"What else is there?" he countered, adjusting the smoke-smelling coat over his shoulder.
"You . . . you shot Roy Dibble for trying to kill you. I've admitted I told him to do it."
Edge nodded and looked at her now that Kane Worthington and his men had ridden onto the main street of Indian Hill and were hidden from view by the buildings. "If you were anybody else, lady, I'd likely kill you for that," he drawled. "But since you are who you are, I figure life is going to be worse than death for you."
"You bastard!" she snarled.
"You were fathered by one of that kind by all accounts."
He went to the side of the house and saw that the gelding had wandered just a few feet from where he had left him. When he pursed his lips and vented a low whistle, the horse raised his head, whinnied and came toward him.
"You think I'm going back to the Bar-W and Kane Worthington if you give me any choice?"
"You've got the choice, lady," Edge told her as he slid the Winchester in the boot and swung into the saddle. "But then you always have, seems to me." He waved a hand to left and right. "Big, wide, hard world out there, though. Where black stallions and soft beds in clean rooms cost money that ain't easy to come by. Where there are more places like Dibble's dirt farm than there are like the Bar-W spread. And where even fine-looking women can't get a man to screw them at the drop of a chemise—and then get them to quiet at the drop of a rich father's name." He touched the brim of his hat and added, "Luck to you."
"You bastard!" she repeated, but this time rasped it through teeth clenched in a snarl.
This as Roy Dibble, a grimace of pain on his handsome face, staggered into the doorway and sagged against the frame.
"What's happenin'?" he asked, blinking against the glare of the late afternoon sun.
"What does it look like, you crazy fool?" May Worthington flung at the suffering and uncomprehending man. "He got what he came for and now he's leaving."
"Is that right?" Dibble asked, and relief to be rid of the glinting eyed half-breed so lightly started to show on his pale face.
"Sure is," Edge answered and glanced coldly at the scowling woman and the still-puzzled man before he heeled his horse out of the yard. "Plain and simple."
CHAPTER TEN
EDGE was aware of watching eyes as he rode in off the trail and started along the side street.
From further away, Chuck Meyers shouted. "Don't try it."
The half-breed reined in his horse on the center of the narrow street between two derelict houses with broken windows and sagging stoops.
"Kill anyone who gets in your way!" Kane Worthington roared.
And a rifle shot resounded back and forth from the facades of the buildings flanking Indian Hill's main street.
Edge knew he was being watched from behind a cracked, grime-encrusted window to the left of the doorway of the house on his right. He did not look in that direction as he slid the Winchester from the boot and eased out of the saddle, by swinging a leg up and over the gelding's neck and dropping to the ground.
"Mr. Worthington said for you to keep out of this, Edge," the man said, his voice hard, as he stepped forward to show himself at the window.
He was another of the rancher's hard-eyed deputies, standing with his thumbs hooked over his belt buckle.
"That's just a warning, Meyers!" Kane Worthington snarled. "If I have to fire again, it won't be high."
"All the tickets been sold, feller?" Edge asked, canting the rifle to his shoulder.
"What?"
"Like to see the gunplay," the half-breed answered and started forward, turning his back on the man at the window.
He glanced back over his shoulder when the door of the abandoned house creaked open and footfalls hit the hard-packed ground outside.
"I got my orders, mister!" the tall, broad-shouldered, narrow-waisted, red-haired man of about thirty snarled. And draped a hand over his holstered Colt.
"All right, Ralph!" Worthington shouted. "Go bring out what we came for."
"You hitting the bank, feller?" Edge asked.
"Yeah," the deputy answered, made nervous by indecision.
A nod as the half-breed faced front again. "Your boss has a reputation for getting what he wants. Come noon tomorrow, he'll need me more than you. If you pull that gun, use it."
He started forward and felt an itch between his shoulder blades. But knew it was caused by the man's eyes, rather than his gun-muzzle, leveled at the spot.
"Hell, mister, you sure make life difficult for people!" the deputy snarled, and took long strides to catch up with the half-breed.
