But then a sense of reality was restored, dissipating the sense of nightmarish hallucination which had briefly taken a hold on almost everyone in the vicinity.
The half-breed's tone of voice was even and matter-of-fact when he drawled, "That's you, me, and Fry, Fred. But it's getting tougher to win votes for our way of thinking."
As he spoke he brought the acrid-smelling Colt up to the side of his face and began to scratch his cheek with the foresight.
Fry called to the group of lumbermen. "It's okay, you guys! No blood and there ain't going to be none! It's time we got back to work!"
The scowling Quinn was still cursing, but under his breath now. George was scratching his head; he expressed a frown of perplexity. He maintained a firm double-handed grip on his ax as continued to eye Edge. "I don't get it, Phil," he said at last, as Quinn and the other three men immediately outside the shack turned and follow the large group toward the sawmill. "It was your idea to come brace this guy."
Phil Fry reentered the shack, holding the Winchester around the barrel with one hand, the stock dragging behind him. He did not close the door after him. "Get them arms down and put your ass back on your chair, Fred," he growled a the clerk. Then he swung the Winchester upwards so that the stock banged down on the top of the paper-littered desk and pushed it toward Edge "There you go, mister. Your property. Let's start this over. Without anyone gettin' hot under the collar unless there's good reason."
Fred Caxton had done as instructed and started to blink again and chew the side of his forefinger. The massively built George remained perplexed; Phil Fry, a head shorter and a hundred pound lighter than George, looked at Edge expectantly.
The half-breed said, "Obliged," as the two steam engines were set to work again, spinning the handsaws to tear into the logs with high pitched screeching sounds. These masked the much lower sounds Edge made as he emptied the Colt of spent shellcases and fed fresh bullets into the chambers.
Fry waited impatiently for him to finish and then demanded as the Colt was slid into the holster, "You gonna say why you want to look at the company maps?"
"And you have to allow it is our business, sir," Caxton added quickly. "But as I said earlier, if you are able to offer me a reasonable . . ."
Edge had taken out the makings and rolled a cigarette. When the cylinder was completed and the paper licked, he cut in on the eager-to-please clerk. "There's no sweat about that, feller. You and me would have gotten along fine if man-mountain there and the rest hadn't busted in on us." He struck a match on the butt of his holstered revolver and lit the cigarette. "You would have asked and I'd have told you. Just like now. I want to look at the maps to see if I can figure out the most likely areas in this part of the country where the Campbell bunch might be holed up."
"Some of us figured . . ." George started.
"You're goin' after the Campbells?" Fry interrupted.
Edge blew out some tobacco smoke on a sigh. “No, feller. General opinion around Ridgeville is that John James took my bankroll. When he rode out of town, though, he claimed he was going after the Campbells because they killed the sheriff."
"It's what JJ said he planned to do right enough," George allowed, and looked pleased that he was at last able to make a contribution to the exchange.
Fry looked miserable and chewed the inside of his cheek for a few moments. Then he grunted with disgust and growled, "Shit, mister. Seems we had you figured all wrong. But you gotta admit we had cause for suspicion."
"Why do I have to do that, feller?"
"Hell, near the whole town was in the saloon when the bank was raided. And you was the one man in there armed. A stranger with a mean look to you. When you look at it from our point of view, you gotta see how you could've been one the bunch. Planted in the saloon to see no one interfered with what was happenin' over to the bank!"
"You just figure that out today, feller? Or did it . . ."
"Don't you go usin' that tone of voice to mister!" George snarled. "That makes out like you think we ain't got no guts!"
"Easy," Fry urged. "Let's do like I said and not get hot under the collar."
"But, Phil. This gunslinger acts like he figures were—”
"What he figures about us is nothin' to us, George," Fry snapped, and the anger in his tone was emphasized in his eyes as he looked at the half-breed, then jerked his head. "Shit, mister. You don't need no map to find where the friggin' Campbell bunch are at. Come on outside of here."
