EDGE: Death Deal (Edge series Book 35)

by George G. Gilman

  The cowpuncher had been right. The task Edge had set himself was a difficult one, for the spread supported a great many cows, horses and men to ride herd on the animals, thus the terrain was thick with sign. And all that worked in the half-breed's favor was the fact that the mount of the sharpshooter had thrown the right fore-shoe.

  Then, after two grueling hours of by turns scouring the ground and every pocket of cover within rifle range, Edge was able to make more speed. For it became ap­parent that his quarry, after heading consistently north­eastwards along the valley bottom over stock-raising terrain, had then swung to the right a mile or so short of where the farmsteads had been established. To ride out of the valley in a south-eastern direction—taking advantage of the cover of two elongated hillocks that formed a natural, hidden trail on the slope.

  At the top of the grade, Edge reined his gelding to a halt and looked half-right down Indian Hill to the town of that name—some two miles distant beyond the scat­tered farmsteads flanking the two trails that at the foot of the slope became side streets of the community.

  From this initial vantage-point, with a blurring haze of heat-shimmer mixed with smoke acting to soften the panoramic view over which he raked his slitted blue eyes, Indian Hill looked a pleasant enough town. But as he rode closer, the harsh reality of what he had seen in the moonlit early hours and at dawn could be witnessed even more clearly under the unremitting glare of the afternoon sun.

  And now there was not just Seth Barrow the grave-digger out in the open to show what effect such impov­erished surroundings had upon the human condition. For there were men and women engaged in back-breaking work on the arid fields of the farmsteads and a few people moved along the streets of the town, all of them poorly dressed and, whatever their ages, looking old before their time as they shuffled about their busi­ness—paying scant attention with dull eyes to the stranger who rode past.

  Just as he had done much earlier in the day, Edge hitched his gelding to the rail out front of the Arizona Star and pushed open the batwing doors to enter the saloon.

  He left outside the dry heat and smell of decay and relished the pleasant shade and fetid atmosphere filled with the familiar saloon odors of tobacco smoke, liquor and sweat. He was sweating as freely as Chuck Meyers, Seth Barrow and the sour-faced bartender. The bartend­er was smoking the cheroot and Meyers and the stoop-shouldered old timer were drinking whisky at a table.

  The other five tables in the place were vacant, as were most of the shelves along the wall in back of the bar. The sawdust on the floor had not been changed in a long time and the smoke-darkened timber walls of the twenty-by-forty room looked as if no effort had ever been made to clean them.

  "He led you to town?" Meyers asked.

  "What can I get you?" the bartender wanted to know, disinterestedly.

  "Beer. He came out of the valley to the north of town. Figure this is the only place he could have come. Riding a horse with one shoe missing."

  He bellied up to the bar, placed some coins on its top, took a swig from the glass set down before him, and turned to look at the lawman.

  "He tried for you first, feller. Only took a shot at me after I'd drawn a gun."

  Meyers shook his head. "I got no ideas, mister."

  "I didn't see a blacksmith's in town."

  Barrow aimed for a spittoon, missed and stained the old sawdust still more. "Man that run it was one of them that sold out to Kane Worthington, mister. So the forge was one of the places that Satanas burned down. Next door but one to the church."

  Meyers spat, and his aim was better. "Satanas, shit!" he growled. "His name's Cortez, Seth. He ain't nothin' but a drink-pourer turned to crime."

  "So where does a man get his horse shod around here?" Edge asked.

  "Young feller named Roy Dibble, mister," Barrow answered. "Runs the place highest up on Indian Hill. Found some ready-made shoes in what was left of the forge. Enough to last awhile for the handful of horses we got in town. Just Chuck's here. And Doc Laurie's.

  Mr. Benteen's buggy-horse. Few others here and the Most folks can't run to a horse no more."

  "Struggle enough to put feed in our own mouths, the bartender said bitterly.

  "The stranger's got troubles of his own, Curtis," the lawman muttered. "And I guess he's seen enough what's around him to know what ails this town."

