Except for the priest, the woman and their five-man attentive audience, everyone else in the stable was gathered around the stove. Edge and the sheepmen were closest to the source of heat. Apart from Wilder squatting beside the half-breed, all the others were standing.
Wilder glowered at the speaker and lowered his voice. ‘He’s too old to be out in this kinda weather. From what that crazy priest’s been sayin’, I guess you know why he come. Lookin’ for Maria, his daughter.’
‘It ain’t just a chill he’s got, feller,’ Edge said evenly.
Wilder nodded. ‘Heart seizure or somethin’.’
‘Can’t be nothin’ wrong with his heart,’ Doug Smith rasped venomously. ‘He ain’t never had one.’
‘That ain’t so, Doug!’ Craig countered, with a tone of sincerity that indicated he was not moved to speak entirely because of the dangerous looks directed at his partner by some of the Bar-M hands. ‘We got along with him and his men before he heard about Maria being pregnant.’
‘Easy,’ Wilder said placatingly, sharing a sad eyed look between his own men and the newcomers. Then he gazed fixedly at Craig. ‘What’s done is done. There’s been killin’s today. In this town and out at the timber where your animals were slaughtered. I guess you’re responsible for some of it. Maybe all of it. I ain’t askin’. Maybe the law will want to know about it but that’ll be between you and the territorial peace officers. I seen your sheep dead out there and probably you had good cause to kill Van Dora and Raven and Starr.’
‘Jimmy Raven was a good friend to me,’ a man snarled softly into the silence as Wilder paused and O’Keefe completed his oration.
‘Shut up,’ the Bar-M foreman chided flatly. ‘It’s done, like I said. As for Buel and Young—well, maybe the girl’s guy killed them. I dunno. But that don’t matter neither. Not right now it don’t.’
‘You will excuse Daughter and I,’ O’Keefe requested of Cole Lassiter and the other four men who had been paying such close attention to him. ‘But we must give thanks to the Almighty for his guidance and protection which brought us to this place. And we must do this in private.’
‘Amen,’ came the familiar response, as the brightly smiling, eager-eyed former whore allowed herself to be ushered into a stall.
‘Then what the frig is important, C.B.?’ a man asked hoarsely.
‘Bring my daughter to me!’ Cole Lassiter demanded. His voice was also hoarse. But he did not have to make any effort to keep his tone low. Fear distorted his pained face as he turned to look at his men and the newcomers. ‘Dear God, my voice is goin’ as well,’ he whispered.
He wrenched his head around to its fullest extent, his pleading eyes raking across every face.
‘Please?’ The single word was almost inaudible. ‘Maria?’
The stable door was wrenched open and a stream of bitingly cold night air gushed in, instantly disseminating the stove heat which had begun to warm the atmosphere and raise damp steam from sodden clothing. Harding and Turner entered quickly and closed out the night
‘Sonofabitch!’ the hard-eyed, thin-lipped Harding exclaimed as he did a double take into the stall occupied by O’Keefe and Angel North. They’re screwin’!’
The fleshy-faced, broad-shouldered and narrow-waisted Turner whirled around to stare incredulously into the stall. Slowly, both men’s expressions of disbelief were replaced by leering grins.
Edge and the three sheepmen sensed the swell of sexual excitement in the men around the stove.
‘It’s their way of thankin’ the Almighty, C.B.,’ Craig said quickly.
‘But he don’t like anyone else doin’ it,’ Bassett added. To her.’
There were no vocal sounds from in the stall. Just a frenetic rustling of fabric as the coupling priest and his woman thrust and pulled toward a climax.
Then Angel North gasped, ‘Praise to the Lord!’
‘Christ will be born again!’ O’Keefe exclaimed
Both of them stood up then, fully clothed, their faces above the stall side glowing with a brand of excitement that owed little to the act they had just completed.
‘Well, I’ll be!’ Turner growled, awe replacing the leer on his face. ‘If that don’t beat all the ways I heard of gettin’ a woman to come across.’
‘Brothers!’ O’Keefe proclaimed, almost comically diminutive beside the statuesque tallness of the woman. ‘Daughter and I are happy to be in the family of God. And are not a man and a woman at their happiest in the act of procreation?’
