‘What are you going to do, Edge san.’
‘My job. Was hired to guard the casket from Denver to New York state.’
‘By a man who lied to you. A man who will die soon.’
The half-breed nodded. ‘The way he is now, there’s nothing I can do about the lies. When he cashes in, my job’ll be over.’
‘And if I am with you?’ There was excitement in her voice.
‘Finish your story, girl.’
She had to take time to collect her thoughts - recall the point at which she had broken off. Her face continued to glow with the fervent expectation that the means to a fortune hidden in the casket was destined to come to her.
‘I left Denver on the second passenger train, certain a man such as you would get the Golden Buddha safely to New York City. But the train broke down at the station beyond Olsen Creek. While we waited for another locomotive, a freight train came. And I heard talk of the two Orientals who held the brakeman prisoner until Butcherville. I was afraid for you and Martin san…’ She looked at him for a moment and shrugged. ‘For the Golden Buddha. I did not have enough money to buy a horse, so I stole one. At Olsen Creek I found the dead man and saw horse and wheel tracks. I followed them. When I came upon the wagon with Martin san in it I tried to rouse him. But he would not revive. So I hitched the horses and began to drive the wagon. I did not know where I was going until I saw the glow of the fire you lit. That is all there is to tell you, Edge san.’
She reached for two plates and began to ladle the food from the pot, heaping more on the half-breed’s than her own.
‘Except for why you shot Hitoshi or Zenko or whoever he was. But I guess I know that already.’
She gave him his plate. ‘He would have come looking for wagon and killed me for having the Golden Buddha. I knew nothing of what you would do. So I took chance.’
‘Food’s good.’
‘I always cooked for Martin san and girls of house. Did I take right chance, Edge san.’
‘I figure you did, but I’m prejudiced.’
‘What you going to do?’
‘I told you. My job.’
‘I can come with you?’
‘If you can afford it. Aim to get to Cimarron and pick up an A.T. and S.F. train eastbound. Need to buy tickets.’
‘I can sell horse and saddle. Nobody there will know I stole them.’
‘If they do, they’ll hang you.’
‘For Golden Buddha, I will take another chance.’
They ate in silence for several minutes. Then Sui Lin said, ‘When we have finished, I will bathe your face, Edge san. You suffered many cuts in overcoming trap of Hitoshi and Zenko. I saw you fall two times and was fearful they would get to top of hill before you got to gun at bottom. I am very glad you win race.’
The half-breed ran the tips of his fingers over his blood encrusted features. The tears in the skin no longer pained him but after sitting so long by the fire his legs had started to ache when he made any small movement, protesting the effects of the unusual exertion when he had chased the train at Butcherville and hurtled down toward Ralph’s camp.
‘Yeah,’ he muttered with a grimace. ‘I didn’t do so bad for a scratch runner.’
CHAPTER TWELVE
NEWS of the trouble on the Union Pacific railroad had not reached the cow town of Cimarron which was on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe line. The local doctor looked at Silas Martin, said there was nothing he could do for the old man - who should be dead anyway - and sold Edge some salve and clean dressings to put on the stinking, pus-inflamed bullet hole. The fee for this was eight dollars and the half-breed took money from Martin’s stake to pay it.
Sui Lin, dressed like a man but making no pretence of being one, managed to get a good price for the stolen horse and gear in time to buy a ticket and join the first eastbound train to leave town.
She and Edge rode in a day car after installing the old man in a sleeper berth, where he would be able to live out the final remnants of his now useless life, unaware of the relative comfort he was enjoying. He was the only occupant of his car, so there was nobody to be bothered by the rancid smell of his rotting flesh.
The casket was in the caboose, the cheerful brakeman blissfully ignorant of what the crate contained.
At hourly intervals during the days and nights, as the train rattled and swayed from Cimarron to Dodge City, Dodge to Wichita, to Newton, to Topeka, either the girl or the half-breed checked on Martin’s condition. Each time they were certain that on the next occasion they looked, he would be dead.
