Benedict and Brazos 24

by E. Jefferson Clay

  “What’s that?” Benedict’s voice was eager. It was rare indeed that he sought the Texan’s opinion or advice outside the spheres in which Brazos excelled, such as trailsmanship and anything to do with the outdoors. But at that moment Duke Benedict was a desperate man.

  “Hide out,” Brazos said.

  “What?”

  “Leave town. We could be gone by midday and—”

  “Forget it. My father will arrive whether I’m here or not. He’d still find out what I am, and how I’ve sullied the family name with what he would term my ‘wretched excesses.’ You’ll have to try again, Johnny Reb.”

  Hank Brazos did try again, and finally he came up with the sort of daring idea Benedict might well have conceived himself had he been calmer. Brazos, in his straightforward, Texan cowboy’s way, made it seem almost simple.

  If Marmaduke Creighton Benedict the Second expected to arrive in Rawhide to find his son nobly carrying on the family tradition of excellence and respectability in all things—then, said Hank Brazos, it was up to them to see that this was what he did find when he stepped off the stage from Colorado.

  “Eh?” Benedict said.

  Brazos patiently explained. Warming to his subject, he quickly realized that the success of his scheme depended on just how firm a friend of Benedict’s was Otto Lanning.

  “The best,” Benedict insisted.

  “Well, let’s put him to the test,” said Brazos as he picked up his hat.

  Chapter Three – Father and Son

  BENEDICT SENIOR WAS impressed. The offices of Lanning and Benedict, Attorneys at Law, on Trail Street, were big and prosperous looking. And he thought his son looked just fine seated behind his polished desk explaining how the partnership, though only new, appeared to be shaping up quite well. “Otto has a great deal to learn, Father,” Duke said condescendingly, “but the fellow has the potential to become quite a successful attorney-at-law under my tutelage.”

  “Of course.” Mr. Benedict rubbed his hands over the arms of the fine leather chair and smiled. “So this is the secret of your success, Marmaduke? You seek out attorneys who are merely muddling through, offer them a partnership and the benefit of your expertise, work the business up to a high profit, then sell out and move on?”

  “Yes, Father. I find the constant challenge to my liking, and needless to say the work is highly profitable.”

  “Needless to say.”

  The head of “junior partner” Otto Lanning appeared around the doorway. “Ahh, Duke, could I see you for a moment, please?”

  “Of course,” Benedict murmured, rising. “Father, you will help yourself to a drink?” He gestured at the liquor cabinet, smiled and then stepped into the hallway, closing the door behind him.

  “Well, how are things progressing so far?” Lanning asked.

  “So far so good,” replied Benedict. “The hardest part is getting accustomed to not wearing six-guns.”

  Lanning looked him up and down. “The absence of Colts does help, Duke, though I’d be happier if you went in for a quieter style of waistcoat. The image of the conservative lawyer, you understand? Very important.”

  “I don’t know about conservative lawyers,” Benedict drawled, leading the way down the hallway to the office. “But I am learning something about the kind who would hold a friend over a barrel and insist on his pound of flesh.”

  Lanning laughed. A tall man with good shoulders and a thick brown moustache, he was a man who laughed rarely, but when he did he enjoyed it.

  “Come now, Duke, old friend,” he said cajolingly. “You can’t really say I’m squeezing you.”

  “That’s what I’m saying right enough,” Benedict insisted, taking out his silver cigar case and selecting a Havana.

  Lanning sat on the edge of the desk and folded his arms. “Look, Duke, I’ve gone along with your masquerade all the way. I’ve set you up here, I’ve had the names on the doors changed, and I’ve told everybody that you are my new partner. I’ve even persuaded Sharon to shift all our personal things to our second residence in Peach Street so you and your father might occupy the main house during my absence.”

