That’s your business,’ Edge told him, bending down to swing his gear under the passenger car. ‘Figure what just happened was entirely mine.’
He went down on to his hands and knees and crawled over the roadbed beneath the car, dragging his burdens behind him.
‘We figured that,’ Archer said, scrambling in his wake. Marlow and Spade were quick to follow. The Mexican boatman, maybe?’ the detective with the battered face suggested.
‘Why bother with maybes,’ the half-breed countered. The passenger cars that had been attached to a locomotive jerked forward. The four men waited for it to move out: of their path.
‘Two in one afternoon,’ Spade said flatly. ‘You makin’ up for lost time, Edge?’
The brake van rattled passed them and two trainmen on the rear platform eyed the quartet with interest. Archer raised a hand and his greeting was acknowledged by both men.
‘That’s the eight o’clock train we’ll be taking,’ he told the others as they stepped across the now cleared track.
‘You hear how it happened on Market Street?’ Edge asked.
‘You care what we think?’ Spade answered with a question.
‘You’re the one seems set on talking, feller.’
‘Grover told me. Fisk was there, gettin’ madder and madder. Grover’s got enough influential friends in Frisco to unhook you, Edge. He sold the self-defense story to the local law.’
Edge was slightly ahead of the detectives. They were content to trail him when he chose to swing around the freight train being loaded with crates of fresh-smelling citrus fruit.
‘Reckon that was Corey Fisk you just killed.’
‘Maybe he only winged him,’ Marlow pointed out.
Archer made a sound of agreement.
The noise in Spade’s throat was of contempt. He emphasized it with a spit. ‘If Fisk led a good life, he’s winged all right. With the kind angels get. It ain’t this guy’s day for lettin’ people off light.’
They had crossed all the tracks of the freight yard. Now Edge led the way between the corrugated iron walls of two warehouses to an area of tall grass and high brush at the rear.
This guy sure came down heavy,’ Marlow grunted.
The dead man had jack-knifed when he crashed into the brush at the base of the warehouse wall. His ornately liveried uniform marked him out as Drew Grover’s driver. In death, and with a hole just above the bridge of his nose, he looked half as old again as Edge remembered him at the corner of Market and Sacramento Streets in the city. Just a thin thread of already congealed blood inscribed a diagonal line across his forehead. But the hair on top of his skull was matted by the gore which had gushed through the larger exit hole blasted by the Winchester’s .44 shell.
‘Some shootin’,’ Archer allowed grudgingly.
‘Sure was,’ Marlow agreed, a little over-awed. ‘From that range and angle.’
‘Way I hear it,’ Spade growled, ‘you should see this guy operate close in.’
It was obvious that all three men were familiar with the sight of violent death. After the mixture of reactions to the half-breed’s prowess with a rifle, they grimaced briefly at the corpse, then showed scorn as they witnessed Edge’s total lack of response.
‘Big buddy of Joe Pearce, I figure?’
‘Like brothers, I hear,’ Spade supplied. ‘Always worked for Grover since they were old enough. Served with him in the war. Do anythin’ for the bastard.’
Edge grinned bleakly at the sandy-haired detective. ‘You figure him for that, too?’
‘His money’s clean.’
‘Which is somethin’ his wife’s mind ain’t,’ Archer growled, and quickly shifted his gaze to avoid meeting the half-breed’s inquiring look.
‘We better go tell Grover what happened,’ Spade put in hurriedly, before Edge could voice his curiosity.
‘We just leave Fisk here?’ Marlow asked.
Edge had already half turned away from the remains of his latest victim. ‘I never did collect souvenirs,’ he muttered. ‘But if you want—’
‘Grover’ll take care of it,’ Spade said. ‘Him and them influential friends of his.’
He spat again, and made to follow Edge back along the alley between the two warehouses. But the half-breed stood aside and waved the skinny man past. ‘I don’t know where he is, feller.’
‘Doin’ some business he didn’t want us to know about,’ Spade answered with a scowl. ‘Which probably means it’s dirty.’