‘They ain’t really Pa and daughter,’ Bassett hastened to explain.
Harding was shaking his head slowly from side to side as he continued to stare at the strangely paired couple. ‘It’s a priest!’ he muttered. ‘Now I seen everythin’!’
‘No, sir!’ O’Keefe corrected as he ambled out of the stall, his pants flies securely fastened. ‘That is the Almighty’s prerogative alone. But the signs predict that we shall be privileged to witness something for which the world has waited centuries.’
‘Maria!’ Cole Lassiter forced out through teeth clenched against pain. ‘Please. Before I die.’
The priest strained to hear the words down the length of the livery. Then, with his pouting lips quivering and his tiny eyes gleaming with a greater intensity of religious fervor, he lunged forward.
The Bar-M men made to swing their rifles at him. But arrested their moves when they saw O’Keefe drop to his knees beside Lassiter and gaze into his face.
‘Maria? Your daughter? She is close by, sir? She can be brought here to this stable?’
Lassiter’s mind was still receptive and capable of thought beneath the sea of pain that was washing through it. Whether or not he could recall recent events and understood O’Keefe’s motives, it was impossible to guess. But he had sufficient awareness to recognize a man who wanted the same thing he did. And his lips moved in a vain attempt to plead for help. Spittle ran from one corner of the mouth which had suddenly been dragged downward by the involuntary force of a muscle. More bubbled saliva gurgled in his throat. No words emerged. The dark eyes remained locked on the priest’s face, transmitting a pitiful plea for help.
As Angel North dropped to her knees and clasped her hands together in front of her full breasts, O’Keefe laid a comforting hand on the dying man’s shoulder. Then raised his head to look at the face of every other man in the stable.
‘Maria must be brought here!’ he announced firmly.
‘That’s what I had in mind, priest,’ Wilder said morosely.
‘Then go bring her, sir!’
‘From where?’ He stood up.
O’Keefe pointed a shaking finger at Edge, who was smoking a freshly rolled cigarette. ‘He says she is in the town of Fallon!’
Although it was still impossible to tell what retentive powers were commanded by Lassiter’s agonized mind, it was evident he understood the words being spoken. For now his pathetically pleading eyes swung to look at Edge and then C. B. Wilder.
The mournful foreman turned his head to look down at Edge. ‘I ain’t askin’ how you know, mister, but I gotta be sure you’re sure.’
‘Where they said they were heading, feller,’ the half-breed replied.
Wilder nodded, the gesture seeming to lock his resolution more firmly. ‘Then that’s where I’m headin’.’ He shifted his sad eyes to the upturned face of the dying man. And saw gratitude, more explicit than if it had been spoken, shining through the ugly sheen of pain on Cole Lassiter’s skeletonized face. ‘We owe that to the poor bastard,’ the Bar-M foreman murmured.
‘In this friggin’ awful weather, C.B.?’ the hard-eyed Harding snarled.
Wilder glanced around and saw that the majority of the men were of the same opinion as Harding. But that four of them—those who had been as enthralled by O’Keefe’s story as Lassiter—nodded their approval of the foreman’s plan.
‘I ain’t sayin’ I go for the crazy tale this priest’s been tellin’,’ Wilder announced. ‘Just aim to do a favor for a b
oss that was always a good and reasonable one until lately. And I ain’t givin’ no orders. Go to Fallon on my own if I have to. Glad to have company if anyone’s a mind. But somebody’ll have to stay here and see Mr. Lassiter’s all right. Rest should go back and take care of the ranch.’
‘Hell, C.B.,’ Turner countered. ‘How d’we know it won’t be a wild goose chase? We only got the stranger’s word about Fallon.’
The half-breed turned his head to look coldly at the broad-shouldered, narrow-waisted cowhand. ‘Been known to lie when there’s good reason, feller,’ he said, crushing out his cigarette on the floor. ‘Only reason I might do it now is to get some of that hot food I heard about.’
‘That sure would go down a treat, son,’ Craig said enthusiastically.
‘To you, maybe,’ Edge responded. ‘I always pay my way.’
‘Up to you, mister,’ Wilder allowed. ‘But I figure to have John Groves fix me up some T-bones and grits before I leave. And all you folks are welcome to join me.’
