‘Yeah,’ Bell agreed. ‘Until the friggin’ Captain took it into his head to blow the whole deal on account of Hal.’
When the head of the Rebel column had closed to within two hundred yards of the mouth of the gorge, Hedges pushed himself back from his vantage point, staying pressed hard against the tough grass.
‘The Captain ain’t no hero!’ Forrest snarled softly as he heard the clop of many hooves. ‘You guys have been through enough with him to know that. He don’t do nothin’ ‘less there’s a friggin’ solid reason for it. Like now, you lunkheads. You reckon he gives a shit for Hal’s hide? He gives about as much of a damn as you do. But them Rebs didn’t come after us ’cause they think we’re just ordinary horse thieves. Which makes us the problem of the local law.’
‘So?’ John Scott wanted to know as Hedges moved down into the scattering of boulders.
Everyone looked at the Captain, but Forrest wasn’t inhibited by his presence.
‘So, you stupid sonsofbitches!’ he snarled. ‘For the first time in his useless life, Douglas is important. Tell ’em, sir.’
The accuracy of Forrest’s reasoning was the latest example of his instinctive ability to lead.
‘The corporal has one slender chance of saving his skin,’ Hedges said as he crouched down and levered a shell into the Spencer. ‘When the chips are down, he’ll start to shoot off his mouth.’
‘Right!’ Forrest cut in. ‘He’ll tell the Rebs who he is and who we are. I reckon they’ll string him up anyway, do some figurin’ about us and send every spare man out huntin’ for us.’
The four enlisted men shrugged and grimaced, unconvinced that this was the true motive. But a glower from Forrest and an impassive look from Hedges sent them to their designated positions as the sound of approaching riders swelled.
‘And remember,’ the Captain rasped. ‘Just one Johnnie Reb escapes, it’ll make you right and me wrong.’
‘It might just be worth it,’ Seward growled, but low enough so that only Scott and Bell on either side of him heard the comment.
Then the Union men became silent and still in their hiding places, spread out at three yard intervals along the trail. For the Rebel troop, come to buy horses from the stud farm, were heading into the gorge. They didn’t have as many as they had been ordered to collect, and had paid with the lives of six of their number instead of Confederate dollars. The troop had comprised nineteen men. Now, as they held their own mounts, the pack animals and the depleted new stock to a steady walk on the trail between the strewn boulders and the river, there were just thirteen of them left.
It was an unlucky number.
Hedges fired the opening shot from ambush, but the others had taken first pressure on the triggers of their weapons and five more reports sounded as one an instant after the deadly signal.
The Rebel captain died without knowledge of what was happening. He was staring straight ahead, his mind concerned with the report he would have to give to his commanding officer. A single murdering horse thief for the loss of six fully trained troopers was in no way a good bargain. Then the bullet burst through his cheek, angled up into his brain and shattered the top of his skull to make its exit. Rhett shot one of the sergeants in the side and got lucky. The bullet glanced off a rib and found the non-com’s heart. The New Englander spent part of a second wishing it was Forrest who went sideways out of the saddle. Scott and Bell, their rifles at the bottom of the river, had to use the smaller caliber Colts. Two Rebel troopers went backwards off their mounts with blood blossoming over their uniforms from the holes in their stomachs. Forrest and Seward chose head shots. The sergeant’s bullet smashed into a victim’s nose, bored a hole through it and burrowed into the ear of the soldier riding alongside him. Seward scored a hit at his target’s throat and saw the man’s Adam’s apple plop out of the blood-torrenting wound.
All these Rebels save the officer had a split-second’s notice of what was about to happen. For, as the captain was blasted from his horse by his Union opposite number, every mounted man raked fear-filled eyes towards the boulders. And they saw the six water-logged men rise up and aim guns from a range of no more than four feet.
Abruptly, the gorge was filled with the confusing sounds of panic. Wounded men screamed in competition with the cries of their frightened comrades. Horses snorted and reared. Men cursed their animals and their attackers. Four men were sprawled dead on the ground amid the lashing, pumping hooves. Three more writhed in the agony of their wounds.
