EDGE: Savage Dawn (Edge series Book 26)

by George G. Gilman

  Edge watched the advance through the field glasses. On his right stood the wooden-faced Major Alfaro, still resentful at losing command and unsure whether he, Romero and the enlisted man had made the correct decision in agreeing to take part in the half-breed’s revised plan. To his left was the trembling Al Gibbon, blood-stained and filthy dirty from the chores of butchering a horse and opening two graves.

  Below the walkway on which the trio stood, the Federale post was deserted except for flies and corpses. The bodies were those of three soldiers, Bruce Wayne and Red Tyree, spread on the compound just inside the open gateway. Eva had been allowed to remain in her final resting place. The stink of decomposing flesh battled with the fragrance of growing lemons in the warming air of the new day.

  The only open door within the post was that giving on to the armory, which had been emptied of all it contained. Through the doorway, it could be seen a large hole had been knocked in the south wall of the post.

  ‘Go do like the man told you, feller,’ Edge growled as the bandits rode to within a mile of the post.

  ‘It may just work,’ Alfaro allowed.

  ‘I’ll do my damn best to see it does,’ Gibbon responded in a wavering voice.

  Then he threw up a sloppy salute and hurried down into the compound. To the approaching bandits, it was designed to look as if an order had been given and received.

  Gonzalez, Romero and Toni did not form an advance group this time. The entire line of bandits rode up to within four hundred yards of the post before their leader thrust his Winchester high in the air to signal a halt. There was no white bandana tied to the muzzle this morning.

  ‘Buenos dias, Saint Edge of San Parral!’ Gonzalez called cheerfully. The light was clear enough for the half-breed and Alfaro to see the gaps in his teeth. ‘How you and your partners been, uh? Sweating, I guess! While you wait to see what Ortiz plans next for you!’

  ‘Let him know you’re better than you look, Major,’ Edge growled, with a glance at Alfaro’s profile. It was obvious the man was in great pain from having to place some of his weight on his shattered foot.

  Then the half-breed checked on the progress of Al Gibbon. The fat man had already lit the fuse of powder extracted from a case of carbine ammunition. And was racing for the open door of the armory as the sizzling flame tracked the powder over the threshold of the command office.

  The four hostages were no longer held inside. Instead, they were with Tim Parker in the church.

  ‘The talking is finished, bandito!’ Alfaro bellowed. ‘It is time to end this the only way you understand!’

  He drew and fired his Colt.

  Edge dropped the field glasses, snatched up his Winchester and exploded a shot over a wall. He aimed at the hungry-looking Romero and hit the target. Then saw rage grip the face of Gonzalez as the man next to him was blasted from the saddle, trailing a spray of crimson droplets from a head wound.

  Then the east side of the Federale post disintegrated, showering debris in every direction. The sounds started with a whoosh of detonating powder, continued with the crackle of exploding shells and were completed by the thud of blackened adobe smashing back to earth. Flames roared high into the air and black smoke billowed in every direction.

  Shrill cries of anger and triumph counter-pointed the thunder of galloping hooves as the bandits heeled their mounts in for the kill. Towards a target shrouded in swirling dust and smoke.

  Men, women and children poured into the post through the hole in the armory wall. Protected from the blast by this south wall, where they had been crouching—out of sight of the bandits—they nevertheless presented an appearance of brutal suffering. For their faces and clothing were smeared and stained with the blood of the butchered horse. Greater authenticity had been achieved by great rents in shirts, tunics, pants and dresses. And the marks of burnt sticks simulated soot.

  The bandits galloped closer, adding rifle fire to the sounds of their advance. And they split into two groups, intent upon attacking the post at the open gateway and blasted east wall.

  Villagers, Federales, Amos Hawkins and Jack Burton collapsed on the compound—some across the fallen debris and others half burying themselves beneath chunks of displaced adobe.

  Edge and Major Alfaro picked themselves up from where they had been knocked to the walkway by the blast. Both grunted from genuine pain as several of the fake casualties began to simulate responses to non-existent wounds. Many of the sounds rang with a quality of fear that owed nothing to acting. The dust and smoke cleared.

