The money, and the manner in which he had come by it, were responsible for the hopes. The memories had strengthened them. He had earned the money by helping a woman - a woman who might, perhaps, have replaced Beth. But, although she had had been unable to give herself to Edge, she had given him more than the money. The determination to try, yet again, for the fresh start he had failed to make twice before - first with Jamie, then with Beth.
He had ridden out of Texas, across the territories of New Mexico and Arizona, into California, and then swung south and back east. All the time searching for a place where he could stake a claim to a new future. Trouble had threatened on several occasions. But he had evaded it and put his back to it. Just as he had done today at Fort Waycross.
But today had been different. Lured into a false sense of security by the long weeks of constantly rising hopes, he had failed to recognize the trick that had been played on him by the man who had stolen the foundation of his new future - and the fate that had placed this man in his path.
Now Edge slept, and it was not the easy kind of sleep he had enjoyed lately. Instead, it was just a sliver away from being awake. Giving him energy-restoring rest while his reflexes hovered just beneath the surface of awareness. It was the brand of sleep forced upon him by war - when a split second’s delay in responding to danger was so often fatal.
But no danger threatened the night camp beside the outcrop. And it was simply the fact that he had rested enough which caused his eyes to snap open in the mid-early hours.
There was no wind and no frost. Just unmoving, bright, clear, needle-cold air that caused the fire embers to glow crimson but neutralize their warmth. As he broke camp - his final act to drink a mug of tepid coffee to take the taste of sleep from his mouth - the tight-rolled ball of rage in the pit of his stomach was colder than the atmosphere.
Backtracking along the trail, his hat brim pulled low and the collar of his hip-length denim jacket turned up around his ears, he knew it was important to contain his emotions in cold-store. And that it would be even more important to do this when he was face-to-face with the reason for his anger.
In the war, he had experienced a sense of exhilaration during the heat of each bloody battle. And he survived. He had been in the grip of burning anger while hunting Jamie’s killers. Yet he finished it physically unscathed. Setting no store by luck, he regarded his continued existence as a part of destiny’s plan. But this could not be termed luck - when he survived to suffer the mental anguish of bearing the blame for Beth’s horrible death. For she was dead because he had allowed the white heat of rage to burn out calm reason.
But the man called Edge never made the same mistake twice.
The trail, arrow-straight except where it swung around a natural obstacle, made the ride an easy one. But he avoided the risk of exhausting himself and his horse. Galloping spurts of speed were relieved by periods of unhurried walking. But sweat was never allowed to cool completely before he urged the gelding to another burst of exertion.
The almost full moon lit the way, and cast grotesque shadows across the desolate terrain spread out to either side of the trail. The eyes of the man - glittering slits of ice blue in the shadow of the hat brim - constantly raked the terrain with sweeping, unblinking stares. But there was no man-inspired threat dogging the rider and his horse as they once more neared Fort Waycross. Just the menace of exposure and the danger of accident. Both of which could be avoided by good horsemanship and constant movement.
He saw the first sign of life during the ride when he rounded a low mesa and reined the gelding to a halt to survey the ruined fort. No line of the sculpture of destruction had been altered from when he had last looked at the fort from this viewpoint. Then, the afternoon sun had been blazing down on the crumbled and blackened walls. Now, moon glow illuminated the rubble from above, and fires and lamps lit it from within.
Soldiers, their uniform buttons glinting, stood guard on the north wall. Other sentries patrolled on the ground. Their eyes were as alert as those of Edge. One of the sentries shouted and swung his rifle. Over the half-mile distance, the half-breed heard the cry of alarm clearly against a background of irregular thudding sounds. These sounds were curtailed and there were other shouts. As he clucked the gelding forward, more uniformed figures emerged into sight, climbing across the rubble of fallen walls and collapsed buildings.
The rifles, which had been swung towards him by nervous instinct, were lowered or sloped when he was seen to be alone -and a white man.
