EDGE: Rhapsody in Red (Edge series Book 21)

by George G. Gilman

  And, while the kid beamed with pleasure, the older men were sour faced. The driver appeared to be cursing at the team and the guard was glowering under the strain of maintaining a constant watch on all sides. But he failed to spot the mounted half-breed-merged into the shade of the timber—until the coach lumbered up onto the shelving.

  “Oh, Christ!”

  His voice was shrill with fear. His red-rimmed eyes ceased their frantic movement and became fixed on Edge. Without rising, he whirled into a half turn, snatching the Winchester from across his thighs. The rifle was ready pumped and as the stock plate hit his shoulder, he clicked back the hammer and drew a bead on the target.

  “Freeze!”

  The coach was moving at a crawl as it gained the shelf. The driver half rose, undecided whether to crack the reins for a gallop, or haul on them. He elected to halt the team and sat down hard with the suddenness of the stop.

  “Cool word for a day hot as this,” Edge said evenly. “But the direction you’re aiming the rifle is making me sweat more than the weather.”

  “You keep him covered, Luke!” the driver growled.

  “You damn bet, Augie!” Luke assured.

  “Landsakes, a road agent!” This from the young dude, his voice hoarse and his eyes bright with excitement.

  The impassive set of Edge’s features were altered by a slight turn down at the corners of his mouth. Just enough to express a threatening scowl.

  “Wrong, kid,” he countered, shifting his narrow-eyed gaze lazily from the dude to the side of the coach and then across the twitching face of the driver to settle on the guard. “But lots of people make mistakes. Some bigger than others.”

  “Junior, don’t get involved!” a woman shrieked from inside the coach.

  The kid glowered a reaction to the order. He was about eighteen with clean-cut good looks and soft fuzz where bristles would sprout in a year or so. A green-eyed blond with some puppy fat still clinging to his six-foot tail, broad-shouldered frame. The guns in his holster were matched Frontier Colt .45s with silver-plated frames and wooden butt grips. The bullets around his belt gleamed from polishing. He wore spurs with silver rowels. But the sunlight glinted with most fire on the yellow rhinestones that studded his hatband, shirtfront and boot sides.

  The other passengers, peering nervously from the coach windows, were a mixture of men and women. All middle-aged to elderly and expensively dressed in big-city style. The sign on the coach door proclaimed: Western Stage Line, while the canvas banner stretched along the roof rail was neatly lettered with the red painted legend: Houston Music Society.

  “What you want, mister?” Augie demanded. He was a short, fat man of about fifty with anxious dark eyes and teeth that were even blacker from chewing tobacco. There was a bad tic in his right cheek.

  “First off, for your partner to aim the gun someplace else, feller.”

  “My job to protect the stage and all she carries,” the guard argued.

  Everyone stared hard at the half-breed and, with the exception of the dude youngster, all betrayed a degree of fear. The kid seemed to be fascinated, his bright eyes raking over horse and rider to drink in every detail before flicking back to make a re-check.

  Edge continued to sit easy in the saddle, feet resting in the stirrups and hands holding the reins lightly as they draped the horn. He sighed. “Give folks the one warning. Squeeze the trigger or aim the rifle away.”

  The guard was a few years younger than Augie. Taller and weighing about the same, but with the flesh packed more solidly to his frame. His features were craggy and he betrayed his nervousness only by a rapid pulse at the side of his neck. He spoke as if he had a sore throat. “You ain’t in no position to give orders, mister!”

  Edge showed a flinty smile. “Made my position clear, feller.”

  “He didn’t pull no gun, Luke,” the driver muttered, licking his black teeth. “And he ain’t got no help around I can see.”

  “Why don’t we drive on?” a man inside the coach urged anxiously.

  “At least when we’re moving there is an illusion of a draft,” a woman added.

  “So why’s this critter waiting for us, dang it?” the youngster demanded of the driver. He spoke with a croaky tone, as if his voice had only recently broken.

  “Junior!” he was warned from inside the coach.

  “A ride is all, kid,” Edge answered, without shifting his steady gaze away from the face behind the aimed Winchester.

  “All filled up!” Augie said quickly.