‘But his money’s clean,’ Edge reminded evenly as the man slouched by him.
Marlow followed and then Archer. Edge held back for a moment to slide the Winchester into the boot. With one hand free, he trailed the trio until they were clear of the narrow alley and Spade turned right to lead the way along the wharf between the warehouse facades and the railroad tracks.
The mist had advanced to the eastern shores of the bay now. It hung around the masts and wheelhouses of the berthed ships and curled under and over the strings of stalled cars. It smelled of damp and of wood smoke expelled from locomotives. It haloed the sinking sun and chilled exposed flesh.
Men moved back and forth, causing the mist to swirl around them: intent upon their own business of dealing with the many chores involved in the smooth running of the railroad depot and the port. Discordant sounds from many sources continued to accompany the frenetic activity.
Edge moved up alongside Archer and raised his free hand as if to scratch the back of his neck under his hair. The flabby detective eyed the half-breed dejectedly, then vented a low grunt of surprise as a long arm was rested around his shoulders. Then Archer felt something sharp against his Adam’s apple and the grunt became a sound of higher pitch as he pulled up short.
Spade and Marlow swung their heads around, eyes bulging with surprise when they saw that Edge was holding the blade of a straight razor against Archer’s throat.
‘Keep moving, fellers,’ the half-breed instructed flatly. ‘And keep listening. That way, maybe nobody’ll get hurt.’
The pressure of his arm against Archer’s shoulder forced the flabby detective forward
‘Do like he says! We all seen him operate!’
Archer’s hissing voice urged the others to comply. But they shot constant glances over their shoulders.
‘Where to?’ Spade rasped. ‘What’s this all about, Edge?’
To where the man with the money is,’ the half-breed replied. ‘And this is what’s known as a heart-to-heart talk.’ He curled back his lips to show a thin line of his very white teeth. ‘Which just might keep you fellers from having some heart stopping moments in the future.’
‘Mine’s missin’ some beats right now,’ Archer hissed.
‘Twice you made cracks about Grover’s wife and me, feller,’ Edge told him, loud enough for the two men in front to hear. ‘First about it being her that’ll pay me and then about the kind of mind she’s got.’
‘Aw, Edge—’ Spade began.
‘Your talking could give this feller a real sore throat,’ the half-breed warned coldly.
‘Let him finish, Spade,’ Archer implored, his Adam’s apple bobbing against the cold metal of the razor blade.
‘I saw the kind of woman she is,’ Edge continued. ‘The kind that watches a man get killed in the same way most women watch a man get undressed. And I figure that just maybe she twisted her old man’s arm to hire me. If that’s what happened, I don’t give a shit. Same as for why she did it.’
The quartet had to halt so that three men could push a heavily laden trolley across their path.
‘You don’t strike me as the kind of man to give a shit what people think of you, Edge,’ Spade muttered as they restarted along the wharf. ‘Or why you do what you do.’
‘Nor me,’ Marlow growled.
‘How about you?’ Edge asked Archer.
The flabby detective gulped and blinked. ‘Same as them until now. But you didn’t have to come on so strong to show us we were wrong.’
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p; Edge withdrew his hand and with a smooth action slid the razor back into the neck pouch. ‘Ain’t nothing easier to forget than simple advice,’ he muttered, then his eyes under the deep hoods of his brows seemed to be made of glittering blue ice as he raked his gaze over the anxious faces of the three detectives. ‘But if ever you fellers are in danger of getting absent-minded . . . well maybe you’ll recall the sharp reminder Archer just had.’
Marlow and Archer grimaced and nodded. Spade eyed the half-breed quizzically for a brief few seconds, then concentrated on the way ahead, quickening his pace. The others lengthened their strides, moving beyond the two locomotive roundhouses and out of the freight depot area. The passenger station was just a length of low platform with a single storey building between the boarding and the dirt street. The many sidetracks of the wharf were channeled on to two roadbeds which ran along the other side of the platform boarding. The passenger train which had been moved earlier was now stalled on the track immediately beside the platform. A glow of fire shone through the sea mist as the locomotive crew maintained a head of steam in the boiler. Lamplight showed at one window in the depot building. A number of windows in stores across the street were also lit. The sun, just beginning to shade from yellow to red, was still quite high in the western dome of the sky, but the damp mist from the ocean had created an early, false evening.
