Silver in the Blood

by George G. Gilman

  Edge walked his horse down the center of the street, glancing to left and right through the misted windows, relishing the prospect of the warm, smoke-laden atmosphere behind them and the glow of whisky in his throat and stomach. But none of the saloons had the name Ritz over the batwings He passed the sheriff's office which was only dimly lit, the lawman sleeping peacefully behind his desk. Then two livery stables advertising the same rates, a barber's shop and dress store closed but displaying lights. Then came the Ritz Hotel.

  It was a three-story building, as wide as it was tall. The top two floors were blacked out but below, the action was still happening, albeit in a more subdued tone than further down the street. There were maybe two dozen horses tied to the long hitching rail at the edge of the canopied sidewalk and some buggies were parked on the vacant lot next to the hotel.

  After hitching his horse among the others, Edge went through the plate glass doors and, if he had been of such a nature, would immediately have felt conspicuous by his travel-stained appearance. He was in a lobby with deep pile carpet on the floor and framed pictures on the paneled walls. Through an archway on the left was a restaurant furnished with elegantly laid, white-covered tables around which expensively clad men and women used silver cutlery to eat from bone china plates as a three-piece band of piano, violin and cello aided their digestions with subdued music. A second archway to the right gave on to a high-class gambling saloon, fitted with a long mahogany bar complete with stools, and tables for poker, faro, roulette and craps. The drinkers and gamblers were as well turned out as the diners across the lobby. Edge spared a mere glance through each archway before heading between the over-stuffed chairs and sofas towards the hotel desk tended by a blue-liveried porter. It was apparent from the expression on the smooth, very pale face of the young porter that he recognized Edge as an intruder amid such surroundings.

  But the arrogance died from his eyes as the stranger drew close enough to reveal his latent threat.

  "Yes, sir?" the porter asked, with a rasp in his tone.

  "Wilder," Edge said softly.

  The porter swallowed hard. "Mr. Wilder is the owner of the Ritz, sir."

  "He around?"

  The porter was about twenty-five but looked a lot younger as he glanced nervously from side to side, as if, seeking aid in potential trouble. "In his office, I think."

  "Where's that?" Edge locked his narrowed eyes on the porter's gaze and the young man felt compelled to meet the look, as if hypnotized. It was obvious to Edge that he had crossed some invisible demarcation line which existed in town. People were supposed to know their place and stay with it.

  The porter hooked a finger between his starched collar and his neck. "Mr. Wilder does not like to be disturbed at night, sir."

  Edge leaned across the highly polished top of the desk until the tip of his nose was only inches from that of the porter. The porter's lower lip trembled. "There's a guy out on the mountain," Edge said softly. "It is cold out there and he looks like a man used to the sun. He did me a favor and I wouldn't like to see him die of exposure. I want to see Wilder."

  "What is it, John?" The, woman spoke quickly but with no hint of nervousness in her tone.

  Edge sighed and turned to look at her. The porter gave a gasp of relief. "Gentleman wishes to see your father, Miss Martha," he said and suddenly found an urgent need to look at the register.

  The woman was about thirty, tall and inclining to fat which the long, high-necked gown of a white frothy material did little to camouflage. Her hair was the color of straw, pulled back severely from a high forehead and held in a bun at the back of her head. Her features regarded Edge with a sour-eyed expression that seemed to carry a tacit warning.

  "Perhaps I can help you?" she asked, coming away from the arched entrance of the restaurant. "I'm Martha Wilder."

  "You know a big Negro who needs a new tailor?" Edge posed.

  A look of concern flitted across her face. "Anatali!" she exclaimed. "He works here. He prevents trouble from entering the Ritz."

  The implication was clear, but Edge ignored it. "Someone better go out on the mountain and get him."

  She stopped immediately in front of Edge, her anxiety very real as she studied him from all almost equal height. "What do you mean? Why can't Anatali…?"

  "He's kind of tied up," Edge interjected.

  "Come," she said at once. "I'll take you to. See father."

