The one with the reins had blue eyes and long bushy sideburns of black hair—and a staccato vocal delivery when he demanded:
"You buy a pass off Gabe and the kid, Mac?"
"They made sure I did, feller."
The driver reined in the team and spat a globule of saliva to the side, in the path of the bay gelding. And Edge halted his mount.
"You reach the city before sundown, you'll get more than your money's worth, Mac," the passenger on the buckboard drawled in a deep Southern accent. He had a squint in one dark colored eye and the yellow stained teeth of an inveterate tobacco chewer. Was chewing a plug now, and ran his shirt sleeve left arm across his mouth to wipe away a trickle of juice that was spilled when he spoke. "Me and Chris are sure sick that we gotta miss seein' the show."
This man was entirely concerned with his disappointment and now ignored Edge to gaze resentfully into the middle distance directly ahead of the stalled buckboard and team. While Chris peered fixedly at the half-breed with a similar expression as he warned:
"If you figure you're a hard man, Mac, you've come to the right neck of the woods to find out how wrong you can be."
"Is there anything else the five dollars buys me, feller?"
"Uh?"
"Except for permission to cross Elgin County, a show in town and lessons about how I'm maybe not what I think I am?"
Chris deepened the lines of his scowl and spit again, his saliva hitting precisely the stain in the dust left by the earlier globule. And jerked his head to indicate that Edge should continue on up the slope as he rapped out:
"I can see what you think you are, Mac. See it in what you look like and hear it in how you talk. Ain't no maybe about it. And if you head into Elgin City, you best act more respectful. Or you could wind up part of the show."
"Bear in mind what Chris just told you, Mac," the other man urged, to reveal that he was aware of what was happening close by while he continued to reflect sourly on more interesting events scheduled to take place at a distance. "Mr. Gray's got a real bad temper and–"
"Quit it, Sam," Chris growled as he flicked the reins and released the brake to set the buckboard rolling down the slope. "Figure he's got the message from us if he didn't get it from Gabe and the kid."
"Told him in black and white, Chris."
Chris scowled back over his shoulder at Edge who now removed the cigarette butt from his lips and dropped it to the trail—turned just his head to grin coldly at the driver of the rig and said evenly against the creak of timber, rattle of wheelrims and clop of hooves:
"Don't know about black and white, fellers. Seems I've moved into a Gray area."
Chris could not have heard the wry comment but he certainly saw the grin and he shook his head—as if to convey that he had tried his best to achieve something but was now prepared to admit failure—before he gave his full attention to steering the buckboard down the snaking slope of the trail. And Edge moved off again in the opposite direction, impassive once more and experiencing total peace of mind in back of the emotionless facade.
Some thirty minutes later he was at the top of the slope and halted the gelding where the trail ran into the extensive expanse of fir trees. Looked down into the valley and saw that the buckboard had been turned around at the shack. Millard and Lowell were up on the seat now, taking their leave of the tobacco chewing Sam and the staccato-voiced Chris.
The sloping ground on the other side of the sluggishly flowing Sweetwater River was as deserted as it apparently almost always was, and the valley to north and south was totally lacking in visible life for as far as the slitted eyed gaze of the half-breed could see.
The hawk was gliding smoothly toward the rock ridges of the mountains beyond the foothills and then was lost to sight against the sun that was still high enough to be yellow and to dazzle the naked eyed with its glare.
Edge turned his back on all this and heeled the gelding along the trail through the timber, where the aromatic air struck cool to his skin. The horse on a loose rein maintained the same unhurried pace as before. The ground that was level now. While the half-breed kept an apparently casual watch ahead and to either side, relying upon his hearing to warn him of when Millard and Lowell got close enough on his backtrail to merit attention. Which did not happen until he rode out of the three mile wide strip of firs to emerge on a broad, gently rolling plain dotted with homesteads to the north of the arrow straight trail while the land to the south was cattle range behind a four strand barbed wire fence. Fencing also stretched southward along the fringe of timber.
Widely scattered bunches of healthy looking longhorns grazed the lush pastureland behind the fences. While men and some women worked in the rich soil fields around the small frame houses and barns on the other side of the trail: hoeing, ploughing or drilling. Here and there, smoke from a stove curled out of a chimney and an occasional window gleamed with lamplight as the day faded into evening. And more fires and lamps were lit in the time it took the half-breed to roll a cigarette as he listened to the approach of the buckboard on the trail through the timber. The sky noticeably darkened and the air cooled at the same rate, bringing the homesteaders out of the fields and into the houses and causing Edge to take his sheepskin coat from the top of his bedroll and put it on. In the far distance, a faint yellow light formed a dome shape on the eastern horizon: the color was a lot less intense than the staining of red which the setting sun left in its wake above the treetops to the southwest.
Then full night swooped down fast as the glow of sunset disappeared. Which made the homesteaders' lamps gleam more brightly and intensified the aura which the lights of Elgin City emanated into the sky.
