‘Thank God.’
‘Now turn around and face the stage, mister,’ Clyde snarled. Over compensating for his anxiety.
‘You are not going to -’ The woman’s voice was shrill with horror.
‘Shut up!’ Clyde roared, and triggered a shot from his Winchester.
The bullet went high into the darkening sky. And probably fell back to the arid desert before the sound of the shot ceased to ring in the ears of the frightened people on and around the stationary Concord.
‘Do like he says, ma’am,’ Edge said evenly into the ensuing silence. ‘Never a good idea to rile a sore loser.’
He completed the turn as he finished speaking the warning. And saw from the deeper brand of fear that spread across the faces of those he could see that he was just a moment away from getting what the cowpunchers considered he had coming to him.
He was wrongly positioned to see the shadows of Clyde and Ward. Heard one of them draw in a sharp breath. Then the scrape of boot leather against rock. And the subdued whistling sound of something solid being swung through the air.
The rock upon which the two men stood was about four feet high. Dave was six feet tall. So even though he had to stoop to be within reach of his target, he had ample distance with which to build up momentum.
Edge fought an inner battle to rid his frame of tension. He had been hit hard many times: enough to know that there was less chance of broken bone if a man was in a relaxed attitude at the time of impact. It was a hard struggle, because the fear of death was transmitted from his mind to every nerve ending in his body.
They did not want to kill him. He had believed that from the moment he saw who was holding up the stage. Just four hardened cowpunchers determined to make him pay for humiliating them at the way-station. Two of them much more eager to have revenge than the other two. All four were now stone cold sober and the differences between them were more clearly seen than when they were drunk.
Ward and Sonny, standing on the rock on the other side of the Concord, were as frightened as the crew and passengers aboard the stage about the outcome of what they witnessed. Ward even gaped his mouth wide, as if to scream a demand that it stop.
And maybe he did.
But Edge failed to hear it. For at that instant the viciously swung the barrel of Dave’s Winchester slammed into him. And his hearing was gone. His sight, too. The sense of smell and taste. So that he was left only with feel. And all he could feel was excruciating agony.
He knew the blow had not killed him. During a part of a second of crystal clear thinking he experienced a massive surge of sweet relief - that his worst fear was not realized. Dave had not stoved in his skull with the rifle barrel. Instead, had aimed directly downwards, to crash the Winchester against his right shoulder.
Agony exploded from the point of impact to send searingly hot bolts through every fibre of his being.
He did not know if he screamed. He was not aware of falling. First dropping hard to his knees, then pitching forward on to his belly, chest and face. Unable to soften this series of fresh blows against his flesh with his hands: for the agony acted to paralyze him and his arms hung limply at his sides.
He was oblivious of the vomit that erupted from his stomach and spewed out of his mouth as he fell forward. Did not smell the stench of it nor feel the wetness as his face splashed into the pool it formed on the trail.
He failed to hear the booted feet thud against the ground to either side of him when Clyde and Dave leapt down from the rock. Did not feel one of Dave’s feet hook under his belly. Nor had any sensation of movement as he was rolled over on to his back.
‘Get over here, you two!’
‘What about these others?’ Ward replied anxiously to Clyde’s order.
‘They ain’t gonna do nothin’! On account he ain’t nothin’ to them!’
Ward and Sonny came down from their rock and circled around the front of the stalled stage, their rifle barrels wavering as they continued to keep nervous watch on the driver and shotgun who still had their hands held high above their heads.
Charlie spat more tobacco juice between the rumps of the horses. ‘Beatin’ up on him is okay, you boys,’ he growled. ‘But it goes beyond that, you’ll have to kill me as well as him.’
He lowered his hands and looked intently at Harry Dodds. Who swallowed hard before he aped the other man’s actions. Then said huskily:
‘I’m with Charlie. Won’t go for the piece in my holster or ' the rifle under my feet. Long as you don’t stop that guy from breathin’.’
