“No!” he grated. He shook his head. “No ...” The man’s haggard eyes went to the Kilraines. “I guess you win, Ethan. Maybe I always knew you would in the end.”
Kilraine made no reply, but the triumph in Tracy’s eyes as she matched stares with Hardcastle was there for all to see. Hank Brazos lifted a finger to poke his hat back from his head and turned to Jackson.
“Well, I guess we’d better see to the loading.”
Strom Jackson was sweating, even though it wasn’t hot. The cattle dealer had been delighted by the Golden Hoof’s offer, but deeply apprehensive about how the news would be accepted by the Shotgun crowd. His smile was relieved now as he spoke:
“Might as well, Brazos.”
Duke Benedict stood watching, grim-jawed and silent as Brazos reached out to take Tracy by the hand. They started along the landing, all eyes focused on them. Nobody noticed when the sheriff’s ugly dog came out from under the landing after an unsuccessful search for more cats. However, Bullpup sighted him, and with a businesslike bark, he took a diving lunge at Ruffy.
“Get back here, ugly!” Brazos yelled with a grin—and in that moment of distraction, the Shotgun man saw his chance.
Brick Gunther had had part of his left hand shot away in the battle at the Five Mile, the same clash of arms in which his brother Tom had gone down under Hank Brazos’ Colt. Gunther had confided his intention to square accounts with the big Texan but his friends on the Shotgun hadn’t taken him seriously. However Brick Gunther had meant every word. Now, with Brazos’ broad back to him less than fifty feet away, and with Ben Bradbury standing before him to shield him, Brick Gunther went for his gun.
Nobody saw the Colt come clear. The shot beat like heavy thunder across the landing and the screaming slug burned along Brazos’ shoulder. Hank Brazos dropped low, whirled and his slug howled past a white-faced Bradbury and plowed into Gunther’s chest. Gunther’s Colt exploded again and Martin Hardcastle staggered from the impact of lead in the shoulder as the Shotgun cowhand fell.
The Shotgun men at the back of the group thought Brazos had gunned down Hardcastle. Ray Wolfe bellowed in rage and grabbed at his hip.
“No!” Brazos roared. “Don’t be a damned—”
Wolfe’s gun exploded, but his aim was high. Brazos triggered a shot that plowed through the cowboy’s gun arm, then he sent two shots above the heads of other Shotgun riders who were moving for their guns. “Hold!” Brazos shouted, then he swung his head at the sound of running feet. Duke Benedict, gun in hand, was sprinting towards him. Brazos’ face turned haggard. His smoking Colt swung towards Benedict but he was unable to bring the gun up to firing level. A Shotgun Colt snarled and Brazos reeled away with lead in his shoulder. Benedict’s six-gun snarled and the gunman went down with a slug through his head.
“Stay down, Reb!” Benedict shouted as Brazos struggled to rise. Then Benedict was whirling to face the Shotgun crew. “Get your hands away from your guns, you fools.”
“He gunned Martin down when he wasn’t buyin’ in, Benedict!” a wrathful puncher roared. “Whose side are you on, anyway?”
“He didn’t shoot Martin, you idiot,” Benedict snarled. “It was Gunther.”
“That’s right,” Martin Hardcastle gasped, climbing slowly to his feet, white-faced. “Put ’em away, boys!”
As the Shotgun riders holstered, Hank Brazos was staring up at Benedict with relief and guilt flooding his face. When he’d seen Benedict charging, he’d thought he was coming after him. How could he have been such a blind fool? He pushed himself slowly erect. His shoulder hurt but as soon as he flexed it he knew the bullet had missed the bone. He turned to Tracy and was shocked to see the way she was staring at Martin Hardcastle. It was a look he’d never seen on her face before, and it almost frightened him. He spoke to her, but she seemed not to hear him as she moved towards Hardcastle, her face alight with savage triumph.
“Well, Martin?” she said. “How does it feel now? I said you’d be sorry, didn’t I?”
