“Now who the tarnal do you suppose that is?” Brazos murmured as the horseman turned in towards the jailhouse and disappeared from view.
As though he’d been heard, somebody in the street hollered, “It’s Kid Cimarron!”
The inmates of the Babylon City Jail looked at each other and shrugged, none the wiser. Who was Kid Cimarron?
They were obliged to wait twenty minutes for an answer, during which time a nervous crowd had assembled in front of the law office while Kid Cimarron and the Murdocks conferred within. From their cells, Brazos and Benedict saw the hardcase ride out and several minutes later a tight-lipped Stacey Murdock came through with two mugs of coffee.
“What’s goin’ on, Deppity?” Brazos asked as he took his pannikin through the bars.
“Sudden’s on his way in,” Stacey replied, and his hand was not quite steady as he gave Benedict his coffee. The youngest Murdock was more sociable than his three brothers when alone. He leant against Benedict’s door, frowning hard. “Kid Cimarron is a no-good from out in the Jimcrack Hills, who rode with Sudden in the old days. Seems they joined up again in jail. Sudden sent the Kid in to tell Bourne he’s a-comin’ in peaceable and don’t want no guns goin’ off by accident.”
“That could be a wise move considering the reception we were afforded on our arrival,” Benedict observed. “Does the sheriff intend to go along with the request?”
“Reckon he will.” Stacey’s frown deepened. “Guess Bourne’s anxious to talk to Sudden before the shootin’ starts.”
“You reckon it’ll come to that?” asked Brazos.
Murdock shrugged, hard-faced. “Sudden was dragged off to the State Pen yellin’ he’d been framed. He’s still singin’ the same song, so we hear. He hates Bourne’s guts ... so yeah, I reckon it’ll come to shootin’ sooner or later.”
“That’s not the only grudge this outlaw has against your brother, is it, Deputy?” Benedict asked pointedly.
“How’s that?”
“Tara. I hear there were wedding bells in the air for Tara and Tom Sudden before he was, as you phrase it, ‘dragged off’ to the State Pen.”
“Then you didn’t get it right,” Murdock said. “Sure, Tara was walkin’ out with Sudden. But she’d only just come to Babylon in those days and her bein’ so mortal pretty and all, she was just plagued with beaux. She used to be squired about by Bourne, Miller, Jenner, Virge …”
“Your brother Virgil?” Benedict asked, and when Murdock nodded, he smiled.
“Somethin’ funny, Benedict?”
“No, I guess not. But the picture of Virgil and Tara just doesn’t seem to fit somehow.”
“Virge mightn’t be much to look at, but he’s a mighty good man,” Stacey spoke up with brotherly feeling common to all four Murdocks. “I reckon he’d have made Tara a good husband if she hadn’t chose Bourne instead.”
“Why did she choose Bourne?” Benedict pressed.
“Hell, leave that lie, Yank,” Brazos protested. “That ain’t no question to ask a man.”
“Just curious,” Benedict drawled, eyeing Murdock.
“Ever heard of somethin’ called love, Benedict?” asked Stacey gruffly. “That’s the reason most folks get married up.”
“There are other reasons,” Benedict murmured. “Women have been known to marry for security, protection, sometimes simply because it’s expected of them.”
“Bourne was the finest damn catch in the valley when Tara married him,” Stacey said hotly.
“I’m sure he was,” Benedict said placatingly. He lifted his pannikin. “Excellent coffee, Deputy.”
“He don’t mean nothin’, just his way, Deputy,” Brazos smiled. “Say, you got anythin’ for my dog? He’s lookin’ a mite peaked yonder.”
Murdock turned to see Bullpup surveying him through the bars. The trail hound did indeed look hungry, though he conveyed the impression that what he would really like to be chewing on was a Grade-A deputy hide.
“I’ll go see,” Stacey said, but before he could move, Bullpup emitted a booming bark that heralded the arrival of the sheriff from the front office.
“Set!” Brazos roared and the barking changed to a menacing growl that mingled with the sound of steps and the jingling of keys.
The jingling of keys?
