The Mexican scowled, his expression unseen by Edge, then bent his back to the oars again.
After Beth’s cruel end and his realization that he could never attain true peace and happiness, the half-breed had resumed his aimless wanderings, honing his sixth sense for the threat of danger and becoming more ruthless than ever in dealing with each new menace that materialized. And he remained detached from thoughts about new ambitions until he was offered the possibility of reaching a combination of two that had eluded him before.
He met a woman who stirred memories of his marriage to Beth and the woman paid him ten thousand dollars to do a job. The woman was lost quickly - not in death but just as irrevocably as if she had died. So there was no grief - or even mild disappointment that he had been tempted with a chance to experience a human relationship of some depth, only to have the opportunity wrenched from him yet again. For he had learned by then to insulate himself against this brand of sorrow. All that had gone before had drained him dry of tears and even the capacity to sense the feeling that creates tears.
He kept the money, though. For just long enough to get an inkling of the security it could buy him. Then it, too, had been taken from him. He had pursued the man who took it, with as much hatred and thirst for vengeance as he had followed the trail of the men who killed Jamie and the Indians he thought had kidnapped Beth.
He found the man, but not the money - and at the end of that trail he had only the satisfaction of killing the thief: a new act of blood torrenting violence that served to strengthen his ambition to possess the specific sum of ten thousand dollars.
The Mexican was not having to work so hard with the oars now. The tiny boat had run the dangerous gauntlet of the central bay area and was sliding through calm water over the final stretch towards the wharfs of Oakland. He was not breathing so raggedly and could afford to rest his oars for a moment to wipe sweat and spray from his face and cross himself as he spoke a brief prayer of thanks. He kept his voice low, then almost voiced his pride at having completed a trip he had thought was impossible. But the lower half of Edge’s face continued to be set in lines that warned against interruption to his thoughts.
So the Mexican merely grinned in anticipation of the admiration he would receive from his friends when he told them about the bay crossing.
Ten thousand dollar jobs were not thick on the ground and Edge had no relish for scraping the money together in small amounts. Neither was he a thief. So a high stakes poker game had offered the solution. And he had continued to keep his mind set on this, even after the big money gamblers had deserted a Nevada town where the omens had been good for Edge: deserted it because, true to form, fate had decreed that violence and death should follow where the half-breed went.
But if there had been trouble in San Francisco, it had stayed clear of Edge until today. And a luck in which he had no belief had guided the right cards into his hands during so many games in the elegant and opulent surroundings of the Palace Hotel. It was a winning streak he sorely needed, for he had sold almost everything he owned in order to boost his bankroll - to get a room at the hotel and a chair in the biggest money game.
And luck again showed that he was wise to lack faith in it - by allowing him to reach his goal, injecting him with greed to obtain more than the ten grand, then stripping him down to the clothes he wore and the gear he carried out of the hotel with him. Worst of all, making the blow harder to take by forcing a mental block over the seven hour period during which he had won and then lost a fortune.
‘Is it all right if I tell you we have arrived where you wish to be, senor,’ the Mexican asked anxiously.
Edge pushed his hat on to the back of his head and saw that the old man had spoken close enough to the truth. They were still some thirty feet short of the end of a pier which jutted out from the dockside. The boat had enough forward momentum to cruise across the final stretch, as the Mexican turned to gather up the mooring line.
‘Got no objection, feller,’ the half-breed answered and glanced over his shoulder as the Mexican stood up and reached for the rung of a ladder. The boat bumped against the pier pilings.
Out across the bay, the hills and buildings of San Francisco were veiled by a grey mist that was rolling in from the ocean. Ships continued to cut up the water in every direction, appearing and disappearing through the damp grayness. The sun still angled its light down from the western dome of a cloudless sky but the salty air of late afternoon had a chill in it.
As the old man finished lashing the mooring line to the ladder, the boat rocked, scraping its hull against the pilings as the wash from a westbound ferry disturbed the surface of the sheltered water among the piers of the Oakland wharf.