He went to the door, stooping to retrieve his discarded ax as he did so. George followed him and then Edge, the Winchester canted to his right shoulder.
The lumbermen who were loading and unloading the wagons continued their work after glancing at the front of the shack and seeing that all was well.
"See them twin peaks over there, mister?" Fry said, his right arm raised, his forefinger pointing to the west.
The half-breed looked in this direction and nodded.
"That's Cloud Pass. Ain't no trail that leads to it and there's some real rough country to cross to reach it. But with them two ridges stickin' up the way they do, you'll always know which direction to head in."
"Take you a day or two and a night to reach the place, mister," George added as Phil Fry turned to move away from the shack. "And you better make the most of the time. On account of when you get there, it'll all be run out for you." The big man spat and swung around to follow Fly toward the sawmill.
Edge looked again to the west where the ground rose gently to form one side of the broad, shallow valley of the Little Creek. It seemed from where he stood to be entirely covered with Ponderosa pines and Douglas firs, a green, featureless expanse with just the distant rocky peaks to mar the otherwise smooth line of the horizon. He heard a sound behind him and asked without turning, "How can they be so sure the Campbell bunch are holed up in Cloud Pass, Fred?"
"Morning, noon, and suppertime of most days, we can see the smoke of their cooking fires, sir," the clerk answered. "Anyone in Ridgeville could have told you the same thing."
The half-breed went to unhitch the mare from the wheel of the truck and swung up into the saddle. "Never occurred to me it would be that simple, feller. But town business ain't mine so I got no need to ask anything else. Obliged to you for your help."
Caxton blinked up at the mounted man and frowned as he searched his mind for words to express what he felt was necessary before Edge touched his heels to the flanks of the mare. Finally he blurted, "Look, mister, if somebody was going to give back exactly what was stolen from you, would you risk your life and put your home and family in danger going after the people that robbed you?"
Edge pursed his thin lips, nodded, and answered through his teeth, "You bet your ass 1 would, feller."
The clerk started to chew on the side of his inky finger again, something akin to shame showing in his rapidly blinking eyes. The half-breed was aware of many pairs of anxious eyes watching the front of the shack. But all the lumbermen pretended to be fully engaged in their chores when he glanced around him.
"Well, it doesn't apply in your case, does it Caxton said quickly and defensively."It's just that crazy old drunk JJ you're going after. And when you catch up with him, he won't be no trouble for a man like you to deal with."
Edge briefly fingered the scab-roughened skin of his left temple and drew back his lips to show a smile that failed to inject any warmth into the glittering slits of his eyes. "Just so long as I don't allow his liquor to go to my head again, Fred."
Chapter Six
EDGE rode away from the sawmill and into the timber without concern for the attitude of the men of Ridgeville that the young clerk had expressed. Nor did he reflect, as the thud of steam-driven pistons and the shriek of sawteeth through timber faded behind him, upon whether he had chosen the correct course of action to get back what had been stolen from him. For his mind had been fully made up when he rode out of town after listening to Miss Emma and Elizabeth Miles, and he had heard nothing at t
he sawmill to cause him to doubt his decision. So his mind was as blank as his expression as he veered between the trees to left and right, moving up the constant gentle slope, the thud of the mare's hooves muted by a thick carpet of pine needles.
He rode without haste throughout the morning and rested himself and his mount at midday when he had a meal of jerked beef washed down with canteen water. It was very quiet in the forest and the air was chilly. When he set off again he rode hunched inside a sheepskin coat, the collar turned up to brush against his hat.
As they had been during the morning, his senses were alert only to the extent that was normal for him when he traveled through unfamiliar country—hearing and eyesight attuned to pick the first sign of unknown danger. Still, they backed up by a finely honed feeling for presence of a menace before it could be heard: seen, and behind his apparently relaxed attitude he was poised to react instantly to the unexpected. As he rode the slow-moving mare, his body was as tense as it had been in the company office—before the man named Quinn unwitting touched one of the few raw nerves of the man named Edge. His progress during the afternoon was much slower than in the morning since the terrain became as difficult as the massively built George had warned him. The timbered side of valley was not nearly as evenly surfaced as it appeared from the sawmill by the creek.
