Teniente Romero stiffened at the shouting of his name.
‘No sweat, lieutenant,’ Edge said softly, and grinned. ‘I guess there are some bad guys around called Edge—’
Alfaro undraped the strap from around his neck and passed the field glasses to the lieutenant. ‘That is him? On the left.’
Romero peered through the magnifying lenses for just a moment. ‘Si,’ he said, and returned the glasses. Then, to Edge: ‘It is my brother Salvador.’
The half-breed pursed his lips. ‘Way it goes sometimes. Guess you’re entitled to sweat.’
‘Enough of this preamble, bandito!’ Alfaro yelled, ‘We already know your terms! Unless you have changed them!’
‘And I can see your answer, Federale!’ Gonzalez responded. ‘But I give the people of this village one final chance! I send you back your men! You send me my woman!’
‘Accept, major!’ Parker urged ‘They don’t have tongues, but they’ve still got hands.’
‘Right,’ Tyree agreed, licking his lips as if to assure himself he still had a tongue. ‘Means we’ll have two more guys who can shoot.’
‘I am in command here!’ Alfaro snarled. ‘I will decide what to do!’
‘There is something in what Señor Parker says,’ Teniente Romero put in.
Alfaro glared at him and the young lieutenant asked tacitly for the opinion of Edge.
The half-breed raked his eyes over the profile of the woman’s face and ill-used body. ‘One way to get rid of a stalemate,’ he supplied.
‘He will trick us!’ Alfaro declared.
‘So we’ll lose a hostage that ain’t no use to us,’ Tyree pointed out.
‘And two of your men you don’t have any longer,’ Hawkins added.
The tall and slim major, whose sweat had taken the crispness out of his uniform, gave the points stretched seconds of tense consideration. Then he made a bullhorn of his hands: ‘All right, bandito! We exchange!’
Eva said something forceful under her breath.
The revolvers were taken away from the necks of the hostage Federales. There was a brief exchange of words. Then the prisoners were allowed to ride forward. They had obviously been ordered to keep the pace down to a walk.
‘You see how I trust you, Federale!’ Gonzalez boasted, ‘Already I have sent them to you.’
‘Too easy,’ Edge muttered narrowing his eyes to glinting slits of ice-cold blueness as he stared at the slow riding horsemen closing with the post.
‘You think…’ Alfaro started.
‘Of course!’ Gonzalez continued. ‘If you do not send my Eva out of your place before the men get there…’
He spread his arms to indicate Toni and Romero. The two bandits who specialized in torture threw Winchester stocks to their shoulders and sighted on the backs of the released Federales.
Comrades of the men set free became abruptly tenser. Flies buzzed louder. Sweat flowed more freely. The sides of the valley became cloaked in shimmering heat haze.
‘We must give the men a chance, comandante!’ Teniente Romero rasped.
It was apparent Alfaro had been within a hair’s breadth of barking an order to open fire.
‘Si,’ he allowed, and there seemed to be an instant of gratitude in his expression. ‘Take the girl outside.’
The second teniente was quick to move, snapping his fingers towards a corporeo who was in the same upper thirties age group. Both men seemed pleased to have something positive to do. Eva was like a clockwork doll as she submitted to being taken down into the compound again.
The hostages of Ortiz Gonzalez rode closer. Their caps had been removed and the morning sun glared directly into the sides of their faces. There was a lot of agony—mental and physical—sculptured on their sweat-sheened features
‘What do you think, Edge?’ Tim Parker asked hoarsely.
‘That there has to be some reason those fellers had their tongues cut out,’ the half-breed answered, shifting his hooded-eyed gaze between the trio of forward bandits and the strung-out line that had stayed back.
‘Al?’ Tyree gasped,
‘Thinking of something closer to home right now.’
‘A trick?’ Alfaro asked.
The corporal cracked open one of the gates and shoved the injured woman outside.
‘Go with her!’ Romero yelled. ‘And kill her if you have to.’
Grim-faced, the non-com and the officer stepped outside the post.
