‘Howdy,’ the man with a slicker draping him from shoulders to ankles greeted as he reined in his mount. ‘Guess this has to be Ventura?’
‘Got it in one, feller,’ Edge answered and had the impression of a tallish, slimly built man in his own close to forty age group.
‘Territorial Marshal Roche. Don’t guess three strangers passed through here lately? One big and fat, one just big and one not much more than a kid?’
‘Named Max, Stu and Johnnie?’
‘That’s damn right!’ Roche came back, his demeanor and tone abruptly grim. ‘How long ago were they through?’
‘What’s left of them is still here, Marshal,’ Edge told the lawman. And jerked a thumb over his shoulder. ‘Ask at the saloon.’
‘What’s left of them? You mean Max Sawyer and his partners are dead?’ He was happily incredulous. ‘Somebody killed the sonsofbitches?’
‘You’ve got it.’
Roche vented a short laugh. ‘Well, I’ll be. Is the man who got them still around, mister? Because if he doesn’t know it, I’ve got some good news for him. Those sonsofbitches were worth five hundred bucks apiece. Dead or alive. And dead makes it one hell of a lot easier for me.’ He laughed again, throwing back his head to turn his face at the downpour. ‘To hell with the lousy weather. Suddently this is one beautiful day, mister.’
Edge touched the brim of his hat and moved around Roche to finish the walk to the tent of another dead man. And said lightly: ‘Been something of a rewarding one for me.’
Chapter Nine
CRYSTAL Dickens was no longer on the cot. Instead she was slumped in the rocker and there was exhaustion as well as pain etched into the punished flesh of her face which she had cleaned of the white salve.
The candle lantern was lit and its flickering flame spread a dancing light throughout the tent: so that by turns her red-blotched and yellow-blistered features were shadowed and illuminated.
The train,’ she said croakily as Edge entered. ‘I heard it come back. And I thought I could make it to the depot. This is as far as I got.’
‘Chance a section of track is washed out,’ the half-breed told her. ‘No rush until the storm’s over.’
He began to roll his blankets.
‘You’re leaving?’ she asked anxiously.
‘We both are. Just as far as Regan’s Place. To get a solid roof over our heads.’
‘I can’t… you’ll have to help me.’
‘No sweat.’
He lashed his topcoat around the bedroll and then carried the bundle and his saddle outside. Then he came back inside, doused the candle and drew a cry of mixed surprise and pain when he picked her easily out of the chair and ducked to carry her through the entrance flap. The force of the rain beating against her face took her breath away. Then she cried out again when he moved her in his arms and draped her over his shoulder.
‘Ain’t dignified or comfortable I guess,’ he said as he half-stooped to gather up his gear with his free hand. ‘But like I told you, we ain’t going far.’
‘It seems I have no choice,’ she rasped as he started to plod along the muddy street. ‘My God, I feel so helpless.’
‘No trouble, lady. I had to go back for my gear.’
‘And I’m just so much extra baggage you collected while you were there!’ she retorted.
‘Like you said,’ he answered.
‘Said what?’
‘You’re a helpless case.’
‘My God, Edge, this is no joking matter,’ she said earnestly and he felt her press her face into his sopping wet shirt at the back. Then there was the threat of renewed weeping in her voice when she went on: ‘I really did mess it up, didn’t I? If only I’d known you were coming back and waited at that crazy old man’s place!’
They were at the end of the street and he veered to the side and stepped up on to the stoop of the saloon as she groaned: ‘Damn, damn, damn!’
Inside there were about two dozen miners, seated at tables or standing at the bar counter. Vince Attinger and Millicent were at a corner table on their own, talking with their heads together and holding hands like young lovers. Marshal Roche and the brakeman and fireman off the train were at the table where earlier three men had died. Pat Regan, smiling the first smile Edge had seen on his normally morose looking face, was behind his bar: constantly surveying his rush of customers for empty glasses in need of refilling.