Rock escarpments reared up along the path to the twin peaks. Sometimes a ravine seemed to offer a way, only to dead-end blindly. More often impenetrable thickets of prickly brush forced to take wide detours. But the fact that the two ridges which flanked Cloud Pass were seldom in sight through the towering trees was never a handicap. For he had abandoned his original notion to make directly for the pass and was content to know that as long as he was constantly on an upgrade, he was getting closer to his objective.
He made camp as soon as darkness started to drape the mountains and lit a small fire to boil water for coffee and cook bacon and beans.
As soon as the fire had served its purpose, he doused it and bedded down in his blankets. The Winchester, with a bullet in the breech but the hammer not cocked, shared his bed—his right hand fisted around the frame.
While he lay, waiting for sleep, he was aware for the first time in many hours of the dull ache under his skull. And while he hovered on the brink of sleep, he was visited by a stray thought that maybe he was suffering from the concussion Doc Hunter had warned of. That it was hampering his powers of reason and causing him to act illogically—or, at least, to follow a course of action which was foreign to his nature.
Then sleep came, untroubled from within and undisturbed from without, until the birds of the forest commenced their dawn chorus. They roused Edge to a cold world in which the gray light of early sunrise had replaced the blackness of night.
He woke to instant awareness and total recall. He knew he had bedded down at the mouth of a ravine which offered the only way up the valley toward the pass, unless he wanted to backtrack at least a mile to locate the start of an alternative route. His head ached a little but did not thud as he sat up, pulled on his boots, and put on his hat. Then he spat out the taste of yesterday, drank a little water from a canteen, and splashed some on his face. Rolled and lit a cigarette, smoked it as he packed his gear and saddled the mare. Climbed astride the horse and heeled her into the ravine. Meanwhile the sun rose behind him and punched narrow shafts of cool light down through the trees.
The ravine, despite its thickly wooded rims was not a blind one, yet he still had to dismount and lead the mare by the reins up the treacherous shale slope to get out of it. Small rocks skittered out from under the feet of the man and hooves of the horse as they climbed. Edge sweated with the exertion and the animal snorted with unease at almost every step.
The horse became quieted down when again reached firm ground at the top of the steep and slippery incline. The half-breed ran the back of a hand across his sticky forehead and peered along the natural path that led northwestward among the timber. He sensed, a useless part of a second before he heard a sound, that the noisy climb up over the shale had attracted dangerous attention.
The sound he heard was metallic—the unmistakable click of a gun hammer being thumbed back. But he revealed no sign of his awareness of being watched as he turned toward the horse and made as if to remount—sliding his left foot into the strop and reaching for the saddlehorn with his left hand. This put his back to the area where the watcher lurked, and during the moment he was in this position, every pore in his body pumped sweat and the muscles between his should blades bunched the flesh in expectation of a searing bullet. The obedient mare stood still, sideways-on to the top of the ravine end and the start of the ten-foot-wide pathway.
Edge continued the charade of swinging into the saddle for a half-second more—taking firm grip of the horn and pushing clear of the ground with his right foot. Then heard the crack of a dry twig. About the same twenty feet away as the cocking of the gun, but on the other side. Now the half-breed powered into speed. He arced his trailing right leg high as he applied greater leverage with his left foot in the stirrup. While his left hand wrenched at the horn and his right fisted around the frame of the booted Winchester.
"Get him, he's seen us!" a woman shrieked. A fusillade of gunshots exploded in the immediate wake of her shrill words. Edge’s left leg was arcing through the same curve as the right now, having kicked clear of the stirrup. His sole contact with the suddenly skittish are was now his left hand on the horn—which acted as the pivot for his swing up and over the lightened animal. The rifle was clear of the boot s the gunfire sounded. Edge had released his grip on the saddlehorn and was struggling to keep from rolling onto his back in mid-air when the mare reared.
