Menace lurked just beyond the curtaining downpour but came no closer. At the rear of the building, the half-breed put his cold- and tension-stiffened face close to one of the two barred apertures. Just enough light from the office filtered through the cracks around the closed door to show shadowy shapes inside the cell block. He moved to the other glassless window, to look down on Hiram Rydell—still crumpled on the floor of the cell where he had been dumped.
The voices of Fyson, Tallis, Sokalski, and Box were an indistinct mumbling from the far side of the door. The kid’s ragged breathing was louder. Then he grunted and gasped as Edge dropped a handful of scooped up mud onto his face. He jerked his legs and flailed his arms.
“Just want you awake, Hiram,” the half-breed rasped. “Not the whole damn town.”
The kid shook his head. “Who is it?” he croaked.
“Didn’t your folks warn you to stay away from bars?” Edge countered wryly, pressing his face closer to the grille.
The young dude sat up and snapped his head from side to side, recalling where he was and why he was there. He heard the mumble of voices, saw the familiar lean face at the window, and used the side of the cot to haul himself upright. Edge showed a fleeting grin as Hiram snatched up the ten gallon hat and jammed it on his head.
“You gonna get me outta this calaboose, doggone it?” the kid asked, moving close to the window. There was no anxiety in his voice and the blood and mud streaked across his face added a quality of surface toughness to his youthful features.
“Figure to parole you, Hiram,” Edge muttered.
“Beat a rug! You sure changed your tune from a while back. Didn’t want a tenderfoot like me near you.”
“Ain’t nothing changed about that.”
“What’s the plan?”
“Listen and hear,” the half-breed growled. “When you break loose, some hell’s going to do the same thing.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “And you run like hell.” He showed another brief smile, “Thataway. Then you circle the town and go into the hotel by the back stairs. You look for room number five. You check that the whore inside ain’t got a customer and then you go in. Her name’s Virginia. You tell her I said you’re staying with her. Same arrangement as for my gear.”
“Aw, shoot!” the kid complained. “I’ll be a sitting duck for them Devil’s Disciples critters!”
Edge shook his head. “No arguments, Hiram. Tallis will figure you’re with me and I won’t be in town.”
“What if I won’t do it, dang it?”
“No sweat, Hiram,” Edge told him grimly. “Soon as you’re out of here, we’re even.”
“Even for what?” He was puzzled.
“The hold-up, feller. Hadn’t been for you, we’d all be dead. Most important, I’d be dead.”
“That works both ways, Edge.”
Edge spat to the side. “You want to talk yourself out of being busted out, Hiram?”
“No, sir, I sure enough don’t.”
“So stay quiet and wait.”
“For what?”
“Help.”
“I’m getting the impression you’re a man who doesn’t welcome favors,” the young dude said, his expression pensive and his speech reverting to the accents of his proper environment.
“You being out of here is only part of what I want, Hiram,” Edge rasped. “And they need me as much as I need them for the rest of it.”
“Which was how it was at the hold-up?” Hiram grinned, and the humor robbed his dark-streaked face of the impression of toughness.
The anger which tautened the lines of the half-breed’s lean features was evenly divided this time—directed toward Hiram Rydell and inward. Then the expression became impassive and he held up a warning hand to silence another comment forming on the kid’s lips.
Footfalls sounded from the direction of the rear of the church—and the livery stables were in the opposite direction.
“If that mean-lookin’ drifter’s got any sense, he’ll be long gone from here by now,” a man growled.
Another spat as the footfalls halted. “If he ran, he won’t last long on foot without shelter in this. I can feel myself freezin’ up in my joints.”
Edge leaned closer to the bars and whispered softly to the kid, who grinned, nodded vigorously and accepted the two weapons that were handed to him.
“He sure won’t be hangin’ around this place, that’s for damn sure,” one of the pair of Devil’s Disciples said as they started forward again, crossing the alley at an angle to go around the rear of the cellblock.
