Joe did not stay long, looking down at the face of the dead man, contorted into a mask of ugliness by the agony of his ending. Nothing more could hurt him and it was therefore pointless to hate him. There were five more men who must die and each moment that went by before their ends came would hang heavy on Joe. Frank Forrest, Billy Seward, John Scott, Hal Douglas and Roger Bell. They were inseparable throughout the war and despite Rhett, comprised the best small fighting unit under Joe’s command. And they had ridden out of camp as a group, honorable discharge papers in their pockets, three weeks previously.
“Captain,” Forrest had called. “It’s been a pleasure fighting with you. Now me and the boys are riding west. Army pay ain’t enough for our plans. We got real money to make.”
Joe had even waved to them.
Now he lashed out with his foot once more, but this time it was the body of Rhett that stirred the dust, the two buzzards allowed to rest where the bullets had dropped them. Then Joe walked to his horse and mounted, drew his rifle and knife and made five light score marks on the Henry’s stock before urging the animal through the gateway. He immediately left the trail, turning south west, across the black stubble of a wheat field, hoofs crackling and rising puffs of soot. He had not gone fifty yards before the buzzard whose breakfast had been interrupted seemed to materialize over the farm, circled twice and then swooped. Joe turned in the saddle just in time to see the bird stagger backwards as it tugged at something that suddenly came free. Then it rose into the air with an ungainly flapping of wings, to find a safer place to enjoy its prize. As it wheeled away Joe saw that swinging from its bill were the entrails of Bob Rhett.
Joe grinned for the first time that day, his expression of cold slit eyes and bared teeth that utterly lacked humor. “You never did have any guts, Rhett,” he said aloud.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE sun was an hour past its peak when Joe saw his first living human beings of the day. He was still In Iowa, but close to the Kansas state line and he was hungry. He had been riding through open country all morning, only occasionally crossing a trail to indicate that the whole nation was not wilderness. But he had chosen to cross them rather than follow them because none of them took the southwestern direction he was headed: and he had no wish to court trouble in a uniform. For although the war was over, the grievances that had caused it would continue to divide Americans for some time to come and state lines were no guarantee of allegiance to the beliefs of either north or south.
He would meet trouble as it came and deal with it, but there was only one brand he was seeking and that was not due yet. It was certainly not represented by the covered wagon drawn up at the side of a trail that cut a path in a north-west direction, paralleling the course of a strain which rushed clear and cool over a runs of rocks close to the campsite. Two bays had been freed from the wagon shafts and were tethered close to the edge of the stream. A fire, recently started, blazed under a large pot of something, which smelled appetizingly good a few yards from the horses. The wagon was old and decrepit, with sagging timber, wheels that had been repaired too often and patched canvas. Upon the canvas side was the faded lettering, in shaky capitals: GOD HAS COME TO YOUR TOWN. Beneath this was a badly painted representation of the Bible and below this, in smaller letters: HEAR REVEREND ELIAS SPEED PREACH THE WORD OF THE LORD.
Joe dismounted twenty yards short of the wagon and, taking the Henry, moved silently forward. He was wary only of the wagon, for there was no other cover in rifle shot of the campsite. He trod carefully, avoiding loose rocks that would rattle across the ground if dislodged. Then, just as he was about to spring to the rear, bringing his rifle up to cover the inside of the wagon, a voice froze him.
“Don’t move, my darling. I want to look at you just like that.”
It was a man’s voice, laden with passion and Joe’s breath came out in a rasp as a woman laughed.
“Now you want to look …” she whispered, and the sentence was lopped in half as Joe moved forward and spoke a single word: “Freeze.”
A bed was set clockwise at the front of the wagon and upon it, stretched full length was an apparently almost naked man. A filthy blanket covered his legs and lower stomach and above his black hair sprouted, growing thicker as it reached his chest. At his throat was a stiff, once white cleric’s collar. His head was raised, elbows bent for support, jaw resting on his palm. He was about fifty with a round, almost cherubic face with eyes that were too small and were now filled with shock as he looked at the wrong end of a Henry repeater. His face was drained of color and the wanness extended over his completely bald head.