Edge lit his cigarette as the buckboard, driven by the youthful Lowell, rolled out of the firs and Gabe Millard signaled for the rig to be stopped alongside the man astride the gelding. The blue, glittering light of a three-quarter moon enabled each man to see the others clearly.
"That's the city up ahead, mister," Millard said.
"What I figured."
"Land behind the fence is Mayor Gray's Triple X Ranch. Fenced to keep the cows strayin' on to the crops. High yield soil in Elgin County."
"Saw the places before nightfall. Looked good."
"Everythin's good here, mister. Life in general, if folks abide by the rules."
"I paid already."
Millard nodded. "And had to make a point of showin' Bob and me what a hardnose you reckon you are. Same as you acted with Chris Hite and Sam Tufts. You keep on like that in the city and you'll really wish you held on to the five bucks and rode around the county."
"Nice of you fellers to worry about me so much."
Lowell vented a scornful grunt as he turned up the collar of his duster then jerked his Stetson harder on to his head.
Millard, who wore a stylishly cut frockcoat that added to his funereal appearance, gave one of his slight shrugs and explained: "Bob and Chris and Sam and me don't give a turd about your hide, mister. But Mayor Gray, he likes things to run smooth in Elgin County. If they don't, then whoever stirs the shit gets his ass kicked. Mostly all the way to hell. But more than likely, it don't end there. On account it can take the mayor's temper a whole lot longer to cool than it does to get hot. And then life ain't good at all for anybody has to have dealin's with him. Let's roll, Bob."
“I’ll try not to rile—"
"You're a natural born troublemaker in a place like Elgin, mister!" Millard snapped, and
extended a hand to hold back Lowell from setting the rig moving. "And there ain't no doubt in my mind but that you'll stir the shit and get yourself killed and have Mayor Gray mad for a friggin' month…"
"But?" Edge suggested after several seconds of silence during which Millard wrenched his gaze away from the face of the half-breed to stare angrily toward the dome of light above Elgin.
"Your name Edge?" Lowell asked.
"Right in one, feller."
"Didn't I say so?" Millard snapped at his partner. "And did
n't Hite say I was right?"
The half-breed continued to be impassive and unblinking as he regularly drew against the cigarette and allowed the smoke to trickle out through his nostrils. And his tone remained even when he asked:
"I meet you fellers somewhere I've forgotten about?"
"No, mister. Ain't nobody in the whole county ever come across you before, far as I know. But Mayor Gray, he claims he has good reason to want to meet you."
"You sure you mean good and not bad, feller?"
"Shit, stranger, Gabe didn't mean awhile back that Mr. Gray wants you dead. Not at all. No, Gabe just has it fixed in his mind that a man like you won't do like Mr. Gray wants you to."
"He could be right, feller," Edge answered. "Usually aim to do only what I want to do."
Millard sighed out his anger and moved his shoulders in a more emphatic shrug than usual. Said quickly: "Look, mister, Earl Gray figures he has reason to be grateful to you for somethin' that happened years ago. I got no idea what it was. Just seen a drawin' of you in uniform on an old 'wanted' flyer. All of us that work for the mayor have seen it. After you left the shack by the river I kept tryin' to figure out why you looked so familiar to me. And then Chris Hite and Sam Tufts came to take over from me and Bob. And Chris said he got the same feelin' about you. Together, we hit on it. The old 'wanted' flyer that Earl Gray showed us. With the picture of you, a lot younger."
"About ten years or so," Edge said reflectively. Then asked quickly when Millard motioned again for Lowell to start the buck-board rolling: "If the top man around here figures he owes me, why are you fellers so anxious I might rub him up the wrong way?"
"You said it just now, mister. That you aim to do what you want to do. And in Elgin County, folks do only what Earl Gray wants them to. Say no to him and the only man around that's happy is Sam Gower."
"Sam Gower does all the buryin' for the county," Lowell explained.
"Told you as much as we can, mister," Millard assured. "Warned you some about what you can expect. Can't tell you to get the hell outta the county without goin' through town in the event it ever got back to the mayor you was here and we never told him about it. Rest you gotta find out for yourself. And me and Bob and Chris and Sam would be grateful if you didn't let it be known any of us recognized you. So that when the trouble comes, none of us gets extra blame for spottin' who you were. Let's go, Bob. This time for sure."
Both of them pointedly avoided looking at Edge, as if they were worried that he could force them to remain with a look or a sign. Lowell yelled at the horses in the traces, and with voice and reins commanded a noisy gallop that would serve to cover any question the half-breed might ask to delay them.
The sudden lurch forward into high speed raised a cloud of swirling dust from beneath pumping hooves and spinning wheels: and Edge cracked his eyes to the narrowest of slits and compressed his lips until the clouds began to settle. Then he struck a match on the stock of the Winchester jutting from the boot and relighted the half-smoked cigarette before he set the gelding moving in the wake of the racing buckboard. But at a more sedate pace.
The horse snorted and then sneezed.
