‘No, Edge san. I have been searching for him.’
The half-breed climbed up on to the wagon seat and beckoned for the youthful Japanese to join him, and as the boy approached he looked at him closely for the first time.
He was little more than five feet tall and probably did not weigh in excess of a hundred and ten pounds. He was handsome, almost pretty in immaturity, with a clear, smooth skin which looked as if it had never felt the scrape of a razor. His complexion was sallow, his slitted eyes brown and his lips full and very red. He was aged somewhere between fifteen and twenty.
He moved with a strange awkwardness for such a slimly built youngster - almost as if he made a conscious effort to inject stiffness into a frame that was naturally loose limbed. He was dressed in black Levi’s, a grey shirt, red kerchief, black Stetson and spurred black riding boots. A gun-belt encircled his small waist, with a Frontier Colt in a holster on the right hip. All his clothes - and even the revolver - seemed slightly too large for him.
‘Since when?’ Edge asked as he flicked the reins and released the brake lever to set the flatbed rolling south along the bottom of the valley.
‘Since he returned to this country from the land of my ancestors, Edge san.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I knew he needed help and he once helped me. Saved my life when I was...’
‘That’s bullshit, Edge!’ Silas Martin snarled. ‘Kill the little...’
The rage of frustration in helplessness gave the dying old man the strength to shout the denial and demand very loudly The words, yelled by a man they both thought was locked in unconsciousness startled the half-breed and the Oriental.
Edge recovered first, but had both hands on the reins. His reflexes were additionally slowed by the suspicion that Silas Martin might not be aware of what he was saying - had yelled in delirium as he came half awake from a terrifying nightmare.
But as he turned his head to look back at the old man, he saw the handsome face of Shio become ugly with a sneer. And the way the boy’s shoulder rose warned the half-breed he was reaching for his gun.
It was the boy’s shrill shriek of alarm that cut across Martin’s order and silenced it. The cry vented as Edge slid forcefully along the seat, to crash his hip against that of Shio. The weight and power behind the impact sent the boy hard against the handrail at the end of the seat. He had his gun clear of the holster by then, but dropped it as he clawed with both hands to grip the handrail. He missed and the momentum of the slide across the seat canted his head and torso out over the side of the wagon.
The pain of his hip hitting the handrail altered the tone of his cry. Then fear was the stronger emotion again as Edge hooked a hand under his rump and heaved. Shio was lifted up off the seat and sent sailing over the side of the flatbed, arms and legs beating at thin air. He hit the ground hard, face down, but with his wits still about him. The Colt was resting just six inches from his outstretched right hand. He clawed his fingers to dig them into the dusty ground and haul himself within reach.
The half-breed released the reins, dragged the lever over to lock the brake blocks to the wheel rims, and leaned over the handrail to aim his Remington. The recoil of the shot juddered the bones from his knuckles to his elbow. Shio screamed what sounded like a foreign language obscenity and snatched his right hand away from the bullet hole in the ground beside the Colt.
‘A life for a life,’ Edge said evenly. ‘I’m no longer beholden to you. So there’s no future in trying for the gun. For you, miss.’
‘Miss!’ the youthful looking Japanese gasped. ‘How did you...’
‘Kill her, Edge!’ Silas Martin snarled, the power gone from his voice. He moaned with pain. ‘Kill the little whore!’
‘You didn’t get down there on your own,’ the half-breed reminded the girl and raised his left hand as he curled back his lips in a cold grin. ‘I gave you a hand and didn’t feel a thing.’
She bent her knees and arched her back to rise on to all fours, withdrawing her hand from the Colt. Then she got to her feet. As she dusted off her pants and shirt her actions were no longer stiffly awkward, there was a natural feminine fluidity to her movements now that the charade was over.
‘He is paying you,’ she said with a nod toward the rear of the wagon, and even her voice was different now. ‘Why do you not do as he orders and kill me?’
Edge straightened up on the seat and slid the Remington back into its holster. ‘For five dollars a day I’ll listen to the word from my sponsor, lady. But I direct the shots.’
