Benedict and Brazos 28 Read online

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  The two strangers rode into town on the trail of a gun-fast killer named Stark. When they left, however, they’d stolen $15,000 in gold dust from the Ophir Mine.

  The local marshal had one other piece of information to help him track them down. They’d given their names as Duke Benedict and Hank Brazos.

  And that’s how Benedict and Brazos came to be wanted—dead or alive.

  Determined to prove their innocence and bring the real outlaws to book, they rode into a town that had more than its fair share of intrigue. Nothing in Larrabee was as it seemed. And before the mystery was finally cracked, there would be heartbreak for some, and cold lead for others …

  BENEDICT AND BRAZOS 28: WANTED – DEAD OR ALIVE

  By E. Jefferson Clay

  First published by Cleveland Publishing Co. Pty Ltd, New South Wales, Australia

  © 2022 by Piccadilly Publishing

  This electronic edition published 2022

  Names, characters and incidents in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by means (electronic, digital, optical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  This is a Piccadilly Publishing Book / Text © Piccadilly Publishing

  Series Editor: Ben Bridges

  Visit www.piccadillypublishing.org to read more about our books

  Chapter One – So Much for Heroes

  THEY WERE OUT to kill him!

  The realization hit Maylon Stark the moment he heard a hoof strike rock with a sound like a cracked bell in the canyon below. He stared down through the slanting moonlight with sick, shadowed eyes, watching the three horsemen draw closer. The wounded outlaw instantly recognized the pair who had hounded him all the way from Nazareth in the Nations, but the third horseman was a stranger. Not that it mattered who he was, he told himself, checking his .45, maybe for the last time, for it was certain the third man belonged to the same breed at the others. The manhunters. The kind who’d always made life hard for men of Stark’s outlaw breed.

  The riders drew up to study the sign, then Stark saw one point up towards the shelf where he lay below the adit of the old Lucky Cuss Mine. Cold sweat broke out on his face. Any moment now they would start up the shadowy slopes through the scattered spoil from the mine. And they would find him, not holed-up in the Lucky Cuss where a man might have some chance of making a fight of it, but sprawled out here, too weak from loss of blood to move another inch, a bare fifty yards from the mine.

  Fifty yards!

  The outlaw shook his head slowly from side to side. That was how close he’d come to giving himself a fighting chance after sighting his hunters in Larrabee and making his desperate break for the played-out mines in the Shoshone Mountains. On the flats near a canyon mouth, his horse had stumbled and, in a panic, he had led it under cover in a place where there was a thin trickle of water and a screen of trees. He had ground-hitched it, not caring whether it was lamed or not, concerned only with flight. He no longer dared trust the horse. He took to the hillside and clambered his way up to the mine-workings, dragging his wounded leg.

  Now, spent, he lay waiting for his pursuers.

  “Come on, you bastards!” he whispered with a feverish flicker of defiance. “Don’t fool around down there until I pass out. Give me the chance to take at least one of you to hell with me ...”

  But the horsemen made no move to enter the canyon and Stark couldn’t figure what was holding them up. He was certain his tracks leading in would be quite plain, for he’d been in no shape to try and blot them out. Besides, there was his horse down there ...

  What was holding them up?

  The night wind shifted and now swept down the gaunt canyon in the hills instead of across it. It moaned eerily in the stunted mesquite. It hissed softly as it gathered up the fine, loose sand of the canyon to sweep it down to the arid Black Rock Desert. And still the horsemen did not move.

  Stark cursed softly and brushed a feeble hand across his eyes as he lay behind his crude rock parapet. He didn’t understand any of it. They had dogged him two hundred miles and now when they had the best chance to nail him, they weren’t following it up. He concentrated his wavering vision on them fiercely. What was going on now? They seemed to be arguing amongst themselves. He nodded. That was it. The third man, the one he didn’t recognize, was arguing with the others. Stark saw the man point southward, and as he did, caught the sheen of moonlight on something metallic pinned to his vest.

