EDGE: Ten Tombstones to Texas (Edge series Book 18)

by George G. Gilman

  Edge came awake for the second time that night as Aunt Matty moved to the rear of the wagon and peered at him over the tailgate.

  We’re surrounded by Apaches and you want to know what to do,’ he muttered from under his hat.

  ‘Injuns we could handle.’

  ‘Same as the Evans hands, uh?’

  ‘Right, young feller. But we got us a lame horse.’

  Edge eased up into a sitting position and straightened his hat on his head. ‘How lame?’

  ‘He won’t be doing no more walkin’.’

  The half-breed eased himself over the tail-gate and down to the ground. ‘So shoot him,’ he said, surveying the surrounding country. It consisted of rolling, sparsely vegetated low hills.

  Aunt Matty’s face, more haggard than ever, expressed concern. She shook her head. ‘Dumb animals ain’t like Evans and his men.’

  Edge spat the foul taste of sleeping from his mouth. ‘Way they been letting you pick them off, ma’am, they’re a lot like dumb animals, I’d say.’

  ‘Will you do it?’

  Edge led the way to the front of the wagon, where Muriel was taking the lame horse out of the team. The stallion was limping badly, and snorted when he put his left fore hoof to the ground. His flesh was lathered with the sweat of pain. As the man approached and the woman released him, the animal went down, front end first, and rolled on to his side. His nostrils flared as he panted. As Edge squatted and stroked the horse’s neck, the two women turned away. The half-breed drew his gun and talked softly to the distressed animal as he rested the muzzle between the bulging eyes. He squeezed the trigger and the shot rolled away across the hills to be swallowed up by the night. The carcass twitched once and became still.

  Thank you, Mr. Edge,’ Muriel said, the sentiment genuine and her tone surprisingly soft.

  The half-breed delivered the stock answer. ‘Didn’t do it for you. It was the animal that was suffering.’ He eyed the three other stallions, which had failed to react to the sudden shot in the stillness. ‘And you’d better move off aways from him and make camp or you’ll likely lose some more.’

  Not for the first time, the women followed the man’s advise. They led the team at a walk over the brow of the next low rise and halted at the foot of it to bed down for the night. Edge paused on the higher ground, to peer across the moon-bathed landscape. He saw nothing, but he did not ignore the hunch that had come to him a moment after he shot the lame horse. No matter how afraid Evans and his men were, there had to come a time when they would begin to fight back. Even the most innocuous animal will turn upon its predator and become a fierce fighter when cornered. To survive.

  Out here in the wilderness, wide and open, the remaining five men with the bull could in no way be termed cornered. But they were struggling to survive the murderous wrath of the women who had stuck doggedly to their footsteps for so long. Half their number were now buried beneath the ominous tombstones. Slowed to a pace dictated by the bull - the reason for the long trek - they had to realize, eventually, that they could not outrun their pursuers.

  And, an unexplained shot in the night behind them might be the trigger they needed to swing them from defense to attack.

  These were the thoughts which were running through the half-breed’s mind as he raked his slit-eyed gaze over the un-moving country to the south-west. Evans and his four men would be camped out there somewhere. In the utter stillness of the night, the sound of the shot would have carried at least ten miles. Maybe farther, to ears that were attuned to pick up the slightest noise which would indicate danger.

  ‘Something on your mind, young feller?’ Aunt Matty said as she was about to crawl into the tent. Muriel was already inside.

  ‘You’ve had it too easy, is all,’ he replied as he went to the rear of the wagon and drew the Winchester from the saddle-boot resting inside. ‘One dead horse against five dead men. Lady Luck ain’t going to keep blowing on your dice like that much longer.’

  Aunt Matty sank to the ground outside the tent, grimacing as a leg bent awkwardly. She sighed. ‘You probably noticed how Evans and me seem kind of chummy on occasions, young feller. Me calling him Vic and him calling me Mathilda?’

  ‘Ain’t been listening much to what either of you say,’ Edge answered evenly.