‘I did not honestly think it could be done, senor? he told Edge as the half-breed delved into the deep water slopping in the bottom of the rowboat.
Edge found the Navy Colt and wiped it off on his bedroll. ‘Like winning more than seventy grand and then losing it without remembering what the hell happened,’ he muttered.
‘I’m sorry, senor.’ The boatman was puzzled.
‘Don’t be, feller. Nobody knows what they can do until they try.’ He pushed the revolver into his holster, slid the Winchester into the boot and lifted his gear as he stood up. Drips from the sodden saddle splashed into the water shipped by the rowboat.
‘Senor!’ the Mexican exclaimed, almost snarling. ‘The gun was promised to me in payment. I must have it to sell to pay for myself and my boat to get back to the city. I cannot attempt such a crossing again. Even with the gun I will make little enough for the trouble I took to—’
Edge halted with one foot on a rung of the ladder and another resting gently on the rowboat’s gunwale. He glanced out across the water to where tile sea mist was thickening, accompanied by the low growls of ships’ sirens. Then he eyed the Mexican blandly. ‘Guess it wasn’t any picnic, uh?’
The old man gasped. He snatched a look across the bay, then flicked his angry gaze back to Edge. The mist is the only danger we avoid! And at the cost of this!’
He held out both his hands, palms upwards and fingers splayed. The hands were hard-skinned and calloused from the many years he had spent as a boatman. But the effort of the long row had raised and burst countless blisters on the punished flesh.
Edge nodded. ‘Trip’s worth more than you’d get for a used gun, feller.’
The Mexican started a grin, then changed the expression to an angry frown as the half-breed began to climb up to the pier. ‘You told me you had no money!’ he snarled.
‘Money ain’t everything,’ Edge replied as he reached the top of the ladder and looked down impassively at the enraged boatman.
‘To you, perhaps!’ came the shrill response. ‘But I demand that you pay me—’
‘You called my Ma a fat sow and my Pa an old hog,’ Edge cut in, and spat over the Mexican’s head to splash into the water beyond. ‘I’ve killed men for less. But I owe you a favor. You get to stay alive.’
He turned away from the waterfront and began to move slowly along the pier towards the bustling activity centered around the terminus of the Central Pacific railroad. Water from the wet saddle continued to drip, marking his course along the planks. The sun was no longer hot enough to dry them immediately.
‘And I think you are all things that are rotten and stinking in the product of such a union!’ the old Mexican yelled.
Edge sighed, lowered his gear to the pier, slid the Winchester from the boot and turned to go back to the top of the ladder. The Mexican was sitting on the seat, staring angrily out across the bay. It was as if he had spoken his thoughts without realizing it, for he sensed rather than heard the approach of the half-breed. And when he jerked his head around and craned his neck to look up, there was shock and fear inscribed into the flaccid flesh of his dark face.
‘No!’ he screamed, and half rose as the Winchester’s action was pumped and the muzzle swung down at the boat. ‘A man who is angry speaks…’
; The rifle bucked in the brown-skinned hands of Edge. His slitted eye behind the sight was bluer and colder than the strip of water between the shore and the encroaching mist.
The Mexican screamed as the bullet drove between his knees and feet to explode spray from the water in the bottom of the boat. Then more water entered, bubbling noisily up through the hole blasted by the bullet.
‘Been a lousy day for you,’ Edge said as he canted the rifle to his shoulder. ‘Make allowances for that. On account I can understand how you feel.’
The old man remained in a frozen attitude for a few moments, until Edge turned away from him again. Then he spoke a single curse in his own language and began to bale frantically with a bucket stowed in the bows of his boat. But too much water had been shipped during the trip across the bay. By the time Edge had retrieved his gear, the Mexican realized he could not keep the boat afloat on his own. And he swung up on to the ladder, to ensure that the mooring line was securely lashed.
‘That was a real mean thing to do, Edge,’ a man at the wharf end of the pier said flatly.