  “Apart from which, sir, this is a privately hired carriage.” The speaker was inside the coach and out of sight behind the passengers leaning from the windows. He spoke with an educated British accent, slightly slurred.

  “Roll her, Augie,” Luke growled. “Maybe he don’t mean no harm, but I’ll keep him covered.”

  The driver scowled his distrust of the situation, but kicked off the brake and flicked the reins. The Concord jolted forward. Luke swayed with the abrupt movement, and his aim waivered.

  The half-breed’s moves were a lot faster, but coldly controlled. He thudded his heels into the flanks of the horse as his right hand swept from saddle horn to holstered Colt. The gelding started to respond to the command for a forward lunge, then reacted to the counter-order as the reins were jerked for a halt. The animal reared high.

  Edge stood in the stirrups and pressed his body against the horse’s neck. Women shrieked and the gelding snorted. The Colt slid from the holster, hammer cocked, and with first pressure taken on the trigger as the gun swung up to the target.

  “Sonofabitch!” Luke yelled.

  And fired.

  It was a panicked shot, in instinctive response to the half-breed’s sudden move. The guard cursed again as his bullet thudded into a tree trunk. His right hand started to pump the rifle’s action. The ejected shell case spun in the hot air. The gelding was at full stretch, almost erect on his hind legs. The Colt exploded, like a muffled echo of the Winchester’s report.

  The bullet smashed into the lower knuckle of Luke’s middle finger. Then burrowed through flesh until it flattened itself against the shattered wrist bone. A dark crimson spray of arterial blood burst from the entry wound. Luke screamed and the rifle leapt from his grasp—as if a tight-coiled spring had been released.

  “Damn it to hell!” Augie yelled, slamming on the brakes. Then he dropped the reins and thrust his arms high in the air.

  The gelding’s flailing forelegs started down through the dust raised by his stamping hind hooves. And two guns fired, their reports merged into a single sound.

  Edge felt the horse spasm beneath him, then glimpsed the twin streams of blood arching to the ground ahead of the animal. He kicked free of the stirrups and powered to the side. The hind legs of the horse buckled. Then the fore hooves slammed against the hard earth. Both cannon bones snapped with a dry crack. The horse snorted its pain, and spasmed again. The half-breed released the reins and folded his knees up to his chest. He hit the ground with a shoulder and rolled. The quivering weight of the horse crashed onto its flank a part of a second later.

  Edge turned over twice and kicked his legs into a splay, an arm shooting out to steady himself. The thumb of his gun hand cocked the hammer. He was in a sitting posture amidst a cloud of dust, three feet from where the horse writhed and snorted with the agonies of bullet wounds and broken bones. The Colt was held out at arm’s length, in a rock-steady aim at the youngster on the coach roof.

  “Please don’t hurt Junior!”

  Edge was conscious of the ice-cold grip of rage on his entrails, swamping the pain of his fall. He knew he was just a sliver of time away from killing the boy, but the harsh lessons of a long and bitter experience with violence had taught him more than just how to kill in cold blood: he had also learned how to control the few naked emotions left to him.

  The woman’s plea played no part in quelling the impulse to kill. Edge simply looked at the boy and saw he was no threat—even though he had a
silver gun in each hand. For the ornate Colts were held low and loose, smoking muzzles pointed at his own feet. The youngster’s green eyes were wide and bulging with shock as he stared at the agony of the horse.

  “You better be as rich as you look, kid,” the half-breed rasped, then swung the Colt and fired at the gelding.

  The bullet burrowed into the animal’s head by way of his right eye. And another spurt of blood hit the thirsty ground, then became a crawling ooze as the horse was stilled by death.

  Edge raked his narrow-eyed gaze over the coach. The young dude was still in shock. Augie was gulping, as if he had difficulty in catching his breath. Luke was grimacing as he held his shattered wrist and sucked at the bloody wound. The passengers inside the Concord seemed petrified by horror.

  The kid’s voice had a strangled quality as he ended the tense silence. “I never hit anything alive before, doggone.”

  “It’s a horse that’s gone,” Edge replied evenly as he got to his feet. “And you owe me for another.”

