‘Put that on their grave markers, feller. Sure ain’t enough of them left to put names to.’
The group of standing men watched as Rhett pulled the cut clothing away from the body of the woman to expose her firm, dark-crested breasts. The stooping man bent closer to pick at the new stitching in the bodice of the dress.
And died.
The rifle shot was exploded from short range by a man attired in the uniform of a Confederate cavalry sergeant. There was blood on his face and at his belly. He was already toppling forward as he squeezed the trigger of his Winchester. His eyes displayed death before he hit the ice.
Rhett was a corpse an instant before this, the bullet of the dying man smashing through the crown of his head, penetrating his brain and lodging in his throat. The impact of the lead pushed him backwards across the ice. Blood trailed his course. His feet, legs and hips went off the ice and into the water. Thin ice cracked. His centre of gravity moved over the unfrozen river and his entire body sank into it.
‘All for a lousy souvenir!’ the younger crewman growled.
Edge relaxed after the tension of swinging his rifle towards Rhett’s killer. His eyes shifted momentarily to the naked breasts of the dead woman, already frosted with fresh snow, ‘Guess that’s what’s called a booby trap,’ he muttered, and turned for the bank.
‘Where are you going?’ the miner asked anxiously.
‘Find out if the Rebs had horses to go with the cavalry uniforms,’ the half-breed answered. ‘Figure they had to have some. To haul the gun.’
‘I’d like to remain here for awhile, if I may?’ Ferris asked, crouching down beside Charity.
‘Be a four and a half grand gesture to come back for you,’ Edge told him.
The two crewmen and the miner went with the half-breed. They found the horses - saddled and with bags bulged by supplies of food - a hundred yards behind the howitzer emplacement. The others waited, hunched in their coats, while Edge led two geldings back to the river.
There was a smile of satisfaction on his lean face, visible through the snowflakes clinging to his eyebrows and bristles. He had a horse again and had survived while others died. Soon he would have enough money to secure his independence for a long time to come. The blizzard in wild, open country was easier to take than when the norther had unleashed snow on the civilization of Omaha.
Ferris had left the body of the woman and was standing close to the bow of the Delta Dawn. The wind veered just once, and for part of a second the moving curtain of pelting snow parted. The stern-wheeler was seen for that moment: little more than a hull supporting tangled heaps of wreckage, a lot of it charred as black as the man who had struck the final blow at her. She was solidly wedged in surrounding ice now.
‘Self-sacrifice is laudable,’ Ferris said sadly as Edge led the two horses out on to the snow-covered ice. ‘But it is important that men of ability stay alive to fight new battles.’
Off the port bow of the crippled boat, the body of Henry Rhett was visible: full-length and face up - as if trapped in a state of suspended animation by the clear ice against the sandpit.
‘He served in his own way, Mr. Edge,’ Ferris went on when the half-breed remained silent. ‘He was a pervert. A lot of things a man should not be.’
‘He was okay,’ Edge allowed with a trace of feeling in his voice. Then he showed a faint grin. ‘Relative to another feller I used to know.’
‘He’s not the kind I’d usually sing the praises of, but—’
‘If you have to,’ the half-breed growled, holding the reins of both horses in one hand so that he could touch the brim of his hat in a gesture of farewell to the body caught in the ice, ‘freeze a jolly good fellow.’
Other titles in the EDGE series from Lobo Publications
#1 The Loner
#2 Ten Grand
#3 Apache Death
#4 Killer’s Breed
#5 Blood On Silver
#6 The Blue, The Grey And The Red
#7 California Kill
#8 Seven Out Of Hell
#9 Bloody Summer
#10 Vengeance Is Black
#11 Sioux Uprising
#12 The Biggest Bounty
#13 A Town Called Hate
#14 Blood Run
#15 The Big Gold
#16 The Final Shot
#17 The Final Shot
#18 Ten Tombstones To Texas
#19 Ashes And Dust
#20 Sullivan’s Law
#21 Rhapsody In Red
#22 Slaughter Road
#23 Echoes Of War
#24 Slaughterday
And More to Come…
Edge: Echoes of War (Edge series Book 23) Page 15
