Then came the frantic scrape of metal against metal as the man worked the damper.
"Open the door and shutter, will you!" he snarled. Bolts were drawn from brackets and timber slammed against walls—the shutters to the outside and the door to the in. Smoke wisped and then billowed out into the bright sunlight, the strong smell of wood masking the appetizing aroma of cooking food.
Edge jacked a shell into the breech of the rifle, his face impassive.
"It's no damn good! We gotta get outside!" The woman emerged first, at a run. And Edge received a fleeting impression through the thickening smoke of a tall, thin woman dressed in pants and shirt. Then Dibble appeared. He had a bare torso. Both of them were coughing.
Edge stood up, side-stepped to the chimney, jerked his coat free and draped it over one shoulder as he returned to the front of the roof.
The couple continued to be wracked by choking coughs as the smoke began to thin, bent over double and clutching their throats. The woman was May Worthington. Roy Dibble did not wear a gunbelt.
The half-breed exploded two fast shots and the bullets kicked up divots of the hard, packed dirt of the yard—one between each pair of splayed feet.
Further down the hill, the field workers snapped their heads around to stare fearfully up at the source of the rifle shots. But none was so fast in reflex action as the Worthington woman and Dibble, who whirled, straightened, threw back their heads and held their breath as they raked their eyes toward Edge.
Then the half-breed pumped the action of the Winchester again, as Dibble recovered from the shock and shifted his gaze from the roof to the open doorway of the house.
"If I have to labor the point again, feller," Edge drawled, "you could get bored to death."
"Point?" May Worthington croaked.
He allowed the rifle to dip down until its barrel end rested against the lip of the roof above the open doorway. "That there ain't no smoke without fire."
He squeezed the trigger.
CHAPTER NINE
ROY Dibble was close to thirty years of age. He was not tall, but he had a powerful build. He had light brown hair, almost blond, and a handsome face composed of regular features—the kind of face that would become more good-looking with maturity. Toiling long hours on the arid soil of Indian Hill had toughened and darkened his skin but his light blue eyes were clear and bright, as if there had been little mental anxiety accompanying the hard physical labor of his chosen way of life.
"I ain't no good at word games, mister!" he said while May continued to shake from the effect of seeing the third bullet bury itself in the dirt of the house threshold.
Thus as Edge dropped to his haunches, rested a hand on the lip of the roof and jumped to the ground. He landed sure-footed and well-balanced. "Gunsport more in your line, feller?"
"What is that supposed to mean, Edge?" May Worthington asked, and needed a great effort to keep a tremor from her voice.
"Your stallion in the barn, lady?"
On the hill, the homesteaders had returned to their work. Nobody had moved out of town to check on the reason for the shots.
"Yes. Why?"
"We don't have to tell him anythin', May," Dibble snarled.
"You want to bet on that?" Edge rasped. "A bullet to a hole where it'll take a long time for your life to run out through."
"He doesn't make idle threats, Roy," the woman warned gaining her composure by the moment "What about my horse, Edge?"
"Like for you to bring him out here."
"What for?"
"Want see if he's thrown the right foreshoe."
Dibble’s defiant attitude was suddenly displaced by renewal of panic, but he had no gun in his hand this time. While the woman showed the extent to which she had recovered by replying evenly, "The shoe is missing sure enough. He threw it while I was riding out here to Roy's earlier. Why on earth should that be of the least concern to you?"
"Good try, lady," Edge countered, and backed in through the doorway. "But your playmate ain't any good at long games, either."
The hot interior of the house still smelled heavily of I smoke. The half-breed saw a Winchester leaning against the wall beside the window and rested his own on a table while he pumped the action of Dibble's rifle. And was able to watch the couple outside as he counted the unspent shells that were ejected and spun to the dirt floor.
Dibble kept clenching and opening his fists at his sides while May Worthington worked hard at keeping her poise from cracking. Soon, the rifle was empty.
"Two short of a full load," Edge said flatly. "Two shots. Two misses, Dibble. Is there anything you're good at?"
