‘There was a lot of trouble the first time around,’ the half-breed said flatly. ‘So what...’
The moment of relief from anxiety was quickly passed, dispelled by the half-breed’s reference to her reason for coming to his room.
‘They want it to be here in their town!’ Angel North answered quickly. ‘But it cannot be. You can see that, can’t you, mister? All the signs so far show it should be like it was before. The stable and the shepherds . . .’ She paused, bewildered, then shook her head. ‘In a different country half a world away, maybe . . . but not here in Fallon! In a hotel! With a lot of the people only fakin’ faith. Really just want it to be here so the town’ll be famous and lots of folks will come and bring money and ...’
If Edge had ever had doubts about the woman’s motives, they would have been negated now. The tears that flowed from her eyes and the degree of anguish inscribed upon her face were obviously triggered by some deep-seated feeling completely devoid of materialistic desires. Her despair was as genuine as the other extreme of emotion which had in the past allowed her sallow, exhausted, hard-used face to express radiance.
‘Please!’ She dropped to her knees in front of him and interlocked her fingers under the point of her chin. Her eyes as she upturned her face toward him were suddenly like those of a young child begging for mercy from a source of terror. ‘Please, mister, at least try to help us?’
She unfastened her hands and tipped them palms upwards, extending her arms out in front of her. ‘Please,’ she whispered.
‘Some might say you’ve come to the last feller in the world to help you, lady,’ he said flatly, looking at the supplicating woman with cold-eyed disrelish. ‘But I guess beggars can’t be choosers.’
Chapter Ten
SHE led him out of the room, across the landing and along the hallway on the other side. The door to room ten was still the only one firmly closed. She opened it without knocking and stepped across the threshold.
‘Here, Father,’ she said, her initial excitement at Edge’s bald agreement to help already diminished. ‘It was all I could think of.’
The room was larger than the one the half-breed had chosen but was furnished in a similar style. Except that the bed was double size and there were two of everything else. And it was heated by a portable oil stove that tainted the air with its fumes.
The blonde, pale-faced Maria Lassiter lay in the centre of the big bed. The Mexican looking father of her unborn child sat on a chair at one side, holding her right hand in both of his. A tall, thin, recently shaved and talced man with an ill-tempered expression had claimed the second chair on the other side of the bed. A black valise at his feet marked him as the doctor but he had the kind of features which had probably made him look like an undertaker as soon as he was old enough for his face to hint at his character. He was now in his early sixties.
O’Keefe was kneeling at the foot of the bed and it was impossible to tell whether he had been praying to the Almighty or making entreaties to the mortal when the newcomers interrupted him.
The sheriff was by the double window which looked out over the street. He was middle-aged and compactly built, with a handlebar moustache and ears that stuck out to an almost comical extent. He was fully dressed for the weather outside—unlike the others, except that the priest still wore his hat. And he was fully prepared for trouble. His hands were draped over the butts of the matched Colts jutting from the holster at each hip.
‘You!’ the pregnant girl gasped.
‘Mr. Edge?’ Redeker exclaimed.
‘Really!’ the doctor complained with an effeminate stamp of his foot.
‘What the hell?’ the lawman demanded.
‘It is no use, Daughter,’ O’Keefe groaned.
Only Joe Redeker extended some kind of warmth toward the half-breed.
‘Happy Christmas,’ Edge said wryly. ‘Sometimes the impossible happens.’
‘He’s the man who’s seen all the signs we have,’ Angel North told the sheriff.
Edge ignored the others as he found his gaze trapped by the stare from Maria’s big brown eyes. The enmity they had first showed was abruptly replaced by something else. Not friendliness, or even disdain. Instead they expressed the same kind of pleading the former whore had directed at him a few moments before.
‘This young lady must not be moved from this bed!’ the doctor proclaimed. ‘I have forbidden it!’
Nobody listened.
‘You’ve seen my father?’ Maria asked.
‘Last night.’
‘He’s dying?’ She did not look as if she even hoped for a negative reply.
‘Had a stroke, I figure. Can’t move a muscle below his neck. Now can’t talk.’
The girl pulled out of Redeker’s grip, fisted both her hands and thudded them against her temples. ‘I must go to him!’ she wailed.