"Into every life a little rain must fall, feller."
"It ain't stopped pourin' down since you showed up here," the man growled.
Edge spat ahead of him and the arid surface of the street soaked up the saliva before his boot stepped on the spot. "Only on folks who ain't got the sense to get in out of the wet, feller."
He and the deputy swung around the corner and surveyed the western stretch on the town's main street which had been shrouded in silence since the rancher had shouted the last order to Ralph Quine.
Now Worthington's top deputy was in process of doing what his boss had commanded. He was midway across the street between the Arizona Star and the Indian Hill bank, a half-pace ahead of six other men. All of them with handguns drawn and leveled and with tin stars pinned to their shirts, the shiny metal glinting in the rays of the sinking sun that cast the men's shadows long and narrow on the street. Hanson, with a white dressing on his right cheek, Kahn and Craven were in the advancing line. Which was faced by Chuck Meyers who was flanked by Becker and Cyrus Benteen, this trio aligned in front of the bank's open doorway. The sheriff had a Winchester sloped across the front of his body while the banker and the lawyer were unarmed.
Worthington's runabout was parked at the side of the street just short of the bank, but the powerfully built, gray-haired rancher was not aboard. He stood on the stoop of the saloon, just outside the fastened-open batwing doors. A Winchester was aimed from his shoulder, to draw a bead on Sheriff Meyers through a gap in the line of slow-moving deputies.
There was no one else on the street, but the tension in the watching eyes of witnesses concealed in nearby buildings seemed to create a palpable presence in the cooling air and failing light of afternoon-meeting-evening. While on the strip of street between the saloon and the bank, fear hovered like an invisible yet tangible cloud of poisonous vapor.
"Hold it there!" the moustached sheriff barked.
And the deputies complied in unison. The halting of their slow advance signaled a second of total silence, curtailed by the footfalls of Edge and the man at his side. Which drew every pair of eyes toward them.
"1 gave you an order, Tuttle!" Kane Worthington roared.
Edge sensed a sidelong, pleading glance from the man at his side. Called, "He passed it on, feller! We neither of us figured it was worth dying for!"
"Edge, they plan to rob the bank!" Cyrus Benteen shouted.
"He's with Worthington!" Chuck Meyers snarled at the frightened lawyer.
"Wrong, I'm with me," the half-breed countered as he and Tuttle continued along the street, both of them cracking their eyes against the fading glare of the setting sun. "Until somebody comes up with some money."
"Don't interfere in this and you'll get paid," Worthington assured coldly as he switched his concentrated attention back to Meyers. "You know what the people of this town want of me?"
"I heard," Edge answered as he and Tuttle came to a halt on the sidelines of the stand-off.
But the scowling, rigidly erect rancher continued as if there had been no response to his rhetorical query. "My daughter is in mortal danger and their price for her safety is me giving up the Bar-W. For frigging chicken feed." The Winchester wavered as Worthington's rising anger caused his hands to tremble. "Can you believe that?" he snarled. "This bunch of hay-seeds trying to screw me? Kane Worthington!"
> "It's the depositors' money and their decision, sir, the gray-faced and balding Becker said, needing to gulp down his fear after every two words. "By the rules the bank, I must abide by it."
"Screw the frigging rules!" Worthington raged "Quine, go do as I told you!"
"I said to hold it!" Meyers roared, louder and deeper than the rancher: and the knuckles of his fists showed white as he tightened his grip on the rifle. His words and the undeniable resolution in his stance an expression caused the line of deputies to remain where they were. Just Quine shot a glance over his shoulder to look at Worthington—and as his eyes momentarily swept across the face of Edge, they expressed a depth less hatred. "I don't have a cent in the bank," Meyers went on. "What I do have is a tin star on my chest. And that means I have to uphold the law. Bank robbery's against the law, Mr. Worthington."
"So is something called extortion, Meyers!" the rancher countered, less heatedly but offering no compromise in the way he maintained the aim of the rifle.
"Which is the crime the carpetbagging bastards of this town tried against me."