"We gotta tell him, May," the frightened man blurted, and raised one clenched fist to his mouth and began to chew on the fleshy part of the forefinger. "If he was out at Felipe's place like he says, he probably knows some of it anyway."
"You fool, Roy!" the woman snarled. "A man like him can’t be trusted! He only does anything for money! And he's in the pocket of the richest man in the territory! It'll ruin everything."
Edge exchanged his own rifle for the empty Winchester and raked his narrowed eyes over the crudely furnished, single room of the house. There was the a stove at one end with a narrow single bed at the other. The table with a chair each side of it in the center. Against the rear wall was a row of wooden boxes and cardboard cartons, most empty and a few stocked with meager supplies of canned foods, crockery, cooking and eating utensils. And there was a trunk under the bed.
"Beans smell good," the half-breed said, beckoning with his free hand for the couple to come back inside the house. "Why don't we all eat a hearty meal? In case it turns out to be the last for one of us?"
Dibble came inside first, as Edge sat at the table, facing the door and window, and leaned the rifle against his chair. The man was still afraid. May Worthington, sharing her anger equally between Dibble and the half-breed, trailed the homesteader.
"It was her idea, mister. It took a lot for her to make me do what I done. I ain't no killer."
"That's just because you're such a lousy shot, feller." Edge waved him to the chair across the table, and as soon as Dibble was seated he drew the Colt. "Ask you to take a seat too, lady," he went on. "But after what your pa did to you, I guess I wouldn't be doing you any favor. So you bring me some beans. Then you can stand easy."
He rested the base of the Colt butt on the table, muzzle aimed at Dibble's diaphragm, and cocked the hammer.
Dibble swallowed hard and fastened a tight, frightened grip to each side of his chair seat.
May's plain face colored with an expanding anger and she seemed to take firm root in the doorway of the squalid house. "I wouldn't bring you a cup of water if you were dying of thirst, Edge!" she answered, speaking quietly but coating each word with venom.
Edge sighed and rotated the gun a little so that it was leveled at her thin frame. "He's already made it plain that he wants to talk, lady. So I don't need you for anything I can do myself. Maybe I'll see you in Hell. Goodbye."
"No!" Dibble shrieked. And threw himself sideways out of the chair, was unbalanced for a fraction of a second then stood solidly in the line of fire. He stared for another moment into the glittering slits of Edge's eyes, then screwed his head around to stare at the woman. "You said it yourself. He doesn't make idle threats. Do like he says. Please!"
For a whole stretched second the woman's defiance hardened. But then the rigidity went out of her stance. "Very well, Roy," she said wearily and advanced on the stove. "But it's likely he'll kill us both anyway."
Relief had an exhausting effect on Dibble and he almost collapsed back on to the chair. The muzzle of the Colt tracked him.
"Tell it, feller."
Dibble was breathing heavily and there was a croak in his voice when he replied. "You have to know it all if it's gonna make any sense, mister."
The woman banged onto the table a plate piled high with beans and stabbed a spoon into the center of the foo
d.
"They say interesting conversation aids the digestion," Edge drawled as he transferred the revolver to his left hand and pulled the plate in front of him.
Dibble watched May Worthington go to the doorway where she took up a position with her back to the room: and stared fixedly down the slope of Indian Hill at the town. Then the bare-chested man got a fixed stare of his own into his light blue eyes, which became locked onto the dark hole of the Colt muzzle.
"Grace and me, we're in love," he opened. "Been that way for a long time. Ever since we rode the stage back from Tucson together. But it had to be in secret on account of her father being the way he is. Only times we ever got to see each other was when she could sneak up outta the valley. Dead of the night mostly. She'd come up over the hill from the north, the way you trailed her sister today."
"Isn't it a romantic tale, Edge?" May put in sourly.
Dibble's temper flared. "Don't you put us down, you bitch!" he snarled, but he did not turn his head to look at her.