‘I’m sorry, my dear girl,’ the doctor said consolingly. ‘But I must insist. Not only for the sake of your baby. But you’re own life will be in danger if . . .’
‘It’s gonna come early, Mr. Edge,’ Redeker explained, and his interruption made the doctor look even more ill-tempered. ‘Not in another two weeks like we figured at first. Must have been the long trip, or maybe what happened with them two Bar-M hands yesterday mornin’. Whatever, Doc Tatum here says it could happen any minute.’
‘Clear them out of here, Mr. Karnes!’ Tatum ordered shrilly. ‘Everyone except the father-to-be! The mother must not be excited!’
‘Stay where you are, sir!’
Edge and Angel North were the only people in the room behind O’Keefe. And had seen him take off his hat when the commanding tone of the doctor’s voice captured attention. As the pudgy hand was raised to the brim of the hat, the onetime whore had caught her breath and shot a desperate look at Edge. The half-breed said and did nothing.
‘Mary wishes it!’ O’Keefe said softly as he covered the lawman with his Colt and his eyes only sensed others watching him.
‘Maria, mister!’ Redeker snapped. ‘You been talkin’ crazy about...’
The girl in the bed lowered her fists, calmness replacing anguish. ‘It isn’t important, Joe,’ she cut in. ‘The reason they want to take me isn’t important. Just so long as I get to Dad’s side.’
‘Edge!’ Sheriff Karnes growled, looking even more comical now with his arms held away from his sides like half opened wings. ‘You ain’t the kinda man to get took by this crazy religious nonsense?’
‘It’s not important!’ Maria said, her tone as earnest as her expression as she looked along the length of the bed and past the fat little priest at the impassive, unmoving half-breed. ‘It doesn’t matter. That part of it. If you help get me to my father ...’ She searched in the turmoil of her mind for something that would spur the tall, lean, unshaven man out of his inaction. ‘If he’s going to die as you say, I’ll inherit the Bar-M. I’ll be able to pay anything you demand!’
‘It could cost you your life, my dear girl!’ Tatum threatened, exasperated.
‘I don’t care!’ Maria flung back at him.
Edge arced the Winchester down from his shoulder to smack the barrel into the waiting cup of his free hand. ‘Raise them higher, sheriff,’ he instructed flatly. ‘No sense in more than one life being on the line.’
‘Two!’ the doctor growled. ‘She is with child.’
‘Two makes it surer, Doc,’ the half-breed replied. ‘If somebody wants something that bad, they deserve the chance.’
‘Your kind ain’t that kind!’ the lawman snarled. ‘You gotta have an angle!’
‘Maybe it’s a right one for once,’ Edge answered.
‘Daughter, the sheriff’s guns!’ O’Keefe instructed, the excitement as he got a foretaste of triumph putting a shrill note into his voice.
Angel North complied with the order, taking care to stay out of the firing line.
‘Mr. Edge,’ Redeker groaned, white faced and impotent on the chair. ‘Maria doesn’t know what she’s sayin’. She
don’t realize what might happen if...’
‘Joe!’ the girl carrying his child snapped. Then moderated her tone as she saw the depth of his anguish. ‘Yesterday morning you said how beholden you were to him. All of us might have been dead already if he had not helped. Now’s your chance to repay him. Get my clothes from the closet, darling.’
‘No debt owed, feller,’ Edge corrected. ‘Just your girl asking for a favor.’
Meekly, afraid and uncomprehending, Redeker rose from the chair and moved toward the closet.
‘How you figure to get by my deputies outside?’ the lawman sneered. ‘Any shootin’ and all the folks in church’ll come runnin’. And most of ’em are hooked on all this holy crap the priest’s been spoutin’.’
‘The Almighty will provide the inspiration,’ O’Keefe said confidently.
‘Outside in the hallway, if you please,’ Maria Lassiter said, entirely composed. ‘While I dress.’
It was fifteen minutes later, as the clock in the higher part of town struck the single note of six-thirty, when the trio of deputies swung their heads and their rifles toward the sound of horses’ hooves and buggy wheels crunching through the snow.
