Benedict and Brazos 28 Page 2

  For his part, Duke Benedict was simply content to be on the trail again and making for the next town, the next chapter in his always colorful life. The Children of the Lord were fine people, he told himself, as he stretched out under the stars on his blanket. But he invariably found fine people tediously boring.

  There was nothing boring about the old acquaintance they planned to look up in Larrabee County. Diamond Jennie had the smallest waist, the greenest eyes and the biggest saloon in Southwestern Colorado. Benedict intended seeking a job dealing cards for handsome Jennie, and perhaps taking up where they had left off romantically back in Gallup, New Mexico, before Jennie was run out of town.

  He smiled to himself as his eyelids grew heavy. What did he mean, perhaps? It was a gold-plated certainty. They were the same kind, he and high-stepping Jennie ...

  Next day was cooler and both riders were in good spirits as they approached the trail junction that was marked by a big old tree with gnarled and twisted branches. Nailed to the sturdy trunk was a brand new ‘Wanted’ dodger.

  Leading, Brazos saw the big poster first, but not having any book learning, a dodger without pictures meant nothing to him.

  The same didn’t apply to Duke Benedict, who reined in abruptly in front of the tree, looking dumbfounded.

  The dodger’s message read:

  WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE DUKE BENEDICT AND HANK BRAZOS GRAND LARCENY $5000 REWARD POSTED BY SHERIFF OF LARRABEE.

  “What is it, Yank?” Brazos asked, seeing his expression and turning back.

  Benedict told him and they stared at one another in stunned silence.

  During the course of a partnership that had seen them working variously as cowpokes, gamblers, bounty hunters, guns for hire, stage guards, trail herders, bodyguards and bouncers, it was inevitable that they should at times find themselves at loggerheads with the law, and once or twice had found themselves with a sheriff on their tails.

  But they had never had their names emblazoned on Wanted posters before.

  Nor, for that matter, had they ever been to Larrabee.

  Duke Benedict sat in the sun on the porch of the Colorado Star Hotel in his broadcloth suit, hand-tooled boots and forty-dollar hat. He rocked gently, smoked a cigar and watched the afternoon activity in Larrabee.

  The town had a tough look about it, with many of the buildings unpainted under a coating of dust, but it seemed prosperous enough for all that. A mining town set on a plateau with the Shoshone Mountains crowding close on the southern side, Larrabee was ringed by abandoned mines that had reminded Benedict of a giant prairie dog village on their way in.

  From where he sat he could see three saloons, several stores, a law office, a smaller hotel and a cluster of small shops and offices. The attendant in the bathhouse had told him that Larrabee’s livelihood stemmed from the big cattle outfits to the north and west, and the Ophir Mine which was one of the few big goldmines still operating profitably in Southwestern Colorado.

  “Enjoy your tub, Mr. Jenner?”

  “Indeed I did.”

  They’d registered at Larrabee’s biggest hotel as Jenner and Jackson. Bill Jenner and Joe Jackson were the aliases they used when Benedict and Brazos became a little uncomfortable to live with. What their occupations would be as far as the citizens of Larrabee were concerned, hadn’t been decided yet. They would likely make up their minds on that when Brazos returned from his scouting foray in the dives of Federation Street.

  Benedict had been quite prepared to go ferreting information after they checked in, but not before he took a bath and changed into fresh clothes. He couldn’t even think straight when dirty and sweaty, but as no such fussiness troubled his hulking partner, he’d let Brazos go off to get information while he soaked luxuriously in a hot tub back of the hotel. Besides, he told himself, ashing his cigar, Johnny Reb was sometimes better at gleaning information that he was. Most westerners responded more readily to one of their own kind than to ‘dudes who talk like they got a jawful of taffy’ as the Texan had described him on more than one occasion. Brazos of course talked the way he did most everything else. Roughly.

  A freight wagon laden with hides rumbled past, kicking up a cloud of dust, which fortunately blew away from the dapper figure on the porch of the Colorado Star. As the dust cleared, Benedict saw two women appear at the Union Street intersection and move down Federation with their parasols lifted against the heat. They turned a corner, serene and untouchable, making a picture of grace in that grim mining town.