A stockily built captain snapped an order and every soldier, except for a bearded sergeant, returned to duty. As the sentries began to amble back and forth and survey the moonlit terrain, the thudding noises recommenced. The officer and non-com moved out on to the intersection before the gateway as Edge reined in the gelding, draped his hands over the saddle-horn, and gave a curt nod of greeting.
‘Captain Kirk, Twenty-First Cavalry, sir,’ the officer responded, and executed a snappy salute. ‘There’s Indian trouble hereabouts.’
He was in his late twenties, his short build seeming to hold a great deal of strength. His face had the basic lines of handsomeness, but what his green eyes had seen inside the fort had taken its toll. He was at once bronzed by sun and made wan by the sight of mass slaughter. He looked haggard and somehow diminished. The sergeant was fifteen years his senior. His greater age and, perhaps, longer experience, enabled him to take the carnage of Fort Waycross more calmly.
‘Obliged for the information,’ Edge replied, looking through the gateway behind the two soldiers.
There were maybe forty soldiers in the troop. Those not engaged in sentry duty were burying the dead. The thudding sounds were made by spades biting into the compound.
‘You seen any ’paches on your travels, mister?’ the sergeant asked, his tone and expression making the request a demand.
‘Kind of hard not to in this part of the country,’ Edge answered.
‘Hostile?’ Kirk snapped.
‘Didn’t bother me none.’
The sergeant had dark eyes. They glowed dislike at the mounted man. But the officer spoke first. Without aggression.
‘Then you’ve been lucky, sir.’ He jerked a gloved hand over his shoulder and horror became more deeply etched into his features. ‘Whole post wiped out. Army, army wives and civilian personnel. For no reason we’ve been able to discover. And not one hostile fatality - unless they took away their dead.’
The moon, fires and lamps spread brightness across the entire compound. The mutilated corpse of Grunting Bear had been removed from the gallows and the bodies of his five followers were no longer slumped across the fort’s threshold.
Edge nodded. They do that sometimes.’
He raised his hands from the saddle horn.
‘That all you got to say, mister?’ the sergeant snarled. One stride took him into the path of the gelding.
The half-breed’s lips curled back to display his teeth in a cold grin. ‘One other thing, feller.’
‘Yes?’ the captain urged anxiously.
‘Get out the way or have another grave dug!’
The non-com’s beard was black. Anger made the upper half of his face shade to almost the same hue. ‘Why you—’
‘Sergeant Kelly!’ Kirk roared.
Kelly had pulled himself up to his full height of more than six feet. The sound of his rank and name held him to rigid attention. His dark eyes continued to be fixed on Edge’s face in a stare of hate-filled challenge.
‘Sir! There’s somethin’ not right about this civilian. He’s just too easy-goin’. He acts like all this ’pache killin’ is just so much week old horse-sh—’
‘Hold your tongue, sergeant!’ the captain snapped. ‘We have no jurisdiction over non-military personnel.’ He tilted his face to look up at Edge again and moderated his tone. ‘You’re free to leave, sir. But I’ll give you fair warning. The hostiles didn’t just take their dead. They also removed arms, ammunition and, I’d guess, some expl
osives. With such well-armed hostiles in the area, I’d advise you to take advantage of military protection. Half my men will remain at this fort while I lead the rest to find and kill or capture the hostiles.’
The shock of what he had seen was too recent and the young officer was unable to conceal the visible after-effects of the gruesome discovery. But his tone of voice was strong with confidence. He swept his gaze over the ridged skyline to the north. And his voice was lower now, as if he was talking to himself.
‘According to the establishment figures in Tucson, they also took some women.’
‘Obliged for your concern, captain,’ the half-breed responded. ‘But maybe you should spare some for your sergeant here. You’re gonna need every man you have.’
‘Step aside, Sergeant Kelly!’ the officer commanded, as the non-com curled back his lips for a snarling retort.
Kelly backed off and Kirk spun on his heels and marched away through the gate.
‘I reckon you know more than you’re sayin’, mister!’ the sergeant accused bitterly. That, or you’re the coldest damn fish I ever did get to meet.’
Edge glanced through the gateway, to where graves were being covered while others were still being dug. ‘No way to help the dead, feller. Except to bury them. Army’s taking care of that.’
