Edge: A Town Called Hate (Edge series Book 13)

by George G. Gilman

  Table of Contents

  COPYRIGHT

  DEDICATION

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  For C.S.

  with a promise that - unlike Edge - I will not alter

  the way folks look.

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE pine trees grew tall and close together, their dark green foliage acting as a filter for the hot, bright sunlight of noon. Thus the needle-covered floor of the forest was cool, a condition which was appreciated by the gray gelding and the man who rode the horse. Both rider and mount showed signs of a long, hard ride but now they were taking it easy as reins and heels made no demands: the gelding allowed to set his own pace and choose a meandering course among the trees.

  They had been in the forest for more than an hour and covered no more than two miles in a generally northwestern direction. There had been just one stop - for the gelding to drink from a cool, sweet water spring while the man filled his two canteens and rolled some cigarettes. He smoked one of these now, hanging it from a corner of his mouth as he surveyed the way ahead. The view was the same as it had always been since he had steered the gelding into the great forest spread over the foothills of the Rocky Mountains of Montana Territory’s Continental Divide: a seemingly solid wall of Ponderosa pine trunks that appeared as an impassable barrier until the angle of vision changed and the gelding swung to left or right around the trees.

  But, when the man had finished smoking the cigarette and carefully squeezed out the fire between thumb and forefinger before dropping the butt, the terrain ahead had taken on a different aspect. The plateau across which the man had been travelling since entering the forest came to an end and a valley was opened up; the ground on either side rising sharply. There were breaks in the trees at points where the terrain reared almost vertically and wind and rain had eroded the soil clear down to the rock. In the valley there were more breaks, but these were man-made: ugly scars of brown, black and yellow slashed against the green skin of the land. The brown of earth, the black of rotted needles and the yellow of pine stumps.

  The valley sloped gently down from where the man halted the gelding. Then, a mile ahead, it rose like a green ocean swell and appeared to fall sharply on the far side. The sun poured brilliant light down into the valley and, many miles distant beyond the crest of the rise, it was reflected in vivid white off the snow-capped jaggedness of the Divide mountaintops. A patch of blue—much deeper than the insipid color of the sun-washed sky - showed the location of a high-country lake.

  The man looked at the awe-inspiring magnificence of the vista with a cold indifference and clucked the gelding forward. The drop down into the valley was less than two hundred feet, but the slope was a steep one and the rider took firmer control of his mount. He kept the animal on a diagonal course, across the face of the slope. On occasions the treacherous springiness of the pine needles slid from beneath the hooves of the gelding and the animal was on the verge of panic. But a tight rein and soft-spoken words held him in check. The lofty pines continued to shield the ground from the direct heat of the sun as it inched into the downward slide of afternoon. But the man sweated freely and white lather foamed on the gelding’s flanks in the cool, green shade. For the coolness among the trees was more in the mind than the air and the merest exertion erupted salty moisture from wide-open pores. It was that kind of summer: only relatively cool in the shade because out in the open where a man cast a shadow the heat threatened to fry his eyes.

  At the foot of the incline the man kept the horse moving and sucked water slowly from one of his canteens. It was lukewarm but he drank to replace lost moisture rather than to slake thirst. He poured some into the cupped palm of a hand and rubbed his forehead, washing off the stinging beads of sweat before they dropped into his eyes.

  The easy pace along the floor of the broadening valley reduced the body temperatures of both man and animal and by the time they reached the trail they were again cocooned in a pretence of coolness. The trail appeared abruptly and at first it was only discernible for what it was because of the wagon-wide, unnaturally straight clearway through the trees. It began - or more likely, ended—two hundred feet from the foot of the slope and the fact of its existence did not surprise the man. For the men who had felled the timber so haphazardly in the valley needed some kind of road to haul it out.

  That had been a long time ago, for the wheel ruts which would have made the trail obvious were now filled with the rotted needles of several years, so that the way through the trees appeared evenly carpeted by the detritus of many falls. Because of the frugal narrowness of the man-made thoroughfare, it had been concealed from above and the pines rearing up on either side continued to shade the ground. At intervals along the trail, spurs veered off to the left and right, forcing a right of way to the areas where the old lumber operations had been active. Where the ground began to rise in the manner of an ocean breaker between the steep sides of the valley, there was a half-acre or so of stripped forest immediately beside the main trail. The passage of time since the lumber camp had been worked was very evident here. More than one harsh Montana winter had ravaged the signs which man had left of his former presence. And these comprised more than just the moss-encrusted stumps of felled pines. In one corner of the stripped area there was the foundation of a small cabin with just a single wall left standing. Incredibly, one pane of glass remained unbroken in the window. Grass grew up through the cracks in the collapsed, rotten roof and other three walls. A wheel-less wagon was canted across a tree stump nearby. Against it rested an axe and a broken wheel. Axe blade and wheel rim were dull red with rust.