  Benedict nodded his sleek head in silent approval. He’d never accepted the fact that the west had to be as raw and rough as men made it, and it was always good to see others who preferred to live with a little style and dignity.

  He fingered his cravat to make sure it sat just right. As he did, a familiar figure loomed from the direction of the Drover’s House Saloon, followed by a dog with an enormous scarred head and lolling tongue.

  Benedict and the hound, Bullpup, exchanged perfunctory looks of mutual dislike as the big Texan lowered his rump to the gallery edge by the rocker and took out his tobacco sack. “Well?” Benedict murmured.

  Brazos twisted a cigarette one-handed, squinted against the hot glare of the street.

  “Two pilgrims showed up three days back claimin’ to be us,” he supplied in a matter-of-fact way. “They said as how they was bounty hunters ... mebbe used that ruse to get information out of the law office that they mightn’t have got otherwise. Said they was huntin’ a killer name of Maylon Stark from down the Nations way, only nobody seems to have seen hide nor hair of him ...”

  He broke off to sweep a match into life along his leather chaps. Benedict waited patiently until he had the smoke going to his liking. Brazos went on:

  “Night before last, somebody robbed the safe of the Ophir Mine up yonder. Never been done before, they say. Everybody always figgered it couldn’t be done on account this Dusang jasper who owns the Ophir is a mighty careful man who looks after his own. Anyways, somebody busted in, slugged a couple of sentries and blew the mine safe. It was the day the Ophir was due to ship out to Caprock and there was plenty of gold. Fifteen thousand bucks’ worth to be exact.”

  Benedict whistled.

  “They got away with fifteen grand?”

  “Clear away,” Brazos confirmed. “Nobody knew at first who pulled the job. Then behind the safe they found this here hat with my name burned into the band.” The Texan paused to consider the enormity of such a thing, then continued. “Seems the hat slipped down behind the safe and the thieves forgot it, or had to get out quick. Anyways, the sheriff went lookin’ for this pair of beauties that claimed to be us, only they was gone and ain’t been sighted since. The Ophir boss was so peeved he slapped a five-thousand-dollar bounty on ’em right off and had the posters printed up by daylight yesterday. Reckon he hopes somebody’ll nail the bandits before they get the chance to spend his fifteen grand.”

  Smoke trickled from Benedict’s lips. His eyes were thoughtful now. “This killer this pair of bandits was supposed to be after—came from the Nations, you say?”

  “Accordin’ to what I was told,” Brazos replied, turning to face him.

  “Then that probably explains how they chose our names, Johnny Reb, as you’ll recall we worked as bounty hunters in the Nations several months ago.”

  “Hell, I’d clean overlooked that, Yank. You mean to say those jokers could be somebody we met down there?”

  “Not necessarily. You’ll remember that we earned considerable publicity during our visit to the Nations?”

  Brazos nodded. Blazing shootouts with desperadoes such as they had survived in Nazareth last spring, invariably commanded wide attention.

  He said, “So mebbe we know how these varmints come to choose our names, Yank, and we sure as hell know what they’ve done in this man’s town. But what I want to know is, where does that leave us?”

  Benedict considered. It was one thing to have your name carry the breath of notoriety as his sometimes did, but it was another matter entirely to have a WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE tab hanging onto it. It seemed pretty obvious that the pseudo-Benedict and Brazos had robbed the Ophir and made off with the loot, and it seemed a fair bet also, that having eluded capture so far, the bandits might well remain at large. That meant the names of Duke Benedict and Hank Brazos would adorn the Wanted dodgers permanently, unless they did one of two things. They could either go to the law and establish their true identities, or they could attempt to hunt down the bandits, clear their names, and earn themselves five thousand dollars into the bargain.

  Of course they could attempt to do both, he realized, thinking further. They could reveal their identities and then go man-hunting. But that posed a prickly problem relating to a recent incident in Tascoa. That woman’s husband had been asking for trouble when he tried to blow Duke Benedict apart with a shotgun after finding him with his wife in a mildly compromising situation, and Benedict was sure he was justified in defending himself. Unfortunately, he broke the irate husband’s leg in the process and it was just bad luck that the man was a deputy sheriff, prompting him and the Reb to leave sunny Tascoa with all speed.

