EDGE: Montana Melodrama

by George G. Gilman

  She addressed the question to anybody who was prepared to answer it and when everybody was astride his or her horse, all looked at the Campbell brother who was apparently better at everything except the fast draw.

  And Craig Campbell replied coldly, "It's a woman that better still be alive concerns me. The dead will keep. Maybe until we've had our fill of Ridgeville. Maybe forever."

  This drew a cheer from some throats.

  Then Craig jerked on his reins, Ewan did likewise, and the Campbell brothers headed their mounts toward the distant town in the valley bottom. The rest of the men and women went after them, the mood of all becoming varying degree of tense anticipation—from the anxiety that Craig was feeling and his brother was trying to ape to the evil relish in Leo's grin.

  Then the whole group was gone from sight, and within perhaps two minutes, the sounds of the riders through the timber faded from earshot. At this moment, his voice competing only with the crackle of the dying fire, the painfully wounded liveryman from Ridgeville spat out in an embittered tone, "You've gone and done it wrong again, JJ, you crazy old fool." He spoke as he eased gingerly up into a sitting position and raked his scowling gaze over the draped and uncovered corpses. "And when you make a mistake, you sure make a bad one, feller," Edge said as he advanced out of the timber into the aea of the fire and lamps.

  "Uh, what's that? Who's that?" The liveryman turned his round face with the bushy gray mustache and the tiny eyes toward the half-breed.

  He did not recognize him until the tall, lean figure towered immediately over him. "Well, I'll be. The stranger. What are you doin' up here at the pass? You one of them like some folks reckoned you was?"

  Edge dropped down to his haunches and briefly eyed the bullet wounds. The one in the up­per right chest of JJ had not bled very much and perhaps was not serious. But the whole crotch area of his pants and the ground beneath was deeply stained by spilled blood. There was no color in the man's cheeks and his eyes looked to be blurred with tears. His grimace showed that he was struggling not to reveal how much pain he felt in his shattered genitals.

  "Came to ask you one important question, JJ."

  The wounded man had to spread both palms out on the ground behind him to keep from sprawling out on his back again. "It could be I’ll only have time to answer the one, mister."

  "Did you steal my money before you came up here?"

  The grimace on the fleshy, wan face abruptly changed to a scowl. And JJ tried to spit a globule of saliva at Edge. But he did not have the strength and it just dribbled out of his mouth, ran down his jaw, and dripped onto his shirt. "Pretty damn easy to call a dyin' man names, ain't it? I ain't never stole nothin' from nobody in my whole life, mister."

  "Obliged," Edge said and rose to his feet.

  "Hell, mister, don't leave me alone to die!" JJ pleaded, as the half-breed made to turn away from him.

  "It's what you'd do if I didn't come up here to the pass to insult you," Edge pointed out. continued his move away from the twice-wounded man.

  "Hell if I'd let any of them know I wasn't dead they'd have finished me."

  "So you wouldn't have died alone," came the reply as Edge stepped through the open doorway of the last structure left standing within the former army post.

  It had been a barrack in the old military days and required little alteration to serve a similar purpose for civilians of both sexes. Long and narrow, it had a row of beds down either wall, with one end curtained off by blankets hung from the rafters. It could accommodate twenty people sleeping one to a bed, but there was ample room for others on the floor. Most of the people staying here had cleared out all their personal possession for the ride to town, but here and there on the shelves above some beds were photographs, brushes and combs, and an occasional bottle of liquor—invariably opened.

  Edge grabbed the fullest bottle of rye and went back outside. JJ was still holding himself in a sitting posture, waiting intently for the half-breed to emerge from the building. He expressed relief when he saw him, and then managed to raise a grin of pleasure as he saw the bottle Edge was carrying. "Is that what I think it is?"

  Edge glanced at the label as he went down on to his haunches in front of JJ again. "It ain't the best, feller, but then I guess in your state of health, the best would be wasted on you."

  "In my state of health, even the worst there would likely taste like the best I ever had." He made to lift a hand and reach for the bottle, but then realized he would topple over. Disappointment clouded his small eyes and pulled his mouth into a strangely childlike set.