Then, as the surviving Rebel sergeant yelled an order, he and his men released reins and lead lines so that they could leap out of their saddles as they drew their guns. The Union men’s guns cracked a second time and only Bell and Scott scored fatal hits. Two Rebels ceased to lunge and became limp, flopping hard to the ground. The bullets lodged in their hearts ensured they did not feel the pain as their faces smashed against the rocks.
The Sergeant knocked aside Hedges’ Spencer as he leapt at the Captain. But his own revolver snagged on the holster and Hedges beat him to the draw as the weight of the man staggered him backwards. The Spencer exploded a wild shot to the side, driving lead into the head of a bolting horse. Then, as the Sergeant finally got his revolver free, one hand clawing for Hedges’ slitted eyes, the Captain pressed the muzzle of the Colt into the non-com’s belly and squeezed the trigger.
The Rebel staggered backwards, clutching at himself. ‘Jesus, that hurt!’ he groaned, remembered he had his gun out now, and tried to level it.
‘Go tell him personally,’ Hedges rasped, and shot the sergeant in the heart.
Rhett was a moment from death. He was flat on his back with a Rebel kneeling on his stomach. His assailant had a revolver pressed against the New Englander’s throat. Rhett’s mouth was gaping and his strident scream cut across every other sound in the gorge.
Hedges, Scott and Bell whirled towards the sound at the same moment, leveled Colts dragging only fractionally behind their searching stares. The three revolvers cracked in unison and the Rebel’s head seemed to explode under the impact of the bullets. A great deal of the showering blood and several pieces of torn flesh and splintered bone hit Rhett in the face. He gagged on the taste of warm gore that entered his screaming mouth.
Scott grinned at Bell. ‘Thought his kind liked eating head,’ he rasped.
Then both whirled around to search for new victims.
Take care of the wounded!’ Hedges yelled at them and they leapt across the boulders on to the trail, knowing exactly what the order meant.
Forrest and a Rebel were locked in mutual bear hugs, struggling for possession of a single Colt. Hedges reached the locked-together men in four long strides, hand streaking away from the back of his neck. The moon glinted on the blade of the razor, but the shine did not match the brightness of the killer look in the narrowed eyes.
The bastard’s mine!’ Forrest yelled.
But Hedges punched a hand between the two men and withdrew it just as fast. The honed edge of the razor slashed a lethally deep cut in the Rebel’s throat and he started to fall.
‘Make war, not love,’ the Captain rasped.
As the man slackened his grip, the life bubbling out of him, Forrest roared an obscenity and sent a bullet into the moistly gurgling mouth. Then he glared malevolently at Hedges, whirled, and saw Seward.
The young, baby-faced killer had his man backed up against a large boulder. The Rebel was twice his age and bigger and heavier. Blood was running from a gash on Seward’s temple and the Rebel trooper was trembling as he prepared to take the punishment for opening up the wound.
‘You’re a bastard, you know that?’ Seward rasped, aiming his Spencer at the man’s saliva-run mouth. ‘All Rebs are friggin’ bastards. But the friggin’ bastards who make me bleed are the worst kind of friggin’ bastards.’
‘Just kill him, trooper!’ Hedges barked.
‘Aw, let him be, Captain,’ Forrest defended, his anger subsiding as a mean grin spread across his face. ‘He’s
fightin’ for the Union. Gives him the right to make a Federal case outta it.’
‘I bleed, you bleed worse, you friggin’ bastard,’ Seward intoned, apparently deaf to the voices of his superiors.
Then he altered the aim of his rifle and fired two fast shots. First the terrified man’s right knee was shattered, then the left. The man screamed and fell to the ground.
Two more shots emptied the Spencer and smashed the Rebel’s elbows.
Forrest, with the grin still in place, and Hedges, whose killer look was transforming into an expression of disgust, raked their eyes away from Seward as he dropped the Spencer and drew his Colt. Scott and Bell had found four wounded men, too weak to resist. They had dragged them, face-down, to the mud at the river’s edge and were standing on the necks of the helpless men. All four died, smothered by the thick ooze that was sucked into their windpipes. Abruptly, Rhett leapt from the rocks, raced across the corpse-littered trail and went headlong into the water to wash the blood from his face and mouth.
