how innocently, with a man like Duke Benedict who was still very much under a cloud of suspicion.
The tall man’s scowl deepened. He trusted his wife implicitly, yet couldn’t totally suppress his jealousy. He was aware that Duke Benedict was a man of style, rogue though he well might prove to be. His was an easy tongue with flattering words, the kind that pretty women loved to hear, the kind that never came easily to the lips of a Bourne Murdock.
“Well, Bourne,” Tara said after the silence had stretched on too long, “do we stand here like store window dummies until the food’s spoiled, or do I take it in to them?”
“I’ll take it in, Tara.”
“Why?”
She had him there. How could he refuse her permission to discharge the same chore Addie Murdock had been handling for years without actually expressing his jealousy and making himself foolish in her eyes? Tara was wrong in selecting this, of all times, to change her mind about tending the jailhouse prisoners, but Murdock sensed she was doing it simply to demonstrate her independence. And he wasn’t the man to be hard on a good filly just because it showed spirit.
“Very well, Tara,” he said stiffly, “if you insist.”
Now she softened, reaching out to touch his arm. “I wouldn’t have insisted had I not been sure you’d give in, darling.”
A smile, a touch, a few gentle words and they were back on a good footing again. It was always easy for Bourne Murdock to forgive his wife anything for the simple reason that he loved her. His wife, his brothers and his work, these were the things he depended on in life.
The cell-block erupted to a sudden, fearsome barking the moment they entered the corridor. Tara screamed and even Murdock backed up a step before he remembered the occupant of cell Number One didn’t seem to like him at all.
Bullpup, arrested along with his master at the Nugget after attempting to savage the leg of one of the arresting officers, barked all the louder when Murdock shouted at him, but fell silent with hackles bristling when Brazos hollered:
“Lie down, you flea-bitten, chicken thievin’ motherless son of a ... oh, evenin’, ma’am.”
“Watch your mouth, Texan,” Murdock warned as he came up to the door.
A massive figure leaning lazily against the cell wall with his huge arms folded across his chest, Hank Brazos just gave him his slow cowboy smile, neither intimidated nor defiant. Thing was, though he was a man who could explode quickly as he’d shown in the saloon earlier, Brazos wasn’t a man who could ever stay riled about anything too long.
The same didn’t apply to the figure stretched out on bunk in the adjoining cell. Duke Benedict could stay angry for days on end, and he was still peeved about Brazos throwing that big punch that had landed them both in the hoosegow just when he was beginning to enjoy life in Babylon.
But suddenly Duke wasn’t peeved any more when he saw who had come in with the sheriff, and he came bounding to his feet with a smile, responding to the sight of a lovely woman as predictably as a war horse to the first whiff of grape-shot.
“Why, Tara,” he exclaimed, “what’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?”
“One might well ask the same of you, Duke. Saloon brawling! Tsk tsk. Bourne honey, would you fetch the pannikins, please?”
That set the tone for the supper half hour; easy, lightweight conversation between Benedict on one side of the grille and Tara Murdock perched gracefully on an office stool on the other, the sheriff mostly silent and faintly disapproving standing to one side, Hank Brazos lounging with a grin in his cell.
The Texan didn’t much care for the
way things were going, but at least when the Murdocks finally left—ushered out by a fresh storm of barking from Bullpup, who really had taken a dislike to the sheriff, he felt that Benedict had been restored to good humor once again.
This was borne out when Benedict smiled around a freshly lit cigar, winked at him through the bars and threw him a quote, “‘Woman,’ Johnny Reb, ‘she may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.’”
“Who said that?”
“Emerson, I believe it was.”
“While he was at it, did he say anythin’ about what happens to tinhorn dudes that get to sparkin’ sheriffs’ wives?”
“Sparking? What the devil are you talking about?”
Brazos was twisting a Bull Durham cigarette one-handed, his fingers as sure and delicate as a surgeon’s.
“Don’t hand me that wide-eyed look, Benedict. This is Brazos, remember? I’m the pilgrim who’s seen you get choused by husbands, boyfriends and shotgun-packin’ brothers from the Big Muddy to Californy. I seen you lickin’ your lips for that fine-lookin’ woman at the diner today, and tonight you was nigh to droolin’.” He flipped his cigarette into his mouth and cracked a match on his thumbnail. “Sparkin’,” he reiterated. “You’re after her, she knows it and likes it ... and you’re just as liable to push it until we end up stretchin’ rope.”
