Edge shrugged. ‘Then I guess you got to keep on living from hand to mouth.’
Chapter Eleven
CONRAD ANDREWS and his four men crested the rise above the farm abreast and reined their mounts to a halt. Hands which had rested on holstered revolvers swung away to reach for more fire power. The Hare brothers, Kenyon Lamb and the Jap slid repeater rifles from their saddle boots and pumped the actions. Andrews moved the double-barreled shotgun from across his back to point down the slope. His thumb cocked both hammers.
It was almost noon, for they had slept late. But they had ridden hard after getting the message from the lawman. It showed in the sweaty weariness of riders and mounts alike.
‘You reckon this is the place, Con?’ Lamb asked after all five men had peered suspiciously at the farm house and stable for long moments.
‘Looks like there ain’t no one there,’ George Hare said in his low-pitched, Southern drawl.
‘Things ain’t always like they look, you know what I mean?’ Andrews growled, wiping away the sweat from his forehead with a meaty forearm.
“One man,’ the Jap reminded, then smiled evilly at a memory. ‘Maybe with little missy.’
Harry Hare was six inches taller than his brother’s five-and-a-half feet. He was seven years older and far less impetuous. ‘If there is just the one critter, Con, he ain’t no crazy man. He ain’t just sittin’ down there and waitin’ for us to come a runnin’.’
Andrews spat to the side without taking his eyes away from the scene spread out in front of him. ‘Maybe that’s just what the guy is doin’, Harry,’ he countered evenly. ‘Out on this slope, he would pick us off like bugs on a floor with no cracks in it - you know what I mean?’
‘Horse looks fresh dead,’ Lamb put in, nodding towards the black gelding with the broken back.
‘He don’t smell it,’ George Hare replied with a grimace.
‘It’s the heat,’ Harry Hare explained.
‘I say spread out on all sides and rush him, the bastard!’ the Jap said.
‘Wait ‘til night and go in slow, I reckon,’ Lamb suggested.
‘Still figure we should’ve called his bluff and stuck in Paso,’ George growled.
‘I got too much in the pot to play a bluff game - you know what I mean?’ Andrews rasped, patting a bulging saddlebag as he fixed the younger Hare with a cold stare.
‘The kid is just talkin’ to pass the time,’ Harry said hurriedly, sweeping a glare of his own at his brother. ‘He’s like the rest of us. Don’t want always to be lookin’ over his shoulder for the guy the dame hired.’
‘That right, kid?’ Andrews demanded.
George nodded. ‘Sure, Con. But now we’re here, we gotta do somethin’ ’cept look.’ He gazed scornfully down the slope. ‘If this is the place, even.’
‘If it is and he’s down there, he’s sure enough seen us,’ Lamb said in a complaining tone.
‘Look!’ the Jap snarled.
‘The well!’ Ira Walker yelled as he plunged out of the open doorway. And screamed as his broken jaw protested the need to gape so wide for the panicked shout. ‘In the Goddamn well, Con!’
The men on the hill crest grunted their surprise at the sudden appearance of Walker. And clearly heard the shrieked warning from his blood-crusted mouth. Then, as he turned and raced across the front of the house, they saw that his hands were tied behind his back.
A moment later, as Walker - still clad only in his underwear - scuttled clear of the doorway, a gun exploded. Its report resounded like a clap of summer thunder in the confines of the well. It was a scatter-gun and the shot belched from its broad muzzle ripped adobe from the doorframe. Walker screamed again, but kept on running, aiming for the cover of the lemon grove.
‘Blast it!’ Andrews snarled, and thudded in his heels to spur his mount into a gallop down the slope.
The other four responded immediately, plunging on to the slope only feet behind the big man. Controlling their horses with spurred heels and knees, they threw rifle stocks to their shoulders and rained lead towards the well. The bullets cracked out of the cloud of moving dust made by the horses - and smacked into the well wall. The range narrowed and the constant barrage turned adobe into powder as countless holes were drilled into the target. There was not a chance in a million that a second shot could be exploded from the shattered cover.
