‘Don’t know about the plans of you fellers, but I’m leaving,’ Edge said, wheeling his horse gently to head him towards the south.
The injured man inside the Rio Grande Restaurant gave a louder moan: just high enough to reach out into the sunlight.
‘What happened to Harv London?’ Harding demanded, staring at the open doorway and trying to penetrate the deep shade inside.
‘Guess you could say his face come apart,’ Edge called over his shoulder as he urged the stallion forward. ‘Why don’t you fellers locate the town doctor and go and join him.’
Chapter Two
THERE was a river - a tributary of the Rio Grande border marker between Texas and Mexico - that flowed slow and shallow down the entire length of Woodrow Ryan’s valley. And it was on a bend of this river, where it cut from the west to the east and ran into an extensive stand of timber, that the tall half-breed made night camp.
He knew he was still on land claimed by the Big R for he had ridden at a measured, easy pace through the heat of the afternoon and the coolness of evening. Greenville was long out of sight behind the rolling green hills and rocky outcrops that featured the valley floor and gently sloping sides. He had angled off the main trail to El Paso soon after leaving town, to follow a series of loops and spurs that linked small farmsteads set amid the swathes of cornfields and spreads of pastureland. There were women and children doing the chores close to the houses. Men worked in the fields or rode herd on grazing cattle. Heads were raised and eyes watched him. But nobody ever called out a greeting and Edge never rode close enough to invite conversation.
Then, as twilight spread down over the valley in the wake of the setting sun, the worked land slid behind the lone rider astride the big stallion. And he entered the wild, undeveloped country. Immediately, the atmosphere changed, and he knew it had nothing to do with the coolness of the evening air after the heat of the day. Nor was it entirely because he was alone again - the way he liked to be. He did feel, and relish, the experience of once more being the ultimate loner: totally on his own, self-reliant and requiring nothing of nobody but himself.
But, as he gathered wood from the fringe of the timber stand, lit a fire, scooped water from the river and boiled it for coffee - he thought about why the sensation of being alone should be so intense and so gratifying.
It was unconnected with the break away from the Big R hands. Such incidents he took for granted. He either survived or he did not. If he survived, it was never with a sense of triumph. For, by decree of a cruel fate, he survived only to face a new danger from a new quarter. Perhaps from the same one in this case, for he had not covered more than three-quarters of the twenty mile trespass limit Harv London had spoken of.
It was one of the many lessons he had learned during the brutal and bitter fighting between the Union and the Confederacy. If a man indulged in the luxury of a false sense of security at the end of a successful battle, it could blunt his quality of alertness when the next bout of violence exploded.
Then, as he sipped at his first mug of coffee and smoked a cigarette, the pensive half-breed pinned down the reason for which he had been searching. It was the people of the town and the valley farmsteads he was glad to put behind him. Or, rather, the mood of the people which generated an atmosphere even more oppressive than the Texas heat. An atmosphere comprised of many emotions: all of them bad. Of fear, of sadness, of depression and of despair. But, most of all, perhaps, of disappointment.
As Edge drank his second cup of coffee and smoked another cigarette, his contentment was complete. Now that he knew what had been troubling him about Greenville and the valley, he was able to clear his mind. Because it was not his concern.
He looked up at the clear sky hung with a half moon and myriad stars and decided the night was not going to get cold enough to warrant a fire. So he added no kindling to the flames before stretching out on the soft turf of the river bank and drawing a blanket over his fully clad body. He lay with his right arm under the blanket, hand draped over the butt of the Army Colt. His left arm was outside, brown-fingered hand on the grass within an inch of the Winchester’s brass frame. His hat was tipped forward over his face to shield his eyes from the bluish light of the moon and stars.
His mind, hovering on the blurred dividing line between waking and sleeping, played host to many memories. Of a town called Hate where fear was the main contributory factor to the tension that was wrapped around every citizen and every building. Another town called Rainbow where he had come closest to dying. Summer, where he met Elizabeth Day. Peaceville where Jamie’s killers paid so highly for their crime. Seascape and a girl in a golden cage. Andersonville in the war. Richmond and Jefferson Davis. Oregon, the Dakotas, California, Mexico and Nevada. Places and people crowded in on Edge’s mind. Places where the people or the Government paid him money to make trouble his concern. Just a few places where love for a brother and a different kind of love for a wife gave him a less venal and far more powerful motive to concern himself.
