EDGE: The Big Gold (Edge series Book 15)
Page 5
“Some good Indians,” Edge said lightly. “Hadn’t have been for them I’d most likely be felling redwoods tomorrow. For a lot less than you’re paying me.”
“And this is more your line of work,” Case suggested.
The half-breed spat into the brush at the side of the trail. “You said it awhile back, feller. We understand each other.”
They finished the walk to the campsite in silence. There were eleven wagons, all of them covered. Ten of them were painted with signs on the side canvases and rear flaps, using much the same words as had been on the boards set up in front of the tents flanking the midway. These ten were parked in two ranks, nose-to-tail, in an arc around one side of a clearing in which a number of cooking fires were burning low. The odd one out was parked on the far side of the clearing and further back from the fires than the others. It was a brand new wagon and the still-clean canvas had no lettering or pictures painted on it. What it did have was a guard perched on the seat and another leaning against the tailgate. Both had rifles. Neither was Grainger. They eyed the half-breed closely as Edge veered away from Case, leading the stallion over to the remuda of horses ground hobbled at the back of the clearing. Unsaddling his mount, Edge sensed many other pairs of eyes watching him: from the wagons and from the small groups clustering around the fires. He was conscious that nobody was looking at him with an easy mind. Jo Jo Lamont and Turk—if he had been allowed to return to camp after the doctor was finished with him—were probably the ones pouring the greatest degree of animosity towards him, he guessed. But the atmosphere of hatred hanging over the clearing in the sea-fresh air was more powerful than that which could be generated by just two people.
Grainger confirmed it. “The Nep told us you blasted Dana, Edge!” the burly guard announced harshly.
“Oh, dear, dear me!” the Nepalese sing-songed anxiously. “There must be no more trouble. My animals will respond most unfortunately.”
As the cinch was unfastened and Edge slid the saddle and bedroll from the stallion, two low, animalistic roars rumbled from one of the wagons.
“I may go now, sahib?” the tiger trainer pleaded. “To quieten my beasts very fast, please?”
“Yeah, get lost, Nep!” Grainger snarled.
Edge had slid the Winchester back into the boot before unsaddling the stallion. Now, as he turned away from the horse, he carried his gear under his left arm. His right hand was close to the butt of the holstered Colt. The stallion began to munch hungrily on the hay spread across the ground.
“We’ve had enough trouble for one day!” Case snapped.
The Nepalese was hurrying towards one of the wagons which was rocking on its springs as its wild animal cargo moved restlessly in close confinement. Grainger had risen from the side of one of the fires and stepped away, so that his burly frame was silhouetted against the flames. Case, looking smaller than ever by comparison, had stopped just short of the firing line between the two tall men.
“Breeze and me done a lot together, Mr. Case,” Grainger said tensely. “Been a lot of places together.”
“That fire ain’t warm enough for you, be happy to send you where your buddy’s gone.” As he spoke, Edge released his gear and swung his body half away from Grainger.
The flames crackled and spat. The distant ocean crashed against the foot of the Oregon cliffs. The watchers caught their collective breath. The tigers growled.
“You blasted him when he wasn’t lookin’,” Grainger accused and there was less power in his voice now. His opening taunt had been impulsive, his mind filled with a desire to avenge the death of his partner. But now he saw the half-breed adopt the stance of an expert gunfighter. And he remembered the coldly calculated act of slicing Turk’s arm on the midway.
“He made two mistakes,” Edge answered easily as the familiar sound of the harmonica drifted across the clearing. The music was mournful, as it had been in the Seascape Saloon before the tempo was raised to a crescendo which presaged tragedy. The growling of the tigers slackened to a contented purring and the wagon ceased to rock. “He pointed a gun at me after I’d told him it irked me. And he didn’t fire it.”
