Edge: Slaughter Road (Edge series Book 22)

by George G. Gilman

  ‘It was Spade talked, cowboy!’ Hammer growled.

  ‘Look what they did to him!’ the San Francisco detective countered, shaking his head to move the ends of his sandy hair away from his eyes. He pointed down at Shayne.

  The injured man had his forehead resting against his folded knees. When he looked up, Edge was able to see why Shayne was in so much agony and the reason he had lost a lot more blood than last night. For the red-headed detective opened his mouth, apparently to voice the anger that gleamed through the dullness of pain in his eyes.

  But he said nothing. Only screamed as the lower half of his injured cheek fell away from the upper. The two sections of flesh had been held together by congealed blood and the opening of the man’s mouth broke the seal. For a moment, his exposed white teeth gleamed in their setting of the lower gum. Then fresh blood cascaded down over them. The pain became too much for the man’s mind to bear and he was plunged into unconsciousness, tipping over on to his side with his knees still drawn up to his chest.

  ‘He did it with a gun barrel,’ Spade gasped, the words forced out through the bile of threatened nausea that rose into his throat.

  ‘That’s when he told them you’re the only one knows where the picture is, cowboy,’ Hammer muttered. ‘And after they’d ripped the car apart when the conductor spoke his piece.’

  Edge narrowed his eyes to peer into the shaded car. Beyond Wayne and Dale, who stood in rifle-toting, splayed-legged arrogance on the threshold, he saw the wreckage of torn open cartons and destroyed crates, the contents spilled and trampled. Then he raked his gaze around the five gunmen.

  ‘Anyone tell these fellers the way I feel about having guns aimed at me?’ he asked evenly.

  ‘The hell with that, Edge!’ Spade snarled. ‘Give these bastards what they want. There ain’t nothin’ worth anyone else suffering the kind of barbarity they—’

  Josh tracked his gun around and exploded a bullet into the roadbed between Spade’s feet. The detective leapt backwards with a startled yell.

  ‘We just want to hear him doing the talking, mister!’

  ‘We don’t have a lot of time,’ Wayne said, after a glance out towards the distant cloud of raised dust. ‘Not enough to tear this whole train apart.’ He spat, powerfully enough to arc the globule of saliva ten feet out into the desert. ‘But enough to make you hurt bad. So bad you’ll figure we’re takin’ a hundred years to make you talk.’

  ‘Vic’s comin’,’ Junior reported.

  ‘I seen him. Same as Edge did.’ He fixed the half-breed with a cold and steady stare. And grinned with his mouth. ‘Vic’s with us, mister. So ain’t no use countin’ on help from him.’

  ‘Not often I count on help from anybody,’ Edge answered evenly.

  ‘Damn you, cowboy!’ Hammer rasped. ‘We was watching for people boarding at Reno. We didn’t figure on any bastards crawling under the length of the damn train to get back on at the caboose!’

  ‘And neither did you!’ Spade flung at the impassive half-breed. ‘Seein’ as how you were sleepin’ like a baby in the—’

  Josh exploded his gun again, and the sandy-haired detective leapt back another two feet He didn’t yell this time - merely broke out into a sweat as the Colt was angled up from his feet to draw a bead on his heart. ‘I told you once already. Next time you get one where you’ll bleed - but not for long.’ His eyes and the muzzle of his gun swung to cover Hammer. ‘Different mouth, but the same message for it, punk!’

  Dale was whispering in Wayne’s ear, and the oldest and apparently the leader of the bunch nodded his agreement with what was said to him. Then:

  ‘Josh, the skinny guy gave Dale an idea. They ain’t babies, I guess, but go get them. And you’d better take Junior. Their Ma and Pa will give you trouble.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ Spade groaned.

  Hammer confined his reaction to a silent and curious look at Edge.

  As Josh and Junior moved quickly back along the train towards the sleeper, Wayne and Dale worked triumphant smiles on to their faces. Cal seemed bored as he peered out towards the enlarging cloud of dust.

  Edge’s lean, dark, heavily bristled face remained set in the impassive lines that formed his usual expression in repose. Certainly his glittering eyes - thin cracks of ice blue between the narrowed lids - revealed nothing of his thought process, which was concerned with whether or not he would have to admit defeat.