Edge held the cigarette between two fingers while he licked his lips and spit to the side. Murmured as he angled the smoke from a side of his mouth again: "Let's go get us something to lay the dust. And hope that in Earl Gray country we can get something stronger than tea."
Chapter Three
EDGE knew he was expected in Elgin City even before he rode off the open trail and onto the broad main street of the prosperous looking community sited in the fold of two low hills beyond the range and homesteader country. For he could sense interested eyes peering out into the moonlit night at him from the moment he was able to see the place instead of just the glow of its many lights.
He reached this point on the trail as it made a gentle turn around the base of one of the rises that flanked the town. The last homestead was behind him then and an extensive stand of pinyon was spread out to the north of the trail. While to the south the barbed wire fence had given way to a wooden one, painted white, which guarded the neat lawns and symmetrical plantings that surrounded a hilltop mansion. A stone built, green-roofed, three-storied house with diamond-leaded windows and a pillared porch. A broad driveway surfaced with gravel made two graceful curves from an arched gap in the fence to the foot of a set of shallow steps that rose to a balustraded terrace out front of the house, in back and to the sides of which was an arc of pinyon. Every one of the windows gleamed with lamplight.
Fixed to the arch from where the driveway started, there was a pair of horns too large to be real and so probably carved from wood, and hanging from the tips by lengths of chain a sign branded with the legend:
EARL GRAY'S TRIPLE X RANCH
A quarter mile or so from this entrance to the home of the man who claimed to own an entire county in the Territory of Wyoming was Elgin City. Where, Edge knew, a great many pairs of eyes watched him with intrigued curiosity as he rode the gelding along the curve of the trail between the gleaming white fence and the deeply shadowed expanse of timber. Then past a marker where the fence and the trees ended—branded in the same style as the sign at the entrance to the Triple X spread—that proclaimed:
EARL GRAY WELCOMES
YOU TO
ELGIN CITY
Elev: 4050 Pop: 2000
A town with an arrow straight main street that was about three-quarters of a mile long and a section of the west to east trail. With, halfway along, curving between the flanking hills to the south, a narrower street with several spurs to either side of its more than a mile length. Every building lining the main street, and those on the side street closest to the center of town, was ablaze with light in the same way as the mansion on the hill. Buildings of stone, brick and timber that were well built and carefully maintained—single and two storied commercial premises behind elevated sidewalks on the main street and houses in many styles fronted by yards along the residential streets to the south.
But there was no visible sign of life in the bright light of the lamps that negated the glow of the moon in Elgin City. Nor any sound of it. Other than Edge, who rode his bay gelding by the limits marker and started along the centre of the broad street, sharply aware of being the object of mass attention but not sensing any threat hovering in the chill night air permeated with the smell of wood-smoke, simmering coffee and cooking food.
He rode between a barbershop and a blacksmith, a grocery store and the undertaking parlor of Samuel G. Gower, a feed and seed store run by a man named Gilmore, the Elgin City Bank, the First Class Restaurant and a stage line depot. Then ceased to scan the signs on the facades of the flanking buildings when activity and sound beyond the center town intersection captured his low-keyed attention—at about the same time as he realized that the brightly illuminated premises he rode between were temporarily deserted—and that maybe every citizen of Elgin was concentrated in the midtown area. Where two men now appeared on the street, in front of two women who pressed the muzzles of revolvers into the napes of the men's necks.
The quartet appeared from behind a steepled church that faced the beginning of the side street, the women forcing the men at gunpoint to move awkwardly out to the center of the intersection where, in tones too low for Edge to hear, the threatened pair were ordered to halt, and to turn toward the approaching rider.
The men's clumsy gait was enforced because they were tied together at the waist and chest and at the ankle, calf and knee of one leg: one man's left arm and the other's right was also lashed by ropes around the shoulder of his fellow prisoner.
They were dressed like cowhands, but without hats. About thirty-years-old, unshaven and dirty. Pale with fear and with an expression of the same emotion contorting their lean faces into masks of ugliness. The slightly shorter man whose right arm was not restricted by bonds had a gunbelt slung around his waist, but the holster was empty.
As soon as the terrified men were
in the desired position—the revolvers still prodding the napes of their necks—people began to emerge from several nearby buildings. From the arched porchway of the church, from the meeting hall to the west of it, from the Delaware Saloon on one corner of the intersection, and a few from the office of the Elgin County Herald on the opposite corner.
The vast majority of the people comprising the audience for what the tobacco-chewing Sam Tufts had termed 'the show' made no attempt to conceal the reluctance with which they formed into two groups—out front of the church and across the start of the side street. Ordinary people, looking much like the citizens of any small frontier town where there was sufficient prosperity to be shared among all and the bad days were long gone and the future promised to be brighter even than the present.
But beneath the well-fed, better than adequately clothed and robustly healthy outward appearance of the bulk of the population of this fine looking town there was shame and fear and humiliation and self-reproach. Seen clearly on their faces as they shifted their gazes away from the helpless prisoners to look briefly—and overtly this time—at the lone rider moving along the street toward them.
Edge: Bloody Sunrise Page 2