  The man riding the grey gelding took in all this with the same brand of impassive detachment he had showed to every other vista displayed for him. It was there, offered him nothing good or bad and he accepted it as automatically as the air he breathed. Whereas another man might have sensed a pang of melancholia at viewing this scene of a forest raped and abandoned, this man did not. Just as he had been singularly unimpressed by the magnificence of the vista from the high ground: a breathtaking panorama which would probably have caused another man to contemplate the wonders of nature.

  But such emotional reflections required an ability which this man no longer possessed: an ability to experience normal human feelings. A little more than a decade previously, this man had been as well equipped with humanity as most. But the life fate had decreed for him since that earlier time had robbed him of virtually every quality that separates the thinking man from the most vicious of the wild animals.

  Now, riding in apparent relaxation up the slope of the trail, he did not at first glance appear different in any great degree from other men. He was tall - six feet three inches - and gave an impression of lean sparseness in his build: although almost two hundred pounds was evenly and solidly distributed over his frame. His features were of the kind that could be termed either handsome or extremely unlovely, depending upon the eye of the beholder. His own eyes were of the clearest blue, hooded and showing little of themselves between slitted lids. The glinting brightness of the eyes seemed strangely at odds with his other features: high cheekbones, hawk-like nose, thin-lipped mouth and thick black hair which reached down in a tangle to brush his shoulders. But then the sculptured firmness of his jaw-line seemed to strike an affinity with the eyes: and neither suggested the same ethnic origins as the taut stretched skin
the color and texture of tanned leather.

  A lifetime ago - he thought of it in these terms because to recall his childhood and youth was painful and totally futile - it had been easy to detect that he was a half-breed with Latin and European blood coursing through his veins.

  But during the hardening process of the recent years, when he had spilled a lot of that blood and seen a whole torrent more flowing from the broken bodies of other men, the difference between the features inherited from his Scandinavian mother and his Mexican father had grown more difficult to define. So that now, aged in his mid-thirties, the man’s face revealed only that latter portion of his history: it told of pain and heartache: blood-spilling flesh and shattered bones; terror, violence and death.

  But it needed more than a first glance to see these things. Just as it needed a closer examination of the man riding the gelding to spot that he was not so relaxed as he looked. In fact, he had been fully alert since first spotting the timber-felled scars in the pine-cloaked valley: his reflexes coiled to spring into instant action. To gallop the gelding; to snatch the Winchester from the boot; to leap from the saddle; to draw the Colt from the holster tied down to his right thigh; to unsheathe the cut-throat razor nestling in a leather pouch which slightly bulged his shirt at the back of his neck. Prepared to do any of these things at the merest hint of danger. That he expected and readied himself to meet a threat from the moment he detected the presence of man was a token of the kind of animal instincts which had replaced the human values of which he had been stripped. Such was this lone rider nearing the crest of the rise. The man called Edge.

  He reached the top of the slope and reined the gelding to a halt. His narrowed eyes, which had given the clue to his inner tension as they raked the trees on either side of the trail, now focused upon a far larger mark of human presence than any they had so far seen. And one that had not been abandoned. The new section of the valley Edge surveyed was much longer than the one he had just negotiated. Perhaps three miles before the next wave of land with the snowy-peaked mountain ridges visible over the crest. A quarter of the way along, this east-to-west valley was intersected by another which cut across from north to south. A river some hundred feet wide flowed across the intersection and the buildings of a medium-sized town crouched on the eastern bank. A trestle bridge spanned the river, to connect the town with a large lumber mill on the far side. Beyond the mill, which was bounded on one side by the river and a high, wire mesh fence on the others, a trail ran arrow-straight across a vast wasteland of pine stumps and disappeared into the trees which were next in line to be felled.

  Although there was not a soul to be seen on the street that ran down to the bridge, or within the bounds of the lumber mill, there were many signs that the town was inhabited. Several horses were tied to hitching rails outside the various business premises. Two dogs slept on the riverbank. A half-dozen flatbed wagons with teams in the traces were parked in the shade of the mill. The water wheel at the side of the mill turned lazily. Smoke from cooking fires columned up into the hot, still air from many chimneys.

  After Edge had heeled the gelding forward, the town was lost to sight; for this part of the new section of valley had been spared the lumbermen’s axes. And he was on level ground for several minutes, still following the disused trail, before he emerged from the tree line and saw the town close up. He could smell the wood smoke from the fires now, strangely refreshing after so long of breathing the sterile scent of pine. He halted the gelding again, lit a cigarette and raked his gaze down the sun-bright street that began fifty yards from where he watched.

  It looked a nice, peaceful, clean town. Inevitably in such forest country, all the buildings were constructed of timber. Single storey houses standing in neatly fenced gardens at this end. Then, down towards the bridge spanning the river, the business premises which were a mixture of one and two floored buildings. Across the river, and just beginning to cast a shadow towards the town as the sun moved down for its nightly rendezvous with the far end of the valley, the lumber mill thrust upwards to four storeys.