Although he was sure Sui Lin had neither the inclination nor the courage to help Silas Martin out of this life, he guessed that she was willing him to die, was eager for the stage to be reached when her travelling companion had to make known his intention for the Golden Buddha.
Edge himself waited stoically for nature and the ingenuity of avaricious men to take their courses. For two things were certain. The old man would die. And the men of wealth who sought to enrich themselves further would not allow a Devil’s Acre whore to steal the Golden Buddha. Which reduced it to a matter of time.
Would Silas Martin die soon so that the half-breed could take what he was owed and leave? Or would he continue to cling to the slender thread of his life for long enough for Edge to be present at the end of a contest - a race between the man for whom the trio of Japanese had worked, and the one who had sent the Italian to Martin’s cat house. The former had reason to want Edge dead, in revenge for the killing of Hitoshi, Zenko and Torn. The latter? If the old man were still breathing, the half-breed’s code would demand that he continue to guard the crated casket.
The man who won the race had his guns waiting at the station of a small town a few miles south west of the Kansas River crossing beyond Topeka.
The train clanked to a halt alongside the depot boardwalk as the hands on the clock above the door of the dispatched office showed the time of three o’clock in the morning.
Edge was awake, smoking a cigarette as a prelude to heading back into the next car to check on the pitifully wasted and weak Silas Martin. The girl at his side slept on, merely venting a low groan as the halting of the train caused her chin to fall forward on to her chest.
The moon was bright in a clear sky above eastern Kansas, showing a boardwalk deserted except for a railman standing beside a pile of cartons and sacks outside the dispatcher’s office.
The dozen or so other passengers in the car continued to sleep as peacefully as the Japanese girl, even when the man on the boardwalk yelled at the brakeman to come and help him load the freight.
Edge rose from his window seat and instinctively picked up his Winchester before he swung over the legs of Sui Lin and started down the unlit car. When he stepped out on to the railed platform, a man said, ‘You gotta be the one, I guess.’
He and another man were down on the right, on the other side of the train from the boardwalk. Both dressed in somber hued city suits and both aiming Frontier Colts at the half-breed. Swarthy-skinned, big built men with eyes like dark pebbles.
‘The one what?’ Edge countered, his right hand hanging lower than his holster and his left wrapped around the frame of the rifle which was canted to his shoulder.
‘The one that either acts sensible or gets dead,’ the second man responded, speaking with the same Latin style accent as the first.
‘We heard about you from Newton. By telegraph. Our man told us what Martin’s man looked like.’
‘You wanna toss down your guns? Or you wanna look a little different? With a hole in you you don’t have now.’
‘Mr Marlon ain’t bothered, one way or the other.’
‘I ain’t of the same opinion as Mr Marlon,’ Edge said, and made to bring the Winchester gently down from his shoulder.
But the leading door of the sleeper car opened and a third city-suited man stepped through. He looked to be of the same southern European nationality as the two on the ground and was in the same mid-thirties age group
. He was not surprised to see the half-breed.
‘I’ll take it,’ he said, reaching out over the two rails and easing the rifle from Edge’s grasp. ‘And if you don’t turn to the side so I can get your handgun, you’re dead. Mr Marlon...’
‘I already know how he feels about me, feller.’ He swung his right hip toward the man on the other car and allowed the Remington to be slid out of the holster.
‘Martin didn’t oughta be alive,’ the third man told his partners. ‘He won’t cause no trouble.’
‘What about the whore?’
The man with Edge’s guns looked quizzically at their owner.
A brown skinned thumb was hooked and stabbed over a broad shoulder.
‘Asleep.’
‘Go wake her up and bring her out here, Rico.’ Then to Edge: ‘You, get down on the boardwalk. Keep playing it right and you get to be in a thousand bucks. Play it wrong and you get to be out of breath. You know what I mean?’
A fourth man appeared on the boardwalk side of the train. Another Italian, dressed in a black derby, black suit, white shirt, black tie and black patent leather shoes. Holding a Frontier Colt in his right fist.