‘She’s no lady!’ Martin rasped. ‘She’s a five dollar whore out of the Devil’s Acre in Frisco.’
‘So she rates higher than me, feller. I’m working twenty-four hours a day for that money. You want to get back up on the wagon, Shio? I guess that isn’t your name, though?’
‘My name is Sui Lin.’
Edge jerked a thumb over his shoulder. ‘Any relation to the corpse?’
‘We are - were - sisters.’
‘Don’t listen to her, Edge,’ the dying man ordered, then altered his tone to that of pleading. ‘She’s no better than Hitoshi and his men. She wants to rob me. All whores are liars and cheats. She’ll tell you a pack of lies, son.’
Sui Lin did not move while Martin was abusing her with his tongue. Simply stood and gazed mournfully up at the half-breed.
‘I said do you want to get back on the wagon?’ he told her.
‘Damn you, Edge!’ the old man snarled as the wagon springs creaked softly under the meager weight of the girl climbing aboard.
‘Thank you, Edge san,’ Sui Lin said with a sigh as she sat gratefully down, took off her hat and shook her head so that her sheened black hair tumbled down to reach below her shoulders at front and back. ‘But you should know he speaks the truth. I am a whore and it was my plan to lie to you and rob him.’
The half-breed had rolled a cigarette. Now he lit it, released the brake lever and took up the reins to urge the team into movement. ‘Never have held anything against whores,’ he said. ‘And if liars and cheats bothered me I figure I wouldn’t be able to get along with anybody.’
‘You wish me to tell you my story now, Edge san.’
‘It sure as hell ain’t your willing body that interests me,’ he growled. ‘So forget you’re a whore.’
She turned her Orientally pretty face toward his hard set profile marked with countless cuts and grazes from the thorns, her almond shaped eyes puzzled.
‘I want to hear the truth, girl Don’t try to screw me.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
SILAS MARTIN passed out before the girl’s story was half told, soon after Edge had halted the wagon and lit a cooking fire about three miles south east of the valley.
The camp site he chose was in a gully on the southern fringe of the group of hills, sheltered from the breeze which blew stronger and colder as the night progressed. They had tried to lift the old man down from the wagon, but the pain was too much for him to take, and when he stopped screaming and plunged deep beneath the level of consciousness, they left him where he lay, grey faced and his chest hardly rising and falling at all.
When a pan of water had been boiled, Edge made to bathe the stinking bullet wound and apply a fresh dressing. But the girl, whose sex was emphasized by the action of the wind in contouring the loose fitting shirt to the sparse curves of her breasts, insisted on undertaking the chore.
‘He was good to us once,’ she said as Edge leaned over the side of the wagon to check that she meant Martin no harm. ‘And is there anything I can do to make it worse for him, san.’
‘No sweat,’ the half-breed muttered, his glinting eyes glancing once more at the withered, lined flesh of the once full-faced Silas Martin. ‘He dies now or a week from now, I don’t figure he’ll wake up again.’
‘But he remained conscious for long enough for you to believe me?’
Edge did not reply. Simply turned and went to the fire, to sit on her saddle, drink fresh made cof
fee and consider what Sui Lin had told him.
‘Mai Lin and I were whores. We worked in a house on Kearney Street. As he said, in that part of San Francisco known as the Devil’s Acre. What he did not say is that he owned the house. And Mai Lin and me and the other girls.’
‘You want to say anything now, Silas?’ Edge had asked.
‘Nothin’ you’d want to hear. Let her talk.’ His voice had been very weak. Little more than a strained whisper - as if his agony had formed a hard ball in his throat and he had to squeeze the words out around it.
‘Several weeks ago, a seaman came to the house and chose Mai Lin. He was very drunk. When he learned I was sister to Mai Lin, he wanted both of us. Which was not strange, and he had money to pay. But while we were doing what he demanded, another man came. There was a fight. With knives. Both men were badly wounded. Mai Lin too. But accident, when knife is thrown and misses man, hit her. I was afraid and ran to bring Martin san. When we get back to room Mai Lin is dead. So is the man who began fight - an Italian. Martin san sent me away, says he will do what is necessary to keep lawmen from coming to house.’