Then, as they always did, the images from the violent past retreated before the man’s need for rest. And Edge slept, between the fire and the slow-moving river, behind a low hump two hundred yards from the fringe of trees. But it was no ordinary sleep. It never was, even when he was totally immune from danger. Experience of walking the thin dividing line that separated troubled life from sudden death had formed his sleeping as well as his waking habits. And at rest there was even more of the animal about Edge. For, while he relaxed and replenished the store of energy depleted by the day, a part of him remained strangely alert to what was happening around him. Some kind of sixth sense was awake and attuned to pick up the first hint of danger. And, once its warning was transmitted to the man’s mind, his physical being was immediately roused and prepared for defense and retaliation.
A pebble rattled against a rock.
The half-breed’s eyes snapped open against the solid darkness beneath his hat. He knew the sound had come from beyond the hump of ground - over towards the trees.
‘Quiet, you damn fool!’ a man rasped.
They were out of the trees. Less than fifty yards away. At least two of them.
‘Yeah, watch it, Kelsey. This guy is likely to be real twitchy.’
At least three of them. Moving very quietly now, their foot-falls not making a sound against the springy turf. Edge released the butt of his Colt and drew his right arm out from under the blanket. He slid his hat off his face. The moon had changed its position a little. The fire was no more than a patch of grey and black ashes with just a tiny glow of red here and there. Edge guessed he had been sleeping about two hours. He drew in a silent breath and raised the back of his head off the ground. Nothing showed against the silvered river on his right. On his left and beyond his splayed legs a broad arc of flat terrain was empty. They had not started to circle him yet.
His left hand had closed around the frame of the Winchester immediately he awoke. There was no need to pump the action for the first shot. There was already a bullet in the breech and the hammer was back. The breath was let out of his lungs as silently as he had sucked it in. One of the men approaching him was breathing with a lot more noise. Edge drew fresh breath and powered himself into a roll. The blanket went with him and was under his belly as he stopped the roll, elbows stabbing into the turf, stock-plate against his shoulder and eye behind the back-sight of the Winchester. The barrel of the rifle was tilted over the crest of the hump, aimed down the shallow fall off of land towards the timber.
The three men were less than sixty feet away, rooted to the ground by the shock of the half-breed’s sudden move. Edge saw them only in silhouette, solid black against the slightly lighter coloration of the trees behind them. But the attitude of their frozen stance made it obvious they had rifles thrust out in front of them.
The Winchester exploded three times in quick succession, the shots separated by the minimum time it took a man to pump the rifle’s action. The men yelled with one voice at the sound
of the first shot. By the time the third report sounded against the night, every rifle had been hurled to the ground and every arm was flung high in the air. The three bullets had crashed and thudded into the trees by then, after cracking within an inch of the head of each man.
‘Mister, we don’t mean you no harm!’ one of the men shrieked.
‘You ain’t done me none yet,’ Edge called in reply, pumping another shell into the breech. ‘Convince me you’re as honest as you’re noisy.’
The men looked at each other and their spokesman was tacitly elected.
‘Can we come closer, mister? It’s kinda hard to shout after the scare you give me.’
‘Six feet’s a good distance,’ Edge allowed. ‘Remind you how deep under you’ll go if you can’t soft talk me out of blasting you.’
The man chosen to do the talking led the way. But the other two were hard behind him, like kids afraid to be left alone in the dark country. If they wore gun belts, they were hidden under the ankle-length, fully-buttoned topcoats the men wore. As they came closer, Edge stood up, stepped over the hump and then sat down on it. He rested the Winchester across his thighs and took out the makings. But his narrowed eyes, the moonlight reflected off them as though they were slivers of glass, never left the men. They called a halt themselves, double the distance away that Edge had specified. All of them were still reaching up towards the bright stars.