The half-breed looked up and saw there were, in fact, three men. It was Spade, in the centre of the trio, who had made the accusation. Edge angled to the side of the pier and glanced back to where the Mexican was clinging to the ladder, watching with a mixture of anger and fear as his rowboat settled lower in the water by the moment. Then his lean face expressed sardonic humor as he continued his advance towards the three men and recalled his thoughts during the trip.
‘Guess I got the devil in me today,’ he answered.
Chapter Four
‘This is Archer and this is Marlow,’ the tall and skinny, sandy-haired detective announced coldly as Edge drew close. ‘And they feel the same way as me about Grover hiring you.’
The other two detectives were in the same early thirties age group as Spade but, as he had claimed at the hotel, they were built on broader, more muscular lines. Both in the region of six feet tall, Marlow looked to be the tougher of the two - an impression that could have been wrong because it was based on the fact that his face had suffered a lot of punishment in fist fights. Below a fringe of black hair, he had small eyes surrounded by old scar tissue, a nose that seemed to have been broken in two places, a mouth that was down on the right side and a jaw slightly off centre. There was nothing saggy in the lines of his body.
Archer was a blue-eyed blond with a handsome face that was unmarked except by worry lines at the eyes and mouth. His build owed something to excess fat, which bulged at belly and breasts.
Both of them were dressed neatly in city style, the same as Spade, but they carried their guns in the pockets of their suit jackets. Neither spoke, nor even nodded a greeting. And both expressed the same degree of distaste as the obvious boss of the three-man detective outfit.
‘So you ain’t exactly a welcoming committee?’ Edge posed with another wry smile.
‘Just three unhappy guys who figure they ain’t trusted by the rich dude that hired them,’ Archer growled. ‘About it,’ Marlow agreed.
‘You got my advance?’ Edge asked Spade, ignoring the other two.
‘Advance?’
The half-breed sighed, lowered his gear, slid the rifle back in the boot and dug into a shirt pocket. He pulled out the much creased note Drew Grover had tossed to him and unfolded it to read aloud the hurriedly scrawled message:
‘Train leaves CP’s Oakland Depot at eight tonight. Job for you if you want it. $100 advance.’
He held the note out towards Spade, who waved it away. That’s between you and Grover—’
‘Madeline Grover, I’d say,’ Archer interjected.
‘We got our fee and we ain’t splittin’ it,’ Spade went on as the old Mexican shuffled sullenly in off the pier and then hurried away, muttering under his breath. The skinny detective waited until the boatman was out of earshot. Even then, he kept his voice low. But the angry tone was still apparent. ‘That fee wasn’t supposed to cover givin’ protection to a killer. But Grover told me I gotta do that. So let’s go.’
Edge screwed the paper into a ball and tossed it into the water. Then he stooped to lift his gear.
He felt the slipstream of the bullet on his right cheek, and heard the muted report of the rifle shot at the same instant the shell plopped into the bay.
‘Hey!’ Archer exclaimed, and drew a small Sharps .22 pepperbox from his coat pocket.
Marlow’s gun was drawn just as fast. It was an even smaller under-and-over two shot Remington derringer.
‘Oh my God!’ Spade yelled shrilly. The gun that came out of his shoulder holster was a .44 Frontier Colt with the barrel sawn down to a length of two inches. ‘We’re under fire!’
‘And under powered,’ Edge growled as he raked a contemptuous stare around the trio of detectives who had whirled and crouched as they sought a target for their wavering guns.
The half-breed had folded from a slow stooping movement into a crouch of his own, sliding the rifle from his boot at the moment he felt the brush of air from the bullet. As the Winchester came clear, he pumped the action and shifted the direction of his glinting-eyed gaze.
‘Warehouse roof over to the right!’ Spade rasped.
‘No friggin’ chance with the guns we got!’ Marlow answered.
‘We don’t have to have, I figure,’ Archer supplemented.
Edge, ignored the comments and then the curious glances of the trio as they gave up searching for the sniper and turned towards him.
