‘And think on, mister,’ she rasped. ‘Injuns get the animal, he’ll be beef steaks soon as they get a fire lit.’
‘Expensive food for thought,’ he muttered.
The wind began to gust in more strongly from the north, sending the clouds racing across the sky and hurling dust high and hard at the team, wagon and the couple on the seat. Edge had to slow their progress, cracking his eyes to see the trail. If any sign had been left by their quarry, the wind blew it away or the dust covered it. But the trail was there to follow, swinging from south-east to due east as it headed for the weather-veiled Dragoon Mountains.
Some hours later the wind blew itself out and the dust settled but the clouds, although moving slowly, remained as thickly layered as during the storm. There were no stars to be seen and the moon showed as a pale, fuzzy disc. The clop of hooves and creak of the wagon timbers were the only constant sounds in the great silence. Sometimes, a coyote howled. Throughout the remainder of the night, Edge and Aunt Matty taking two hourly turns at driving while the other slept, they saw nobody - Apache or white man.
At dawn, the first light showed the trail cutting across a broad area of sand ridges, the land rising and dipping to no pattern. They stopped for thirty minutes to boil water for coffee and eat a cold breakfast. Then, two hours later, they saw a horse. Saddled, but with the reins hanging loose with no rider to hold them. The animal was foraging a mile ahead and several hundred yards to the south of the trail.
‘Injuns don’t ride with a saddle, do they?’ Aunt Matty asked, straining her ancient eyes to peer at the distant horse through the billowing heat shimmer.
‘It’s like them fighting at night,’ Edge answered. ‘Some do. Some don’t.’
The horse heard the sound of the wagon in the surrounding silence and froze and looked at the moving dark silhouette with the dust cloud rising behind it. Then, as if anxious not to lose his freedom from man, wheeled and broke into a gallop. The wagon rolled a further two miles before the couple up on the seat saw the man from whom the horse had escaped.
He lay on his back, sprawled at the side of a sand ridge just off the trail.
‘It’s Jeb Stuart!’ Aunt Matty rasped in high excitement. She turned and reached into the wagon to snatch out the shotgun. The man was still more than a hundred yards away and the woman’s exhilaration cooled as she surveyed him a second time. ‘Hell, he looks dead!’ she spat out.
‘Looks is all,’ the half-breed muttered. ‘But he ain’t.’
‘How can you tell?’
‘Ain’t a buzzard in the sky, ma’am.’
Aunt Matty was nonplussed for a few moments. Then she swung the shotgun stock up to her shoulder and sighted along the barrel. She vented a low grunt. ‘Skunk’s tryin’ to fool us. Aims to get the drop.’
‘Maybe,’ Edge allowed, holding the reins in just the one hand as he eased the Winchester out from the rear of the wagon to rest it across the seat. His hooded eyes stayed fixed on the man and, as the wagon rolled closer, he detected the steady rise and fall of Stuart’s pudgy stomach. ‘But I don’t think so,’ he added.
He hauled on the reins to bring the team to a stop, about fifty feet from the man lying sprawled on the ground. Then Stuart moved. His legs remained splayed and his arms stayed at his sides. It was just his hatless head that he raised so that he could peer pitifully along the trail at the stalled wagon.
‘Help me?’ he croaked. ‘Please help me?’
His face was colorless behind the beads of sweat which stood out from every pore, caught in the bristles of several days’ growth of beard.
‘We ain’t here to help you, skunk!’ the woman snarled, maintaining a steady aim at the target.
There was no indication that Jeb Stuart recognized Edge and Mathilda Tree. For long seconds he continued to stare at them. Then his neck muscles could support the weight of his head no longer and it smacked down into the sand. He spoke to the sky.
‘I’m sick. Awful sick.’ He moved again. But this time it was not voluntary. His entire frame spasmed with a fit of shivering. ‘I’m cold. I’m dyin’.’ His teeth chattered. ‘Help me?’
Aunt Matty lowered the gun. ‘Fever?’ she asked Edge.
‘I reckon.’
‘The bastard!’ the old woman snarled, and scrambled down from the seat. She sensed the cold blue eyes of the half-breed watching her and she glowered up at him. ‘Don’t you try to stop me, mister!’ she warned.