The street was deserted of people and Edge and the three detectives went through a gap in the wooden fencing that marked the depot boundary. The fringe-topped surrey was parked outside the street entrance of the station depot, the two-horse team standing immobile with heads hung low. The dampness on their coats shone in the lamplight from the illuminated window to the left of the closed double doors.
The mist served to muffle the stridency in the sounds of hectic activity on the wharf.
Spade and Marlow continued to stride out purposefully. But when Edge slowed, raking his unblinking gaze from one side of the street to the other without moving his head, Archer stayed level with him.
‘What’s wrong?’ the flabby detective asked, his voice soft and nervous. He had glanced briefly at Edge, seen the impassive watchfulness in the narrowed eyes and caught the mood of uneasy caution. Then he began to scan the quiet street himself, his concern blatantly obvious as his head swung this way and that, and delved a hand into his pocket to fist it around the butt of the Sharps pepperbox.
Spade and Marlow heard the taut, soft-spoken query and looked back over their shoulders.
The double doors of the station building swung silently inwards.
‘We got trouble!’ a man roared from the broad alleyway between two stores on the other side of the street.
‘Took the words out of my mouth,’ Edge growled,
Two rifle shots exploded, separated by a split second of time. Orange muzzle flashes lit up the alley mouth for an instant. Archer took the first shot in his belly and grunted as he bent his head to look at the hole in his shirt made by the bullet. This presented the crown of his skull as a target for the second slug. His blond hair was suddenly patched with an area of sticky crimson as he died and was sent sprawling on to his back by the impact of the killing shot.
‘Oh, sweet Jesus!’ Spade whispered.
Two riders lunged their horses out of the alley, each of them hanging on to a lead line of a saddled but unmounted animal.
Two more men sprinted out of the open doorway of the station building.
‘They got Lou!’ Marlow snarled.
Spade dragged the Colt from his shoulder holster.
Marlow whirled and seemed about to crouch beside the inert form of the bloody-headed Archer. But then he swerved, to reach for the stock of the Winchester as Edge slammed his burden of saddle and bedroll to the ground.
‘He’s my buddy!’ the battered-faced detective yelled as he gripped the rifle and lifted an elbow as he swung his body.
Edge, his lips curled back like an enraged animal, tried to reach the rifle before Marlow. But the point of the detective’s elbow slammed into his throat and sent him staggering backwards.
The two mounted men fired their rifles one-handed. Both bullets burrowed harmlessly into the dirt of the street. The men from the station building had revolvers. They fired simultaneously as they reached the cover of the parked surrey. Both bullets cracked close to the half-breed’s tumbling form.
Spade fanned his sawn-off Colt as he sprinted for the cover of the station building’s side wall.
Marlow remained in the open and merely whirled and then froze in a forward leaning posture as he pumped the action of the Winchester.
The horses hitched to the surrey had moved only to the extent of raising their heads as the silence was shattered. So the vehicle provided unmoving cover for the two men from the building as the riders led the other horses in a galloping curve.
Spade’s wavering short-barreled revolver sprayed bullets high, low and wide.
Marlow took deliberate aim and his first shot knocked one of the riders off his horse. The man who was hit screamed and somebody else roared an obscenity. Two horses without riders reared away from the crackle of gunfire and bolted down the street.
‘Oh, sweet Jesus,’ Spade said again, much louder, as he crouched in cover and stared down at the empty gun that had failed to score a hit with its expended bullets.
Edge had used the impetus of his fall to power into a sideways roll, which did not end until he thudded up against the railroad depot boundary fence. He drew the Navy Colt from its holster and did a half roll back the way he had come - to sprawl out on his belly. He thrust the gun out in front of him to the full stretch of his arms, gripping the butt in both hands.