Grainger didn’t have his Winchester. But he was wearing a gun belt with a revolver in the holster. He had adopted the sideways-on attitude as a reflex action when Edge turned from unsaddling the stallion. But anger made him tense, and experience warned him he was in the wrong frame of mind to call the ice-cold killer who faced him. He allowed his shoulders to slope and his right hand dropped below the level of the Colt’s butt. “I never make mistakes,” he growled, and looked at the dude. “I’ll need to get a replacement for Breeze.”
“I’ve already got one,” Case answered, and jerked a thumb towards Edge.
The Nepalese had stopped the melancholy music and the tigers were quiet and still. The quick intake of breath into a score, of throats was audible, as relaxing tension was suddenly drawn taut again.
“Him?”
Edge was picking up his gear, holding it in both hands. But it was obvious he was ready to let it go again.
“I think he’s proved himself capable of handling the job,” Case said tardy.
Grainger’s face showed a scowl in the firelight’s flicker. The grunt he vented was just as ugly. “I ain’t gonna be happy workin’ alongside him.”
“Alongside or in front,” Edge put in, moving towards the fire closest to the big gold wagon. “Just don’t get in back of me.”
Grainger responded with another grunt and swung around to squat down beside the fire where he had been previously. The watchers eased into relaxation again and the murmurings of low-voiced conversations became overlaid on the sound of the distant ocean. Edge took a position at the side of the fire so that his back was towards the remuda and he was able to keep Grainger and the two other guards in sight.
There was beef stew in the fire-blackened pot hung from a tripod over the glowing embers. He ladled some on to a tin plate taken from his own bedroll. It probably wasn’t so good as it tasted, but he hadn’t eaten since his dawn breakfast.
Case joined him, careful to sit on a blanket so that his elegantly cut pants and jacket didn’t trail in the dirt. He rinsed a dirty mug in a pail of water before pouring coffee. His features were set in lines which suggested he was having to work hard to hold on to his anger again.
“I’m not questioning your methods, Edge,” he muttered. “I said I wouldn’t. But the job is guard the gold and watch the others. I can’t condone you killing them one at a time.”
“One at a time or the whole bunch,” Edge answered, chewing a tough piece of meat. “Or maybe none of them that’s left. Anyway they call it, feller.”
“Grainger has got a big mouth. Salter and Wylie can talk up a storm as well. Just try to take it easy, will you?”
The half-breed spat into the fire. “If I take it any easier, I’m liable to go to sleep.” As if this really were a possibility, he stood up, sliding the rifle from the saddle boot as he did so. “Like to see what I’m guarding, feller.” He grinned. “Providing I don’t have to pay no fifty cents now I’m in on the act?”
Case matched the easy humor with his expression and a lightness in his tone as he stood up. “One of the few fringe benefits of your job. Look at it as often as you like for free.”
As they approached the rear of the wagon, the guard straightened out of his slouch. His expression altered from subservient to distaste as he looked from Case to Edge.
“Open her up, Wylie,” the dude instructed. “You heard what I told Grainger about Edge joining us?”
“I heard,” the blond haired guard growled. “And I’m about as happy as Grainger on account of it. Same goes for Salter, I reckon.”
He worked on the pegs holding the tailgate up.
“I don’t pay you to be happy,” Case chided.
“Just careful,” Edge supplemented, and hoisted himself up on to the wagon, drawing aside the flaps.
The others stayed outside, peering in under the fl
aps. Edge struck a match and surveyed the carny’s main attraction. It wasn’t much, unless the imagination began to work on the sight. Just a cube of bright yellow metal about seven feet along each side, cold to the touch and as smooth as a young girl’s skin. It stood in the centre of a stout iron grille which added strength to the bed of the wagon.
“How much it weigh?” Edge asked after running a hand over the precious metal and watching the match flame dance in reflection against the gold.
“Three thousand pounds,” Case replied. “Give or take an ounce or two.”
The match died and Edge spent a few moments working out the sum. “At more than twenty bucks an ounce, who’s giving and who’s taking?”