‘That Mr Marlon is giving me a message it’s hard to refuse,’ the half-breed muttered and stepped down from the train.
‘That’s where you head for,’ the fourth smartly turned out gunman instructed as Edge looked toward the rear of the train. Where yet another man held a gun, aimed at the brakeman and dispatcher, while two others sweated and struggled to move the crated casket out of the caboose.
As he started forward, the half-breed glanced over his shoulder. There was no one in sight beside the locomotive, but he guessed one of Marlon’s men was in the cabin, covering the footplate crew.
‘For a hick Western gunslinger you did all right against Boss Black’s Frisco boys,’ the man behind Edge growled.
‘Not so hot against you fellers.’
‘Some you win, some you lose. With us, least you got the choice if you want to live or die.’
‘No contest.’
Other footfalls rapped on the boardwalk and Edge glanced back again, saw Rico and the other two suited men urging the sullen looking Sui Lin to hurry ahead of them.
At the rear of the train, the heavy crate was finally lowered to the boardwalk beside the caboose. All the gunmen glanced toward the man with Edge’s Winchester and Remington as he joined the loose knit group around the crate. This man stabbed a finger at the sweating, lip-quivering dispatcher.
‘You get aboard with the brakeman. Tell both of you what’s been told the engineer. The train don’t stop until it reaches Kansas City. Raise any kind of alarm you want then. Okay?’
Both railmen nodded and moved hurriedly around the crate to reach the caboose.
‘Ain’t okay with me,’ Edge said, and drew every pair of eyes towards him.
The railmen’s fear expanded as they froze in the act of climbing up into the caboose. Sui Lin looked morose in defeat. The gunmen expressed tacit snarls.
‘If I’m staying,’ he went on, ‘I’d like for the old man to get off here, too.’
‘You’re in no position to want anything, except stay alive,’ the leader of the gunmen snapped.
‘Buy the favor for the thousand dollars you planned to pay me, feller.’
‘Why?’
‘I’m working for him. He could wake up before he dies. Like for him to see I didn’t run out on him.’
‘We can’t spare the time for that kinda crap, Louie!’ the man behind Edge rasped.
‘Shuddup,’ he was told by the frowning Louie, who then nodded. His forefinger stabbed toward the brakeman and dispatcher. ‘You guys get aboard further up the train. Rico, unhook the last car and caboose from the train. Emilio and Carlo, start opening the crate.’ He glanced at Edge, and aimed the Winchester at him. ‘Sentiment like that, I got feelings for. But you try to pull anything, you’ll die ahead of the old guy.’
‘I still know what you mean, feller.’
As soon as the brakeman and dispatcher were aboard, Rico came out from uncoupling the sleeper car and caboose from the last day car. He put a finger and thumb in his mouth and vented a shrill whistle that pierced through the hiss of escaping steam. A man climbed down from the locomotive, gestured with his gun hand and was shrouded with billowing grey vapor. Drive wheels spun and then gripped the track. The cars jolted forward, clashing bumpers, then began to roll smoothly as they gathered speed under the powerful thrust of the locomotive.
Crowbars prised the top off the crate with a teeth-gritting sound of nails forced out from timber. All of Marlon’s men, with the exception of the two opening the crate and Louie who kept Edge and Sui Lin covered with the Winchester, went from sight beyond the depot building.
Smoke from the departing train drifted across the boardwalk, not thick enough to hide anything from anyone.
‘She’s been dead a long time, you guys,’ Louie warned as the top of the crate was removed and they started to unscrew the casket lid.
The two men interrupted their chore to take the white linen handkerchiefs from the breast pockets of their jackets. They tied them at the napes of their necks to form masks over their mouths and noses.
‘Please treat Mai Lin with respect,’ Sui Lin asked dully. ‘She was my sister.’
‘I didn’t know that,’ Louie said, mildly surprised.
‘Only God knows everything, san.’
Louie showed very white teeth in a confident smile. ‘A lot of people in New York think Mr Marlon is God, sister. He always knows enough.’
