After half a minute of hefty hugs and delighted gurglings on the Amazon’s part, and some impressive squirming and red-faced embarrassment on the part of Hank Brazos, it was left to a gaping Dave Grady to ask the obvious question:
“You know this bum, Miss Hetty?”
“Of course I know him, you jackass,” came the ready reply as the huge woman finally released her ruffled captive. “This here is Henry Brazos from Frog Hollow, Texas.”
“Henry?” echoed Benedict.
“Oh, he never did like that name,” Hetty beamed, chucking Henry Brazos under the chin. Then, to the badge, “And he’s no bum either, Dave Grady. He’s an honest, God-fearin’ young fellow—aren’t you, Henry?”
Brazos looked too confused to answer. But there were others with plenty to say, and the first one to get going was battered Scobie Passlow who looked exactly like a man who had been blown about by a playful tornado.
“Miss Hetty,” the saloonkeeper said firmly, “you’ve got no business interfering with serious matters like this. These two hell raisers near took my saloon apart and—”
“Oh, hush up, Scobie Passlow,” the woman snorted. “All they did was raise a little dust. Since when is that breaking the law in Glory? Heavens, if it was against the law, I’d be in trouble every week, for I have to thump Rumer one every time he deserves it.”
There were a few chuckles at that, and despite the glares and grumbling of the Prairie Flower bunch, it was plain that what might have developed into a dangerous situation was rapidly going off the boil.
“Which is about every second night,” Hetty laughed to the crowd. This time there was general laughter in response and a wag asked:
“Does he hit back, Hetty?”
“He knows better than that, boys. There’s only room for one man in my establishment, and I’m it!”
The line was delivered for laughs and drew plenty. Standing only a few feet from the sheriff, Benedict could plainly see the man’s frustration. Passlow spoke angrily to Grady and the sheriff spread his hands as if to say, “What can I do?”
Passlow ground his teeth as Hetty smiled fondly at the abashed Brazos, then Passlow said grittily, “Well, all I can say is that it’s coming to something when two hard cases can come into town, bust up a man’s saloon, beat up innocent citizens and—”
“You talk too much and always did, Scobie Passlow,” cut in Hetty Judd. She pointed a large, accusing finger at the man. “And as for this ‘innocent citizens’ business—I’ll wager I know exactly what took place in your saloon. You and your scurvy friends decided to have a little sport at the expense of two strangers, only you picked the wrong marks and now you’re screaming for the law. Shame on you, Scobie Passlow!”
It was plainly not one of Scobie Passlow’s better days, and it didn’t get any better when somebody from the edge of the swelling crowd called out:
“Better call it quits, Scobie, otherwise you’ll get Hetty’s dander up, and everybody knows she could lick you one-handed.”
Passlow’s expression turned choleric. He searched the crowd for the tumbleweed wit but couldn’t identify him. Then he turned angrily on Grady, but the sheriff was polishing his badge. Finally, with a muttered curse, he spun on his heel and strode for the saloon, followed by a bedraggled stream of customers, with Hetty Judd’s contemptuous voice following them.
“Don’t take it too hard, Scobie. Save up your steam for the next time the Yellowhouse rascals come to town!”
Sensing that the show was about over, the crowd began to disperse as Hetty turned back to Brazos, smiling fondly at him again.
“Well, well, Henry, I just can’t get over seeing you again. What on earth brings you to Glory? And who’s this pilgrim you’ve got with you?”
“Duke Benedict,” supplied the gambling man, sweeping off his hat. “At your service.”
“My, aren’t you the good-looking one.” Hetty giggled girlishly, giving Benedict a playful nudge in the ribs that probably did him more damage than all the assorted fists, bottles and boots of the Prairie Flower Saloon. Then sweeping a glance around the assembled faces, she went on, “All right, Duke Benedict, you can come along with Henry and me to the house where we can renew old acquaintances in private. Step aside, you loafers, we’re comin’ through. Come along, Henry.”
They set off along the street, Hetty holding Brazos’ arm and chattering gaily, Bullpup looking totally mystified, and Benedict wearing a puzzled frown until suddenly he stopped dead in his tracks.