Edge dug out the makings and began to roll a cigarette. ‘He’s going to die anyway,’ he answered. ‘You’ll make it faster for him.’
‘So we’ll both be happier,’ Aunt Matty retorted, and strode towards the helpless man.
Edge lit his cigarette and sucked the smoke deep into his lungs. The woman halted beside the sick Jeb Stuart. Stuart raised his head again, squinting against the sun. For a moment, the pain went out of his pallid face to be replaced by terror.
‘Mathilda Tree!’ he gasped.
‘That’s me, Jeb Stuart.’ Her voice was lifeless, the words spat out like they were pieces of something that tasted putrid. ‘You got any last thing to say?’
The terror was swept from the slickly moist features. ‘Yes, Miss Tree. That Mr. Evans, he run out on me. Just ’cause I was sick and couldn’t keep up. I want for you to kill him. I know you won’t be doin’ it for me. But I want for you to do it.’
From his seat on the wagon, Edge saw the hatred expand on the woman’s ugly face. ‘Kinda puts you in a spot, don’t it, ma’am?’ he called.
Stuart’s head fell back into the sand. Aunt Matty leaned forward, to rest the shotgun muzzle under the submissive jaw. She squeezed the trigger. The man’s head disintegrated into soggy crimson-stained chunks which spewed across the hot sand. Buzzards appeared from out of the heat shimmer and soared on the thermals.
‘Favors don’t do a dead man no good, mister!’ the woman called sourly, staring down coldly at the decapitated corpse as the sound of the gunshot diminished across the wilderness.
Edge climbed down from the wagon and went to the rear. He lowered the tail-gate and hauled out two bales of hay.
‘We fed the horses this mornin’,’ the woman growled, turning away from the body.
‘Burn him before you bury him,’ the half-breed instructed evenly. ‘On account of the fever. And don’t touch him.’
‘Nice you’re concerned about me,’ Aunt Matty answered with heavy sarcasm.
Edge sat down at the shaded side of the wagon, leaning his back against a wheel. ‘Me I’m concerned about,’ he told the woman. ‘I got to ride with you.’
‘My mistake,’ Aunt Matty snarled, flinging down the shotgun and returning to the wagon to get the bales.
She broke them open and built a pyre around the dead man. Edge tossed her a match and she lit the tinder-dry hay. Flames leapt high, then grey smoke curled higher. The buzzards kept their distance. The fire died around the corpse and left it as a blackened cinder. The fine sand would not allow a deep hole to be dug. The woman used the shotgun to tip Jeb Stuart’s remains into the shallow grave, and buried the weapon with him beneath the sand. The inevitable marble tombstone was set in place at the head of the mound.
‘It irks me he died happy,’ she said with weary ill-temper as she dragged her feet back to the wagon. ‘I should have stood off so he didn’t see me. And watched him die slow of the fever.’
Edge eased upright from his seat by the wheel, brushing sand from his pants. ‘I feel for you, lady,’ he muttered as he climbed on to the wagon seat.
‘You can always back out on this deal!’ she snapped in retort to his tone. ‘I don’t need you no more, mister!’ she sniffed as she flopped down on to the seat. ‘It’s just me and Evans now. One against one.’
‘Figure I’ll stay,’ the half-breed said, unhitching the reins and flicking them. ‘With the odds even and you so well practiced, I reckon Evans don’t stand a chance.’
‘You bet he don’t!’ Aunt Matty growled.
‘I d
id, ma’am. Twenty-five grand.’
Chapter Nine
THE smoke which had driven off the buzzards attracted the Apaches. Not many of them; a hunting party of about a dozen. Edge had been aware of them for a long time, riding about three miles to the south on a parallel course with the wagon. But the woman, withdrawn into a world of private contemplation, did not spot the Indians for at least an hour after they first showed through the shimmer of heat.
‘Injuns!’ she exclaimed, reaching for the shotgun that was no longer there. The absence of the gun sharpened her fear and she stared at the half-breed’s hard-set profile. ‘What we gonna do?’
‘You could try praying,’ Edge advised sourly. ‘But I reckon your stock’s sunk pretty low in heaven.’
