‘Why couldn’t you have bolted the same way as the others, you single-minded critter!’ the man growled. He turned his head. ‘I got him, Ed!’
‘So you die happy, skunk!’ Mathilda Tree rasped.
‘Which Barnaby never did!’ Muriel spat.
Walt Quincy whirled, bringing up his Winchester to the level. But he had no chance. He saw Aunt Matty first. She carried a spade, but no gun. Her sister-in-law was aiming the shotgun. Both women stood in the white water shallows where the stream torrented through the rocks, feet firmly planted and eyes staring hatred at the man. He had not even taken first pressure against the Winchester trigger when the shotgun blasted.
The charge took him in the centre of the stomach. It lifted him off his feet and flung him backwards for six feet. Blood and pulpy pieces of flesh and entrails left a broad splash to mark his course. Then he fell hard to the bank of the stream and toppled into the water. The white foam turned pink as it rushed around the legs of the women. The horse reared, whinnied and plunged back the way it had come. Its hoof-beats masked the sound of Ed’s voice.
‘Walt!’ he screamed against the echo of the shotgun blast.
Halfway to the canyon entrance, the riders reined in their mounts and swung in their saddles to stare back towards the site of their night camp. They saw the figure of Ed Quincy unfreeze and lunge forward into the rocks. Perhaps if that was all they had seen, they might have wheeled their horses and galloped them back. But they also saw the familiar tall frame of the half-breed spring out of the river tunnel and launch into a fast run along the bank of the watercourse.
Evans, his face a mask of anger, half drew his rifle from the saddle-boot.
‘Don’t mess with him!’ George Frimley implored. ‘Or he’ll kill us all!’
Evans’s mind raced. The man must have been crouched in the tunnel the whole time after cutting the horses loose. Not more than a few feet away from where he, Evans, had been crouched beside the bull.
‘And maybe there ain’t just him, Mr. Evans!’ Clint warned. ‘Maybe them women have hired a whole bunch of gunslingers.’
But Evans didn’t believe this was likely. If the Tree women had more men than the one man backing them, the escape from the night camp wouldn’t have been so easy. ‘Let’s get!’ he snarled, shoving the rifle back in the boot. ‘They could pick us off like fish in a barrel from them rocks.’
Again he took the lead at a full gallop in the continued retreat towards the canyon. Edge glanced after the men a moment before he reached the cover of the rocks, going into them several yards to the left of where Ed Quincy had disappeared, where the rush of the torrential water covered his and the noise of Ed’s footfalls. But the half-breed had the advantage - Evans’s man didn’t know he was on the scene.
The forest of rock was like a grey maze, with no passageway more than six feet wide. The morning sun cast shadows, but none deep enough to hide a man. Edge stalked with the Winchester leveled from the hip, his eyes narrowed for a sign of movement and his ears straining to pick up the slightest sound that was not made by the stream. He saw only rock and heard just water. For a full minute. Then:
‘You bitches!’ Ed Quincy screamed.
He emerged, and stumbled into the stream where his brother had died to see the two women crouched beside the body with the ghastly hole at its centre. The older one was sucking in deep breaths after the effort of hauling the dead weight from the water. The younger was in the process of feeding a fresh shell into the breech of the shotgun. Both spun, still crouched, and froze in terror at the sight of the grief-stricken man aiming a Winchester at them. For a few moments, he too was like a statue, staring at the sodden, blood-stained remains of his brother.
‘He killed Barnaby!’ Muriel said coldly.
The words snapped the rigidity from Ed Quincy’s form and he whipped the rifle stock up against his shoulder to draw a bead on the younger woman.
‘Hold it!’ Edge rasped.
He had emerged on to the stream bank midway between the man and the two women. Quincy turned instinctively and saw the tall half-breed with the leveled Winchester.
‘Drop it, feller,’ Edge urged softly.
