EDGE: Sullivan's Law (Edge series Book 20)

by George G. Gilman

  Carpenter gave a final spasm, cursed tacitly with his eyes, and died. The rush of blood subsided to an ooze. Edge stooped and wiped both sides of the razor’s blade on the back of the corpse’s shirt. He was no longer smiling. When his slitted blue eyes shifted from the dead man to Garcia, his expression betrayed no hint of what he felt behind the glinting blue slivers.

  ‘I’m only half Mexican, feller,’ he said evenly, replacing the razor in its pouch and picking up the Winchester from the table. ‘One hand gave him half a chance.’

  Gunfire sounded outside, exploded by the town’s defenders. Then the hoof beats of many galloping horses thundered against the sun-baked ground.

  Garcia shook his head sadly. ‘He was a good man to work with, senor.’ He shrugged. ‘Then he became misguided by greed.’

  The half-breed advanced on the window where the Mexican stood, and Garcia shuffled hurriedly out of the way. Edge looked out to left and right, and vented a low grunt of displeasure, ‘He sure led me a place I didn’t want to go,’ he growled.

  The Miner’s Rest Hotel was fuelling more than half a dozen separate fires, the flames creeping across the tinder-dry timbers. Muzzle flashes exploded at broken windows. Terror showed on many of the faces behind the guns. The carcass of the half-breed’s gelding was just one of the dead things on the street. Other horses and human forms were slumped inert under the drifting black smoke.

  To the east of the town, more than a score of horses were galloping at full-tilt, raising a dust cloud that was an ugly smudge against the slickness of the more distant heat shimmer. They were kept at the headlong pace by a handful of war-painted Mescalero braves crouched low on their ponies as they loosed shots across the heads of the riderless animals.

  ‘The covering fire was for the horses to be run off, senor’ Garcia said as he moved gingerly up alongside Edge.

  Somebody in the hotel scored a lucky hit. One of the braves smacked down against the neck of his pony, and was hurled off at the side. From behind every small rise and out of each shallow dip, an Apache showed for an instant. As long as it took to explode a volley of shots towards Vintonville. Edge and Garcia leaned back from the window. Bullets smacked into the adobe walls. Dorrie screamed and hugged herself more tightly.

  Edge leaned towards the glassless window again, and slammed the stock of the Winchester against his shoulder. One riderless horse had veered wide of the bunch. It was the only animal which was saddled. A bankroll of ten thousand dollars in large bills wasn’t a big enough bundle to bulge the saddlebag.

  ‘Senor!’ Garcia shrieked.

  Edge squeezed the trigger.

  The door of the house crashed open.

  A mounted Apache, intent upon herding the veering horse, rode across the half-breed’s line of fire.

  Dorrie screamed.

  The Apache took Edge’s bullet and smashed to the ground.

  The saddled horse kept galloping - and veered back to join the other panicked animals.

  Another shot exploded within the confines of the house.

  Edge whirled in time to see a fountain of bright crimson splash out of the gaping mouth of the woman who didn’t want to die. Another welter of gore spewed from the exit wound at the nape of her neck.

  Her killer was still mounted, leaning down from his pony to show his brightly daubed face and wavering rifle at the doorway.

  Garcia threw himself to the floor. The half-breed was a vital split-second faster than the brave in pumping the action of his rifle. The bullet spun into the Apache’s heart and its impact hurled the dead man backwards off his mount. The pony reared, wheeled, and lunged into a gallop.

  ‘All right to use both hands that time?’ he growled at the cowering Mexican.

  He glanced out of the window and saw that the Apaches east of town were withdrawing. Flinging themselves on to their ponies and chasing after the dust cloud shrouding the stolen horses. Then he took long strides to the open door, one of them taking him over the blood-stained corpse of Dorrie.

  Garcia struggled to his feet, unable to use his arms.

  The smoke from the burning hotel was thicker now, swirling and clearing at the whims of air currents and the combatants who rushed through it.

  The attackers to the west of Vintonville had used the smoke and the diversion of the stolen horses to move in. Some, like the brave immediately outside the house, had paid the price. But the defenders had been charged higher. As flames roared to engulf the entire building, those in the hotel had been forced to burst clear. On to the open street as the Apaches galloped through the smoke.