  Nobody said anything until Josh and Junior went from sight to enter the sleeper car at either end. Then Edge asked:

  ‘Did they kill the conductor and brakeman?’

  The sun was high enough now to ooze sweat from the pores of those men not in the shade. But it was not heat alone which broke out the beads of salty moisture on the faces of Spade, Hammer and Edge.

  ‘Hog-tied in the caboose,’ Hammer answered.

  Wayne made a sound of disgust, then spat more saliva into the desert. Parched sand drank it before the sun could turn it into steam. ‘Forget it, Edge!’ he growled. ‘We’ve killed when we had to. All kinds of people ... all ages.’

  ‘No!’ the mother of Henry and Arlene shrieked.

  ‘You bastards!’ the captain bellowed.

  The surrounding silence of the desert acted to amplify all sounds from the stalled train. But the constant hiss of escaping steam seemed to be suddenly subdued by the cries of the distraught parents.

  The two crewmen leaned out of their cab to peer back along the length of the train.

  Two revolver shots exploded, placed close enough together so that they almost sounded as one.

  ‘Mommy!’ Arlene shouted shrilly.

  Windows were flung open in the two cars immediately behind the locomotive as the fear of the passengers was overcome by morbid curiosity. Heads were thrust out.

  Josh and Junior had been given no orders other than that which all the men at the baggage car had heard. Yet they staged the demonstration which Wayne and Dale were obviously waiting for.

  ‘Some old,’ Dale said softly.

  Edge knew there was nothing paranormal about it. During the war he had developed a close rapport with the six men who were later to die for murdering Jamie. He was their superior officer and he led them well. They hated him and yet they respected him. And after he had been in command of them long enough, they invariably knew what he required of them without him having to issue an order.

  Two windows of the sleeper car were shattered. Shards of the broken glass exploded outwards, spinning and turning and glinting in the early morning sunlight. The bodies which had been hurled through the panes did not glint. But beads of blood gleamed as the bullet wounds and cuts from shattered glass sprayed a crimson rain out of the limply falling corpses.

  The captain and his wife thudded to the ground and became inert on the splashes of glinting glass. The hiss of escaping steam resumed its former volume.

  Seconds were stretched.

  Henry and Arlene emerged from off the rear platform of the sleeper, waxen-faced and silent as they stared at their dead parents.

  ‘Some young,’ Wayne added.

  Josh and Junior stepped down from the train behind the children, and aimed their guns without the two youngsters being aware of the deadly threat from behind them.

  ‘You like kids?’ Dale asked, his tone gently taunting.

  ‘These two I could get to love,’ Edge growled in reply, bleakly watching the two nightgowned youngsters who were the main cause of his surrender. He spat into the crushed rock between his boots and then raked his icy gaze over the unconscious Shayne and the sweating Spade and Hammer.

  ‘Roasted, with maybe a side order of hard-boiled eyes.’

  Chapter Nine

  Wayne and Dale backed into the baggage car and tightened their grips on the Winchesters as Edge approached them.

  ‘Cal!’ Wayne called with a tremor of fear in his voice.

  The raincoated man whirled from looking towards the point where his partners were aiming Colts at the two children. His own gun
became aimed at the moving half-breed.

  ‘You don’t have the time to tear apart the train,’ Edge reminded, reaching up to grip the doorframe, then halting the act of climbing into the car. ‘Means you don’t have the time to kill me or the kids.’

  ‘You mean...?’ Dale started.

  ‘Why don’t you say what you’re going to do before you do it?’ Wayne snapped.

  Both of them were now sweating as much as the men out in the sun.

  ‘Yeah, Edge!’ Spade snarled. ‘Ain’t things bad enough without you makin’ them more dangerous?’

  The half-breed hauled himself up into the car. His grin expressed only contempt and his tone betrayed no secret message. ‘It’s a lousy life that’s got no surprises in it.’

  His eyes shifted lazily from the faces of Dale and Wayne to those of Hammer and Spade, then lengthened their focus to look towards the dust cloud. It was a lot closer now. No more than a mile away. He could see a mounted rider leading a string of saddled horses. Dust raised from under the hooves of the frontrunners obscured the end of the line. But he guessed there were five horses in the string.