  "Seems to me," the middle-aged, rat-faced bartender countered, "that he ain't got no troubles here he can' ride away from. A man like him."

  "Don't rile him, Curtis," Meyers warned. "He can be real mean when he's riled."

  "Like to finish what I start is all," Edge said evenly "A bad habit of mine."

  "But high-payin'," the sheriff pointed out. "You thought any about workin' for the Wells Fargo money as well as what Worthington is payin' you?"

  "Kane Worthington won't be paying anybody unless you foot the bill," Cyrus Benteen said as he entered the saloon at the head of a group of five other men.

  One of them, like Benteen, was attired in a city-suit vest and necktie. The other four were in shirtsleeve and wore aprons in the manner of storekeepers. The lawyer's expression matched his grimly serious tone of voice, while the other newcomers were enjoying a sense of satisfaction. All of them were in an early-fifties-to mid-sixties age-group.

  "What the hell's that supposed to mean, Mr. Benteen?" Meyers asked as he got to his feet.

  "Explain, Mr. Becker," the lawyer said.

  "Isn't this the man—"

  While Benteen led the others between the tables to the bar, nodding an acknowledgement when the tender lifted a whisky bottle from a shelf, the other city-suited man remained on the threshold of the saloon, eyeing Edge anxiously. When his gaze was trapped by the blue, glinting slits of the half-breed's eyes, he was frightened into curtailing the question.

  The short and fat Benteen realized the reason for Becker's nervous reticence and nodded in curt greeting when Edge glanced at him.

  "This gentleman has as much right to know of Kane Worthington's financial position as anyone else," he said to the room in general. Then, to the half-breed, "Mr. Becker runs the Indian Hill Bank, sir. You may be aware that Mr. Worthington called at the bank this morning."

  The sixty-year-old, gray-faced and balding banker was not reassured by the lawyer's explanation. He took out a handkerchief and mopped at his sweat-sheened forehead as he said, "It is most irregular for a man in my position to discuss the business of a client in pub­lic."

  "Frig that!" a gaunt-faced, bearded storekeeper growled and received grunts of agreement with the

  view.

  "Under normal circumstances, I would entirely con­cur," Benteen said. "But the present situation is most abnormal."

  "This ain't no fancy court hearin'," Meyers put in. "Cut out the five-dollar words and get to the point." He looked hard across the saloon at the sweating banker and asked, "You sayin' Kane Worthington came to you to raise money, Becker?"

  The banker sucked in a gulp of air as if he was about to launch into a lengthy reply to the question. Then he sighed the breath from his lungs and nodded as he said, "In short, that is precisely what happened, Sheriff."

  "Well, I'll be damned!" the bartender rasped.

  And Seth Barrow spat, scored a hit in the spittoon and thumped a fist gleefully on the table top.

  "If that's the short of it, feller," Edge said evenly, "what's the long?"

  Meyers nodded that he wanted to know this, too.

  "I'd rather you explained, Cyrus," Becker blurted. It was bad enough telling you people."

  With this, he turned and retreated hurriedly from the Arizona Star.

  "Damned old woman," the bartender snorted, at then grinned as the storekeepers signaled for another round of drinks.

  "You then," Edge said, pointing a brown-skinned finger at Benteen, recalling the constant anxiety which he had seen on Kane Worthington's face—that had receded only during the time he was frantically beating up on his daughter. An emotion which had been a
t odds with the image of a man of wealth and power who looked upon the world as his oyster.

  "Very well. Kane Worthington is over-extended. Not in the day-to-day running of his affairs, I should add. But he does not have sufficient liquid assets to meet the considerable extra expense necessary to secure the safe return of his daughter, Grace."

  "You mean the sonofabitch is broke, mister?" Seth Barrow asked. "Is that what he means, Chuck?"

  "No, he don't mean that," Meyers snapped impatiently. "He means that Kane Worthington can't just open a safe at the ranch and take out fifty thousand greenbacks."

  "Fifty-two thousand is the amount that's needed, Edge said evenly. "How much can he raise?"