“Hetty Judd!”
Hetty paused, glancing over her shoulder. “Why, yes, that is my name, good lookin’. But how’d you know?”
Benedict’s smile was malicious as he drew abreast. “Oh, Hank, er, I mean Henry, spoke a great deal about you, Miss Hetty.”
“You romantic fool, Henry,” Hetty beamed, nudging Brazos and causing him to wince. They started off again with Hank Brazos hanging his big head.
And so he should, Benedict mused gleefully, reflecting on the many campfire hours he’d sat listening to the big Texan reminisce about Hetty Judd: “The most beautiful little girl in all Texas,” the great love of his life from the old days before the war. According to Brazos, Hetty Judd was the sweetest, slimmest, shyest Texas flower to ever draw breath, a paragon of all the feminine virtues and attributes; the sort of ethereal, unattainable goddess that lonesome cowboys dreamed about all the way from the Mississippi to the Pacific. That was the picture he’d painted so glowingly of sweet Hetty Judd and now here she was, two hundred pounds of aggressive Amazon on the hoof. Either Brazos’ memory had played him cruelly false, or Hetty had changed a lot over the years. Whichever way it was, Benedict could see himself getting some good mileage out of a situation that understandably seemed to have drained every last ounce of cockiness from Henry Hank Brazos.
Yet, absorbing as the past relationship undoubtedly was, Benedict didn’t dwell on it for long when he realized that here was an opportunity to find out a little more about Glory. As far as he was concerned, Glory was just a place they were passing through, but he couldn’t help but be curious about a town so obviously full of fear, aggression and suspicion. Now, waiting for a pause in Hetty’s one-sided conversation with Brazos, he said:
“Miss Hetty, perhaps you could tell me what is wrong with this man’s town? Brazos and I have hung up our hats in some rough communities, but it’s been a long time since we’ve seen a place that seems so downright unfriendly. That’s so, isn’t it, Reb?”
Brazos, pleased at the opportunity to switch the subject from “those lovely days back home in Frog Hollow,” said, “Sure enough, Benedict,” and then he looked expectantly at the woman who had turned quite sober at Benedict’s question. “What’s the set-up here, Hetty?”
Hetty sighed gustily, looked regretfully about her, then shook her head. “I don’t think you would be really interested, boys. I mean, there are a lot of us who do their damnedest to lift this town up out of the hole it’s fallen into, but it’s a losing battle for sure. All in all, it’s not the sort of thing strangers really want to hear about.”
“Why don’t you try us, Hetty?” said Brazos.
Hetty closed one eye and studied them both. After a silence, she said, “You really want to know all the grimy details?”
“I believe we do, Miss Hetty,” answered Benedict.
Hetty looked speculatively at Brazos who sensed that though she wanted to go on reminiscing, her town, and whatever ailed it, was very important to her.
“Well, all right, if you have a taste for sad stories,” she finally decided. “But let’s get on to the rooming house first and I’ll rustle up some coffee and chow. Got me a feelin’ you fellers ain’t put yourself around a square meal in more’n a few hours—and me, well, I can always eat.” She smiled. “How’s that sound, Henry?”
Henry allowed that it sounded just fine. But as they started on their way again, Benedict guessed that Brazos, normally the heartiest of knife-and-forkers, might find it a little difficult to put a square meal away.
Love could have that effect on a man.
Hetty Judd’s Rooming House for Gentlemen stood at the southern end of Republic Street opposite the dilapidated church. It was a big frame building with shade trees in the front, and its cleanliness in dusty Glory said a lot for the energies of Hetty who could wield a broom with a vigor and skill that was matched only by her talent at the stove.
Benedict, who considered himself a connoisseur of good food, was more than agreeably surprised by the quality of the meal Hetty sat down before them in the big, airy front parlor less than twenty minutes later. He’d expected the usual steak, but instead found himself eating cold mutton salad, beautifully presented with salad greens and a dressing that would have done justice to a French chef. There was freshly baked bread, pats of fine butter, and, best of all, good coffee. It had been almost a week since he tasted a worthwhile cup of coffee and Hetty kept it coming.