The girl spoke without any trace of emotion, sitting easily on the seat, riding with the pitch and roll and jolt of the wagon while her gaze was directed straight ahead between the heads of the two horses.
‘I never see him again until tonight.’
‘And it must have given you a big kick, finding me shot almost into hell,’ Martin rasped. ‘Why didn’t you just finish me off, girl?’
‘It did not suit my purpose. And I am not a murderer, Martin san. I have never tried to harm anyone until I shot Hitoshi tonight.’
‘That gave you the taste,’ Edge put in.
She sighed. ‘I was angry and afraid. I do not know if I could have shot you. If I had, I would be very sorry.’
‘Been a little upset myself,’ Edge muttered. ‘What happened after the killings at the house?’
‘I waited for the rest of the night in my room. With grief for Mai Lin and fear for myself. Then men came. In the morning. Hitoshi, Zenko and Torn.’
‘Who weren’t no Samurai warriors, I figure,’ Edge growled.
‘I sold you a bill of goods, son,’ Martin admitted, using words and expressions he had never spoken while maintaining his pretence of being the wandering black sheep of a rich eastern family. ‘A man who runs a whore house in a seaport city can’t help learning a lot about exotic places. I didn’t trust a man like you to know the truth. Jesus, I feel ill.’
‘I ain’t feeling too good either, feller.’
Martin managed to rise momentarily above his misery. ‘Makes an old man very happy to hear that.’
‘So maybe you’ll die with a smile on your face,’ the half-breed rasped, and immediately regretted it.
Silas Martin had never had very long left to live: and just one dream left to live for. A stroke of good fortune had caused him to ignite a spark of feeling in the cold heart of Edge - when he had claimed Mai Lin as his wife. With no way of knowing that this lie left the normally cynical and skeptical half-breed wide open to swallow a whole lot more. So, Edge acknowledged, as he halted the wagon in the gully where he intended to make night camp, he had only himself - the way he was - to blame for the situation he was in.
‘I think you are right, Edge san,’ Sui Lin said sadly as she came to sit down beside him at the fire. ‘He will die without waking.’
The food and cooking pots were nearby and she began to prepare a stew.
‘Which means he won’t be able to confirm the rest of what you have to tell me,’ the half-breed pointed out flatly.
‘Do the words matter? In the coffin of Mai Lin is the reason for all that has happened. You can open it at any time and see for yourself.’
‘I’ve seen enough dead people for one day. You want to tell me what I’ve been killing them for?’
‘A golden Buddha from the Orient, Edge san. Solid gold and studded with precious gems. Stolen from a holy temple in Cathay and brought to this country by the seaman who died in Mai Lin’s room at the house of Martin san.
The half-breed’s lack of expression in the light of the moon and flickering fire was a true sign of his feelings at the revelation. Ever since he had learned that the corpse in the coffin meant nothing to the old man, it had followed that money or the means to get money was the real reason for Martin’s journey.
‘Worth how much?’
‘In the land from which it came, it is priceless. Here, the metal and jewels could not be purchased for less than half a million dollars.’
Sui Lin waited for a question which did not come. Then answered the one she had expected, ‘Hitoshi told me this. He and Zenko and Torn were well known in San Francisco. They worked for very rich Japanese who has many houses. Many saloons. Places for gambling. Hitoshi told me man who brought Golden Buddha from Cathay had promised to sell it to this rich man. One who started fight worked for another rich man. Seaman dead by then. Not from knife wound, though. Strangled. And Martin san gone. Body of Mai Lin, too. And Golden Buddha from bag of seaman. Gone many hours before Hitoshi and others find seaman had come to house of Martin san?’
She had finished preparing the food and set it to cook in the pot. She asked with her eyes if she was allowed to pour herself a mug of coffee and the half-breed nodded his permission. She blew on the steaming black liquid and took several sips before she continued.
‘It did not surprise me, what Martin san had done. All the time he used to talk of making much money to enjoy when he was old man. I think of this after Hitoshi and others leave me. And I remember how he talked of going back to his birthplace. In New York City where he was very poor. He spoke of how good it would be to be rich in New York City.’