‘He’s one of ours, for our sins,’ Forrest growled at Scott and Bell as Seward fired another shot.
Blood spurted from a fresh wound in the man the youngster had at his mercy, and yet he still lived. But Hedges knew better than to interfere. For it was in situations like this that his command over the men was at its most tenuous. He killed the enemy with the same brand of excited lust as the others but the exhilaration drained out of him immediately the job was finished. The men, once they had the upper hand, nurtured the way they felt and were determined to draw the last grain of pleasure from it. To try to curtail their enjoyment was to risk a mutiny: and if these men mutinied, killing Hedges would be the first act in the spontaneous plan.
So the Captain swung away from the brutal scene, striding deeper into the gorge, where a bunch of horses had halted and were standing nervously. And he once again rationalized the men’s behavior. They were soldiers in a bitter war and killing was their prime function. That they got so much satisfaction from slaughter was why they made such excellent soldiers. And the manner of the enemy’s dying was immaterial in the overall context of war. Just as long as they died.
A last shot crashed into the centre of the Rebel’s forehead and his groans of agony were silenced.
‘Did I make him pay, or did I make him pay?’ Seward yelled.
‘Disarmed and without a leg to stand on, Billy!’ Forrest answered happily. ‘He had to get the death sentence.’
‘And Rog and me sure rubbed these guys’ faces in it!’ Scott boasted.
Rhett, all traces of blood washed from his face, sat up in the river and splashed excitedly at the water, like a young child in his bath. ‘I killed me a sergeant, I killed me a sergeant!’ he chanted joyfully.
Forrest spat. ‘Ain’t he somethin’ else?’ he growled to anybody who cared to answer.
‘Don’t we all know it?’ Seward replied with a giggle.
The excitement of the killing and the heat of his anger gone, Hedges was calm again. Forrest had been only half right in guessing his reasoning for setting the ambush. The easy killings at the farm had gone part way to bolstering the men’s morale after the long lay-off. But now, after the massacre in the gorge, their spirits had soared to the zenith again. They had proved they were the best fighting unit in the war and were at the peak of readiness to go on proving it. All he had to do was make sure they had the opportunities and his command status was intact.
‘Gee, Captain, I just knew you’d come back for me,’ Douglas croaked and his voice put the complete seal of success on the operation.
As the men approached the bunch of nervous horses, Hedges went in among the animals and located the one with two forms slumped across it. He didn’t have to lift up the head of the dead man. The cowled habit marked the body as that of the dead monk. The congealed blood on the head covering told of the manner of his dying. Hedges crouched down at the side of the horse and stared up into the blood-crusted face of the Union man.
‘I told you to turn him loose, corporal,’ he said softly. ‘Why’d you kill him?’
Douglas’ happiness drained from his features and he found he was as afraid of Hedges as of the Rebels who had captured him. He thought fleetingly of lying, but had the unreasonable dread that the slitted blue eyes could see clear through into his brain. He gulped. ‘He got me mad, sir. He reckoned there was good in all men. I don’t like arguin’ with a guy who don’t know what he’s talkin’ about.’
Hedges nodded and stood up, taking out his razor. Slowly this time. He saw the others approaching: and the slumped, shattered and bloodied bodies strewn across the trail and over the rocks. He started to cut Douglas loose.
‘Hey!’ Rhett said, pointing to the body folded over the horse. ‘The monk’s dead.’
‘He won’t be tellin’ heaven nothin’ good about us, that’s for sure,’ Bell growled.
‘You waste him, Hal?’ Seward wanted to know, as the freed Douglas slid to the ground and stood there unsteadily, massaging the use back into his cramped limbs.
‘The monk was crazy,’ Hedges answered sadly. ‘Douglas beat some sense into him.’
Forrest moved up to the horse and lifted the cowl, exposing the massive wound in the father abbot’s skull. ‘Hal give him a pretty strong argument,’ he muttered with his tobacco-stained teeth displayed in an evil grin.
‘He was pretty crazy,’ Hedges answered, matching the sergeant’s expression of black humor. ‘But at least he died for his belief.’