Kelly spat, and shivered - despite the thick top-coat that was wrapped around his big frame. “What about the livin’, mister? The women them ‘paches stole outta Way cross?’
‘Army wives are army problems, feller.’
The sergeant spat again. Then reformed his features into an expression that came close to a friendly smile. ‘Look, mister,’ he said hurriedly as Edge prepared to tap his heels against the gelding’s flanks. ‘Every man-jack of us are new to this territory. Posted down to Tucson from Albuquerque then straight out here to boost Waycross strength. I ain’t so proud as Captain Kirk. In this situation, we can use the help of a guy knows this country. What d’you say, mister?’
‘Mostly, not a lot, feller. It wastes time.’
He heeled the horse into an easy walk, and felt the dark eyes boring into his back from out of the bearded face. ‘All right, civilian!’ Kelly yelled after him. ‘Go your own sweet way. Captain may be new around here, but he ain’t no rookie. He’ll find them friggin’ sonofabitchin’ ’paches without no civilian help!’
Edge didn’t turn around as he muttered into his upturned coat collar: ‘That Captain Kirk sounds like an enterprising feller.’
Chapter Six
DAWN was a dirty grey hue on the eastern horizon as Edge rode up among bare rock hills and Fort Waycross was lost to sight behind him. Once more, his hooded eyes were never still for an instant in their sockets. Ahead, to the sides and to the rear, as the grayness spread to encompass the entire dome of the sky, blotting out the stars and dulling the moon to a pale and fuzzed disc, he scoured his surroundings for sign of danger. And forced a nagging anxiety into the deep recesses at the back of his mind.
The main body of hostile Apaches had not simply resigned themselves to the loss of six braves and the weapons they had been sent to steal. Some time, between when Edge rode out of Waycross and Kirk led his troopers in, the fort had been raided yet again. But the fact that the Apaches in the mountains were now undoubtedly well armed was not the cause of the half-breed’s concern. What bothered him was the possibility that, en route for Waycross, the war party had clashed with Sullivan and his men.
If that had happened, the missing bodies and empty arms store was proof the Apaches had won the battle. And finding a ten-thousand-dollar-rich Apache would be vastly more difficult than running down the fat man and his bunch.
By sunrise, Edge was high and deep into the Dragoon range. Still on the trail that led ultimately to Silver City. Signs of the men he was tracking were sparsely scattered but, from time to time, he saw indisputable proof that he was headed in the right direction: ruts, cut into patches of soft earth or through dishes of dust by the fat Sullivan’s tandem gig. Even more infrequent were the hoof prints of unshod ponies - the sign which Sullivan had followed to back-track on the Apaches’ route to Waycross.
The sun was clear of the eastern ridges, and hot enough to make the cold of night a dim memory, when Edge reined in the gelding at a point where a spur led off the main trail. There was an abandoned stage line way-station in the vee where the Silver City trail swung due east towards a pass and the spur started a twisting course up a steep incline.
Edge had approached the way-station - four frame walls without a roof and with no glass in the windows - at an easy walk. There were a hundred better hiding places within rifle range than the decrepit building. He stayed in the saddle as he kicked at the door. It didn’t swing open. Instead, the hinges tore loose from the rotted frame and it collapsed inside in a cloud of dust. A bobcat kitten streaked out with a shriek of aggressive fear. The gelding snorted and backed off.
‘Easy,’ the half-breed soothed. “That ain’t the fat cat we’re looking for.’
There was nothing inside the walls except the fallen roof. Edge stood erect in the stirrups and swung his head from side to side examining once more those hundred other hiding places on the rocky slope and broken level ground below it.
He put as much faith in sixth sense as he did in luck. But he did allow that men used to living on the narrow borderline between life and death - himself among them - did possess an indefinable ability to be aware of watching eyes. It was not a sixth sense, for it was a part of one of the other five: such men could feel the secret presence of another.
‘You one of them, mister?’
