‘Please, I just slept in the stable, that’s all. I didn’t mean no harm.’
Edge carefully refolded the telegraph, slid it into the envelope and put this back into the billfold. The question had been yelled by the old-timer who ran the way station. The reply was pitched higher: a younger voice, sounding like the speaker was little more than a boy. A very frightened one. There were no windows looking out from the back of the way station and Edge had to pull open the door to look across at the stable on the other side of a fenced yard.
He saw the old-timer backing out of the stable doorway. Beyond him, advancing from the deep shadows within the stable, was a youngster of about eighteen. Medium height, medium build and moderately handsome. Brown hair, and brown eyes staring out of a wan face. Dressed in torn and stained dungarees over a check shirt. His hat hung down his back from the neck cord looped around his throat.
‘You was tryin’ to steal a horse!’ Hochman challenged.
The youngster spotted Edge and stared, swallowing hard. Hochman glanced over his shoulder and now his weak eyes behind the lenses looked at the tall half-breed in the manner of one seeking an ally.
‘He was tryin’ to steal a horse, mister.’
Edge took the cigarette from the corner of his mouth and dropped it into the dust. He heeled out the red ambers. ‘Not mine, feller,’ he said evenly. ‘So it’s not my problem.’
The old-timer swung his head around to stare back at the youngster. ‘What you doin’ here, kid?’ he demanded. ‘How’d you get here?’
They were both nervy as they faced each other across a gap of ten feet, the old-timer out in the sunlight and the boy in the shadows of the stable doorway.
‘Look,’ the kid gulped. ‘I’m in trouble. Back in Monksville they say I did somethin’ I didn’t. I had to get out fast. My horse threw a shoe and split a hoof last night. I walked ten miles to get here. I really need a horse bad, mister. And I ain’t got no money to buy one.’
Hochman pointed a filthy hand past the boy into the stable. ‘Wouldn’t matter if you did have, son. Ain’t none of them animals for sale. And even if they was, I wouldn’t sell one to no outlaw. So you get on your way. And if the law officers come lookin’ for you, I’ll tell them you was here.’
‘You bastard!’ the boy yelled, his eyes bright with sudden anger and a threat of tears. ‘I didn’t do what they said I did.’
He pushed a hand into a side pocket of the dungarees and snatched out a Remington .44. With a gun in his hand, the anger calmed and the tears retreated. His arm was rock steady as he aimed the gun at Hochman.
‘Don’t be crazy!’ the old-timer croaked.
‘Not your problem, mister?’ the boy shouted at Edge, flicking his gaze towards the half-breed, then returning his attention to Hochman.
‘Ain’t my horses,’ Edge replied.
‘But he’s on the run from the law!’ the old-timer croaked. ‘He’s said so.’
‘That ain’t my problem, either,’ Edge answered. ‘Long time since I wore a badge.’
‘That’s not the point!’ Hochman yelled angrily.
‘Make it a habit to mind my own business, feller.’ His expression became pensive and he looked at the youngster. ‘One thing?’
‘Yeah, mister?’
‘How many horses in there?’
‘Eight.’
Edge looked at Hochman. ‘How many to make up a fresh team?’
‘Four. But that ain’t the point, neither. This kid is – ’
Hochman curtailed his protest as it became obvious Edge was not listening to him. He whirled to face the stable again and saw that the youngster had turned to go back inside. For long moments he stayed where he was. Then he lurched forward in a staggering run. The youngster heard the thudding footfalls and spun around. He had started to replace the Remington in his pocket, easing the hammer back to the rest as he did so. The sight of the old man running towards him re-kindled his old fear. A pitchfork was leaning against the wall just inside the doorway and Hochman snatched it up. As the wickedly pointed tines were aimed at the youngster, fear became panic.
His thumb, greased by sweat, slipped off the hammer and the gun exploded as he jerked it from his pocket. The bullet burst clear of the denim from which the dungarees were made and drilled a hole through the toecap of his right boot. Blood bubbled up through the punctured leather. He screamed and fell sideways. It saved his life, for at the moment he started to fall, Hochman hurled the pitchfork. The humble tool, become a deadly weapon, flashed past the youngster’s canting body and thudded into the front of a stall. The long handle quivered with the force of the impact.
