‘And this one?’ Edge asked, his voice a coldly angry shout above the roar of the wind and the clatter of the speeding train.
As he spoke, he threw himself against the half-open door, The man behind it confirmed his presence with a yell of alarm, followed by a cry of pain as the door folded fast towards him - to crush him up against the wall.
Hammer was fast. His gun had been wedged between his thigh and the inside of the chair arm. He had it cocked and aimed while Edge was still turning, pumping the action of the Winchester as the barrel slapped into the palm of a brown-skinned hand. Spade was just as fast in dragging his Remington from the holster, but as clumsy as before, his aim wavering as he cocked the gun.
But his pasty face under the sandy hair was as grimly determined as that of the insurance company detective: and the leveled Remington became as rock steady as the Frontier Colt in the hand of Hammer.
‘Shayne,’ Hammer supplied.
Edge cocked his head. ‘How d’you spell that, feller?’
Spade showed a puzzled frown.
Hammer said: ‘S-H-A-Y-N-E. Why?’
‘Didn’t think he was that one.’
‘We can find it after you’re dead,’ Hammer warned, shouting to be heard above the barrage of sound, but his tone was a growl of heavy menace.
‘Don’t make us!’ Spade added, with a trace of pleading in his voice.
The man behind the door was groaning, and shoving against the wood with a strength diminished by having the wind knocked out of him. Edge continued to flatten himself to the door, rifle leveled at the stove’s smokestack, midway between the two seated men. He knew he could kill at least one of them: maybe both. But at a cost of his own life.
‘Word of advice,’ he said after a vocal silence lasting less than two seconds. He stepped away from the door and released his grip on the barrel, turning the wrist of his right hand to slope the Winchester to his shoulder. The man who had been squashed against the wall vented a groan and started to fall. His weight pushed the door away from him and Edge half turned to slam it closed as he looked at the man crumpled on the floor. ‘Point a gun at me again and I’ll kill you - unless you get off a shot and make it count. Some people have a thing about spiders. I got it about having guns aimed at me.’
The man on the floor got painfully back to his feet, sucking in deep breaths of air as he slid his shoulders up the wall. He was a head shorter than the half-breed’s six feet three inches, with a bushy mop of curly red hair. He had an oval-shaped face with regular features and a small moustache. His complexion was almost as red as his hair as he struggled against pain. Like Hammer and Spade, he was dressed city style. He wore a gunbelt around his waist under his unbuttoned suit jacket. The revolver in his hand was a twin to the one Hammer held. He held it low and aimed at the floor.
Edge turned his head slowly from side to side as he spoke, glittering eyes raking over each detective in turn.
‘Spade says you don’t only talk tough, cowboy,’ Hammer growled. ‘And I guess the brakeman they took off at Sacramento found that out the hard way?’
‘Never did work cattle, feller,’ Edge answered, turning his back on the red-headed man and moving slowly along the car. ‘Didn’t you tell them my name as well?’
Spade blinked and licked his lips. ‘Yeah, I told them, Edge.’ Like Hammer, he continued to aim his gun. ‘I also told them you’re keepin’ the picture to yourself.’
‘And me and Shayne ain’t happy about that, cowboy’ Hammer rasped. ‘Same as Spade never was. But now there’s three of—’
‘Three’s a crowd,’ the half-breed said evenly as he halted beside the stove, six feet from where the two men sat. He was conscious of the red-headed Shayne dogging his path. ‘And you could be one all on your own you don’t holster the gun, feller.’
Shayne laughed, the sound short and harsh and totally devoid of humor. Then pushed the muzzle of his Colt against the base of the half-breed’s spine. ‘Drop the rifle, tough guy,’ he ordered. ‘I’ll be real happy if you don’t.’
Edge experienced a momentary flare of cold anger in the pit of his stomach, then opened his right hand so that the Winchester slipped from his grasp and thudded to the floor. He had misjudged the man at his back but that was just another mistake of the past. The kind to be learned from rather than dwelt upon. Shayne’s hand fisted around the butt of the Colt in the half-breed’s holster, and he lifted out the gun and dropped it on the rifle. Even before it hit the Winchester stock and bounced off on to the carpet, Edge’s mind was free of inward directed anger and working calmly on the problem of escaping this new menace. And his tall, lean frame was poised for smooth and fast action behind an outer shell that appeared suddenly relaxed to the men who had the drop on him.