Suddenly Benedict and Brazos were alert as Bourne Murdock’s towering figure materialized and sure enough, the sheriff was toting his heavy keyring.
“What’s goin’ on, Bourne?” Stacey asked.
Bourne passed him the keys. “Release the prisoners,” he ordered, “then bring them through to the office.”
Moments later they were free, and while Brazos had a noisy reunion with his hound, also released from durance vile, Benedict followed the broad-backed Stacey Murdock through to the front office.
Virgil Murdock was there, wearing his undertaker’s look as he stood in the doorway. The sheriff was behind his desk scanning a yellow telegraph slip. The third man present was a sawn off stranger wearing a gap-toothed grin, a fine covering of trail dust, and a battered deputy’s star.
“Deputy Sheriff Dolliver from Shakespeare,” the sheriff grunted. “He just arrived with this telegraph say-so from Archangel. Do you want to read it?”
“I think I can guess what Marshal Jackson said,” Benedict replied.
The sheriff jerked open a drawer and took out Benedict’s guns and handed them across without a word. He looked an angry man, Benedict mused, though he sensed that his anger was not directed at them but more likely stemmed from Kid Cimarron’s visit. Bourne Murdock took out Brazos’ gun rig and Virgil carried it across to the Texan as he appeared in the archway.
The sheriff said stiffly, “The marshal has verified your credentials, even went so far as to practically insist that this office give you assistance in your efforts to track down Quinn.”
“Sounds reasonable to me,” Benedict drawled, strapping on his Peacemakers.
“Reasonable, maybe, but not possible,” Bourne Murdock said. “With Sudden on his way in, we’re going to be fully occupied for some time to come. Not only will we not have time to concern ourselves with this murderer—who I still don’t reckon is here anyway—but we’d feel better if we didn’t have any troublesome elements about. In other words, I’m suggesting that you leave.”
Until then, Benedict had been prepared to part company gracefully. But not anymore.
“You know, you’re unique, Sheriff,” he said coldly, fitting his hat to his head. “You arrested us on suspicion, nothing more. Now that we’ve been cleared you sit there and have the gall to order us to move on.”
“Just suggesting,” Bourne corrected him.
“Same thing,” Benedict said. “And suggesting or telling, I’ll give you the same answer. No.”
The sheriff rose. “You’re saying you wouldn’t go if I ordered it?”
“Right.”
“Now see here—”
“No, you see, Sheriff,” Brazos broke in, dwarfing them all with his bulk. “You’ve been pushin’ us and pickin’ on us since we rode in and we’ve swallowed it on account of that star on your chest. But even a badge packer can go too far, and the way I see it you’re easin’ mighty close to that edge right now.”
Bourne Murdock’s face was a shade paler. “Are you threatening me?”
“Call it what you like, mister.”
The wind skittered a dry leaf along the jailhouse porch, and Deputy Dolliver’s horse shifted its weight, jingling the harness. Brazos’ words hung in the air.
Stacey and Virgil looked to their older brother as they always did at such times, and Bourne Murdock seemed for a moment uncertain. He had believed from the start that Duke Benedict was a dangerous man, now he realized that behind the easy-going country boy’s facade of Hank Brazos, there lurked a second dangerous man.
The sheriff’s eyes dropped to the telegraph slip. The marshal of Archangel had given both these men a glowing reference. Was it possible that Bourne Murdock had broken one o
f his own strict rules and let his personal feelings interfere with the law?
It was bitter medicine to swallow but Bourne Murdock always did things the hard way.
“You’re free to stay,” he grated, speaking directly to Benedict.
Benedict nodded distantly and walked out. Tipping his hat forward, Brazos followed, Bullpup firing a farewell bark of disapproval at the stone-faced sheriff as he padded out at his heels.
As Brazos ranged up at Benedict’s side and they set off along the walk, Duke studied the bigger man’s craggy profile. He was thinking that sometimes even he tended to forget just how formidable the Texan could be when he chose and made a mental note not to forget it so easily in the future. He said, “Drink?”
“Reckon not.”
That stopped Benedict in his tracks. “No drink?”