  A man who was prone to flights of fancy might have considered the stretching shadow symbolic of a power which the mill maintained over the town. Then, catching the scent of fresh sawdust mingling with the wood smoke, he might have regarded this as strengthening the vaguely menacing atmosphere that clung to the town. The impression augmented by the complete silence that invested the place with a quality that was eerie in its own right. But no such imaginative thoughts struck Edge. It was a lumber town and people either worked with timber or they didn’t live here. It was so quiet because the weather was too hot to encourage noisy activity: and it was eating time, to boot.

  He read the faded paint lettering on the town marker nailed to a leaning post at the side of the trail and allowed that it spelled out a strange name. But folks were free to call the place where they lived by whatever name they chose. This was a town called Hate.

  What interested him more as he urged the gelding forward was another word: painted on a board which jutted out from the front of a two-storey building close to the far end of the street. It announced: HOTEL. This was not faded like the lettering on the sign. Nothing about the town, except for its marker sign, was faded. The gardens were well tended and ablaze with colorful flowers in neat beds. Highly polished windows reflected the sun and painted woodwork gleamed. The water in the trough out front of the livery stable where Edge allowed his horse to drink was as crystal clear as that from a spring. The horses hitched in front of the bank, the law office, the express depot and a row of three stores were in the peak of condition and wore saddles and bridles with the sheen of careful oiling. The mounds at the side of the church were cloaked with well-trimmed grass. The freshly dug grave was a precise rectangle with the soil heaped neatly at the side. Across the street, the lawn fronting the courthouse was as level as a pool table.

  Next to the church was the preacher’s house, then came the hotel. Above the double-doored entrance was a board proclaiming the name of the place: THE LAST DROP. Edge angled the gelding towards the hitching rail before the entrance and remained in the saddle for a few moments. He sensed watching eyes, and pinpointed the position of the observer before swinging wearily down to the ground. His feet kicked up the dust of a long, hot summer. From this end of the street the silence of the town was broken by the wet, cool, churning sound of the water wheel turned by the flowing river.

  “Hope that sign don’t mean this place is about to run out of beer,” he drawled, slightly higher than normal conversational level as he hitched the reins of the gelding around the rail.

  The door of the preacher’s house - like many others he had passed on the slow ride along the street - stood open. The interior of the house was in deep shade, but Edge knew somebody was in there, looking out at him. He had not looked at the open doorway since dismounting and now he had his back to it as he reached up and slid the Winchester from the boot.

  “If you care to see what is at the other side of the hotel, the significance of the name may strike you as humorous.” The voice had a booming quality, although the words were soft spoken. The kind of voice with which preachers are born or acquire with their cloth.

  Edge moved across the front of the hotel without turning to look at the man. The street had no sidewalks and his weary feet billowed more dust. An alley separated the hotel from the Corners Bank. Not a wide alley: but broad enough to accommodate a stoutly made platform with steps leading up to it. The ugly framework of a gallows jutted up from one side of the platform. A noose hung down, motionless: so that the rope appeared as rigid as the wood from which it was suspended. There was a lever connected with a weighted trapdoor set into the platform immediately beneath the noose. The whole structure had the quality of permanence and was as well cared for as everything else about the town.

  The half-breed turned and recrossed in front of the hotel. The preacher had stepped out of his house now and stood in the lesser shade of the porch roof. He wa
s a small man of sixty or so, with a bulging stomach and fleshy, pink face. Deep lines cut away from the corners of his eyes and mouth and his woeful expression fitted into them precisely. “You see the point of the joke?” he asked, beginning to sweat. He was fully dressed for his duties in black cloth with starched dog collar. A well-used prayer book was clutched in his pudgy hands, resting on his stomach hump.

  Edge cracked his lips to show a cold smile that did not reach his eyes. “Does anybody die laughing, reverend?” he asked.

  “What do you think?”

  “That dying’s a serious business,” He turned towards the hotel entrance. “For the guy that’s doing it.”

  “Most people think that way,” the preacher replied. “Some do not. No point in going inside yet,” he hurried on as Edge moved towards the double doorway. “Everybody’s over at the courthouse for the trial.”

  Edge halted and turned around to look across at the neat, white double storey building behind the well-trimmed lawn. “Likely to take long?”

  “Any time now, stranger. Court convened thirty minutes ago.”

  Edge backed up to rest his hip against the windowsill of the hotel. “Open and shut case, uh?”

  “Ezra Hyams is guilty,” the preacher answered.

  “Of what?”

  “Spitting in the street.”

  Edge snapped his head around to search the pink face for a sign of humor. The woeful frown was still carved there. “And the whole town goes to the trial? Hate must be a real fun place to live, reverend.”

  “It’s not the trial so much,” the preacher replied, flinching into tenseness. “The rule is that anybody who doesn’t attend cannot witness the hanging. Justice must be seen to be done.”

  The shadows had lengthened to the extent that the looming structure of the lumber mill now cast a great wedge of shade across the river to touch the fringes of the town. There were more sounds now discernible: the droning of flies on the wing, the scrape of hooves as horses scratched impatiently at the dusty street, the distant crying of a waking baby and the low growling of one of the two dogs as they loped past Edge. All this against the background monotony of the churning water wheel. It was still blazingly hot.