The woman squatted on a low stool in front of a miniature rococo dressing table, complete with cracked mirror in a hinged frame. She was a half-breed, with perhaps Sioux blood mixing with Caucasian. Her nose was too broad, with flaring nostrils, to give her beauty but her dark eyes, even though afraid, held a deep sensuousness. Her body, completely naked, was firmly voluptuous with the muscle control of perhaps twenty-five years. She was brushing her thick, dark hair that reached to the middle of her back, posing with thrusting breasts and sucked in stomach for the man who had obviously just possessed her. It was she who recovered first, slamming down the brush and folding her arms across the breasts.
“What’s cooking?” Joe asked.
The woman said one word, the sound of which meant nothing to Joe, but her tone and the fury which leapt into her eyes made the meaning clear. But he refused to be provoked by the obvious insult.
“It’s not what you think,” the man said, jerking into movement, pulling the blanket higher as he wriggled into a sitting position.
“What isn’t?”
“Virtue is my sister.” His voice was high, reedy.
“Virtue?”
The man nodded to the woman at the dressing table. “The young lady is my sister, Virtue. We … we are somewhat late risers, as you can see.”
Joe made a clucking sound of impatience. “I don’t care if she’s your great-grandmother, reverend,” he said dryly. “I’m talking about the pot. What’s in it?”
The man grinned, suddenly anxious to be of help. “Stew, young man. Beef stew. Our last from the store, but the Good Lord will provide. You are most welcome to share it with us. I see from your uniform you fought on behalf of a just cause. God was on your side.”
The man’s tone placed him south enough to have root beside the Gulf of Mexico, but Joe would not have trusted him even if he could prove himself to be a dyed-in-the-wool Yankee. He motioned to the woman with the rifle.
“Tell her to fix the food.”
“I talk English good as you, soldier boy,” the woman said. “I’m not going to get dressed in front of your leering eyes.”
Her voice, too, told of a Southern upbringing.
Joe squeezed the trigger and the rifle barked, the woman scream and the man yelled with fear as the bullet shattered the mirror, tore through the canvas of the wagon and whined to the end of its trajectory somewhere in the wilds.
“Then you’ll have to be careful you don’t spill any of that hot stew on your pure, soft body, honey child,” he said evenly, mimicking a Deep South drawl.
The woman reached hurriedly for her dress, which hung from a peg near the man’s cassock. She pulled it on without haste, unmindful of her nakedness as she stood in the center of the wagon.
“Can I get dressed too?” the man wanted to know, smiling nervously.
Joe was about to nod his assent, but then he looked at the build of the man and at the cassock, his mouth forming a slight smile.
“Take off your dog collar, Elias,” he ordered.
The man blinked, as if unsure that he had heard correctly, then took a long time removing the collar, his trembling fingers fumbling with the fastening. The woman watched, the sneer on her face conveying contempt for her lover and hatred for the man with the gun.
“I’m naked,” the man said unnecessarily as he finished the task.
“Your sister won’t mind
,” Joe said but made no complaint when the man draped the blanket around himself as he stood.
He motioned with the rifle. “Both outside.”
The woman came first, proud and defiant, the man behind, smiling ingratiatingly, stumbling over the tailgate and almost falling headlong. He recovered and handed the cleric’s collar to Joe. In the strong sunlight, despite his bulk, the man looked even more spineless and Joe found it hard to visualize him as a hot-gospeller preaching fire and damnation to the one-horse towns in this part of the country.
“Over there and get the food ready,” he ordered them. “I’ll be watching and I see anything I don’t like you get to have a personal interview with the man upstairs.”
“When my time comes, I’ll be ready, the man said, but scuttled across to the fire with a haste that erased the confidence from his words.