"Ain't no worse than what you did to Indian Hill, Worthington!" Seth Barrow jeered from inside the saloon.
"Keep out of this, old timer!" Meyers yelled, and glanced to his left and right. "You too, Mr. Becker, Mr. Benteen. This is law business."
He gestured with the rifle and Becker scurried away immediately, looking weak with relief. That fat little lawyer hesitated, licking his lips. But then his wife pleaded tearfully, "Do as the sheriff tells you, Cyrus! He's told you to come away. There's no shame in it."
This decided him and he moved quickly out of the line of fire from the deputies' guns, then forced himself to slow and continued at a dignified walk into the town's single office building.
"Don't try to be a hero, Meyers," Worthington urged and now there was a pleading tone underlying his words. "I didn't bring my men here to rob the bank. All I need is a loan. And everyone knows why I need it. I came here earlier today to request the loan— businessman to banker. Offered to repay it at double the base interest rate within a week at the latest. I was refused and—"
"You weren't refused, sir!" Becker corrected shrilly from the hardware store where he had taken refuge. "I told you I would have to put the proposition to my depositors."
The interruption stoked Worthington's anger anew. "I know your friggin' depositors and what they think of me, sir! So I knew what their decision would be! And I've brought my men here to overrule that decision! Kindly stand aside, sheriff. I am a duly appointed marshal of the Territory of Arizona and my men are sworn-in deputies! We are here to confiscate bank money which will be used to save the life of an innocent woman! When that purpose has been accomplished, the money will be returned! And I'm damned if I'll even pay minimum interest! Talk's finished!"
He nodded curtly to Quine, who spoke a soft word and started across the street again. The other deputies in the line were just a beat later in recommencing the advance on the lone figure of Chuck Meyers.
The Indian Hill lawman made to swing his rifle down. The fear of certain death showed in his eyes and his lips beneath the thick moustache moved to form word that might have been voiced as a curse or a plea or an acknowledgement of defeat.
All eyes were upon him or the men facing him. Until a bullet blasted from the barrel of the half-breed's Winchester. There had been movement and sounds before this—as Edge whipped the rifle down from his shoulder, thumbed back the hammer and rasped,
"Crazy sonofabitch!"
The bullet took Meyers in the right shoulder, forced him into a half-turn and slammed him sideways into the front wall of the bank. His Winchester slipped from his hands and bounced off his boots to the ground.
Another moment of intense silence blanketed Indian Hill, as the shadows of twilight crowded in and the redness in the western sky shaded darker.
Then Ralph Quine snarled, "Come on!" and lunged into a run—reached Meyers in time to snatch the revolver from his holster before the sheriff could touch it with his left hand.
Craven was hard on his heels and used a boot to kick open the bank door. Then the other deputies reached their objective—and Quine was able to delegate the chore of watching Meyers to a scowling Warren Hanson while he entered the bank.
Attention, which had switched from Edge to the storming of the bank, now returned to the tall, lean half-breed as he pumped the action of the Winchester to eject the spent shell case and then sloped the rifle to his shoulder again. The most powerful stare was directed from the inky black, narrowed-to-slits eyes of Chuck Meyers as the man leaned his back against the bank wall and slid down on to his haunches, clawed left hand clutching at the bloody wound in his right shoulder.
"You must really be hungry for that two grand, mister," he rasped through gritted teeth. "But you should've killed me."
"Doctor Laurie, get out here and attend to the sheriff!" Kane Worthington roared. And lowered the rifle to a one-handed grip at his side as he stepped down from the saloon stoop. "And be grateful to Edge, Meyers. I was within a half-second of firing. And I would have killed you, make no mistake."
He beckoned for Tuttle to join him and both of them stepped between the half-breed and the sheriff to enter the bank.
"If I was dead, you might have got away with it, mister," Meyers went on, after sparing a brief glance of deep hatred for the rancher. "Because there ain't anyone with any spunk around here gives a damn about me—"
"Seems to me you don't give much of a damn about yourself, feller," Edge drawled as a tall, elderly man with stooped shoulders emerged from the office building and crossed the street. And lights showed here and there at windows to keep the full dark of night away.