  ‘Him and me lived in the same town all our lives. His spread’s a lot bigger than the Tree farm, but we was neighbors. Got to know each other real well.’ She grimaced, but not from pain this time. ‘And there ain’t no worse coward walking God’s earth, I’m tellin’ you. His pa had to fight all his battles for him, at first. Then, when the old man Evans passed on, why Vic would go ten miles out of his way to avoid trouble of any kind. But, if there was no way round trouble, then he’d make sure he was backed up by those nine hands of his.’

  ‘Playing poker with a cold deck is a lot closer than ten miles to trouble, ma’am,’ the half-breed pointed out.

  A sour grin replaced the grimace on the ugly, draw face. ‘Barnaby was a couple of inches higher than five feet and most of the time he was drunk. And the only gun he ever carried was the one they strapped on him after they pumped ten slugs into him. Barnaby was only trouble to himself.’

  ‘He was a good man,’ Muriel said sadly from inside the tent. ‘No husband could have treated a wife better than he did me.’

  The older woman sighed and showed Edge a wan smile. ‘That ends the conversation, I’m thinkin’,’ she said, and turned to crawl into the tent. ‘This young feller don’t like talkin’ about marriage.’

  ‘What’ll you do if they come, mister?’ Muriel called.

  ‘My end of the deal is to get the bull,’ Edge answered as he turned from the tent.

  ‘And me and Aunt Matty can get killed asleep while you’re taking care of your end?’

  ‘I’ll see you get buried decent,’ he called back softly as he started up the hill from which he had made his unproductive survey. ‘But I travel light. Didn’t bring no marble markers with me.’

  At the top of the hill he raked his eyes across the terrain once more, with the same result. He sat down on his haunches to wait, back a little from the crest to avoid being silhouetted on the skyline. The women had eaten a cold supper, without coffee. So there was no fire to provide a beacon for potential attackers. Evans and his men would not need a guiding light, though. All they had to do was backtrack on their own trail.

  Only three of them came - two hours after Edge had taken his position on top of the rise. He saw them when they were still a long way off - a trio of moving shadows on the otherwise unmoving landscape. He saw them crest two humps of high ground and go from sight while still mounted. When they appeared again they were leading their horses. The next time he spotted them they were minus their mounts. They were moving in a half-crouched attitude, rifles at the ready: stalking.

  Edge glanced down at the quiet camp, then eased backwards, down the side of the hill where the decomposing carcass of the shot horse lay. When he was out of danger of being silhouetted, he rose erect and began to run. To his left for a hundred yards, then he turned left again, still running. Thus, he went around the hill. Another rise forced him even farther away from where the women slept and where the Evans men were closing in on them. He slowed his pace and dropped down on to all fours as he started up a slope which had no convenient way around it. At the top, he went out flat on to his belly: only his head raised so that his hooded eyes could survey the terrain. After a few moments he caught sight of the hat of the tallest man in the trio. It was in view for only a couple of seconds, between two humps on a hill crest. But this was enough to show Edge that at least one of Evans’s men had just a single hill to go over before he would see the camp. He was already closer to the women than Edge.

  The half-breed waited perhaps five seconds, peering intently in every direction. But nothing moved until he did, going forward on a new course: down one slope and up another towards the point where he had seen the hat. When he reached the twin humps, a cold grin
parted his thin lips and sharpened the glint in his narrowed eyes. The three men were sticking together as they advanced up the final hill towards their objective. He was behind them now, about fifty yards away from them across a small valley formed by the two hills. Close enough to see the tense way in which the men put one foot in front of the other, the rigid attitudes of their slightly arched backs and the forward-thrusting positions of their heads and rifles. He had seen enough of the Evans hands to recognize these three. Hollis Millard, Ray Irwin and Dale. That meant the pudgy Jeb and the tall Evans were taking care of the bull. Or moving in on the camp from another direction?

  Edge discounted this possibility as he slowly stood up and started silently in the wake of the trio. Evans would not leave the bull unguarded. And the last of his hands? If somebody was moving in alone on a different line of approach, it would not be the nervous Jeb.

  He reached the foot of the hill before the Evans men reached the top. Then he dropped into a crouch, bringing the stock of the Winchester up to his shoulder to draw a bead on the back of the tallest man - Hollis Millard. A few moments later, the men reached the vantage point from where they could see the camp, and then powered down into crouches. Low gasps accompanied the movements.

