Edge: Arapaho Revenge

by George G. Gilman

  Only when he was able to speak at a normal conversational level and be clearly heard did the half-breed comply with Meek's request.

  And gave a bald, concise account of his dis­covery of Nalin among the dead at the encampment, of their run-in with Marc Maziol, how the ferry raft was lost and what happened when Yellow Shirt and his band showed up at the night camp in the ravine.

  Cy Meek listened to the even-voiced tale with the same level of attentiveness he had displayed when Glenn Royale was speaking. While the younger lawman who had previously directed only varying degrees of embittered resentment at the half-breed underwent a radical turn­about. And there was something akin to defer­ential admiration in his homely, unshaven and trail dirty face when Edge finished talking—as the train finally rolled beyond earshot.

  Royale was obviously bursting with ques­tions he wanted to ask. And perhaps was har­boring some resentment toward Meek now, be­cause of the way the senior man was handling the situation. But the older man beat the younger one to the vocal punch, as he rose from his desk and said:

  "Okay, Glenn. Let's go. Whatever them Indians came to our piece of country for, what they're here for now is to kill whites. Fact they mean to take revenge for what happened to their people at the Spring is evidenced from the way they took such pains to cover then-tracks."

  "We gonna turn Mr. Edge loose and arrest them traders, sheriff?"

  "Like hell we are, kid!" Meek answered bitterly and gestured for the deputy to lead the way to the door. "Let me tell you the facts of life about livin' in a town like Calendar."

  They left the building, the sound of their footfalls and Meek's grumbling voice fading as the ceiling-hung kerosene lamp swayed through a gradually lessening arc after being set in motion by a draught of chill night wind when the door was briefly open. This stream of cold air entering the place emphasized the lack of a stove and it was then that Edge took off his topcoat and lay out on the coat, covering himself with the sheepskin and dropping his hat over his face to blot out the lamplight.

  The only sounds that came into the law office from the vastness of the world beyond its walls were subdued by distance, perhaps identifiable if he had been inclined to attempt to recognize what they were. But he was not so inclined as he lay on the cot in this cell, waiting for the pleasing weariness he had experienced in the Cottonwood Saloon to permeate through his senses again.

  A stream of disconnected thoughts and images came and went from his mind. Unbid­den and some of them unwelcome. But on this occasion the half-breed made no attempt to put up a barrier against memories and neither did he feel moved to self anger in reflecting upon his actions since he first saw Nalin and how the responses she had triggered within him had in­fluenced so much of what he had done.

  She was, indeed, very beautiful. More beauti­ful, even, than the woman he had met and married and lost in such a tragically short space of time. More than enough time, for sure, to have planted the seed and for the initial growth of a new life to begin. But only to die before it was developed enough to be detected, when the life that gave it life was so cruelly ended.

  At a thousand other times in a thousand dif­ferent circumstances, Edge would have angrily tried to rid himself of such an uncharacteristic line of thought as this. But tonight it was as if his mind was as much a captive of strangers as was his physical being and he was totally re­signed to acknowledging there was no chance of imminent escape. So best to ride the easiest route until he next had the opportunity to direct his own destiny.

  Thus, for a few minutes, he was not as obstinate as Marc Maziol's mules. And was amenable to allowing that there were occasions when he experienced loneliness. Maybe some­times was made a little crazy by the enormity of the space and the silence that surrounded him so often. But not so crazy as the French­man in his lust for the nubile body of Nalin...

  The half-breed had never, for one moment, looked upon the seventeen year old girl in that way. Why, she had even chided him—good-naturedly as he recalled it—for his uncustom­ary display of shyness at the camp in the ravine. After she had accused him, in a temper, of being afraid to see and touch her injured breast.

  Or was he remembering the interlude accur­ately? He vented a low grunt against the brim of his hat, dismissing the query. For he was not voluntarily delving into the dark compart­ments of times remembered with the express purpose of reaching a conclusion about any aspect of what had happened and why. He was merely allowing his mind to wander at will while he waited for sleep to come.

