“How’s that?”
“Just look at it, man. Not a mark or a scratch on it, and I’ve had it for over a year. In other words, I can afford about any sort of rifle I want, but I can’t find time to get out and use it.” Lanning grinned in the firelight. “At least not until now. Damned lucky you and Duke happened along when you did. From my point of view, that is.”
Brazos grunted as he set the rifle aside. He reached for his coffee mug, took a sip, then set about building a Bull Durham cigarette. From behind him came the sound of bone crunching between powerful teeth. Brazos had fixed a fine steak meal on their first night out on the trail and Bullpup was now cleaning up the leftovers.
When he had his cigarette going to his satisfaction, Brazos leaned back on an elbow and looked at Lanning.
“Reckon you’re really gonna enjoy this, huh, Otto?”
“More than you can guess, Hank. I know where we can run deer, elk and puma, with possibly an odd grizzly or two for good measure. Have you ever hunted bear, Hank?”
“Hunted just about everythin’ in my time, Otto.”
“Does that include men?”
Brazos frowned. “What makes you ask that?”
Lanning shrugged. “I struck a man about six months ago who told me he’d met Duke and you in Kansas. He told me that you were man-hunting at the time.”
“You could call it that ... though this jasper we wanted wasn’t exactly what I’d call a man. Ever hear of Bo Rangle, Otto?”
“The Civil War renegade leader? I’m sure everybody has. You were hunting him?”
“Right.”
Lanning waited expectantly, but when Brazos gave no sign of continuing, he said, “Don’t you want to talk about it, Hank?”
“Not particularly.” He took a pull on his cigarette. “You look disappointed, Otto. How come?”
“Well, I suppose, in my heavy-handed way, I was seeking a roundabout way to discover how you and Duke happened to become friends, Hank.”
“Who said we was?”
Lanning laughed. “You’re not fooling me, Texan. Oh, I know you’re a little sore at Duke at the moment because he was anxious to get you out of town during his father’s visit. But I suspect that this sort of friction is nothing new to you. I also suspect that you’re strong friends even though both of you would probably prefer to live in a hollow log than admit it. Would that be far from the mark, Hank?”
Hank Brazos sat up as Bullpup swaggered around to him for a little attention. He scratched the dog’s ears, smiling a little at Lanning’s astuteness. It was true. Despite their conflicts and differences, he and Benedict did share friendship, though it sometimes took a perceptive eye to note they weren’t enemies when the going got a little rocky.
“I guess you’re close enough to the mark, Otto,” Brazos said. “Though I’m sure gonna get even with the Yank for the way he snubbed me when he was walkin’ down Trail Street with his old man. That’s one I owe him.”
Both men turned as Jeb Draper entered the circle of firelight after tending to the horses. When Draper had hunkered down and poured coffee, Lanning went on:
“I don’t doubt that you will get even, Hank. Just as I don’t doubt that you’ll go on being friends afterwards. I rather envy that, you know ... the sort of camaraderie that survives despite the odds against it ...”
“What you’re sayin’ is that you can’t figure how come a high-steppin’ college man like Benedict got himself mixed up with a rough diamond like me. Ain’t that so?”
“Well, I wouldn’t put it in those exact words, Hank.”
“I would, Sarge,” Draper said with a grin. “I’ve been powerful curious myself to know how old Sergeant Hank Brazos got to pard up with a goldurned captain—and a Yankee captain to boot. There’s got to be a story there some place, amigo, so how about lettin’ us hear it?”
Hank Brazos shrugged and flicked his cigarette butt into the flames. A story some place? There was a story right enough ...
“Pea Ridge, Georgia ...” he began in his deep Texas drawl, and Otto Lanning and Jeb Draper sat enthralled as he unfolded what was surely one of the strangest stories to come out of the Civil War.
It began in the dying days of the war on a bloody hill in Georgia, where a Union detachment under the command of Captain Duke Benedict had clashed with Confederate Sergeant Brazos’ outfit which was escorting a two hundred thousand dollar shipment of Southern gold to Mexico. Throughout the bloody afternoon, the two forces had fought to a standstill, and then Rangle’s Raiders, a gang of soldier marauders, had stormed onto the scene to snatch the shipment away.