  A lawman’s star.

  The killer smiled bitterly to himself. What else? He should have known he’d be a lawdog. A dumb lawdog, he mentally corrected, for the man with the badge down there seemed determined that the trail led due south and not up into the old mine-workings. So they hadn’t seen the horse in the moonlight.

  The faintest flicker of hope came alive in Stark’s mind as he saw the two manhunters also staring off southwards. Stark saw the lawman gesticulate, then in Stark’s blurred vision, seemed to waver like a ghost. The killer closed his eyes and then there was a savage pounding in his temples. He knew he’d pushed himself to the limit of endurance and beyond. The big gaping .44 bullet wound in his thigh no longer throbbed, which could either mean he was healing or drifting beyond feeling. He heard the wind whisper as he fought back unconsciousness, and when he could finally open his eyes again to see the moon dancing drunkenly in the sky, he sensed that several minutes had passed.

  His first conscious realization was that he’d dropped his gun. The second was that the fan-shaped mouth of the canyon was empty.

  Maylon Stark began to laugh, a jerky, quavering laugh that was a blend of relief and disbelief mixed with the hollow dread that his first lucky break may have come too late.

  “Idjuts!” he breathed as the laughter dried up and he rolled weakly onto his back to stare up into the night sky.

  And then he was sinking, not trying to fight it this time, no longer able. Soon he was still, a big, slow-breathing figure in dust-stained denim with gaunt pits under his eyes and a bloodied bandage strapped around his thigh. He slipped into a strange light sleep free of fever, dreams or dread. It was that kind of sleep from which a wounded man might wake, well on the way to recovery ... or just as easily be the beginning of the journey into eternity.

  An outlaw slept under the open skies in Larrabee County, Colorado. But in that same midnight hour, under that same hunter’s moon that shone down on the gaunt figure of Maylon Stark, others of the dark brotherhood were wide awake and active in neighboring Tatum County …

  To the casual observer, the scene along the dried-out creek bed on the desert fringe would have seemed tranquil enough. There were the three Conestoga wagons drawn up in a line, coated with alkali dust from the just completed desert crossing; the little campfire where the two guards stood watch; the long picket line where tethered horses stood hipshot and nodding under the stars.

  A closer inspection would have revealed the family and friends of Deacon Luther Brown sleeping the sleep of the just under canvas, whilst five stealthy figures were bellying through the long grass towards the third Conestoga, which was drawn up some distance from the other two.

  The five men all carried guns. They were outlaws who made their living preying on travelers crossing the Black Rock Desert under the leadership of Wheeler Smith.

  Smith figured he ha
d given Deacon Brown’s pilgrims every chance to pay tribute or be destroyed. But the Deacon had defied him and now Smith and his jackals were going to put one of the missioner’s wagons to the torch.

  Wheeler Smith’s left hand touched the heavy wood of the wagon tongue. He went still, waiting for the others to take up their positions. Clancy and Mendoro clutched long, oil-soaked brands as they snaked through the grass. Smith could tell by the sun-dried feel of the wagon’s timber that it would go up like tinder. Too bad if those sleeping inside didn’t all get out in time, but he’d warned the wagon master when they’d parleyed earlier.

  “You’ll never make Coyote, Deacon,” he’d insisted. “It’s certain you’ll bury some and maybe you’ll be amongst ’em. Now you tell me, preacher, ain’t it worth a lousy hundred bucks and five horses to guarantee you’ll get to your promised land alive?”

  “We children of the Lord never traffic with spawn of the devil!” the Deacon had thundered. “Go back to Satan’s darkness whence you came!”

  Wheeler Smith had been impressed by the Deacon’s eloquence. But he figured big words didn’t fill lean bellies, and his was growling now as he waited for slow-moving Donovan to get into place. Times had been bad in the desert lately. But Smith had no doubt that the Deacon would change his tune when he saw one of his wagons go up in smoke and maybe one of his flock go up with it.