  Her dress swished as she turned and gave off a perfume too sweet for Edge's taste. He followed her around the end of the reception desk and through an unmarked door. It gave on to a short hallway with another door at the far end. This one was marked PRIVATE. Martha Wilder led him through without knocking, then stepped quickly to the side. Edge found himself looking into the muzzle of a solid-frame Whitney revolver resting on the top of a desk in a meaty hand. Out of the comer of his eye he could see a big black man in a too-tight dude suit.

  "I've come to give you some money, Mr. Wilder," he said, showing his teeth in a grin as he lifted his eyes to look at the man behind the desk.

  "In a pig's eye that's why you came," the man said.

  "No, on a horse."

  Mason Wilder had the frame of a heavyweight prizefighter gone to seed and a face that showed the scars of the struggles he had survived to get where he was. He was on the wrong side of sixty with leathery features cascading down as if they had slid off his completely bald skull and taken up random positions. One eye seemed larger than the other, his nose had been broken in two places and his mouth Slanted. The teeth were crooked behind his twisted lips. Edge realized that his daughter had not stood a chance in the beauty stakes.

  "Two-and-a-half thousand dollars isn't joke material," Wilder said, The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up to show thick, hair-matted arms. Edge could also see a black velvet vest with silver buttons. He wore a silver ring on every finger of each hand.

  "It's only money," Edge answered and looked at Anatali. "You got loose?"

  The Zulu still showed no resentment towards the man who had treated him so badly.

  "He's a strong boy," Wilder answered.

  Edge looked around the room and saw the Zulu's assegai leaning against a chair piled with back numbers of The Atlantic Monthly. He spotted the club on a window sill.

  "Money's in my hip pocket," Edge said. His hands were held loosely at his sides, the right one close to the butt of the Colt. But he knew he didn't stand a chance in such a situation. "I'll have to make a move to get it."

  Wilder studied him in. silence for awhile. "Let it stay awhile. What's your name, stranger?"

  "Edge?" His tone added the query and he watched Wilder closely for a reaction. There was none.

  "Just Edge? Nothing else?"

  "I travel light."

  Wilder nodded and suddenly put down the gun. It rested lightly on a copy of The Territorial Enterprise.

  "You read a lot," Edge said.

  "Paper- hasn't been the same since Sam Clemens went east. You heard of him, Mr. Edge?"

  "I do things instead of reading about them. The two don't mix; Never the twain shall meet."

  "Shall, I order some coffee, father?" Martha asked.

  "If it will improve Mr. Edge's humor," Mason Wilder answered. He waited for his daughter to leave the office then nodded to Anatali who pushed forward a chair. "I apologize for the gun, Mr. Edge," he said as Edge sat down, beginning to feel the numbness of the night ride in the mountains ebb from him. "But I heard you were a fast man in a dangerous situation. You seeing Anatali again might have made you nervous."

  "I never get nervous," Edge answered, watching Wilder more closely, trying to anticipate his line of thought.

  Wilder cracked his mouth in a crooked smile. "Wrong choice of word. Perhaps I should have said apprehensive?"

  Edge took the makings of a cigarette from his shirt pocket and began to roll a cylinder. "You're the one with the literary mind," he pointed out.

  Wilder refused to have his confidence shaken by Ed
ge's quiet lack of response. "I have a proposition to put to you, Mr. Edge."

  "I get claustrophobia down mines," Edge answered.

  "The silver's out," Wilder said. "We dug out the ore before the inside of Davidson Mountain began to flood. It's been through the stamp mill and smelting plant and now it's in neat little blocks ready loaded on a wagon."

  Edge scratched a match along the front of the desk and set fire to his cigarette. Anatali took a step forward, but Wilder held him back with a raised hand. "I saw a piece of the town on the way here," Edge said. "I noticed the Pioneer Stage Line's got an office a few blocks away. Wells Fargo's here, too. And one of your local historians told me awhile back that Crocker's brought the Central Pacific almost to your front stoop."

  Wilder smiled. "I don't trust railroads, Mr. Edge. Don't trust the Chinese labor to build them properly. And freight lines ain't safe for big hauls. Sierras are thick with outlaws. Couple of wagons on the trail are likely to attract less attention."