  ‘Call your killers off them kids!’ Spade demanded.

  ‘Yeah!’ Hammer rasped. ‘And get them out of sight of their parents, for pity sake.’

  ‘No way!’ Wayne snarled. And showed a harsh grin towards Hammer. ‘You understand about insurance, mister. Those kids are our insurance against Edge trying any tricks.’ He gestured with the gun. ‘Okay, where is it?’

  Both the sweating detectives reached a high point of impotent anger, then became resigned to helplessness as they looked at Edge. But the half-breed had already turned his back on them to go deeper into the shade of the baggage car.

  ‘Blast them if you even think something’s wrong,’ Wayne hissed at Cal, and received a grim-faced nod of acknowledgement.

  Then both the riflemen tagged after Edge, who was picking his way through the debris of the wrecked containers and their former contents: clothing, books, preserved food, fresh fruit, pots and pans and a dozen other items of personal and commercial freight.

  ‘It’s not in here?’ Dale asked as Edge made to open the door at the front of the car.

  ‘Looks like you worked that out for yourselves,’ the half-breed answered sardonically with a bleak glance around the littered car.

  ‘Where then?’

  ‘Pullman day car. You want to talk about it or find it?’

  ‘Go ahead,’ Wayne ordered. ‘And remember. You won’t be the first to die. Just the one who’ll suffer most.’

  The sixth member of the bunch had been holding down the pace of his horse and the string behind him as he rode through the mounting heat of early morning. But, as soon as he was close enough to see the trackside scene in detail, he started to gallop the animals. As Edge stepped from the platform of the baggage car to that of the Pullman, he could hear the hoof beats as Vic hurried to satisfy his curiosity about the progress of the hold-up.

  Wayne and Dale followed him into the damaged splendor of the plushly furnished coach. The cold air of night was still trapped within its confines and permeating this dullness was the acrid taint of charred carpet and furniture coverings.

  ‘How’s it goin’, Cal?’ a man yelled in high excitement, his voice rising above the thud of slowing hooves.

  ‘Sweet, Vic. After we killed a couple of people. Made a real hard bastard soft as cream.’

  The sour kind, wouldn’t you say, Wayne?’ Dale posed. And giggled.

  Edge glanced briefly out of the window. Vic was another youngster in his mid-twenties. His raincoat was lashed to the bedroll behind his saddle. The half-breed saw he had been right about the number of horses in the string. Which meant the bunch had no ace in the hole. He had merely hoped that the horse of Vic and three others carried a booted rifle. They did, and the horses were halted close enough to Spade and Hammer for the detectives to be aware of the fact. Which was worth no more than a deuce: but deuces could turn out to be wild.

  ‘We ain’t home and dry yet,’ Wayne growled. ‘So save the celebrations, uh? Okay, Edge. Where?’

  The half-breed had advanced a third of the way down the car and halted - in the area which had suffered most from the fires started by the damaged stove. The chance of destroying the painting had been a calculated risk he had taken when he kicked at the smoke stack last night. But his survival had been on the line and he was used to taking such a risk in such a situation. As now.

  There were eight color prints hanging on the walls - four on each side between the windows. He pointed a long index finger at the framed print hanging above the armchair he had occupied for most of the first leg of the journey, between Oakland and Sacramento. It was a pale water-color of the Salt Lake City Tabernacle.

  ‘Everything all right inside?’ Cal called, a little nervously.

  ‘Couldn’t be better!’ Dale yelled in a gleeful tone.

  Edge was tugging at the lobe of his right ear. Dale started forward as he responded to Cal’s inquiry.

  ‘I’ll get it,’ Edge muttered, and stepped towards the hanging print.

  ‘Dale’ll do it!’ Wayne snapped.

  Dale came between his partner and Edge as the half-breed pushed his right hand under his long hair, as if to scratch an itch at the back of his neck. Dale contained his excitement for long enough to gesture with his Winchester for Edge to move out of his path.

  Edge complied.

  Wayne came to a halt six feet away, rifle leveled from the hip in rock-steady hands.