His right leg paralyzed by the foot wound, the youngster had corkscrewed to the hay-and-dung littered floor. He landed on his back and his head swung one way and then the other. First he saw the wicked tines sunk into the wood. The horror this generated swamped his pain and, as he turned his face and the gun towards Hochman, yet another emotion altered the set of his features and expression in his eyes. He was gripped by an all-consuming rage.
Hochman, shocked by the violence of his own action, had pulled up short the moment the pitchfork left his grasp. Now his eyes begged for mercy and he thrust his arms out in front of him, hands splayed.
‘Please, son?’ he pleaded, the words shooting the mess of tobacco out of his mouth. ‘I went wild. You take a horse, I’ll lose my job. This is my life. I won’t have nothin’.’
But the youngster wasn’t listening. His rage remained high, but controlled. With slow deliberation, he cocked the Remington, then gripped the butt with both hands to steady his aim. Hochman’s words dried up as he stared into the gun muzzle. He clasped his hands at his chest, in prayer. Then he dropped hard to his knees, his body jolting with the impact. When he closed his eyes, the youngster lowered the aim of the gun and squeezed the trigger.
As after the first shot and scream, the stage line horses snorted and scraped at the ground in their stalls. But there was no panic among the well-schooled animals. Hochman toppled to the side and rolled on to his back. From the rear doorway of the way station, Edge saw the bright bloodstains spreading over the old-timer’s thigh before Hochman’s hands clawed at the bubbling hole. His scream faded into a low moaning sound.
‘He tried to kill me!’ the youngster snarled incredulously as he sat up. He stared frantically from the pain-wracked form of Hochman to Edge, who was leaning casually against the doorframe.
From far off to the south - beyond the rear of the stable - came the just discernible beating of many hooves against sun-baked ground. Edge didn’t answer. Merely cocked his head, listening to the approach of the horsemen. The youngster was too incensed to be aware of anything outside the bounds of his own hatred and rage, directed at the injured old-timer.
He tried to stand up, but putting weight on his holed foot exploded pain through him again. It served to stoke his emotions and he dragged himself with awkward haste across the littered floor. Just as agony fired his feelings, so the desire for revenge augmented his strength. He hauled himself upright by clawing at the stall. The Remington slipped from his sweating hand. An attempt to retrieve it almost toppled him and he abandoned the gun. Then, favoring his right leg, he jerked the tines of the pitchfork out of the wood. Using the implement as a crutch, he hobbled across the stable towards the moaning Hochman.
The horsemen were much closer now, the beat of galloping hooves seeming to visibly vibrate the foul air trapped inside the stable. But Hochman, awash in a sea of pain, and the youngster, gripped by a thirst for vengeance, did not hear the swelling sound.
The old-timer did sense new danger, and snapped open his eyes. He stared up through the smeared lenses of his spectacles and his moans of pain became a scream of terror. The youngster towered over him, standing on his one good leg. His hands were high above his head, fisted around the pitchfork’s pole. As he drove the tines downwards, he lost his balance and the falling weight of his body added to the power of the killing thrust. Petrified b
y fear, Hochman remained inert except for the quivering of his lips as he continued to vent the scream.
The four pointed curves of rusted metal plunged into the old-timer’s belly and sank deep. His scream rose to a crescendo as the skin was punctured. He was dead, and silent, a part of a second later when the tines went clear through him and jolted to a halt against the hard-packed ground beneath him. Rings of blood broadened their staining of the check shirt around each plugged wound.
The youngster released his hold on the pitchfork and flopped across the head of the dead man. He rolled off, on to his back.
‘He tried to kill me!’ he gasped, couldn’t hear his own words and raised his voice to a roar: ‘The old bastard tried to kill me!’
Then he realized why he had to shout and his rage became terror. Only now, as the horsemen reached the way station and skidded their mounts to dust-billowing halts, did the youngster become aware of them. He powered himself on to his belly and started to crawl back to the stall where he had dropped the Remington.
Edge knew he wouldn’t make it. The eight-man posse, only one of whom was wearing a badge, had stopped their rearing, snorting horses beyond the yard fence. All leapt from the saddles with guns drawn and scrambled over the fence. Two slowed as they approached Edge, covering him with Winchesters. The others, led by the sheriff, ran towards the stable doorway.
