EDGE: Town On Trial

by George G. Gilman

  ‘Jesus Christ Almighty!’ a man said shrilly.

  ‘Don’t Edge!’ the woman implored.

  The threatened captive was on the point of passing out, until Edge jerked him forward: up off the floor and folded across the counter.

  ‘Why me?’ he whined.

  ‘Luck of the draw, feller,’ the half-breed said evenly and distinctly, the words silencing the protests of the other men. Then continued in the same tone: ‘Hear tell this is a decent, law-abiding town. Met up with the preacher who should have told all you decent people about some laws that were made before Washington or Austin were ever thought of. This is the one about an eye for an eye.’

  ‘Oh, God,’ the clerk groaned. ‘What’d I do?’

  Edge ignored him to rake his eyes over the shocked faces of the arc of men in back of the helpless captive. ‘Clock’s busted so you fellers will have to hope my idea of a minute is the same as yours.’

  ‘Edge!’ Crystal Dickens pleaded.

  ‘Shut up, lady. A minute is how long you got to bring Moses back here. He ain’t back by then, this feller will only see half of what happens next. I’m counting.’

  ‘But mister, we—’ a merchant started.

  ‘He’s countin’, damnit,’ a farmer cut in. And led the hurried mass exodus.

  Booted feet thudded against the stoop, then on the street. Voices were raised to panic-pitch. Names, among them Drabble, Huber and Marlowe were mixed in with the shrieked explanations of what had happened in the saloon.

  Beads of sweat squeezed from the clerk’s pores and ran down the trembling flesh of his face. ‘Why me, mister?’ he blurted again. ‘It wasn’t my idea to—’

  ‘Guess Moses is thinking along the same lines, feller,’ the half-breed rasped. ‘It wasn’t his idea he should tend bar in this place.’

  ‘Edge, this is making you the same kind they are,’ the woman squeezed out through her fear-constricted face.

  ‘I already told you, lady. I am what I am.’

  One pair of running footfalls sounded on the street. Then Moses shouted, ‘Mister, mister! They turned me loose! I ain’t hurt!’

  He staggered up onto the stoop and burst in through the batwings, put both hands on a table and leaned forward, sucking in breath.

  Edge slid the razor back in the neck pouch with the same smoothness as he had drawn it. But there was no finesse in the way he dragged the clerk along the shard-and beer-scattered top of the bar counter. Then moved to the doorway, still gripping the hapless man’s lapels. Not until he was out on the stoop did he release his grip, and with a nod of the head signaled that the clerk should go to join the group of upwards of fifty men and women gathered at the meeting of Lone Star Street and White Creek Road. A young woman broke free from the throng and ran to meet the clerk, a smile of joy wreathing her tear-streaked face. While those who remained at the corner directed mass malevolence toward the tall, lean half-breed.

  ‘Get outta this town, mister!’ the massively-built blacksmith shouted. ‘You don’t fit in with us or our ways! And if you don’t go while you’re able, you’ll get carried out! ‘Cause we wouldn’t even want your corpse stinkin’ up our cemetery!’

  ‘Quit that kinda talk, Marlowe!’ Jake Huber snarled. ‘You all right, Rex?’

  ‘Sure, Jake,’ the clerk answered, leaning against the woman who had come to meet him. ‘Shook up is all.’

  ‘I ain’t meanin’ that any of us folks will see the stranger gets what’s comin’ to him, Jake!’ Marlowe snarled. ‘Be taken care of when the Howlin’ Coyote boys come to town!’

  Cheers and yells of agreement greeted the blacksmith’s words, as the group broke up and moved from sight around the corner.

  ‘I couldn’t shout or nothin’,’ Moses explained over the batwings. ‘Come up behind me and put a hand over my mouth. Took me into the back room of Mr. Green’s grocery store. Mrs. Green, she give me a cup of coffee. I knowed they wouldn’t hurt me none. Folks here, they ain’t got nothin’ against me except the color of my skin. They treat me real good.’

  ‘Long as you sleep in a stable and don’t stand too close to whites, uh?’ Edge murmured.

  ‘That’s right, mister. And that’s all right with me. I’ve had a whole lifetime to get used to things that way and I got used to it. Reckon I’ll go finish the cookin’ now.’

