There were three of them—the men who had ridden into Lakeview earlier and asked Edge where they could get a drink. They did not look as if they had enjoyed themselves at the Treasure House, nor warmed themselves. But they smelled like they had swallowed a lot of liquor trying. Then, with the door firmly closed at their backs, to block off the blast of cold and fresh air, they smelled of staler odors.
They were as hard eyed and rugged faced as they had seemed from a distance. The top man close to forty and the other two a year or so over thirty. All around six feet in height with lean and powerful builds that their thick topcoats did not conceal. With unkempt black hair and crooked teeth a long way from white. Unshaven and maybe unwashed for many days. The kind of men it was difficult to visualize as children. Whose life-styles invariably meant they never got to be elderly. And who appeared to be scowling even when they smiled.
Like now, as the top man breathed in deeply through his nose and said, as the other two imitated him: "Ain't that beautiful, boys? Part of everyone's dream of home—the smell from the kitchen while mom's cookin' supper."
"If you fellers have got the appetites, I have the food to satisfy them," the little man with the many chins said eagerly, flashing a bright smile as he gestured with a hand to encompass all the unoccupied tables. "Sit anyplace you like, gentlemen, and tell me what I can get you."
"Three of the biggest steaks you got, mister," the top man answered with a smack of his thin lips. "Fried black. And with no dog hairs on the side, uh?"
He moved away from the door and the two younger men followed him. The one who had a constant tic just below his right eye growled:
"That's right, Lester. And I guess we better be careful where we step, in case there's any dog crap in here."
The man with eyes that were cracked as narrow as those of Edge, but were a glistening green in color, added, "I think I can smell dog pee, Lester."
The restaurateur licked his smiling lips nervously and went to the table closest to the arch that gave access to the kitchen. And spoke quickly as he half circled it, pulling out three chairs. "Here, gentlemen. Sit here. The dog was not in this area at all. And I did tell him dogs are not allowed in my establishment. But he refused to remove him and there was nothin' I could do about it. But I can assure you the animal did not perform any natural functions in here and came nowhere near my kitch..."
Lester and his partners moved to the proffered chairs and sat down while the excitable fat man was giving the fast-spoken assurances. On the way unbuttoned their coats to display the gun-belts slung around their narrow waists. And it was the final jerking to the side of their coats to reveal the holstered revolvers that caused the owner of the place to abandon what he was saying and; back off from the table, gulping hard. Then licking his lips again, with a quicker movement of his tongue, he looked across the dining room anon found his eyes firmly held in the trap of the half-breed's coldly glinting gaze. But next expressed relief with a smile and a sigh when Edge gave a curt nod and shifted his attention to the trio of newcomers slumped arrogantly in their chairs at the table; weary, chilled, hungry, liquored-up, and looking for trouble.
The men with green eyes instructed, "Go start cookin' up the chow, fatso."
This as Edge moved to the door, the German shepherd right on his heels, and reached for the latch.
"That dog a fighter, mister?" Lester asked.
The half-breed answered, "He sure ain't no boxer, feller."
The fat man directed a strange look at Edge from the doorway. An expression of entreaty that perhaps begged him to leave fast before trouble started, or maybe pleaded for him to stay to deal with it.
The man with the constant tic vented a short laugh, that he curtailed with a contrite look when Lester directed a glower at him.
"Anything else you need to know before I leave?" Edge asked.
The man went from the archway and rattled some pans in the kitchen.
"You really kill a man today? For callin' you a name? Like they say?"
"No," Edge answered Lester, who started to show a sneering grin that was stillborn when the half-breed finished, "For drawing a gun on me after I told him not to."
"Wasn't a man, not really, Lester," the one with green eyes reminded. "Just some kid of a stage guard is what they said down at the saloon."
Fat begem to sizzle in a skillet on the stove beyond the arch.
The dog whined that he wanted to get out of the place.