Benedict and Brazos didn’t understand the strange look Martin Hardcastle gave the girl, and they had no idea what he meant when he said, “You, Tracy?” He shook his head. “No ... I can’t believe that.”
She just smiled ... a terrible smile. She seemed in the grip of a powerful emotion that those around her couldn’t understand. Uncertain, confused, Brazos moved to her side. He touched her arm but Tracy shrugged him away. And as she did, a voice sounded from the crowd:
“You wanta keep away from that one, big feller! She’s pizen!”
Every eye focused on the small, ugly young man who stood in the forefront of the mob leaning on a battered crutch. Billy Denver lifted a trembling, accusing finger at Tracy Kilraine.
“I told Trogg not to have nothin’ to do with you, didn’t I, sister? But he wouldn’t listen. And now he’s dead and gone and—”
“Denver?” Duke Benedict’s voice cut him off. He swung to look at Tracy who had gone ashen, then he cut his gaze back to the bum. “What’s this about Trogg Denver, mister?”
“Don’t listen to him!” Tracy cried. “The man’s an idiot—anybody can see that!”
Billy Denver certainly looked like an idiot. But he was an idiot who insisted on having his say.
“She’s no good!” he shouted across at them. “She got my brother killed and a whole passel more if I’m figgerin’ right!”
“That’s enough!” Brazos called angrily, starting down the landing towards Billy. “You’ve said enough!”
Billy Denver started to back away, fearful but still defiant. “She’s got you bought and sold the same way she had Trogg, ain’t she, big feller? What’d she buy your gun with? Lovin’ kisses—or pearls?”
Hank Brazos stopped short. Behind him, Duke Benedict turned slowly to face Tracy. Ethan Kilraine stared at his daughter in horror, then he lunged forward as Tracy snatched out her gun.
“No, Tracy!” he cried. “Don’t—!”
His voice was swallowed by the gun blast and Billy Denver fell off his crutch as the bullet howled above his head. Kilraine seized his daughter’s arm and another shot ripped into the planking. Tracy was a screaming tigress, her strength matching her father’s. Benedict rushed forward to wrench the Colt from her fingers—but Hank Brazos stood as if his big boots had grown roots that had taken purchase in the earth.
“Let me go!” Tracy shrieked. “He’s lying, he’s lying!”
But all sensed that Billy Denver wasn’t lying, and the trembling little cripple put it beyond all doubt when Benedict called him onto the landing to tell his story. Ethan Kilraine was forced to place his hand over his daughter’s mouth to stifle her furious cries as Denver related, with vindictive pleasure, how Tracy had visited their house in Carrington and had hired his brother to murder Barlow Kilraine, securing his services with a string of expensive pearls.
An awed hush fell over the crowd. Every face showed bewilderment when the little man was finally through—except one. Only Martin Hardcastle looked as if he really understood why Tracy Kilraine, the beautiful daughter of the richest man in the county, had hired a killer to murder the brother of the man she’d once planned to marry.
There was anger in the cattleman’s face as he confronted the wild-eyed girl now, but it was an anger tinged by shock and sadness.
“You killed Barlow ... just to get back at me, Tracy?” he said in a terrible voice. “You hated me that much?”
Tracy’s eyes were riveted on Hardcastle’s face. She seemed totally unaware of anything and anybody but him. Her mouth twisted venomously as her bewildered father took his hand away. “I warned you that you’d be sorry you left me, Martin! You can’t say I didn’t warn you!”
“You left her?” Duke Benedict’s voice was confused. “But I thought—”
“Yes, I left Tracy,” Hardcastle cut him off. He sucked in a deep breath. “I loved her until I found out what she was really like ... cruel, selfish, ruthless. I broke off the engagement, but to save her humiliation I told ev
erybody it was she who’d called it off.” Hardcastle paused, then went on, “She seemed to go crazy when I told her it was over. She ... she told me she would destroy me if I left her, but I didn’t believe her. I believe her now, though. And I think I understand a lot of things that I didn’t before. Like how the war got started in the first place ... how Erskine Getty got killed the other night. That was your hand behind all that, wasn’t it, Tracy? You started the war to bring me down, and when it failed you had Barlow killed ... knowin’ what I thought of the boy.” His voice shook with emotion. “Good God, Tracy, how could you? All those dead men ...”
