On The Edge: Book Three in The No Direction Home Series

by Mike Sheridan

  A roar of laughter went around the crowd. “Should have bought his ticket earlier!” someone shouted back.

  “Maybe he didn’t have his fare and they chucked him off!” another yelled.

  The man pushed Faber roughly forward. “Hey, Mason!” he hollered out. “What do you want to do with this one?”

  Mason stepped away from Gatto. Obviously drunk, he swaggered forward, clutching a bottle of whiskey by his side. He reached Faber and stared at him coldly. “Your sheriff killed my man Russ,” he said. “Put a fucking sack over his head and executed his ass. What you got to say about that?”

  Visibly shaking, Faber stared at the huge gang leader. “I…I…uh…” he trailed off when he caught sight of Jonah standing twenty feet away. Jonah’s heart beat fast. There was nothing he could do for Faber. He just prayed the frightened man didn’t give him away.

  “Hey, look at me!” Mason snarled. “I said, what you got to say about that?”

  “N-Nothing,” Faber stuttered, cowering in front of Mason.

  The bandit’s face contorted into a scowl. “Nothing?” he roared. “I’ll teach you not to answer me!”

  He stepped forward and grabbed Faber under each armpit, then dragged him in the direction of the bonfire. With a powerful twist of his hips, he flung him into the pile of blazing logs where, stumbling, Faber fell onto his hands and knees. With a howl, he jumped to his feet and stepped out of the bonfire.

  With surprising speed, Mason pounced on him and threw him into it again. Each attempt Faber made to get out, Mason grabbed him and pushed him back in.

  It was sickening to watch. “Poor bastard,” Webb whispered to Jonah. “Can’t someone put him out of his misery?”

  On his next attempt to get out, a screaming Faber, whose clothes were now alight, ran desperately through the fire and out the other side, where Mason’s men began to push him around, jeering at him.

  Over on the far side, the gigantic figure of Mason ran toward the bonfire, his arms raised high above his head. He leapt into the air, and in what appeared slow motion, bounded through the flames and out the other side.

  Aghast, Jonah watched as he strode over to Faber, who by now had sunk to his knees, trembling uncontrollably. Mason withdrew his pistol from his holster. Towering over Faber like an executioner, he pointed it down at Faber’s head.

  Open-mouthed, Paul Webb stood transfixed, staring at the ghastly spectacle. Jonah turned his head away. There was no way he could watch. He pushed his way through the crowd that had huddled closer around them, whooping and cheering.

  Behind him, a shot rang out. He shuddered as a roar went around the square, then snatched a bottle of whiskey from somebody and took a hard, bitter slug from it.

  Amid the whooping, no one paid him any attention. He staggered away from the square around the back of the cabins. Out of sight, he bent over, hands on his knees, tears flooding his eyes.

  “Sorry, Ray,” he whispered. “There was nothing I could do.”

  A cold anger surged through his veins. He couldn’t stay here any longer. He had to leave right away. He stood up, wiped his eyes, and headed in the direction of the car park.

  Reaching the lot, he strode across it to where his silver Nissan was parked on the far side. From the edge of the forest, someone called out to him in a harsh whisper, “Jonah! Over here!”

  He jerked his head in surprise, and in the moonlight could just make out a figure waving frantically to him. Glancing around to make sure no one was watching, he hurried over.

  As soon as Jonah reached him, the man grabbed him by the arm and pulled him behind the tree line. Wordlessly, he led him deeper into the woods, and after twenty yards, the two pulled up behind a large tree.

  Jonah stared at the man in astonishment. “Bert! What in the name of jaysus are you doing here?”

  “I got left behind with Ray Faber,” a haggard-looking Bert Olvan told him. “When we were chased into the forest we got separated and—”

  “Bert!” Jonah broke in. “They found Ray and dragged him back to the square. Mason killed him.”

  Olvan nodded grimly. “I know. Bastard thought it was the funniest thing in the world.”

  Jonah’s eyes widened. “You were watching? Where were yeh?”

  “I was on the rooftop of one of the cabins overlooking the square.” Olvan raised a pair of NV binoculars that dangled on its lanyard by his chest. “I saw everything.”