And most of the other people in the smoke layered and liquor smelling saloon seemed to be in a happy frame of mind. This shown on their faces and heard in the buzz of talk. But then the conversations were curtained and expressions became frozen on every face, which was swung toward the pushed open batwings. To see the half-breed cross the threshold with the woman slung over his shoulder.
‘Frig it, what now, stranger?’ Regan growled.
‘She ain’t for the cemetery, feller,’ Edge answered. ‘Too weak to walk is all. Need a room for her to rest up in.’
For a moment or so it was as if relief had a palpable presence in the saloon.
‘Hey, that the young lady Max Sawyer and his buddies mistreated?’ Roche called above several restarted conversations.
‘Right, Marshal,’ Edge confirmed as he headed for the gap in the bar counter to which Regan had waved a hand. ‘I’ll see you about the money on them right after I’ve got her bedded down.’
‘I’m not a damn horse, Edge,’ she rasped as he carried her behind the counter, and kept her sun-scarred face pressed into his back.
‘Lady, if you were I’d have shot you,’ he answered.
‘Room five,’ Regan growled, jerking a thumb through the archway as he started to draw a beer.
The stairs were dimly lit from a lamp on the landing. Edge carried his burdens to the top with the same ease as he had brought them through the rain, and at the designated door set down his gear to free a hand and turn the knob. Enough lamplight crept into the room to show him the way to the double bed and he lowered Crystal on to it gently. Then he went to the doorway and dragged his gear over the threshold.
The woman remained in the position he had left her, breathing deeply and obviously suffering from the effects of the uncomfortable trek from the tent.
‘You want me to light the lamp?’ he asked after glancing around the spartanly furnished, stale smelling room.
‘Thank you, no.’
‘You want me to help you get out of those wet clothes?’
‘I can manage.’
‘When you’re under the blankets, don’t spread out too much. I’ll be up again in awhile.’
‘I’ve no right to object to that.’
‘You’ve got the right, lady,’ he told her as he raised one of the pillows and pushed his finder’s fee beneath it. ‘But unless you make your point before my head hits this, I won’t be able to hear it.’
She had turned to watch what he was doing and when the pillow was back in place again, asked: ‘What’s that?’
‘Fourteen hundred bucks. My pay for getting the money back for the Attinger kid.’
‘You’re awfully trusting of someone you know to be a thief,’ she said as he went to the open doorway.
‘You can’t walk, let alone run.’
She snorted. ‘I just want one thing from you, Edge,’ she said bitterly as he began to close the door.
‘Yeah?’
‘For you to make sure that train out there doesn’t leave unless I’m aboard it.’
‘In my time I’ve broken a lot of things: from cups to most of the Ten Commandments, lady. Never a promise, though.’
He closed the door and moved along the landing and down the stairs. Below, the saloon was again filled with cheerful talk and his reappearance among the customers caused no interruption.
Marshal Roche, who was of an age and similar build to Edge and wore a bushy, drooping moustache, was waiting at the bar beside the gap. He was reading a sheet of paper and there was a pen and bottle of ink beside his almost empty beer glass on the counter
top. His tanned, green eyed features were arranged in a mild scowl when he looked up from scanning the note he had just written.
‘I ought to be real mad at you, Mr. Edge,’ he rasped through very white teeth. ‘For not telling me it was you took care of Sawyer and his buddies. Made me look a bit of a chump when I asked around in here about it and was told I’d just been talking to the man that did for them.’
‘Ain’t the right kind of weather for long talks out on the street, Marshal. And you wouldn’t have taken my word without witnesses to back it.’
Roche scowled for a second more, then shrugged and folded the paper. ‘Water under the bridge now. Buy you a drink?’
‘Sleep is what I need.’
The lawman nodded. ‘Yeah, know what you mean. I’ve got a lot of that to catch up on after being on the trail of those three sonsofbitches for near four months. Here.’
He gave the paper to Edge.
‘What’s this?’
‘My authority for you to collect fifteen hundred dollars from the Arizona Trust Bank in Tucson. In the event I’m not in town when you get there.’
He finished his beer and banged the glass on the counter top for a refill. After it had been drawn and paid for, he said: ‘You didn’t expect me to be carrying the cash around with me?’