Case waited until the half-breed had jumped down from the wagon and Wylie started to refasten the tailgate. He showed a sheepish grin. “In towns like Seascape, who knows what a million dollars worth of gold looks like? So I only paid a quarter of that for it.”
“Glad I didn’t have to pay the fifty cents,” Edge said. “I’d feel cheated.”
“I wouldn’t have told you.”
The half-breed nodded. “How do you show it?”
“Build the tent over the wagon. Then take off the canvas and supports and let down the tailgate and sides. Used to let them touch it at first, but some of them brought knives and did some scraping. Now we have a barrier all around the wagon to keep it out of reach.”
“What about guarding it? On the trail and in camp?”
“I left that to Grainger. He organized it. On the trail I drive and all four guards ride escort. At night they work a rota, two watching while the other pair rest.”
“You got any quarrel with that, mister?” Wylie muttered churlishly.
Edge shouldered the Winchester. “Be sure to wake me when you and your partner have finished your stint,” he replied, and ambled back to the fire.
Peat and Arabella returned from town as he was spreading his bedroll. They had their arms around each other’s waist and the boy was whispering something in the girl’s ear to make her giggle. The three spielers were not far behind the couple. Case bedded down on the same side of the fire as Edge, stripping down to his underwear and folding his top clothes carefully before sliding into a sleeping bag. Grainger took a position on the other side of the fire. Like Edge, he removed only his hat and his gun belt. He took two extra blankets from another bedroll—presumably the one that had belonged to Dana Breeze. The camp became quiet, except for an occasional burst of low laughter from the wagon shared by the fire-eater and the exotic dancer.
“I don’t know why Peat wants to marry her,” Case said with a sigh, his attempts to get to sleep thwarted by the laughter. “They hate each other one moment and climb into the sack together the next. He’s got everything a marriage has except the piece of paper to make it legal.”
Edge was on the brink of sleep, unconcerned with the sounds from the wagon, which merged with the almost hypnotic regularity of the distant crash of ocean breakers. But Case’s voice drew him back to full awareness and he heard the clop of hooves and rattle of turning wheels. He craned his neck to look around the cooking pot on the fire and saw Clarence French’s buggy approaching camp along the logging trail. But then the fat man veered the white horse to one side, steering around behind the arc of parked wagons. The moonlight filtering through the high redwoods shone on the gold-plating of one of his six-guns. The buggy did not stop, but picked up the trail again beyond the camp and continued south at a gentle pace.
In watching the buggy emerge from behind the wagons, Edge caught sight of a figure standing in the moon shade of a tree: surreptitiously until the white gelding had hauled the fat man out of sight. Then the figure moved to climb into a wagon and the half-breed saw the thrusting breasts and flared hips which marked the watcher as a woman. Moonlight striking blonde hair identified her as Jo Jo Lamont.
“I hear it doesn’t work out that way for Turk and his target,” Edge said as he stretched out full length beneath his blankets again.
“She claims she’s still pure,” Case replied lazily, sighing again now that a full two minutes had passed without interruption by laughter.
“Now you settled Turk’s hash, they still got a show,” Grainger growled, and gave a short, harsh laugh of his own. “Just need a new sign, that’s all.” He moved his hand in the air, as if it helped him to visualize the lettering. “See the only virgin west of the Mississippi.”
Nobody else expressed amusement and the almost complete silence settled over the clearing again, marred only by the ocean, the crackle of fires and the deep breathing and occasional snores of the sleepers. Edge’s mind, accustomed to these sounds, reacted to the intrusion of another and snapped him awake the instant it made itself heard. He had slept with his right hand curled around the butt of the Colt. As his eyes cracked open, his fingers tightened, one of them pressing against the trigger. His thumb rested on the hammer.
“Reflexes like an animal,” Salter hissed sourly.
