The Baron stood on the threshold of the saloon, a brimful glass of whiskey in one hand while the other was fisted around his stick, holding open one of the batswings. His bewhiskered face glowed crimson with the liquor that was already coursing through his bloodstream.
“You will allow me to buy you a drink—to mark such an auspicious occasion, sir?” he added as Edge stepped through the open door.
“Obliged for the offer, feller,” the half-breed answered, feeling the tautness drain out of his body and the stiffness go from his facial muscles. “But I’m up to my neck in favors already.”
“You will, of course, purchase a drink for me in return, sir,” the Britisher insisted. “Nothing lost and nothing gained. A little relaxation while you contemplate how to extricate yourself from this dangerous situation.”
Edge halted just across the threshold and glanced impassively over the smoke-laden, noise-filled, malodorous saloon. Many of the patrons eyed him fleetingly and then quickly returned to what had interested them before his entrance. Two Devil’s Disciples at a table near the foot of the stairway glared at him with heavy menace.
The slitted eyes of the half-breed showed a flicker of interest only twice—when he spotted two poker games where the pots were encouragingly large.
“What’s the point, feller?” he asked.
The Baron blinked. “Point, sir?”
“If there’s nothing to lose and nothing to gain?”
The Britisher shook his head in time with the flapping of the batswing door after he had released it behind Edge. “Sir, such a degree of bitterness saddens me greatly,” he answered, then raised his glass and emptied its contents down his throat at a gulp. He swayed and had to use his cane to keep himself from falling. “I find it painful to watch—”
“You ain’t feeling no pain, feller,” Edge told him evenly, and started towards the bar.
The hard eyes of the two Devil’s Disciples followed him like those of preying animals watching for the right moment to spring to the attack.
“You ain’t gonna cause no trouble in my places are you, mister?” the anxious, sweaty-faced owner of the Peaks Saloon and Hotel asked as his new customer bellied up to the bar.
Edge dropped his gear to the floor and leaned the Winchester against the front panel of the counter. He rasped the back of a hand over his jaw bristles and looked away from the nervous, slightly built, middle-aged man who smelled of sweat oozing from pores elsewhere than on his face and neck.
“You’ll have to tell me,” the half-breed said, running his gaze over a banner that was strung along the wall above the shelves of bottles and glasses.
“Tell you what?”
“Rules of the house so I’ll know what not to do. Whiskey and a beer to help me digest them?”
“Comin’ right up. Only rules are against gunplay and fist fights. And no credit. Pay for what you get when you get it.”
Edge nodded as the glasses were set on the bar and filled. He put down a five-dollar bill. “Always pay my way.”
He glanced away from the banner for just long enough to tip the whiskey into the beer and pick up his change.
“That all?”
“You’ve got a room for rent.”
“No, sir. Right filled up.”
“Woman from Houston reserved one. Mortician’s arranging things for her now.”
The owner shook his head. “Sorry,” he said, and didn’t look it. “I heard what happened out on the trail. Already rented the room. To another lady.”
He drew Edge’s attention away from the banner again, and pointed towards the stairway which canted up a side wall of the saloon toward a railed balcony. The red-headed Virginia was descending through the smoke haze, trailed by a grinning young man in a cutaway coat who was still tucking his shirt tails into his pants.
“That’s a lady?”
“In a manner of speakin’, mister.”
“Prefer truth to manners, feller. I’d say she’s a whore.”
The man behind the bar shrugged. “Have it your way.”
“Not with a whore. Obliged anyway.”
He resumed his study of the banner and the saloon owner moved to help out his three bartenders who were losing ground in meeting the demands of patrons for refills.
Like most of the other advertisements around town concerned with the musical event and its connected money-making activities, this one was of gray canvas lettered in red. And, in common with the others produced by the organizers of the main attraction, it seemed to have been painted by a professional sign-writer:
Not to be missed
The High Mountain Festival of Fine Music
with
Direct from New York
The Rollo Stone Ensemble
Plus a full program of talented supporting
artists from every corner of the musical
world. Three days of unparalleled musical
entertainment performed in a scenic setting
of Mother Nature’s design.