Then, as the galloping horses carried the sweating riders on to the level ground fronting the house, Andrews spurred his horse into greater speed while the other men ceased fire to rein in their mounts. A grin of triumph splitting his bearded face, the big man squeezed one of the triggers of the shotgun. The range was but a few feet now, and the charge blasted against the wall and caved in a length of the bullet-pocked adobe. Still Andrews did not slow his mount. He merely canted the smoking muzzle of the shotgun towards the ground - rode close to the wall, and emptied the second barrel into the smoke-and-dust filled mouth of the well.
‘We showed him, Ira!’ he yelled as he released the shotgun and gathered up the reins to bring his horse to a rearing halt.
‘Where is missy?’ the Jap shouted, his enormous weight hitting the ground hard as he slid from the saddle.
Lamb and the Hare brothers were quick to follow his actions. But, instead of standing and peering around through the settling dust, they ran towards the wreckage of the well wall, and stared down.
‘Con!’ Walker shrieked, forcing himself up on to his knees from where he had flung himself to the ground in the lemon grove.
‘Good to see you!’ Andrews yelled, kicking free of his stirrups and leaping to the ground in front of the grove. ‘We still got us a great team, don’t we - you know what I mean?’
‘A friggin’ wire!’ the Jap roared, and pointed.
‘You had to get the message sometime,’ Edge said as he stepped into the shot-blackened doorway of the house.
‘I couldn’t do any…’ Ira Walker pleaded as Andrews’ suddenly hate-filled eyes swung back to the kneeling man after his stunned gaze had swept towards the half-breed.
The excuse he had started to make was valid.
Edge had seen the five men as they rode to the hill crest and halted their horses to survey the farm. He was crouched against the rear wall of the one-roomed house, hidden in the deep shade, but able to see broad areas of the slope through the windows and open door.
The trembling Ira Walker had stood against the opposite wall, pressed to the adobe between the door and one of the windows. His eyes had pleaded for mercy, but he had dared not speak after Edge quietly warned him his partners were on the hill. And, although aware that a shot from the leveled Winchester would alert Andrews and the others, he was not prepared to risk his slender chance of life for the benefit of the men on the hill crest. So he stayed sweating and trembling and silent, having to trust the tall, dark-skinned half-breed to keep his word and give him that chance.
‘They’re anxious enough,’ Edge had muttered across the fetid room. ‘Go!’
And Walker had sent a final silent plea towards Edge, then swung away from the wall and lunged out of the doorway. An instant after shouting the warning he had been instructed to give, he had purposely tripped the length of twine strung low across the dust from the doorway to a hole in the well wall. The jerk of the twine had pulled the trigger of Manuel’s ancient scattergun lodged in the well mouth.
The watching men had been keyed up enough to believe the evidence of their own ears and eyes.
Now, the Jap, Lamb and the Hare brothers looked from the exposed wire towards the tall, lean man in the doorway. And Andrews glared at the trembling Walker.
‘Put up your hands, please,’ Emma Diamond demanded shrilly as she stepped out of the stable doorway.
The four men in front of the house had booted their rifles before dismounting.
‘Fat chance!’ Lamb snarled.
He was first to reach for his holstered revolver. But the others were only a split-second behind him.
‘Cr
azy lady,’ Edge rasped, and squeezed the Winchester’s trigger.
The medium-built Lamb took the .44 caliber bullet in the centre of his heart and died on his feet. He staggered backwards, driven by the impact of the bullet, hit the crumbled adobe of the well wall and tipped over into the hole.
Emma screamed and whirled to run back into the stable.
‘Fitting Lamb leads the slaughter,’ the half-breed growled as he slammed his back against the inside wall of the house.
Bullets from the guns of the Jap and the two brothers cracked through the doorway where, an instant before, Edge had been standing.
A fourth shot exploded and the enraged Andrews whirled away from the crumpling, bloody-faced Ira Walker. The kneeling man had been executed with a bullet in the centre of his forehead from the avenging handgun of the gang leader towering above him. Then, as the horses bolted from the deafening barrage of gunfire and the acrid stench of burnt powder, Andrews lunged into the grove and swung his shotgun around from his back.