  His tread as he moved across the saloon sounded as morose as his tone.

  Then Crystal’s face appeared above the batwings, expressing a mixture of anger and sadness. ‘Guess he summed it up better than everyone else who’s been on at you, Edge. This town may not be perfect, but the people who live here are happy with the way things are. And what right have you to come here and try to change everything?’

  ‘Lady?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘If you can’t stomach the stink, get out of the latrine.’

  ‘Oh . . . you’re as stubborn as a mule and twice as foolish.’

  ‘That could be the point,’ he answered pensively. ‘For awhile I’ve come to a fool stop.’

  Chapter Eight

  WORD that Moses had left his job at The Lucky Break saloon spread through town as quickly as earlier turns of events had come to the ear of every interested party.

  Probably everyone in Irving knew about it before Edge and Crystal Dickens, who did not find his note until after they had eaten the meal he cooked and took their dirty dishes out to the kitchen.

  Mister, you been good to me and you don’t deserve no more trouble on account of me. While I was with Mr. and Mrs. Green, them and lots of other folks said I could work at fetching and carrying for them. Won’t pay as good as the work I done for you, but I reckon it will be best for everyone. Moses. P.S. Soon as I got ten dollars. I’ll pay you back for the new clothes.’

  Neither the half-breed nor the woman said anything after they had read the note. But she sighed and smiled relief while he used the paper on which the message was written to get a light from the stove for his cigarette. Then he went out into the saloon and she washed the dishes before calling that she was going up to her room to sleep for an hour or so. Her tone of voice carried no implied invitation for him to join her and at the top of the stairway she closed her door quietly.

  The river rippled and gurgled. Flies buzzed. The timber of the saloon’s fabric creaked in the afternoon heat, then again as the cooler air of evening flowed down from the hills of the Howling Coyote range.

  It was three hours later, with the light of the setting sun tinged red beyond the shadow it cast of the saloon, when Crystal Dickens came down the stairs and asked sourly:

  ‘None of them had the moral courage to come in yet?’

  ‘Maybe it’s just they all drink tea in the afternoon around here.’

  ‘I could use some coffee. You?’

  ‘Obliged.’

  Within a few minutes the aroma of freshly brewing coffee infiltrated into the saloon and Edge lit one of the kerosene lamps to shed light on a section of the bar. Was just replacing the chimney when the batwings swung and the aristocratic old lady said,

  ‘Good evening to you, young man. A shot glass of Bourbon with water on the side, if you please.’

  ‘You’re a creature of habit, ma’am,’ Edge answered as the woman sat in the same chair she had used at noon.

  ‘That I am,’ she acknowledged with a sigh. ‘But at my time of life the noon and sundown drinking is the only bad one left to me. The boy has gone, I understand.’

  ‘I’ll get it,’ Crystal offered as she came through the doorway from the rear, and set down two cups of steaming coffee on the bar.

  ‘It won’t mean the end of your troubles will it?’ the old lady asked as Edge took his coffee to the usual table and Crystal supplied her with her ordered drink. ‘You take care in your dealings with Joseph Love, young man.’

  ‘You know him, Mrs…?’ Crystal asked from behind the bar where she was sipping her coffee.

  ‘Mortimer, my dear. Winnifred Mortimer of the San Francisco family
. I heard of Mr. Love from my travelling companions who joined the stage at El Paso. It was not my intention to eavesdrop but within the confines of a moving stage coach when people must shout to be heard, everyone hears. Partners in the meat-canning business, it seems. Hopeful of arranging supplies of beef from Mr. Love. But wary. By all accounts, the gentleman is a hard and some say ruthless individual. A bad enemy and an untrustworthy friend.’

  ‘You got an axe to grind, ma’am?’ Edge asked.

  Mrs. Mortimer, who sipped her drink and savored its taste like it was the last one she was destined to enjoy, shook her head. ‘No, young man. I am merely an elderly lady recently widowed. Well provided for with money which my late husband amassed from many enterprises. Beef, mining, railroads and crops. For more years than I care to remember, Arthur and I lived in the lap of luxury while men from the Pacific to the Atlantic shores sweated and suffered and sometimes died to pay for our comforts. Arthur never would bring me to see where our wealth came from. But when he passed on, there was nothing to stop me coming.’