‘Hold it, Andrews!’ the lawman snarled as he skidded to a halt.
But the youngster kept on going, scrabbling at the ground with his hands and pushing hard with his good foot as the injured one dragged. The sheriff pumped a shell into the breech of his Winchester and squeezed the trigger. Dust showered down from the roof where the bullet smashed into a beam. The youngster froze.
‘That’s better!’ the sheriff muttered and everyone heard the soft-spoken words. For now, with everyone motionless, only the sounds of heavy breathing disturbed the silence.
‘Something you fellers ought to know,’ Edge said evenly, flicking his ice-cold stare between the tense faces of the two men who covered him. ‘I got an aversion to having guns pointed at me. I give people one warning. The second time it happens. I do more than talk about it.’
‘Clem, get the iron!’ the sheriff ordered. ‘Ben, tie up the prisoner.’
The two designated men tore their horrified gazes away from the gruesome sight of Hochman’s body pinned to the stable floor and advanced to do the lawman’s bidding. Then, when he was certain the situation was under control, the sheriff turned slowly to look across the yard at Edge. By accident or design, he allowed the Winchester barrel to sink towards the ground. He was a man of middle years, clean-shaven, bright-eyed and neatly groomed under the sweat and dust of a hard ride. He was about six feet tall and solidly-built. He tried to look impassive, but his full lips were slightly twisted with the image of the dead man fresh in his mind.
‘What part did you play in this, mister?’ he demanded, indicating the scene in the stable with a backwards gesture of his head.
‘They weren’t playing,’ the half-breed answered flatly.
‘You were a witness?’
Edge pointed a long, brown finger at the two men covering him. ‘Tell them to aim the rifles someplace else.’
The bright eyes of the lawman raked Edge from head to toe and recognized the latent menace in the man. But he also realized the half-breed wanted no part of the trouble unless he was forced into it. He nodded to his men and the Winchesters dropped their aim towards the dirt.
‘Obliged,’ Edge said with a sigh. ‘The young guy was trying to steal a horse. The old-timer tried to stop him. The young guy didn’t cotton to that. The young guy shot himself in the foot. He didn’t cotton to that, either. He got mad and killed the old-timer.’
‘And what did you do while all this was going on?’ the lawman asked as the trembling and sobbing Andrews was dragged out of the stable.
‘Watched.’
The sheriff expressed contempt. ‘Just watched? Didn’t you try to stop it?’
Edge spat into the dust outside the doorway and dug into his shirt pocket for the makings. ‘Was none of my business.’
The fervent buzzing of flies feeding on the congealing blood of Dan Hochman provided a low-key background to the youngster’s diminishing sobs. Every other man in the posse stared at Edge in the same manner as the sheriff.
‘Your kind make me sick to my stomach!’ the lawman snarled at the half-breed.
Edge ran his tongue along the gummed side of the cigarette paper. His eyes - no more than narrow glints of blue between the lids - shifted their stare from the lawman to the youngster. ‘Don’t know if it’ll help, feller,’ he replied as he struck a match on the doorframe. ‘But why don’t you take Andrews?’
The sheriff grimaced and swung towards the two men who had dragged the youngster from the stable by the shoulder straps of his dungarees. Andrews’ hands were lashed together at his back by his own bootlaces. ‘Load him on a horse.’ He indicated two other men with his free hand. ‘Take that thing out of the body and load both. We’ll need the pitchfork for evidence.’
The men did as instructed. Those in charge of the prisoner handled him roughly. Those handling the dead man did their chore gingerly. Everyone pointedly avoided looking at Edge as the half-breed calmly smoked his cigarette. Then, all the posse except for the lawman remounted their horses on the far side of the fence.
‘You’ll be needed in Monksville for the trial,’ the sheriff rasped. ‘Got a horse?’
‘Out on the trail. Dead.’
‘How?’
‘I shot him. His unlucky day. Your lucky one. Waiting for the ten o’clock stage into Monksville. If you hold the trial while I’m in town, you’ve got nothing to worry about.’
The sheriff scowled. ‘Your kind always worry me, mister.’
‘Obliged for your concern.’
Now the lawman spat. ‘What’s your name, mister?’
‘Edge.’ He looked hard at the sheriff, but the name produced no reaction and he had already shown he was not good at concealing his emotions.