‘I didn’t want you killed!’ Emma screamed as the Jap and the Hare brothers threw themselves down behind the shattered well wall and blasted another fusillade of shots through the house doorway.
Manuel shrieked a Spanish curse.
‘No, please!’ Emma protested.
A revolver shot cracked from the stable.
‘Damn, there’s a friggin’ army!’ George Hare snarled as the bullet skimmed across the top of his head.
Edge stepped into a window as George scampered around the wall. The Winchester thudded a recoil against his shoulder and he saw the younger Hare jerk and become still - blood spurting from a ragged hole in the side of his head. Then he powered down into a crouch as two bullets cracked through the window to dig holes in the rear wall.
‘You bastard!’ Harry snarled. ‘You killed my brother!’
He lunged upright and raced towards the doorway. The Jap covered him, going up on one knee and swinging his gun arm in confined arcs. Alternate bullets whined through the window where Edge had last showed, and splintered wood from the stable door.
The gun of the grief-stricken Harry rattled empty as he followed the last bullet into the house. Edge was squatting against the wall to the left of the doorway. As the hysterical man’s leading foot appeared, the half-breed powered erect and swung into a half turn. His right hand streaked away from the nape of his neck and the blade of the razor glinted with the same brand of menace that showed in his narrowed eyes.
Harry’s forward momentum, as much as the strength of the attacker’s arm, sank the blade into the centre of the belly, just above the belt buckle. But, as one man screamed and the other completed straightening, it was entirely the power of the half-breed that ripped the blade through Harry’s flesh, tearing him open from navel to throat.
A welter of half-digested food spilled out and a great torrent of bubbling crimson sprayed in its wake. The mutilated man, silent in the throat now, followed his spillage to the floor.
‘Go see George, Harry,’ Edge rasped as he wiped both sides of the blade on the dead man’s back and returned the razor to its neck pouch. ‘Ain’t no one can accuse me of splitting Hares.’
Stretched seconds had slid into history without a shot being fired. Edge went down into a crouch and peered out through the doorway. The short, fat Jap was on his feet. The fear in his Oriental eyes as they flicked a gaze between the stable and the house betrayed that the gun in his trembling hand was empty.
‘Please give yourself up!’ Emma pleaded.
Her voice triggered him into action, sending him into a waddling run towards the lemon grove.
‘No more!’ Emma shrieked.
A gunshot blasted, but the bullet burrowed into the ground four feet beyond the stable doorway as the woman spoiled Manuel’s aim. The Mexican cursed.
Edge swung into the doorway as he drew himself erect. He took aim on the running man. Then saw the shadow of another man - growing away from the end of patch of shade that marked the roofline of the house.
The Jap snatched a look back over his shoulder to see if the plan Andrews had signaled was working. His mouth gaped to shout a warning.
Edge dived out through the doorway, kicking into a mid-air turn. His first shot exploded while he was still clear of the ground. Andrews grunted as it tore into his upper arm. The shotgun was already pointed downwards and the finger curled around both triggers. The shock of the wound jerked a nerve in his finger.
Both barrels of the shotgun belched their lethal charges. The scattering loads blasted a gaping hole in the house roof and tore the body of Harry Hare to pieces.
Edge worked the action of the Winchester as he thudded to the ground on his back.
‘You stinkin’—’ Andrews started as he went for his holstered Colt and dropped into a crouch.
Only his head was above the roofline and Edge’s shot entered between the anger-flared nostrils and exited at the crown of the skull. Andrews flipped backwards from the crouch, his feet kicking out from under him. His legs plunged into the hole ripped by the shotgun. His torso and head smacked against the roof. He teetered for a moment, then slid downwards. His boots squelched into the pulped and bloody flesh of Hare. For an instant, he seemed to stand there, upright. Then his body crumpled into the shattered remains. The crimson flow from the awesome wounds of the two men merged.
Heavy footfalls thudded against the baking ground of Mexico.
‘Let him go!’ Emma yelled.