  She finished her whiskey and drank half the water before she stood up. ‘Those meat men,’ she went on as she placed a dollar on the table top. And shifted her intent gaze between Edge and Crystal. ‘It could have been Arthur they were talking about. Or many of his friends who he drank and played cards with. Fine, decent men for most of the time. But monsters if the circumstances called for it. And opposition from the wrong quarter was enough to bring out the worst in them. So beware. The richer a man is, the more powerful enemy he makes.’

  Slow-moving hooves clopped on the bridge, the horse favoring one of its forelegs.

  ‘I appreciate your concern, Mrs. Mortimer,’ Crystal said, showed a flickering smile to the old lady and then scowled toward Edge. ‘But this gentleman considers himself invincible.’

  ‘San Francisco, New York, West Coast, East Coast,’ the half-breed drawled, pointing a finger at each woman in turn. ‘Been there and a lot of places in between. Come up against a lot of rich men. Different kinds, but they all had one thing in common. Not one of them had enough folding green to stop a bullet.’

  The old lady smiled.

  ‘That’s your answer to every problem, isn’t it Edge?’ Crystal Dickens flung at him. ‘If anyone disagrees with you, hurt him!’

  ‘Such conflicts as these are what I left San Francisco to see,’ Mrs. Mortimer said, still smiling. ‘Good evening to you.’

  ‘What are you staying around to see, lady?’ the half-breed asked.

  ‘Justice done,’ she answered tersely.

  ‘Edge!’ Sheriff Wilde called wearily from the street as the horse was halted.

  He rose and went out onto the stoop. A half moon was low in the sky, glitteringly bright and casting long, sharply defined shadows. Wilde had been leading his horse by the rein and both man and animal looked close to exhaustion.

  ‘Threw a shoe halfway between the Howling Coyote ranch house and town.’

  ‘We all have our troubles, feller.’

  Wilde spat into the dust. ‘Don’t invite more than you’ve got, mister. I talked with Joe Love about the sharpshooter on his property. He agrees that unless some other hot shot rifleman has come to this part of the country, Hal Crowley is the only one could’ve placed a bullet that close over such a range.’

  ‘Love put up bail for Crowley, too?’

  ‘Crowley ain’t around,’ Wilde growled. ‘He’s out line-ridin’ somewhere on the Howlin’ Coyote. Been gone three days. But hands come and go all the time from the bunkhouse and there’s a chance one of them met up with Crowley and told him about the bind Warford’s in. Love told me he’ll bring Crowley to town if he shows up before they leave for the trial tomorrow. And he will, mister. Joe Love’s fixin’ to be mad as hell at Crowley if it turns out he did fire that shot.’

  ‘Know how he feels, Sheriff.’

  Wilde’s weary face became hard-set. ‘Like I told you before I took the trouble to ride out to Love’s place, mister. I intend for the circuit judge to settle all this. And I ain’t about to show fear or favor over who’s the accused and who’s the witness.’

  He realized suddenly that he had lost the half-breed’s attention. And he needed to move back alongside his lame horse to be able to peer through a gap in the trees and see what had captured Edge’s interest. Four riders cantering their horses along the moon-whitened trail as yet a half-mile east of the bridge. After watching them for a few moments, the lawman grunted his impatience and growled: ‘I’m through givin’ out any more warnin’s,’ then led his horse to the end of the road and around the corner onto Lone Star Street.

  ‘I’ll give you one more, Edge,’ the blonde woman said coldly over the tops of the batwings. ‘Those men heading for town might very well be hired gunslingers.’

  He shot an impassive glance over his shoulder at her before returning his gaze to the riders.

  ‘Damn you!’ Crystal blurted. ‘Aren’t you interested in anything but yourself?’

  ‘No, lady,’ he answered flatly.

  She gasped, then sucked in her breath. ‘Well this affects you. While we were down in the funeral parlor waiting for Mr. Barlow to get things started, Estelle Donnelly told me what she planned to do with the money from selling this place. She was going to San Antonio to hire men. She’s sure that no jury of Irving people will bring in a guilty verdict against Warford. Joseph Love is too rich and powerful, just like Mrs. Mortimer said. And if things don’t go the way he wants, he’ll make others suffer worse than himself. The ordinary people around here, they haven’t got the courage to stand up against Love. So Estelle Donnelly plans to see that this time Love doesn’t get his own way.’