  Edge drew deeply against his cigarette. "Thought you made mention of just one wagon at first?"

  "One with the silver aboard," Wilder answered. "Second one's for Martha."

  Edge said nothing. His expression spoke volumes of what he thought about escorting a woman across dangerous country.

  Wilder brightened his smile. "I'd like you to take the wagons to San Francisco. There's a clipper waiting there. Soon as Martha and the silver are aboard she'll set sail for China."

  "Thought you didn't trust Chinese."

  "I don't. That's why Martha's going to take care of my Oriental investments."

  "Why me?" Edge asked as the soft sound of distant music filtered into the room. A young girl in a waitress outfit entered the office, carrying a tray loaded with coffeepot, milk jug, sugar bowl and two cups in saucers. Edge noted they were made of silver and china.

  The coffee smelled as good as the girl looked.

  "I need a hard man," Wilder answered. "But one with a sense of honor. When Anatali came back and told me about you I knew you were hard. And if you came to tell me about Anatali it figured you were honorable."

  "I didn't intend to give you the money back," Edge pointed out.

  "You didn't steal it from me. If you take the job you can keep it. And Martha will draw a like amount from my bank in San Francisco at the end of the trip."

  Edge looked at the waitress, blonde and pretty and looking lost standing just inside the door with the heavy tray. He was heading for San Francisco anyway. To arrive with a stake of five thousand dollars wouldn't be a hardship. "Why don't you send him?" Edge asked, jerking his cigarette towards the Zulu.

  "I am," Wilder said, indicating the girl should rest the tray on his desk. His unequal eyes looked hard into Edge's face. "But he's a greenhorn in the West. I won him off an English cardsharp. The gambler mistreated him. I don't. So he likes and respects me. He couldn't find his way through the mountains. But he'll keep a damn sharp eye on the man I choose to take the wagons."

  There was a silver ashtray on Wilder's desk and Edge used it to stub out his cigarette. He looked at Anatali. "I could draw faster than you could pick up that Whitney, Mr. Wilder," he said slowly. "That way I'd have two-and-a-half grand, and no sweat for it."

  "A greenhorn, but a good tracker. He'd catch up with you."

  "That right," the Zulu put in. "Then you be like the man in the mountains."

  "A messy bleeder?" Edge asked.

  "Bleeding awful," Anatali replied and smiled for the first time. He showed a lot of teeth when he smiled, dazzlingly white against his black skin.

  "That's all, Sue," Wilder said and the girt left the office, seeming relieved to be out of it. Wilder lifted the coffee pot. "How about it?"

  "When is it planned to leave?"

  "Sooner the better. Tomorrow morning?"

  "I'll sleep on it."

  Wilder grinned, sure they had a deal. "How do you like your coffee, Mr. Edge?"

  Edge locked eyes with Anatali who was still smiling at his British joke.

  "Like him," Edge said.

  "Sorry?"

  "Pour it as it comes, Mr. Wilder," Edge replied, aware of the enormous power of the man who looked so stupid when he smiled. "Black and strong."

  Chapter Seven

  THEY set out at ten o'clock the next morning, from a yard behind the Ritz Hotel. Each covered wagon was, driven by an old-timer. The silver bars were in the first, crated in six unmarked wooden boxes. Martha Wilder rode in the second one which was fitted out as a travelling boudoir complete with commode and bathtub. Edge and Anatali rode their horses. It was a bright, clear day, the air seeming to sparkle in the frosted sunlight that portended sub-zero temperatures amid the glistening snow-capped peaks that stretched across their route. Despite his tropical heritage, Anatali did not seem to feel the cold and the only addition to his inappropriate garb was a ridiculous black derby hat which nested at a jaunty angle amid his frizzy hair. Not so Edge, who had delayed the start of the journey long enough to visit two stores and spend some of his newly acquired wealth on a quilted parka jacket and a pair of fur-lined boots.