As he’d expected, Brazos showed little interest in the food, but that could have been because his partner was, like Benedict himself, more interested in what Hetty told them of Glory.
It started when Sheriff Cleve Barrow was killed. Barrow had been a real lawman and more than a match for the rustlers, thieves and gunmen who had plagued Sundown Valley three years ago. But then the Greathouse brothers, Luther and Shiloh, had taken over the sprawling Yellow House River Ranch fifteen miles south of Glory, and the real trouble started. The Greathouses were from Texas where rustling was still held to be a legitimate enterprise in some quarters. Legitimate or not in Sundown Valley, the brothers had opened up large-scale rustling operations, and when Cleve Barrow tried to bring them in, he’d been ambushed and killed.
Following Barrow’s death, Glory had gone through a difficult time, with the Yellow House River bunch growing stronger and the town without an effective peace officer. The city council, of which Hetty was a member, hired two sheriffs over a six-month period, but one had been shot and the other put to rout by local hard cases. Glory went through another five-month period with the jailhouse boarded up until the council had elected to send for a town tamer by the name of Mick Lancaster.
Lancaster lasted almost a year and had gone a long way towards curbing the excesses of the Greathouses before he’d been back-shot. When they learned the identity of the town tamer’s killer, Duke Benedict suddenly stopped eating. Lancaster, according to Hetty, had been gunned down by Billy Hollister.
“We know the Hollisters, Hetty,” Brazos told her. “Leastways, Benedict does,” he added, and left it to Benedict to tell the woman about his old friendship with Ben Hollister and of the incident at Shafter’s way-station on the journey down from Beaumont.
Hetty fell silent for a long moment after that. Then she said quietly, “I know both them jokers myself on account of they come to town here every now and again, Duke. Ben Hollister ... well, it’s hard not to like that man, no matter what he is. But Billy? Well, he’s as bad as they come, and I reckon the only reason he’s still alive to raise trouble is because of Ben. He sure dotes on that no-good young killer, he surely does.”
“He surely does, Hetty,” Benedict said. “But please go on. You were telling us about when Lancaster was killed.”
Hetty sighed, then went on. It seemed that Lancaster’s death marked the end of any law worthy of the name in Glory. There had been a depressing succession of ineffectual sheriffs over the intervening year, spaced out by periods without any occupant of the jailhouse at all. Dave Grady, whom Hetty obviously despised, had lasted longer than most, but only because he refused, point blank, to put any restrictions on the Greathouse brothers or their wild ilk.
Pouring fresh coffee she went on to tell them about schoolteacher Homer Parnell. She admired Parnell greatly. Parnell had been beaten up and humiliated by the wild boys a dozen times since coming to Glory a year ago, but had not once deviated from his campaign to make Glory into a town fit to live in. The rough element treated the schoolteacher as something of a joke, but Hetty insisted that but for Parnell and his good work, Glory today would be completely in the hands of the lawless. Not only did the man teach school, but he had revived the church, ceaselessly petitioned the County Sheriff’s Office in Fargo City for bona fide peace-keepers, and in general set an example to all those who still held out some hope that Glory could be saved.
It sounded very much to Benedict and Brazos that Hetty painted Homer Parnell in colors that were a little too glowing. But before the meal was over they were given a chance to meet the man when he arrived at the rooming house to meet the newcomers and to apologize to them for the treatment they’d received at the Prairie Flower.
It was obvious from the moment the schoolteacher entered the room that Hetty had done no more than represent him as he was. A tall, scholarly man of fifty-odd with a fine head of silver hair and sensitive features, Parnell impressed them both as a good man, entirely without vanity. Benedict had met a few men like him in his time; men who so radiated goodness and concern for their fellows that they’d made him feel a little guilty. Brazos, almost totally lacking in cynicism, was obviously deeply impressed both by the man and his reason for coming to see them. Later, when Hetty was showing the schoolteacher out, the big Texan scratched his belly, frowned hard, and said:
“You know somethin’, Yank? It just ain’t right what’s been goin’ on in this town. I mean, you got good folks like Hetty and Parnell tryin’ to build somethin’ decent here. But they ain’t got no chance, just on account of a passel of mavericks who don’t have no more respect for the law than a hen’s got teeth.” He looked speculatively across at Benedict who was leaning back in his chair biting off the end of a long cigar. “You know what they need, Yank? They need a couple of jokers about our size who could take out the broom and start to sweep—”
“That’s far enough,” snapped Benedict, who knew only too well about his partner’s habit of taking other people’s troubles to heart. “We came to Glory looking for Rangle. We didn’t find him, so we’re moving on just as soon as our horses arrive.”
