Benedict and brazos 15, p.1
Benedict and Brazos 15, page 1
part #15 of Benedict and Brazos Series
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The note just about summed it up.
“Señor Benedict is now my prisoner and will be held for ransom. You will ride to Panhandle, New Mexico, and wire the Americano’s rich father in Boston. He is to wire back the sum of fifty thousand dollars care of Señor Montoya. If you fail to do this or if the rich man does not pay, Benedict will be shot. If you do as I say he will be freed unharmed.”
Although the note was unsigned, it had come from a psychopathic bandit-turned-revolutionary named Paulo Parada. And from everything Hank Brazos learned about him, Parada’s word was worthless. He killed men just for the pleasure of seeing them fall … which meant that his partner, Duke Benedict, would end up as just another notch on Parada’s gun whether the ransom was paid or not …
BENEDICT AND BRAZOS 15: MADIGAN’S LAST STAND
By E. Jefferson Clay
First published by Cleveland Publishing Co. Pty Ltd, New South Wales, Australia
© 2020 by Piccadilly Publishing
First Electronic Edition: December 2020
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.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information or storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.
This is a Piccadilly Publishing Book
Series Editor: Ben Bridges
Text © Piccadilly Publishing
Table of Contents
One – The Trap
Two – One Dead Bandido
Three – The Reprieve
Four – Panhandle Blues
Five – The Boy Colonel
Six – The Segundo
Seven – The Big Dinero
Eight – Ota Kte
Nine – No Way Out
Ten – Death or Glory
About the Author
One – The Trap
Somewhere close by a furtive sound disturbed the stillness of the velvet Mexican night.
“Chata?”
No answer. Duke Benedict started towards the line of trees where the faint sound had come from, his Peacemaker at the ready. He halted, frowning down at the big white-handled gun, its long, blue barrel gleaming coldly in the moonlight. Why had he hauled iron at that slight sound? Did he subconsciously mistrust the girl he was to meet here—despite his protests to the contrary when Hank Brazos had warned him against Chata last night? Of course not, he told himself with a frown of annoyance as he housed the big Colt in his right-hand holster. His reaction had simply been that of a man too long on the wild trails; it was no more complicated than that.
His hands empty now, the tall ex-Union officer squared his broad shoulders and walked slowly and deliberately towards the trees again. He halted when the rustling sound was repeated, and moments later his white smile flashed as a small, furry creature emerged from the brush and scuttled off towards the lake with its black-and-white striped tail indignantly erect. A skunk. Lucky for him the little fellow wasn’t as jumpy as he was, otherwise the pure sweet air of Agua Negra Springs would be smelling worse than a Mexican garbage dump.
Still smiling, Benedict turned to glance back at his tethered horse, then he walked slowly to the lake’s edge, propped a polished black boot up on a weathered blue stone and took out his silver cigar case. Selecting a Havana, he touched it into life with match flame and once again he occupied himself with pleasant thoughts of the night ahead.
Chata could not have chosen a more idyllic spot for their tryst. Agua Negra was a small, crystal clear lake set some miles up in the mountains above the tiny border town of Gran Morelos. The spring which fed the lake gushed from a cliff higher up in the mountain. Steep hills dark with pine rose above it, and the great, peaked towers of the Altar Mountains were beyond. The spring poured through mossy boulders into the lake in a broad and grassy basin where wild sheep and deer sometimes came to graze, and where the still, clear waters lay so dark in the shadows of the trees that the lake had been named the Agua Negra—the Black Water. A haunted, lovely place, it might have been designed just for lovers.
Of course they weren’t lovers yet, but with the confidence of a handsome man, Duke Benedict knew this would only be a matter of time. From the moment she had walked into the cantina last night, her wild black hair framing her savagely beautiful face, he’d sensed something between them; an electric attraction that soon had them together on the little dance floor, twirling to the music of Jose Moreno’s steel guitar.