The roofed cut-under which had brought Maria Lassiter and Joseph Redeker to Fallon came around the corner of the cross street which ran along the side of the hotel. The pregnant girl, her legs and swollen belly draped by the blanket, had control of the reins. Edge sat on the padded seat beside her and there was nothing false about the expression of sheer terror which contorted her wan face. It was as real as the threat of the straight razor which the half-breed held close to her pulsing throat.
For though she had agreed to the subterfuge it was with keen misgivings. She did not trust the changed attitude of the taciturn man at her side. Yesterday she had seen him kill without compunction. And now he was risking his life to help her, apparently convinced to do so simply because she was prepared to risk her own. So she feared some evil trick that would result in the honed blade of the razor slicing deep into her flesh.
Doctor Tatum and Sheriff Karnes walked beside the buggy, slowly, as if they were already accompanying a funeral hearse. Behind them were O’Keefe with his Colt trained on the lawman’s back and Joe Redeker who covered the doctor with Edge’s Winchester. Angel North was on the other side, with one hand on the bridle of the gelding pulling the buggy.
Take it easy,’ Karnes said tensely as the three surprised deputies found targets for their rifles. ‘Drop them guns and walk on down to the ferry ahead of us.’ ‘What goes on, Deke?’
‘What the frig does it matter?’ the sheriff snarled as the buggy and escort continued to close in on the guards. ‘Nothin’ it’s worth anybody get killed over. Do like I tell you!’
The deputies looked at each other, back at the buggy, then flung their rifles into the snow and started down the hill. For the first few yards they kept glancing back over their shoulders, as if trying to convince themselves that they had really seen the hostages and captors. But after that they stared fixedly ahead.
‘Why’d you post the guards, sheriff?’ Edge asked conversationally. He glanced to left and right, checking on the blank facades of the buildings flanking the broad street. And out through the rear window of the buggy toward the church up the hill.
‘Town council decision,’ Karnes growled.
‘Of which I am chief executive,’ Tatum said officiously. ‘Premature births are always difficult. And this one will be even more difficult now. The guards were placed on the hotel to keep the religious fanatics and the curious away. Miss Lassiter should not be excited.’
‘Will we reach the place where her Pa is before her time, doc?’ Redeker asked.
In stark contrast with the smile of confidence on the face of O’Keefe walking beside him, the young father-to-be wore a tormented expression of deep anxiety. It seemed to take an enormous effort for him to keep the Winchester leveled at Tatum’s narrow back.
‘That is in God’s hands, I’m afraid,’ the doctor replied dully.
‘Which means there is no need to be afraid, brothers,’ the priest advised, his voice resonant with true belief. ‘He will ensure that His Son is born at the appointed place.’
‘Amen!’ Angel North intoned.
‘Nonsense,’ Maria Lassiter rasped softly, her mind eased a little now that the difficulty of the deputies had been overcome. ‘You surely do not believe in any of this, do you, Edge?’
‘No, ma’am,’ he answered. ‘Maybe on account of I haven’t come across even one wise man yet.’
‘You don’t consider yourself wise?’ she posed wryly.
‘No, ma’am,’ he replied as the buggy reached the foot of the slope and Angel North halted the gelding at the jetty. ‘If I was that I wouldn’t be down here. Be up in town at whatever store sells tobacco.’
Close to, the Wind River had a menacing look. Dark with silt and sheened by the sun, the fast flowing but calm surface of the water emanated a brand of malevolent evil that boded a greater danger than when it had been in full, raging flood. The river’s power was still evident from the slanting tautness of the lines which restrained the ferryboat close to the jetty.
Everyone saw this, but only the four lawmen, the doctor and Joe Redeker eyed the water with unease. Maria’s anxiety was founded on the illness of her father. Edge watched the church up the hill. Angel North was in a cocoon of serenity woven by her faith.
O’Keefe issued instructions in a firm voice, his bristled, fatigue-drawn face expressing a smile of quiet confidence.
All but one of the mooring lines was unhitched. It was the rope to the stern which remained fixed, so that the downstream currents swung the ferry into a quarter turn, pushing the bow toward the bank.