Edge flattened himself to the stone wall, Winchester leveled across his belly and aimed at the point where the men would appear. Then, as the two forms swung around the corner, he folded away from the wall and tracked the rifle barrel between the bellies of the men. They came to a halt with gasps of shock, and instinctively reached for their holstered revolvers.
“Don’t plan to shoot you!” Edge said conversationally.
The men’s arms halted, hands hovering close to the jutting butts of their Colts. They looked at each other, then at Edge, and their hard eyes acknowledged the fact that they could have been dead if the half-breed had wanted it that way.
“Will change the plan though,” Edge went on as the man on the left opened his mouth to speak, “if you breathe too loud or don’t do like I say. Move over against the wall.”
He sidestepped out of their path and gestured with his head the way he wanted them to go. The men glanced into each other’s faces again and reached a second tacit agreement. Tracked by the menace of the Winchester, they put their backs to the rear wall of the cell block and inched along it. Their right hands were rock steady above the butts of their holstered guns. The hard eyes in their mean-looking faces remained fixed upon the slow-turning figure of the tall half-breed.
“What do you plan, mister?” one of the black-garbed men rasped softly as Edge nodded for a halt and stepped closer to them.
“Win me some money at poker,” the half-breed answered evenly, taking care not to devote too much attention to the man on the left—the one whose head and shoulders were in front of the barred window of the kid’s cell.
Hiram’s face was hidden by the Devil’s Disciple, but his hands and arms came into view, snaking out through the bars at either side of the man’s head.
“I mean for us?” the man croaked, blinking.
“Hoping your future’s clear cut,” Edge muttered.
Hiram had the razor clenched in his right hand. His left curled in and hooked over the collar of his victim’s jacket. As he jerked the man hard against the bars, the man vented a snarl.
His partner swung to stare at him.
Both went for their guns.
Edge moved in close.
Hiram’s right hand went across in front of his man, then streaked back again. The snarl became a gasp, then a moist retch. Blood gushed from the gaping wound in the throat and sprayed from the wide-open mouth.
Edge turned his body sideways onto the second man and thrust the Winchester forward and upward. The gunman’s mouth was open wide to scream—perhaps a warning, or perhaps a cry of fear. Then the muzzle of the rifle stabbed between the gaping lips. His Colt was clear of the holster, but Edge brought up a knee and jerked it forward to trap the wrist of the gun hand against the wall. Then he powered both hands in the same direction. The head of the Devil’s Disciple crunched against the wall of the cell block. The back of his skull caved in, the rifle muzzle burst through the tissue at the inside of his throat, and his teeth were shattered by the metal of the rifle barrel as he clamped his mouth shut in death.
As Edge stepped back, withdrawing the Winchester amid a spray of blood, the man collapsed to the base of the wall.
Then the half-breed whirled toward new sounds alien to the blizzard. His cold-pinched, leather-textured face was still set in the killer grimace, but abruptly his expression became neutral, for he recognized the bulky figure of the Baron emerging from the sleet, leadi
ng two black stallions by the reins. Both horses were saddled.
“Trouble?” the Britisher asked with just a hint of tension to mar his attempt at indifference to the danger that surrounded him.
“We handled it,” the kid growled.
“And you can leave go now, Hiram,” Edge told him, canting the rifle to his shoulder.
“Number three,” the youngster said, and released his hold on the coat collar of the man with the gaping throat wound. Then, as the body crumpled, he turned the razor so that the wooden handle was towards the half-breed. “Like you been telling people, Edge. I learn real fast, don’t I?”
Edge accepted the razor and stooped to wipe the blade on the jacket of one of the dead men. “Yeah, Hiram. You’re real sharp.”
“Beat a rug,” the kid exclaimed as the Baron approached the window and started to tie two lengths of rope to the bars. The other ends were lashed to the horns of the saddles cinched to the horses. “Didn’t figure you to get involved in something like this.”
