EDGE: Montana Melodrama

by George G. Gilman

Edge was not familiar enough with the classic love story to know if Juliet was ever called upon to scowl the way Elizabeth Miles did as she waited for a response from him.

  "What's needed, lady?" He turned his head on the blanket pillow and limited his reaction to the fresh pain this caused to a grimace. "But if just looking at me makes folks want to throw up, I'd just as soon take care of it myself."

  There was a bowl of water on the straw to one side of her, hot enough to give off a steamy medic­inal smell. Close by was a wad of rag caked with crusted blood. A pile of clean white rags.

  "I was talking to the horse in the next stall, Edge. About the mess that bottle made of the side of your head. Doc Hunter said the old dressing had to be taken off and the wound cleaned up. And, oh yeah, he said that if you woke up, I was to ask if you're seeing clearly. And if you can re­call what happened to you."

  "Clear, but not plain," he told her. And experi­mented with a grin, trying to inject some warmth into the glittering slits of his eyes. He was anxious to feel better and stronger and knew this would happen faster if he did not have to attend to his own needs.

  "I know I'm attractive to men, mister," Eliza­beth Miles growled. "Flattery from them doesn't make me go weak at the knees or any of that shit."

  Edge sighed. "It ain't just my knees that are weak, lady. Be obliged if you'd do what you were told. Or get somebody else to fix me up."

  She grunted her satisfaction and expressed the trace of what might have been a smile. She soaked a piece of clean rag in the hot water as she said, "Hold still, this is going to hurt."

  "Me more than you, lady."

  She pressed the dripping rag to his temple and he caught his breath as the heat and medication of the water seared the lacerated skin. He snapped his hooded lids closed, but tears squeezed out and crawled across his deeply lined flesh. Then the initial onslaught of this new brand of pain diminished and the warmth and medication in the water began to have a soothing effect.

  He became aware of the woman's gentleness as she bathed his wound, and when he opened his eyes he saw with a stab of mild disappointment that the scowl of dislike was still firmly fixed upon her face. "Did the liveryman and your boss kill each other?" he asked as she dispensed with the stained rag and soaked a fresh one.

  "So you're not seeing double and your memory is all right. I’ll be able to tell Doc Hunter what he wanted to know."

  "But me nothing?"

  "Hamilton Linn isn't my boss, Edge. He's j one of the company of players who happens own the wagon we travel in. No, they didn't ha each other. Turned to jelly when they thought you were dead. Then shook worse than ever when they saw you were still alive. Scared you'll blame them for what happened to you."

  "Be nursing a sore head for a while, I guess. But it was nobody's fault but my own."

  She again started to dab gently at the area broken skin on his temple. "The longer Ham Linn doesn't know that the better, as far as I'm concerned. Worth the female lead in a big-city rim to know that pompous old fool is quaking in hi drawers."

  She set aside the wet rag and began to dry off the excess moisture, then dumped all the rags dirty and clean—into the bowl and lifted this she rose to her feet. "The doc got all the glass splinters out of you last night. Told me that if there was no sign of infection, it'll be best to leave off a dressing. Heal up better if the air gets to it."

  Sprawled flat on his back, looking up the lengths of her denim-contoured legs and across the flatness of her belly to the mounds of her breasts hugged by the shirt, Edge experienced a surge of sexual desire that briefly transcended the thudding ache inside his skull. It was immediately dulled when he became certain that this was, what she expected—that she was deliberately flaunting her body to arouse him sexually—for the sheer pleasure it gave her to be wanted and unat­tainable. "Obliged for your help, lady," he said. "I owe you.”

  "Not a thing, mister. Me and the rest of the company were waiting outside when we heard the shot. Were still in here when the doc was fetched. It just happened I was closest when he was through patching you up and he asked me to keep an eye on you."

  "And I had the impression you're the kind of woman who always says no."

  She shrugged. "It had more appeal than spend­ing the night with Linn and the others—listening to them crying about losing our money and not doing a damn thing to get it back."

  "JJ?"