Smoke trickled from Benedict’s smiling mouth as he recalled Brazos’ earnest concern after several spirited dances. “You’d better step careful with that one, Yank,” the giant Texan had warned. “You know what these Mex girls are like—and you sure as hell know how these greasers take on when you get to messin’ with their womenfolk. Just remember we ain’t in our own country—and we’ve had more’n enough trouble down here to last us a coon’s age.”
He’d been right about one thing, Benedict was prepared to concede. Having just survived hundreds of dangerous miles, spiked with a spell in a foul Mex prison and a hair-raising clash with the Federales further south during the hunt for renegade Bo Rangle—they’d had their fill of trouble for the time being. But of course the lovely Chata wasn’t trouble; she was just a magnificent señorita of Old Mexico who’d chanced to meet him in a cantina, liked what she saw, and was ready to see the thing through to its natural conclusion. With Brazos being as straight-laced as a seventy-year-old spinster where matters of the heart were concerned, Benedict couldn’t expect him to understand why Chata had arranged their rendezvous for tonight. Hank Brazos’ idea of a mighty time with a girl was to walk her to church on Sunday morning.
Benedict had just finished the cigar when she came. She rode out of the trees on the far side of the lake, checked her palomino when she saw him standing there, then heeled the horse forward to join him.
Benedict watched, fascinated. Last night he had already generously sampled Jose’s excellent wine before he’d seen her, and he’d wondered later if that might have partially affected his judgment. But now, with the moonlight in her raven hair and her lushly curved body revealed by the clinging riding pants, he saw that she was even more striking than he’d remembered. Again he marveled at how it had all happened. During two months in Mexico, he’d met scores of pretty girls, but it hadn’t been until they’d come to seedy Gran Morelos, ready to cross the border into the United States, that he’d met the girl who made all the others look downright plain by comparison. He recalled that it had been Hank Brazos’ idea to stop off at Gran Morelos for a couple of days to rest up before crossing over. He must buy Johnny Reb a beer for that ...
The horse drew up before him. “You came.” Her voice was husky.
“But of course.” Benedict’s eyes were riveted on her face as he moved to the horse to hand her down. She brushed against him, her face inches from his. He was acutely aware of the warm, healthy smell of her, the fragrance of her hair.
She kissed him in an almost casual way that he found fascinating, then she touched her fingers to his cheek and moved out of his arms.
“I have brought wine and my guitar.” She smiled, gesturing at her horse. “It is a fine night for wine and music, is it not?”
It was a night for anything and everything that was good, as far as Duke Benedict was concerned, but it was only when she suggested they build a fire that he was aware of the coldness of the night air. He set about gathering twigs and dead branches and soon had a roaring fire going on the grassy bank of the lake. She had packed food along with the wine, and quickly she heated a roasted chicken over the fire. Then, with the moon and the winking stars looking down, they ate and drank the heady wine and looked into each other’s eyes.
When the meal was over, she rose with the effortless grace that was a part of her and smiled down at him, hands on her flaring hips.
“You play the guitar, hombre?”
“After a fashion.” He’d picked up the rudiments of guitar playing during that week in the Mex jailhouse.
“You will play for me and I will dance, no?”
“I’ll do my best.”
She handed him the guitar, and Benedict, inspired, was better than he realized. The chords drifted across the mirrored waters of Agua Negra to blend with the whisper of the pines. Chata removed her velvet jacket, displaying a white silk blouse scooped low over deep breasts. Then she began to dance, slowly at first, her eyes closed, absorbing the music, letting it fill her. The tempo of the music began to increase. Bare-footed, the girl circled the fire, hips swaying, the velvet pants outlining the long curves of her legs. Faster and faster the girl whirled, her supple body moving in sensual accord with the guitar until she and the music and the deep Mexican night were all of a piece. She danced with her black-lashed eyes never leaving Benedict’s face. Then his hands on the guitar went still.