The Britisher ignored him and looked at Edge. “Two men were guarding the livery. They are merely work for the undertaker now.”
“How?” Edge asked.
“With my sword, sir. Tallis will attribute the crime to you. And with just two mounts missing, will assume the obvious.”
Edge nodded and moved to soothe the horses, which were restless in the wind and sleet. Then, as the Britisher finished tying the ropes, the tall and broad figure of Fyson emerged from the alley.
“All set, cousins?” he drawled.
As the Baron nodded, Edge crossed to the window and eyed the kid grimly through the bars.
“Room five, Hiram. And only use that gun if you have to.”
“I don’t like it,” the kid muttered sullenly, gripping Edge’s Colt which he had slid into one of his holsters. He looked beyond the half-breed to where the Baron and Fyson had swung astride the two horses.
“It could be a lot of fun,” Edge answered, “if you let Virginia know how rich you are.”
“Those two men dead?” Fyson asked as Edge used a freed stirrup to swing up onto the horse behind the big ex-lawman.
“It bother you, feller?”
“I can’t condone wanton killing, cousin.”
“A depleted enemy is a lesser enemy,” the Baron said.
“Cold-blooded murder makes you no better than they are,” Fyson insisted gruffly.
“I’m better than they are now, feller,” Edge muttered. “Alive’s got to beat dead. Let’s go.”
He took a one-handed grip around Fyson’s waist as the big man and the Baron wacked their horses close to the rear wall of the cell block, putting as much slack as possible into the ropes.
“There will not be much time, son,” the Baron told Hiram.
“I won’t be just standing here admiring the view, feller,” the kid answered.
“Now!” Fyson rasped.
He and the Baron thudded their heels into horseflesh, cracked reins, and yelled at the tops of their voices. The stolen stallions added to the explosion of sound with snorts of alarm—and lunged away from the wall.
They had taken only three strides into the gallop when the ropes stretched taut. They faltered at the abrupt force trying to halt them, but the window submitted to the combined strength of the two spooked horses. The bars were set into strips of iron at top and bottom which in turn were imbedded in cement. And it was the entire grille that wrenched free, springing out of the wall in a shower of cement fragments.
As the set of bars thudded to the ground and started to be dragged through the mud, Fyson and the Baron yanked on the hitch and the ropes uncurled from around the saddle horns and fell away.
Edge directed his gaze and the rifle back at the cell block, and saw Hiram Rydell scrambling through the enlarged hole where the bars had held him prisoner a moment before. At that moment, the cell block was lit by light spilling from the law office as the door was flung open. There was an angry yell and a shot, but Edge saw the kid land sure-footed and move into a smooth sprint.
Then, just before the blizzard hurled its veiling curtain of driving sleet across the rear of the cell block, the half-breed exploded one shot for effect. And then there was nothing to see but the blackness of night streaked with needling arrows of dirty whiteness. If any more shots were fired, the crack of gunfire was masked by the lashing storm and the hoof beats of the galloping stallions.
As they raced toward the chasm north of High Mountain, Fyson moved ahead of the Baron and changed course, signaling his intention with a long-armed wave. They rode west, still at the gallop, bodies leaning into the storm that obliterated all sign of their passage.
Riding virtually blind with only his knowledge of the local terrain to guide him, the towering ex-sheriff veered onto a new course that took them south, around the tent town and then up a wagon track between the fields—so there would be no telltale trail of trampled crops to show the way they had gone.
As the steepness of the slope became more severe, the horses were given slack rein to set their own pace. And they were walking, steam from their lathered flanks merging with the vapor of their breath, as the rim of the basin was achieved.
Fyson signaled a halt and all three men dismounted.
“Your problems solved, cousin,” the tall man said to Edge as they moved around the rim toward the pass.
“One of them, feller,” Edge answered, blowing his cold hands as he wedged the Winchester between his elbow and hip. “Still a matter of the ten grand I’m out.”
“Ten grand?”
“Long story. But to have a chance at it, I figure my interests are mutual with yours.”