Quincy looked as if he was ready to comply. But the decision was snatched from him. Walt’s Tranter revolver was jutting from the holster on his blood-stained hip. Aunt Matty was nearest to the gun and she drew it before Muriel, Quincy or Edge knew what was happening. The gun had a double action. It exploded in her two-handed grip and the bullet thudded into Quincy’s chest. The man, a cheated look on his thin face, dropped his rifle and clutched at the source of his pain. The Tranter fired again. The bullet drove through both Quincy’s hands to blast another chest wound. He staggered backwards and started to fall. Aunt Matty fired four more times at the toppling man but these bullets plunged into a dead body. Each wound blossomed crimson and formed a great stain on the shirt-front of the inert man.
Aunt Matty opened her hands to allow the revolver to fall. Then, with a grin of evil pleasure, she looked from Muriel to Edge.
‘Makes us even,’ she said harshly. ‘One each.’
Muriel responded with a nod of satisfaction. Edge showed the old woman a look of murderous contempt. For a few moments, his Winchester was aimed at her. Then he eased the hammer to the rest, canted the rifle across his shoulder and advanced to where the two women were squatting. Both rose to their full heights. Aunt Matty recognized the look on the half-breed’s lean face and expressed the same degree of terror as when Ed Quincy had made his presence known. Muriel also recognized the kind of depthless anger that was about to explode from Edge. She snapped the shotgun closed and leveled it from her hip.
‘I’ll blast you, mister!’ she screamed.
Edge halted in mid-stride, six feet from where Aunt Matty had begun to tremble. He lowered his leading foot gently to the ground. His expression slipped into the neutral lines of impassiveness. His tone was utterly flat.
‘I warned you about pointing a gun at me, ma’am,’ he said, addressing Muriel but fixing his hooded-eyed gaze on Aunt Matty’s sweat-beaded face. ‘Most folks die if they don’t pull the trigger second time they do it.’
‘No chance!’ Muriel taunted triumphantly.
Edge allowed his body to relax to match his expression and his voice. ‘There’s a chance,’ he answered. ‘But I owe you, so you’re off the hook.’
‘You don’t owe me a damn thing!’ Muriel snarled.
Edge continued to trap Aunt Matty’s fearful gaze. ‘I owe you, ma’am. For stopping me doing something I’d regret.’
‘Like what?’ Sneeringly.
‘Smacking the old biddy in the mouth.’
Aunt Matty found her voice. ‘He killed my brother,’ she excused hoarsely. ‘And stood by enjoying it when Evans did that thing with the bull droppings to me.’
Edge gave a curt nod and turned away from both women. ‘Neither of them is my concern,’ he answered. ‘Even if they were, I wouldn’t set a feller up to be gunned down that way.’
‘So beat it, you squeamish bas—’
‘No more, Muriel!’ Aunt Matty cut in, recovering the full strength of her voice as she saw the back of the half-breed stiffen. ‘He saved our lives. Don’t you go losing them for us!’
She swung, reached out, snatched the shotgun from the hands of the younger woman and broke it at the hinge. She softened her tone, speaking to Edge’s back.
‘Up to you what you do, young feller.’ She shook her head.
‘But I guess that’s your way, anyhow. Like to apologize for what I did. And offer you our thanks for what you did.’
Edge spat, a man removing a bad taste from his mouth. ‘Deal stands,’ he muttered. ‘But with a string. No more warnings. Next time either of you pulls something like that, I’ll kill her.’
This time Muriel had no chance to even start an angry retort. A withering glance from the older woman trapped the words in her throat. Edge moved off through the rocks and started to climb the humped hill.
He went down the sheer face on the northern side and mounted his horse. He could see the wagon parked at the other end of the gully, where he had dropped the large bundle of colored threads.
He had to ride in a wide circle around the hill and the area of rocks to reach the abandoned camp. In the time it took, the women had hauled the bodies out from the rocks, dug two graves, lowered the men into the holes and piled the dirt back in. But there were no tombstones on the mounds. The women were gone.
He had rekindled the fire and had shaved, cooked and eaten breakfast by the time the wagon rolled into sight, having travelled the same route as the gelding. The horses of the dead men raised their heads to watch the wagon for a while then continued to graze. With a kind of icy reverence, the women lifted two more tombstones from the rear of the wagon and set them up on the graves.
The sun - halfway to its noon peak now - clearly showed the stark black lettering on the marble.