‘You got yourselves a deal,’ Clyde snapped as Ward and Sonny reached his side of the stage. ‘Get the sonofabitch on his feet and up against the rock.’
His eyes, glowing with the pleasure of anticipation, shifted quickly between Dave and Ward. Dave was fast in dropping to his haunches and gripping the armpit under Edge’s punished shoulder. Ward and Sonny eyed each other. Ward shook his head and Sonny stooped to hook a hand under the other armpit of the pain paralysed man.
‘Come on, damnit!’ Clyde growled.
‘Yeah, get it over with,’ Ward urged, turning his back on his three buddies to face the stage, but with the Winchester angled across his chest.
Edge was aware of what was happening to him again. His shoulder felt as if there were a red hot poker sunk deep into it and his brain seemed to be numbed. He experienced only slight discomfort as he was dragged around in a half circle and then toward the rock from which the attack had been launched. He saw the two men who were dragging him and the one who followed in the tracks left by his boot heels. He saw the stage.
But darkness had come rushing in across the desert and he could see nothing clearly. Not because of the poor light, though. His vision was blurred.
He could hear voices, but his hearing was still impaired.
Sounds were merely scratches on his eardrums.
Then his viewpoint abruptly changed. He was no longer on his back, being dragged over hard ground. He was up on his feet, but he was not supporting himself. His back was pressed against something harder and he was no longer moving.
He smelled his own vomit smeared across the bristles on his jaw, and this threatened to erupt more of the same from his belly. His eyes stung and he realized this was due to the saltiness of tears.
He heard clearly.
‘. . . gonna teach you a friggin’lesson, you sonofabitch! So you’ll know if you ever run into us again, you won’t be ready to poke your nose in where it ain’t got no business.’
‘That’s it, Clyde old buddy!’ Dave squealed in excitement. ‘Make it so he won’t have no nose!’
Edge felt like he was trapped in a waking nightmare in which crazy things assumed vital importance. He could not be bothered to try to cling to fuzzy memories of what had happened to him, why it had happened or who was responsible for his suffering. All that mattered was that he held his head up high. And this was necessary because, if he were able to achieve this, then the rest of the muscles in his punished body might be encouraged to start working.
He hated to be helpless, having to rely on the men flanking him to keep him from slipping down the rock into an untidy heap at its base. It was just not in his nature to need help. Help was a favor and favors had to be returned.
With an enormous effort followed by a great sense of attainment, he forced his chin up from his chest. And a grin of pure pleasure took command of his face, even injected warmth into the ice-blue slits of his eyes. He blinked once and the teardrops were flicked off his eyelids.
He saw everything with perfect clarity in the dim, cool light of evening. And the nightmarish quality of what was happening to him was abruptly dispelled.
This when he saw Clyde in a half crouch in front of him, poised to deliver a punch. And his capacity to experience hatred spread out from his mind and filled his whole being in the way the agony of the incapacitating blow had reached to the very limits of his sensory existence.
The new blow was launched at hi
m. And Clyde vented a shrill cry of triumph as his fist smashed into Edge’s belly.
Edge hated the man who hurt him, but there was a bottomless reserve of the emotion to be directed at everyone and everything else in the world. Past, present and future.
The muscles of his legs and his arms refused to imitate those of his neck. So he was at the mercy of his attacker and the two men who flanked him. There was a burst of pain in his belly and at the small of his back as the force of the blow slammed him against the unmoving rock. Air rushed from his lungs and burst out of his mouth. Bile tainted saliva spilled from his lips as his chin crashed down on to his chest again. His body sagged and it seemed as if his arms were to be jerked from their sockets as Dave and Sonny forced him to remain upright.
‘That’s wiped the friggin’ smile off your friggin’ face!’ Clyde shrieked as he came erect, stepped closer to Edge and dragged the hat off his head. Then grabbed a bunch of the jet black hair at the crown and jerked it upwards.
With his free hand he began to slap the lean, bristled, vomit and saliva run face. With the palm and then the back of the knuckles. Hard enough to knock the head from side to side within the limits imposed by the hand grasping the hair.
