EDGE: Ashes And Dust (Edge series Book 19)

by George G. Gilman

  He left the horse to drink and ambled over to the grave. With an easy strength, he scooped up the limp form of Emma Diamond and carried her across to the hearse. The rig supplied the only patch of shade nearby and he placed her beneath it. He did not seek anything for a makeshift pillow and he did not try to revive her from the faint before he returned to the grave.

  There was no way a lone man could lower the corpse-heavy casket into the grave. So he simply dragged the pine box to the brink of the hole, hooked his heel over it and tipped it in. The corpse of Boyce Diamond hit the lid as the casket turned. An arm flopped out and was trapped between the side and partially opened lid as the whole shebang crunched into the bottom of the grave. Dead bone broke with a dry snap.

  ‘Apologies, feller,’ Edge growled as he picked up the shovel. ‘But this ain’t the kind of work I usually undertake.’

  He started to spade dirt back into the grave, working slowly as the exertion started to ooze sweat from his pores. The hole was not half filled in when he sensed watching eyes from the shade beneath the stalled hearse.

  The man the recovered Emma Diamond appraised was somewhere in his thirties. Early or late, it was difficult to tell: for while there was certainly a quality of matured youthfulness about him, he also carried the signs of the passing years. But whether the years had been many, or simply harsh ... there was no way of knowing. He was a tall man - six feet three inches, at least - with a build that was lean but solid. Close to two hundred pounds. The loose-limbed, easy way he worked hinted that he packed a considerable amount of strength in his frame.

  Strength - and something else - was also a quality displayed by his face. A face that was lean, like his body, and burnished to a dark hue by exposure to every kind of weather. But there had been a shading of the skin before the harsh sun and the bitter winds had attacked it: drawn from one line of his forebears. Mexican, the woman guessed correctly, basing her assumption on the jet blackness of his thick hair which reached down to his broad shoulders, and on the high cheekbones. But the icy blueness of his piercing, narrow, heavily hooded eyes told of another strain of blood coursing his veins. A father or mother with a Northern European heritage, perhaps. The hawkish nose, the firm jaw line and the narrow mouth could have been inherited from either parent.

  As she concentrated on the mouth, the lips slightly parted to show even, very white teeth, Emma felt herself provoked into fear. For there was a degree of cruelty apparent in the set of Edge’s mouth line. She frowned, visualizing anger in the blue eyes and allying it with the set of the mouth. And she realized that this was the quality in addition to strength which was displayed by the half-breed’s burnished face. The man was younger than he looked. The years he had lived were fewer than they seemed at first impression. They had been hard, bitter, perhaps bloody years. Edge had undergone great suffering - and in so doing had made others suffer in return. It was as if every deep-cut line in his leather-textured skin was a notch of violence -given or received.

  ‘I suppose rape is nothing new to you, Mr. Edge!’ she called at length, when he had shifted the final shovelful of dirt into the elongated heap marking the grave.

  ‘Never did happen to me,’ he answered, tossing aside the shovel and drawing the back of a hand across his sweat-sheened forehead.

  ‘You know what I mean!’ she retorted petulantly, sliding out from under the hearse and standing up. She dusted off her held-together gown as if it was still her Sunday best.

  ‘I’ve seen it happen,’ the half-breed replied, moving down to the river to take up the reins of his horse.

  His freshly shaved face was sweat-greased and grimed from the work. His clothing - heavy-duty riding boots, narrow-legged Levis, black shirt, red kerchief and gray hat - had been worn and dirty before he started. As Emma watched him hitch his tan gelding to the rear of the hearse, she guessed him to be a man who cared little for appearances. But it was obvious he took care of the revolver in the holster tied down to his right thigh and the repeater rifle jutting from his saddle boot.

  ‘And a lot of other bad things, too, I think?’ she suggested.

  ‘It ain’t a good world, ma’am,’ Edge said. ‘Ready?’

  There was some color back in her cheeks now. It drained away, but there was no other sign of a faint, when she glanced at the shattered body of the priest. ‘I should like to take Father Donovan back to Dream Creek, Mr. Edge.’