The women climbed back up on to the seat of the wagon. Aunt Matty winced with rheumatic pain. Muriel bristled with hostility.
‘If you’re still with us, we’d like you to ride ahead,’ the older woman said contritely. ‘Could be they’ll try to ambush us.’
‘Price has gone up,’ Edge rasped, finishing a mug of coffee. ‘Half what the bull reaches.’
Muriel made a sound of disgust. ‘What happened to all that honesty, mister?’ She demanded. ‘Jacking up the price not included?’
The half-breed poured himself another mug of coffee. ‘You reneged on the deal first, ladies,’ he said. ‘I said you did your own killing. Seems to me I helped with that last one. And killing’s got to come higher than stealing.’
‘It’s not stealing!’ Aunt Matty defended grimly.
‘That ain’t proved yet. But it sure was killing.’ He sipped the coffee.
The women stared away from him to each other. They reached a tacit agreement and Aunt Matty hurried to be the spokeswoman.
‘All right. Half.’
Edge tossed the remainder of the coffee on the fire to dampen the ashes, and stood up. ‘Obliged, ladies,’ he said.
‘But not a cent more!’ Aunt Matty warned emphatically. ‘And Muriel and me play this our way!’
Edge nodded as he packed his gear. ‘Just cue me when you plan more killings.’
‘So you can run and hide?’ Muriel snapped with a contemptuous glare at him.
‘Maybe,’ the half-breed muttered. ‘Seems I’ve joined Evans and his boys behind the hate ball.’
Chapter Six
THERE was no ambush in the canyon, or in the foothills beyond to the southeast where the terrain dropped down towards the Colorado River border of Arizona Territory. Edge rode a mile ahead of the wagon, setting a pace that was fast without tiring the horses overmuch. Vic Evans was scared, he had discovered that. And his men had, at first, had no enthusiasm for their job. But the killings could have changed their attitudes. Three of their number had died - building on their fear, perhaps, but at the same time igniting the fires of revenge. Evans could have gained courage from such a changed mood in his men. Or he could have been overruled in his desire to get the bull to its destination in the shortest possible time.
But the half-breed had seen no overt sign of a planned retaliation by Evans and his men by the time he crested a final rise and looked down, through the failing light of dusk, at the town of Mission Creek. He dismounted and waited, watching lamps being lit all over town, until the wagon rolled to a halt just before it would be silhouetted on the ridge.
‘What’s down there?’ Muriel asked sourly.
Edge pursed his lips. ‘Trouble, maybe. Or just information. Like to take a look on my own.’
The older woman was suffering from muscular pains again and remained on the high seat. Muriel climbed down to the ground and moved forward to join Edge. Her green eyes, as devoid of emotion as the half-breed’s, surveyed what lay at the foot of the hill. A town of four streets, laid out as if for a gigantic game of tic-tac-toe. One of the streets formed a section of a trail stretching from north to south. Another opened out on to a trail which snaked away to the east, following the course of the creek, which was now dry. The terrain to the north, south and east was flat, featured with a scattering of small farms. It was around supper time and there was no traffic on the streets.
‘If they’re watching, they’d see the wagon coming in,’ she said at the conclusion of her careful survey.
‘And I figured all you could think about was killing, ma’am.’ She glared at him. ‘Mathilda and I will wait here for you.’ He swung into the saddle. ‘You ought to be able to think of something better to do.’
He heeled the horse forward, over the crest of the hill and down towards Mission Creek. There was no marker on the slope or on the west side of the town, but he knew its name from seeing the tattered map the women were using to plan their route to El Paso. From studying that same map, he knew that the creek for which the town was named ran eastwards for three miles before joining the Colorado River. Once across this obstacle, he would be in familiar territory. Arizona, where he had committed a mass murder just a few short weeks after the slaughter of war was finished. A series of five brutal slayings which should have given him an affinity with the women waiting at the top of the hill. For the five men had died because they gunned down his brother; and now ten men had been marked for death because they killed somebody’s brother and somebody else’s husband. But there was no affinity: for such a condition demanded human feeling and that was something the lone rider who entered Mission Creek was unable to give.