Brazos shook his big head as he halted, hands on hips. “No drink,” he confirmed. He was looking about him, gauging the atmosphere of the town. He could almost feel the fear and the hostility in the air, crackling like electricity running ahead of a thunderstorm. Fear, uncertainty, hostility—all the sensations bordering on violence.
“Let me guess,” Benedict said. “You want to ride out?”
“No.” Brazos looked at him directly. “I’ll allow I wasn’t happy with this man-huntin’ chore at the start, but I got to thinkin’ things over in that jail, got to thinkin’ how this pilgrim would feel if we did quit and later on heard Quinn had gone loco and wiped out another batch of folks. We’ve come this far, so let’s see it through. But smellin’ this here town since they got word of Sudden, I’m sayin’ as how we should get it done quick and get gone.”
“Well said, Johnny Reb,” Benedict murmured. He didn’t say thanks, for gratitude came too hard to a man of his nature. But he was grateful, for he’d wanted to bring in Quinn right from the beginning, not just for the reward, but mainly for the satisfaction of lowering the shades on such a clever monster. Yet despite this, and despite the promise of a reward if they were successful, he would still have dropped it all and ridden away from Babylon had the Texan insisted. Theirs was that kind of partnership.
“Just a minute, friend,” Brazos said moving to block the path of a citizen coming along the walk. He tugged a paper from his shirt pocket and held it up. “Have you by any chance seen this here feller before?”
Chapter Six – No Tears for Tom Sudden
THE FIST ABE Martin didn’t see coming exploded in his face and he stumbled back against the wall with the room spinning wildly about him. Somehow the Box Star cowhand caught his balance and reached gropingly for a chair. Tom Sudden loomed before him beneath the oil lamp of the old shack on Barton Street and though Martin saw the punch coming this time, he couldn’t avoid it. Stars exploded in his head and he went down untidily with crimson dribbling from his mouth and his hair in his eyes.
“Kick his head in, Tom,” suggested Slattery, his eyes glittering. “Nothin’ like a taste of leather to bring a feller’s memory back.”
Tom Sudden didn’t seem to hear, his lean, pale face wearing an odd mixture of anger and regret as he stood above the fallen cowhand and massaged his knuckles.
“Get up, Abe,” he said.
“I ... I can’t.”
“Yes you can, Abe. They hit me lots harder than that in the State Pen and I always got up. The State Pen, Abe. You must have heard of that place? It’s where they send you when they find you guilty of rustlin’. And do you know how they do that, Abe? Well, one way, is by gettin’ dirty, lyin’ cowboys to get up before a judge and swear falsely against a man for something he didn’t do.”
“I didn’t swear false, Tom,” the waddy insisted. “I said what I seen ... found the beeves gone that night ... tracked ’em to your place with the Murdocks ...”
“You’re a liar, Abe.”
Martin slowly lifted his battered face. The man had been on Front Street eight hours earlier when Tom Sudden and his four gun hung henchmen had ridden in. Sudden and Bourne Murdock had met and talked in front of the hotel and parted without violence. The word went around that there wasn’t going to be trouble after all and Martin had been fool enough to believe it. He’d been so relieved he’d had several drinks at the Nugget and it had been around ten when he weaved his way down Barton Street to the old house that the Box Star hands made use of when in Babylon overnight. Sudden was waiting for him.
Sudden hadn’t come back to shake hands all around and say, “Forget about it, boys.” Sudden had just bided his time to pick off the first stray, which happened to be Abe Martin.
“You got no right to use me this way, Tom,” he blurted. “We was friends.”
“Were,” Sudden said inexorably.
Martin grabbed the chair and dragged himself to his feet, angry and defiant now.
“You’ve changed, Tom!” he accused. “You never needed a bunch behind you to take on a man before.”
“Get out!” Sudden rapped to his men without taking his eyes off big Abe. “All of you!”
The outlaws trooped out. Sudden drew his gun and tossed it onto the bunk where Martin had planned to sleep off the whisky.
“You were sayin’, Abe?”