“But damn it all, Yank,” Brazos argued, leaning across the table, “these folks are livin’ in fear. You just heard what Hetty said about what goes on here Saturday nights—cowboys shootin’ up the street, brawlin’ and carousin’ and molestin’ decent folks. You mean to say you can hear about that sort of thing goin’ on and not want to do somethin’ about it?”
“And just what are you proposing we do about it, pin on stars and start shooting up cowboys? Is that what you’re suggesting?”
“Well ... well, not exactly that, Benedict. I don’t figure we’d have to go that—”
He broke off as Hetty came through the curtained alcove leading off the hallway.
“Did I hear you boys arguin’?” she asked in surprise.
“Of course not, dear lady,” Benedict smiled, rising as she resumed her seat at the table. “I was just reminding Henry that, regrettably, the length of our stay in town will depend on when our mounts arrive from the north. He seemed in a little confusion about that.”
The way Hetty’s face fell suggested that she might have entertained some doubts along the same lines herself. She looked at Brazos who stared hard at Benedict for a long time before sighing and shrugging his Herculean shoulders.
“I guess he’s right, Hetty. Like we told you, we’re huntin’ this joker Rangle and ...” His voice trailed off as he met the woman’s eyes. “Of course we’d like to stay and help you out if we could, Hetty, you realize that, don’t you?”
“Of course, Henry,” the woman assured him after a moment’s hesitation. Then, reaching out and touching his hand, she said, “But surely you’ll be here at least a few days, won’t you? I mean you can’t be rushin’ off after us meetin’ again after all these years, can you?”
Instantly apprehensive now that Hetty had that look in her eyes again, Brazos muttered, “Well, our horses should be arriving in a couple of days, Hetty, and ... and seein’ as how Benedict is so keen to get on the trail again ... That’s right, ain’t it, Yank?”
Benedict didn’t answer. He had observed a subtle stir of movement behind the curtain that closed off the hallway. With a silencing gesture at Brazos and Hetty, he rose noiselessly, moved casually and then lunged, grabbing two armfuls of curtain. Somebody yelped in terror. Benedict thrust his hand through the slit, got purchase on a coat and hauled forth a tiny, squirming man of about five feet two with mutton-chop whiskers and a fine complexion that at the moment was crimson with indignation.
“Unhand me! Release me!” Benedict’s unexpected catch shrieked. “How dare you!”
“Rumer!” Hetty Judd said in a shocked tone as she and Brazos jumped to their feet. “Rumer Paget,” she said ominously as Benedict released the little man. “What were you doing behind that curtain? You were eavesdropping, weren’t you?”
Glaring balefully at a bemused Benedict, Rumer Paget fussily adjusted his coat and put on an expression of shock. “Eavesdropping? Rumer T. Paget eavesdropping? Rubbish. I was merely on my way into the parlor when this ... this person laid hands on me.”
Benedict appraised sawn-off Rumer Paget with a mixture of amusement and suspicion. Then he said to Hetty, “Perhaps it was as he says. Perhaps he was on his way in.”
“Of course I was. Nobody can accuse Rumer T. Paget of sinking to eavesdropping. The very idea!”
“Just who is this prickly little joker anyway, Hetty?” Brazos wanted to know as he stared down at the little man from his great height.
“Rumer is my star boarder and a very good friend,” Hetty supplied with a fond smile. “He is also Glory’s top realtor. And at the moment, I believe he is jealous ... aren’t you, Rumer?”