"Animal sounds scared, Lester," the tic muttered toughly, trying to get back on the right side of the top man.
"The guy ain't, Elmer. Not of any kid stage guard, anyways. Nothin' else I need to know, mister. So get that stinkin' mutt outta here. Or is it you that's makin' it so I can't sniff the grub no more?"
They all three sat with their filthy hands resting lightly on the clean cloth that draped the tabletop, supremely confident they could out-draw Edge, whose sheepskin coat was still fastened.
"It's a rat I can smell," the half-breed answered. "You want ventilating, feller?"
And raised the latch as he stooped to the side and allowed the wind to snatch the door from his grasp. It was flung forcefully inwards and slammed against the wall with a sharp crack, followed by the tinkle of falling glass.
From the kitchen came a cry of alarm, and the frightened face of the restaurateur showed at the side of the arch. This as the three men at the table sat rigidly on their chairs, staring nervously at Edge, whose slit-eyed gaze had not shifted from their table since the door had started to swing and the first hard-driven stream of cold air invaded the stove heat.
"Trouble is what I smelled!" the Lakeview lawman snarled, drawing every pair of eyes to him as he stepped on to the threshold of the restaurant. The wind pushed up one side of his hat brim and tugged at his open duster to show the holstered Remington, his right hand draped over the jutting butt. "And I'm here to stop it before it gets started."
He looked from the trio of tension-taut men at the table to the nonchalant Edge and back again, his cold-pinched face showing an expression that invited response.
Lester nodded and moved a hand to hold down the tablecloth being wrenched at by the draft. "It's my belief, sheriff, that where trouble's concerned, prevention is better than cure. Right boys?"
"Sure thing, Lester," green eyes supplied.
"Ain't that the truth. Wasn't us broke the man's door," Elmer added.
"What do you say, mister?" Lester asked of Edge. "You believe that prevention is better than cure."
The half-breed had started to go through the doorway as Sheriff Herman turned sideways to allow him the space. But now he paused briefly to glance over his shoulder and answer, "Always have thought the world would be a better place if some folk's parents had held that belief, feller."
Chapter Twelve
Edge paused again out on the windblown sidewalk and the German shepherd was tensed to respond to a command.
Elmer laughed and the man with green eyes snarled, "Shut up, dummy!"
"What about my busted door?" the restaurateur complained.
The sheriff told him, as he reached in to pull the door closed: "Count your blessin's, Joel Marten. A whole lot more could've been broken."
"But keep cookin' while you're countin', Joel," Lester snapped. "And, Rico, see what you can find to plug the busted glass."
"Damn it, Lester!" the man with green eyes countered miserably. "I ain't no repairman!"
"What you are gettin' to be, Rico, is a pain in the friggin' ass!" the top man of the trio snarled. "Do it!"
Edge had lifted his saddle and bedroll from the angle of the sidewalk and the wall, confident that the immediate threat was past and there was no need to have his hands free and the scabbarded Winchester easily accessible. He started along the sidewalk, eyes cracked to the narrowest of slits against the wind and the dust motes it carried.
The dog padded along on his left side and the lawman stayed level on the right. The German shephe
rd entirely at ease while the two men remained alert for a sight or sound of the unexpected until they were out front of the Timbertop Livery Stable, which was a block and a half east of the restaurant on the same side of the street.
Sheriff Herman directed a baleful look back the way they had come and said, "Guess that even if you knew what that was about, you wouldn't tell me?"
"You keep telling everyone how you're not a man to stick his nose in other people's business, feller," Edge reminded and nodded his thanks, when the unburdened man opened one of the big doors and gestured him through.
There were just horses inside the two-story, hay-lofted livery with stalls around three sides. Edge's bay gelding and a dozen others for ridin and for hauling. The atmosphere, sharp with the smell of horse droppings, was cold for men, but the animals were in enclosed stalls spread with plenty of warm straw.