The Winchester in Marlow’s grip exploded a second shot.
The surviving rider had ducked instinctively and the detective with a battered face cursed at the top of his voice as his bullet was buried into the wooden front of the station building. The horseman skidded his mount to a stop and the animal he led reared up and dropped to a four-footed halt between the rider and the surrey.
The Navy Colt bucked in the half-breed’s hands. The bullet cracked through the legs of the team horses, under the surrey, and shattered the ankle bone of one of the men at the rear.
The man staggered and fell, reaching for and dragging down the other one.
‘I don’t wanna die!’
‘Nor the frig do I!’
They hit the ground in a confusion of writhing bodies and flailing limbs, one of them struggling to hold on as the other fought to get free.
Edge cocked the hammer. Squeezed the trigger. Cocked the hammer and squeezed the trigger. Both men became eerily still in a single heap. ‘Why should you fellers get what you want?’ he muttered evenly.
Marlow fired and missed again, as the rider released his hold on the lead line and jerked on the reins to turn his horse. The freed animal galloped clear.
Edge glanced at the detective and saw the reason he had missed. The man’s muscular shoulders were quaking with sobs of anger, grief, or a mixture of the two. And as the rifle barrel wavered, tears blurred his vision before coursing down his trembling cheeks.
‘Phil!’ Spade shrieked.
The rider thudded his heels into the flanks of his mount and yelled into the animal’s pricked ears. The horse plunged into a gallop, steered into a curve to go around the corpse of Lou Archer and the shaking Phil Marlow.
The detective turned his body to try to track the rider. The man astride the horse released his reins to pump the action of his own repeater and level it. Fear expanded to terror on his face as, on the periphery of his vision, he glimpsed that he was also being tracked by the Colt in Edge’s double-handed grip. For stretched seconds as his horse carried him along at a flat-out gallop, he was undecided about which man to shoot.
‘Take him, Edge!’ Spade roared.
The crack of the Winchester in Marlow’s hands punctuated the command. The bullet was almost close enough, but off target by a fatal fraction of an inch. Blood spra
yed out of a long, shallow furrow that was ploughed across the rider’s cheek from mouth to temple.
Edge squeezed the trigger of the Colt as the muzzle of the wounded man’s rifle drew a bead on him. The hammer clicked forward. The firing pin rapped against a cartridge case in which the bullet was loosely fitted. Sea-water damp powder failed to explode.
The half-breed vented a grunt of irritation, then his mind was filled with the recollection of his thoughts during the perilous bay crossing. Burning brightly at the centre of his memory was a particular notion that had taken root long before this afternoon - and been nurtured time and time again by experiences in countless dangerous situations.
It never stopped him doing what he felt he had to do for, although he might have surrendered to the inevitability of fate, he had never been a defeatist in the realm of reality.
The chamber under the hammer was filled with a useless cartridge. The rider he had aimed at could not know this for such a detail could not be seen through the mist and falling darkness of evening. The rifle was a sliver of time away from blasting a bullet into the mildly annoyed face of the half-breed. There should not have been an opportunity for him to cock the gun again, so that the cylinder turned to align another cartridge in front of the hammer.
But fate ordained once more that the time for Edge to die had not yet arrived - the same brand of ruthless fate which had plunged him into a drunken stupor during the marathon poker game, driving home the fact that he could not take an easy ten thousand dollars and opt out of the destiny he was sentenced to endure.
The ten grand in Mexico had been relentlessly hard to locate - and was useless when he found its hiding place. The other ten thousand he had carried away from a lonely grave on the Big Bend of the Rio Grande had been earned with blood and sweat and toil: then lost and never found in another chain reaction of violence.
Hard lessons for a man who usually found it easy to learn. So, last night, fate had rubbed his lean and lined face into the inevitability of its dictates. He had possessed more than seven times the amount he had set as his goal. Then lost it without knowing he had it.
Edge: Slaughter Road (Edge series Book 22) Page 6