  "That drunken sonofabitch rode off into the woods with a gun and a couple of bottles of booze. Yelling about how he plans to make the bank raiders pay for killing the only friend he had left. Anything you want before I go?"

  He raised a hand to touch his brow. "My skull feels twice the size it should be, lady. So if you could give me a little head . . ."

  She vented a short sigh of disgust and swung away from him, her rump swaying inside the tight grip of her pants as she went out of the stall.

  The grin Edge had started to spread across his face died when he closed his eyes and endured in gritted-toothed silence the regular pounding in his head that matched the cadence of her strides down the central aisle of the livery.

  "A stable is the ideal place for you, mister!" she yelled. "Since you appear to have the morals of a stallion at stud!"

  He could not prevent a wince when she slammed one of the big doors behind her. Then he rasped sourly: "With no chance of getting a bit on the side."

  Chapter Four

  RIDGEVILLE was quite literally a quiet town. Or so Edge discovered as he lay in the stall for about thirty minutes waiting for the ache in his head to ease and gradually became aware of the community coming to what could only be called lethargic life.

  First he smelled wood smoke, then the aromas of coffee and food. Next came the sounds of open­ing doors and windows. Later footfalls and the thud of hooves and the rattle of rigs on the move. Finally an occasional call of greeting followed by intermittent snatches of conversation which reached him as no more than a multi-toned mur­muring.

  He was up and out of the stall by then. Initially he felt dazed and in danger of suffering from the double vision the local doctor had considered a possible result of the blow. But this soon cleared and he felt as hungry as if the smell of cooking breakfasts had started rumbling sounds in his stomach. The fire in the range was still burning and in no more than a few minutes after pulling on his boots, he had water heating for a shave and for coffee and some bacon and beans frying in a skillet.

  He shaved before he ate, sitting at the table and removing the straight razor from a pouch that hung from the beaded thong around his neck. That he could find no mirror in the livery was no obstacle to this procedure, for there were few mornings when he did not have to shave blind. Then he had breakfast and smoked a ciga­rette with a second mug of coffee while he absently fingered the area of broken skin on his temple.

  Outside, the creek gurgled and the town's daily business got under way with a minimum of noise in the commercial premises of Pine Street. Just the horses belonging to Sheldon and John James were gone from the livery, and nobody entered to take out any of the other animals standing contented in their warm, sun-bright stalls.

  Edge cleaned up after the morning shaving and breakfast ritual and saddled his black mare. She was a big, strong animal, clear-eyed and intelligent, who had carried him a lot of miles to reach this timber town in the mountains. And the western saddle he cinched to her was hung with all the accoutrements a man on a long ride through largely uninhabited country might require. What essentials were not hung from the saddle or packed in the two bags were wrapped in or attached to the bedroll which he furled and fixed on behind the saddle. When he'd first gotten up, he'd grimaced while he waited for the fuzziness to leave him. But now Edge's lean and dark-hued face was set in an expression of total impassiveness which was a true indication of his state of mind.

  Abruptly his ice-blue eyes looked colder than the depths of winter. This occurred as he delved a hand into a pocket of his pants and failed to find the loose change that sho
uld have been there. Then, when he moved his hand to dip into his hip pocket, his thin lips drew back to display his teeth in a snarl, an expression that revealed the capac­ity for cruelty which the more discerning were able to see lurking just beneath the invariably calm exterior of this man.

  By the time he led the mare down the central aisle of the livery and out to Pine Street, however, his features were back to their implacable set. There was no visible clue to the casual observer, as he easily swung up astride the saddle and heeled the horse forward, to how he felt about being robbed.

  The sidewalks along this stretch of street were sparsely peopled with women shoppers, some of whom acknowledged him. Others pointedly ig­nored him, as they had when he rode into Ridge­ville yesterday. While some members of the local populace were naturally friendly, others plainly disapproved of the appearance of a lone stranger with a Colt in a tied-down holster, a Winchester jutting from a forward-hung boot, and eyes as cold as high mountain ice—eyes that surveyed their surroundings with a suspicion honed sharp by long experience. Edge touched the brim of his hat with a forefinger in response to those who nodded, smiled, or spoke a soft-voiced greeting to him. He ignored the reproachful gazes and reproving exchanges. Slowly he had rode past the people.