  "Really, I must support Mr. Becker's view as far as inquiries of that nature are concerned," Cyrus Benteen complained. "There is no need to air every last detail of Mr. Worthington's financial affairs. The important question is: are enough people in this town prepared to loan the necessary funds to him."

  "Loan him?" Meyers exclaimed.

  "We said somethin' like that Chuck," the bearded storekeeper growled, and vented a hollow laugh.

  "Only not so polite," a man with a crooked nose amplified.

  Benteen scowled at the storekeepers, blatantly despising them. "There may be others in this town not prepared to use the life or death of a young woman as a bargaining tool."

  The bearded man snorted. "And someplace there may be pigs with wings, mister!"

  "Cut out the cross-talk and get to the friggin' point!" Meyers snarled.

  "Sure, Chuck," a soft-spoken, innocuous-looking man with a pencil-thin moustache offered. His features setting into a grin of evil delight as he continued, "Way we figure it, only way Kane Worthington is gonna get money out of us is if he sells us pieces of the Bar-W."

  There were long seconds of silence in the hot shade of the saloon. Then the lawman showed a grin which became a chuckle, the bartender threw back his head and laughed to the smoke-blackened ceiling. And Seth Barrow broke out into a childish giggle. The four store­keepers joined in the mirth. While Cyrus Benteen looked like he was going to be sick. And Edge drank the re­mainder of his beer and set the glass back on the bar-top.

  Meyers, grinning again, drew a dollar from his hip pocket and waved it at the bartender. "A beer for everyone, Curtis. We got cause for celebratin'."

  "Count me out, feller," Edge said, pushing away from the bar as the sounds of triumphant laughter sub­sided.

  "Me, too," Benteen rasped through teeth clenched in tightly controlled anger.

  "No need for you to go runnin' off to tell Worthing­ton the bad news, stranger," the bearded storekeeper called harshly. "He's due in town any time now to hear it himself from us."

  At the open batwings, Edge stopped and looked back over his shoulder as the fat little lawyer brushed angrily past him. "If you see me running anyplace," he drawled, "I'll be trying to catch up with the feller I'm chasing."

  Outside on the sun-bright street between the dilapi­dated buildings and the fire-ravaged ruins of those put to the torch, Cyrus Benteen was leaning against the wa­ter trough beside the Arizona Star hitching rail. He was taking deep breaths of the hot air, the freshness which was marred only by the smell of decay which clung to Indian Hill.

  "In a way, you can't blame them," he said dully he stared across the street to the bank, where Beck could be seen, sitting morosely behind a desk. "When they didn't do what Kane Worthington wanted, he out to ruin them."

  Edge swung up into the saddle and glanced bleakly along the street in each direction. "Looks like he's not doing too bad a job. Last town I'd come to if I aimed to raise fifty-two thousand dollars."

  "Ten thousand is what he needs, Mr. Edge. And there is ample on deposit at Becker's bank to cover it. Indian Hill used to be a prosperous town, I understand. Not since I've been here, though. Which is not long. I work for a legal office in Tucson which handles Mr. Worthington's business affairs. But when so many property deals started to go through, it was better for me to come to Indian Hill temporarily."

  He sighed. "But that is by the by. The fact is that many of the town's merchants were thrifty during those good times. And the bank has a reserve, of course. And there are sufficient funds available to cover the difference between the cash money which Mr. Worthington has to hand and the sum to secure Miss Worthington' safe release."

  Edge had been rolling a cigarette while Benteen talked. Now he struck a match on the stock of his booted Winchester and asked through a stream of tobacco smoke, "How much will the ten grand cost him?

  The lawyer's round, fleshy face showed a grimace "The Bar-W property is worth at least a hundred dollars an acre. The four men in the saloon—and they will have no trouble in gaining the agreement of others—plan to offer fifty cents. Which will secure them the entire valley for ten thousand dollars. In criminal law, which is not my field, such a deal comes close to being tantamount to extortion."

  Edge eased his gelding back from the hitching rail and turned him. "Law books got a name for what Kane Worthington did to this town, feller?" he asked evenly.