Coming to the bars, Benedict fixed him with an expression of such lofty condescension that Brazos finally began to fidget. He gusted a lungful of smoke at the handsome, mocking face.
“Well, ain’t that how it is?” he challenged.
“I only wish it were.”
“Huh?”
“Your suggestion that the sheriff’s lady wife and I might get together in such a way that might give Murdock cause to string me up is attractive but unfortunately quite baseless.”
“I don’t get you.”
“You seldom do.” Benedict leant against the bars and blew a smoke-ring at the guttering whale-oil lamp. “I’ll try and make it plain, Texan. I’ve more chance of finding Billy Quinn under my bunk than I have of Tara Murdock taking any more than the slightest passing interest in me.”
“The hell you say! She already is interested. What about today? And then comin’ here tonight?”
“She finds me interesting, perhaps even amusing,” Benedict said with genuine regret. “But nothing more. Fact of life, Johnny Reb; there are a devil of a lot of women, but precious few ladies. Your Tara Murdock is a lady. Ladies do not desert their husbands for gamblers, bounty hunters and sometime jailbirds ... more’s the pity.”
The wonder in Hank Brazos’ honest face slowly gave way to an expression of vast relief.
“By glory, I reckon you mean that, Yank. And I’m here to tell you that what you’ve just said makes me see you in a new light.”
“I’m delighted to have been able to relieve you of your burden of concern.”
“Sure enough did,” replied Brazos, missing the irony. “But we still have one small problem.”
“What’s that, Yank?”
“How in the name of all that’s powerful do we get out of here?”
The hush of a spring night lay over Babylon. The dark, silent town seemed asleep under the peaceful stars.
But inside the Longhorn Saloon a warlike discussion was in progress. Within the deep seclusion of Nero Nash’s private office the four founding members of the Railroad for Babylon Committee were in sober conference, following the late-night return of realtor Dave Harriman from his visit to the railhead at Fort Lucas.
“Monroe gave it to me straight,” Harriman was saying, referring to the railroad works boss, Barlow Monroe. “Either we show the company it’s going to be welcome here in Babylon, or they string the railroad through Harpersville and that’s the finish.”
That made them wince. Babylon and Harpersville to the north had been sister towns and friendly rivals ever since the army had conquered the Sioux and made Teton Sioux Valley a safe place for settlement. But the rivalry had ceased to be friendly ever since the twin steel ribbons of the Western and Wyoming’s tracks had intruded into the valley and reached Fort Lucas eighty miles east.
Railroad! was the cry that was setting the West alight with new hope. The railroad was turning some towns into bustling cities and making ghosters of others it by-passed. The W and W wanted to run its line through Babylon because of the easier terrain, but would build to Harpersville if it had to, aiming to get more freights there. These four men seated here, saloonkeeper and businessman Nero Nash, banker Wayne Petrow, hotelkeeper Lee Childs and the realtor owned just about all that was worth owning in Babylon and stood to gain or lose fortunes depending on the railroad.
They wanted the railroad, a majority of the town’s citizens wanted it, but the law did not.
“Best way to ruin a good town I know of,” Sheriff Bourne Murdock had announced in his jarring way the last time there had been a meaningful discussion on the subject, “is to bring in the railroad. Sure, a railroad brings prosperity. But it also brings tinhorn gamblers and carpet-baggers, pimps, prostitutes, rogues and gunfighters, and all the human trash you can put a name to. Babylon is too good a town to have that happen to it.”
The four gathered here knew there was a lot of truth in what the lawman said. Nero Nash had seen Frontier, Colorado go to hell like it was on greased wheels after the Pacific Railroad brought new life to the town. But that had been different. Nash hadn’t had a stake in Frontier. Here in Babylon he had land and options on land that would make him rich if the town boomed. So what if Babylon did get dirtied up some in the process? Progress was the name of the game and profit was everything.