This is mighty straining on shoulder muscles as old and overworked as ours, mister.’
‘Your idea,’ Edge reminded them, striking a match on the Winchester stock and lighting his cigarette.
‘We can take ’em down?’
‘It was the best idea you fellers had all night.’
‘He means keep ’em up, Selby,’ the man on the left said nervously.
‘I know that, Yates!’ Selby growled.
‘So get the business done, Selby!’ the third man urged. ‘The quicker the better for my rheumatics.’
All the men were pushing hard towards sixty. Selby was a head taller than the other two but all had frames that looked as if they had been strong in earlier times. There was still strength of character in their burnished year-lined faces. But life had been harsh and, if they had not exactly given up, they were finding it hard to keep stoking their will power.
‘We’re farmers, mister,’ Selby said, his slack lips moving more than the words demanded. But it wasn’t fear anymore. Just old age and a reaction to the shock. ‘Honest men.’
‘A man’s line of business earns him money,’ Edge replied. ‘Don’t guarantee his word.’
‘Tell him what we want, Selby,’ Yates impressed wearily.
‘We didn’t come out here for no—’
‘Heard about you from Luther Inman - barber over at Greenville.’
‘He complain I do my own shaving?’
The third man managed a harsh laugh. ‘Sure told us you made a lousy job of takin’ the whiskers off Woodrow Ryan’s brother-in-law.’
‘Pack it in, Kelsey!’ Yates snarled. ‘Even if this guy ain’t for pluggin’ us, I reckon as how Ryan men are out huntin’ him.’
‘We wanna offer you a job, mister,’ Selby said quickly.
Edge sighed. ‘Seems the barber didn’t tell you fellers everything. I made it plain I didn’t want a job.’ Kelsey gave another laugh. ‘Plain, he says. Harv London was made real ugly gettin’ the message.’
Yates spat, took a step forward and lowered his arms. The half-breed’s hands were already on the Winchester, leaving the cigarette slanting from the corner of his mouth. He didn’t move the gun, but all three farmers were aware he could move it and blast them in three blinks of an eye.
‘Look, Edge!’ Yates rapped out. ‘This valley was homestead country. Us three and a lot like us come here years ago and started to work the land. Then Woodrow Ryan moved in from the east. With a lot of money and as many men as it took. And papers, mister. Signed and sealed papers from the land office in El Paso that claimed he had title to the whole damn valley.’
‘He’s tellin’ it like it is, mister!’ Selby encouraged.
‘And maybe he’ll get it finished if he gets the chance,’ the half-breed replied.
‘Yeah, quiet Selby,’ Kelsey augmented, deadly earnest now that the turkey talk had started.
‘From being owners of our own land, we was suddenly his tenant farmers,’ Yates went on, wiping spilled saliva from his grizzled jaw. ‘And he made us an offer. Cut on everything we got off our land, or we got off our land.’
Edge nodded. ‘Some farmers might be honest men,’ he allowed. ‘But ain’t many of them got a head for business. If Ryan’s got the papers, he’s got legal title. I ain’t no lawyer, so go find yourself one while I get back to sleep.’
The half-breed’s advice, although the men had no intention of taking it, encouraged Selby and Kelsey to lower their arms without fear.
Yates was shaking his head. ‘We tried the law way back at the beginnin’, mister. And it didn’t do no good. On account of Ryan can afford to buy the law just the same as anythin, else he takes a fancy to.’
‘But he couldn’t buy you!’ Selby put in.
‘Nor scare you!’ Kelsey added.
The half-breed showed a cold grin, but the moonlight striking his teeth gave off a refraction as icy as that from his eyes. ‘I haven’t been scared since I was five years old that I recall. And I only work when I need the money. Just like I sleep when I’m tired.’
‘We reckon we can raise ten grand, Edge,’ Yates said softly. ‘Small’ job, be over in a few days. With ten grand you wouldn’t have to work in a long time.’
He tried to make his tone persuasive. But all that came across was a note of pleading.