Maria Lassiter was the only hostage under threat of instant death now, for the combined strength of all the men except Edge was required to drag the high-riding ferry up against the jetty and to hitch the shortened line around the cleat. Then Redeker clambered aboard to lower the stern ramp.
The gelding in the shafts of the buggy was nervously aware of the river’s malevolence. But Angel North spoke soft words of comfort into a pricked ear of the animal as she tugged gently on the bridle. Her voice was the only one to be heard, for she was the only person down by the river with need to speak. Everybody else thought his or her own thoughts.
Up in the town church, a pump organ began to play. And a mass of voices were raised in the singing of Rock of Ages.
The cut-under buggy came to a halt on the gently rocking ferry. The men who were co-operating with morose reluctance could no longer see Maria Lassiter and the blade held close to her throat. But the face of Edge was framed in the glass window at the rear of the buggy. And it was the very lack of any expression on the dark-hued features—the utter coldness of the slitted blue eyes—which caused the men to abandon any counter moves they may have been considering.
Redeker did not attempt to reclaim the half-breed’s Winchester from where he had rested it on the buggy’s footboard. The priest, surrounded by the three deputies, Karnes and Tatum on the jetty, did not reach for the Colt which he had put back inside his hat before lending a hand with the rope.
The face of Edge was enough encouragement for the men to comply with the request: ‘We need all of you to help with the crossing, brothers.’
They came aboard as a group, no one man taking the lead.
‘It’s the kid I can’t understand, Deke,’ one of the deputies growled as they watched Redeker haul up the ramp. ‘How come he had a gun in his hands instead of in his back?’
‘It was only me and the doc that would have been killed, Frank,’ Karnes growled. ‘The guy with the razor reckoned he wouldn’t have killed the girl. But her and Redeker didn’t trust him.’
‘All that doesn’t matter now,’ Maria said shrilly as the half-breed stepped down from the buggy, the razor back in the pouch and the Winchester canted to his left shoulder. ‘Please get us to the other side.’
‘Y
es, that is what we must do!’ O’Keefe urged. ‘After the child is born today, such evils as threats and distrust and hatred will have no place in the world. The sins which prevailed even after the first coming of our—’
‘Best you keep the sermon for another time and another place, feller,’ Edge called from the position he had taken at the stern after Redeker had moved to the buggy. ‘Unless you figure you can top the one already given by the Fallon preacher.’
O’Keefe had been temporarily detached from his immediate surroundings and their dangers as he launched into his oration. He was bewildered by his sudden return to reality. But he resumed command of himself and the others with composed speed.
‘They’re coming from church! Please cast us off from the shore, brother. Everyone to the poles.’
For stretched seconds there was dignified peace and tranquility in front of Fallon’s church as the early morning congregation emerged from the arched doorway. But then somebody noted the absence of the three guards from their sentry positions outside the hotel. Suspicion was aroused and spread. Many eyes directed their gaze toward the tracks in the snow left by the buggy and its walking escorts. The volume of talk rose, the tones shrill or hoarse, as the sign drew every eye down to the river and the jetty. In time to see that the ferry was broadside on to the bank just before a sun-glinting metal blade sliced through the final mooring line.
And the craft lunged forward in the triumphant grip of the river currents.
The congregation was spurred into equally sudden movement then: abruptly became an enraged mob that slithered and stumbled down the treacherous, snow-covered slope of the street. Doomed to fail but refusing to acknowledge failure. Men and women of all ages. And children. In the grip of religious fervor or driven by the anger of material loss. Wailing, sobbing, screaming and cursing.
Aboard the ferry the noise of the mob was heard. But no one looked toward the mass advance. For the river was once more the prime enemy, in reckless control of the heavy, lumbering craft.
Today there was no violent pitching or rolling, no spray breaking over the sides to threaten those on board with imminent death from drowning in the ice cold water. Now the danger was from the ferry being snatched by some powerful undertow—perhaps to be borne downstream for miles, perhaps for just a few yards, before a stronger counter current took command and dashed it into a bank. The bottom could be ripped open by a snag. Or the angle of impact could capsize the ungainly craft.
EDGE: Eve of Evil (Edge series Book 28) Page 12