“Jealous?” snorted the little man. “What on earth are you talking about, Hetty?”
Going quite coy, Hetty said, “Now tell the truth, Rumer, dear. You heard about Henry up the street and you came to see what was going on, didn’t you?”
“I came home because I forgot my ... my, er ...”
Rumer T. Paget didn’t seem quite able to remember what it was he’d forgotten. Suddenly he spun on his heel and disappeared through the curtains.
“Dear Rumer,” Hetty beamed, obviously tickled by the whole thing. “He’s really quite sweet, you know.”
“I’m sure he is, Hetty,” said Benedict, picking up his hat. “And now I must thank you for the superb meal and be on my way. I have to see about our accommodations at the hotel, but of course Henry will be staying on to chat over old times ... won’t you, Henry?”
Brazos’ face reddened as Benedict tipped his hat and left. The gambler paused at the front door to hear Hetty say fondly, “Well, alone at last, Henry ...” He smiled and put on his hat. That should even up for all the times he’d had to sit about, bored silly listening to Johnny Reb’s romantic reflections on “Hetty Judd, belle of Frog Hollow.”
Benedict’s smile faded as, walking towards the front gate, he saw the girl about to come in. A man who prided himself on his poise, he knew he was staring yet he couldn’t help it, for Glory had to be about the last place a man would expect to come face to face with a girl like this.
She was lovely. That was his first impression as he took in the tall, slender figure and the perfect oval of a face framed by a cloud of raven hair under a huge blue bonnet. But more than that, she was a lady. He was certain of it, even before she opened cherry-red lips and proved it beyond all doubt with her cultured, educated voice.
“Good afternoon, sir.”
Benedict swept off his hat. “Ma’am.”
Level, speculative blue eyes lingered on his face for a moment, then went beyond him to the house. “I’m looking for Mr. Parnell, sir,” she said. “I was told that he was seen coming along to Miss Hetty’s. Do you know if he is inside?”
“Mr. Parnell was here a short time ago, ma’am,” he told her. “But he left for the schoolhouse.” He put on his very best smile. “Permit me to introduce myself, ma’am. Duke Benedict at your service.”
Accustomed to having most women demonstrate a flattering and immediate interest in him at first meeting, Benedict found himself doubly impressed by her cool formality as she extended a small gloved hand.
“I am Victoria Parnell, Mr. Benedict.”
He lifted the hand to his lips, and a passing horseman almost fell off his horse at this glimpse of refinement in Glory.
“Then you would be Mr. Parnell’s daughter of whom I’ve already heard so much?”
That seemed to throw her a little off balance as she withdrew her hand from his. “I am,” she said a little uncertainly. Then, starting off, said, “Well, it was pleasant to meet you, Mr. Benedict.”
With two long strides, Benedict fell in beside her. “Miss Parnell, you must do me the honor of permitting me to escort you to your destination.”
She looked up at him and the way the sunlight danced in her eyes did disturbing things to him. “I’m sure there is no need for that, Mr. Benedict. I’m just going along to the schoolhouse. I’m really quite safe.”
“If you’ll forgive the impertinence, Miss Victoria, I’m not sure that that is so. Not if what I have heard about Glory is correct.”
She smiled at him. “You’re very persistent, aren’t you, Mr. Benedict? Very well, you may escort me to the schoolhouse.” She nodded. “We turn down Keen Street.”
They started off together. Glancing around, Benedict was amazed. He’d been unimpressed by his first look at Glory and his opinion of the place had deteriorated steadily from there on. Yet now, suddenly, it didn’t seem such a bad place if one was prepared to overlook a little heat and dust and several hundred unfriendly citizens and the bad men who showed up from time to time to raise hell and drink whisky with a chicken sheriff.
He wondered, while watching the way she smiled at a man they passed, what the gambling set-up was like here in Glory. Certainly there were three or four solid-looking saloons. It could just be that if there was some action to be had at the tables, it might be worth their while to stay on a while to see if he could build up their sadly depleted funds.
At least it was worth thinking about, he told himself ... trying to remember just how long it was since he’d found himself sharing the company of a woman of such true beauty and quality.