  “Why did yeh go and do that?” Jonah asked, confused. “Why not just get the hell away from here?”

  Olvan looked at him. “I was watching you, that’s why?”

  Jonah did a double-take. “Me? You knew I was here all this time?”

  Olvan nodded. “How do you think I just found you? When I was hiding in the forest earlier, I spotted you on your way back from North Beach. Mason’s men were everywhere. I couldn’t risk calling out to you, so I ran through the woods to get over to you. By the time I got there, you were walking back to the square with three of Mason’s men.” He looked at Jonah fiercely. “What the hell are you playing at? Don’t tell me you’ve gone and joined Mason’s gang?”

  “Of course not!” Jonah retorted indignantly. Then he thought a moment. “Well yeah…kind of, but it’s not what yeh think.”

  “You sure? You looked pretty friendly with everyone back at the square.”

  “’Course I’m sure. I’m here with you, aren’t I? Look, Bert, I need to know if Colleen is okay. You got any news about her?”

  Olvan shook his head. “I turned my radio off so I wouldn’t risk being heard. By the time I switched it on again, the camp had been evacuated. I’m pretty sure she got off on one of the boats, though.”

  At the square, there had been no reports of any women killed during the attack. Still, Jonah wouldn’t stop worrying until he was certain his wife was safe.

  “You still haven’t explained yourself properly,” Olvan said, looking at him sternly. “What the hell are you doing here with Mason?”

  Jonah shook his head forlornly. “When I got back from North Beach, the fighting was over. Like a total gobshite, I thought we’d won and had sent Mason packing. So, happy as Larry, I sauntered over to the square. Lucky for me this geezer Gatto mistook me for one of Nate’s crew.”

  Olvan frowned. “Nate’s crew? Who’s Nate?”

  “He was the leader of the bunch of skangers Mason got to storm North Beach.”

  “I see. Go on.”

  Jonah pointed back toward the parking lot. “Gatto took me to the woods on the far side of the car park where he’d killed Nate and three poor other bastards. He was planning to off me too, only he decided to press-gang me into his crew instead.”

  Olvan’s frown grew deeper. “You saying Gatto killed Nate? Why would he do a thing like that?”

  “It was an inter-gang thing,” Jonah explained. “Happened all the time back in Dublin. Mason promised Wasson Lodge to two different groups, so Gatto took out the competition.” He reflected a moment. “I got lucky there. Seeing as I’d just killed the last three geezers who’d know I wasn’t part of Nate’s group, Gatto wasn’t any the wiser.”

  Olvan’s face was becoming increasingly perplexed as he tried to keep up with Jonah’s tangential line of reasoning. “Wait…you killed three of Mason’s men?”

  “Nate’s men,” Jonah corrected him. “Look, Bert, it’s complicated. I’m confused about it meself. Bottom line, Mason thinks I’m part of Gatto’s crew, and Gatto is Mason’s new best buddy. That’s how come I walk around like I please.” He pulled out the keys to the Frontier from his pocket. “I’ve the keys to me Nissan. If you want to risk driving past Mason’s checkpoint, I’m game ball for that. Else we hoof it through the forest. What do yeh think?”

  “Wait a moment,” Olvan said, looking pensive. “Let me figure this out.”

  “Bert, come on!” Jonah said impatiently. “I need to get back to Colleen.”

  Olvan shook his head. “I’ve got a better idea. Something that’s going
to help us take back this camp.” He looked at Jonah. “Something only you can do.”

  Jonah stared at him in alarm. “Fer feck’s sake, Bertie, why does something tell me I’m not going to like this?”

  CHAPTER 17

  In the smallest of the four upstairs bedrooms, Colleen lay in bed alongside Monica Jeffreys. She could hear her friend’s rhythmic breathing as she slept. For Colleen, sleep was an impossibility. Her mind was too plagued by anxiety to allow for such a comfort as that.

  Ever since Sheriff Rollins had dragged her onto the very last boat to evacuate the camp, her mind had been in turmoil. Her husband was somewhere back at Camp Benton, and she had no idea whether he was dead or alive. Without a radio, he hadn’t been able to contact anyone. She just prayed that he had managed to evade Mason’s men when they swarmed the camp, and had gotten away somehow.