  Even as Edge got off a shot and saw an Apache tumble from his pony, one of the other Mexicans in the Sullivan bunch took a bullet from another brave. Then a man ran from the bats-wings, clothes and hair blazing. He staggered into the path of a galloping pony. The Mescalero fired his rifle, but was unable to veer his mount. The pony crashed into the falling, burning corpse. The brave sailed through the air, and took three bullets before he smashed to the ground.

  Not everyone had made for the hotel when the troopers had led the Apaches to Vintonville. Some soldiers and some of the Sullivan bunch had sought the cover of the houses. A few, like Garcia and the woman, had switched from one piece of cover to another.

  Thus, as the whooping and shrieking Apaches raced their sweating ponies the length of the street, shots exploded from windows and doorways. But pitifully few.

  Edge brought down one screaming brave. And five more were blasted to the ground. Then, abruptly, an eerie tranquility settled over Vintonville and the surrounding country. Not silence. The fire roared and crackled. The wounded sobbed and groaned. The fear-riddled wailed. The retreating Apaches vented war cries. Their mounts thudded the ground. But, by contrast with the sounds of the recent battle, this new segment of time had a quality that was almost soothing.

  Then: ‘Sergeant Kelly, give me a casualty report.’

  Captain Kirk shouted the order from a house on the same side of the street as the one where Edge and Garcia kept company with two corpses.

  ‘Any of you boys catch me a friggin’ ’pache?’ Sullivan roared. From the other side of the street. The soddy directly next door to the burning hotel.

  ‘All he wishes to do to her is kill her, senor? Garcia said flatly as he stepped out into the street behind Edge. He peered intently at the profile of the half-breed as Edge moved to the side of the house and stared across the open country towards the departing Indians. ‘Women and money,’ he added against the shouting of soldiers and Sullivan’s men.

  He seemed ready to continue, but suddenly he spat. The gesture was uncharacteristic of him, but spoke his feelings more plainly than any words.

  ‘You?’

  Edge glanced at the bearded face of the cavalry non-com. He gripped the Winchester between his knees and dug out the makings. ‘Appears you found the Apaches without my help, feller.’

  ‘Hoped I’d find you strung ass-upwards over a fire with your skull burned open, mister!’

  The half-breed nodded through the gap between the houses, to where the back markers of the war party had been swallowed up by the heat haze. ‘Ain’t that enough hotheads for one day?’ he asked.

  ‘Down to four friggin’ men and no friggin’ ’pache ’cept dead ones!’

  Sullivan stormed out of the house where he had taken cover. As he waddled across the street, he pushed fresh shells through the loading gate of his Winchester. Sonny Boy, Evers, Bassett and a Mexican trailed him.

  ‘Five men, Senor Sullivan,’ Garcia corrected as Edge lit the cigarette and glanced up and down the street, canting the rifle to his shoulder.

  The smoke was clearing and he could see Kirk and three enlisted men checking the wounded.

  The fat man scowled at Garcia. He scratched inside his shirt. ‘Four and a half,’ he allowed, and spat. ‘Unless...’ He peered at Edge. ‘What happened to Pete?’

  ‘His number came up,’ the half-breed replied as Kirk joined the group in front of the adobe
house. ‘Four and a half is about right.’

  The captain’s young face looked older with the depth of his anxiety. ‘They blasted us to pieces!’ he rasped. ‘Horses all gone—’

  ‘It was him and his friggin’ brother both, uh?’ the fat man growled as he looked in through the doorway. ‘Took your bankroll?’

  ‘Si, Senor Sullivan,’ Garcia answered. ‘I was present when he confessed.’

  Edge spat, and looked again out over the empty country across which the war party had escaped. ‘Now the Apaches took it.’

  Kirk moved to the side of the fat man. And his horror deepened when he saw the vicious wound encircling the neck of Carpenter. ‘What happened to him?’ he croaked.

  Garcia looked at Edge, inviting him to supply the answer. The half-breed pursed his lips around the cigarette. Then, ‘Guess you could say he got dishonorably discharged.’

  Chapter Nine

  EDGE shaved, using the straight razor and cold water without soap. The fire in the hotel had burned out and the smell of Vintonville changed. The acrid taint of smoke and exploded powder was raised high into the atmosphere by shifting currents of warm air and the blazing sun of afternoon drew the familiar stench of putrefying flesh from the strewn bodies of whites and Indians and from the carcasses of fallen horses and ponies.