  A few flames crackled among the ruin of the section of building which had run along the inside of the east wall. ‘You’ve done fine so far,’ Edge encouraged. Alfaro scowled at him, then climbed upright and leaned against the wall, thrusting his arms high in the air.

  ‘All right, Gonzalez!’ he shrieked. ‘Enough! Enough! Enough! We are finished!’

  The leader of the attackers was in the group which reined to a halt at the gateway. The rest of his men skidded their mounts to a dust raising stop on the other side of the rubble which had been the east wall and building. The shooting had stopped, but the Winchesters tracked this way and that, fingers poised to squeeze triggers should hungry eyes spot danger.

  Some of the simulated wounded moved, taking care not to expose hidden guns. Edge remained in a half crouch against the wall, not having to fake injury. For a piece of flying debris had cracked into his right temple, bursting the skin to spill blood.

  ‘Hey!’ Gonzalez yelled, with a harsh laugh. ‘My plan, she went with a big bang, no!’

  The two bandits who had got the drop on Edge near the old-timer’s camp were behind Gonzalez. They were the only ones to laugh with their leader. Then curtailed their mirth when Gonzalez snapped his head around to glare at Edge. And his voice thundered: ‘But Romero, he went, too!’ He swung his Winchester.

  There had been many lessons learned from war by Edge. Every dangerous situation he had experienced since then had served to consolidate that harsh teaching. Thus had he planned the defense of San Parral using all the known factors and making educated guesses about the variables. And the enemy was always the most important variable. But less so if his personality was known.

  Gonzalez was intelligent so Edge had ordered the talk to be cut to a minimum, not allowing him time to consider the strong possibility that the cowardly Gibbon might double-cross him. He was vain and would assume the explosion meant his plan had succeeded. Impetuous, which would make him fast to follow through. A sadist who would rather punish slowly those he hated instead of slaughtering them in a short-lived fit of rage. Conversely, he had a black temper which was likely to explode against Edge as the man who had caused his sole casualty.

  ‘Aimed to do that,’ the half-breed snarled. Calculated risks were a basic part of war. And Edge was certain he had taken his final one. For the bandit’s Winchester was held in a rock-steady aim at his chest, left of centre. And he had left it too late to lunge away from the bullet. The report of which was to be the signal for the apparently dead and wounded to show the battle was not over. While the attention of the bandits was diverted to Gonzalez and Edge.

  A shot cracked out. Edge hurled himself full length along the walkway, scooping up the Remington, feeling only the pain of his slight head wound.

  Alfaro threw himself in the other direction, clawing up his Colt.

  In an instant of shocked silence, the half-breed realized the shot had been fired by a revolver. He saw Gonzalez tip backwards off his horse, the unfired Winchester slipped from his hands as a crimson stain blossomed on his shirt front.

  Then the silence ended, shattered by a barrage of gunfire and tumult of shrieking voices. All over the debris-littered compound, men rose from seeming death or agony to explode a hail of bullets at the startled bandits. Winchesters were pumped and the cylinders of Colts and Remingtons clicked around. Horses reared to the din and the stink of gun smoke, ruining the aim of riders recovering from the shock of the turnabout. Men and a
nimals dropped and were still, or thrashed in their agony at the ground.

  Edge and Alfaro joined the battle, the Mexican gleefully and the half-breed with a cold ball of rage in the pit of his stomach.

  Leaderless, the bandits at the gate wheeled their horses and raced for cover of the houses on the street. Those on the other flank heeled their mounts into a charge across the rubble.

  Smoke and dust and screams and curses filled the air.

  Riaz took a bullet in the heart and then had his face smashed by a flying hoof.

  Amos Hawkins was caught with an empty Winchester and missed snatching a reloaded Colt tossed to him by a woman. One of the bandits who had so enjoyed capturing Edge rode down on the Southerner. The Mexican also had an empty rifle. But he swung it like a single-sailed windmill. The sound of the American’s neck breaking was louder than the crack of the stock against his jaw.

  Edge put two bullets into the bandit’s head and saw the top of the man’s skull explode, red and white, as he was hurled from the horse.