  ‘We found ’em!’ Irwin rasped.

  Because the three were crouched on the same side of the hill as he, Edge could hear their soft-voiced conversation, but the brow of the rise would prevent the sound carrying down into the hollow beyond.

  ‘Yeah!’ Dale responded.

  Millard rose slightly and peered in every direction. The pale moonlight showed his face was as strained as his physical attitude had been. His eyes raked the surrounding hill crests, sweeping high over the spot where Edge was crouched, one shadow among many.

  ‘What you...’ Irwin started.

  ‘Edge,’ Millard cut in, sinking down to the ground again. ‘I don’t see that bastard beddin’ down without fixin’ a watch.’

  ‘For what?’ Dale muttered scornfully. ‘We ain’t given him no trouble before.’

  Millard bellied forward to peer down at the camp again.

  ‘Maybe that was what the shot was?’ Irwin suggested. ‘Could be the Tree women blasted him.’

  Millard looked back over his shoulder. ‘Figure it was a horse got shot. Only four down there now.’

  ‘Edge took off?’ Dale suggested.

  ‘His nag’s there,’ Millard countered. ‘One of the team that’s missin’.’

  Irwin spat and it was the loudest sound so far. ‘We gonna sit here yakkin’ all damn night?’ he growled.

  ‘I ain’t,’ Dale came back, low but emphatic.

  He and Irwin looked at each other and rose to their full heights, stepping up to the top of the hill. Millard eased up between them. It was he who issued the order.

  ‘You two blast the tent. I’ll take the wagon. If he’s there, that’s where he’ll be bedded down.’

  As they raised the rifles to their shoulders, Edge stood upright. ‘Really are looking at me the wrong way now, feller,’ he snapped out.

  All three men were standing close together and they whirled in the same direction at the same time. This meant that Dale’s rifle barrel cracked against Millard’s shoulder as Millard’s gun hit Irwin. Thus, Irwin was the only man to draw a bead on the half-breed.

  ‘Get him!’ Millard screamed.

  Irwin was squeezing the trigger before the words were spoken. But Edge was an instant faster, having altered his aim from the man at the centre to the one on the right. His bullet slammed into Irwin’s stomach travelling upwards, bringing a grunt from the man. It penetrated a lung before slamming to a halt against a broken rib. Irwin’s rifle pumped a bullet into the ground at his feet as he fell forward, spewing a crimson gush from his gaping mouth.

  ‘Dear God!’ Dale moaned, watching in rigid horror as the body of Irwin tumbled limply down the slope.

  Millard’s reaction to the bloody death was more positive. As the body fell, allowing his rifle to complete its arc, he powered down into a crouch. His repeater was already cocked. Edge had to pump the action of the Winchester. Both guns exploded simultaneously. Millard’s bullet punched a hole in the brim of the half-breed’s hat and Edge felt a smarting pain on his shoulder blade as the lead tore his shirt and skimmed across the skin beneath. His own bullet followed the precise line of Millard’s rifle barrel, pinged against the top of the frame and spun into the man’s sighting eye. He was dead an instant after the impact, flung backwards out of the crouch to fall out of sight over the brow of the hill as his freed rifle slithered down towards Edge.

  The half-breed pivoted a few degrees as he pumped the Winchester’s action again. Dale had unfroze from his immobilizing terror. But his rifle was still held low as Edge covered him. He dropped the weapon as though it was something vile and thrust his hands high into the air.

  ‘Don’t shoot!’ he screamed.

  ‘That you, Edge!’ Aunt Matty called. The intervening high ground made her voice sound a long way off. ‘We got him covered this side.’

  ‘Please?’ Dale begged.

  ‘Forget the guns and break out the markers,’ Edge called as he lowered the Winchester and started up the hill. ‘Just two.’

  ‘Like hell two!’ Muriel Tree bellowed. ‘Dale Bately’s as guilty as the rest of them!’

  New fear took control of Bately and he began to tremble.

  The shaking showed most plainly in his upraised arms. His head turned and his wide eyes stared out of a contorted face down towards the women.

  ‘I’ll kill you for sure!’ Edge snarled.