Martin swung from the hips and slammed a hooking right for the jaw. He was a strong man and a useful brawler but was out of his class tonight. Ducking the punch, Sudden drove a chopping right to the mouth, then ripped in two swift blows to the kidneys that put the ranch hand down again.
When Martin regained consciousness, Sudden was seated on the bunk smoking a cigarette. He watched dispassionately as the cowhand struggled first to sit up, then to haul himself onto the chair. Martin sat staring at him with blood smearing his face and his eyes glazed from liquor and punishment.
At length the cowboy spat a tooth on the floor then dragged his sleeve across his bloodied mouth.
“If you’re fixin’ to plug me you might as well get it over with, Tom, on account you sure as hell ain’t goin’ to beat nothin’ out of me.”
Sudden was beginning to believe that. “Who’s got you scared, Abe?” he asked. “The sheriff?”
Martin hung his head. The door creaked open and Tarp Hilder’s head appeared.
“Somebody comin’ down the street, Tom,” the outlaw said.
“Your lucky night, Abe,” Sudden said, getting up. He walked to the man, grabbed a handful of hair and jerked his head up. “I didn’t come here tonight, Abe. You were so drunk you fell off your horse. Right?”
Martin nodded silently and releasing his grip, Sudden went out, closing the door softly behind him.
The outlaws stood in the porch shadow as the footsteps drew nearer. The shape of a man showed, went right on by. They relaxed and Slattery turned to Sudden.
“Find out what you wanted from that rooster, Tom?”
“Nope.”
“We go try again?”
“No, he’s not going to talk. He’s too scared. Likely they all are.”
“Then could be we’ll just have to give up on the idea of provin’ Murdock framed you and square the account another way, Tom,” Kid Cimarron suggested with a lift of the brows.
“I’ll prove it,” Sudden said stubbornly, heading for the gate. “I’m going to walk around and do some thinking. If you go to the saloons keep out of trouble. You hear?”
Without waiting for a reply, Sudden walked south, away from the lights of Front Street. The breeze blew cool against his face. The night was a soft, purplish black, like the back of an old fireplace, the stars like jewels embedded in the soot. He’d dreamed of nights like this in the State Penitentiary and now the dream was reality he wanted more.
He wanted Bourne Murdock.
Sudden was not aware of any conscious decision to make for Joshua Street, but inevitably he soon found himself standing beneath the Joshua trees that gave the street its name and staring along at the lights of the cluster of houses known as the Murdock Compound.
Pain twisted the ex-convict’s face. She was down there, safe behind those
curtained windows. The woman Murdock had stolen from him.
He turned and walked back to the Front Street corner where he halted and rolled a cigarette. As he stood there, a lean, erect figure with his six-gun jutting from the holster at his hip, movement stirred in the shadows of the alley near the Billiard Parlor. He saw town drunk Hoby Judd staring across at him then scuttle off.
Sudden’s lip lifted in a sneer. The whole damned town was running scared. Well maybe it had cause to be that way.
Hoofbeats sounded beyond Dockerty’s Barn. Babylon was scared and busy tonight, it seemed.
The horseman came into sight and rode closer. It was the bounty hunter, Brazos, astride a big-barreled appaloosa with a truculent dog padding behind.
The appaloosa’s hoofs danced in the dust. Brazos glanced towards Sudden and then away. Sudden followed him with his eyes as he receded along the central block then turned into the livery.
Where had that big pilgrim been at this time of night? Hunting for that killer they said they were after? Most likely, Tom Sudden thought, though he wasn’t dead certain yet that the two strangers were what they said they were. Nothing like three years’ hard labor for something you didn’t do to make you suspicious of everybody.
His cigarette tasted bitter and Tara kept coming into his thoughts no matter how hard he tried to keep her out. As he flicked the stub away, a man approached along the walk. He was tall and slender and though conservatively dressed and sporting a trim beard and wearing pince-nez, he walked more like the way Sudden did himself than a businessman.
He fixed the stranger with a hard eye, and to his surprise, the man halted.
“Mr. Sudden?” he said. “I’m Bob Walker, from the drugstore.”
“So?”
Walker smiled. “Just thought I’d make myself known.
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