They talked on, and there was money in their talk. And hard words. The direction of the conversation gradually veered from the Western and Wyoming and focused more directly on the Murdocks. The big question was raised yet again. Had they outlived their usefulness? The Murdocks had lifted Babylon from the Dark Ages of outlaw violence with their guns, their clannish strength, and Bourne’s powerful leadership. But those days were in the past. Peace had finally come to Teton Sioux Valley and simple survival was no longer the prime consideration. And the figures of the Murdocks stood between Babylon and its glowing future like four monuments of righteousness, impervious to force and heedless of reason. Or so these men believed.
“It’s beginnin’ to look simple to me,” hatchet-faced Harriman declared after a gloomy silence. “They’ve got to go. And go now.”
“They’re elected peace officers, Dave,” Nash reminded him. “How do we get rid of them?”
“We didn’t elect them to frame Tom Sudden and then find ourselves walkin’ in fear of our lives, with Sudden expected back,” Childs said angrily.
“And how about this business with the bounty hunters?” banker Petrow asked. It was open season on the Murdocks now and they were bringing in all their guns. “It’s common knowledge that Morgan Murdock provoked the trouble at the Nugget tonight and I believe the sheriff arrested Benedict and Brazos, not because Brazos struck Morgan, but on account Benedict was seen on the street today with the sheriff’s wife.” The banker was getting steamed up. He banged his fist on the table. “I tell you, the further we go, the more that clan shapes up as a luxury we cannot possibly afford. I agree wholeheartedly with you, Dave. They must go.”
“I agree,” growled Childs.
“I make it unanimous,” Nero Nash said without hesitation. “But I still want to know how? How do you get rid of a law office full of badge packing gunslingers?”
They looked at one another, remembering the Murdocks’ skills with handgun and rifle. One of them licked his lips nervously, another coughed like he had something stuck in his throat.
“There has to be a way,” Nero Nash said finally. “There just has to be.”
From his cell window, Hank Brazos watched Babylon in the morning. The spring day was as warm as summer. Orchards on the south side of town were in full bloom. Through the steel bars, the Texan breathed in the faint fragran
ce. His ears were filled with the drowsy droning of bees. A robin was perched in the tree in the blacksmith’s backyard next door, her mate preening his wings on a neighboring limb. They were busy building a nest and he wondered vaguely if the little couple would hatch out their nestlings before the sheriff set them free.
Across Front Street, his eyes noted a group of idlers lounging in the shady porch of the hotel, smoking, gossiping lazily. A pretty girl from the Longhorn went by, wriggling her bottom but there were no whistles from the members of the sit-and-spit club. The sheriff of Babylon didn’t permit any harassment of womenfolk within town limits and that went for woman-whistling, too.
Brazos gazed upwards. The sun poured down its warmth from a cloudless indigo sky. That sky reminded him of Texas, the way anything beautiful did, and he was moved to lift the harmonica that hung about his neck and play a few soulful bars of Carry Us Back to Austin, Boys.
In the next cell, Benedict looked up from flipping playing cards into his upturned hat.
“Must you do that?”
Brazos tapped the harmonica on the heel of his hand. “Reckon so.”
“Then play something decent.”
“Like what?”
“Beethoven’s Fifth.”
“That sounds more like a drink than a tune.”
“Everything reminds you of drink.”
“Nothin’ but the truth,” Brazos agreed dryly, then lifted the harmonica again and played an old Andalusian love song he’d picked up from a sheepherder the time they’d travelled to Old Mexico on the trail of the Civil War marauder, Bo Rangle. Benedict flipped his cards, a chair creaked in the front office, Bullpup snored like a buzzsaw in his sleep, and things were mighty peaceful when, above the strains of his music, Brazos heard first the shout of alarm, then the soft clip-clop of a horse in the street.
Breaking off the tune, he looked out the window. The idlers on the hotel porch were gesticulating west along Front Street and as Benedict reached his window to peer out, the horseman came into sight.
To men who had ridden as many wild trails as Duke Benedict and Hank Brazos, the horseman was immediately identifiable as a hardcase. He had the look they knew well, the way of carrying himself that was a challenge. The twin Colts and the Winchester jutting from a saddle scabbard were there to make certain nobody might mistake him for a horse-liniment salesman or a travelling preacher.
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