  Without the bonnet to hold it in place, her blonde hair tended to swing across her face. Her green eyes implored his cooperation through the loose strands.

  ‘How far to town?’

  ‘About ten miles, I think.’

  Edge eyed the body, on which the massive spillage of blood was already caking to a deep black: then glanced at the cloudless sky from which the sun blistered.

  ‘That makes a long time to ride with the smell of a dead man,’ he warned.

  ‘I do not make a habit of fainting, Mr. Edge,’ Emma countered. ‘I promise not to do it again.’

  Edge spat and jerked a thumb towards the front of the hearse. ‘Climb aboard,’ he instructed.

  She did so, after first going to the river to splash water on to her face, then retrieving her bonnet. The half-breed gathered up her tattered underwear and used it to shroud the body as much as possible. Angry flies buzzed into a departing swarm as he carried the linen-and-lace wrapped corpse to the hearse. He dumped it unceremoniously on to the casket platform in the rear and closed the doors. Then he climbed up on to the seat beside Emma and eased the team into a tight turn away from the Rio Grande.

  The woman glanced over her shoulder just once before the hearse crested the shallow rise and the grave was lost to sight. She had put on the bonnet, trapping the veil to the brim. The ends of her near shoulder-length hair were tucked up under the crown and this gave her a severe, almost regal look. The carpetbag was on her knees and she delved a hand into it.

  ‘I wish to pay you ten dollars, Mr. Edge. For taking care of my father’s burial after I failed.’

  ‘No deal, ma’am,’ he told her, and showed her a wry grin. ‘I don’t take advantage of helpless women.’

  Even when he smiled, there was still a coldness about Edge: an inescapable detachment that placed him in a private world of his own while still being aware of everything around him. And, after the fleeting smile, the lines of his features returned to repose. But nonchalant relaxation as he drove the hearse was just an easy pose. Beneath this veneer, he was constantly alert and coiled to react to the unexpected. Like an animal of prey, Emma reflected, which is itself the prey of other animals.

  ‘And you don’t normally do favors for people,’ she pressed.

  Beyond the rise there was a broad area of sand ridges stretching to the next foothill step of the Santiagos. The tracks left by the hearse on its outward journey cut through the ridges to the west and Edge swung the team on to this course.

  ‘Maybe it ain’t a normal day,’ he replied, after a lengthy pause.

  Emma didn’t have to think long about this. ‘Rape and murder aren’t new to you, Mr. Edge. So it is the money that intrigues you, I suppose.’

  Edge pursed his lips. ‘You ain’t exactly a high payer for a woman with such a rich old man.’

  She responded with an angry snort, a sound that was totally out of keeping with her valiant attempt at a ladylike appearance. ‘I thought so!’

  The half-breed’s ever-watchful eyes spotted a change in the country’s pattern up ahead. The sign in the sand he was following abruptly became more confused and, at the same time, easier to see. As the slow-moving hearse rolled down into a shallow dip, he saw the reason. They had reached the point where the six grave robbers had departed from and then rejoined the trail left by the hearse. It was at the top of a steep, shale-run embankment overlooking the sun-sparkled Rio Grande. Mounted riders had been able to take the short cut to the gravesite. The hearse and team would not have been able to negotiate the steep, loose-surfaced slope.

  ‘Thought so, w
hat?’ Edge asked as the wheels of the hearse began to cut clearly defined ruts in the churned-up sand.

  ‘The money, of course!’

  ‘Like you said, ma’am, it intrigues me.’

  ‘It arouses your greed!’ she corrected vehemently.

  The outburst was greeted by silence and, when she looked at his profile, Emma saw the subtle twist to his mouth line and a cracking of his eyes that made them appear closed. But, when he turned towards her, the sun glinted on the merest slivers of ice blue. His tacit anger seemed to waft a bitter-cold airstream over her. Then, abruptly, he faced front again. His voice was evenly pitched.

  ‘No sweat, ma’am. Your business ain’t mine unless you want it to be.’