  ‘A help, but you ain’t Gonzalez!’ the half-breed rasped, then hurled away his empty revolver.

  Then he lunged off the walkway, bending his legs to absorb the impact of the jump.

  Alfaro followed him, the excitement of battle causing him to forget about his injured foot. A scream of agony exploded from his mouth as he hit the compound.

  Romero, bleeding from a shoulder wound, put a bullet into the back of a galloping bandit. The dying man’s Winchester triggered a bullet. It entered the gaping mouth of the major and exited at the nape of his neck trailing blood and gore.

  ‘Guess you won’t be missed, Major,’ the half-breed growled, snatching up a dead bandit’s Winchester as he straightened after the jump.

  A horse went down, spouting blood from three flank wounds. The rider threw himself clear and landed surefooted, two yards away from Edge. The half-breed went into a half crouch, blasted a bullet into the Mexican’s belly, then smashed the smoking muzzle through his left eye as he dropped to his knees after a staggering run.

  ‘You ain’t got time to pray!’ Edge snarled at him, and the expression was suddenly transformed into a cold grin of pure evil.

  The anger at his failure to kill Gonzalez personally was gone. To be replaced by the kind of exhilaration he had experienced on the battlegrounds of the east—as a defense against his youthful abhorrence of mass slaughter. And fear of dying.

  The enemy had no personality and he himself existed only as a mechanism to trigger a gun. There was no reason and no cause. Just desire to kill and enjoyment of killing.

  Two bandits reached the far side of the compound, gun-smoke and dust whirling around them. Still in a crouch, Edge swung, pumping the lever action of the Winchester and curling his thin lips back even further over his teeth. He fired, pumped and fired again. Both bandits took the bullets in the back. Even as they screamed and toppled sideways off their panicked mounts, another fusillade of gunfire exploded. And the tumbling bodies were peppered with blood-gouting bullet wounds.

  The half-breed turned, the ice-blue slits of his eyes searching for fresh targets. He saw only defenders. Teniente Romero and another man in Federale uniform. Perhaps two dozen villagers. Everyone with a gun in his hand. Men and women. Some grinning with joy, others expressing hatred at what had happened, yet others showing their disappointment that the battle appeared to be over.

  These were the ones who rose from among the rubble. Spread all around them, unable to get up, were at least a score of bandits. Just as many villagers. The dead, the wounded and even some of those who were uninjured were stained with blood fresher than that from the butchered horse.

  Two horses which had not died in the battle lay on then-sides, thrashing their legs and craning their necks as they tried to rise. Their coats were sheened with bright crimson.

  Once more, Edge fired two shots in quick succession. The animals snorted and became still.

  Wounded men and women began to moan as the second shot sounded. Then shrieks of grief and yells of joy were vented as the villagers hurled away their guns and discovered their loved ones—either dead or alive.

  Suddenly drained of unfamiliar emotion, Edge turned his back on the scene and picked his way between the sprawled bodies to the gate of the post.

  One Federale remained inside, to check on his fallen comrades. Romero, bleeding badly from his shoulder wound, reached the side of Edge.

  ‘Probably you did not do it for my sake,’ the Mexican said in his native language.

  Edge had been looking along the empty street. He glanced at the Federale and saw he was staring out along the trail. Out there, a lone body lay as still as all the other features of the valley.

  ‘It was good for me, Señor Edge. To know there was no risk I might kill my own brother.’

  ‘That why you shot Gonzalez?’ the half-breed asked, starting slowly towards the village. He breathed in deeply, trying to smell the lemons. But the stink of blood and sweat and gun smoke was still too strong in the morning air.

  ‘If I had not, he would have killed you. But should I apologies for saving your life? Because you are not a man who likes to be in the debt of another.’

  Edge showed the Mexican a wan smile. ‘If you were returning a favor, feller, there’s nothing owed. I know what it’s like between brothers.’

  Romero switched to English. ‘Thank you.’

  Then he closed his eyes and sank wearily to the ground with a sigh. The gun slipped from his grasp and his eyes snapped open. They showed the stare of death.