  Outside the sweat-lathered horses had stopped stamping the ground and whinnying. There was no more talk.

  Grinning broadly, Dale rested his Winchester on the chair and then pushed the chair away from below the print. This put the rifle further out of reach of Edge.

  ‘Who d’you plan to sell it to?’ Edge asked, still scratching.

  Dale was four feet away from him, reaching to grip the frame and lift the print down from the wall.

  ‘None of your concern,’ Wayne rasped.

  Dale had the print in his hands. He turned it, and giggled again when he saw that the cardboard backing had obviously been removed and refitted.

  The sweat had dried on the half-breed’s bristled face as he entered the cold Pullman. The door was still open, but it was not entirely the warmth of the morning air that oozed fresh beads from his pores.

  ‘It’s here,’ Dale gasped, as he prised off the backing and saw the reverse of the painted canvas underneath.

  ‘Careful!’ Wayne warned, and shifted his gaze towards Dale.

  Edge lunged, his right hand streaking out from under his hair. His left curled into a claw, fastened on Dale’s shoulder and yanked the man towards him. He half turned and forced Dale to make the same movement.

  Dale vented a shriek of alarm and dropped the framed print with the oil painting behind it.

  Edge became solidly balanced and Dale would have bounced away from him after crashing against him - except that the half-breed’s right arm curled over his other shoulder, to rest the heel of the hand on the man’s chest. And the point of the razor touched the skin of Dale’s throat, just above his Adam’s apple.

  Thus, Dale was only half an inch away from having his throat opened up, and his rigid body was a shield between Edge and the wavering Winchester.

  ‘What’s wrong in there?’ Cal yelled.

  ‘Excitement,’ Edge rasped through clenched teeth. ‘Or your brother’s life gets cut short. Fast either way.’

  There had been perhaps a second in which Wayne could have got off a shot and killed Edge without danger to his own or Dale’s life. But the half-breed had counted on a hunch that was born when the two men backed away from him in the baggage car. Maybe they were both killers, but they didn’t like killing, and figured they didn’t have to do it when they had men like Josh, Cal and Junior working for them. So it had taken Wayne that vital second to overcome his dislike - and realize there was nobody around to do the killing for hi
m. By that time it was too late.

  And, from the anguish which became inscribed upon the man’s face, Edge realized that he had also called it right about the family resemblance marking them as brothers.

  Dale vented a sound that could have been a sob.

  Wayne stilled his rifle and his gaze - directing both at Edge’s head which was the only vulnerable target he showed from behind his human shield.

  Time’s run out!’ Edge snarled.

  ‘Nothing!’ Wayne yelled, his voice suddenly hoarse. ‘We found it. Dale’s overjoyed.’

  ‘Drop the rifle, feller,’ Edge muttered. ‘Same penalty if you don’t.’

  ‘If I do?’

  ‘Just do it, Wayne,’ his brother gasped. ‘Please.’

  The brother with the rifle was as frightened as the one with a razor at his throat. Fear clouded his brain to slow down his thinking processes. But then he grinned as he reached the decision - and dropped his Winchester to the carpet.

  ‘There’s four more outside, you sneaky bastard!’ he taunted.

  ‘What’s holdin’ you up in there?’ Cal demanded. Loud and suspicious.

  ‘Who’s the boss?’ Edge asked.

  ‘Mind your own damn business!’ Wayne shouted. Then lowered his voice and a gleam of triumph showed in his eyes. ‘They won’t trade hostages, Edge. They’d kill their own brothers, mothers and fathers for the kind of money involved.’

  ‘You ain’t making me feel any better, Wayne,’ Dale croaked.

  ‘Hey, Josh, I don’t like this!’ Cal called along the outside of the train.

  ‘Watch those two!’ came the reply. ‘Vic, go check.’

  Edge stepped away from Dale, releasing him. He dropped the razor to give himself both hands free to snatch up the brass-framed Winchester from the chair. Dale sagged and had to lean his hands on a card table to keep from falling. Wayne started a move to retrieve his own rifle - but froze as he was covered. The gun in Edge’s hands was cocked, but he pumped the action to be certain there was a shell in the breech. An unexpended round was ejected.

  ‘Beat it, fellers. Outside.’