He had not yet taken off his coat. But, ever since he had donned it, the right side had been hiked up - tucked under the gun belt to allow free access to his holstered Colt. He dropped hard to the saddle, slid the gun smoothly from the leather, and turned head and muzzle towards the woman.
She had stepped out from behind the rock which had hidden her, twenty yards up from where the spur left the main trail. A thin, gaunt-faced woman of early middle-age, dressed in a shapeless white nightgown and wool-knitted sleeping cap. The ends of her straggly black hair were rolled in curlers. Her angular, unattractive face was scored by the lines of a hard life and was a dough-white color. Sweat beads oozed from its pores and ran across the scrupulously clean flesh. The droplets fell from the point of her jaw to add wet stains to the dust streaks on her nightgown.
‘I knew I’d spooked you, mister,’ she said, blinking, her tone nervous. ‘I asked if you was one of them.’
Edge smiled - at his own response to a danger that had proved non-existent. He slid the Colt back into the holster. He touched the brim of his hat ‘No, ma’am. But the way you look, you got nothin’ to worry about.’
She blinked again, her nervousness diminishing. Her relieved mind took his meaning. ‘Don’t be disgustin’, mister!’ she snapped. ‘I been around and I know about such things. You know I didn’t mean that. You ain’t one of the fat man’s bunch?’
She had started to move forward, away from the rock. But the hardness was back in Edge’s eyes. Their piercing stare halted her abruptly, as though erecting a physical block in front of her.
‘Mister, you sure look mean enough to be one of that bunch!’
‘What d’you know about the Sullivan bunch?’ he asked, his tone even but demanding.
‘That they’re mean, vicious sonsofbitches!’ she snapped, clenching her fists as she wrenched her eyes away from the lock of the half-breed’s stare. She glared up the winding spur trail that climbed the northern slope.
Edge followed the direction of her gaze, cracking his eyes to peer at where the trail went from sight over a high ridge. ‘Obliged to you, ma’am,’ he said, and took off his coat.
Her dark eyes took on a crafty glint as she watched him turn and push the coat into his bedroll. She chewed the inside of her cheek. ‘You got the look of a man with a whole lot of meanness inside him, mister. You gunnin’ for that fat man makes his own laws?’
‘My business.’
The woman spat. ‘Mine’s whorin’. Givin’ men what they want if they got the money!’ She started to speak more quickly, and injected a whining tone into her voice, as the half-breed settled himself into the saddle again. ‘Look, I wouldn’t lie to you, mister. I come outta Vintonville when that bastard Black Cloud and his stinkin’ braves hit it.’ She looked down at herself. ‘In a real hurry, like you can see.’ Her dark eyes, brimful with pleading, found his cold stare again. ‘But that Sullivan, he’s the biggest bastard ever born’
‘Vintonvlle’s up there?’ Edge asked, nodding towards the high ridge.
The woman nodded her head vigorously, anxious to please. ‘Yeah. I worked there. At the Miner’s Rest Hotel. Name’s Meg Richards. When them crazy Mescaleros hit, I came out faster than anythin’ the Union Pacific’s got, I can tell you. More scared than I ever been in my life.’
Edge was showing signs of leaving again, and the woman spoke even more quickly. Saliva trickled from the corners of her mouth, or sprayed out with the words. ‘Saw this big bunch of whites camped here. Ran all the way down the damn hill. Damn near busted open my lungs. Went down like a sack of loose-packed grain. Came to with that fat slob havin’ his way with me. All his damn bunch cheerin’ and hootin’. Then they all damn had me. Every damn way there is.’
She slowed her speech, anger giving way to pleading again. ‘Like I told you, mister. I’m a whore. And no sense pretendin’ any of it was new to me, but—’
‘What d’you tell them?’ Edge cut in. ‘About the Apaches hitting Vintonville?’
She blinked. ‘Yeah! After they got through with me, they kind of sudden started to wonder what I was doin’ out here in my night clothes.’ She spat. ‘And I told them I’d made one big mistake, mister. I should’ve stayed in town. Wasn’t much worse them Mescaleros could’ve done to me than what—’
EDGE: Sullivan's Law (Edge series Book 20) Page 7