Chance had brought the two survivors of the battle of Pea Ridge together at war’s end, and they had set out together to track down the gold so many brave men had died for. Bound by a common cause, Brazos had needed Benedict’s gun skill and keen intelligence as much as Benedict needed his trailsmanship and iron fists. It was an uneasy alliance at times, but it had held together up to and beyond the day in Montana when Bo Rangle had died beneath their vengeful guns, taking the secret of the two hundred thousand dollars in gold into eternity with him.
And because it still worked, despite all the odds against it, Hank Brazos and Duke Benedict still rode together—maybe, as Brazos concluded, for no better reason than they made a good team when the going got tough.
“Well, I’ll be damned, Sarge,” Draper breathed when Brazos fell silent. “How come you never got to tell me all this before?”
“Mebbe because I been too busy gettin’ you out of trouble up until now, I suppose,” Brazos quipped.
“It certainly is an uncommon story, Hank,” Lanning agreed. “And thanks for telling it. Now perhaps I’ll have the good manners to shut up and mind my own business. I know how you veterans hate to talk about the war.”
Brazos sat staring into the flames where he had seen again the scattered dead, the ghostly tendrils of gun smoke, the sun dying in a welter of crimson on a day that was seared into his brain. But then the images faded and he came slowly back to the reality of a high country camp in the Utah mountains.
“One thing I don’t hate to talk about, Otto,” he said, happy to change the subject. “And that’s game. Is this country up yonder really as good for huntin’ as you reckon?”
“Perhaps even better than I promised,” Lanning said with a smile. He was a serious man by nature, but he’d been in high spirits ever since leaving the chores and cares of his practice behind. “We attorneys mostly tend to understate, you know, Hank.”
“Is that a fact?” Brazos said. “Well, understatin’ is somethin’ I ain’t never heard Benedict bein’ accused of. Seems to me he overdoes just about everythin’ he puts his mouth to. But then of course he ain’t exactly what you would call a full blown attorney, is he?”
“He hasn’t a diploma,” Lanning said, “but that’s merely a technicality here in the West when one has as complete a grasp on legal matters as Duke.” Lanning pushed his fingers through his hair and frowned. “I suppose I was a little tough on Duke, you know, more or less forcing him to take over for me. It’s just that I was so fed up with the routine ... and every man needs to get away from his wife now and again. Particularly a woman as, er, demanding, shall we say, as Sharon.”
“How do you mean, demandin’?”
“Well ... well, I don’t suppose there is any need to go into detail about that, Hank. Let me just say that at this moment I wouldn’t swap places with Duke for a thousand dollars.” Lanning paused, then added, “I wonder how he’s making out?”
“I wouldn’t worry none about him, Otto,” Brazos said. “No matter what the time, place or the set-up, Benedict will make out just fine.”
Her soft fingers worked up and down the sides of Benedict’s neck.
“How does that feel, Duke?” Sharon Lanning purred “Getting rid of all your tensions?”
Seated at the big redwood dining table in the Lanning house waiting for his father to come down for supper, Rawhide’s new attorney-at-law indeed fe
lt himself begin to relax, even though his day at the office had been anything but difficult. Unfortunately, Sharon’s touch and the acute consciousness of her warm femininity was making him feel other things besides relaxed.
“I think that will be sufficient, Sharon,” he said. He really wanted her to stop; not because he didn’t like it, but because he liked it too much.
“I never do what I’m told,” she whispered, her lips close to his ear. “Didn’t Otto tell you that, Duke?”
No, Otto had not told him that, Benedict mused as he leaned back and gave himself over to the sheer sensuous pleasure of the moment. There were quite a few things Otto had neglected to mention before setting off into the wilds with Brazos, amongst them the fact that buxom Sharon seemed to have far too much energy and spare time for her own good ...