Meyers moved his blood-run hand away from the shoulder wound to stab a thumb backwards at his badge of office. "I don't wear this for decoration, mister. And it sure ain't for the money I get paid. Law's the law and you just broke it. More ways than I'm gonna trouble to count right now."
"Noble son of a gun, isn't he?" the lanky Indian Hill doctor growled in a Scottish-accented voice as he reached the front of the bank and gazed down at the injured lawman.
Hanson muttered, "I guess he won't be causin' no more trouble, Doc?"
"Only as a patient, my boy," Laurie answered.
"Yeah, go in and join the other toy deputies," Meyers growled. "Be a while before I'm able to make you or anyone else answer for what's happened here today."
"Aye, a real noble gentleman born too late and in the wrong country," the doctor went on after the scowling Hanson had gone into the bank. "He should have been born a few centuries ago in my native country. When I am sure he would have ridden a white charger and carried a sword and a lance with which he could have righted wrongs and rescued fair damsels in every kind of distress."
Meyers grimaced and grunted as he used the wall to help him to his feet, but shook off the helping hand which Laurie extended.
"Quit that crap and start patchin' me up, Doc," he snarled. "I got work to do!"
Laurie sighed. "Doubtless making more work for me."
The lawman jerked a thumb in through the bank doorway and fixed his stare to the impassive face of Edge. "Armed bank robbery's a capital offense in this county. You'll only be needed to attend the executions and pronounce these men dead, Doc."
"Aye, you would have made a fine knight in shining armor, Chuck," Laurie said in the same light tone he had used from the start. "What do you say, sir?"
Only as Laurie turned toward him at close quarters did Edge smell the scent of whisky on the man's breath. And see the network of tiny blood vessels crisscrossing the whites of his eyes.
"Not much, usually."
"Ah, the mark of a wise man."
"So how come you learned enough to be a doctor, feller?" the half-breed countered evenly, as he pushed fresh shells through the loading gate of the Winchester.
"A good memory has served me well throughout life, sir."
"Shit, Doc, let's get to this friggin' bullet wound!" Meyers snarled. "I could bleed to death!"
"Aye, of course," Laurie said, and his thin face abruptly showed an expression of deep-seated rancor, which also sounded in his voice. "I will remember you, sir. And if our sheriff is successful in his endeavors, I shall greatly enjoy pronouncing you dead after the noose has broken your neck."
Meyers had started across the street, unsteady on his feet as blood continued to seep from the entry- and exit-holes of the bullet wound. He came to a swaying halt and looked back to plead shakily, "Doc, for God's sake, come patch me up."
"Aye, that's a good and fine man you have made one of my patients, and—"
"Yeah," Edge cut in bleakly as he glanced at the weakening Meyers. "I hear tell that's a virtue."
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CYRUS and Amelia Benteen emerged from the office building and the lawman accepted gratefully their help to keep him from stumbling over the final few yards to Laurie's surgery, while the lanky doctor went in ahead of them to light a lamp and draw the drapes across his window.
"Don't get sick in this town, Mr. Edge," Kane Worthington said dully as he emerged from the bank. "When he's sober, that man is an excellent doctor. Drunk or sober, he does not take to hearing his medical skills decried. And there's more than one way to cure a man of what ails him."
In the bank, while his men were doing whatever was necessary to get the money they had come for, the rancher had filled and lit his pipe. And now he sucked at the stem contentedly as he raked his pale green eyes along the deserted street.
"More than one way to do most things, feller," the half-breed answered as Ralph Quine led the other men from the bank. The deputy with hatred in his eyes for Edge carried a light-weighing sack which he patted as he reported to Worthington,
"Checked it twice, sir. Exactly ten thousand to the dollar."
The rancher nodded, "Fine. Mount up, you men. We'll leave now."
EDGE: Death Deal (Edge series Book 35) Page 10