Beneath this main announcement were several columns listing the singers, musicians, and dancers of lesser note than the big attraction. Those Hiram had spoken of, and many more.
“You don’t look the type, mister,” Virginia said lightly, moving up close to Edge as he scanned the listing—and was not surprised the names meant nothing to him.
“What type’s that, ma’am?”
“The type that has fun sittin’ and listenin’ to highbrow fiddle players, singers, and such like.”
Edge had filled time reading every name on the list. He eyed the whore with the same lack of interest.
“Why, I bet you never heard of any of them,” she challenged with a bright smile, waving a hand at the banner. Her fingernails were as bright red as her painted lips. Oddly, the more she smiled, the further her full lips closed to encroach over her teeth. And she became almost pretty.
“Once knew a guy named…” He glanced up at the sign again “…Campbell. Back in the war. Picked guitar a little. Always talking about Galveston.”
“Not the same one. This guy plays harp.”
“Guess not,” Edge allowed lightly. “Feller I knew was heading for Kansas. Planned to get a job with the telegraph company working out of Wichita.”
“I work here, remember? Ten dollars a trick, but you get a discount for bumping off them two Tallis creeps.”
The half-breed finished the drink and picked up his gear and rifle.
“Whores and ladies,” the saloon owner said cheerfully as he retrieved Edge’s empty glass. He grinned. “They all got the kinda medicine a man needs when he needs it, right?”
“Just a matter of whether a feller wants to risk a dose,” the half-breed muttered, and turned to follow Virginia toward the foot of the stairway.
“Have a good time,” one of the black-garbed Devil’s Disciples snarled from where he sat at the table playing solitaire. He didn’t glance up from the cards.
His partner was picking at his teeth with a split match. “Yeah, and maybe if you’re still screwing her when Mr. Tallis hits town, could be you’ll die happy.”
“It’s okay, Mr. Edge,” the whore said quickly, staring hatefully at the two gunmen. “I got no honor needs defendin’.”
“Guess you’ll still be around when I’m ready for you, fellers?” Edge asked evenly.
“You’re bettin’ your life on it, mister,” the card player growled.
As Edge trailed the whore up the stairway, he glimpsed the Baron leaning heavily against one end of the bar, glaring disgust through the liquor sheen of his eyes. Then the half-breed glanced toward the bats-wings in time to see Hiram Rydell swagger into the saloon and peer searchingly around. But the youngster failed to spot the couple on the stairway through the swirl of tobacco smoke. He made a beeline toward the drunken Britisher.
The railed balcony extended around all four sides of the saloon, with room doors set into the wall at twenty-foot intervals. When the whore halted and pushed open a door, Ed
ge gestured with the rifle for her to go in ahead of him.
“Not because you’re a gentleman, I guess?” she said good-humoredly.
“I don’t have to guess about you not being a lady,” he replied.
Her line of work had given her a thick skin beneath the paint and powder and she swayed into the room with her good mood still intact. Then she halted at the center to twirl and face him, her arms out wide.
“Ain’t no one in here but this chicken, Mr. Edge,” she chided. Then grinned: “Okay, I ain’t no chicken either.”
Edge stepped across the threshold and used the stock of the rifle to close the door. The only light came from the lanterns strung above the street beyond the single small window. It was enough to show the shapes of a double bed, a mirrored dresser, a chair, the door to a closet, and two rush mats. The walls were white-painted timber with magazine pictures pasted on them here and there. There was a lamp on the dresser, its oil smell competing with the whore’s perfume and a stronger odor of stale cigar smoke.
“You want me to light the lamp?” Virginia asked.
“Everything you got where it’s supposed to be?” Edge countered as he moved to the uncurtained window and looked down into the street.