  "Take it easy, feller," Edge told him, and took the stopper from the bottle. He reached forward and tilted the bottle, then said, as the wounded man opened his mouth and drank greedily, "Was looking for money to pay you for allowing me and my horse to stay in your livery, JJ, when I found out I'd been robbed. You'll accept this liquor as payment in kind?"

  The liveryman was still drinking, and he got the peevish expression back on his face when the neck of the bottle was withdrawn from his lips.

  "You hear what I said to you?"

  “Sure.”

  "We have a deal?"

  "Sure."

  Edge allowed him to drink again and watched for a signal that he should pause. But no sign came, and the near three-quarters full bottle of rotgut liquor was emptied with just the one unwelcome interruption.

  The half-breed tossed the bottle away and took the makings from a shirt pocket. He remained close to JJ and leaned the Winchester against his leg as he rolled the cigarette.

  "Any more where that came from, mister?" the no longer wan-faced man seated on the ground asked.

  "Some."

  "I'd sure appreciate it if you'd go bring me some more, mister."

  Edge struck a match on the butt of his holstered Colt and lit the cigarette, replying on stream of smoke, "I don't steal for myself, feller. So I sure don't do it for other—"

  "You didn't have no money to pay me, so you didn't have none to buy that liquor you just give me." Now he was even talking as well as pouting like a spoiled child denied what has been demanded.

  "Robbed Peter to pay Paul. Figure to find Peter down in town and square things with him."

  JJ gave a throaty sound of disgust, looked long and hard up at Edge, decided the calmly smoking man was not going to be quickly persuaded, and so gingerly lowered himself down to his back again. By the time he achieved this, his face was beaded with sweat and some fresh moisture had broken through the crusting of old blood on his wounds. But John James had not cried out in pain. He simply sighed his relief when he was sprawled out on the ground in relative comfort after the agony of moving had subsided. Then he said, "You're a strange one and no mistake, mister. Maybe there's time left for me to straighten you out."

  "Strange but not queer, JJ," Edge reminded him evenly with the hint of a cold smile drawing back his lips and narrowing his eyes to the merest slivers of glittering blueness. "And I just told you I'm not a thief."

  "You ain't makin' no sense, mister."

  "Just that in no sense do I need to be straightened out on account of being bent."

  Chapter Ten

  "GUESS that's some kinda joke you just made, mister," JJ said through teeth clenched against the pain that it was getting harder for him to en­dure. "I ain't in any mood for them, though."

  "I won't make any more then," Edge told him evenly. "So what should we do while we wait for you to die?"

  "You're some kinda hard bastard!" the wound­ed man accused, then sighed and added, "yet in some ways you ain't. You're really gonna do like I asked and stay with me, ain't you?"

  "No sweat."

  "Why?"

  "Maybe because a night's board and lodging for me and my horse is worth more than a few swallows of cheap whiskey."

  "Balls!" JJ came back sneeringly, then winced and reached with both hands toward the injury at his crotch. But he stopped short and smiled briefly and without mirth. "Bad things for me to say."

/>   "Yeah, a sore point, JJ."

  "That's gonna be the death of me." Now the light of good humor shone in his small eyes. But only for a moment. "There has to be somethin’ more to it than you made out, mister. On account of you're smarter than that."

  "Smarter than what, JJ?"

  "You knew that if I'd took your money, I wouldn't come gunnin' for the Campbell bunch. And if I come for them, I wouldn't take your money."

  He gazed up intently at the tall half-breed with a cigarette angled from the side of his mouth and the Winchester canted to his left shoulder, tacitly pleading to be told the truth.

  "What do you want me to tell you, feller?” Edge asked flatly.

  John James made a low whistling sound and shook his head slowly from side to side twice. Then in an even, unstrained tone, he said, "You| know, mister, you're a lot like the kinda man comes to Cloud Pass. Reason you got cold-shouldered by a lot of folks down in Ridgeville."

  "No more than you," Edge pointed out.