Joe watched the pair for a moment, then hoisted himself aboard the wagon, drew his knife and made a slit in the canvas side facing the fire. As he peered through he saw the woman called Virtue edging towards his horse while the man made a frantic beckoning mime to call her back. Joe sighed and rested the rifle barrel in the slit, loosed off a shot that glanced off the rounded side of the cooking pot, then ricocheted at a tangent to kick up dust inches from the woman’s feet.
“I think you’ve got less reason to want to see the Lord than your brother,” Joe called and grinned as she threw the profanity at him again, but turned and went to the pot, began to stir it with the speed of vengeance in turmoil.
With quick movements, interrupted for an occasional look out through the torn canvas, Joe stripped off his uniform and dressed in the cassock and reverse collar, wearing his knife belt and army issue leather belt with holstered Remington .44 below the engulfing garment. He had to make a large slit in the seams at each side to make for easy access to his weapons. But it was merely a matter of leaving the cassock unfastened at the top to give him ease of movement to the neck pouch. He found the wide brimmed, low crowned hat that matched his attire and placed it on his head, picked up a large piece of looking glass from the smashed mirror and examined his appearance. He looked the most unlikely priest he had ever seen, but he was well enough satisfied with the results to grin.
When he jumped clear of the wagon he saw the man and woman whispering together in conspiratorial motioning of their head towards the wagon as she ladled stew into bowls he held. They came guiltily upright at the sound of his approach. She looked at Joe with petulance, the man shook his head in mute disapproval.
“I don’t aim to steal your show, reverend,” Joe said. “Just your clothes.”
“It is a grave sin to impersonate a man of the cloth, sir,” came the reply. “The Lord will surely punish you for it.”
“I’ve got a feeling screwing your sister is a worse sin,” Joe came back, taking a bowl of stew from the man’s hand, relishing the great hunks of meat in the thick brown gravy.
“I ain’t his sister,” the woman snapped, squatting down with her plate, snatching a spoon from the ground and wiping it on her dress.
“Nor his wife either,” Joe put in, getting the only other spoon, retreating a few yards before he began to eat, discovering the food tasted as good as it smelled and looked. “And I’m betting he ain’t even an ordained minister of the church.”
Without a spoon, the man was squatting and picking up the meat with his fingers, raising the bowl to his lips to suck at the gravy.
“You are condemning yourself with every word you mutter, sir,” the man said and now his tone was truly that of an evangelical Bible-puncher. “The Lord is taking note of all you do and all you say and I, His humble servant, an prepared to allow Him to act on my behalf when the time is nigh. I will not …”
“Shut your damn mouth, you old fake,” the woman slung at him with deep-seated anger. “You are not impressing him and I know you are the biggest sinner east of California.”
Her words froze the man into shock, his mouth hanging open, eyes staring in disbelief. The woman, unconcerned with the reaction she had produced, stood and moved to the pot, began to ladle a second helping of stew on to her bowl.
“More?” she asked of Joe.
He nodded and stood, moved towards the fire, experiencing a stirring in his loins at the sight of the woman bent over the pot, the thin material of her dress clung by sweat to the lines of her body. Then she made her play, in a blur of lightening movement, throwing forward the bowl of scalding stew, its steaming contents streaming towards Joe’s face.
He went sideways, falling, hurling his own bowl clear as his hand snaked under the cassock to the knife at his back. It came out with a fluid movement and streaked from his hand, all as part of one continuous reflex action. But the woman dived low, under it, in a desperate attempt to reach the Henry on the ground. The man screamed in terror and pain and it could have been this sound, or the sight of the Remington in Joe’s other hand that turned the woman to stone.
Joe backed up quickly, snatched his rifle from the ground and looked at the man, saw him still squatting in front of the fire, clutching his bowl, the handle of the knife protruding beneath his left cheek, the point and an inch of blade gleaming out from the right, a trickle of blood running down on each side.
“Holy Mother of God,” the woman said hoarsely as the man’s eyes grew wide, then snapped closed before he toppled forward, the fire sending up a shower of wood as his head fell into the seat of the flames.