‘Sure, C.B.’
The man who spoke and stepped into one of the stalls where the gear of the Bar-M hands was piled was as short as O’Keefe but had an even greater girth. He was one of those who had been deeply moved by the priest’s belief in the second coming and his round, pockmarked face still wore a pensively rapturous expression. He set about his cooking chore with his mind obviously on other things.
‘We are indeed fortunate to have the Almighty’s blessings showered upon us, Daughter,’ O’Keefe enthused as he rose to his feet after giving Lassiter’s shoulder a reassuring pat.
‘That we most certainly are, Father,’ Angel North agreed as she moved to stand beside him and tower above him.
Both of them watched with great eagerness as the Bar-M cook prepared the food.
‘Seems you got more blessin’s than most men, priest,’ Harding growled, his carnal desires roused again as he drank in the sight of the woman’s body in profile against the light of one of the lamps.
Turner and some of the other men, perhaps long starved of the company of the opposite sex, were infected by Harding’s mood and altered their positions to improve their view of the thrusting and flaring curves of Angel North’s torso, half exposed by the low cut of the dress’s neckline.
‘Easy, you men!’ Wilder growled, his words seeming to crackle through the almost palpable tension which had impregnated the stove heated atmosphere of the livery.
‘Hell, C.B.,’ Harding said softly, unable to wrench his eyes away from the twin swells of the woman’s breasts. ‘What d’you expect us to feel like after him and her did it right here in front of us.’
‘They got a religious reason!’ the foreman snapped as the woman remained calm and O’Keefe began to dart nervous glances around. ‘Sounds real blasphemous to me, but if that’s their way, then—’
‘Shit, C.B.,’ Turner cut in, his lascivious grin broadening. ‘It ain’t nothin’ of the sort. We’re with the priest. The way to heaven is up between a woman’s legs.’
He laughed and some of the others joined him. It made an ugly sound.
All the men had rested their rifles but wore gun belts with Frontier Colts in the holsters. Three of the Bar-M hands drew in unison, leveling their guns at the backs of the amused group. The cook pulled and aimed his revolver as all attention was diverted from the woman by the metallic clicks of hammers being cocked.
‘Tarnished she may be, but she’s the Angel we need.’ This from the eldest of the cowhands, who wore thin rimmed eyeglasses perched precariously on the crooked bridge of his nose.
There’s been too many signs to ignore.’ From a fresh-faced youngster with bright red hair.
The other man who had been convinced by O’Keefe wore long sideburns which expanded into a bushy black beard at his jaw. He merely gave a curt nod of agreement with the others.
The hands who had been lusting for the woman were suddenly afraid as they looked from the three leveled guns to the Colt in Groves’ fist. Then they raised their eyes to glance at the determination on the faces of O’Keefe’s quartet of converts.
The priest was still nervous. Angel North remained serene.
Cole Lassiter managed to vent a low sigh and this seemed to signal relief to flow across the faces of the sheepmen and C B. Wilder.
Edge appeared impervious to everything except the almost painfully appetizing aroma of frying steak which rose from the skillet on the stove.
‘Hell!’ Harding croaked, and cleared his throat with a laugh. ‘We was only kiddin’.’
‘Just like Cole Lassiter’s daughter is due to do,’ Craig interjected, and his laughter took more effort than Harding’s had.
His joke drew flint-eyed stares from the gun toting men.
‘Put the irons away, you men,’ Wilder instructed. ‘Let’s eat. Okay, Harding? Turner? Trotter?’
His gaze drifted around the faces of the men who no longer expressed any trace of lust.
‘Sure,’ one of them spoke for the others. And stared with something close to admiration from the short, fat, unattractive O’Keefe to the tall, fine-figured and once beautiful Angel North. ‘She’s his and I swear I don’t know why or how. But I take my hat off to him.’
‘Be glad he didn’t take his off to you, feller,’ Edge muttered.
‘What?’ somebody asked.
O’Keefe glowered at Edge, then leaned closer to the stove and drew in a deep, noisy breath. ‘My, that smells good,’ he said quickly.
The cook shoved his Colt back into the holster and began turning the steaks in the skillet. ‘It ain’t much, Father,’ he apologized.