“You don’t want no light,” she acknowledged with a nod, and reached behind her back for the dress fastenings. “Eight bucks okay? Two dollars discount ain’t much, but then that scum you killed weren’t worth much.”
The street was not so crowded now—maybe because the hour was late, or more likely on account of the wind that had begun to curl over the northern rim of the basin and push icy fingers through the town. The banners and outside lanterns swung and twisted above the heads of those night owls determined to sample all they could of High Mountain’s pleasures before turning in. But there were no longer any strollers. Everyone hurried—to get in out of the strong wind or to reach where they were going before the place closed up.
Already the church was darkened. One store was shuttered and another owner was in the process of closing, his head ducked against the weather as he took his wares in off the sidewalk displays.
Edge had to look deep into shadowed areas to see the handful of people who were not in any hurry to get someplace, for the all-black attire of the Devil’s Disciples made them difficult to pick out against the darkness of alleys and unlit doorways.
“It’s cold, Mr. Edge,” Virginia said, and there was a note of complaint in her voice. “You want to take a look at me instead of the damn street?” She lightened her tone. “Before I hide my charms under the blanket?”
The half-breed shifted his gaze from the window to the whore and, under different circumstances he might have felt a stirring of want. For the lines of her body had gained little from the dress she had now discarded. Her slender curves, just sensuously full enough at breasts and hips, were smooth and unblemished. Naked, she looked almost fragile, probably because of the stark whiteness of her flesh, relieved only at the crest of her firm breasts and the dense patch of hair triangled at the meeting of her thighs. Smiling, she did a slow pirouette for the benefit of his hooded, unblinking eyes. Her hair had been let down from the bun and it swung about her face—the features it brushed looking strangely innocent in the dim light filtering through the dusty window.
Not under any circumstances would he have felt want for her. Because, despite all else he had become, his attitude toward whores had never altered. But as a whore, she was also a woman: and her nakedness and willingness would undoubtedly have caused a response in the pit of his stomach—if the need to stay alive had not been so pressing.
“You were right,” he muttered.
“About what?” She moved to the bed and slid under the covers.
Edge rechecked the view from the window. “You got everything where it should be.”
“You don’t sound overjoyed about that,” she muttered, complaining again.
The bodies of Joe and Harry and the carcass of the horse had been removed. But dark patches of dried blood on the street showed where they had fallen. Already, the wind was beginning to erase these signs.
Edge lowered his gear and rifle to the floor and moved to the dresser. He crouched in front of it and opened the doors beneath the drawer.
“You want to look under the damn bed, as well?” Virginia hissed.
Inside the dresser was a pitcher of water standing in a bowl. Edge lifted out the bowl, set it on the dresser top, filled it with water, and dragged the dresser toward the window.
“What the hell?” the whore snarled, sitting suddenly upright.
Edge dug out his bankroll and peeled off two fives. He screwed them into a ball and tossed the money onto the bed. “You owe me two bucks change, ma’am.”
She snatched at the money with a clawed hand and grinned. “Maybe when we’re through, you’ll let me keep it for a tip.”
“Give you a tip before we start,” Edge responded, reaching up to the back of his neck and drawing the razor from its pouch. “Give me no trouble and you’ll still be able to wear low-cut dresses.”
Virginia gasped as the razor’s blade glinted in the low light. Then snatched at the blanket to hide her torso. “Jesus, not one of them freaks!”
Edge had taken a tablet of soap from his gear. As he splashed water onto his face and lathered it, the whore gasped again. It was an expression of mixed surprise and relief.
“You ain’t gonna screw me?”
“No, ma’am,” he answered, tilting the mirror to catch the available light. Then he began to rasp the bristles off his dark, deeply lined face.
“But you want more than a shave. You can get that at the barber’s shop for just fifty cents.”
“You’re not local?”
“Talk is all?”