  He had seen Nalin then as a beautiful face. And beyond this as a young girl who was wounded and in great distress. Who he had helped. But why? Was it because he had known that in a run-in with up to thirty revenge bent Arapaho, he had a good chance of surviving when they discovered he had helped one of their kind? That was what she had accused and it was the easy way out to look back and say he was guilty of this.

  But here in the peace and solitude of the Cal­endar jail, his free roaming mind had time and opportunity to unearth the truth. And the truth was that at the time he began to help the young girl, he did so against her will. And he was not so arrogant as to assume that he would be able to alter her view in however long it took for Yellow Shirt and his Arapaho braves to locate them. So he had helped Nalin against her will, which was not his way at all—went head­long against his basic philosophy that a man or woman should be free to do exactly what he or she wanted, provided they did not complain when the time came to face up to the conse­quences.

  At the ferry, the Frenchman's intentions to­ward the young girl had done more to influence Edge's reactions than the shooting of the horse. Which again was not usual for this half-breed who claimed only to protect what was his—but by then it was too late. He had broken another fundamental rule of the way he led his life by entering into a relationship with another person.

  Looking back now, he could see the bait in the trap. Placed there by the coincidences that were not quite perfect.

  Nalin was not a half-breed by parentage; but because of circumstances she was not regarded by her own people as a full blood Arapaho squaw. She was the most beautiful young girl he had ever seen, but he never looked upon her as a woman. Not a coincidence, as such. But in retrospect, the way his mind was working to­night, he could recall no other woman—or girl— who had been there for the taking, and appeal­ed to him, that he had not at least thought of taking . . . since Beth.

  But Nalin was different from Beth. Nalin had been raised from an early age by a white couple. Like Josiah and Beth Hedges?

  Damnit... he almost got angry then, as he was visited by the thought that it was only women who were supposed to get broody-women and hens and mares and....

  But then he smiled into the darkness of the inside of the crown of his hat, and perhaps there was a fire of warmth in his eyes as he felt his lips draw apart. For if a man could not laugh at himself, perhaps there was something wrong with him?

  And maybe there was nothing wrong with a man who, because of some mysterious response felt a regard for a nubile young girl that was entirely asexual, attempted to provoke a fight in which he could kill the men who caused such distress to the girl. Attempted to provoke such a confrontation on a crowded street, to maybe give the act some kind of respectability—particularly as the representative of the law was there to witness it?

  Hell, it wasn't his way at all. Which is what I Cy Meek had said without being aware of the emotions under the surface of the events. And hell, if Beth had lived long enough to have a child, it would not have been seventeen yet. And, shit in hell, a father was supposed to want a son.

  Edge was too deeply engrossed in the stream of increasingly nebulous thoughts and frag­ments of images that came and went from his mind that he failed to hear the opening and closing of the law office door, feel the fresh draught of night air that was admitted or sense the presence of somebody else, until the sheriff of Calendar asked harshly:

  "You asleep, Edge?"

  The
half-breed took perhaps a full second to come out of the emotional past and into the present reality. Did not move from his com­fortable position on the cot as he answered:

  "No, sheriff. Figure you could say I've just been brooding."

  "Not like you or me to do that," the lawman answered as he dropped into the chair behind the desk.

  "Even if fellers are on different sides of the law, they can be much the same."

  Cy Meek vented a terse sound of disgust. Then growled. "You and me aren't on different sides, not really."

  The half-breed felt a degree of expectancy in the silence, but made no offer to supply a com­ment. Or even raised his hat to look quizzically at the lawman.

  "We all have to live, mister," Meek said at length, sounding just a little miffed. "And like I just told young Glenn Royale, those of us that had the opportunity to make our own beds got to consider ourselves real fortunate. And we also got to lie on them beds without whinin' when they get to feelin' a little lumpy. Don't you agree, mister?"