  A small thing?

  It seemed like that in retrospect, though that touchy Tascoa deputy had hollered loud and long after they left. What if news of that affair had seeped through to Larrabee? Wouldn’t it be probable that the Larrabee law might take a dim view of a man involved in such an outrageous business presuming to start up bounty hunting over here?

  It seemed a real possibility to Duke Benedict. But of course it depended a great deal on the kind of law Larrabee ran to ...

  “I believe,” he said, getting to his feet, “that a visit to the sheriff’s office may clarify the situation. Then we might be in a better position to make a p
lan of action, Johnny Reb.”

  “Sounds all right,” Brazos replied, also rising. “But I got me a look at the badge packer when I was leaving the High Pocket Saloon and I might as well warn you he don’t look rightly the amiable type. They say this jasper runs a mighty tight outfit and don’t take nothin’ from nobody.”

  Benedict set his hat at a jaunty angle. “Let’s see how he fares against the Benedict charm,” he smiled. And Bullpup growled, as though he could identify overbearing vanity with both eyes closed.

  It was less than ten minutes later when the two tall newcomers to Larrabee emerged from the city law office. They looked ruffled. The Benedict charm had shattered on the rock of Sheriff Reade Dusang’s hostility towards anybody and everybody who threatened to make the situation in this town any more complicated than it was already.

  In the brief course of their conversation at the office, Brazos and Benedict had discovered that Sheriff Dusang considered he had the investigation of the robbery of his father’s mine firmly in hand, that he anticipated an early arrest, that he certainly didn’t require any outside help.

  “The mine gets robbed two nights back,” Brazos growled around a freshly lit cigarette, “his cells are empty and he don’t even have a posse out huntin’ any longer. That hardnose might allow he don’t need help, but it seems to me like he does and is just too mule-headed to know it.”

  Benedict nodded slowly, still annoyed by the brusque reception they had been given.

  “Perhaps we can kill three birds with the one stone here,” he mused. “By tracking down ‘Messrs. Benedict and Brazos’, we could clear our names of the taint of dishonesty, earn ourselves a handsome reward and give ourselves the pleasure of making Sheriff Dusang look like a blame fool into the bargain.” He ventured a subdued version of his reckless gambler’s smile. “How does that hit you, Texas?”

  “If hits me just goddamn right,” Brazos declared without hesitation, his feathers still ruffled. “And it seems to me if we pull it off, I’m fixin’ to get pleasured by trimmin’ that lawman down to size. Where do we start, Yank?”

  “At the Drover’s House.”

  “Good thinkin’. Best place to hunt for leads, a saloon.”

  “Who’s talking about leads?” Benedict countered, starting off. “What we need right now is a stiff drink.”

  Hank Brazos agreed that was good thinking too, and he started off after Benedict’s tall figure, with purposeful stride, thumbs hooked in shell belt, battered hat pushed back from his blond thatch. He didn’t glance back at the law office, but had he done so he would have glimpsed the hawk-like face of Larrabee’s young sheriff staring out at them through his dust-specked window with an expression that was almost a gold-plated guarantee that their stay in Larrabee was going to be anything but pleasant.

  The hard-driving young peace officer of Larrabee didn’t like the look of that flashy dude and the hulking Texan. He didn’t like the look of them at all.

  The doctor held up his forefinger.

  “How many fingers do you see?”

  “Two of course!” snapped Shorty Cocker irritably. “How many do you expect a man to see?”

  “Hmm,” Doc Vanderbilt murmured, removing his stethoscope and rising. He stared down at his patient through wire-rimmed spectacles. “Yes, most interesting indeed ...” Like all western physicians worthy of the name, the Rogan City medic was as vague as a patent medicine advertisement and mysterious as a dark night in New Orleans.

  “And what in Jehoshaphat is that supposed to mean?” demanded Shorty. The tough little night-guard from the Ophir Mining Company over in Larrabee had been seeing double ever since the gold bandits sneaked up on him and cracked him across the skull with something hard and heavy. The Larrabee horse doctor thought he might have a fractured skull and had sent him across to Vanderbilt in Rogan City for a more thorough examination. Shorty thought the whole business a lot of buffalo dust, though he still saw double, and his head still ached like the devil.