The half-breed completed reading the simply worded letter and refolded it and slid it into a hip pocket. ‘Guess not. Obliged to you, Marshal.’ He patted the pocket where the letter was stowed. ‘Good as money in the bank.’
‘Sure is. And old man Clayburn who owns the bank will be real happy to pay up. He lost his wife and his only daughter when Sawyer and the others started blasting. And all they got for the killings was two hundred and four bucks.’ He raised his glass. ‘Here’s to you, mister.
‘And it’s no skin off my nose, you collecting the reward money. My job don’t allow for me to get anything except my regular pay. In case it bothers you.’
‘It doesn’t bother me,’ Edge told him and turned to go back behind the counter. But halted the move when something heavy was banged on a table and the sound drew every eye to the corner of the saloon where Vince Attinger and Millicent were seated.
The youngster had used the butt of his Remington to call for attention and now he slid the gun back in the holster as he rose to his feet and grinned around at the sea of faces turned toward him.
‘Want everyone here to have a drink with me!’ he announced. ‘In celebration! On account that Milly and me are gonna get married!’
The news was greeted with a burst of cheering, whistling and hand clapping. During which Pat Regan scowled his displeasure at the prospect of losing one of the few attractions his place had boasted. But then, as the calls for drinks began to be yelled at him and he started a tab for Attinger, his demeanor improved.
‘Ain’t you gonna take a drink with the boy?’ the busy bartender asked of Edge as the half-breed moved toward the archway.
‘Another time, maybe.’
The gun butt hit the table again and Attinger was wearing an even broader grin and his voice was high-pitched with excitement as he hugged the waist of the girl with one arm and draped the other around the shoulders of a moon-faced, thick set miner.
‘Make that two drinks all round, Mr. Regan!’ he yelled. ‘Mr. Grimes here has just told me he’s an ordained minister of the cloth! So he can marry folks! And tomorrow he’s gonna marry Milly and me! Everyone’s invited to the weddin’!’
This time the response to what the kid said was loud enough to mask the constant noise of the rainstorm for several seconds. By which time Edge reached the head of the stairs, where the barrage of drops beating upon the roof of the building acted to mute the raucous sounds of celebration from below.
Inside room five, which was at the rear of the place, just an occasional shouted word or burst of laughter intruded into the pitch darkness after the door was closed.
Edge sensed that Crystal Dickens was only feigning sleep but he said nothing while he slowly undressed: relishing the lack of wet fabric pressed to his flesh when he was naked.
Then: ‘What’s happening down there?’ the woman asked as he dragged his saddle across to the side of the bed.
‘The Attinger kid and the whore are getting married tomorrow,’ he answered as he arranged the saddle so that the stock of the Winchester jutted upwards from the boot. ‘He’s throwing a party.’
‘Some people have all the luck,’ she said miserably.
‘You’re invited, lady,’ he told her as he slid his damp body into the bed.
‘You know what I mean,’ she countered and jerked her warm body away from his cold one. And hurried to establish that the move was an involuntary reaction. ‘You’re freezing.’
She eased toward him and pressed her leg, hip and arm against him to transmit some of her body heat to his flesh. And trembled.
‘It ain’t nothing to get excited about, lady,’ he said flatly.
This time it was the anger of humiliation which triggered her move away from him: as she rolled on to her side with a groan of pain, putting her back to the half-breed.
‘Damn you!’ she blurted. ‘You don’t have a single drop of the milk of human kindness inside you!’
‘I was weaned early, lady.’
‘A person makes one mistake and as far as you’re concerned they don’t deserve the slightest consideration ever again. You know what I’m beginning to wish, Edge? I wish you hadn’t found me today. I wish I’d stayed tied to the railroad track and the train ended it all for me. What then, Mr. Hard as Nails Edge? What if you’d found me cut up in a dozen pieces and spread out under a train? What would you have thought then?’
‘Wishful thinking ain’t something I ever do,’ he muttered. ‘Not like sleeping.’