  Donovan finally wriggled into place and they were ready.

  Wheeler Smith lifted his hand as a signal for the torches to be lit. His hand went only halfway up.

  “Freeze!”

  The clipped, well-educated voice came from above. Gaping upwards, Wheeler Smith saw the canvas flap of the Conestoga drawn back to reveal in the moonlight the intent, handsome face of a man who looked for all the world like a riverboat gambler. This man was staring down at Smith over the sights of a Colt .45.

  For a stunned few seconds the five outlaws froze. Then the rear flaps of the wagon opened and a young giant in a faded purple shirt stepped out onto the tailgate with a shotgun in his beefy hands.

  This one grinned, friendly as a six-foot grizzly. Between

  his legs peered a ferocious-looking dog.

  “Drop ’em and reach, you sons of bitches!”

  Wheeler Smith had once been a hell-raiser but ever since the death, by hanging, of his brother, the outlaw leader had been inclined to be more prudent. He had no idea where this dangerous-looking pair had sprung from. He had no way of knowing that Deacon Brown had sent a rider post-haste into Coyote to seek an escort from the law.

  A pair of strangers drifting through town had heard the pilgrims’ courier mention money—a magic word to Duke Benedict, if somewhat less significant to his big partner, Hank Brazos. The messenger and his two escorts had reached the wagon train just on moonrise—in time for the two newcomers to empty one of the wagons and set it up some distance from the others as a decoy.

  Wheeler Smith knew nothing of this as he dropped his Colt and started to raise his hands. The gunmen had them cold and he had no hankering to get himself shot to pieces over a few dollars and a bunch of tired horses.

  But the same didn’t apply to outlaw Cut Bourke. New to the outfit, Bourke had eaten more recently and was therefore gutsier. He flicked a match alive against his thumbnail, touched it to his oil-soaked brand and hurled it straight at Hank Brazos.

  The giant Texan ducked low and jerked trigger as the hissing brand sailed over his curved back and landed inside the wagon. The scattergun blast took Bourke full on and spun him around. He was still falling as Brazos leaped to the ground and started in on the others with a sweeping gun-butt.

  Poised with an elegant boot on the high seat and the other on the front wheel, Duke Benedict swore in disgust as Brazos and the outlaws came together. Benedict had been ready to finalize the affair quickly and neatly with his six-guns, but couldn’t cut loose now for fear of hitting his partner. He leaped off the wagon to land squarely on the broad back of Wheeler Smith.

  The outlaw leader had spun on his heels and was about to head for the wide-open spaces, when one hundred and seventy pounds of gunfighter landed on his back.

  Smith’s thick legs buckled as he went down. The ground hit his face and his beaked nose spilled blood. But desperation brought him twisting around violently to crash a hairy fist into Duke Benedict’s jaw and slam him back against the wheel of the wagon that was already beginning to burn fiercely.

  Benedict spat blood and swore again. Then he launched himself into a flying dive as Wheeler Smith made another abortive plunge for freedom.

  The all-in fight between the hired escorts and the outlaws was brief and spectacular, and thirty wide-eyed men, women and children crept out into the moonlight to watch the battle by the leaping fire glow of the blazing wagon.

  Deacon Brown’s children of the Lord were people of peace and brotherly love, but they found it hard not to cheer. Outnumbered two to one, Benedict and Brazos gave a masterly display of rough-house fighting. Wheeler Smith was the strongest of the bunch and it took hard-hitting Benedict the best part of a minute to put him down and out, by which time Brazos’ swinging scattergun butt, assisted in no small measure by the snapping teeth of his trail hound, had very effectively dealt with the other three.

  It was over ...

  Chests heaving and with fire glow painting their tall figures crimson, the victors exchanged grins, whilst Deacon Brown fell dramatically to his knees on a slab of granite and held his hands outstretched to the skies.

  “Praise the Lord!” he thundered. “And praise them who came in our hour of need! Brethren, on your knees and praise our saviors!”