  The blazing sun suddenly seemed to generate more heat than before. She smelled the overly sweet odor of Father Donovan and she patted at her sheened face with her handkerchief. She felt parched, but the only canteens were on the half-breed’s horse hitched to the rear of the hearse. Vivid memories of the Jap violating her naked body crowded into her mind. She gripped the seat tightly with her gloved hands. She bit her lips with tiny teeth. The heat shimmer seemed to advance, distorting the shapes of the terrain just a few feet away. There were sharp pains between her legs, as if the brutish man was still thrusting and tearing into her.

  ‘If you have to pass out again, I won’t hold nothing against you.’

  The half-breed’s words sounded as if they came from a long way off: out from beyond where the shimmering heat was a wet-looking, billowing curtain. But his cynical tone was as clear as her self-knowledge that she was going to faint again. And it was terribly important not to do that. She stared directly ahead and began to talk.

  ‘My father was Boyce Diamond,’ she said slowly, her voice as stiff as her body. “The Chicago meat-packing Boyce Diamond. Before that, during the war, he was in armaments. He made a great deal of money and he died. He made a will that was explicitly simple in its terms. He wished to be buried at a particular point on the bank of the Rio Grande in Texas. And he wished all his assets to be capitalized and buried with him.’

  She was speaking like a nervous child in front of a large audience, the words learned by rote and delivered without emotion.

  ‘I intend to ensure that his wishes are carried out.’ She sighed then, and the tautness drained out of her. As she sagged on the seat she looked very young, very feminine and pathetically helpless. Her tone became one of quiet determination. ‘I intend to find those men, recover the money and return it to my father’s coffin. And to keep within the budget of five hundred dollars he allocated for carrying out the terms of his will.’

  She looked at Edge again, her firm expression warning she was ready to defend her attitude.

  ‘Your old man didn’t believe he couldn’t take it with him, uh?’

  “His motives are no concern of mine or anybody else’s, Mr. Edge.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘To help me?’ There was just a trace of excited anticipation in the depths of her sea green eyes. ‘I have four hundred dollars of the expense money left and—’

  ‘How much did he figure the price into heaven?’ Edge cut in.

  Anger returned. ‘There was something over a hundred thousand dollars buried with my father!’

  ‘Ten grand.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘If I get it back for you, ma’am.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’

  ‘Is there a hotel in Dream Creek?’

  The abrupt change of subject startled her. She blinked her long lashes. ‘Why yes. I stayed there last night. The Bonnington.’

  ‘You’ll find me there if you have a change of mind, ma’am.’

  She drew herself erect to regain her regal posture. ‘I never change my mind, Mr. Edge.’

  ‘I heard it was a woman’s prerogative.’

  She was surprised again, by the use of a word she had not expected from a man who looked and acted like an ignorant saddle tramp. ‘I am not like other women,’ she said after a thoughtful pause.

  ‘Didn’t see any difference back at the river,’ the half-breed muttered.

  ‘You know very well what I mean!’ she snapped.

  The hearse rolled around an outcrop of rock that provided a small area of shade as the sun inched towards its midday peak. Edge jerked on the reins to turn the team into the shade, then hauled on the leather to halt them.

  ‘Why are we stopping?’ Emma blurted out, with a trill of fear.

  Edge swung down from the stalled hearse and narrowed his eyes against the bright sky to look up at her. ‘All I got for breakfast was food for thought, ma’am,’ he told her. ‘And all that put in my belly was a little fire.’

  ‘Were you burning for my body or my father’s money?’ she taunted as he swung away and ambled towards his horse.

  The familiar chill grin turned up the corners of his mouth as he unfastened a saddlebag. ‘I never mix business with pleasure.’

  ‘You’ll get neither from me!’ she retorted, and flung herself around on the seat to show him her ramrod stiff back. ‘You’ll have more chance of getting blood from a stone!’

  Edge drew from the saddlebag a wax paper-wrapped package of sourdough bread and jerked beef. He unhooked a canteen and carried the food and water back along the side of the hearse.

  ‘Seems to me the Jap managed to do that, Miss Diamond,’ he said evenly.