  Shortly after arriving at the farmhouse, she and Monica had been assigned their room, while in the three larger bedrooms were the rest of the Benton women, along with the group’s five children. In a state of shock, Colleen had sat down on the bed, whereupon she’d burst into tears. Until then, she’d managed to keep her emotions frozen, but once in the privacy of the bedroom, it all came flooding out.

  Monica had done her best to console her, though there was little she could say or do. The agony of not knowing whether Jonah was alive or not was overwhelming. While part of her accepted there was a distinct possibility he’d been killed, Colleen simply refused to accept it. It was impossible to believe such a vibrant spirit as his was no longer alive.

  Besides, she reasoned, her husband was streetwise, alert to every danger. Though trapped on the north headland, surely he would have found a way out, perhaps escaping on one of the boats Mason’s men had arrived on. That thought gave her some solace. Tomorrow, she would talk to Walter about organizing a search party to find him.

  Exhausted, she finally fell into a fitful sleep as the last of her cogent thoughts flickered across her forebrain.

  Jonah Murphy, you better be alive or I’m going to murder you!

  CHAPTER 18

  The following morning, Rollins awoke to find himself in unfamiliar surroundings. It took him a moment to realize where he was: on a mattress on the floor of a musty smelling room that he shared with four other Benton men.

  The previous night, they had been assigned the small annex adjacent to the farmhouse’s main living room as their temporary quarters. Walter had promised him that tents would be issued to them the next day so they didn’t need to live in such a cramped space.

  Two men were still asleep, but Granger’s bedroll was empty. He checked his watch. It was 7:15 a.m. Unzipping his sleeping bag, he quickly got dressed and poked his head into the living room, where a few of the others were already up.

  “You seen Ned?” he asked them.

  “He’s in the kitchen, Sheriff,” said Jim Wharton, who leaned against the wall sipping a mug of coffee.

  Rollins stepped out into the hall and walked down to the kitchen. Inside, two women were preparing breakfast on a camping stove and there was the smell of eggs frying.

  Granger sat alone at the kitchen table, a mug of steaming black coffee in front of him. He looked terrible. Unshaved, his hair was disheveled, his pallor an unhealthy gray. Rollins knew just how badly Granger had taken the loss of the camp.

  “Been up long?” he asked.

  “A couple of hours,” Granger replied. “Got sick of staring at the ceiling all night.” He indicated to where a small pot sat on top of the counter. “Water’s just boiled if you want to fix yourself a coffee.”

  Rollins unhooked a mug dangling underneath one of the kitchen shelves. He dolloped a heaped spoon of instant coffee into it from a jar nearby, added sugar, then poured the water from the pot.

  He sat down at the table and stared at his friend. “Ned, stop beating yourself up over this, you hear?”

  Granger’s face took on an even more strained expression. “I can’t, John. I’ve spent all night thinking about how I should have handled things differently. Maybe if I’d been quicker to—”

  “Ned, stop! Stay focused on how we’re going to take the camp back.”

  Granger managed a weak smile. “Don’t worry, I’ve done plenty of thinking about that too.” He checked his watch. “I’ve arranged a meeting with Walter at nine. I thought it’d be a good idea if our two camps knocked a few ideas around together.”

  “Excellent idea. Between us all, we ought to come up with something.” Rollins paused a moment to reflect. “You know, despite everything, we’re not in bad shape. Imagine if Walter and his people hadn’t picked us up. We would have spent the night in the forest. No water, no food, low on ammunition. Now that would have been bad.”

  Granger nodded. “True. And that’s the scenario Mason probably thinks we’re in right now. I don’t think he has any idea where we are. We can use that to our advantage.”

  The front door banged open, then footsteps rushed down the hallway. A moment later, Kit Halpern burst into the kitchen.

  “Ned, Sheriff, I’ve good news!” Halpern shouted excitedly. “Bert’s just arrived!”

  Rollins looked at Granger, and the two broke out into relieved smiles.

  “Where is he?” Granger asked.

  “He’s outside. He spent the whole night walking here.”