The sound which had roused the half-breed was of the guard’s footfalls. Or perhaps it wasn’t this at all. Maybe the merest vibration of the ground upon which the big man trod: or just an ever-alert mind responding to the warning of a sixth sense. Whatever it was, the dark-eyed young guard with a broken nose and a knife-scar on his cheek had come as close to explaining the result as anybody could get. Had there been the slightest hint of an attack in his attitude, the Colt would have exploded death an instant after the half-breed’s eyes opened. But Salter had the Winchester slung under an arm and his hand was rubbing his chin, far from the holstered revolver.
Edge curled back his lips in a cold grin as he sat up. “Sense of smell to match, feller,” he muttered. “Appreciate it if next time you get close to me, you’d stay on the downwind side.”
On the other side of the fire, Wylie was rousing Grainger. It took a lot longer and the eldest guard came awake with a string of mixed grunts and curses. Salter confined his response to a soured look and backed away as Edge stood up, putting on his hat, strapping the gun belt around his waist and slanting the rifle across his shoulder.
“Midnight, Roy,” Wylie told the ill-tempered man. “You and the new guy now.”
“So don’t sound so goddamn pleased about it,” Grainger growled, giving Edge a fish-eyed look across the fire.
Then the flames leapt higher as Salter tossed new kindling on the embers. The salty air was a lot colder now as it streamed off the ocean and curled through the redwoods. Edge took one of his recent purchases out of his gear pouch. A fur-lined jacket, cut short enough so that it didn’t cover his holster. He shrugged into it as he moved to the wagon. He was tall enough to look over the tailgate without dropping it. The flare of a match danced in reflection on the smooth yellow metal.
“You don’t trust Wylie and Salter?” Grainger snorted, crooking his Winchester under his arm and blowing on his cupped hands.
“Only one person I trust,” the half-breed answered.
“Who’s that?”
“Me.”
Grainger spat. “Stupid of me to ask.”
“Nobody’s perfect,” Edge told him, and began to amble in a full circle around the wagon.
Grainger leaned against the tailgate and began to roll a cigarette. He had time to light it and smoke it halfway down before Edge returned.
“Enjoy the moonlight stroll?” he asked.
“Wasn’t for the exercise.”
“For what?”
“Checking ways the gold can get taken.”
Grainger scowled. “Ain’t no way, lessen they cream us, hitch the team and drive the wagon outta here—without waking up the whole goddamn camp.”
Edge nodded. “Right feller. So I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Hey!” Grainger called after him, keeping his voice low. “Where you goin’?”
“Get me a decent night’s sleep in a real bed for a change. Not a chance in a million anyone’s going to make a try while we’re camped.”
The half-breed trod lightly and knew that when he was out of sight of the camp, he was also beyond earshot. Then he angled off the trail and his gait changed from ambling to striding. There was little brush amongst the thick, towering trunks of the giant redwoods. Mostly the forest was floored with grass, moss and the rotted leaves of countless falls. But though his stride was lengthened, he continued to set his feet down lightly, conscious that a dry twig might be concealed by the dead leaves or the grass beneath each lowered boot.
He moved silently away from the trail on a right-angled course for about three hundred feet, then turned again, to head back the way he had come. Nearing the camp, he saw the occasional crimson glow of a fire. Once, from a distance of about a hundred and fifty feet, he saw the end of the wagon between a natural avenue of trees: clearly silhouetted against a fire. He saw Grainger, too, squatting down with his back resting against the rim of a rear wheel. But the half-breed didn’t stop. He continued silently in a southern direction for a few more feet, then swung towards the ocean.
He reached the continuation of the logging trail some thirty feet down from where it led out of the clearing on the far side from Seascape. It curved a little on this side and he had to backtrack again to find a point from which he could watch the wagon containing the big gold. Here, the absence of brush was a disadvantage. For he could only use a thick redwood trunk for cover and it was possible that a keen-eyed watcher might spot him each time he peered around the ridged bark to survey the clearing.