“You left me!” Tracy accused, her eyes fever-bright. “I loved you and you left me, Martin. Nobody can do that to Tracy Kilraine, nobody. And I’m glad I did what I did to you, Martin. Do you hear that? I’m glad, and I only wish I’d killed you, too, when I had the—!”
She broke off abruptly, as if only then realizing where she was and what she’d said. Ethan Kilraine released his grip on her arm and stepped back from her, his face wearing a stamp of horror. A deep, stunned silence prevailed until Sheriff Barney Vint made his way forward slowly and apprehensively up the landing.
“This ... this is a terrible thing, Mr. Kilraine,” the sheriff said awkwardly. “All that your daughter has said and all ...” He broke off, searching for help amongst the taut faces around him, but finding none. He made a helpless gesture. “I guess I’ll have to take her in, Mr. Kilraine ...”
Tracy Kilraine seemed to shrink within herself. Suddenly she was no longer a savage, vindictive woman scorned, but a frightened little girl. She turned pleadingly to her father, but Ethan Kilraine couldn’t meet her eyes. She swung around to face Duke Benedict, but the gunfighter’s face was empty. Then her terrified gaze moved to the big Texan, and she held out a trembling hand.
“Hank, please help me, Hank ...”
There was still some love left in Hank Brazos, and the big man with the blood-soaked shirt was walking slowly towards the girl when Benedict moved forward to grip the Texan’s powerful arm.
“No, Hank,” Benedict said softly. “There’s nothing you or anybody else can do now.”
Brazos gazed into his eyes with a look Duke Benedict hoped he would never see again. Then Brazos regarded Tracy for a long poignant moment before a light pressure on his arm had him turning away.
“Hank?”
Tracy’s voice followed him. Neither Hank Brazos nor Duke Benedict looked back. Side by side, the two tall men walked slowly across the open space heading for the street. No man stirred and no voice sounded until they were gone.
The season the Cheyenne called Ghost Face was close at hand that late afternoon when the two horsemen rode from Sunsmoke and followed the river trail west.
Autumn was dying, and in the mountains the first snows were gathering for their assault upon the lowlands. The great summer trees had cried their leaves to the ground, and dead, hollow spiders clung transparently to tatters of webs between the gaunt limbs.
Bullpup led the way, scampering ahead with his stubby tail wagging, pausing when a raven coughed from the rushes, then padding on. The sun was gone below the western rim, leaving the sky painted with crimson and gold. Red washed the buttes and covered the rangeland with a soft flow. They rode directly towards the sunset and the clatter of hoofs rang loud in the day’s hush.
They reined in at the bend in the trail where the Whiplock River cut deep into the bank. Sunsmoke lay two miles behind, quiet and peaceful in the dying light. They didn’t speak, but their thoughts were one. In this place, as they had in many others, they had faced death and had survived to again take to the elusive trail of Bo Rangle. Yet each was aware, in that quiet, thoughtful minute, that here in Box Butte their partnership had endured its greatest crisis, had survived, and now was all the stronger for having been put to so desperate a test.
They watched as the last light faded, then turned their horses and moved on. There was a small object in Duke Benedict’s hand. He smiled ruefully then flicked his hand and something glittering curved high over the river.
“What was that?” Brazos asked when he heard the plopping sound.
Benedict’s face was burnished in crimson as he drew deeply on his cigar. “Just something I didn’t want.”
Brazos shrugged and they rode on to be swallowed by the darkness while Duke Benedict’s “lucky” coin sank to the sandy bottom of the Whiplock River.
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
… And more to come every month!
But the adventure doesn’t end here …
Join us for more first-class, action-packed books.
Regular updates feature on our website and blog
The Adventures continue…
The Home of Great Western Fiction!
Benedict and Brazos 16 Page 10