He screamed once as the intense heat brought him out of the faint and made one feeble attempt to drag himself clear before he died, and the sweet stench of burning flesh filled the air. The woman started to scream, writhing her body across the ground, her dress riding up over her thighs and stomach as she went into convulsions of hysteria, the power of her horror causing the veins to stand out starkly in her throat, her eyes widening to an incredible degree, foam bubbling in her mouth and then spilling over to run down her jaw.
Joe ignored her and bent to the man, drew him clear of the flames just as the blanket caught. He glanced momentarily and without emotion at the darkened, mutilated flesh which moments ago had been a face, then pulled his knife clear, wiping it clean of blood and soot on the blanket.
“I guess your time came, Reverend,” he muttered to the corpse against the backdrop of the woman’s screams. “And hell can’t be hotter than that.”
He moved to where the woman was reaching the climax of her fit of apoplexy and watched idly for a moment to see if it would end. When it didn’t he reversed rifle and swung it in a short arc. The stock caught her squarely on the jaw and her final scream ended in a whimper, as her body was suddenly limp. He did not even look to see if he had killed her, but moved back to the fire, retrieved his bowl and spoon and helped himself to more stew. He went to sit on the wagon tailgate to eat it, then rolled a cigarette and smoked it leisurely, all out of sight of the Reverend Elias Speed and the woman called Virtue.
Not until he had finished, and strode across the campsite to reach his horse, drinking from the rushing stream, did he glance at the woman, now visibly breathing, and realize it was the first time he had ever so much as raised a hand in anger to a woman. And that now, as he mounted, returning the Henry to its boot, he felt not a shred of remorse. The killing of his kid brother had drained Josiah Hedges of everything that is good and decent in the human spirit.
He was now a killer of the worse kind.
A man alone.
CHAPTER FIVE
NIGHT was beginning to cool the heat of the day as Joe crossed the Smoky Hill River and his mount stumbled twice, almost pitching the rider into the fast moving water. The animal was a brave hearted beast, and had willingly kept up the fast pace Joe had demanded throughout the afternoon and evening, as if sensing the desire for quick vengeance. But it was not sympathy for his horse that caused Joe to call a halt on the south bank of the river. The animal had a limit and to push her beyond this would render her useless. It was a long walk from western Kansas to the Arizona
Territory.
Mounted, Joe had felt confident he could have ridden through the night without tiring, but as soon as his feet touched the ground fatigue hit him like an invisible blow, weakening his legs and dragging down his eyelids. He followed the example of his horse, going to the edge of the river and sucking in the cool, refreshing water, immediately felt revitalized as its iciness filled his throat and stomach. Some yards from the river’s edge was a small stand of trees with a patch of lush green grass beneath their branches and he tethered the horse, there, unsaddled her and collected the makings of a fire. He set a pot of river water on the flames and while it was boiling stripped off his preacher’s cassock, his weapons and underwear and made a naked dash for the river, stubbed his toe on a submerged rock and fell headlong into the water’s freezing grip. The coldness knocked the wind from him and he surfaced fighting for breath as his teeth chattered and cramp threatened his right leg. He waded quickly out to find a deep patch of water, then launched himself into a smooth, well-practiced crawl stroke, the exertion pumping blood through his veins, providing his body with a warm defense against the river’s low temperature.
When he returned to dry land a sky full of stars and a three-quarter moon made the droplets of water gleam like jewels against the even brown of his skin with, at the right hip, close to the left shoulder blade and at a halfway point on his left thigh patches of milky whiteness that were the scars of wartime bullet wounds which refused to heal to the old color.
As he sat before the fire to let its heat dry him, drinking a mug of strong coffee and watching the split peas boiling in the remainder of the water, Joe felt the last remnants of the bone deep fatigue drained out him, to be replaced by a soft, pleasant sensation of tiredness that he knew from experience would give him a deep, restful sleep of five hours and leave him completely fresh when he awoke.
Edge: The Loner (Edge series Book 1) Page 3