Fyson looked hard at the half-breed, then shrugged and turned to the Baron who was striding along on the other side of him. “What exactly is your interest in this business, cousin?”
“My son and his wife were small ranchers in Texas,” the Britisher replied, slowly and his tone grim. “They banded together with some others to hire Tallis and his band of thugs—to escort a cattle drive north to Kansas. A thousand head of animals were rustled and my son had the misfortune to discover Tallis was responsible. Now my son is dead. Trampled by the stolen cattle.”
They were almost at the pass now, walking slowly and cautiously, talking in low tones as they peered ahead: Fyson looking for landmarks while Edge and the Baron searched for signs of danger through the blizzard.
“I was not sure of the kind of man you were, sir,” the Britisher continued. “Which was why I maintained my act as a drunken fool and coward until the very last.”
“I knew, cousin,” Fyson growled as they turned into the pass. “Guessed it the moment he walked into my office with that crazy kid in the fancy clothes. Saw it for sure the way he handled those two on the street. Not the kind I’d choose, but there’s no one else available.”
“In addition to me, sir,” the Baron pointed out.
“You’re not proved yet, cousin.”
The Britisher’s voice became as hard and cold as the steel of his sword. “A man does not gain field promotion in the British army from sub-lieutenant to colonel on the north-west frontier of India without proving himself, sir,” he pronounced.
“I didn’t see it proved,” Fyson answered curtly.
They had gone through the pass and the ex-sheriff signaled a halt at the base of a tall escarpment where the cliff face was cleaved by a narrow split. The blizzard raged with increased intensity through the narrow boulder-strewn pass. But the sounds coming through the gap in the escarpment were even louder: and they had a shrill quality, almost like human screams.
“Gully beyond here,” Fyson explained. “Finishes at the far end in a cave. Called Livermore Hole. Named for an army captain who sheltered his troop in there way back. Twenty men out making a survey. Before High Mountain was built. Massacred by a war party of Utes. Story goes it’s haunted and you can hear why that rumor started. Always makes those damn noises when a norther blows.”
“Soun
ds as full of wind as you are,” Edge muttered.
Fyson ignored the comment. “Most local people won’t come near this place, which is as good a reason as any for Tallis to pick it, I guess. Two hundred yards down the gully to the cave. We got them like rats in a trap if they’re not expecting us, cousins. Can pick us off like apples in a barrel if they are.”
“Won’t find out which by standing out here,” Edge pointed out.
“One point, cousins,” Fyson said quickly, and shifted his steady gaze from the face of Edge to the Baron and back again. “Town will want me back as sheriff when they find out they been duped by Tallis. So I intend to act like I still had a badge on my chest.”
“In what way, sir?” the Baron asked.
“I’ve been the lawman here for twenty years and I’ve never killed a culprit in making an arrest. I’d like things to stay that way, cousins—if it is possible.”
All around them, the norther swirled and gusted, the sounds of its fury seeming to rise by the moment. And the eerie moans and whines that it created in the gully and cave sounded like cries of awesome warning.
“You can give your way a spin, High Fy,” Edge muttered as he moved towards the narrow gap in the cliff face. “But I don’t figure you’ve a ghost of a chance.”
CHAPTER TEN
THE men moved cautiously in a line of three along the gully, a Remington, a Winchester, and a drawn sword ready to blast and thrust at the as yet unseen enemy.
Darkness and driving sleet reduced visibility to just a couple of yards and the noise of the blizzard masked the sound of footfalls to even their own ears. Then, in the blackness streaked with white ahead, they saw an orange glow—brightening with each step they took toward it. Closer still they caught the scent of wood smoke from the fire, and the surrounding darkness looked even blacker in contrast with the flickering flames.
Abruptly the three intruders experienced the almost euphoric luxury of being sheltered from the needling sleet. And heard voices against the moans of the wind.
EDGE: Rhapsody in Red (Edge series Book 21) Page 11