  "Reckon not, mister. And when I look back on how I was when I first come to town, I can see how I was like the kinda man who comes up here. Changed some, I guess. With time. Don't set out to work so hard at bein' different from other folks. Just do what I wanna do and to hell with what them other folks think. You ain't no spring chicken no more, mister. Near about time you stopped actin' so mean when you ain't really feelin' that way. And pretendin' you're doin’ things good for the wrong reasons."

  "Like the hard men who come up to the pass when the going gets too hot other places, JJ?"

  The man on the ground grimaced. "I guess a guy like you gets around, mister. Guess you've met all kinds. Good and bad. But I doubt you ever come across a meaner bunch than some of them that hide out here. And none meaner than Craig and Ewan themselves. Outlaws every one of them. Wanted all over for every crime you can think of—and some you can't, maybe."

  Edge smoked his cigarette, mind as blank as the expression on his lean, heavy-bristled features, while the fire died and its light and warmth receded from the night.

  "Craig and Ewan worked for the company a year or so ago. Highballin' high climbers the both of them. And if you don't know the loggin' business, that means they were real fast at their job and they was the kind that went to the tops of the trees when high-lead loggin' was needed. Real risky to do." He grimaced, but this was due to present pain rather than bad memories. "Though lumber-jackin' was their business, they had other irons in the fire. Couple of territorial marshals from Arizona showed up in town one day. With warrants for the arrest of the Camp­bells. Charge of murder and rape.

  "Good old Bart, he went out with the two Ari­zona lawmen to bring in the Campbells from where they was workin' over to the other side of Indian Bluff. But Craig and Ewan, they must've seen them comin' and guessed what was up. Went for them with broadaxes. Just cracked good old Bart over the head. But when they was through with the Arizona guys, there wasn't hardly any­thin' left of them that was recognizable human." JJ was getting weaker and a new look showed on his face—fear. It could only be the fear of what lay beyond the threshold of beckoning death.

  Edge tossed the butt of his cigarette onto the dying fire that might or might not outlive the man and dropped to his haunches again. "If you figure another bottle will help, I guess I can run to—"

  'No, mister," JJ cut in. "Reckon I've drunk more than my fair share and maybe it'll go better for me if I ain't drunk when I get to the big roll call." His voice was not so strong now and he talked faster, anxious to get said what he wanted to say. He frowned, the wan and flabby flesh of his face creasing as he strained to recall where he had left off.

  Then: "That was the start of good old Bart's ruination. Him wakin' up to find them Arizona guys spread all over the place with what looked like more blood spilled than rain falls in a winter. And the Campbells hog-tied by a bunch of Ridgeville loggers who'd heard the rumpus and come runnin'. But he got the brothers back to town and locked in the cell of the law office. Then wrote a letter down to Arizona for somebody to come get them."

  JJ was gazing straight up at the starry sky. He rolled his eyes without moving his head to look at Edge and asked, "You like me well enough to roll me a cigarette, mister?"

  "No sweat."

  "Small enough thing after all the trouble you been to on my account, huh?" Another small smile, showing a great deal of strain this time.

  "I'll keep my hat on, feller."

  "Huh?"

  Edge had taken out the makings and was al­ready rolling the tobacco in the paper. "So as the light from my halo won't get in your eyes."

  JJ bared his teeth in a grimace of pain. "I'd have to be a real fool to call you a saint, mister."

  "And a fool you sure ain't, JJ," Edge answered, completing the cigarette, lighting it, and offering it to the dying man.

  "You'll have to take care of it for me, mister. It's like I'm paralyzed." He tried two draws of the cigarette, then coughed violently, cursing be­tween the spasms that triggered fresh pain from his bullet wounds. Fresh blood oozed out and spread over the caked blood. When the coughing fit was over, he growled, "Guess I'll give up smokin' as well as drinkin'."

  "And all the women left, JJ," Edge told him, then hung the cigarette to one side of his own mouth.

  "I give them up a long time ago, mister. Though it's gonna be one of my deathbed regrets that I never got to screw that prim and proper Emma Roche that keeps the boardin' house. Seen if I could've proved my belief that all she needs to make her human is only what a man can give her. Though I ain't a man no more, am I?"

  "Guess no life is ever long enough to do every­thing somebody wants, JJ," Edge muttered, as tears that were not caused by physical pain glis­tened in the small eyes of John James.