  Hank Brazos smiled his wide country-boy smile as he propped a boot on an unconscious outlaw and leaned on his scattergun. An uncomplicated son of the Lone Star State, he’d always enjoyed it when fate saw fit to make him a hero, but being a genuine savior sounded even better. Hank Brazos thought, as the dust of battle began to settle, that he could take a lot of this.

  But not so Duke Benedict.

  Brazos’ partner didn’t believe in heroes, or saviors. He believed in old whisky, young women, hard cash and good times. Most of all, he believed in keeping the Benedict hide in one healthy piece. Next day he returned from a discussion with Deacon Brown to inform his partner that it was time to saddle up and hit the trail.

  He had just terminated their short-lived association with the Children of the Lord.

  Chapter Two – The Dark and the Deep

  HANK BRAZOS LOOKED disgusted as he stood in the early morning sunshine watching Benedict saddle his flashy black.

  “Quittin’ cold,” the Texan accused. “Dadburn it, if that ain’t the way of a goddamned Yankee, I ain’t never gonna see it.”

  “You won’t get me to bite on that worm today, Johnny Reb,” Benedict replied calmly, tightening up his cinch. “Come on, get moving.”

  “Who the hell says I’m comin’?”

  “Suit yourself, mister. He travels fastest who travels alone, I’m told.”

  Benedict would leave on his own, Hank Brazos knew as he tugged out his sack of Bull Durham, for he’d threatened it often enough during their stormy partnership. Maybe he should call his bluff, he thought angrily, yet immediately dismissed the thought, for Hank Brazos had known for a long time that he needed the friendship of this educated, gun-fast gambling man to give life that extra tang and taste.

  But that didn’t stop him making one last attempt to persuade the other to alter his decision to quit. “Yank,” he said as reasonably as he could, “these Children of the Lord ... it just ain’t our style to back out on folks when they need us.”

  “Did need us,” Benedict corrected. He’d finished saddling his black. He took out his silver cigar case and selected a Havana and lit it. His wide gesture took in the burned-out wagon, the migrants busy at work preparing to resume their journey, the four battered outlaws who were roped securely to a tree under the watchful eye of two brawny young migrants. “They’ve travelled a hundred mil
es across the Black Rock Desert, and the only trouble they had was with this pack of rats. Well, the rat pack’s on its way to jail, except for the one we buried—and the pilgrims are going to have fiddle music and fine weather the rest of the way to Utah.”

  “What if they don’t?” Brazos asked stubbornly.

  Benedict gusted expensive cigar smoke toward him and spoke in the tones of a schoolmaster instructing a dull pupil.

  Brazos hated it when he adopted this manner and Duke Benedict knew it.

  “Johnny Reb, were we or were we not on our way to Larrabee County to look up an old acquaintance when that pilgrim came seeking assistance yesterday?”

  “Sure, but …”

  “And did we or did we not agree to come out here and pick up a little easy money?”

  “You know we did!”

  “And did we not have to risk life and limb against those rascals over there?”

  Brazos’ brow furrowed. Benedict’s arguments always sounded simple, yet experience had taught him they seldom were. He said grudgingly, “Can’t deny that.”

  “Can you then deny that we have given these pilgrims good value for their money?” Benedict didn’t wait for an answer. “Of course we have! Our mission is completed. So we’re riding out. Next question.”

  Brazos had none.

  The trouble was, he made it all so damned reasonable, Hank Brazos brooded as they rode west a little while later. Benedict had won the argument as he always did, for he used words the way Hank Brazos read sign or broke wild horses.

  Which was competently.

  Yet as the day wore on, the young Texan’s mood improved, and by suppertime he had come to the conclusion that Benedict’s decision to move on had most likely been wise. And when he heard later that Deacon Brown’s party had made it safely to their destination with no further trouble, he was happy to have his fast-talking partner proved right—no matter what his motives might have been.