Benedict and Brazos Series by E. Jefferson Clay
Benedict and Brazos #9
Benedict and Brazos 09
E. Jefferson Clay
The town of Glory was anything but glorious. It was actually a town filled with fear—fear of the wild Yellow House River bunch, and an outlaw gang led by Ben Hollister, a bad man they called the Living Legend for his gun-speed.Duke Benedict and Hank Brazos had no intention of buying into Glory's troubles. All they wanted was a lead on Bo Rangle, the man they were hunting.But then a good man was shot dead by the Yellow House boys.That's when Benedict pinned on the town marshal's badge and together he and Brazos set about restoring law and order.With the Yellow House gang dealt with, there was still the matter of Ben Hollister, and a schemer in the shadows saw to it that he and Benedict would eventually clash.It was a showdown Benedict would have done anything to avoid. Because he and Holliday had once been friends. And it was the Living Legend who'd taught him everything he knew about guns, and how to use them.
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Benedict and Brazos #10
Benedict and Brazos 10
E. Jefferson Clay
As usual, Duke Benedict and Hank Brazos were low on funds ... until they ran into a drunken miner by the name of Arnie Woodcock. Arnie bore such an uncanny resemblance to a wanted outlaw called Turk Jory that it gave Benedict an idea. Suppose they were to turn Arnie in and claim the reward on Jory's head? They could then bust Arnie out of jail, quit the territory and split the money three ways.What could possibly go wrong?In short – everything.Nobody figured on the real Turk Jory showing up to take a look at the man who was to hang in his place.Nobody figured that he would use the hanging as a diversion while he hit the local bank.And nobody figured that Benedict and Brazos could still come out of the whole sorry mess as heroes!
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Benedict and Brazos #12
Benedict and Brazos 12
E. Jefferson Clay
Duke Benedict shook his head. "He's bluffing. He won't shoot."Slattery's thumb curled back the hammer of the .38. The girl's body went limp in Slattery's grip, her eyes huge pools of terror. The sound of Roley Dukes' nervous cough came loud as a gunshot in the sucked-in silence. Then Slattery started working the girl towards the batwings, and Benedict took two swift steps to cut him off.The color drained from Slattery's ugly face. "Goddamn you, I'll shoot!" he almost shrieked."Shoot and be damned," said Benedict.
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Benedict and Brazos #13
Benedict and Brazos 13
E. Jefferson Clay
After all the trails they'd followed, and all the times they'd stood shoulder-to-shoulder against one bad man or another, the time had finally come for Duke Benedict and Hank Brazos to ride their separate ways. And though they had never really gotten along too well, each man felt a sense of loss at the prospect.But Benedict had met and fallen in love with the beautiful Charity Flint. The couple were about to go back East and get married.Then Colonel Oliver Traven, an old friend of Benedict's, asked for his help. Traven's son Mark had gone missing three years earlier in the parched lands of the Llano Estacado – the Staked Plains. Traven wanted to make one last search for his son – or his son's body – before he gave up hope completely of ever seeing him again.Benedict couldn't refuse the man ... and before long he and Brazos were up to their shell belts in trouble. But the outcome of their search was to hold a terrible sting in the tail ... for...
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Benedict and Brazos #14
Benedict and Brazos 14
E. Jefferson Clay
Mack Halligan and Kid Chaney were rivals in more ways than one. They both loved the same woman, and she loved them, too ... though she could never decide which one to marry.But the two men also ran rival outlaw gangs. The difference was that Halligan's was hopeless, the men in it harmless and amateur, while Kid Chaney's was slick, efficient and always successful.When Chaney stole Duke Benedict's new horse, the gambling man made it his mission to track Chaney down and take the animal back. His big partner, Hank Brazos, agreed to side him on his quest. But Brazos had an ulterior motive.If they could put Kid Chaney behind bars, it would leave the way open for Mack Halligan to marry the girl of his dreams and return to the straight and narrow.But that was a big if. The Tiger twins, both notorious assassins, were after them on a separate matter... and a lot of men would die before they all reached trail's end!
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Benedict and Brazos #15
Benedict and Brazos 15
E. Jefferson Clay
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 ...
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Benedict and Brazos #30
A Day for Fools to Die (Benedict & Brazos 30)
E. Jefferson Clay
It looked like the end of the trail for Benedict and Brazos, when Brazos got mighty mysterious all of a sudden and just took off on his own. Benedict, the urbane gambler, reckoned he should be glad to be free of the lumbering Texas cowboy at last. Instead he missed having him around.So he followed him, to find out just what his little secret was.That was when the whole affair grew even more mysterious. Why did Brazos go all the back home to Wildhorse County, start throwing his weight around and bad-mouthing damn' Yankees at every opportunity?It was all part of an elaborate cross and double-cross that would eventually see both men fighting for their lives against a bunch of fanatics who called themselves the Second Army of the Confederate States!