The evening was warm and still. The appetizing aromas of cooking food hung in the air, mixed with the more acrid taint of wood-smoke. Lamps dropped welcoming wedges of light from windows. The sound of the gelding’s hooves hitting the dusty street in a slow walk competed only with the occasional burst of loud laughter from the saloon on a corner where two streets met at an intersection. It was from the windows and over the batwing doors that the brightest light in town came. Two horses were hitched to the rail outside. Old and broken down stallions carrying ancient and ill-cared-for saddles. But a lot more than two voices contributed to the noise issuing from the saloon.
‘You the man they been expectin’?’
Edge reined his horse to a halt and narrowed his eyes to look ahead and to the left. More than one pair of boots scraped on the hollow sidewalk. Four men stepped down into the street to be caught in the glow of light spilling from windows on the other side. One of them was about fifty. The other three were in their late twenties or early thirties. All of them wore gun belts with holsters strapped to their legs. The metal of the guns glinted with a duller light than the stars pinned to their shirt fronts.
‘Law for sale in Mission Creek?’ Edge asked evenly.
The trio of younger men stiffened. The older, shorter man sighed. ‘You got trouble with them seven guys rode in earlier, son. You don’t want none with me and my deputies.’
Edge showed a cold grin. ‘Always prefer it when the local law’s agreeable,’ he said.
‘It ain’t for sale here, son. It’s for keepin’ the peace. You start disturbin’ it and the town drunk gets let out a day early. Ain’t got but the one cell in the jailhouse. Mission Creek’s a law-abidin’ town.’
‘Room for seven if they start the action, feller?’
The sheriff sighed again. ‘Be a tight squeeze, but we won’t be worryin’ too much about ’em being comfortable.’
Edge nodded and clucked the gelding forward.
‘What about the women they said about?’ he heard one of the deputies rasp.
‘Ain’t our concern unless they cross town limits,’ the sheriff responded flatly.
The half-breed angled his horse across the intersection and slid from the saddle. The men in the saloon continued to enjoy themselves. He hitched the reins around the rail and stepped heavily on the sidewalk. The laughter and talk was abruptly curtailed, and Edge’s head and shoulders above the batwings bec
ame the centre of attention.
It was a big saloon, furnished with the bare essentials. A bar with bottle-lined shelves along one side and a scattering of chairs and tables using up a large proportion of the remaining space. There was a dusty piano in one corner, and light was forcing its way through the smoke-laden atmosphere from half a dozen oil lamps hung from ceiling beams. Evans and his six men were lined up at the bar. The plump bartender was in the process of pouring them fresh drinks. All the hilarity had apparently been coming from a group of four old-timers sitting at a table, playing cards for dead matches. Then three of the Evans hands - not the man with the moustache himself - made a move for their guns.
‘Be happy to let the drunk serve out his time,’ the half-breed called evenly, draping a hand over his holstered gun in the cover of the doors.
From the expression that spread upon the faces of the seven men, he knew they had received the same warning from the dour lawman.
‘You alone?’ Evans rasped as Edge pushed open the doors and stepped into the saloon.
‘You see anybody else, feller?’
‘We didn’t see nobody this mornin’.’
Edge bellied up to the bar ten feet away from the last man in the line of Evans men. This was a nervous George Frimley. He stared at his image reflected between two bottles by a mirror. ‘Two guys learned too late it pays to stay alert,’ he answered. ‘Cold beer when you’re ready, bartender.’
‘Coming right up, sir,’ the man said quickly, and hurried to finish his current order.
The old-timers returned to their card game, but made less noise now. ‘George, Clint, go look after the bull!’ Evans snapped. ‘I don’t like this set up.’
‘But the sheriff and his dep—’ Frimley began.
‘Do like I say!’ Evans snarled. ‘No tellin’ what them two females got up their sleeves.’
The two men sank their shots of whiskey fast and heaved away from the bar, as the bartender drew a foaming beer and placed the glass in front of Edge, who slammed some coins on the countertop.
EDGE: Ten Tombstones to Texas (Edge series Book 18) Page 8