‘Pity,’ Shayne growled as he backed off two paces. That means I still owe you, tough guy.’
Although he had lost contact with the gun of the redheaded man, Edge could still sense the muzzle aimed at his backbone.
‘Score’ll be easy to settle if he don’t tell us where he stashed the da Vinci,’ Hammer said easily. He seemed to become as relaxed as Edge now that the danger of an explosive gun battle was apparently past. But his hard eyes betrayed the pose for what it was.
‘It’s their idea, Edge,’ Spade said quickly. ‘But I go along with it all the way. Why be so damn stubborn when we’ve all got the same job to do?’
‘Because maybe we haven’t,’ Shayne growled. ‘Maybe this tough guy is planning a double cross.’
‘Planning to steal the picture,’ Hammer augmented. ‘Maybe he already has.’ He shrugged and returned the Colt to his holster.
Spade seemed undecided what to do with his Remington. Then he aped the actions of the insurance company detective. Edge’s spine continued to itch at the point where it was covered by Shayne’s gun. Hammer smiled and his entire face softened with the expression, including his eyes. The half-breed was certain Hammer was as relaxed as he looked, confident of his partner’s ability to handle any problem that might arise now.
‘You don’t like being called cowboy? Okay, Edge. It wasn’t meant to be an insult. Just the way we city people tend to talk about you western drifters. Me, I’m from New York. Shayne’s from down Florida way, but he’s got to be quite citified. Company likes its operatives to have that image.’
‘Company also likes its operatives to do their jobs the way they’re supposed to, tough guy.’ Shayne said harshly. ‘So you want to tell us what you did with the picture? So we can guard it like we’re supposed to.’
‘Calm down, Shayne,’ Hammer told him, waving his hands in a placating gesture. ‘I guess we’ve already proved our point. No matter how smart and how tough Edge is, we’ve shown him we can match it.’ He altered the focus of his smiling eyes and shifted the direction of his gaze slightly, from the red-headed detective to the half-breed. ‘So why don’t we call a truce and talk about this sensibly, uh?’ Abruptly, the softness went out of the lines of his face and he expressed grim intent again. ‘Unless you want us to prove we can be even tougher?’
The door at the front of the car opened, with the inevitable inrush of wind, rain and increased sound. It was the eventuality Edge had been waiting for - the return of the squint-eyed conductor. The high degree of his readiness to lunge into action became visible on his face a flicker of time before he moved. But Hammer and Spade were distracted by the conductor’s entrance. And Edge had to take the calculated risk that Shayne’s concentration was also broken for a vital moment.
He raised a leg and lashed it forward. The sole of his boot crashed into the stovepipe, wrenching it from its seating to billow smoke and shower sparks into the car. He was turning as the kick made contact, right hand streaking to the nape of his neck as his long hair streamed away from his head.
Shayne was looking towards the shocked conductor, half turned so that the Colt was off target. Fear froze the uniformed man to the threshold. Shayne heard the crash of the breaking stovepipe and started to bring
his head around to face Edge again. But the half-breed’s free hand closed over the gun a moment before it swung back on target. He shoved it down and Shayne’s finger squeezed the trigger.
Hammer and Spade were yelling - perhaps warning Shayne or maybe in anger and fear as the spraying sparks seared their flesh and clothing as they leapt up from the armchairs.
Edge bared his teeth in the familiar grin of evil excitement - that was not a true reflection of his emotions. For, behind the expression, his mind worked with cold calculation. And, despite the speed of his moves, there was about them a quality of calm deliberateness. Circumstances forced him to act fast, but there was nothing frenetic in his attack.
As the gun exploded in his hand, he jerked it towards him. Shayne, his regular features contorted by fear, instinctively refused to surrender his grip on the weapon. So he was unbalanced and wrenched towards the taller man, sideways-on to him. His shoulder slammed into Edge’s upper arm and he saw the glint of polished metal protruding from the fist that swung at his face.