She was really getting carried away with the massage routine now. Her hands worked over his chest, and there was no direction in which Benedict could move his handsome head without touching her full, firm breasts that were barely contained by the daring red dress she had donned for supper. Tiny warning bells rang in the back of his brain. There was a clear code for gentlemen concerning the wives of friends. It was a pity he didn’t seem able to remember exactly what it was ...
He was saved from a fate that may or may not have been worse than death by the sound of brisk steps on the stairs. Displaying admirable speed, Sharon tickled him under the chin and made it safely to her chair before Benedict senior came through the double doors of the dining room.
The sight of his father in his dinner suit sent Benedict’s memory flashing back to his childhood in Boston. Every night of their lives, his mother and father had dressed formally for supper. It was a habit the young Benedict had adopted during his years at Harvard. But four years of war and another year of riding the violent trails of the West had put an end to that, along with many other customs of the old, gracious way of life that he still admired.
“Ahh, Marmaduke and Sharon, my dear,” Mr. Benedict smiled in greeting. Then with a fine display of old world courtesy, he walked around the table and kissed Sharon’s hand before taking his place opposite his son. “Well, my boy, how did things go today?”
Benedict started to talk about his day as the maid came in with the soup. He told them about the fat lady who had come in about a divorce, the title investigation concerning the old Gold Rock Mine up north, and the two-hour luncheon he had shared with Mayor Jory Duncan to discuss a codicil to Duncan’s will.
His audience was attentive. Occasionally, as the pleasant meal hour drifted by, Benedict experienced a twinge of regret because of his elaborate deception, but each time he brushed the feeling aside. Better to lie and act out a role a hundred times than have his father know just who and what he really was.
He would never have lived up to his father’s expectations, even if the war had not irrevocably altered their lives. Duke Benedict realized this later, as they sat in the study over coffee and cigars. He had loved the ease, style and wealth associated with his first twenty years of life. But always there had been in him a vast craving for danger and excitement that had found release in the war, and later on the long and bloody hunt for the renegade, Bo Rangle. There had been many times during those four years in Union blue, and also in the year since Appomattox, when the wealth scion of the Boston banking family had thought he’d return to Boston and take on the responsibilities and honors that belonged to Marmaduke Creighton Benedict the Third. But now he knew it would never happen. His idea that the years of danger and excitement might burn out the wild, reckless streak in him had been wrong. Now, seated in a book-lined study with this fine, distinguished gentleman who represented all he’d left behind him, he realized with a curious mixture of sadness and relief that it would never be. From some forgotten ancestor, Duke Benedict had inherited a gargantuan hunger for all that life could give, and he would never change.
“You have grown pensive, my boy,” Mr. Benedict said suddenly.
Duke smiled. “Sorry. I’m just indulging in what one might call a bit of philosophy, Father. Another port?”
“Yes, thank you. This is one of the finest ports I’ve tasted since leaving the East Coast. You certainly keep a handsome cellar, Duke—or is it Lanning’s cellar? I’m still not quite clear in my mind concerning the housing arrangements here.”
Duke explained again. He normally occupied the house across the street. However, because Lanning had gone off hunting and Benedict senior was here in town, Sharon had insisted they occupy her house while she and her staff shifted across to the smaller residence across the street.
“Now at last I think I have it straight,” Duke’s father smiled. “They must think the world of you to be so dashed generous, Duke.”
“The world indeed,” said a husky voice, and both rose as Sharon Lanning came in. She shot Duke a smoky look, then turned to his father. “Would you care for some music, Mr. Benedict? I play piano a little. That is, if you and Duke wouldn’t rather go uptown to the Silver Dollar of course?”
“Of course we wouldn’t,” Mr. Benedict insisted. “We’re hardly the saloon type, eh, son?”
Duke Benedict, for whom saloons were a completely natural environment, shook his head firmly. “The Benedicts never were that kind, Father.” He gave a little bow to Sharon. “We’re most anxious to hear you play, my dear.”
Sharon went to the big piano and soon a lovely Mozart melody filled the room. Port in one hand and cigars in the other, Benedict senior and junior sat back in deep leather chairs. They frequently nodded and smiled at each other in appreciation of Sharon’s excellent playing.