  Edge did not bother to stoop and check on the man. It was obvious the bullet had gone in deep through the shoulder. Probably had lodged near the heart. The walk from the fort to the village had moved it a fatal fraction of an inch.

  The half-breed concentrated his attention on the disturbed dust of the street. At least ten bandits had galloped away from the body of their leader in front of the post. With the rifle angled across the front of his body, he searched for signs that they had been intent upon something else except escape.

  He saw nothing but the prints of galloping hooves until he reached the church at the curve. Then, at the far end, where the street broadened into the plaza, he saw the inert form of a dead Mexican spread-eagled in the dust.

  ‘Just managed to get one, Captain,’ Tim Parker called from the porchway of the church. He sounded ashamed.

  ‘How many did you miss, feller?’

  ‘Eight, I think.’

  ‘Yes, nine rode past,’ Isabella confirmed sourly. ‘How many of our people died?’

  ‘Enough to make it worthwhile,’ the half-breed answered,

  Father Vega snorted.

  ‘It’s okay!’ Al Gibbon yelled. ‘All that’s left are runnin’ away like scared rabbits.’

  Parker had stepped out on to the street. Isabella, the priest, the mayor, the liveryman and Jesus Vega were still in the shade of the porch.

  ‘Don’t trust him, Captain!’ Parker snapped,

  ‘I’m just a fool where women are concerned,’ Edge rasped in reply.

  Both men swung their rifles to cover the street. Gibbon was coming around the side of the livery stable. Walking slowly, with both hands down at his sides. His hands were shaking. So was the sweaty flesh of his cheeks.

  ‘I just been watchin’ ’em, Tim. Saw ’em all the way outta sight.’

  ‘Father Vega!’ a man roared from the Federale post. ‘Come quickly, father. You are needed here!’

  ‘I have duties to perform,’ the priest said resolutely, and came out of his church. ‘Remain here, Jesus!’

  ‘We will help,’ the woman exclaimed, and urged the elderly Banales and tiny Sorrano to join her in following the priest.

  ‘Best you stay in...’ Edge started.

  He and Parker were moving along the street. Slowly, as Gibbon broke into a run.

  Horses snorted. Hooves beat the sun-baked ground. The fat man screamed in terror and turned to sprint for the cover of a hous
e.

  There were three riders. Toni in the centre. On his right was the bandit who had always called Edge his amigo. The half-breed had no recollection of the third man.

  Five Winchesters exploded in perfect unison. Edge and Tim Parker threw themselves full length to the ground, working the lever actions of their rifles as they went down. Two of the riders were hit. One went backwards off his horse. The other toppled to the side, and was dragged by a foot caught in a stirrup. The bullets they had got off cracked over the tumbling Americans.

  Toni’s shot flicked through Edge’s flying hair. He fired again and blasted a chunk of flesh out of Parker’s forehead.

  ‘What a bastard!’ Parker said, his tone mild.

  He rolled on to his back and then on his belly again.

  Three shots cracked as one.

  Parker took a bullet in the top of his chest on a falling trajectory.

  Toni rode for fully twenty feet before his tormented face froze into a mask of death as his heart submitted to the pair of bullets lodged in it.

  The three riderless horses continued to gallop down the street, one still dragging a corpse.

  Edge eased to his feet, waving a hand against the stinging dust raised by the pumping hooves.

  ‘Is it more worthwhile than ever now, señor,’ the solemn-faced Father Vega posed mournfully.

  He was standing erect. Banales and Sorrano were crouched down, one either side of Isabella Montez. She lay face down, exhibiting in the morning sunlight the two red-rimmed holes drilled into the back of her dress and the flesh beneath. Her long black hair was spread out on either side of her head, hiding her face. She was totally still beneath the settling dust.

  ‘I said to stay inside,’ Edge reminded evenly. He searched for some spark of emotion deep inside him. But there was nothing, just the same drained emptiness he had been feeling since he left the Federale post.

  There was not even an urge to go to the corpse. Perhaps just a resignation to the fact that they had both known it was destined to end this way.

  ‘Tell me something before I die, Captain,’ Tim Parker asked weakly, providing the impassive half-breed with an excuse to remain where he was.