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Benedict and Brazos #31
When Five Bells Toll (Benedict and Brazos 31)
E. Jefferson Clay
Benedict and Brazos had seen it all before—a supposedly genuine treasure map pointing to a priceless, solid gold statuette down in Old Mexico. According to legend, the Golden Virgin of Santo Sabinas had been hidden away in a spooky, disused monastery deep in the Sierra Espantosa, a vast range of almost impenetrable mountains that were said to be ... haunted!It was all hogwash, of course. But there was something about the map that looked genuine. And for a half-share in whatever treasure they managed to find, Benedict and Brazos decided to team up with two hard-luck brothers and a small boy who quickly began to idolize gun-swift Benedict.There was just one problem.Other greedier, crueler men also had their eyes on the Golden Virgin, as did a merciless colonel of Federales. And one way or another, he was going to have it ... even if it meant torturing Brazos half to death ... and then threatening to execute the child!
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Benedict and Brazos #32
A Man Called Diablo
E. Jefferson Clay
The plan was simple. Duke Benedict would stay in Nogales and build up a stake from his poker winnings, while Hank Brazos ran a string of horses south into Mexico. When they were financially solvent again, they'd reward themselves with a long, restful vacation. But they didn't count on Brazos getting himself arrested and sentenced to hang on a trumped-up murder charge. From that moment forward, Benedict had only one priority—to save his partner from a necktie social. To do just that, he agreed to throw in with a fearsome bounty hunter named Branch Lucas, who was in Mexico on business of his own. That business concerned a man called Diablo—a man of the people, who intended to free Toltepec Province from the yoke of slavery and had an entire army of renegades at his disposal. When Benedict and Brazos threw in with that army, the flame was lit, and the powder keg that was Toltepec Province was ready to explode!
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Benedict and Brazos #33
The Killing Ground (Benedict and Brazos 33)
E. Jefferson Clay
He was a dead man walking.He staggered into the hotel lobby with a knife sticking out of one ear, and when he hit the floor the blade finally penetrated his brain and finished him off once and for all.Unfortunately, there was no shortage of suspects. A lot of men had reason to hate Harvey Yardigan. But then a witness came forward to say that the murder had been committed by none other than Duke Benedict.Benedict and his partner, Hank Brazos, were in the town of Mirage on secret business. Midwest Territory was a hotbed of crime, murder and rustling. Things were so bad that folks had started calling it "The Killing Ground" instead. The fancy gambler and his big cowboy friend were sent in to clean the territory up ... but it seemed that someone else was already onto them – and would stop at nothing to make sure they failed in their mission!
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Benedict and Brazos #34
Benedict and Brazos 34
E. Jefferson Clay
Duke Benedict had killed Jory Archer in a gunfight six months earlier. Now Jory's brother, Teal, was itching to even the score. But to hedge his bets he took along a bunch of the toughest cutthroats ever to rob a stage or blow a bank safe.So Duke Benedict decided to get them before they could get him.What he didn't bank on was the Outlaw Queen Clementine Jones.Clementine had developed a soft spot for Teal. When he ran out on her, and took some of her best men with him, that affection turned to hate, and a burning desire for revenge.Suddenly the odds against Benedict went sky-high ... but luckily he had big Hank Brazos to back him, and together they were a veritable two-man army.War was declared in the desert ghost town called Hardluck. Before it was over, Boot Hill was going to get awful crowded ... and Clementine Jones was going to be dreadful sorry they'd ever tangled!
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Benedict and Brazos #36
Benedict and Brazos 36
E. Jefferson Clay
Down on their luck, Duke Benedict and Hank Brazos were forced to take jobs herding cattle up the Chisholm Trail to Abilene. It was no hardship for Brazos—he'd more or less been born in the saddle and was cowboy all the way through. But Benedict ... well, Benedict appreciated the finer things in life.So on impulse he quit the drive and headed for Abilene by himself, hoping to find himself a high-stakes poker game and a willing woman or two.What he found instead was a town under siege by the hell-raising Texas cowboys who wanted to let of steam at trail's end and didn't care who got injured along the way.Many men had worn the marshal's star in Abilene ... and many had failed to bring law and order to the town.Now it was Duke Benedict's turn.And plenty of blood would be spilled before the wild men of Texas learned that when Benedict wore a star, he meant business.
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Benedict and Brazos #37
Benedict and Brazos 37
E. Jefferson Clay
A ghost-town at midnight ... a hearse driven by a dead man ... and a coffin full of gold coins ...For Benedict and Brazos, it was the start of another bullet-fast adventure.Benedict felt they were entitled to keep the loot. Brazos wanted to do the decent thing and return it to its rightful owner.But what about Doc Sullivan, the ruthless killer who'd originally stolen and then lost it? He certainly wasn't about to lose out on a quarter-million dollars. Comes to that, neither was U S Marshal Cleve Elliott, who was determined to reclaim it and send it back where it rightly belonged.And then there was Milt Hinkle, and he was the one threat Benedict and Brazos didn't allow for ... because Milt Hinkle just happened to be Brazos's wayward cousin!
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