  She took his meaning. She could still feel the dried blood crusted on her lower belly and thighs. A grimace contorted her handsome features as she looked down at him. And she shook her head violently as he offered her a share of his meal

  ‘You disgust me!’ she rasped as Edge dropped down on to his haunches and leaned his long back against the warm rock of the outcrop. ‘To take cold-blooded murder, robbery of the dead and brutal rape so lightly is ... is ...’

  ‘My way, ma’am,’ he completed as she became lost for words. He used a first gulp of water to rinse the dust from his mouth, then spat it out. ‘In my book that wasn’t such a heavy scene.’

  Chapter Three

  THE glass-sided hearse with its inadequately shrouded corpse rolled into Dream Creek at mid-afternoon while the sun was still high and searingly hot. There were few people on Lone Star Street or the Pecos Trail that formed a junction at the northern end of the main thoroughfare.

  It was a relatively new town, its buildings a mixture of adobe and timber with the exception of the redbrick structure painted with a sign proclaiming: TEXAS SHEEPMEN’S ASSOCIATION. On the second leg of the trip into town - undertaken in silence after the exchange at the lunch stop - the half-breed’s narrowed eyes had seen no indication of why there should be a town in the area. But then, as Dream Creek came into sight, he saw the rolling, short-grass country to the north and west of the small settlement: country that was scattered with clusters of unfenced farm buildings, with lazily moving herds of grazing sheep between.

  ‘I wish to be let off at the office of Sheriff Schabar,’ Emma Diamond said stiffly.

  Edge had already spotted the adobe jailhouse and law office, directly across the wide street from the Sheepmen’s Association building. Next door to the three-storey, frame Bonnington Hotel and Saloon. He made no vocal response, but angled the hearse across the street towards her destination. His head swung this way and that, eyes and ears absorbing the sights and sounds of the town.

  It was totally business-orientated. Lone Star Street was lined by enterprises to serve and service the needs of the people working the outlying sheep farms and any transients who happened to pass through. While the developed section of the Pecos Trail comprised only a slaughterhouse and adjacent animal pens. The people who operated the businesses lived above or out back of their premises. There were no private houses.

  ‘Hey, is that there a body you got in the back?’

  The few people who were out on Lone Star Street had paid little attention to the slow-moving hearse until a man with a reedy voice yelled the query. He was
an old-timer sitting in a rocking chair on the stoop in front of the stage depot. He had been reading a newspaper, which fell to his knees and then to the boarding as he stood up.

  ‘Hey, that’s what it is, sure enough. I can smell it.’

  The stage depot was alongside the redbrick building. The man - short and skinny and bespectacled - half fell off the stoop in his haste, and broke into a stiff-limbed trot across the street. Those who had heard him, turned and hurried towards the halting hearse. Some emerged from doorways or merely craned their necks to see out of windows.

  ‘Hey, that’s Donovan’s rig. The one that went outta here early mornin’ and…’ He halted level with the seat and pushed his glasses on to his forehead to peer up at the impassive Edge. ‘Hey, you ain’t Donovan.’

  The half-breed had completed his survey of the town. The tracks of the grave robbers had marked the sandy ground all the way back to Dream Creek. But the sign had run out on the hard-packed street and there were no horses hitched out under the sun.

  ‘Hey, where’s Donovan?’

  Edge jerked a thumb over his shoulder. ‘Follow your nose, feller.’ He turned towards Emma and touched the brim of his hat. ‘You know where I’ll be, ma’am.’

  ‘Hey, that’s Donovan?’ The old-timer flipped his glasses across his nose again and leaned close to the side of the hearse.

  As Edge swung down off the seat, the advance of the curious was halted. The smell of death reached their nostrils and they didn’t have to get as close as the old-timer to recognize the shape of the hearse’s freight. Men removed their hats and women crossed themselves.

  ‘Miss Diamond, what happened?’

  Edge had reached the rear of the hearse and was unhitching the gelding’s reins. The plea for information was yelled by a slightly built young man in a city suit who had emerged from the Bonnington. He had stood stock still, staring at Emma as he listened to the reedy-voiced questions of the old-timer. Now he came at a run, concern etched upon his pale face with its decoration of a narrow moustache.