The wharf side scene had changed hardly at all from when he had first seen it after climbing up the wooden ladder from the boat. At the landward end of the many piers jutting out into the bay there was a broad area of cracked cement laid with several side tracks forming the western freight terminus of the Central Pacific Railroad. Two strings of passenger cars and three lines of mixed freight wagons were stalled on the tracks. Locomotives moved back and forth, billowing smoke and steam and spraying sparks. Cars banged their bumpers together. Wheels rattled over rails and clanked across switches. Bells clanged. Roustabouts unloaded one line of freights and others loaded two more. Crates were slammed on to cars and on to trolleys. Roustabouts yelled at each other. Engineers cursed at switchmen and brakemen snarled at engineers.
To one side of the tracks a sternwheeler and a side-wheeler were docking at adjacent piers and this double arrival held the attention of another group of men who had business on the wharf. On the far side, there was a row of warehouses and two locomotive roundhouses. The work in and around these seemed as noisy and frantic as that elsewhere on the wharf.
The shot at Edge was masked by other sound as effectively as the one he had fired into the bottom of the Mexican’s boat. And everyone was too busy with his particular job in hand to see the rapid responses of the quartet of men who crouched in exposed isolation at the start of the deserted pier.
The hooded eyes of the half-breed raked along the erratic roof lines of the row of ugly buildings spread on the other side of the railroad yard and saw that Spade had called it right. The sharpshooter had ducked into hiding after blasting the bullet towards Edge. Now, as the three detectives lunged forward, to sprint for the cover of the nearest string of passenger cars, he showed himself at the peaked roof of a warehouse again.
The building was last but one on the right, better than three hundred yards away. Too far off to be seen as anything but a dark silhouette against the late afternoon sky.
But a silhouette with a changing form - to indicate that the man was steadying himself on the roof ridge and taking aim for a second shot.
Spade, Marlow and Archer were still in the open. But the flabby Archer had been correct: they had nothing to fear from the precariously poised rifleman. The first shot had been aimed at Edge - and it was again towards the half-breed that the man on the roof drew a bead.
Edge remained in the crouch. Only his arms moved, to slam the stock of the Winchester to his shoulder. Then he swayed back a fraction of an inch under the impact, as h
e rested his cheek against the polished wood.
The report of his own rifle blasted against his eardrums as he saw the puff of white smoke from the muzzle of his attacker’s gun.
A locomotive whistle shrieked.
The side-wheeler docked with a howl of wood against wood.
Another locomotive reversed on to the head of a string of passenger cars.
A chain reaction of bumper on bumper sounds erupted along the length of the train.
Cement chippings showered up from the wharf side three yards in front of where Edge was crouched.
Up on the roof of the warehouse, the sharpshooter dropped his rifle and it slid down the steep pitch to lodge in the guttering. The hands which had held the rifle were thrown to the face of the man. But they did not make contact until after a dark liquid spray had exploded from the top of his head. The hands were hurled to the sides then, as if he was seeking to maintain his balance. But then he went limp - perhaps in death - and dropped out of sight behind the roof ridge.
The detectives reached the cover of the train. Marlow and Archer tried to peer through the dusty windows, struggling to catch sight of the man on the distant roof. They still had their tiny handguns out. Spade slid his short-barreled Colt back into the shoulder holster and spread a resigned expression across his face as he turned and saw Edge.
The half-breed, his lean face set in a look of mild satisfaction, was standing up. He still held the Winchester, but one handed as he canted it to his right shoulder. His other arm was curled under his gear to raise it. As he drew closer, Spade saw that Edge’s expression of contentment was confined to the mouth line. The cracked slits of his eyes were cautiously watchful for new danger, constantly moving to scan the busy scene all around him. ‘He got him,’ Spade reported flatly to his two associates. The more broadly-built men eyed their tiny guns sheepishly as they turned from trying to see something that was not there anymore. Then they thrust them hurriedly back into their pockets.
‘Our work’s mostly in the city,’ the top man of the outfit said, his wan face set into hard lines but his tone of voice verging on the apologetic. ‘We don’t have much need for Winchester rifles.’
Edge: Slaughter Road (Edge series Book 22) Page 5