He spoke with a vicious, rasping sound as he delivered the regular slaps.
‘Findin’ out what it’s like to be on the receivin’ end now, ain’t you, mister? Gettin’ shown up real well in front of folks. You ain’t so friggin’ tough, you stinkin’ bounty hunter, without some skinny, titless woman to back you with a gun. We’re givin’ the orders now. And we’re givin’ them to a lousy Mex greaser who ain’t in no position to argue.’
He gave up on the slapping and folded the punishing hand into a fist again. Began to land short, jabbing punches against Edge’s nose.
This hurt more than the slapping and soon produced a trickle of blood that developed into a steady flow running from both nostrils and into the open mouth of the helpless man. The warmth and saltiness of the liquid on his tongue threatened to erupt more vomit from deep inside him.
But Edge was too engulfed by the depthless ocean of hatred to be aware of this. He could hear what was being said to him. He was able to see everything that was directly in front of him. He felt each blow that landed against him.
And each and every part of what he heard, saw and felt provided fresh fuel for the hatred that somehow acted to insulate him from the full force of his punishment.
Clyde, Dave, Sonny and Ward. They were all going to die. So was Joe Straw, who he would take to Crater and hand over to be hanged without further consideration of why the half breed Comanche had been driven to do what he did.
Charlie and Harry Dodds were objects of hatred as they sat up on the high seat of the Concord, looking down at him with pity on their time lined faces. Likewise Mrs. Dora Naulty who peered out through the open doorway of the stage, expressing grimacing shock. And Tait and Carver who kept their eyes averted from the scene of the beating.
All of them in some way or other had contributed to circumstances which had led to Edge taking this punishment. These people and many like them who entered his life and, by the mundane ordinariness of what they were, caused him to question what he was…
Shit, he was what he had become. Not like anybody else in the entire world. So what if he did not enjoy the pleasures that gave others happiness? He had what very few others possessed. He had freedom.
Not right at this very moment, that was sure. Pinned to a rock by two men while a third beat up on him. But this was a temporary state. When the grudge-carrying cowpunchers had satiated their lust for revenge, they would leave him. Unconscious maybe, to wake up to agony. Or perhaps they would stop short of the point where merciful oblivion closed in on him, not allowing his body to recover by one degree while he was unable to experiencing the suffering.
Whichever, when they left him, they would still be prisoners of their instincts and emotions which ruled their actions and reactions. Four young cowpunchers between jobs. And between hopes and dreams, desires and ambitions. Caught in a trap because their lives had a direction and to maintain it they had to abide by certain conventions imposed by society.
Edge’s chin was back down on his chest, and Clyde was using both hands clenched into fists to smash punches against the belly of the trapped man. But soon it would be over and Edge would be free again. He would not die. Even if Clyde was so filled with hatred he was incapable of realizing when the brutal punishment he was delivering reached the point where another blow would kill his victim, his buddies would intervene. Ward or Sonny. Or even Dave. Objectively on the fringe of the vicious beating. Able to apply rational thinking to the consequence if Clyde should beat this man to death. Of how society would react, to enforce changes of directions. And how guilt - their own and their friend’s - would punish them and alter them.
Edge was close to unconsciousness. People were shouting close by, but the words seemed to be travelling over vast distances before they reached him. And the sound of the voices was fuzzy. In the same way as the blows against his belly were discernible as no more than dull thuds. Blessedly painless.
‘That’s enough, Clyde!’
‘It sure is, for you! Here, you hold the bastard while I take a turn!’
‘I don’t figure he can take any more, Dave!’
‘Stay awake, you bastard! Don’t you friggin’ black out on me!’
Then Mrs. Dora Naulty: ‘Stop it! You men, do something! If they don’t kill him, they’ll maim him for life!’
Edge experienced a surge of exhilaration which had nothing to do with the sudden inability to experience pain. Nor that the majority opinion was in favor of bringing the beating to an end.