  "I've been in a cell before, sheriff, and as beds go, this cot ain't so bad."

  "Smart ass!" Meek snarled without too much rancor. "Why, if you sat on a thorn, I guess your brains could leak out."

  "You're the real smart one, feller."

  "I am?"

  "You can walk out on me. But ain't no way I can escape hearing what you have to say."

  There was a brief silence, then Meek clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth and said morosely: "Like I agreed with young Royale, it's that Spenser and that Marx should be locked up in here. Because I don't doubt what the squaw said is true. They slaughtered more than a score of defenseless people. And you should be walkin' free. Because I know what that no account ferryman was like—wouldn't have been no shock to me if you'd said he wanted to do away with you and the squaw and rape your horse. But me and then Glenn Royale, we hired on in Calendar as the local people's lawmen. And like you got to know, out here on the frontier, law's not all the time applied accordin' to how it's written up in the books."

  Once more there was a pause that was quite obviously left by one man for the other to fill. And Cy Meek was about to utter another sound of irritation as a prelude to going on, when Edge said from under his hat:

  "Been my experience that it's not just out on the frontier that people get the law they can best afford."

  "Up your ass, mister!"

  "Careful you don't damage my brains." Meek caught his breath, clicked his tongue and sighed. Then continued, in a carefully con­trolled voice:

  "Wherever you do your thinkin' from, Edge, I figure you're bright enough to have got my message. Calendar folks are anti-Indian and be­cause of that they figure the men that killed all the Arapaho are heroes. Whatever Calendar folks thought about that crazy Frenchman who ran the ferry, they have you marked down as an Indian lover and so you have to stay on ice to stand trial when the circuit judge next visits town."

  There was a much longer silence between the two men now. A time of utter peace, with not even a single cicada chirping out in the chill of the night. Broken when Edge said:

  "Sheriff?"

  "Yeah?"

  "Circuit judge be by before the Indians hit this town?"

  "Guess not. But Glenn Royale figured about twenty-five to thirty braves."

  "He's about right."

  "We have men posted to watch for an attack from any side of town. And any man who isn't sleepin' with a gun at his bedside tonight knows where can lay hands to one pretty damn soon. There Eire more than fifty men between eighteen and sixty-five in town and on the farmsteads to the south."

  "So I can sleep easy in my bed."

  "We got blankets if you want."

  “No thanks, sheriff."

  "Hope to get a stove in here sometime. Place used to be a notions store until it was converted and they added on the cells. Never did replace the stove after they knocked down the rear wall that used to be and..."

  Cy Meek continued to talk, holding a one way conversation with an unresponsive listen­er who might well have been quietly sleeping for all the interest he showed in the potted history of Calendar that was related to him. Then, eventually, the lawman ran out of fresh information on his subject or the inclination to deliver an unappreciated monologue on any­thing. And he rose from the desk, went to the hatstand, donned a frockcoat cape-fashion over his shoulders and sat down again. Pressed his cupped hands to his mouth and breathed warm, expelled breath into the palms. Then muttered:

  "Damnit, I should've insisted they put a stove in this place!"

  And Edge growled from under his hat: "Yeah, sheriff. Thing's around here ain't too hot, are they?"

  Chapter Ten

  EDGE WAS in a dreamless sleep in the small hours of the cold morning and he came awake easily. Was not jolted into awareness by the distant sound that his sixth sense for danger warned him might well portend fresh violence.