  Garcia sat in the same patch of shade where the half-breed squatted, watching with dark eyes that were as vacant as any in the heads of the violently dead. Kirk, Kelly and the four surviving enlisted men stood weary guard at paced-out intervals around the shattered town. And, even after an hour had elapsed and it was obvious the renegade Apaches were not going to return, the anxious young officer maintained his position and ensured his men did not; leave their posts.

  Sullivan and the four able-bodied survivors of his bunch had withdrawn out of the direct heat of the sun. With them they took bottles looted from the ruin of the hotel. And, as the afternoon grew old, snores and grunts sounded from the tiny house where they sheltered, punctuating the monotonous buzz of flies feeding on the dead.

  ‘You have the money, senor,’ Garcia said softly as evening began its first inroad against the heat of afternoon. Edge had slept in the same patch of shade where he shaved. Garcia had stayed there, too, but had remained awake. He spoke as the half-breed awoke, and hurried on when the slits of glinting blue expressed puzzlement. ‘And Sullivan the woman. Captain Kirk, he has his training as an army officer.’

  The Mexican - blood, dust, stubble and torn clothing having robbed him of every vestige of dudishness - glanced dully along the street towards the southern end. Edge looked in that direction, too, as he eased to his feet and spat the taste of sleep from his mouth.

  ‘To make hell on earth bearable, senor’ Garcia augmented.

  The guard duty had finished and Kirk was watching his men as they moved wearily from one dead horse to the next, collecting canteens.

  ‘What have you got, feller?’ Edge asked as the enormous figure of Sullivan blocked the house doorway. ‘Fear or loyalty?’

  With his useless arms limp at his sides, Garcia pushed his back against the cooling adobe and wriggled himself erect. ‘I am loyal, senor. To whoever pays me the most. Or to the man who offers me the best chance to survive.’

  Edge nodded, his face fixed upon a young soldier approaching the carcass of the grey gelding. ‘You could live to be an old man, feller. With the right breaks, a rich old man.’

  The Winchester had been held easily across his stomach. Abruptly, he swung it, pumped the action, and squeezed the trigger. The young soldier, his jaw and cheeks fuzzed rather than stubbled, whipped upright with a cry of alarm. The bullet dug a divot of dirt beside his feet, where he had been in the process of squatting to claim the canteens from the saddle of the dead horse.

  ‘Seems to me you got more than your share, soldier,’ the half-breed growled as the terrified trooper stared along the street at him.

  The trooper tore his eyes out of the trap of Edge’s gaze and stared down at the eight canteens he was carrying.

  ‘Civilian!’ Kirk roared, lunging into a run.

  Sullivan’s men stumbled out of the house behind the fat man, pumping the actions of their rifles.

  ‘What I am, right enough,’ Edge answered, pushing a fresh shell through the loading gate of the Winchester and canting the rifle to his shoulder. ‘And ain’t nothing army about my horse or anything he carries.’

  Kirk staggered to a halt, his men behind him. Up close, the officer’s exhaustion and anxiety was written into every ageing line of his face. Except for the veteran non-com, his men showed much the same degree of stress. ‘We’re all in this together, mister!’ Kelly snarled as Kirk panted to recover his breath. ‘We gotta pool what we got and share and share alike. Unless you figure to go your own sweet way again?’

  Behind his stare of hatred there was an underlying wish that the half-breed would elect to take such a course.

  Scratching himself, his blood-shot eyes showing a crafty look, Sullivan ambled along the street ‘You figure to tangle with the ’paches again, soldier boy?’ he wanted to know.

  His men stayed close to him, just as the troopers held in a tight group behind Kirk and Kelly.

  Kirk gave a determined nod, his mouth tightening. ‘You bet!’ he snapped, then raked his tired eyes over his stoop-shouldered men and the civilians. ‘But not with what I have here.’

  Sullivan scratched and nodded. ‘You’re wise, soldier boy. Made the same friggin’ mistake we all did. You too, Edge?’

  His lips beneath the bushy moustache parted to show his tiny teeth in a humorless smile.

  ‘You know how I feel about wasting words, feller,’ Edge replied evenly.