  “That’s where we come up against it, damn it all, Otto,” Benedict said. “The fact that you are going off on a fool hunting trip just to take advantage of the fact that I’ll be here to look out for—”

  “Duke,” Lanning interrupted, “I thought I had explained to you that I’ve been putting off my vacation for years, simply because I didn’t have anybody I could trust to handle things while I was away. But from the moment I realized I had such a man, I’ve been unable to think of anything else. I’m a tired man, Duke, tired of work, of domesticity, of getting up every morning and putting on a suit and tie. I want to get away from it all. I want to breathe God’s clean air and—”

  “All right, all right, you’re not standing in front of a judge now, Otto,” Benedict said. He exhaled smoke and moved to stand by the window looking down at the street. “I’m not contesting the fact that you need a vacation, nor am I disputing that you’re entitled to receive something from me in return for what you’re doing for me. I’m grateful, Otto, don’t think I’m not. But your going off still bothers me. What if something goes wrong here? I never quite got to my law degree, you know. What if—?”

  “Duke, you know your law as well as I do. You were streets ahead of me in Harvard, and your performance on Draper’s behalf the other day convinced me that what little you may lack in experience you more than make up for in guile and eloquence. Anyhow, it’s the quiet time of the year. Nothing is going to come up that you can’t handle. I know that, otherwise I wouldn’t be going.”

  Benedict was about the reply when the office door opened. Steps sounded and his father appeared in the hall doorway.

  “I just realized it’s almost one, son,” he said in his cultivated Boston accent. “We told Mrs. Lanning we would be her guests at lunch at one sharp, remember? Punctuality, Marmaduke, is always one of the most appealing graces as I’m sure you’ll agree.”

  “You go right along, Duke and Mr. Benedict,” Lanning smiled. “I told Sharon not to expect me as I have a few loose ends to clear up before I leave town.”

  Benedict picked up his hat and followed his father out to the street. Otto was plausible, he brooded as they started down the central block, but Benedict still believed he was taking unfair advantage by capitalizing on his predicament this way.

  Passers-by stopped to watch the two tall men go past. They made an impressive picture, the handsome young man in his beautifully tailored suit and vest; and the man who was so obviously his father, silver-headed and dignified, twirling a cane. As a prospering cattle town, Rawhide liked to believe it was taking on class, and the Benedicts seemed to personify that rare quality. There were those in town who still found it a little difficult to understand that the two-gun stranger who with Hank Brazos had made such short work of the bank bandits the previous week, was Otto Lanning’s new law partner. But they had to concede that Duke Benedict looked the part from the tips of his expensive boots to the crown of his immaculate gray hat on Trail Street today.

  Class was in short supply, though there was color enough in evidence on the West Street corner as the two men approached. Hank Brazos had always had a penchant for purple shirts, and he had bought himself a brand new one just yesterday at Jury’s Store in celebration of Benedict senior’s arrival. With the shirt unbuttoned to the waist, as was his custom, and the familiar harmonica slung from a strip of rawhide around his muscular neck, and with his battle-scarred trail hound squatting before him, the Texan was a treat to the eyes of Mr. Benedict, who was still quite new to the strange and gaudy West.

  “Good afternoon, Mr... er, Barton, isn’t it?” Mr. Benedict greeted with an attempt at a smile. They had met briefly yesterday, but the Boston banker had made no attempt to remember his name.”

  “Brazos, Father,” Duke corrected. He nodded. “Good afternoon, Mr. Brazos.”

  “Mr. Brazos?” the
Texan growled as they circled him as if reluctant to draw too close. “Where do you get that ‘mister’ hog swill, Benedict.”

  “My goodness, what a fearsome personage, Marmaduke,” Mr. Benedict said as Brazos glowered after them. “I’m astonished that you permit such familiarity. Dashed fellow acts as if he regards you as a friend.”

  “Him, Father?” Benedict said scornfully, loud enough for the Texan to hear. “Him a friend? Perish the thought.” He was rewarded by Brazos’ angry glower, for there were few things he found as enjoyable as seeing the overgrown Texan taken down a notch or two. But Duke Benedict’s distraction from his problems only lasted until he and his father sat down to lunch at Lanning’s second house.

  Lanning’s handsome wife Sharon had prepared lunch as promised and it was an excellent meal. The hostess looked lovely, and during the meal she made much of how “thrilled and delighted” she and Otto were to have her husband’s old friend from Harvard now with the company.