  The only men he saw were old-timers and those who worked at supplying goods and services to the town. The majority of the male population of Ridgeville was out working at the several company camps in the timberland that surrounded the town or at the sawmill a couple of miles to the south. From this direction he heard the muted thud of a steam engine at work. He rode to the center of the intersection, halted the mare, and tugged on the reins to turn the animal toward the facade of Miss Emma's boardinghouse on the cor­ner of Pine and Douglas streets.

  The people who were still watching him—either with idle curiosity or surreptitious hostility—were suddenly afraid. For they saw him slowly draw the Colt from the holster, thumb back the hammer, and aim the gun.

  Then squeeze the trigger.

  The crack of the bullet blasting from the muzzle sounded in unison with the clang of a bell clapper as the shell scored a hit in the ornamental brass bell that hung beside the front door of the boardinghouse.

  The thud of the ricocheting bullet could not be heard. It was masked by shouts of alarm, the slap of running footfalls, and the wrenching open of doors and windows. Then there was a sudden; silence, disturbed only by the sounds of the creek and the more distant noise of the steam engine at the sawmill, as the townsfolk who had reached a position to see the cause of the gunshot gazed uncomprehendingly at the mounted man on the center of the intersection. He was nonchalantly ejecting the spent shellcase from a smoking cham­ber of his Colt and sliding a fresh round into the revolver.

  Many of the occupants of the boardinghouse also watched the man with amazement. Miss Emma was the first one to show herself, thudding open an upper-story window with violent force and leaning out to glare at Edge. A scarf was tied about her gray hair and her red-cheeked face was smudged from a cleaning chore. "Just what do you think you are doing, you crazy man?" she de­manded.

  The half-breed slid the reloaded Colt back into the holster and cracked his hooded eyes to the narrowest slits as he looked up at the irate old lady and the brilliantly blue morning sky above the roof of her house. He touched the brim of his hat. "May just be one of your boarders I need to talk to, Miss Emma. On the other hand, could be the whole town needs to hear what I have to say."

  "Mr. Edge! You want to come by the office and let me take a look at you?"

  The half-breed glanced up and saw the tall, thin, distinguished-looking Doc Hunter standing in front of a building two doors down from the bank that had been robbed. There was an anxious frown on his age-lined face. "Got an ache in my head is all, feller. What concerns me more is what I ain't got in my hip pocket anymore."

  He returned his glinting-eyed gaze to the porch of the boardinghouse as the door opened and Elizabeth Miles stepped angrily over the thresh­old.

  "Just what is that supposed to mean mister?" she snarled.

  "Near a thousand dollars is what ain't there lady."

  The relevation triggered a buzz of talk among the bystanders. The half-breed did not allow attention to shift from the doorway of the boardinghouse. Elizabeth Miles seemed to be both shocked and insulted. But Edge reminded himself that she was a professional actress.

  "Are you implying that . . ." she began heatedly as she advanced to the front of the porch. She rested her fists on her hips and seemed set to spit at him. Then her voice rose to a shriller tone. "Yes, you sure as hell are! You really do disgust me, you know that, Edge? After last night's bank raid, most people in this town are flat broke! But just because we're barnstormers, the first people you think to accuse of robbing you are me and Linn and the others!" Her green eyes directed a glare of deep-seated hatred toward Edge that seemed to have a palpable force.

  Miss Emma shrieked shrilly, "Don't you go spreadin' vile rumors about the folks hereabouts young woman! Ridgeville people are decent and honest!"

  "Damn right!" the redheaded bartender yelled over the tops of the batwing doors. "Maybe the Campbells have took most of the cash money we had! But look around you! It's business as usual! Everybody trustin' everybody else to pay for what they're buyin' when we're back on our feet!"

  "Just because I said we didn't take his money, I don't mean to—" the actress began, contrition visible and audible through the anger she still felt toward Edge.