  The green eyes of the youngster met the steady gaze of the half-breed and were trapped. He swallowed hard, thrust the revolvers back into the holsters, and nodded frantically. “Sure. Sure, mister. I got lots of loot. I’ll pay.”

  “You ... you aren’t a ... a hold-up man, are you?” This from the woman who had warned the kid against becoming involved. She was leaning far out of the door window, the bright sunlight showing the bleach of her hair and revealing the cracks in the powder and rouge pancaked to her fleshy face.

  “Just hoped for a ride is all, ma ‘am,” Edge answered, touching the brim of his hat as he holstered the Colt. “Fully intend to have one now.”

  “Thank God!” the woman gasped, and withdrew into the shade as Edge stooped down beside the dead gelding to unfasten the saddle cinch.

  “You got a nerve, after what you done to me!” Luke whined.

  The half-breed shook his head slowly as he hauled the saddle and bedroll out from under the carcass.

  “Figure I got the right. After what the kid did to my horse.”

  “Drive on!” the Britisher urged. “Tell the man this is a privately hired carriage!”

  “Damn right it is,” the injured guard agreed with a scowl.

  Augie seemed surprised that his arms were still held high. He brought them down fast and gathered the reins.

  The kid made a fast, two-handed draw. He had been standing to his full height among the high-priced leather baggage. But he went down into a crouch as part of the same smooth action of drawing the silver guns.

  “Reach for the sky, or I’ll fill you full of lead!” he barked. And pushed the Colt muzzles against the nape of Augie’s neck.

  “Junior!” the fat woman shrieked, and the Concord rocked as she lunged for the window again.

  The driver vented a low and long-suffering groan, but was unafraid of the guns pressed into his fleshy neck. “Son, Luke’s rifle is down there on the trail,” he muttered. “I ain’t armed. So, ’less you or anyone else aboard reckons to object, I sure ain’t gonna stop this here feller ridin’ along.”

  The half-breed heaved his gear up under one arm and advanced on the stalled Concord.

  “You got seventy-five bucks for my horse, kid?” he asked.

  The anxious-faced woman at the window nodded emphatically. Then delved a well-manicured hand into a capacious bag hanging from her right elbow. She produced a fat roll of bills and hurriedly peeled off three twenties and three fives.

  “I’m responsible for Junior while he’s out here,” she explained nervously, thrusting the money towards Edge.

  “Might be cheaper you carried his guns as well as his money, ma’am,” the half-breed drawled, taking the bills and pushing them into a shirt pocket. “Obliged.”

  “Hey, mister, I’m helping you!” the kid complained. “Don’t you treat me like a baby.”

  Edge ignored him and picked up the fallen Winchester from beneath a team horse. The rifle stock was flecked with already dried blood. One-handed, he flipped the gun to complete the action of pumping a shell into the breech.

  While he kept his guns pressed into the neck of Augie, the young dude became fascinated by Edge’s handling of the rifle. The driver continued to be scornful of the threat he was under, for he had taken a medical kit from beneath the seat and was binding Luke’s injured hand.

  Edge turned the Winchester and pushed it towards its owner, stock uppermost. Luke took the rifle with his good hand, and groaned as Augie fixed a sling into position.

  “Was just doin’ my job, that’s all,” Luke rasped through clenched teeth.

  The half-breed nodded curtly. “Was just hoping for a ride, that’s all,” he countered.

  Then he spat on the rim of a coach wheel. The moisture sizzled against the sun-heated metal and the passengers at the windows withdrew hurriedly, expressing disgust. He moved to the rear of the Concord and used the hub and rim of another wheel as footholds to climb onto the roof.

  With a grunt of satisfaction, the kid took the Colts away from the driver’s neck, spun them by the trigger guards, and slid them smoothly back into the holsters.

  “Now we can move, I figure,” he said with a note of triumph in his deep voice.

  “I won’t give you no argument,” Edge said as he swung his gear onto the roof and then climbed over the banner-draped rail.

  Augie completed attending to Luke, cast a contemptuous glance at the boy and then cracked the reins over the backs of the team as he kicked off the brake. The half-breed sat down hard between a suitcase and his saddle. The young dude, familiar with the uneven motion of the stage, rode with the jolt and then folded his lanky frame down onto the baggage.