‘In front of the gate is excellent, Federale!’ Gonzalez roared. ‘I trust you, like I told you. In return, I ask that you give my Eva one of the horses of your men.’
Toni and Romero were aiming their own rifles. Gonzalez had claimed his Winchester and was holding it aloft, the flag of truce hanging limply down the barrel.
‘Perhaps his word is good comandante,’ Teniente Romero suggested.
‘And that he lied only about his lack of feeling for the woman,’ Riaz added.
There was conviction in their voices. Alfaro was infected by it. But it served only to worsen his mood. ‘Which means I have traded that slut for the lives of only two men!’
The returning hostages were within twenty feet of the north-west corner of the post. Their bristled faces were even more contorted now, as both worked their jaws: showing the congealed black blood in their mouths but uttering only animalistic grunts of frustration.
‘Bring back the girl!’Alfaro bellowed, louder than any part of the verbal exchange between the post and the bandits.
Edge was staring hard at the tongueless Federales, ignoring the sounds they made and trying to read the movements of the blood-crusted lips. He recognized a single word, Explosivo. Too late.
As his gaze switched to a different direction and longer focus, he saw the puffs of white smoke at two Winchester muzzles.
Then the two Federales blew up. First there was the single crack of two rifle reports. Then a deafening detonation like the sound of the world splitting in two. The ground shook and the post trembled. Men screamed, in pain and terror. The north-west corner of the post crumbled under the blast, hurling adobe and timber and men through the hot, smoke-filled, stinking air like so much torn paper.
The hail of bullets came then, whining and cracking through the smoke and dust. And the sound of the gunfire acted to clear men’s minds of the stunning effect of the explosion.
‘Fire!’ Alfaro roared, ‘Blast those bastards into the ground!’
Every man in the post had either been hurled down, or had ducked instinctively. Edge found himself staring into the wide eyes of Parker as both men got to their hands and knees.
‘What did the man say?’ the Boston dude asked eagerly,
‘He’s speaking your language now, feller,’ the half-breed replied as a fusillade of shots was exploded by the Federales. ‘He wants the Gonzalez bunch dead.’
‘Thanks.’
Parker powered into a crouch, thrust his Winchester across the top of the wall and triggered a shot. Hawkins and Burton imitated him. Then the three men looked at each other, surprised and angry.
‘Do not waste your bullets!’ Alfaro yelled, still speaking Spanish, as his men finished reloading and prepared to send another volley out across the wall.
There was brief silence pressed down into the valley. It affected the village, the post and the open ground to the north.
‘They’re on the lam,’ Hawkins hissed through his teeth clenched in anger.
Edge came erect and joined the others in peering northwards. He was in time to see Gonzalez, Romero and Toni skid their mounts to a halt and then wheel them, refilling the positions in the line they had held on the initial advance. Every other bandit was still astride his horse, rifle stock resting on his thigh. They had covered the withdrawal of Gonzalez and the others and now awaited a further order.
Heat shimmer crept in to foreshorten the horizon. The bandits and their horses took on wraith-like quality in the morning light. Gonzalez raised his rifle high into the air and whirled it triumph
antly. The flag of truce was still tied to the muzzle. Then, like a troop of well-drilled cavalry, the men turned their horses and cantered into the haze.
‘Done all right—for now,’ Edge said.
The dust had settled and the smoke had cleared. Six men and one woman were dead. Plus two horses. The lieutenant, corporal and the woman of Ortiz Gonzalez had been lifted clear of the ground and hurled against one of the gates. The gate had been moving too, but not fast enough. Its top hinge was ripped apart and the gate sagged. The bodies lay against its canted base, in a tangled heap of limbs and torsos. Every angle had an unnatural line. There was blood on clothing. And a number of needle sharp, gleaming white sections of bone contrasted starkly with the crimson patches.
Another Federale had been blasted off the walkway to be arced halfway across the compound. He was spread-eagled on the hard-packed ground, like a man asleep.
Red Tyree had been unlucky. One of the long-range rifle shots had winged a path into his left eye. Its velocity would have been decaying fast, but with only tissue and no bone to pass through, it had been drilled deep enough to touch the brain.
