He arranged her gently upon the bed, removing the shift from around her head so that she would not suffocate. He draped the garment carefully over her emaciated leanness and went to the door, looking for a lock. There was none and he cursed softly, moved to the shelf above the bed. He found a hairbrush and used his razor to slash away the matted bristles, then took hold of the candle and held it low, began to examine the dirtstreaked, dust covered floorboards. He found one which was loose and prized it up with his knife, had soon laid bare the earth beneath the strip of room beside the bed.
Using the bristleless brush as a shovel, he began to dig.
CHAPTER TWENTY
THE atmosphere in the tiny room was fetid and Edge sweated freely as he scooped up the earth with his makeshift shovel. There was no sign on the surface of the earth beneath the floorboards to indicate where, many years in the past, Luis Aviles and his two fellow bandits might have dug to bury their ten thousand ill-gotten dollars. So the tall man had to delve at random, going two feet down in each place before moving on to another. His expression of grim determination did not alter with each disappointment, and his concentration upon the task was never broken. Even when the candle exhausted its tallow and the flame spluttered out in the pool of liquid wax, he did not stop, knowing that the money would have been placed into a container before it was consigned to its grave: that the hairbrush would clash with some solid object to mark the end of his labor.
He had been working for upwards of an hour, so intent upon the task that he had forgotten about the unconscious Maria, could not even hear her regular breathing against the scraping of the hairbrush. Thus she came out of it without Edge being aware of the fact, and he did not see her fear-filled eyes surveying his back as he worked in a corner of the room; was ignorant of her slow, careful movement as she inched down the bed, placed her feet upon the floor and drew her naked body erect. The door latch gave the faintest squeak as she turned the handle, froze her to the spot, her body trembling from head to foot. As she pulled the door open the hinges gave an even lower creak, and she went out sideways, eyes fastened upon the impassive back of the intent American.
But this creak came simultaneously with a thud of the brush hitting wood and Edge went into a fast bout of furious digging and scraping. He was unaware of the door left ajar, of the low moan that escaped from the throat of Maria. Not until the door crashed open, smashing back against the wall and a flame touched a wick, burst into brightness, did Edge spin round on his haunches, go for his gun. Then he stayed his hand.
“Señor, you spent too long with such an inept girl, and you were too quiet.”
The speaker as Manuel, who leveled a Colt at Edge. Beside him, also holding a revolver in his right hand while his left raised an oil lamp was Ramon. Both were in their underwear and may have appeared ridiculous under other circumstances. At their feet lay the naked, unfortunate Maria, victim of yet another gun butt to her head.
“Please continue with the work of a rabbit, señor,” Manuel urged, waving the revolver, not attempting to enter the tiny room. “We’re most interested in what your burrowing will uncover.”
“You don’t trust me, amigos,” Edge said.
“We do not trust our own mothers, señor,” came the reply.
Edge grinned coldly and returned to his work, light from Ramon’s lamp spilling into the room and down the hole. He could see a narrow section of rotten wood which gave off an evil smell of mildewed decay as he continued to scrape earth from it.
“We decided, señor,” Manuel said in a conversational tone, “that while a man could be rich in Montijo with over three thousand dollars, with five thousand he could be richer.”
“Logical, Mexican thinking,” Edge muttered scraping away enough earth to reveal the top of what seemed to be a bullion box, some two feet by one.
“You will work a little faster, señor,” Manuel encouraged when Edge halted to examine his find.
There was an iron handle at one end and when he leaned into the hole to tug upon it the bolt securing one side ripped from the rotten wood. But the other bolt held and the lid came up with a dull creak of hinges rusted by time. As if she had been waiting for this as a signal Maria regained consciousness for the second time that night and on this occasion threw caution to the wind. Her thin mouth stretched wide and her scream was loud enough to reach into every room of the building, ripping sleep or lust from every mind in the place.
Edge leapt to his feet, going into a turn to bring him to face the door, saw Ramon and Manuel looking down at the screaming girl. The younger man’s gun had followed the direction of his eyes so Edge shot Manuel first, the bullet entering his throat, gushing a fountain of bright red blood down upon the girl. Ramon squeezed the trigger of his revolver as a reflex action to the explosion of Edge’s gun. His shot ended the scream of Maria by blasting away her jaw and as Ramon snapped up the Tranter and his eyes Edge’s Colt spoke again. The bullet caught the handsome young man squarely between the eyes and a curtain of blood bathed his face as he fell with his uncle across the writhing body of the naked girl. The lamp fell from his lifeless fingers and sprayed the three of them with oil which immediately burst into flames. The screams and shouts which accompanied the thud of footfalls along the corridor were suddenly drowned by the shriek of utter horror and agonized pain as flames enveloped the flesh of the injured girl.
Edge looked down into the hole, the leaping flames providing ample light for him to see the contents of the rotted box. There was a gaping hole in one side and there was a sole five dollar bill left intact to show the fortune it had once held. For the remainder had been reduced to chewed-up shreds of white and green, lining the box to provide a soft nest for six tiny white rats which cowered from the light while their ugly black mother stared upwards with blinded eyes and bared teeth.
“You dirty rats,” Edge snarled and emptied his revolver into the nest, hurled the exhausted weapon in after the shells.
Shouts from the blazing doorway drew Edge’s attention and he unholstered the other Colt, fired in a rage through the leaping flames, heard a scream and saw the fat madam tumble into the room, blood spouting from her stomach, her clothes burning ferociously. He ignored her pleas for aid and turned to the boarded-up window, kicked once to shatter the glass, three times more to rip away the boards. Then he dived through the opening head first, leapt into the saddle of the white stallion and leaned forward to unhitch the reins.
He galloped fast towards the south, then swung west, finally north to take him in a wide sweep around the town. It was easy to keep track of his direction for he was able to take as his bearing the leaping flames of the El Serpiente bordello as the fire took hold of the entire building. He cast one final look over his shoulder, then heeled his mount into an even faster gallop northwards.
“Guess there’s some real hot whores in the old town tonight,” he muttered.
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