  Rollins and Granger stood quickly from their chairs and followed Halpern out of the building. The young man took them out to the front garden and over to the next field. Sitting at an empty camping table was Bert Olvan. He rose to his feet as Rollins and Granger approached, who both took turns embracing their friend heartily.

  “It’s a relief to see you, Bert,” Granger said when Olvan finally let go of his bearlike grip. “How on Earth did you know we were here?”

  Olvan grinned. “I didn’t. I just had nowhere else to go. I prayed you might all make it back here. Tell me, how is the mood?”

  Granger shrugged. “Losing the camp has been a big shock to everyone. John’s doing a great job keeping everyone’s spirits up.”

  “I’m sure,” Olvan replied. “I’ve some good news. Our Irish friend Jonah Murphy is alive too.”

  “That’s good news indeed!” Rollins looked around. “Where is he? Gone off to see Colleen, I’ll bet.”

  Olvan shook his head. “I persuaded him to stay put. Last I saw of him, he was heading back to the square.”

  The two men stared at Olvan, confused looks on their faces. “The square…at Camp Benton?” Rollins finally said. “Bert, what on Earth are you talking about?”

  A tired smile came to Olvan’s lips. “It’s a long story. To cut it short, we now have a spy in Mason’s camp. Let’s make sure we put him to good use.”

  ***

  Colleen woke up with a start, and the dull, aching pain she’d felt in her heart all night turned full volume again as she came to her senses. Frail and exhausted, she got out of bed where Monica still lay, fast asleep.

  She slowly got dressed and was tying the laces of her boots when there was a light rap on the door. Mary Sadowski poked her head in. “Colleen, you better come outside,” she said quietly. “I’ve some news for you.”

  Colleen’s heart beat fast. She tried to read the expression on Mary’s face. It wasn’t comforting. “Is it bad? You better tell me.”

  Sadowski hesitated. “Not exactly. But it’s not good news either.”

  Colleen’s lower lip quivered. “Mary, what are you saying? Please, just tell me.”

  Mary stepped into the room and grabbed her arm. “Come downstairs. It’s better if Bert explains it to you.”

  CHAPTER 19

  Jonah woke up in a wretched state. His mouth felt like a piece of old carpet and his head pounded so hard it felt like a crew of Irish navvies were trying to jackhammer their way out of both sides of his skull. He woozily opened his eyes, whereupon harsh sunlight penetrated his brain like shards of glass. Hastily, he closed them again.

  He flopped a hand ont
o his forehead. Shading his eyes, he opened them again, and saw that he lay sprawled on the grass outside one of the cabins on the square. The morning sun beamed down over the rooftops, while all around him the ground was littered with empty beer cans and whiskey bottles.

  Several other men lay close by, mouths open and snoring loudly. Looking closer, Jonah recognized the shoulder-length gray hair of one of them. Don Gatto, his new drinking buddy and a stone-cold killer. A shudder ran down his spine. He’d spent the night partying with quite literally the sickest bunch of skangers on the planet.

  What were yeh thinking? he groaned to himself. Then the more pertinent question arose. And what the hell am I still doing here?

  He crawled through the wreckage of his mind, desperate to remember the events of the night before. Something at the back of his head nagged at him, something that filled him with unease. What, though? He’d drunk so much whiskey that everything was a blur.

  Then it all came flooding back. Mason’s brutal execution of Ray Faber. How he’d fled the square in disgust, looking to leave the camp. Something had prevented him from going. What in the name of jaysus was it?

  Jonah bolted upright. He tapped the front pocket of his shorts to confirm that the two-way radio Bert Olvan had given him was still there. Now he remembered everything.

  That’s what I’m doing here, he groaned inwardly. I’m a bleedin’ spy!

  During their furtive talk in the woods, Olvan had convinced him to stay on at the camp. Seeing as he’d been accepted as one of Mason’s crew, it meant he would be in the perfect position to provide vital intelligence to the Bentons. After much argument, Jonah had reluctantly agreed. Anything he could do to help the Bentons would help keep Colleen safe, the thing that mattered most to him in the world.

  He checked his watch and saw it was 8:15 a.m. He stumbled to his feet, grabbed his rifle resting against the cabin wall, and tottered out onto the square.