It was probably the quietest evening Duke Benedict had spent in a town since Grant and Lee had signed the peace. But it was also one of the most rewarding, for he could see his father storing up images and impressions of his son’s stylish way of life to carry back East with him. He knew it had always been a deep source of regret to his father that he hadn’t returned home, but now that the older man had had the opportunity to see how he “lived”, he would be content.
It was worth every bit of the effort to make the masquerade convincing, Duke Benedict told himself, and he wouldn’t even permit himself to consider the possibility that anything could go wrong. No one here except the Lannings and Brazos knew that Duke Benedict was a gambler and some-time gunfighter. As far as the rest of Rawhide was concerned, he was Lanning’s new partner, and he was confident that his father would leave town at the end of the week believing exactly that.
But why did little jabs of worry nag at his mind?
Chapter Five – The Vengeful Breed
“WHO’S THAT, MARTHA?”
“I beg your pardon, Matilda?”
“Over yonder there in the cemetery.”
The two elderly Murphy sisters paused in their nightly constitutional down Ophir Street to peer past the streetlight that shed a sickly yellow glow over the Boothill stone fence. Between the tall Joshua tree and the ostentatious tombstone erected to Rawhide’s last mayor, a tall silhouette could be seen. The man stood, hat in his hands, his head angled down, the night wind stirring his shoulder-length hair.
“Why, I do believe it is our guest from the Ladies’ Auxiliary meeting this afternoon, Martha,” Matilda said finally. “Deacon James.”
Portly Martha clasped her hands. “Oh, so it is, Matilda. Just imagine a stranger coming to our town and taking the trouble to visit the dear departed. Perhaps it is too much to hope for, after the unsatisfactory experiences we’ve had with preachers, my dear, but it seems on first impression that the Deacon may be a real reverend, don’t you agree?”
“Perhaps,” Matilda said as they started on.
“You have doubts, Matilda?”
“Only about the guns, Martha. I’ve never known a preacher to wear guns before.”
“This is the West, dear Matilda, and—” The woman broke off with a gasp of fear as she saw the man who stood leaning against the thick trunk of a cottonwood. He was so slim and unmov
ing that they were abreast of him before they saw him. His face a pale triangle, his white hair hanging limply to his collar, he stared at the women without a flicker of expression.
It was a long moment before the sisters realized the silent figure was Cassidy, the man who had accompanied James to the meeting that afternoon. Cassidy’s sudden appearance had shaken Matilda so badly that she couldn’t get her breath back to speak, but Martha somehow managed a timid:
“Good evening, Mr. Cassidy.”
Cassidy blinked, then jerked a hand to his hat brim. The ladies gasped, then Cassidy smiled, removed his hat and bowed with exaggerated courtesy. Suddenly he moved off towards Boothill with a silky walk, leaving two badly shaken women to hurry home for the security of a locked door and the comfort of elderberry wine.
James stood framed in the cemetery gateway as Cassidy approached. “I saw that, Whitey,” he said woodenly. “Rather foolish, wasn’t it?”
Whitey sidled past him, leaned lazily against the fence, plucked a blade of grass and set it between his teeth. “Old ladies,” he whispered, “remind me of fat hens …” He giggled. “Hey, Deacon, you see the way they took off like their tails were afire?”
James was not amused. But, though his authority over the albino was close to complete, he didn’t say any more on the matter. For he could tell at a glance that Whitey Cassidy was in one of those rare moods when he was not preoccupied with either death or salvation. At such times, Cassidy the killer was unpredictable, mercurial. Even the Deacon couldn’t be certain which way he would jump, and he had learned that the best approach was to let Whitey’s mood burn itself out naturally.
James glanced back at the big, showy tombstone that concealed the grave he had just visited, then he put on his hat. The moon was climbing from the Jimcrack Hills, a signal for the wolves to begin howling in the distance. James stared into the yellow face of the fat moon and its soft light gleamed brightly on the handles of his big .45s. In the eyes of others who saw the moon come up that night over Rawhide, it was of the brightest, cleanest gold. But in the eyes of Deacon James it was a deep and vivid red, the color of blood.
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