‘I’m so hungry I could eat just about anything, sir,’ O’Keefe assured. ‘How say you, Daughter?’
‘Whatever the Lord provides, Father,’ she answered.
Edge showed a sardonic grin to the earnest cook. ‘No sweat, feller,’ he drawled. ‘You already saw the priest and his woman have got catholic tastes.’
Chapter Eight
As C. B. Wilder led the group of riders out of the ghost town and on to the trail that cut south east from the head of the valley, the cloud cover began to break up. The crescent of a young moon showed its blurred shape against the northern sky and, as it gradually became more clearly defined, the diamond bright pinpricks of stars appeared.
The air flowing across the faces of the men got noticeably warmer.
‘It’s another sign!’ the priest exclaimed, his tone brought close to a squeal by his delight. ‘Praise be to God for making our journey easier!’
He and Angel North were the back markers. Ahead of them rode John Groves and the red headed youngster whose name was Willie French. In front of this pair were Wilder and Edge, the half-breed riding to the left and slightly behind the Bar-M foreman.
‘It surely is a strange night,’ Groves mused, eyeing his surroundings of the snow covered slopes and ridges with something close to awe. ‘First we get a hard frost under heavy cloud. Now it’s gettin’ clear as a bell and yet there ain’t no frost no more.’
‘We can do little but wonder at the workings of the Almighty!’ O’Keefe announced.
‘Amen,’ the woman added.
Groves and French were a little late and a little self-conscious in voicing the sentiment.
‘Groves is right,’ Wilder said softly after gazing up at the fast clearing sky. ‘I ain’t never seen the weather do this before in these mountains.’
‘Don’t let them get to you, feller,’ Edge advised without interrupting his less than wide-eyed surveillance of the now brightly moonlit whiteness of the terrain. ‘At least let there be two wise men when we reach Fallon.’
In his own mind he was not entirely certain of the wisdom of his decision to join those heading for Fallon at this hour of the night. For, despite the slight improvement in the weather, it was cold and uncomfortable in the saddle. Especially with the memory of the livery stable still fresh.
Replete with food and warmer than he had been since leaving the line shack
, the half-breed had been tempted to remain in the ghost town until morning, in company with the paralyzed and dying Cole Lassiter, the three sheepmen and the other two Bar-M hands who felt there was going to be something different about this Christmas.
And there was no logical reason why he had not decided to do just this after the rest of the cowhands had ridden off into the night toward the greater comfort of the ranch house in the west. For it would have been easy for him to detach himself from the others—gone to sleep, even—in order not to be drawn into the incessant, fervid talk of what this coming Christmas day might bring.
He had simply made a snap—an uncharacteristically impulsive?—decision to ride for Fallon. He could not recall that at the time he had thought of C. B. Wilder as his last human link with cynical reality. Or that Fallon beckoned because it was not a ghost town temporarily inhabited by a bunch of religious nuts, but instead promised to be a community peopled with hard-bitten realists who would remain unaffected by the maniac beliefs of O’Keefe, Angel North and their converts.
But, even now, as the group attained the ridge on the east side of the valley and Wilder pointed the way northeast along a trail he knew to be under the snow, Edge could fasten upon only a lame excuse for joining the night ride.
His tobacco poke was almost empty.
‘He was never a bad guy before,’ the Bar-M foreman intruded on to the half-breed’s rambling, disturbing thoughts.
Edge welcomed the opening after a long period of verbal silence. ‘Lassiter?’
‘Yeah. Hard as Wind River ice this time of year. But a whole lot easier to see through. Had to be tough in his younger years to build up his spread. But after that it was always just an act.’
‘Happens sometimes when men get old,’ Edge offered. And, just for a moment, contemplated his own senility. But he dismissed the thoughts even before C.B. spoke, with the long held conviction that he would never live into old age.
‘Everythin’ he did since Emmy Lassiter died was for Maria. Proudest day of his life was when he sent her off to some fancy school back East. Was always plannin’ how she’d get a fine education, marry well and her and her husband would come to the Bar-M and run it after he pegged out. That’s a bad thing to do, ain’t it, Edge?’
EDGE: Eve of Evil (Edge series Book 28) Page 9