‘What Edge?’
‘Just Edge.’
‘Okay. I’m Bill Harman. Be in my office when the stage reaches Monksville. Right next door to the depot. We can get a conviction without your evidence, but I’m telling you to be on that stage.’
‘I told you already, sheriff. I intend to be on the stage.’
Harman nodded, spun around and strode across the yard. The lanky, square-faced man named Clem led the sheriff’s horse close to the fence and Harman swung into the saddle from the top rail.
‘You’re trusting him to come in on his own, Bill?’ the short, paunchy, round-faced Ben asked.
‘Why the hell shouldn’t he?’ Harman growled. ‘What’s he got to lose except a little time telling the judge what he saw here?’
He glared at Edge and received a nod of agreement.
‘I’ll be there, sheriff.’
‘And you’ll stay to watch the hanging, I’m betting,’ Harman responded with heavy contempt, his words springing a gasp of despair from the prisoner.
Then Harman raised a hand high in the air and thrust it forward. He and the rest of the posse slammed their heels against the flanks of their mounts and the horses lunged back on to the trail and were turned to head south. The group went out of sight behind the bulk of the stable. When they reappeared, they were enveloped in the dust cloud raised by the pumping hooves. By the time Edge had smoked his cigarette the sound of the posse’s departure had faded and a leaden silence was pressing down over the mountains which formed the eastern side of Death Valley.
Because he needed to get to Monksville and the stage would require a fresh team to take him there, the half-breed ambled across the yard and into the stable to feed and water the horses. The big, strong, well-cared-for animals eyed him balefully as he attended to their needs.
‘Yeah, I know,’ he rasped. ‘But I got my own problems.’
One of the horses snorted,
baring his yellow teeth.
‘The old-timer shouldn’t have pitched in,’ Edge growled. ‘His fault he got stuck with it.’
CHAPTER TWO
IT was the first syllable in the name of the town towards which he was headed that awoke a memory in Edge’s mind as he re-entered the way station and stretched out on a bench in the public room. That, and the fact that the youngster with the lethal temper was destined to be hanged. For, way back in the April of 1864, it was in a monastery that he and six Union troopers under his command got their first period of rest after escaping execution in a Richmond prison.
They were still in Rebel-held territory, south east of the Confederate capital and a mile north of where the James River cut a long curve through the lush Virginia countryside on its way to the Atlantic Ocean. But they were more secure than they had been at any other time during the long, violent, and bloody War Between the States. For the high-walled monastery, in its idyllic pastoral setting at the foot of a grassland slope, had been thoroughly searched by Rebel soldiers only hours after the Union men blasted their way inside. The Confederates had failed to find the wanted escapees and had left. There was no reason for them to return and, since the monks were self-supporting, no need for anyone to venture outside further than the sloping meadow where the livestock grazed.
So, apart from ensuring that the neutral monks confined themselves to their religious and household pursuits, the seven Union men who had tried unsuccessfully to assassinate the Confederate President, Jefferson Davis, had nothing to do except rest and recuperate. But, because of the basic nature of some of the men and the aggression which war had instilled in others, this period of inactivity could not last for very long.
It endured until mid-July, the troopers becoming progressively more disenchanted with their inactivity as, unknown to them in the distant theatres of war, the fortunes of the Union and the Confederacy swung this way and that. The shoulder wound Captain Josiah C. Hedges had suffered on the run down the James River on a Rebel ironclad healed. So did the bullet hole in the arm of Corporal Hal Douglas. Both men, together with Sergeant Frank Forrest and Troopers Billy Seward, Bob Rhett, John Scott and Roger Bell, ate well and slept a great deal. They grew fit and filled out, replenishing their bodies and spirits after a long period of deprivation. The sun shone and their no longer haggard features became tanned. The battles at Jenkins Ferry, The Wilderness, New Market and Cold Harbor were fought, won, and lost. The Union laid siege to Petersburg, Virginia and, off the coast of France, sank the Rebel ship Alabama. A Confederate thrust reached the outskirts of Washington D.C. before it was repulsed. Then, on the day that the Union forces under Major-General A. J. Smith routed the Rebels in the Battle of Tupelo - July 15 - Hedges knew it was time to re-join the war.
EDGE: The Final Shot (Edge series Book 16) Page 2