  “It means,” Vanderbilt said loftily, “that I shall need to keep you under close observation for some time. I suggest you find suitable accommodation here and visit me daily. I shall furnish you with medication, and of course you must rest.”

  Shorty blinked. A touchy little man with a bull jaw and hair-trigger temper, he had never been really hurt, nor really rested, in forty-four years.

  “Is my head busted or ain’t it?” he almost shouted.

  “Only time will tell,” came the reply.

  “Benedict and Brazos!” Cocker muttered as he grabbed up the sawn-off scattergun that was as much a part of him as his wild shock of hair and ruddy complexion.

  “Pardon?” murmured Vanderbilt, thinking his patient was using bad language again.

  “Them that slugged me and robbed the mine,” Cocker informed him crankily. “Benedict and Brazos,” he repeated, and brandished the shotgun. “By Judas, I’m here to tell you that if I cross tracks with them, you’re gonna have two genuine patients on your hands, even if I can’t see straight. That’s of course if they don’t get shipped direct to the undertakers.”

  “I suggest you leave that weapon here, Mr. Cocker,” Vanderbilt warned, alarmed at the possibilities of mayhem.

  But Shorty Cocker was not about to go berserk. Or so he reassured the medic. “Don’t you get to frettin’ none, Doc,” he declared, reaching for the door handle. “It’s only them skunks I’ll be layin’ for, nobody else.”

  “I hope that’s the case, Mr. Cocker. But you must keep in mind the fact that your vision is sorely impaired. Should you encounter anybody who looks like these outlaws you intend to—ah—bring to justice, I suggest you take a second look to make sure they’re the men who assaulted you.”

  “No need for that, on account I ain’t seen ’em, Doc.”

  Vanderbilt blinked. “You ain’t? I mean, you don’t know what these men look like?”

  “Yes. Never seen ’em in Larrabee and sure as hell never caught a glimpse when they jumped me at the mine. But don’t worry, Doc, I’ll know ’em when I flush ’em.” He tapped his nose shrewdly as he went out. “The old Cocker instinct ain’t gonna let me down when that time comes ... so don’t you worry, Doc.”

  He kept saying that, but Vanderbilt felt even more worried than before. Times like this, the physician reflected wearily, he wished he’d become a vet. He felt quite certain that he was personally acquainted with any number of mules with more sense than sawn off Shorty Cocker.

  They had known many kinds of darkness in their lives. But they had never known anything like this. It was darkness thick and enveloping. There was no moon, no sun and no stars. No breath of breeze, no sound but that of their own breathing as they worked.

  It was like the darkness of the tomb.

  They worked side by side on the tunnel they were trying to dig around the rusted steel of the shaft door, worked and scratched while the world outside roasted under a Colorado summer sun, or slept under the moon.

  They had lost track of time. Down here, a man could only measure his life by the thud of his heartbeat, could only vaguely assess the length of his imprisonment by the amount of soil and rock he was piling up behind him in the shaft.

  The tools they used in their labor were crudely fashioned from pieces of wood and metal found in the shaft of the Conniption mine where they were imprisoned. They used pieces of wood and an old tin mug to scrape the loosened rubble back and sharpened wheel spokes taken from an ancient ore-truck for the digging. Billy Packard, stronger and more energetic than Coley Wilde, did most of the digging and left the dispersal of the rubble to the older man. They had no way of judging how far they must burrow through the grudging earth to tunnel their way around the door into the main shaft, only knew they must dig and dig until their last breath if needs be if they ever hoped to get free.

  Free!

  The word sustained blond-headed Billy as he worked feverishly in the darkness with his crude tools. He was using his paddles now. Over the days, hours, weeks or whatever, he had devised a system of shifting the loosened dirt back behind him with two pieces of shoring timber fashioned like bent paddles with sharpened edges. He would dig into the loose soil vigorously, working it back on either side of his kneeling body like a kneeling man rowing a canoe. Later, when he plucked up the energy, Coley would scrape the earth further back with his dixie cup.