‘Just to lead us is all,’ Selby urged. ‘You stood up to Ryan’s men and you walked away. Ain’t ever been anyone in the valley who ever did that.’
Kelsey cleared his throat and spat. ‘Leastways, not since ten years ago, When Elric Fuller and his two sons stood up to the Ryan. Got carried away - to Greenville Cemetery.’
Yates waited impatiently for the slower speaking man to finish. Then he stared at Edge earnestly as the half-breed took the cigarette from his mouth and arced it out into the river. ‘Everyone in the valley is gonna get the word about what you done, mister. And you’re gonna be more popular than St Peter. If you stick around for awhile - and, like I said, it’ll be worth it to you - folks’ll rally. We’ll have the numbers and the spirit to stand up to Ryan and his men.’
‘Yeah!’ Selby said excitedly, his eyes shining.
‘We’ll really show them bastards!’ Kelsey added.
‘Luck to you,’ Edge offered.
‘We don’t need luck!’ Yates snarled. ‘We need you!’
‘Don’t talk bad to him,’ Selby advised hurriedly.
Yates continued to glare for long moments, then his expression became one of pleading. He even extended both gnarled hands out in front of him in a begging gesture. ‘Ten grand is gonna be hard enough to raise, mister. But, if it’s a question of money, name your price.’
The half-breed shook his head. ‘Ain’t no more questions about anything, feller. Only ever was one. You asked it and I told you no. Be obliged now if you—’
‘Hit the soil, Edge!’ a familiar voice yelled.
It was followed by a series of other sounds. Voices raised to urge horses forward. Animal snorts. Splashing water. Battle cries that were like echoes from the war. Hoof beats on grass. The cracking reports of rifle fire and the crackling of six-guns firing. By the time the initial burst of sound was over, the three farmers had whirled to stare at the point where the river ran into the trees. And the half-breed had spun in the sitting posture and tipped himself sideways off the hump.
He stayed down, pressed tight to the turf and protected by the hump, as lead began to sing through the air immediately above him, in counterpoint to the noise in the near distance. But he had seen the riders as he turned. A dozen of them, galloping out of the trees in
a well-ordered line of advance, spread out from the river-bank across fifty yards of terrain. The first shots had been exploded into the night sky, from rifles and revolvers held high above the heads of the riders.
One man - at the centre of the line - was not firing. He rode without a weapon in his hand and it was his voice Edge had recognized. Woodrow Ryan.
As the men galloped closer, they angled their guns downwards. Bullets skimmed close to the three farmers without tearing into flesh: for the trio’s screams continued to ring with terror rather than pain.
The battle cries ceased. Then the shooting. Voices called for a halt to the advance and the horses snorted into a slower pace and came to a stop. The screams of the farmers lost stridency and became sobs and groans of despair. Edge rose onto all fours and then pushed himself erect. His left hand was still wrapped around the brass framed of the Winchester. But he pointed the rifle negligently at the ground as he raked his narrow-eyed gaze over the faces of the mounted men.
The line of advance had curled in at the flanks as the riders neared their objective, so that now it was formed into a half circle with the farmers and Edge covered on three sides. Selby, Kelsey and Yates had taken the first few steps towards scattering when the attack opened. But then, as the hail of lead thunked around them, they halted and clawed their hands high gain. They remained almost frozen in this posture now, shaking just a little as they fought to control their terror.
The mounted men looked down at those on the ground with expressions that ranged from bitter hatred to amused contempt. Woodrow Ryan switched between the two extremes as his gaze swept back and forth between the farmers and Edge.
The rancher was a big man in his middle years with slicked down, thinning grey hair and a neatly clipped, pointed beard of the same color. A handsome man with powerful features dominated by dark, penetrating eyes. A suntanned man who looked fit and was well-fed and well-dressed. A man who emanated calm self-assurance and a belief in himself and everything he chose to do. A man who now held a double-barreled shotgun crossways in front of his chest: looking as comfortable with it as if he had been born with it like that.
Edge: Vengeance Valley (Edge series Book 17) Page 3