‘You didn’t tell Hitoshi about that?’ Edge asked as the breeze snatched at the steam from the cooking pot and wafted its appetizing aroma across his nostrils.
‘No, san. I did not think of such things until later. And then I began to think that I should share in the good fortune of Martin san. And I will not lie to you by saying it was because my sister died. I thought only of myself.’
‘Thinking of the dead you can get to be one of them,’ the half-breed said sourly, reflecting on the number of times he had almost died since a memory of Beth had aroused his misplaced sympathy for Silas Martin.
‘I do not understand, Edge san,’ Sui Lin responded, confused.
‘As long as I do.’ He showed her a bleak expression, his gaze much colder than the strengthening wind which was starting to make moaning sounds through the hills to the north.
She shivered, not from the chill of the night. ‘You hate me very much, I think, Edge san.’
‘You and me are in the human race,’ he rasped bitterly. ‘Nothing makes us different from the rest.’
She stirred the stew while she considered this, then decided there was no point in projecting her thoughts about it any further. ‘You wish to know the rest?’
‘Your voice sounds sweeeter than the one in my head.’
Again she chose to ignore the cryptic self-directed bitterness of the impassive man and lay back on the grass. She pulled a blanket over her body and stared up at the stars with her hands linked behind her head.
‘I started out for New York City, Edge san. Dressed as a boy because I thought it would be easier for me to travel so. I had only enough money to buy a ticket on the railroad to Kansas City but I knew I would be able to earn more there. Or anywhere.’
‘Except here with me.’
She showed anger for the first time since he had tipped her off the wagon at Ralph’s camp. ‘I do not care that you do not need whores! Many others do!’
The half-breed glanced down at her face which showed above the blanket and, because she refused to look at him, felt free to briefly display his feelings on his thorn-torn face. As was so often the case with pretty girls and beautiful women, she looked more desirable than ever with the light of anger in her eyes and petulance forming the set of
her lips. But he could not desire her because she was a whore. And what ran through his mind was regret that he could not want her - and the many others of her kind he had met during his aimless drifting since the end of the war. For if he could have used whores he would have avoided much heartache. For him there would have been no Beth Day, no Emma Diamond, no Charity Meagher, no Isabella Montez. Before the end of the war, no Jeannie Fisher. Women loved and lost, all but one of them violently. The losing of them always having some traumatic effect on him which motivated his later actions.
He shook his head to clear his mind of futile reflections on the unchangeable past. And considered asking Sui Lin if she knew how big a city was New York and how she planned on finding one man among so many. But now, that was immaterial, too. Just as he had given little thought to the circumstances in which he had met up again with Hitoshi and Zenko.
The field glasses in the saddlebag had given the clue. Out on the mid-western prairie it had been easy for them to stay ahead of their quarry, beyond the range of the human eye which had no artificial magnifying lens to aid it, paying others to risk their lives and then taking the life of a man to set a trap in a situation that looked safe.
‘The train got only as far as Denver before the snow came,’ the Japanese whore went on, after time and the lack of response from Edge had soothed her rancor. ‘I saw Martin san come into town a few days later with the box on the wagon. But he had men to guard it and law officers were involved. So I waited and watched. I was at the railroad station when Hitoshi and the others tried to steal the box in which I knew the Golden Buddha had to be. I saw you kill Torn.’
‘I didn’t owe him anything any more.’
‘Like me now.’
‘Won’t have any reason to kill you if you don’t aim a gun at me again.’
She sat up. ‘What about the Golden Buddha?’
‘Sometimes I have to kill people. Never do steal from them.’
The girl looked at him with a cynical expression, not believing his indifference toward the valuable religious relic. But the hardness in his slitted eyes, glinting like chips of blue metal in a match flare as he lit a cigarette, drove her gaze away from his face. She stirred the stew, even though it was unnecessary.
EDGE: THE LIVING, THE DYING AND THE DEAD (Edge series Book 29) Page 11