The sounds from the train had been swallowed up by the night and the tiny, unlit town behind the depot would have been silent had not a wagon begun to roll.
Edge turned from peering across the track at an expanse of cottonwoods with a trail curving into it and watched a Concord coach hauled by four geldings. With Rico controlling the reins and Carlo sitting on the high seat beside him, the Concord moved slowly along the street beside the boardwalk, then made a sharp turn to go over the timber crossing and halt at the start of the trail. The balance of Marlon’s men stared dead-pan out of the windows.
‘Mamma mia!’
‘Bio! Il fetore!’
The lid of the casket slid from the hands of the man who had removed it and clattered to the boardwalk. He and his partner both staggered back, using their hands to supplement the handkerchief masks over their lower faces.
Then the nauseatingly sweet stench of long decayed flesh permeated through the warm, early hours air to assault the nostrils of Edge, Sui Lin and Louie. The girl and the Italian stepped back, as the half-breed moved forward, once more recalling a vivid image of Beth. She had not been dead so long when he found her, but her maggot infested remains had smelled as bad.
Nature had started to strip the flesh from the bones of Mai Lin. Already her eyes were gone, her nose was half eaten away and probably she had no tongue in her mouth, which was filled with tiny worms, writhing and twisting as they continued to feed.
‘It there?’ Louie called.
Edge glanced over his shoulder to where the Italian continued to keep him covered with his own Winchester. ‘If it was that easy to find, Martin wouldn’t have got it past the Denver law, feller.’
‘Marco! Franco! Finish your job!’
The two men looked about to refuse, but the glare in Louie’s eyes froze the words in their throats. They advanced tentatively to the other side of the crated casket from Edge. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, began to delve their hands under the white satin shroud which clothed the corpse, their heads averted to try to escape the worst of the stench.
Edge watched them for a few seconds, then reached into the coffin, hooked curled fingers under the neckline of the shroud, and jerked his arm.
Marco and Franco vented cries of fear through their masks and stumbled backward.
‘What the hell?’ Louie demanded, as alarmed as his men by the half-breed’s sudden move.
Even Ri
co and Carlo snatched up their Colts from the Concord seat and swung them to aim at Edge.
‘When a job stinks, best way to do it is fast, feller.’
The maggots had feasted on the hirsute base of Mai Lin’s belly and like those crawling in her mouth they did not interrupt their gorging on the rotted tissue.
Edge’s narrowed eyes raked the nude body from neck to crotch and rasped through compressed lips, ‘Just to use on her,’ as he drew the razor from its neck pouch.
The knife which had killed the Japanese whore went in under her sparse left breast. Perhaps had been ripped upward, or maybe the cut had been made later. She had obviously been dead when the inexpert stitches were used to pull the two flaps of flesh together. The strong thread was partially rotted, and parted easily under the attack of the finely honed blade.
The half-breed wiped the blade on the shroud and pushed it back into the pouch.
Horrified fascination emanated from every pair of eyes which watched him stoop, pick up the discarded screwdrivers and lean over the open casket again.
Only he was in a position to see the skin of the whore’s breast fragment like scorched paper as he used the screwdrivers to scrape it away. And so he was the first to see the jewel studded statuette of the grinning, swollen-bellied Buddha which had been pressed into the cavity where Mai Lin’s heart had once been.
He looked at the sculptured gold and finely cut gems bleakly for a few moments. Then dropped the tools in the casket and stepped back from the crate.
‘You have it?’ Louie asked hoarsely.
‘Found the gold, but it ain’t mine. Like to go check on Silas now.’
‘Momento?’ the Italian snapped, and addressed a burst of words in his own language at Franco.
Marco expressed relief as he retreated to the Concord, taking the handkerchief from his face. The sick looking Franco also removed his mask, to protect his hands from the touch of decayed flesh, as he delved into the mutilated body and lifted out the Golden Buddha.
EDGE: THE LIVING, THE DYING AND THE DEAD (Edge series Book 29) Page 12