"Leo Evers down at the saloon gave me the word, Edge," the lawman said, leaning his back against the crack where the two doors were secured at the center of the stable entrance. "Heard them three guys talkin' with Rita Cornell. Askia' about you. Her tellin' them how you killed the kid on the stage. And about the big roll you're carryin'."
Edge went to the stall where his gelding was being kept and backed the horse out with soft words of encouragement and a gentle hand. Began to saddle him while the dog moved about the livery, sniffing the many interesting odors contained in the place.
"Don't think you've asked me anything yet, sheriff."
"Don't intend to, Edge. Figure I got me as much trouble as I need with this crazy business between Barney Galton's two sons. And I intend to handle that if it blows up. Kind of blow up there can be between you and them three hard men in the restaurant—well, you should know I wouldn't need to handle it. Not on my own. You and them, we don't normally get your kind in Lakeview. We're way off the beaten track and we ain't got nothin' here for you."
The half-breed lashed his bedroll on behind the saddle and then took out the makings to start a cigarette.
The lawman took a deep breath and went on. Four in one day is too many. But it could be confidence and that bunch could've been fixin' to take that bankroll off you. Like I told you before, though, I don't like coincidences."
Edge struck a match and lit the cigarette. On a stream of smoke said, "Something else you told me was that you're not one to beat about the bush."
"You're goin' to ride that horse out of town and off my patch, Edge?"
"Soon as I've bought some supplies for the trail."
Herman shook his head. "Write a list of what you want and I'll see you get it brought here. You can pay the man who brings it."
"Why, sheriff?"
Herman scowled. "Because I don't want any more blood spilled on my patch, that's why. It ain't a coincidence, them being around here at the same time as you, is it?"
Edge pursed his lips as the wind gusted more, strongly and there was a flash of lightning from a source a long way off.
"Flush with money because I got paid for killing a man called Al Falcon and shipping his body to Denver, sheriff," the half-breed explained flatly, as a clap of thunder sounded far to the east.
The German shepherd interrupted his investigation of an empty stall and stood stock still —afraid.
"Understand Falcon had a lot of friends and there's a chance that three of them are eating in Joel Marten's place right now."
The scowl on the face of the lawman became more deeply etched in his skin. "Figured somethin' of the sort, mister. In my book, there's nothin' to choose between bounty hunters and the men they hunt."
"Somebody asked you to choose, feller?"
Herman spat at the hard-packed dirt floor in front of his booted feet. "I'm just the one lawman in this town because that's all we need for 99 percent of the time, mister. But when there's any trouble I can't handle, I got almost everyone else who lives in Lakeview to call on for help. Most of them lumbermen, who ain't exactly milksops and who'll fight till the last of them drops if need be to protect what we have here. But I ain't gonna have any of them put their lives on the line in a fight between a bounty hunter and buddies of the last man he had to kill to keep his belly filled."
"Somebody asked that, feller?"
There was another flash of lightning.
"It wasn't just me Leo Evers told about those three and their questions, mister. There was a bunch of men from the lumber camp in the saloon at the same time. Some of them that saw you kill the kid on the stage. Know you are a gunfighter from the way you shaped up to him. Saw the kind them three are too. But they was all ready to go on down to Joel Marten's restaurant and bust all your heads if that was what was called for to stop trouble in Lakeview."
The thunderclap in the wake of the lightning sounded while Herman was speaking and started the German shepherd to whimpering, his eyes staring and his ears pricked. The lawman glanced at the unsettled dog and said in passing: "Barney Galton always said that thunder was all that animal was afraid of."
Edge answered: "A lot of things scare me, feller. But I try not to let them worry me if there's something that has to be done."
Herman stared hard at the half-breed, concerned by the countless implications that could be read into the evenly spoken words.
"Give you an instance," Edge continued in the same easy manner. "It scares me to think what a bunch of hard-bitten lumbermen will do to me afterwards. But that won't keep me from killing anyone in this town who tries to keep me from getting out of it before the weather closes in."