‘Edge!’ a man roared and the half-breed heard it without recognizing whether it was Spade or Hammer who yelled his name.
‘The car’s on fire!’ the uniformed Craig shrieked, and made his decision.
Instead of retreating, he sprang forward, reaching for a window curtain, and ripped it free of its fixings.
Shayne tried to duck from the path of the approaching fist with the blade of the straight razor sticking out of it. But the fist tracked the target of his suddenly sweating face, and then was pulled. Shayne felt a warmth that was not sweat beads at his temple. Then the fist was wrenched downwards. The warmth blazed a liquid trail from Shayne’s temple to the point of his jaw.
The red-headed detective realized what it was and screamed his horror. Shock drained his muscles of strength and he sagged all the way to the floor, his limp hand submitting to the tugging demand that he now release the gun.
Craig ran past the collapsing Shayne and the turning Edge, concerned only with the danger to the train as flames leapt up from a dozen places where sparks had found combustible materials. The rush of wind from the open and flapping door sent smoke from the stove streaming to the far end of the car. So that Spade and Hammer were in full view as the slitted eyes of Edge raked towards them. And the two detectives - guns in their hands - could see the half-breed and Shayne; the former standing rigidly erect while the latter lay in a shuddering heap on the floor.
Spade and Hammer had started to come forward after beating at the sparks on their clothes. And their guns had begun to snap towards the target of Edge. But then the scream of Shayne had altered pitch - from horror to agony. It was a sound that froze his partner and Spade into immobility, and the two men became even more like stone statues when they saw the reason for Shayne’s pain and dread.
The razor had dug into the temple and then sliced a curving course across the cheek and only came clear of flesh at the centre of the chin. Blood oozed from the long cut and flowed sluggishly over the flesh after the initial spurt. And the way it sprayed from the lips gaped wide to vent the scream showed the blade had sunk in deep enough at one point to burst through into the mouth.
Spade and Hammer were held long enough in the trap of witnessed horror for Edge to have the time to replace the razor in the pouch and change the gun from the barrel grip with one hand to a butt grasp in the other. The clicks of the hammer being cocked and the cylinder turning were masked by the screams of Shayne and the train noise.
And it was a new move by Edge - as he dropped into a crouch and pressed the Colt muzzle against Shayne’s blood-sheened face - that jolted Spade and Hammer out of their horrified immobility. At the same time that the pressure of the gun on his cheek silenced the screams of the injured man.
‘Toss away the guns, fellers,’ the half-breed ordered tautly.
Craig seemed to be in a world of danger all his own. Detached from - perhaps unaware of - the new menacing stand-off in one half of the swaying, clattering car, he beat frantically at the flames flaring from chairs, curtains and the carpet.
‘It’s crazy!’ Spade said in a tone of disbelief. And dropped his gun.
‘I figure you’re well insured, feller,’ Edge growled, shifting his gaze away from the undecided Hammer to look into the pain-filled eyes of Shayne.
‘You win, Edge!’ Hammer blurted - and tossed his Colt forward, so that it hit the floor close to the half-breed’s feet. ‘You’ve hurt him enough.’
‘And proved your point,’ Spade rasped, moving on shaking legs to a chair up-wind of the smoke which continued to pour out of the stove where the stack had been displaced. He sank gratefully down on to it. ‘You’re tougher than we are. Maybe smarter.’
Edge shook his head as he stood up, leaving Shayne’s gun on the floor and retrieved his own Colt and Winchester. Hammer lunged to squat beside his partner as Edge ambled towards the open door.
‘Wasn’t the idea,’ the half-breed replied at length, after he had kicked the door closed to shut out most of the train noise. ‘Feller pointed a gun at me after I told him I didn’t like that.’
Craig had beaten out the final small fire. With the main source of draught interrupted, smoke from the damaged stove billowed in an acrid black cloud, threatening to fill the car.
‘Why didn’t I stay an engineer!’ the conductor shrieked, hurrying back towards the stove.
‘We all get over our childhood fantasies,’ Edge answered, pushing the Colt back into the holster as he approached the stove from the opposite direction.