  "You ain't thinkin' straight, mister!" Miss Emma interrupted from the window. "Either on account of that knock on your head or because you're just plain dumb!"

  "Take care, Miss Emma!" the bartender warned anxiously.

  "Shoot to that, Moss Tracy!" the old lady coun­tered without shifting her beady-eyed gaze from the impassive face of Edge. "He don't frighten me! Hear this, mister, there's just the one excep­tion among the folks I was speakin' of! And if you'd thought about it before ridin' down here to shoot up the town, you'd have figured it out for yourself! Just two people ain't doin' what's usual for them on a weekday mornin'!

  "One's Bill Sheldon who's lit out for Casper to get replacement money to pay the company men! And the other's that no good drunken John James who's just lit out! For no good reason anyone knew about until you started accusin' decent folks of robbin' you!"

  As she concluded her shrill-voiced piece of logic, then slammed the window closed, another buzz of excited talk reached Edge. But after a few moments it quieted and Ridgeville continued on about its business, everyone apparently convinced that Miss Emma had hit upon the solution to the mystery.

  Edge remained open-minded as he watched Elizabeth Miles come down the two steps from the porch and stride toward him. She came to a halt immediately in front of the horse, her legs slightly splayed and her fists back on her hips. There was a fire of aggression in her green eyes and patches of color in her cheeks. But she kept her voice to a low hiss.

  "I don't know who stole your lousy money Edge. And, quite frankly, I don't give a shit! Unless I'm maybe a little pleased about it. What with you being so high and mighty about lookin’ after what is yours after the bank raid. But you take heed of this, mister. It wasn't me. It was me went to bring Doc Hunter. And while I was bringing him, a whole lot of people came to the stable to find out what the shooting was about. And I didn't sit up mopping your fevered brow all night. Most of the time I was sleeping. And when I'm asleep, a whole army could march by me and I wouldn't know it."

  Edge nodded. "Obliged."

  "Does that mean you believe me?"

  "Means I've taken heed of what you said, Miss Miles."

  "And what does that mean?" she demanded impatiently.

  "That if JJ doesn't have my money when I find him, anybody in this town could have stolen it."

  Now she nodded. "That is precisely correct."

  The man sitting easy in the saddle and the woman standing so rigidly in front of him at the center of the intersection
remained the focus of much silent and anxious attention from certain townspeople who had realized Miss Emma's pro­nouncement did not end the matter. The strained to overhear what the two were saying but could not. They did see, however, a sudden change in the attitude of Elizabeth Miles. She became less tense in her stance and the lines of her expression softened a little.

  "Some who are out of town, too," she said.

  "I'm including the company men, lady."

  "I mean Ham Linn and the other members of the company, Edge. Between us we lost twice as much as you did. And, like you, we won't be re­imbursed when Mr. Sheldon returns to town."

  "The whole bunch?"

  She nodded and sighed. "It seems I was wrong about them sitting around and complaining all night. They did decide to do something. Appears that at first light this morning they hitched the wagon and left town to try to get our money back." She shrugged. "But perhaps that was after one of them stole your money, Edge. Thought you ought to know."

  "Obliged."

  She swung around and strode back to the porch. Went up on to it and watched as Edge turned his horse and heeled the animal into a slow walk toward the northwestern stretch of Pine Street. The slightest of smiles turned up the cor­ners of her mouth as another buzz of excited talk was triggered by the sight of the half-breed leav­ing town.

  Edge was unaware of the secret smile, and the rasping voices quickly faded from his hearing as he rode to the end of the street. The last building on his right had a black-draped display window featuring a marble cross and a sign above read­ing: H. BALLINGER FUNERAL DIRECTOR.

  To one side of the single story building a short, fat, middle-aged man with a round and very red face had already restarted the chore he'd been doing when the bullet hit the bell. He was washing down a shiny black-painted landaulet which had been converted for use as a hearse. He was dressed in soiled work clothes, except for a high­ crowned black hat with a veil hanging down from the back brim.

  The mortician pretended to be too assiduous engaged in his labor to notice Edge until the half-breed reined in his horse and asked, "Did last night's killings clean you out of caskets?"