Of the hostages and their horses there was little to be seen. Smears of blood, shards of bone and chunks of unidentifiable meat. Spread on the ground in every direction, and across the rubble of the collapsed wall.
‘Dynamite?’ Parker suggested, the first man to speak after they had all spent several seconds surveying the gory result of the bandits’ treachery. Tacked behind the hostages.’
Hawkins and Burton were crouched beside the inert form of Red Tyree. The Southerner seemed unmoved by the youngster’s death. The wan-faced Burton expended his grief on a sigh and then became taut with anger.
‘Si,’ Alfaro agreed, afraid and angry at the same time. ‘The bandits have the new repeater rifles and the new explosive material. We, who serve the Government of Mexico, we have…’
His voice was shaky with the two emotions. And then it dried up as he swept his eyes over the death and destruction and looked into the disillusioned faces of his men.
‘Time to learn from your mistakes, feller,’ Edge completed.
‘Señor!’
Edge was moving along the walkway, towards where the heap of rubble at the corner of the post allowed a way down to ground level.
‘You have something in mind?’ Parker augmented the major’s unspoken question
‘To eat is all.’
‘At a time like this?’ Romero gasped.
Father Vega began to ring the bell in the church tower. Edge was down on the compound when the final chime sounded.
‘Eight’s a good time to eat breakfast,’ he called up to the line of men on the walkway. ‘Especially when the last time a man ate was breakfast yesterday,’
‘But we may rely on you when Gonzalez returns?’ Alfaro demanded.
‘Sure can, major,’ Edge answered, his lips hardly moving from their grim line.
‘If a mistake was made, you were a party to it!’ Parker snarled. ‘You were up here with us.’
Edge halted beside the tangle of bodies at the base of the leaning gate. ‘Yeah,’ he responded, ‘But I ain’t never claimed to be perfect.’
‘So?’ Hawkins put in. ‘How would you have handled it?’
‘Never gave it a thought, feller,’ the half-breed answered, and his glinting eyes raked along the line of men. His lean face was devoid of expression, until his words offered an invitation ‘Even if I was still army, a major out-ranks a captain.’
Parker spoke before the scowling Alfaro could snarl a retort.
‘What makes you think you would be a better top hand than the one we already have?’
Again the narrowed eyes of the half-breed raked their gaze from one end of the line to the other, ‘Find out what the major has in mind, feller,’ he said at length, concentrating his attention on the dude. ‘If you don’t like it, I’ll be in the cantina.’
‘You talk big but say little, gringo,’ Romero hurled down at the tall, lean man in the gateway.
Alfaro appeared speechless at the attempt to wrench his authority from him. But he was able to nod vigorously in agreement with his lieutenant’s claim.
‘We got nothin’ to lose by listenin’, Tim,’ Hawkins drawled.
Parker switched his attention between the enraged Alfaro and the nonchalant Edge. And grinned. ‘Edge lost out against Gonzalez last night. Alfaro this morning. Maybe it’s our turn to take a crack at the bastard.’
The half-breed turned his back on the men aligned along the walkways and sloped his Winchester to his shoulder as he Started over the final stretch of trail and on to the street.
‘Señor Edge!’ Jesus Vega called, and ducked out of a house from where he had watched the one-sided battle. He was carrying the gun belt of Bruce Wayne over one arm and held the Remington from the holster in the other hand.
‘Give them here, kid,’ Edge demanded, as the boy’s father appeared in the porch of his church to scowl along the curving street.
‘Si!’ the youngster agreed readily, running up to the half-breed and handing over the belt and gun. ‘You frightened off those bandits, uh? If you had not, I would have fought for my village.’
‘Jesus!’ the priest roared angrily.
The boy fingered the discolored bruise on his cheek, and cast a nervous look over his shoulder towards the clerically garbed figure of his father.
‘Faster you obey him, maybe the less he’ll beat you, kid,’ Edge advised, buckling the gun belt around his waist.