Edge turned and saw that the Jap posed no threat - except to some of the money. The horses were scattered over the hill slope, but they had halted, exhausted by the bolts after the hard ride from El Paso. The closest animal - the one to which the Jap was heading - was Andrews’ mount. There was no rifle boot hung from the saddle.
The Winchester thudded to the half-breed’s shoulder as he folded up into a sitting position and spun on his rump to aim at the Jap. The rifle exploded as the fleeing man got one foot in the stirrup and heaved himself up to straddle the horse. The bullet took him in the side, high up on the left. It had enough velocity to burrow between two ribs and find the heart. And the impact was powerful enough to hurl the victim through the air in a short arc.
‘Didn’t get any colder,’ Edge muttered wryly as the Jap’s body thudded to the ground and he used the rifle as a lever to ease his weary body upright.
‘Why?’ Emma demanded, stumbling from the stable.
‘Figured there was a Nip in the air,’ Edge replied through a yawn.
‘You beast!’ the woman snapped. ‘You know what I ... why did you kill him?’
Edge spat as the woman skidded to a halt in the doorway and stared in near-fainting horror at the body of Conrad Andrews sprawled across the pulped flesh of Harry Hare.
‘Twenty thousand reasons, less El Paso cost of living expenses.’
‘I try to help, senor’ Manuel called from the stable. ‘But the senorita - she keep spoiling my aim. You help me get Maria’s bed back in the house now, por favor?’
Emma Diamond chewed on her lower lip and clenched her fists to fight back the nausea and keep from passing out. The anger and shrillness had gone from her voice.
They were all murderers and thieves,’ she said dully, still gazing at the big man with his brains spilled out of the top of his skull. ‘But he was the worst, I suppose. He was the leader. He was totally evil, wasn’t he, Mr. Edge?’
The half-breed bared his teeth as he glanced at the gang’s top man. ‘Guess that says it all, ma’am,’ he growled. ‘Almost time to close the book. Andrews, that was your life.’
Chapter Twelve
IT was seven days later when they returned to the grave of Boyce Diamond and Emma asked Edge to disturb the old man’s resting place again.
For the rest of the day and the night that followed the slaughter at the farm of Manuel and Maria, the half-breed had slept in the stable. His final chore before bedding down had been to round-up the scattered horses and collect the money from the saddleb
ags. When the bills were added to those Edge had taken from Ira Walker, the total came to a little over two thousand short of what the gang had stolen from the grave.
Edge had claimed his money.
And gone to sleep for a solid sixteen hours.
When he was roused by Emma, the dead were buried, the old woman and her bed were back in the cleaned and repaired house, and Manuel was ecstatically grateful to be repaid for his trouble with four horses and all their tack. Emma took the fifth one to replace her dead gelding.
She didn’t ask Edge to escort her back to the Big Bend country of the Rio Grande, but she made no objection when he did. On the long ride - in Mexico for most of the way, until they crossed the river west of Dream Creek - she was distantly polite: speaking only when it was strictly necessary, and doing her share of the chores.
In the town where sheep men had found the haven they dreamed about and had given it an appropriate name, Emma called a temporary halt to retrieve the suitcase she had left in the care of the Bonnington Hotel. The couple were greeted with surprised, but silent curiosity: and both of them sensed a certain air of relief behind them as they left town, still heading eastwards.
Sheriff Schabar trailed them, matching their easy pace and holding off a long way back. And he was out of sight over the rise above the river bank when Emma asked Edge to open the grave while she climbed up to one of the caves, dragging her suitcase with her.
It was mid-afternoon and the sun was as blistering hot as it had ever been on either side of the river. Edge sweated as he worked with the shovel, which Emma had carried on her horse all the way from the Mexican farm. The loose, dusty soil was easy to move and it took only a few minutes to get down to the pine lid of the casket.
The big-boned lawman came into sight then, and rode his horse at the same easy pace down the slope to the river bank. His expression was as impassive as that of the half-breed as he reined his mount to a halt.
‘Where’s Miss Diamond?’ Schabar asked.
The casket lid was already loose from where it had been prised open by the grave-robbers. A single wrench with the shovel lifted it again.
EDGE: Ashes And Dust (Edge series Book 19) Page 12