He was no longer a prisoner of convention and his own emotions. In truth, he never had been - not since he shrugged out of the identity of Josiah C. Hedges and became the man called Edge.
He had not loved Crystal Dickens. Nor Beth. He did not envy the pathetic desires of Joe Straw, the do-gooder old lady, the other passengers and the driver and shotgun aboard the stage. The kid cowpunchers. The Fords. The Hackmans. Nor everyone else who had crossed his path on the endless trail he rode.
It was Josiah C. Hedges who harbored these feelings. And he was dead. Existed as no more than a ghostly memory in the darkest recesses of the mind of Edge.
How many times had he emerged from the depths to influence the thinking and actions of Edge? A whole lot, that was sure. And every time he did it resulted in anguish or agony to punish the mind or body of the shell that hosted his spirit.
But no more. Never again would he be allowed to occupy the host mind or dictate the responses of the physical being he had once possessed: to introduce an identity crisis and leave the man called Edge open to attack while he struggled against an ethereal enemy who he thought was laid to rest long ago.
It had taken him many years to rid himself of the conviction that his life was ruled by cruel fates intent upon causing him suffering for past sins. A sense of triumph had swamped him then. But the elation he felt then was as nothing to the soaring joy that filled him now, so powerful it formed an impenetrable barrier against the pain, the humiliation, the anger and the hatred that the beating had earlier generated.
But his physical condition could not have been further removed from the state of his mind. The extent of his punishment seen when Ward whirled toward Clyde and dragged him out of reach of the man held to the rock. Ward had to discard his rifle and lock both arms around the waist of his friend to pull him clear. While this took place, Sonny released his hold on Edge. Dave cursed as loudly and shrilly as Clyde. But just as Clyde was unable to break free of Ward’s grip on him, so Dave could not keep the two hundred pounds weight of Edge upright. And Edge fell forward with a twisting action. Dave had to let go on him and the shoulder of the almost unconscious man hit the ground: his arm swung through the air and acted to shift his centre of gravity. So, although he landed on his side, he was moved into an involuntary half roll and ca
me to rest on his back, one arm held beneath him, one flung to the side and both legs splayed, his face exposed to the glittering light of the newly risen moon.
‘Dear God in Heaven, what have you done to him?’ the old woman screamed. ‘You’ve killed him!’
She rose from her seat and half fell as she struggled down from the stage.
‘No they ain’t,’ Harry Dodds argued. ‘He’s still breathin’.’
Charlie spat tobacco juice and growled: ‘That’s good, partner. Means we don’t have to take no hand in this.’
Clyde had ceased trying to tear himself away from Ward,
who released him. This as Sonny stepped to the side, from between Dave and the sprawled form of Edge.
All four cowpunchers gazed silently down at their victim.
His mouth hung open to give access and exit to air which was unable to force a way through the crusted blood blocking his nostrils. There was more congealed blood on his lips and teeth and among the stubble of his day old beard. His nose was no longer angular and the lean look had gone from his cheeks. The beating had swollen his flesh with dark colored contusions, sweat and vomit smeared every part of his face.
Ward and Sonny looked close to throwing up themselves. Dave showed a grimace of frustration. Clyde, drained by anger and exertion, force a grin across his face.
‘I sure as hell give it to him, didn’t I, old buddies?’
‘You sure as hell didn’t give the rest of us a chance, frig it!’ Dave snarled.
‘You are wicked, evil boys!’ Mrs. Naulty accused, and made to advance on Edge. But was brought to a halt and rooted to the spot when Dave whirled toward her and ordered:
‘Stay outta this, you old crow! I gotta powerful urge to hit somebody!’ He fisted one hand and cracked it into the palm of the other.
‘Now, son, there’s no call to go insultin’ a lady that way,’ Charlie muttered nervously.
Dave wrenched his head around to turn his glowering eyes toward the bearded driver.
‘Clyde!’ Ward yelled. ‘I think it’s time we left!’
EDGE: The Prisoners Page 10