He rose. She stood with her hair thrown back, breasts heaving, the moonlight full in her face. The guitar dropped to the grass as Benedict moved to take her into his arms. For a dizzy moment she was all warm compliance, then she pushed back a little with a frown.
“The guns, hombre,” she whispered huskily. “The guns are not romantic.”
<
And it was then, in the midst of that unforgettable moment, that Benedict felt the hard, cold muzzle of the gun against the back of his neck.
He froze.
Inches from his face, he saw the girl’s simulated passion and desire fade, to be replaced with a look of triumph that sent ice coursing through his veins.
“Arise, señor,” a soft, mocking male voice said behind him. “Arriba—quickly!”
He turned his head. The firelight danced on the lean shapes of Mexicans and their huge hats and the six-guns glinting in their hands. The cold pressure of the gun muzzle against his neck held as he got to his knees. He stared bleakly at the girl. Now she was smiling at him.
Brazos had been right. She’d set and baited the trap and he’d blundered into it.
“You bitch!” he hissed, then the Colt barrel smashed across the back of his head. He tried to reach for her and the weapon struck again. The world exploded, then he floated silently on a sea of darkness.
Hank Brazos, his hat tilted to the back of his head and his faded purple shirt unbuttoned to the waist, hunkered by the ashes of the campfire on the shore of Agua Negra, scowling down at the piece of paper in his hand.
The letter he’d found conspicuously tagged to a stone before the campfire told him nothing, for he couldn’t read or write. But Brazos, an expert tracker, didn’t need a note to tell him what had taken place here last night. When his partner didn’t return to Gran Morelos, the giant Texan had first checked the dives and saloons, then he’d picked up the sign of Benedict’s black leading from town and heading for the Altars. He’d seen where Benedict had ridden in at the lake and tethered his fancy black horse. He’d seen the tracks the girl’s horse had made in coming from the east side—and where the ten Mexicans afoot had approached from the south.
Hank Brazos sighed. With a gun, a deck of cards or a mouthful of fancy words, Duke Benedict was about the smartest pilgrim he’d ever met, but when it came to women the Yank could be as big a fool as God ever put breath into. Benedict could be going along fine in his high-stepping arrogant way, then something with fluffy hair and long eyelashes would cut across his tracks and there’d be trouble. Brazos had lost count of the number of times he’d had to extricate Benedict from a perilous situation brought on by a woman. Admittedly, Benedict had saved his life several times, but that was different. He never deliberately looked for trouble, particularly after being warned against it.
The fact that he’d warned Benedict against the black eyed Chata galled Brazos now. The moment he’d seen the richly curved Mexican wildcat at Jose’s Cantina, warning bells had started ringing in his head. Girls who looked that good and that wild just had to mean trouble, so he’d taken Benedict aside and warned him as firmly as he knew how. But had he taken any notice? Not him. Not Mr. High Stepping Armaduke Creighton Benedict the Third, no sir. He’d got himself duded up and had slipped out of town to keep his fool rendezvous, and now there was only a note on a scrap of paper that Brazos couldn’t read.
It wasn’t the first time Hank Brazos had found himself totally disgusted by the impetuous actions of his trail partner, and if he ever got to see Benedict alive again after this, doubtless it wouldn’t be the last. Theirs was an odd partnership indeed—an illiterate Texas cowpoke and the educated, handsome son of a wealthy Boston banker.
They’d met in the dying days of the Civil War, when a Confederate detail commanded by Sergeant Hank Brazos was attacked by a Federal company led by Captain Duke Benedict while attempting to get a wagonload of Confederate gold out of Georgia. The two forces had fought to a bloody standstill, only to have the gold snatched away by the infamous Rangle’s Raiders, a vicious band of marauders who preyed on both North and South with impartial savagery. Hank Brazos and Duke Benedict had survived, the sole remnants of one hundred and fifty brave fighting men. Chance had brought them together at war’s end, and they had joined forces to hunt down Bo Rangle and the fortune in gold that so many brave men had died for.