‘Talk sense!’ she snarled.
Her tone didn’t provoke him to anger. He glanced at the distant Indians, then back at the trail. ‘Ain’t much to do, ma’am. Short of not bothering them. Then maybe they won’t bother us.’
‘But they’re trailin’ us!’
‘Maybe only means that what they’re after headed the same way we are.’
‘What if they’re after us?’ Aunt Matty insisted.
Edge spat. ‘Worrying about Apaches never been known to scare them off.’
The woman either accepted the half-breed’s point or decided there was nothing to be gained by further discussion. She lapsed into silence and maintained a constant surveillance on the Indians. The sun dipped low behind them and the Apaches could be seen more clearly as the heat haze retreated. Then the darkness crept in over the land and the Indians were lost to sight. Aunt Matty began to shoot frightened glances in every direction, her head cocked on one side, ears straining to pick up a sound of stealthy approach.
When full night fell, Edge called a halt in the foothills under the western slopes of the Dragoons. He drove the wagon into a gully with a dead-end at a cliff face four hundred feet away. The cliff and the sides of the gully were about fifty feet high.
‘They can trap us in here, damn it!’ Aunt Matty growled after a rapid survey when Edge stopped the wagon.
‘Sure can if we stay,’ he agreed, leaping down from the seat.
‘Then you reckon it is us they’re after?’
‘They been trailing something,’ he answered as he unhitched the team. ‘And I ain’t seen nothing but them and us all afternoon. Be obliged if you’d pitch the tent and set a fire.’
If the old woman’s rheumatics were bothering her, she showed no sign of it as she complied with Edge’s request. She took her lead from him and worked fast. He told her where to set up the tent and build the fire. Then he broke open all but one of the hay bales and spread the feed across the rocky floor of the gully. The tethered horses began to eat. Then, Edge carrying the remaining bale, and Aunt Matty his Winchester and her newly acquired Tranter, they went back down the gully to where the sides became less sheer. They climbed and it was not until they reached the top that the woman began to pant from the exertion and grunt with the pain. They crawled along the gully rim, back to the point where they could look down upon the fire lit scene of the camp.
Aunt Matty sprawled out on her back and took several minutes to recover. Then she rolled over on to her belly, like Edge, and peered downwards.
‘What if they don’t come?’ she whispered.
‘Then it’s going to be a long, cold night,’ Edge muttered in reply. ‘No more restful than if we were down there.’ The woman nodded. ‘Guess so, young feller.’ It was a long, stiff-limbed hour later when they saw the first of the Apaches. Aunt Matty caught her breath and reached to claw a hand around Edge’s upper arm. The half-breed pulled his arm away from the grasp and took a match from his shirt pocket. A second Indian had appeared beside the first and the two moved silently forward towards the campsite at the dead end of the gully. Both were dressed in buckskin shirts and leggings and wore headbands, but no feathers and were carrying primed bows. They advanced in utter silence towards the fringe glow of the diminishing fire, heads swinging slowly from left to right as their dark eyes raked the camp. The four horses, their fill eaten, watched the advance of the intruders with the same intensity as Edge and the woman.
Then the Apaches halted, stared at the tent, looked at each other, nodded, and drew their bowstrings. As they released the arrows, their mouths gaped wide to vent howls of triumph. The sounds of the shafts ripping through the tent canvas and thudding into the ground beneath was drowned by whoops from many more than two throats.
The rest of the Apache band sprinted into view as the two scouts lunged forward snatching fresh arrows from their pouches to fit to the bows. The other ten braves wielded a mixture of weapons - bows, knives, tomahawks and revolvers. Their raddled faces all wore matching expressions of greed.
Edge struck the match on a rock, dragged the hay bale to the rim of the gully and set light to it. He closed his eyes to keep from being dazzled by the sudden flare, and used the Winchester’s muzzle to tip the bale over. Then he opened his eyes and canted the rifle downwards, moving himself forward with his elbows.
‘Killing time again, lady!’ he snapped, pumping the repeater action and squeezing off his first shot.