  But the first sound he heard while conscious­ly listening was the whistling end of another man's snore. Instantly knew where he was and why he was there. Knew also, before he folded up on the cot, swung his feet to the floor and put his hat on the top of his head, that it was Sheriff Cy Meek doing the snoring or else the two lawmen of Calendar, New Mexico snored in exactly the same way. They didn't. It was the sparsely framed, gray-haired, burnished-faced older of the two peace officers who was sleep­ing in his chair, folded forward so that his head rested on his arms folded on the top of his desk. Clear to see because Meek had only turned the kerosene lamp down and not out when he abandoned attempts to start a rap session with a man who had apparently gone to sleep—and settled down to sleep himself. Now, in the diminished level of lamplight the lawman who was more in sympathy with his prisoner than the citizens of Calendar who paid him, con­tinued to sleep peacefully in his uncomfortable posture. Snoring in a subdued way as Edge put on his sheepskin coat and then leaned into the angle of the side and rear wall of the cell, while he listened to the far off sound that had to travel many miles through the still dark night to reach him.

  Correctly identified now—as it got closer and louder sounding not in the least like a distant roll of thunder in a storm that might perhaps move in any direction. Thunder rolls came and went. This rumbling sound, now that the half-breed was wide awake, was continuous.

  Edge struck a match on the cell wall and lit his cigarette. Dropped the dead match in the shell ashtray Meek had provided and rasped the back of a hand over the thick growth of bristles on his jaw. The noise of this masked the sound far out in the night—as did the snor­ing of the lawman every few seconds or so. But not for long. Because the source of the distur­bance to the night time peace to the north west of Calendar was a train heading for town and coming in at high speed.

  Meek coughed himself awake after he unwit­tingly sucked in some of the smoke from the half-breed's cigarette. So came awake noisily and irritably, stiff from his awkward posture and disconcerted by not knowing where he was for a few seconds.

  Voices were raised out along the street, calling questions and giving replies. In tones of excitement, nervousness and perplexity. The sheriff was still unhappy at his rude awakening as he fisted the grit of sleep from his dark eyes and glowered at the composed and impassive half-breed to demand:

  "What the hell's happenin', Edge?"

  "There's a train coming in from the north west, feller. And from the way its stirred the people up around here I'd guess it's not a scheduled arrival."

  While the half-breed was giving his even-voiced reply, Meek listened also to the noises from near and far outside. And dug a watch from a pocket under his topcoat—had to tilt the face to the meager light from the lamp to read the time.

  "It's five in the mornin', damnit!" he growl­ed as he thrust the watch back under his coat and knocked his chair over backwards in his haste to rise from the desk. "No train due at Calendar until midday!"

  "Going to be real early," Edge said. "Even if the engineer does slow her down some."
r />   "Trouble, it's gotta be," Meek rasped as he went around his desk, to get a rifle from the rack before he headed for the door.

  Which was pushed open before he could reach it. And the overweight Hans Linder blocked the way out, breathless from running, a worried frown on his pale face as he held a Winchester rifle across his chest and belly in a two-handed, knuckle-whitening grip.

  "Just come down from the station, Mr. Meek!" he reported, rushing out the words be­tween gasps for breath. "Your young assistant said I should watch for Indians from there. But it is not Indians I see coming. It is a train."

  "Yeah, Hans, I hear it," Meek said, a little impatiently as he made to leave the office. But the way remained blocked by the stout frame of the German bartender.

  "The station manager, Mr. ..."

  "Flohr, Hans."

  "Ja, that is right. Mr. Flohr is awakened by the noise of the train coming and comes out of his house to the station in his night shirt. And he says for me to come and bring you, Mr. Meek. For the train, it is not only unscheduled. It is traveling too fast and unless the engineer quickly—"

  "Outta my way, mister!" the lawman snarled as his patience with the breathless but still garrulous man finally ran out. And he shouldered his way between Linder and the doorframe to join the rapidly swelling crowd of people hurry­ing along the street—everyone heading for the north end of it. The shouted questions, counter questions and answers and the thud of footfalls still audible against the increasing volume of sound from the hurtling train.

  "What do you think, feller?" Edge asked as Linder made to turn and join his fellow citizens after several moments of uneasily not knowing what to do.

  "Mr. Edge?" he countered, puzzled.

  "Could you see the train?"

  "Just the smoke."