She sucked in a long breath and then let it out in a sigh that caused her to shudder. ‘How can a man as mean as you sleep at nights?’ she asked bitterly.
‘On this particular night, lady,’ the half-breed growled, ‘it seems like it’s going to be with great difficulty.’
Chapter Ten
EDGE woke at dawn, nudged from sleep by the first grey light of day spreading into the room from the single window. The rain was still falling from out of a leaden sky, but without the force of the previous night.
As always, the half-breed came awake to instant awareness of his surroundings and possessing total recall of the events which had led to him being where he was.
Crystal Dickens continued to sleep peacefully, undisturbed by the creaking of the bed as he slid from it. And remained so while he dressed in his underwear, pants and boots, then washed up and shaved before putting on the rest of his clothes. And she merely moved her head on the pillow and breathed a small sigh when he pulled up the blankets to cover the exposed mound of one of her breasts.
Out on the landing he could hear the snores of men sleeping soundly behind doors. And as he went down the stairs the stale odors of last night’s liquor, tobacco smoke and sweat drifted into his nostrils.
He found the kitchen and had to rake yesterday’s ashes from the stove before he could build a fresh fire. Then he put on a pot of coffee to boil and went through into the saloon. There opened up the double doors and fastened them against the wall to either side. Stood for a long time on the crumbling stoop, breathing in the fresh, clear, damp air of the morning through which the rain now fell as no more than a depressing drizzle. When he heard the bubbling coffee boiling out of the pot spout and hissing on the stove he returned to the kitchen to pour himself a cup. Then carried it out on to the stoop to drink it.
The new day was fully born by that time, dawn having pushed the last remnants of night beyond the towering cliff that formed the western horizon. But still there was no sign that anyone else had stirred from his or her bed in the tents and two buildings that comprised the dying community of Ventura. And while Edge drank the coffee and then rolled and smoked a cigarette, his continued to be the only pair of eyes to survey the morass
of mud that was the street and trail, the silent train, the low grey sky and the gently falling rain.
Then he heard footfalls on the stairway. They receded into the kitchen and a few moments later Vince Attinger emerged from the archway and crossed the saloon to join the half-breed on the stoop. He was carrying a cup of coffee in both hands and his youthful face had the dissipated look of somebody in need of at least a whole potful of the stuff.
‘Shit, do I feel lousy,’ he groaned.
‘Guess you won’t be alone in that when the rest of them wake up, kid,’ Edge said.
Attinger’s hands shook as he raised the cup to his lips. He shuddered when the coffee hit his throat, looked for a moment as if he might vomit it back up, but then swallowed it and grinned.
‘Wow, that’s good.’ He nodded. ‘And it was a good night. Maybe even worth feelin’ this bad.’
‘Where are the bodies?’
The youngster blinked. ‘Oh, yeah. Out back in the stable. I said I’d take care of them didn’t I?’
‘No sweat, kid. I’ll do the burying. It’s not the kind of chore somebody should do on his wedding day.’
Attinger’s unwashed, unshaven and liquor-pallored face became spread with an expression of doubt. ‘You think it’s wrong of me, Mr. Edge? Gettin’ married the day after I buried my Pa?’
‘You care what people think?’
‘I guess I shouldn’t. Except for Milly.’
‘The way it should be.’ He emptied the dregs from his cup and handed it to the young man. Take care of this for me. I’ll get to the burying.’
‘Somethin’ I’d like you to know, Mr. Edge.’
‘Yeah?’
‘About Milly. She didn’t come out here to do ... to do what she was doin’.’
‘She told me, kid.’
‘She was lookin’ for her sister and brother-in-law. Did she tell you that? They left Chicago to set up home in the west but after awhile their letters stopped comin’ to Milly. She came out to look for them, just like Pa and me set off to find Gramps. But her money didn’t last beyond here. And she ran up a debt with Regan. Helped him with the chores at first, but that just paid her way and she wasn’t gettin’ no stake to leave with. Which was when she started to . . . when she took up the line of business she did.’
EDGE: Vengeance at Ventura Page 9