The top coats of Hammer and Shayne were draped across a card table. He gathered them up in his free hand and dumped them over the hole in the stove, blocking off the smoke. The conductor realized what he was doing and closed off the grate opening as Edge used the Winchester barrel to hold the blanketing coats in place.
‘He’ll be scarred for life!’ Hammer snarled, looking up from where he held Shayne’s head against his thigh, pressing a soggy, crimson-stained handkerchief to the long cut.
‘Everyone has to face up to their own problems, feller,’ the half-breed answered. Then, to Craig. ‘You want to open a few windows?’
The conductor nodded vigorously. ‘Sure, mister. Then I’ll get the medical supplies box from the baggage car. All right if I do that?’
‘If it’ll make you happy,’ Edge allowed.
Craig squinted so much against the stinging wood smoke that his eye was almost closed up. And his soot-smeared face formed into the lines of a sullen scowl as he crossed and re-crossed the car, opening windows to clear the atmosphere and replace it with night air that was damp and ice cold. ‘Won’t nothing make me happy until this train rolls into Omaha, mister. With all aboard her still in one piece. Right now, it’s the pain of that poor guy that concerns me.’
‘Just get some ointment and bandages, conductor!’ Hammer rasped. ‘Edge don’t give a frig for other people’s feelings.’
The door closed behind Craig and the coats began to burn. Edge used the rifle barrel to stuff them into the stove, then picked up another card table and turned it upside down to block the hole. He wedged it into place with the smoke stack.
‘I more or less warned you we could find that out the hard way,’ Spade said dully after watching the half-breed’s action.
‘It wasn’t any picnic getting to be this way, feller,’ Edge replied as he dropped into a chair at the uncharred end of the Pullman. He rested the rifle across his thighs and dug out the makings from his shirt pocket.
‘Spare us your lousy sob story, tough guy!’ Shayne snarled, and tried to sit up. But Hammer held him down.
‘Figure you’re about cried out,’ the half-breed told the injured man coldly.
‘He don’t talk unless he’s got a point to make,’ Spade said, eyeing Edge quizzically.
‘It wasn’t talk he used to get the first one across,’ Hammer growled.
‘But we forced him into it,’ the San Francisco detective reminded.
Edg
e lit the cigarette and shook his head. ‘No force, feller. Did it that way because it’s my way.’
‘After your Frisco lay off,’ Spade taunted in a sneering tone.
‘You’re the student, Spade,’ Edge allowed evenly. ‘School’s out for me and I’ve learned all my lessons.’
‘That don’t make you no teacher, tough guy,’ Shayne spat.
‘Shut up,’ Hammer told the injured man, not interrupting his contemptuous stare at Edge. ‘Say what you have to, mister.’
Craig bustled in from the rear of the car, carrying a wooden case with a handle. Edge waited until the door had been closed behind the harassed looking conductor.
‘Figure Spade would crack.’
‘He told us that’s what you thought of him.’
‘And you dropped your gun like it was burning your hand, feller - soon as you saw your partner might spill his brains on the carpet.’
‘That don’t count!’ Shayne rasped as Hammer grabbed the case of medical supplies and opened it up. The painting wasn’t on the line. If it had have been, Hammer’d have…’ He let the sentence hang, not liking the thought of what might have been. Then he found a new idea - or remembered an old one. ‘Anyway, how do we know this ain’t all just hogwash, tough guy? I still figure you could be planning to steal the da Vinci.’
There was some antiseptic in the case. Hammer soaked a pad with it and Shayne winced as his partner began to clean the congealing blood from the wound.
Craig closed the windows and after he had completed the chore there seemed to be a semblance of warmth in the suddenly still air. But the fire in the stove had been smothered and the sensation did not last for long. The dry, stale smell of old burning seemed to grow stronger and more unpleasant as the temperature dropped.
Spade vented a low snort of disgust. Then: ‘So why didn’t he kill us all when he had the chance? Or me before you two guys came aboard?’
‘Who knows why his kind do anything?’ Hammer countered.
Edge: Slaughter Road (Edge series Book 22) Page 10