The first shots had been fired wildly, the men behind the guns surprised by the half-breed's sudden move and responding instinctively to the command of the woman. Now, after there had been time for fresh rounds to be levered and rotated in front of the firing pins, the rearing horse was between the gum muzzles and the free-falling target.
The mare returned to all fours and two shots were blasted beneath her belly. One of the bullets came close enough to splice through the long hair that waved above the head of the half-breed. As he hit the ground with his thighs, belly, chest, and upper arms, he clutched the Winchester high and safe from impact.
The crash sent the air in his lungs rushing, between his clenched teeth with a snarled obscenity instead of a grunt of pain. Tears blurred his vision and he wrenched his teeth apart to suck more air as he quietly cursed the hampering pain and sought to ignore it. He forced himself to roll off the firm ground at which the mare was scraping and stamping and onto the unstable shale.
"I got him! I sure as hell did, Fay!"
Edge clearly heard these shouted words of triumph. But then he heard nothing except the din of the rockslide that he caused and was a part for almost half the hundred-foot distance to the bottom of the ravine.
He would have gone all the way down had given in to the demands of his punished body. But he had suffered worse many times in the long and harsh past and had learned how to suppress such needs for self-indulgence, how to summon up what was necessary to induce a state of mind over matter. As he ceased to roll and turned body so that he was slithering—feet first—down the slope, it was relatively easy to absorb the buffeting. To feel the pain, but to use it instead of simply succumbing to it.
Each rock he slid over, each rock that bounced off him, each rock that burned him with friction and smacked into him, acted to steady his resolve to kill those who were responsible for this new agony. And if he were to succeed in this, there would be even less opportunity to allow himself the luxury of surrendering to the onslaught of pain. So he dug in the toes of his boots, his kneecaps and the points of his elbows and felt the warmth of blood on his arms and legs. Through his tear-blurred vision he saw traces of red on the gray rocks.
His downslide slowed and finally came to a halt perhaps five seconds after it had begun. And he paused for no more
than a second while small rocks continued to roll and skitter about him. Sprawled out full-length.
Then he pushed himself up to his badly skinned knees and elbows and thumbed back the hammer of the Winchester. Tilted back his head to turn his sweat-sheened, heavily bristled, agony-contorted face toward the top of the slope. Squeezed his eyes tightly closed and then snapped them wide open to flick the salt moisture away from their lids. Cracked them to the narrowest of flittering slits and altered his mouth from a grimace to something close to a grin—but not close enough for the merest suggestion of evil humor to detract from the bottomless brutality of his eyes.
Edge started back up the treacherous slope, pushing with his feet and dragging with his elbows. Rasping air in through his flared nostrils and whistling it out between his clenched teeth. These sounds were loud in his own ears, but were otherwise masked by the constant pounding of tumbling rocks that his upward progress dislodged.
He held to a line in the center of the slope, ignoring the brush that grew in thick clumps six feet to either side. A warning was registering in the back of his mind that this was the wrong thing to do, but he rejected it, too eager to kill for caution to have any appeal.
His horse was now calm. She stood in the morning sunlight with ears and eyes alert without any sign of tension.
"So go check it out, John," a man said.
"Reckon I'll wait until that racket is finished,” John answered.
"Christ, what was Craig thinking of, sending a couple of yellow bellies like you to pick me up?” the woman called Fay said sourly. "Even if he wasn't hit, he ain't gonna be no picture of health after tumbling down the damn hill, is he?"
Edge had halted his agonizing and awkward climb when the first man spoke, the words sounding clearly through the diminishing noise of sliding shale. He was some ten feet below the point where the mare stood on the firm and level ground and as he froze to the sound of the voice he allowed himself to utter a low grunt of disgust. Self-disgust that he had not guarded against impulsive anger, that he had moved recklessly along the line that was the shortest distance between two points to close with the enemy, instead of making for cover and taking the time to plan his counterattack.
EDGE: Montana Melodrama Page 5