  "Frig it, I'm wanderin' and it ain't because I'm drunk. Appreciate it if you don't sidetrack me no more, mister. On account of I want to get this told." His moisture-sheened eyes directed a ques­tioning look at Edge, who remained impassive" Hell, I can see myself in you just like it was yesterday. When the only thing I was scared of doin’ was showin' my emotions."

  "You've been down that sidetrack and I didn’t say a thing, feller."

  "Shit!" He returned his gaze to the night sky and after perhaps three seconds of concentrated thought, he was able to recall the point at which he had broken off to request the cigarette. "Yeah, I remember. Couple of months after good old Bart wrote the letter, three guys showed up claimin' to be lawmen. But they didn't look like that was what they was. And they had a woman apiece who wouldn't've looked out of place in a two-dollar-a-trick whorehouse.

  "Me, I never reckoned good old Bart was took in by them guys. Said from the start he handed over the Campbells to keep them from startin' bad trouble in town. Others, they reckoned he was yellow. Or plain dumb. That he could've done somethin' to stop them Arizona lawman getting hacked to pieces. And he let the Campbells out jail because he was too scared to put up a fight." That, or he couldn't see the guys that come for them wasn't lawman like they claimed.

  "Hell, mister, good old Bart was the law in a 1ot of tough towns down south before he came to Ridgeville to retire."

  "He didn't die young."

  "Sure enough didn't. I reckon he was way past my age. A lot older than sixty. And all this I’m tellin' you, it happened only a little over a year ago. But he was a proud old guy and not suited to retirement. Just kinda appointed himself sheriff because Ridgeville didn't have no lawman. Not that it ever needed one until the Campbells came and brought trouble along with them.

  "But that ain't here nor there. I'm of the opinion that there was nothing good old Bart could do when the killin's happened over to the other side of Indian Bluff. And that he done what he did in the interest of Ridgeville folks when he turned the Campbells over to them other three hard men and their women." JJ directed a tacit challenge up at Edge, who continued to sit on his haunches and merely turned slightly to send his cigarette butt into the ashes of the fire.

  "I wasn't
there, so I can't know, one way or the other, JJ," he said.

  "Nor friggin' care!" came the snarling response. "Because good old Bart wasn't your only friend! And you'll be movin' on pretty soon! Not givin' a damn that he'll be buried in a town where every­one but me thinks he was a crazy old man who … Aw, dammit, I'm sidetrackin' myself again, ain't I?"

  "Yeah."

  The dying liveryman squeezed his eyes tightly shut and snapped them open again. A look of mel­ancholy spread across the mask of pain that had gripped his features several minutes ago. "The stars ain't any dimmer to you, are they?"

  Edge glanced skywards and answered, "No, JJ."

  "I can smell death."

  "Not your own, feller," the half-breed told him and wrinkled his flared nostrils as he looked around at the neat line of blanket-draped corpses and the sprawling, uncovered bodies. "Craig Campbell was wrong. The dead don't keep."

  "Whatever, I'm gonna be one of them pretty soon."

  "You been saying that for a long time now, JJ.”

  "Shit, you want me to say I’m sorry for takin' so long about it? Okay, I'm sorry I held you up!" He was still strong enough to be angry.

  "You didn't, JJ. Somebody else did. For the best part of a thousand dollars."

  "So go find out who it was and get your money back, mister," he invited, no longer enraged, hi tone almost sly. Then: "But you ain't ready to, are you? You're too interested in what I'm tellin’ you?”

  "Yeah, JJ," Edge answered. He knew it would not be long now, he could tell from the man’s abrupt change of attitude that he was not feelin’ pain anymore. That merciful numbness had come to the bullet-shattered areas of his body and then with the paralysis which gripped JJ's nervous system had come a euphoric sense of well-being—a feeling that was the very opposite of his true condition. "You tell me about it, JJ. Ridgeville people say you're a real good talker."

  "Ridgeville people!" the liveryman muttered and the smile that had started was abruptly clouded over with bitterness. "Who gives a shit about them? Let me tell you about Ridgeville people, mister."