  All that was just fine. What wasn’t so fine was the way Sharon Lanning seemed to watch Duke Benedict’s every movement and how she hung onto his every word. When she changed his plates, her hand brushed against his, and more than once their feet touched, accidentally presumably, beneath the table.

  Duke Benedict couldn’t finish his dessert. Instead he got up from the table to light a cigar and studied Sharon Lanning through the smoke. She was talking to his father, but she was looking straight at him in a way that might have set the old familiar tingle running through him—had she been anybody but a close friend’s wife.

  Surely he must be mistaken, he told himself. Surely he had incurred enough problems with his elaborate masquerade without the additional one of an amorous housewife with her husband away from home?

  Right at that moment, Duke Benedict honestly felt that he had more than his fair share of problems. But later, there was one bright glimmer on the horizon when he went to the Silver Dollar for a quiet shot and Brazos told him that he and Draper had elected to go along with Lanning as hunting scouts. Most times, Benedict was happy to have the giant Texan around, but now he was glad to see him go, and Brazos was even happier to be going. He’d always found one Benedict difficult enough to put up with, but a pair of them was more than any honest Texan should be forced to stomach.

  Deacon James came down the stairs of the Rawhide Hotel late the following afternoon. He was dressed in black with white linen showing at collar and cuffs. He paused at the desk for a word with the clerk, then crossed Trail Street and bought a box of shells at the grocery store. Then he stood, a tall, gaunt figure on the boardwalk in the fading sunlight, to watch the traffic. Finally he turned and followed West Street to the jailhouse.

  Sheriff Wheeler was absent, but Deputy George Cash was there. It was the quiet time of day and the lawman was happy to sit and talk with the newcomer about local affairs and history.

  The Deacon was attentive and polite. Before too long, he found himself talking and thinking about the Rawhide First Gospel Church of the Divine Redeemer’s Second Coming.

  Though Deacon James had only been in Rawhide for twenty-four hours, the word had already gone out that a man of the cloth was present. Like most far-flung communities in the boom days of expansion following the Civil War, Rawhide was in sore need of spiritual guidance.

  Deacon James had impressed the small party from the Ladies’ Auxiliary who had visited him earlier at the hotel. Was it true that he was a minister of the church? they had asked, “Indeed it is true, good ladies,” had been James’ grave reply. Exactly what church, Deacon? “The church of all men, madam! I owe allegiance to no narrow sect, and I bow my head to no mortal power. I am a humble bringer of the Word. The Word is God and God is Love and a pox and a pestilence upon him who would deny either.”

  It had been so long since Rawhide had heard such inspiring dialogue from somebody on the right side of the fence that news about Deacon James spread quickly, even reaching the law office.

  Fat Sheriff Wheeler was not a spiritual man, but gangling deputy George Cash had once been a regular church-goer, and he revealed himself to be deeply interested in the Deacon’s plans. Did he intend to remain in Rawhide? Would he ally himself with the First Gospel Church if he did elect to stay on? And was it true that the Deacon had told somebody he was just as happy to fight sin with a six-gun as with a Bible?

  The Deacon was polite but evasive in his replies. He was still feeling his way in Rawhide. He was getting the smell and the feel of the place, and until he felt familiar with both, his future plans were uncertain.

  He was, however, able to inform the deputy that he would address a prayer meeting at the tiny church the next night. Cash was delighted. Then he started to ask a little hesitantly about the man James sometimes referred to as his acolyte. The sheriff had spotted Whitey Cassidy playing mumbley peg on the hotel porch earlier, the deputy explained, and had been a little alarmed by his appearance. Cash was quite certain that anybody travelling in the company of an upstanding preacher man would have to be above reproach. So, just to set the sheriff’s mind at rest, Mr. Cassidy was ... well, all right, wasn’t he?

  “Whitey, like myself, is a servant of the Almighty,” James had replied tersely, and Cash had to be content with that, for his visitor immediately changed the subject and started to discuss investment possibilities in Rawhide.