"Sure is, lady," the half-breed allowed evenly after swallowing a mouthful of beans. "And if you interrupt again it could turn out to have a real heart-stopping moment."
May cursed softly.
"Kane Worthington is the hardest and meanest sonofabitch I ever did see," Dibble went on after a moment of relishing Edge's uncompromising rebuke of the woman. "I guess you know what he did to Indian Hill?"
"Yeah."
"And about how Felipe Cortez hit town and burned down every damn property Worthington had bought?"
"Yeah."
For a moment, Dibble seemed disappointed that he was to be denied the opportunity of telling the whole story of Worthington's empire building ambition and its frustrations. Then he sighed. "And I reckon you know that Grace ain't exactly a prisoner of Felipe and his men?"
Edge chewed beans and did not even respond by altering the impassive set of his features. And his silence spread anxiety across the handsome face of Dibble as May turned from the waist to direct a quizzical look at the half-breed. The tacit question remained in her eyes for perhaps two seconds. Then an evil smile became pasted to her unbeautiful face.
"You can kill me if you like, Edge," she invited. "I'll die happy now."
Her harsh laugh triggered Dibble into a fast, enraged move, as clumsy as when he had earlier lunged to protect her from the dispassionate half-breed. But this time it was he who meant her harm.
The Colt exploded a shot, the sound of the report very loud within the confines of the room and the acrid taint of burnt powder was pungent—masking the stale smell of old smoke that previously permeated the hot air.
Dibble screamed and was flung back down into his chair by the impact of the bullet tearing into his elbow from the inside of the joint. From the range of a table's width, the shell shattered bone and burst clear at the rear of the man's arm amid a spray of blood droplets and displaced tissue.
The eruption of violence did not alter one line of the smile on May Worthington's face. While Dibble's features were drained of color by pain and shock as he clutched at the wound in his right arm with his left hand. And stared at the bean-chewing Edge like a whipped dog who does not know the reason for the beating.
Edge rattled his spoon down on the empty plate and slid the Colt into its holster. "Owed you for trying to kill me, feller. I'm ready to call us even on that. If I have to send you to the big farm in the sky now, it'll be on account of something else you do. Or don't do." He took out the makings and began to roll a cigarette. "Right now, all I want from you are words."
"Go to hell, you hard bastard! Or backshoot me to send me there! I'm going to see Cortez!"
He got to his feet and the chair tipped over backwards. He swayed and swallowed hard, grimacing as if it was acrid tasting bile that had risen to his throat. He was still holding on to the wounded elbow. But then both his arms flopped to his sides and, as he made to turn toward the doorway, the delayed reaction to the assault on his nervous system hit him.
"Oh, my God," he rasped as he felt the strength drain out of him. And then he collapsed into unconsciousness. His limp body slammed hard to the dirt floor.
Edge struck a match on the table top and lit his cigarette.
"The fools!" May snarled as her grin became a sneer. "Trusting the Mexican. After he murdered those men on the stage, it was obvious to me Cortez had no intention of helping anybody but himself. But not Dibble, he still thought—"
"Your father keeps you and your sister on a short rein is how it looks," Edge cut in. "And she and the farmer here want to live happy ever after in some roses around the door cottage a long way from the Bar-W. But they need a stake to set themselves up and for a share of the action Cortez said he'd help. How do you fit into that, lady? And why were you so anxious to have him kill me and the local lawman?"
Bitterness now had a firm hold on the woman's thin features and she nodded several times while the half-breed spoke. Then,
"Tight rein is right, Edge. To father, Grace and I are as much possessions as his cows and horses and his house and land. So much so that it's surprising he never burned the Bar-W brand into our hides. We're both grown women and yet he treats us like children. The only allowance he makes is that we're both ready for marriage. For me, it's past time for that.
"But he picks likely candidates for husbands. Or he used to, until Grace and I had spit in the eye of every rich man's son he invited to the house. To put us on show like goods he had to trade." The harshness went out of her tone and expression and something akin to self-pity replaced it. "I guess he never had much hope for me—with the kind of looks I have. Which is why he didn't give a damn when he found out the reason for my early morning rides around the valley. So long as I was only making myself available to Bar-W men— bought and paid for and owned by him—he thought it was all right. Not good, but all right. At least I wasn’t asking anything from him. Especially money."