Herman's fleshy face carried the grimace for a moment more, and then became almost impassive when he said: "All right, mister. Gonna rain is all. Been threatenin' for a week or more. Reason you ain't seen no lumber wagons rollin' outta town. Men worried they'd get bogged down in this kinda storm. But a man ridin' a horse'll be okay. Take care in this town, though. Rain, shine, snow, or heat wave—the weather'll be the least of your worries if there's shootin' trouble between you and them other strangers. Started by you."
He raised the latch and had to use force to shift the outward-opening door against the pressure of the wind. A flurry of raindrops lashed loudly on the stable facade and windows, and a brilliant lightning flash momentarily drove the murkiness of the afternoon to far distant horizons.
The dog knew the thunder would follow and was tense and panting, waiting for it—lunged toward the gap at the center of the double doors when the violent clap cracked across the sky and vibrated the windows. But Sheriff Herman was out on the street and the wind had slammed the door closed behind him a full second before the terrified animal would have raced through.
"Easy, feller, easy," Edge called across the livery in the wake of the clap and the slam of the door. While the dog began to pace back and forth across the securely closed doors, whining his fear of the storm and every now and then venting a snarling bark of frustration that he was trapped.
The half-breed hung the cigarette from a corner of his mouth and led the gelding toward the door, where the German shepherd was abruptly excited. Was down on his haunches now, nose pressed to the center crack, sniffing the many scents of the embryo storm. And also the scent of a man, the sound of whose approach was masked by the howl and buffet of the gusting, rain-streaked wind.
Edge abandoned his grip on the reins of the quiet gelding and made to stoop to catch hold of the frightened dog's rope collar.
But then the sheet lightning exploded brilliance again and the electric crack came just a part of a second later. The German shepherd vented a cry that was eerie in pitch—then was curtailed by a bark of sheer joy when the door was wrenched open. Rain beat inside, to lash at Edge's upturned face. His cigarette was put out and pulped. The dog sprang forward, through the widening gap. And the man who had opened the escape route snarled an obscenity as he was almost knocked over by the animal who bounced off his legs.
A middle-aged man of medium build, hatless but otherwise entirely cloaked in black oilskins.
<
br /> "Dogs!" he snarled as he stepped over the threshold and leaned against the door he allowed to bang closed at his back. A scowl hard set on his deeply lined, element-burnished face as he ran both hands through his thick, gray hair to finger comb rainwater out of it. "Never had no time for the flea-ridden animals myself. Be two dollars, mister."
"For losing me my dog?" Edge asked as he straightened up and turned to the side to spit the remains of the cigarette off his lips.
"For takin' care of your horse, mister. Stablin', feedin', and waterin' is two dollars a day here. Or part of a day. Name's Frank Benson and I'm the liveryman. Usually hotel guests with horses pay Polly Webster for the livery service and I collect from her. But I understand Max didn't make no charge for—"
"No sweat," Edge cut in on the man. Who had started to transform his scowl into a frown of anxiety as he watched the half-breed unfasten the buttons of the sheepskin coat. But then the former expression was reestablished when he saw the brown-skinned right hand move to a hip pocket of the pants and bring out a roll of bills. "You can ask your town lawman. Wasn't planning on making a run for it. Always do pay my way. Max wouldn't take my money. Obliged if you'd put two in the town poorbox, feller?"
Benson accepted the four singles held out to him and nodded his thanks as he reached through a slit in the oilskins to put the money in a pocket of his pants. Then he searched the stable with his eyes and gave a grunt of satisfaction. Crossed to a corner stall and took down from a peg a battered and stained Stetson that hung there. Jammed it on his head and came back to the doorway.
"Pleasure to do business with you," he said.
"Sorry about the dog. But reckon he'll show up again soon as the lightning and thunder's done with. Here, I'll hold the door for you while you get your mount outside."
EDGE: The Killing Claim Page 10