  He was moving a little too fast for George Cash. Did Deacon James actually wish to go into business? He just might, James revealed. He was fortunate enough to have a little money, and he had heard that there was good profit to be made in timber here in Utah since railroad building had begun to boom. Could the deputy give him some information on the matter?

  George Cash could tell a great deal about the timber business in Clearwater County, though not from the point of view of a prospective investor. In Rawhide, the deputy pointed out somberly, the word “timber” had come to be synonymous with trouble. In truth, there had recently been a small war between the cattlemen of the county and the lumbermen who had started up logging operations out along the Ray River. Everybody agreed that a flourishing timber industry would be good for Rawhide, but so violent had been the cattlemen’s reaction to having loggers despoil their rich grazing country, that the timber industry had petered out to just a minor operation far back in the Jimcrack Hills.

  “I wouldn’t advise any man to invest in lumber in this area, Deacon,” Cash concluded. “Nobody seems to know for certain whether the timber-cutters have legal right to set up where they please or not. But the cattlemen certainly showed that they didn’t care much whether they have a right or not. Bad business all around, sir. Three men killed and several more shot up before the loggers backed water and quit the Ray River.”

  “Indeed, Deputy?” Seated by the doorway with his flat-brimmed hat on his knees, the expression on James’ face didn’t change, but at mention of the killings his eyes seemed to take on a lighter hue. “Three men killed, you say?”

  “Uh-huh. But heck, why talk about depressin’ matters like that when—?”

  “No. I’m interested, Deputy. These men that died—were those responsible punished by law?”

  The deputy leaned back and put his boots on the desk. “Fights like that are always messy, Deacon. It’s often hard to figure out who’s right and who’s wrong. But in answer to your question—no, the killings weren’t all tied up, on account of it seemed nobody really knew who shot who or why. There was only one feller we got the goods on. He was a drifter passin’ through and somehow he got himself tangled up in a ruckus between the loggers and cattleman Myron Haggerty and his bunch down West Street one night. The drifter plugged a couple of men. Then he got unlucky when his horse fell over when he was makin’ off. We tried him and hanged him.”

  “Swift justice, Deputy?”

  “Well, you know the drifter breed, I’m sure, Deacon. Footloose, shiftless, mean.”

  “I see. And this man’s name?”

  ‘Rory Calem.”

  “Rory Ca
lem ...”

  Cash frowned. “Does the name mean somethin’ to you, Deacon?”

  James rose and put on his hat. He stood staring down at the man behind the desk for an uncomfortably long time in total silence, then he turned on his heel and walked out.

  George Cash got up hurriedly and went to the door. The Deacon was a tall figure receding along the walk. Cash called after him, but drew no response. Puzzled, the deputy stepped onto the porch and stood rubbing his beard stubble and going over what they had been discussing before James’ abrupt departure. He couldn’t recollect anything he had said that might have angered the man; surely a preacher couldn’t object to the law exacting swift justice on a killer? Of course he couldn’t, Cash assured himself. Most likely the man’s sudden departure was unrelated to their discussion. He was probably eccentric; all the best sin-busters were a little that way. He certainly looked a little wild with his shoulder-length hair, nickel-plated Peacemakers and those eyes that seemed to drill right through a man.

  George Cash was prepared to bet money that Deacon James would lift the rafters at the meeting hall tomorrow night. Cash wouldn’t miss it for anything. Maybe, he thought as he went back inside, he could talk the sheriff into coming along, A fine man, the sheriff, straight, honest and good at his job. But, like most men in Rawhide, Clint Wheeler had some sinful habits and the deputy felt that a little hot gospel and hell-fire wouldn’t do him a bit of harm.

  Chapter Four – Wild Streak

  HANK BRAZOS LIFTED the rifle, running his big hands lovingly over the stock. He worked the action and studied the ammunition. Each bullet packed sufficient power to kill at four hundred yards, and the Loftus .38 Repeating Rifle was guaranteed to be accurate within inches at that distance. It cost more than he would make breaking horses in three months.

  “Nice gun,” Brazos commented.

  “Too nice, Hank,” said Lanning.