Only Douglas was in a position to share the wryness of the comment, but he was too concerned with his own discomfort and was oblivious to all else.
‘In God?’ Forrest asked as he allowed the cowl to fall back into place.
‘In men.’
The sergeant didn’t understand, but he laughed. ‘A habit he got into, maybe?’
‘Somethin’ to do with his ordered way of life?’ Rhett suggested with a guffaw.
‘Yeah!’ Bell growled. ‘That’s why he bought it from the back. The monk went into retreat.’
* * *
THE treasurer brought Edge the promised thousand dollars and left without saying a word. The half-breed counted the money to pass the time. The three prisoners took it in turns to demand food and were ignored by the patient sheriff. But Gerstenberg had apparently paid heed to the earlier complaint, for as the courthouse clock struck the hour of seven, the lanky bartender from the saloon kicked at the now closed door of the law office.
Edge ambled across to open it and saw the man carried a tray with a cloth draped over it. The bartender was as nervous as the treasurer had been.
‘Steak, beans and grits for three,’ he said.
‘Somebody can’t count,’ Edge answered.
The bartender swallowed hard and thrust the tray towards him. ‘I don’t give the orders, sheriff. Just take ’em. Mayor reckoned that at your pay you don’t get all found. Said just the three suppers for the prisoners.’
The half-breed took the tray. ‘I’m ordering one more. Bring it.’
The tall, thin man gulped again, nodded, and turned away. Edge kicked the door closed to block out the cold night and carried the tray through the arch at the rear of the office.
‘About damn time!’ Lon growled. ‘Folks could starve for all you care.’
Melody showed Edge a taunting smile. ‘They also serve who only stand and wait,’ she said.
The half-breed set the tray down on the floor and drew off the cloth. The steaks looked good and there was plenty on the side. ‘I ain’t waiting, lady,’ he told her and picked up one of the plates and a knife and fork. Then he straightened and slid the tray under the high-hung door with his foot.
‘You’re real tough with these bars between us!’ Clayton snarled. ‘Or with a rifle in your hands.’
‘I’m a real tiger,’ the half-breed agreed. ‘The hungry kind right now.’
He carried the plate to the desk and sat down to eat. It was as good as it looked. The prisoners muttered am
ong themselves. Edge didn’t know who was left out, but he or she wasn’t denied for long. The bartender returned with another plate in less than five minutes.
Take it through,’ Edge told him, waving his fork.
‘That ain’t my job,’ the bartender protested nervously, peering across the office and through the archway. ‘Gettin’ close to prisoners.’
Edge chewed some steak. Tut up your right hand.’
‘Uh?’
‘Just do it.’
The bartender transferred the plate to his left hand and complied.
‘I formally swear you in as a deputy for one minute,’ Edge drawled. Then he grinned. ‘If any of those three back there try anything, yell. It’ll be an attack on a duly elected peace officer. No sweat. I’ll just kill them.’
‘Real friggin’ tough!’ Lon muttered.
The nervous bartender adopted Edge’s method of pushing the plate through the gap under the door. But he stood much further back. Then he left the office fast.
For a while, only the scrape of metal on china disturbed the peace of the law office. Outside, the town was as quiet as the whole of Death Valley and the twin ranges of mountains that formed it. The advanced years of the great majority of its population decreed that Monksville bedded down early.
‘You’re a waiter, sheriff,’ Melody said suddenly. ‘It’s why you’re here - a man like you in a place like this. Waiting for somebody.’
Edge had his feet back up on the desk, hat tipped forward over his forehead. ‘What’s your interest?’
‘Just making conversation,’ the woman answered indifferently. ‘These two aren’t any company at all.’
The half-breed became aware of the gentle snoring issuing from the cell. ‘We got nothing to talk about, lady. You’ve attended to your business and I’ll take care of mine when it comes.’
‘He really did rape me,’ she said insistently.
‘Ain’t arguing the fact.’
‘Knocked me out, tied me up and gagged me, then did it.’
Edge said nothing.
EDGE: The Final Shot (Edge series Book 16) Page 9