Some of the Apaches had halted abruptly and curtailed their excitement before the flaming bale started to tumble. For they had become suspiciously aware of the hay scattered under their moccasined feet. It was at these braves that Edge aimed first, sighting down the barrel at their upturned faces as the Apaches stared in horror at the falling ball of fire. Two took bullets in the face and a third was hit in the back of the head as he whirled round.
The nine surviving braves became aware of the danger. Four turned to lunge back the way they had come. Five more sought the cover of the wagon.
‘The runaways!’ Edge yelled.
The flaming hay bale crashed to the gully floor and the impact exploded flares in all directions. The scattered hay caught light and a dozen small fires sprang up and spread.
Aunt Matty responded to Edge’s shout. With the revolver held in her two-handed grip, she matched him shot for shot at the running Indians. They only had to bring down three. The fourth had been showered by raining flames and writhed in his agony as a human torch - clothes and hair burning fiercely. The other three sprawled to the ground, flesh pumping crimson from bullet wounds.
The braves under the wagon reacted to the advancing sea of fire at the same time as the horses. The animals, purposely tethered loosely, reared free and bolted. Snorting in terror and pain, they lunged for the dead end of the gulley. Maddened by panic, they reared again, trying the impossible - to climb the sheer wall of rock.
As the Apaches under the wagon broke out and ran towards the flames, they had no time to retaliate against the defenders turned attackers. Edge ignored them, swinging his Winchester towards the helpless team. The three remaining shells in the rifle dropped three of the horses. Then he drew his Colt and had to fire three bullets into the last horse before the animal dropped dead.
No more shots were fired, by Edge or the woman. Below, at ground level, the terrified braves could see just one dimension of fire. From above, the watchers were able to see just how wide the moving line of flames was. And they had a horrifying view of five men plunging into the flames. They were not able to see them drop. But, as the wall of fire moved on, ravenous for fresh fuel, they did see the charred bodies left in its wake.
Horrifying, but neither Edge nor Mathilda Tree experienced horror at what they saw. Both were too familiar with death. And both had a vivid recollection of the arrows thudding into the tent.
Aunt Matty sighed as she rose painfully to her feet. Take back what I said awhile ago, young feller,’ she croaked as black smoke from the fire billowed around them. ‘Reckon I need you even more than you need me. I ain’t much, but I figure I’m worth more than twenty-five thousand dollars to me.’
Edge ejected the final spent shell from the Winchester and started to reload. ‘No extra charge, ma’am,’ he told her
. ‘Twenty-five is still all you’re worth to me.’
She became rigid at the taunt, but kept her temper under control. And she watched in tight-lipped silence as he finished reloading the rifle and then did the same with the chambers of the Colt. Then:
‘What now, mister? Injuns didn’t get us, but got most everythin’ that was ours.’
‘We find where they left their ponies,’ Edge answered as he stood up.
‘You find where they left their ponies,’ Aunt Matty countered, and looked down through the smoke into the gully. ‘I’ve got to get somethin’ soon as the fire’s out.’
He didn’t have to ask what it was and he responded with a curt nod and started back along the gully rim and then down the incline. The woman followed him and, on the gully floor, stood watching the dying fire as Edge went in search of the dead braves’ horses. He had found them and cut out the two strongest-looking mounts when the woman emerged from the blind gully, struggling under the weight of the marble tombstone. She had taken the time to clean off the soot, so that the black lettering stood out against the stone.
‘Wouldn’t be right Vic Evans didn’t get treated the same as the rest of his murderin’ skunks!’ she challenged.
Edge held open a rawhide saddlebag and the woman eased the grave marker into it. ‘Your party, ma’am,’ he rasped sourly. ‘I’m with you as long as you keep doing the treating.’
Chapter Ten
THE Woodrow Ryan spread was northeast of El Paso in a broad, verdant valley watered by a shallow river that flowed westwards to join the Rio Grande. There was a town sited on the northern slope of the valley at the eastern end and it was to here that Edge and Aunt Matty were directed from El Paso. They were no longer riding Apache ponies. Instead, strong stallions the woman had bought in Deming, New Mexico territory. It was in the early morning that they reached the border town and learned they were all the hours of darkness behind Vic Evans and the bull.
EDGE: Ten Tombstones to Texas (Edge series Book 18) Page 12