  He quickened his pace to reach the top of the hill, swerving to avoid the slumped form of Ray Irwin. He emerged on to the crest six feet to one side of the terrified Bately. Aunt Matty was no threat to anybody. She held a revolver - aimed at Bately but with no chance of hitting him over such a range. Muriel had the stock of the shotgun hard against her shoulder. Her cheek was pressed to the polished wood and her finger was curled around the trigger. If she fired the gun, its charge would scatter. Shot would hit both men. Maybe neither would die, but both would be in a bad mess.

  ‘Bately!’ the younger woman yelled. ‘Tell this guy how my husband was cheated and murdered!’

  The Evans hand trusted himself to move slightly. With his hands still stretching shakily towards the night sky, he shifted his feet so that he was facing Edge. His mouth opened and closed several times before any words emerged.

  ‘He was one of them in the poker game along with Evans and Walt Quincy!’ Aunt Matty accused. ‘He knows for sure.’

  Her voice covered the hoarse whisper vented from Bately’s spittle-run lips.

  ‘Tell him!’ Muriel screamed.

  ‘He’s trying,’ Edge said evenly. ‘But he can’t get a word in Edge ways.’

  ‘We didn’t know about the marked deck,’ Bately managed to force out. ‘Mr. Evans didn’t say anythin’ until after the game was finished.’

  ‘And you didn’t know your gun was loaded when you aimed it at Barnaby and pulled the trigger?’ Muriel snarled.

  It was plain she and the older woman were willing to believe the story of the card game. But the more dangerous truth was already well known. Bately’s eyes pleaded for the half-breed’s help. And he lowered his arms and stretched them out towards Edge. ‘Tree was on Evans land,’ he moaned. ‘And we all work for Evans. We gave him fair warnin’, mister. But he just kept on comin’. When Mr. Evans told us to fire, we had to.’

  ‘And the gun, you skunk?’ Aunt Matty demanded. ‘My stupid kid brother never did wear a gun!’

  Bately gulped. ‘Mr. Evans said it would look better if Tree had a gun when we took him into town. He strapped one on him.’

  ‘All right, Mr. High-and-Mighty Edge?’ Muriel snarled. ‘Gunning down an unarmed man? Don’t that mean he should pay?’

  Edge ignored the question. ‘Where’s Evans, the other feller and the bull?’ he asked Bately.

  The man looked back the w
ay he and his two partners had come. ‘Headin’ for El Paso. Me and Hollis and Ray, we were gettin’ real mad the way our men have been gettin’ killed. We figured to make a stand, but Mr. Evans and Jeb Stuart, they weren’t for that. They were pushin’ on. Tryin’ to outrun you people.’

  ‘So you and the others decided to sneak up on us and kill us while we were sleepin’?’ Aunt Matty accused.

  Bately seemed about to whirl towards the women and yell a retort. But he quashed the impulse and continued to plead with his eyes directed at Edge. ‘That any worse than what they did to Clint and George back at Mission Creek?’ he asked. ‘And I bet the Quincys didn’t have any more of a chance in the rocks.’

  The half-breed backed away from Bately, twisting his wrist to cant the Winchester across his shoulder. He raised his right hand to join the left fisted around the frame of the rifle.

  ‘Quincys had a gun, like you, feller,’ he replied, having widened the gap to ten feet. Not loud, but loud enough to reach the ears of the women.

  ‘You mean—?’ Bately started to ask as Edge continued to back away from him.

  ‘Do what you damn well like, Edge!’ Muriel challenged.

  She squeezed the shotgun’s trigger. As the report split the night and the muzzle flash momentarily dimmed the moonlight, the half-breed threw himself to the ground - to his left to put some solid earth between himself and the deadly blast. Bately whirled and dragged in his hands to claw the revolver from his holster. He got off a shot that went wide. Aunt Matty’s first shot went high. So did the centre of the scattering charge that was belched from the muzzle of the shotgun. But Bately’s head was caught by the lower curve of pellets. He screamed, high and thin, as tiny grains of metal pelted into his face. His eyes were pulped into blindness by the assault. His forehead was cleaned of flesh down to the bone. His cheeks, jaw and throat were abruptly sheened with bright crimson as blood pumped from countless tiny, deep wounds.