“The kind that’s worth seven dollars, ma’am. Figure a dollar for the use of the room and water. Doing my own shaving, so no service charge. Local whore wouldn’t need to rent a room.”
“I’m from Denver. Came down when I heard about the music shindig. Was workin’ out of a tent at the end of town before I heard this room was empty. Don’t mind talkin’ to a man. Makes a change.”
“How did Tallis get his bunch deputized?”
“That big local lawman didn’t want it that way.”
“Ain’t paying for information I already know,” Edge warned evenly.
“And I didn’t hide my feelin’s about them under a bushel! Always did talk too much.”
“Ever say anything worth listening too, ma’am?” There was a towel hanging from a peg on the side of the dresser and he used it to mop the surplus lather from his face.
“Okay,” she said with a broad grin, and lay down under the covers again. “It makes a nice change to have a bed to myself.” She laughed and wriggled into a more comfortable position. “I didn’t get to High Mountain until after the Tallis creeps had it sewn up, but I soon got to hear what was happening. That bastard Sokalski told me I couldn’t work here unless I paid Tallis a quarter of everythin’ I earned.”
“Same for everybody in business here?” Edge asked, returning to the window after he had shoved the dresser back to its accustomed place.
“What do you think? Yeah, same for all the whores, all the storekeepers and like that. Even the local padre has to give twenty-five cents on every dollar for the artifacts he sells. Maybe the undertaker for burying, but I ain’t sure about that.”
The dance finished in the meeting hall and the revelers scurried through the cold to their rented accommodations: some to the temporary rooming houses along the street, most to the tent town at the western end. Just a few entered the saloon, which, by the time Edge had finished shaving, was the sole source of noise in High Mountain. And even the sounds from below the whore’s room were now subdued by weariness and the lateness of the hour. The music had ended and there was just talk, the clink of bottle necks against glass rims, and the occasional burst of laughter. Plus the footfalls on the stairway and the opening and closing of doors.
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“I ain’t the only one don’t like it,” Virginia went on. “But there ain’t many of us. Seems the town councilmen overruled High Fy to let in Tallis and his creeps. Had to, or this shindig would never have been held here. And it ain’t only the whores that are making a big dollar from all these rich music lovers, Mr. Edge. Reckon the sheriff’s the only local citizen who ain’t got an angle. And the take’s big enough to cover the Tallis cut without hardship. Me and a couple of others just don’t like the principle of it, that’s all.”
“Big word, ma’am.”
She laughed again. “Whores just ain’t for screwin’. Lots of men talk a lot, too. A girl can learn if she’s a mind.”
“Saw you were more than just a body,” the half-breed told her, still looking down on the street. The banners and lamps swayed and turned above. Below, pieces of paper were rolled along the broad thoroughfare and swirled in the eddies created at alley mouths. The moan of the wind through narrow crevices was the loudest noise in town. “Principle of having protection for a bunch of rich out-of-towners is fine.”
“Ain’t no argument about that,” Virginia agreed. “It’s what sold the town councilmen into deputizing them bastards. General opinion seems to be that they ain’t the right kind, but they’re all that’s available.”
Directly across the street, the sheriff had moved from his desk to stand at the glass-paneled door of his office. He was stooping to peer expectantly out. Elsewhere Edge saw four dark-clad figures standing in dark places, as unmoving as the buildings which cast shadows over them.
“Why d ‘you want to know about this?” the whore asked.
“My business,” the half-breed answered.
“Pardon me for askin’.”
“No sweat. Where’s Tallis now?”
“He went up to Denver with Box—the guy who’s running the shindig. Most of the other entertainment’s already here. Come under their own steam. But this Rollo Stone group—seems they’re big cheese. Gettin’ the red carpet treatment. Heard talk they’re real hard to please. Even the best’s never good enough for them.”
“Just can’t get no satisfaction, huh?” Edge said softly, and eased open the window.
EDGE: Rhapsody in Red (Edge series Book 21) Page 7