  They left Virginia City clinging to its hillside and crossed the Washoe Valley on one of the half dozen stage trails heading west, Edge selecting the one which followed the route of the Virginia City-San Francisco telegraph line. He set a medium fast pace designed to cover the greatest possible amount of country in the shortest time without tiring the two-horse teams which hauled the wagons. At first the going was easy. And safe—because the valley was thick with optimistic prospectors working their claims, unwilling to admit the Comstock was a big company mining lode requiring heavy machinery and the most modem techniques to reach its rich veins through the soft, dangerous rock formations. No outlaw with an iota of commonsense would attempt a hold-up in broad daylight under such circumstances.

  But by late afternoon after a short stop to eat a meal cooked passably well by Martha Wilder, the valley and its scenes of hectic activity were a dim memory, no longer even in sight. The sun had disappeared behind cloud at midday and a heavy blanket of cumulonimbus was soon drawn completely across the dome of the sky, seeming almost to touch the razor-backed ridge of the crest for which the wagons were heading. The wind had held off but the cold did not need it to make itself felt.

  Throughout the day Anatali had stayed close to Edge, riding to the left of the lead wagon when Edge was on the right, falling back when Edge did so, then appearing at the rear of Martha's wagon when he checked that. He spoke only when he had a question and Edge quickly tired of explaining that he was inspecting the wheels and springs for signs of weakness from the trip, or scanning the barren countryside on each side for plumes of smoke, campfire ashes or tracks that could betray strangers in the vicinity of the trail. But the Zulu was a zealous pupil who always politely thanked Edge for information and refused to acknowledge his reluctant tutor's impatience.

  "You know, feller," Edge said at length as they led the wagons into a pass, "you are beginning to be a pain in the ass. Your boss didn't say anything about me having to educate you. For that I charge extra."

  Anatali's face brightened with his idiot's grin. "Talk don't cost anything," he pointed out.

  "With me, everything's get a price," Edge answered.

  The Zulu looked at the tall man with the lean face, studying the hard lines of his rugged profile. Then he shook his head slowly with a sad expression in his large eyes, admitting that he would never understand such a man. He adjusted the spear into a more comfortable position in his right hand and as he moved slightly in the saddle, the club which was held to a belt by a thong under his jacket rubbed comfortably against his leg.

  The two rifle shots were synchronized but the driver of the second wagon screamed longer. than the old-timer who died in his seat in front of his bullion load. Other rifles cracked, spitting orange powder flashes out of the late afternoon murk and sending bullets whining around the wagons like raging hornets.

  "Get the girl!" Edge
yelled, as he jerked his horse to a stop, wrenched the Winchester from the boot and leaped onto the box of the passing wagon, kicking the dead driver to the trail. With a high-pitched wail of urgent command, he lashed the team with the reins to drive the wagon into a sudden burst of swaying speed. The Zulu's reaction to the attack was no slower. He had nothing to learn about horsemanship and he had stopped his mount in an instant. A moment before Martha's wagon drew level with him, a second bullet slammed into the driver, ending his screams and flipping him off the seat. Anatali had jumped into his place, the seat of his pants slithering in a pool of spilled blood, and was urging the team after the bullion wagon almost before the dead man had hit the ground.

  The gunfire of many weapons was like hail on a tin roof in the confines of the pass, the flashes bursting through the gloom on both sides of the trail. In the rear of the second wagon Martha Wilder's normal composure was shattered to pieces by the noise and the headlong rush. Her soured face was pale with terror as she peered over the tailgate at the rushing trail receding behind. A bullet ricocheted off a rock and smashed splinters from the framework an inch from her cheek. She screamed in horror and jumped to her feet, preparing to dive towards the front of the wagon. But at that moment the trail took a sharp curve arid as Anatali steered the team into the turn, the rear wheels slithered and one of them crunched into a hardened rut. The wagon swayed, teetered and almost went over onto its side. But at the same moment the woman catapulted over the top of the tailgate, balance was regained and the wagon rumbled off with all four wheels taking the weight.

  Martha's body thudded to the hard ground, knocking her senseless and curtailing her scream of anguish. It rolled over and over several times, amid little spurts of dirt which were bullets hitting the ground. Not until it lay still did the sound of the speeding wagons recede to the extent that the thundering voice of a man could be heard.