  Benteen got the sick look on his face again. "I said that in a way, they could not be blamed. But in their vindictiveness, they have chosen to ignore the fact that an innocent young woman could well be murdered. Amelia and I rode the stage from Tucson with Miss Grace and it emerged from our conversations that the young lady is adamantly opposed to her father's meth­ods. I made this clear during the meeting at the bank. But was shouted down."

  "She say why she went to Tucson?" Edge asked.

  "To visit the grave of her mother," Benteen replied, obviously puzzled by the half-breed's reason for the question. "Gertrude Worthington died at their home there just before the house in the valley was ready for occupation. Grace goes there once a month to place flowers on the grave." Suddenly, he nodded. "Yes, I see why you asked, sir. The trips were common knowl­edge, so the Mexican knew which stage Grace would be on."

  "Obliged," Edge said absently as he heeled his horse along the street and then steered him to the left, was soon back on the narrow trail that snaked up the hill­side between the farmsteads.

  In the fields that were still being worked, the men and women did not glance up at him this time. There was no one hoeing the weeds from the stony and dusty soil of the three acres surrounding the small adobe house and the larger frame barn that comprised the Dibble place. But smoke was curling lazily from a stone chimney that was built against an end wall of the house. And a smell of cooking penetrated out from the cracks around the door and the shutters which were closed upon the single window, an aroma that caused the half-breed's stomach to rumble its emptiness as he rode slowly through a gap in the barbed-wire fence that marked the boundary of Roy Dibble's property.

  "What you want?" a man demanded, the harshly voiced question shouted through the center crack in the ill-fitting window shutters.

  "Looking for a horse," Edge answered as he reined in his gelding on the hard-packed dirt of the yard out front of the house. "Which I could maybe eat since the owner won't have no more use for it."

  "There ain't no horse here! And you can eat in town! Turn around and get off my place!"

  In the barn, a horse whinnied.

  "You're a liar, Dibble," the half-breed drawled, and arced the butt of his cigarette away. "Got that straight from the horse's mouth."

  "Beat it!" There was a note of panic underlying the man's anger now. "If you don't, I'll blast you! I got the right! You being on my property!"

  It was the fear which had taken a hold on Roy Dib­ble that caused Edge to comply with the order. For somebody as scared as he was could likely carry out the threat without pause for thought. And, totally exposed in the center of the yard, the half-breed had not the slightest chance of surviving a fusillade of shots.

  "I'll call again," he said as he tugged on the reins to turn the horse.

  "You'll get the same thing then!" Dibble called after him as he rode out through the gap in the fenc
e. Ant made a right turn to head off the end of the trail veered right again and then reined in his mount as soon as he was out of sight from the front of the small house. He slid from the saddle and took the Winchester from the boot as part of the same move. He paused a few seconds to ease his topcoat off the bedroll and then, with long strides, went silently toward the rear of the adobe house. The roof had a low pitch with the slope from the front to the back. There was a wooden trough along the length of the rear wall to catch infrequent rainwater and by using this he was able to get up onto the roof without difficulty.

  He could hear no sounds from beneath him and made none of his own as he bellied along a diagonal line across the roof.

  On other farmsteads further down Indian Hill, men and women continued with their chores, unaware of the half-breed on the roof of the Dibble house. Only smoke from an occasional chimney showed that the commu­nity at the foot of the slope was not yet a ghost town.

  A few moments later, the chimney of the Dibble house no longer gave off smoke as it was blocked by the half-breed's coat—screwed up into a ball and jammed into the aperture. And he was down on his belly again, inching to the front lip of the roof. Where he waited, rifle aimed down into the yard, finger to the trigger and hand positioned to pump the lever action of the Winchester.

  The sun beating down out of the sky of scattered high cloud penetrated the fabric of his shirt and pants to burn his back and legs. Time seemed to slow down, but Edge had always been a patient man.

  Roy Dibble coughed. Then cursed. But the thick solidness of the roof acted to muffle the sounds.

  The shriller tones of a woman's voice made for more clarity when she snapped, "What's wrong with the damn stove?"