  ‘Specially when somebody else is sayin’ what’s on your mind?’ This drew no response from the half-breed, and the fat man turned to look at Kirk again. ‘We all figured on a friggin’ handful of ’paches runnin’ friggin’ wild. What it started like, I reckon. But them guns from Waycross, they juiced up a whole lot of other bastards. Right?’

  ‘We didn’t get time to count ’em!’ Kelly growled. ‘But there was a whole lotta them, that’s for damn sure.’

  ‘And you soldier boys have called it good so far,’ Sullivan went on, with another nod and more scratching. ‘Waitin’ for friggin’ dark, I’m meanin’. Keep from gettin’ friggin’ fried by the friggin’ sun. And get a better friggin’ chance of dodgin’ the friggin’ ’paches until you can tie in with some more army.’

  The exchange was not wasting time. Just using it, as the western sky became spread with the crimson light of the setting sun and night advanced across the hill country from the east.

  The once-handsome face of the stockily built young officer expressed a grimace. ‘You want to get to the point, mister?’

  ‘Sure, captain. And I reckon I’m still speakin’ for Edge, even if he ain’t one of my men. If you got a plan to tie in with more army and then go after the friggin’ renegades, we’re with you. And, the friggin’ more there are of us, the friggin’ better chance we got if the friggin’ ’paches spot us.’

  The bearded sergeant looked set to disagree, but Kirk spoke first.

  ‘It’s part of my duty to protect the civilian population,’ he said stiffly. He glanced up at the rapidly darkening sky. ‘I and my men will move out in a few minutes. You civilians may join us if you wish.’

  ‘Talks fancy, don’t he?’ the fat man growled.

  His men nodded their agreement.

  ‘Fancy talk don’t always hide an empty head,’ Edge put in. ‘Just sometimes.’

  Kirk raised a restraining arm as Kelly took a forward step. ‘You men have a right to know the situation.’ He stifled a yawn. ‘There’s a railroad north of here. Army started to build it to link Santa Fe with Fort Hope. Started to build it from Hope. Made better than twenty miles before Washington ordered the project abandoned. But the stretch that got built is used to transport men and equipment over the final leg to Fort Hope. I aim to reach t
hat railroad. Be about a midway point if we head due north from here.’

  ‘Why the friggin’ hell don’t we head for friggin’ Fort Hope?’ Sullivan growled.

  Kirk was a young officer, but he had held his rank for long enough to accept discipline as an essential part of life. He was not accustomed to having his plans questioned. His temper flared. ‘Because the shortest distance between two points is a damn straight line!’ he snarled. But he did not have the physical or mental energy to sustain a high emotion. His voice returned to a normal level. ‘There’s a train that does nothing else except run back and forth along the railroad. We can ride into the fort on it. Or maybe word has reached command about the uprising. They could be moving men into the area on the railroad.’

  Sullivan scratched for a while, then nodded. ‘We’re with you, soldier boy,’ he said at length.

  ‘He still speakin’ for you?’ Kelly rasped towards Edge.

  The half-breed moved to his dead horse and lifted the two canteens from where they were hooked to the saddle horn. ‘I like the captain’s train of thought, feller,’ he said.

  ‘Hey!’

  Everyone turned at the single shouted word. They looked along the street and out on the trail cutting across the plateau. The moon, as yet just a pale and fuzzed disc, shed enough light to show the moving silhouette of a woman against the rugged background.

  ‘Sonofabitch, ain’t that the woman we—’ Sonny Boy muttered.

  ‘Yeah,’ Sullivan cut in. He laughed. ‘Come for some friggin’ more of the same, maybe.’

  ‘Who is she?’ Kirk asked, cracking his eyes to try to focus them clearly on Meg Richards as the woman half-ran over the final few yards to Vintonville.

  ‘Home is the town whore,’ the blond-headed Evers supplied enthusiastically.

  Edge spat. ‘Home from the hump.’

  Chapter Ten

  KIRK listened to the whore’s story with contempt - both for her and her attackers. And responded to her plea for protection with a curt nod. Then Sullivan held up the departure for almost a minute, while he entered the house where the atmosphere was fetid with the stink of the dead girl and the Carpenter twin. The sound of splashing water told everybody what the fat man was doing. But only Edge and Sullivan’s men were aware of the target at which the stream of urine was directed