  “Dang it, I’m real sorry about your mount, mister. But I surely did figure you were fixing to rob us.”

  Edge wriggled into a more comfortable position. “What did you figure my horse planned to do?” he asked wryly.

  The boy looked ruefully back along the trail to where dust from under the moving stage was settling on the still form of the fallen gelding. Then he shrugged. “Dang shame, but Aunt Emma gave you what you asked. No hard feelings, huh?”

  “Just the ones against my back, kid,” Edge muttered, and started to rearrange the baggage.

  He cleared a space so that he could sit with his back against the saddle and bedroll, with bags on either side to hold him steady. Then he vented a low, contented sigh and tipped his hat forward to shade his face from the sun.

  “Doggone it, you ain’t going to sleep?” the boy groaned.

  “Junior, don’t say ain’t!” his aunt rebuked from below.

  There was no way around the hump of the rise and the trail curved steeply up the gradient, holding down the speed of the heavy Concord.

  “I was hoping for a jaw,” the boy hurried on. “Chew the fat, like. Landsakes, I figure you got lots of tales to tell. This is my first visit out to the West.”

  “It shows, kid,” Edge muttered from under his hat.

  Apart from his outlandish garb, which was probably a high-priced city tailor’s idea of frontier style, the boy’s speech betrayed he was a fish in a new pond. The country expressions he used sounded incongruous amid other words spoken with the cultured tones of an Eastern university education.

  The youngster gazed around with gleeful wonder, and sighed. “Yes, siree, my first time out in the wild West.”

  “Could be you won’t get to go back East, son,” Augie growled over his shoulder. “You keep botherin’ a feller that don’t want to be bothered. Specially a single-minded feller like him.”

  The kid ignored the warning. “What did you call him, mister?”

  “You talking to me?” Edge asked wearily.

  “Yeah. First dang time I ever put lead in something that was alive.”

  “You said that already.”

  “What did you call him?”

  “Who?”

  “Your horse, mister!”

  “Junior, don’t bother the man!” his
aunt called.

  “Horse,” Edge said.

  “Yeah!” The boy was growing impatient.

  Edge sighed. “Horse is what I called him, kid. After I got through with bastard. Then sonofabitch if he forgot what he learned.”

  “Landsakes, and I thought all you Western critters had names for your horses.”

  “I told you, kid. Horse, bastard, sonofa—”

  “I mean real names, mister!”

  The stage reached the crest of the rise and picked up speed across another area of level shelving towards the next step up into the mountains.

  “Most folks live and learn,” the half-breed muttered.

  “Some of us the friggin’ hard way!” Luke yelled above the noise of the suddenly speeding Concord. Then he groaned as the sways and jolts of motion erupted fresh fires along his arm. “You ain’t friggin’ doin’ my hand no good!” he snarled at Augie.

  “It’s a long ways to High Mountain,” came the response. “And I don’t reckon there’s no doctor between here and there.”

  “You heading for High Mountain, stranger?” the boy asked.

  “If High Mountain is what’s ahead,” Edge answered. “But I figure I can take care of what ails me without any doctor.”

  “Ain’t anything wrong with you that I can see,” the kid countered.

  Edge raised his hat a little. Just enough so that he could rake his glinting eyes over the folded form of the richly garbed youngster. Then he spat over the flapping canvas sign at the side of the roof, and allowed the hat to cover his face again. “That’s because you ain’t sitting where I am,” he growled.

  CHAPTER THREE

  EDGE had no control over his imagination when he was asleep: and it was while he was sleeping that his mind was most likely to unlock the countless bitter memories of a harsh past. Thus, as the Concord rattled and creaked over the rising terrain through the furnace heat of afternoon, the half-breed slept and dreamed.

  There had been buzzards at the family farm when Captain Josiah C. Hedges came home from the war. Years later, more of the same breed of scavengers had been at Fort Waycross when Edge approached. And, although he had not always seen them, it was inevitable that these feeders on the dead had never been far away from the long and erratic trail the half-breed had blazed or followed from the homestead to the army post.