‘You didn’t frighten them off,’ the boy said, solemnly admitting that he was aware he had been thinking wishfully. ‘They will come back.’
‘Sure as hunger every breakfast time,’ Edge confirmed, walking with the boy towards the church.
‘I will be frightened then, Señor Edge. But I do not fear my father.’
He halted, bowed to the grim-faced priest, and ran into his own house.
‘How many died?’ Father Vega asked morosely.
‘Five that need burying, padre,’ Edge supplied. Two more got scattered to the four winds without need of cremation.’
‘But it was only those who stood against Ortiz Gonzalez who were made to suffer,’ Father Vega pointed out, after crossing himself.
Edge spat into the dust midway between his own boots and where the hem of the priest’s cassock touched the ground. ‘I was up on the wall, feller. And I didn’t feel a thing.’
Chapter Eight
FATHER VEGA attempted to ring the twelve chimes to mark the hour of noon. But only eight notes sounded before a shot cracked out and the bell was silenced.
There were shouted curses and cries of alarm—from the Federale post and closer at hand.
Edge continued to smoke his cigarette as he attempted to trap a fly on the table top with an up-turned tin mug. For the tenth time, the fly buzzed into flight and hovered in the hot air above the half-breed’s table.
Julio Melendez came out from behind his bar and ran to the fastened open batswing doors. His Apache wife shuffled into the cantina through the doorway which gave on to the other rooms. She saw her husband go from sight on to the plaza. Then spotted Edge still seated at the table where he had been since a little after eight.
‘You care not what is happening, señor?’ he asked dully.
‘Have business with just one man,’ he answered in the same tone. ‘If that’s the way folks want it.’
‘I would be glad that is the way you feel, Josiah. If Ortiz Gonzalez was not that man.’
Isabella Montez was framed in the doorway, her fine body in silhouette against the glare of the midday sunlight on the plaza. Then she advanced into the cantina and her face and clothing could be seen in detail. Both were soiled and stained from her morning’s work in the fields beyond the lemon groves.
Edge had heard the villagers return shortly before the noon bell began to sound. And he could hear them now, running down the street towards the far end, where the shot had been fired. There
had been no more reports. Just raised voices demanding to know what had happened.
‘You’ve told me more than once you know me well, Isabella,’ Edge reminded, showing his empty mug to the Apache.
The Indian woman came to fetch it, then retired to the kitchen.
‘Two!’ the half-breed called after her.
The fly settled on the table and was allowed to roam unmolested as the woman who had promised to marry Edge sat down opposite the man.
She nodded. ‘But still I must ask you to leave San Parral. Perhaps to kill Gonzalez at a different time.’
‘Your idea?’ he asked as the Apache returned with two mugs of steaming black coffee.
She shuffled back to the kitchen.
‘We worked hard this morning, Josiah. But our minds were not on what we were doing. That would have been impossible. We sweated more from fear than our hard labor.’
‘It ain’t been snowing in here,’ Edge countered.
‘But you fear just for me and yourself, Josiah.’
‘You know me well,’ he repeated. ‘You figured out a way to change me?’
He sipped his coffee. In his blue eyes, narrowed above the brim of the mug, the woman thought she read a plea for her to try. But there was no excitement in her voice or expression. Just grim resolve as she brushed dusty hair off her face.
‘I alter the condition of when I will marry you, Josiah. You will leave this village. Now. I will come with you. And we will marry when we come to the first village with a priest.’
Edge set down his mug. ‘Your idea?’ he said again.
‘I have talked with Father Vega,’ she admitted. ‘He has told me what happened this morning. It is his opinion that the Federales and the bounty-hunters who remain will not be able to defend San Parral against the bandits.’
‘The padre isn’t an original thinker,’ the half-breed muttered wryly.
Isabella sighed. ‘The priest admits that his opinion is based upon your decision to leave the Federale post. The manner in which you returned to San Parral last night has not tarnished the respect in which you are held here.’
‘But ain’t nobody ready to fight for what they believe in?’
EDGE: Savage Dawn (Edge series Book 26) Page 9