  ‘Uh, uh,’ Edge muttered.

  ‘Don’t you see, it’s nothing to do with us?’ she said with tightly controlled anger. ‘All we have to do is tell the court what happened when Warford killed Donnelly and have done with it. We’re not on either side and we should have the sense not to get caught in the middle.’

  ‘You hear me tell anyone I planned to do anything else, lady?’ the half-breed asked as the four riders slowed their mounts to a walk for the bridge crossing.

  ‘No, no I didn’t,’ she answered quickly. ‘But you don’t seem to care who you rub up the wrong way. And in the kind of trouble that’s brewing in this town, one wrong word could bring . . . well, let’s face it, Edge you’ve managed to set everyone against you. So if you need any help, you’re going to have a hard time finding it.’

  ‘If you see me looking, lady,’ the half-breed said softly, ‘you can quit worrying about me. And go see Barlow about burying me.’

  ‘You arrogant sonofabitch!’ she snarled at him and whirled away from the batwings to stride angrily across the saloon.

  ‘This the place that used to be called the Red Dog?’ one of the strangers asked as all four swung down from their horses.

  ‘You got it,’ Edge answered as they hitched the reins to the rail.

  They looked like gunmen. All dressed in black from Stetsons to riding boots, wearing short-length coats against the cold of night, hiked up on the right to expose the butts of their holstered revolvers. Men in their late twenties and early thirties with implacable expressions on their lean, unshaven and dirt-grimed faces. All of them tall and thin with something eager and hungry in their attitudes.

  ‘New owner?’ their spokesman asked.

  ‘Two out of three.’

  ‘Two’s all I asked, mister.’

  ‘The place is open. You don’t want to come in, move your mounts away from my rail. I run a saloon, not a rose garden. So I don’t need your horseshit.’

  ‘A hardcase, Curly,’ the red-headed and youngest man growled with an evil grin displaying his crooked teeth.

  Curly lashed out to the side and hit him hard across the belly with the back of his forearm. Hard enough to force a gasp of pain through the gritted teeth. ‘Shut up, Shaft!’ he snarled. Then nodded to the half-breed. ‘Need rooms. And a little something to wash the
trail-dust from our throats. And it sure looks like you could use the business.’

  He had stepped up onto the stoop and was looking into the deserted saloon. Edge turned and went through the batwings which flapped closed behind him. From in back of the bar counter, he invited,

  ‘Four of what?’

  Curly said, ‘Glasses and one bottle of rye whiskey, mister,’ as he pushed through the doors and the other three black-clad men followed him. ‘You’re Edge, right?’

  ‘Four glasses,’ the half-breed said, grouping them on the counter. ‘And four times right.’ He placed an uncorked bottle beside the glasses as the men bellied up to the bar-front and each reached for a glass ‘The Donnelly woman tell you anything else about me but my name?’

  Curly drew the cork from the bottle with his teeth and continued to expose them in a grin as he poured whiskey into the glasses. ‘Somethin’ that Shaft here seems to have forgot, Mr. Edge. That you and a gun go together just like kerosene and fire.’

  He threw down the drink in one and poured himself another.

  Shaft rasped, ‘I ain’t friggin’ scared of nobody with a gun, Curly. Long as I got mine.’

  ‘Somethin’ else the mouth here has overlooked. You’re with Mrs. Donnelly. You figure that cowpuncher oughta be hung for what he did.’

  The other three finished their drinks, but waited for Curly to refill the glasses.

  ‘So let’s all stay cool, calm and collected,’ the group’s spokesman advised. ‘Ain’t no sense in there being any trouble before there needs be.’

  ‘So what the hell we gonna do to fill in the time, Curly?’ the man with a livid knife-scar curving down his right cheek growled. ‘I had somethin’ goin’ for me with that little Mex gal in San Antone.’

  ‘The blonde this guy ruffled up when we arrived looked mighty interestin’,’ the tallest-by-an-inch man added dully, but with a leer twisting his mouthline.

  ‘She for sale?’ Curly asked.

  ‘Depends what mood she’s in,’ Edge answered.