"Then your sister figured out a way of taking him for a big bundle, lady?"
A curt nod. "Yes, she did. The sneaky little bitch! Without telling me anything about it. There never was ever any love lost between us. Mainly because of Grace being younger and prettier than me, Father always had higher hopes of her bringing more money and property into the family, and she was always his favorite. And Grace sucked up to him. Always had a good excuse for not taking to any of the suitors he picked for her. Used to tell him how much she appreciated what he was trying to do for her. And give him wheedling apologies when it never ever worked out."
"I'd like for the beans to stay in my belly, lady."
"What?" She was jerked out of an embittered reverie on the jealousy-ridden past.
"I'm getting a little sick of listening to your family problems," Edge augmented.
"All right, damn you!" She stamped her foot. "I'll cut it short for you. I found out about Grace's secret trips out here to see this clod of a dirtfarmer. Saw her sneaking back home early one morning. So I started to watch her and I followed her to this hovel. I listened outside and heard them talking about the plan for her to be kidnapped by Felipe Cortez. How father would pay the ransom and how they would give a share to the Mexican and use the rest to get away from here and get married.
"At first I was going to warn father. But then I realized that would be acting like the spiteful small child he seems to think I am. And he wouldn't have thanked me for it. Kane Worthington never appreciates anything anyone does for him. So I bided my time, waiting for an opportunity whereby I could get a share of the money. "
From his chair at the table, Edge was able to loolJ out through the window and down the slope of Indian!
Hill to the town. Except for the gaps in the building line where Worthington property had been burned, little of the street was visible. But a stretch of the west trail was and he could see riders advancing along it. Seven men on horseback, trailing Kane Worthington's cut-under runabout.
"I don't have much more time to waste, lady," he told the thin wom
an in the doorway.
"Grace may not have much more time to live, mister," she countered. "Which doesn't concern me overmuch except that dead she's not worth fifty cents, let alone fifty thousand dollars. And after Father had beaten me this morning in such humiliating circumstances, I was more determined than ever to make him pay and to get my fair share of the money.
"So I rode out here to talk with Roy Dibble. And I did some straight talking to the crazy fool. I told him I knew all about the plan and he started to shake like a leaf when I warned him I'd tell father if he didn't do exactly as I told him."
"Kill me before I decided to tell your father Grace was a party to her own kidnapping?"
A flicker of fear showed in the woman's pale green eyes, but she regained control very quickly. "That's right. And he agreed fast when I pointed out that Father wouldn't care two hoots what happened to Grace if he discovered the truth. And that Felipe Cortez wouldn't hesitate to kill her if he didn't get the money he demanded.
"Dibble used to be a good customer of the cantina in the old days and at first the crazy fool wouldn't hear a word against the Mexican. Until I reminded him how Cortez murdered those two Wells Fargo men for doing absolutely nothing."
"And you waited here and sweated while Dibble rode your horse to the house to do some murdering of his own?"
Her fear took longer to be subdued this time as the soft-spoken words penetrated her mind and she stared at the impassive profile of the half-breed who continued to watch the men down on the trail.
"Yes. Sweating and thinking—that with you out of the way, there was only me, Dibble, Grace and Corte and his men who knew about the trickery. And none of us was likely to warn Father."
The man on the floor groaned and his legs and good arm twitched. And May Worthington scowled down at him as she added,
"But the stupid fool failed. He claims he's a fine shot, but that when he saw you with Sheriff Meyers, he went haywire."
"Obliged," Edge said, and belched as he rose from the chair, picking up the rifle.
The woman backed out of the doorway ahead of him as he advanced on her. "Is … is that all?" she asked, her hands and voice trembling.
EDGE: Death Deal (Edge series Book 35) Page 9