That had been over six months and thousands of violent miles ago. They’d fought Bo Rangle, desperadoes, crooked lawmen, ambitious cattlemen, all the rag-tag and hard cases of the wild frontier. And they had also fought each other. Yet the unlikely partnership had worked, for Hank Brazos’ rugged fists and outdoor skills neatly complemented Benedict’s razor-sharp intelligence and lightning-fast gun. Somehow they’d come through situations when all logic suggested they should have perished. This was mainly because each had come to develop a sixth sense of what the other would do in a tight situation. Yes, the strange partnership worked—and it had never worked better than during the last hair-raising weeks in Old Mexico. And now, just as it seemed the last danger had been put behind, with sunny New Mexico calling to them from less than twenty miles distant, Benedict had let himself get kidnapped.
The Texan’s gloomy thought chain was broken by the return of his dog. Brazos had sent Bullpup off on a scouting mission around the area to see if he might pick up anything he’d overlooked, and the yellow-eyed beast hadn’t let him down. Clamped between Bullpup’s powerful teeth was a slender length of crimson hair ribbon.
Small white creases showed at the corners of Brazos’ broad mouth as he turned the ribbon over in his fingers. Then he lifted it close to his face and nodded when he caught the lingering scent of perfume. The ribbon belonged to the girl. Even without this evidence, he’d been certain that Chata had been here last night, having identified the prints of the golden palomino which she’d ridden from Gran Morelos.
Brazos slowly came erect and stared up at the pine-clothed slopes of the Altar Mountains, thinking hard about the why and wherefore of what had happened here. Benedict had been lured here by the girl, then jumped by ten Mexicans who’d carted him into the mountains without making any attempt to conceal their sign.
Why?
It just didn’t add up. He and Benedict were strangers here; they had neither friends nor enemies. Why should people go to such lengths to abduct a man like Benedict? What did they stand to gain? And who were they?
Brazos’ gaze came down to the note again. If only he’d learned to read and write! To get the note read, he would have to return to Gran Morelos, and while he was doing that, the Mexicans might be taking the Yank farther and farther away.
He decided that he could delay no longer in taking up the trail. The only thing that had held him here this long was puzzlement over the sign. As soon as he’d seen that the Mexicans had made no attempt to obliterate their tracks, he’d become cautious. It was almost as if they were inviting pursuit, and that was more than enough to make a trail wise veteran like himself cautious. Benedict had marched into a trap, and perhaps he’d be doing the same thing, by following. But he knew what he’d expect Benedict to do if their positions were reversed.
He spun on his heel and strode for the appaloosa.
The trail rose steeply from the Agua Negra Basin, winding through tall stands of pine, dotted here and there with birch. Brazos rode with his cocked six-gun in his lap, every sense alert. Tree shadows dappled his wide shoulders and the harmonica hanging on a cord from his neck winked in the sunlight. Restlessly his eyes swept the area, his gaze returning continually to the huge spotted dog who trotted some thirty yards ahead. Brazos had total confidence in his own senses, but he was relying on Bullpup to transmit the first warning in case of danger. The moment that dog propped or pricked his ears, two hundred and twenty pounds of Texan was going to be spurring for cover.
It was virgin country up here, with no other sign of man’s intrusion except the hoofmarks that stretched ahead. Deer scattered before him as he struck deeper and deeper into the mountain fastness. Cottontails streaked for the nearest brush cover. Once the appaloosa shied and Bullpup barked as a big covey of quail exploded from deep grass. A mile farther on, they went wide of a black she-bear standing on her hind legs. She roared a warning at them to keep away from the pair of whimpering cubs at her heels. A short distance farther on, they disturbed a long-bearded turkey gobbler. Bullpup, conscious that this was serious business they were about, refrained from giving chase. The big bird trotted ahead for a short distance, then took to the air with heavy wing beats, angling away from the stone cliffs that showed suddenly above the trees ahead.
