She hurriedly remounted her horse, taking care to avoid looking at any of the dead men. Then moved off after Edge, but made no attempt to close the gap on him. Despite her reawakened concern for the fate of her brother, still gleaming brightly in her mind was an image of the vicious expression on the face of the man called Edge during their final exchange. When, Polly Webster was absolutely certain, she had never been closer to death. And in an immeasurably short part of a second, the man had switched from one side to the other of the narrowest of dividing lines. To rasp a cynical joke about hell instead of blasting her into it.
Two hundred and fifty yards ahead of the woman who he knew was trailing him, Edge was equally well aware of how close he had come to killing Polly Webster. Which would have been a bad thing to do, a hard action to live with.
For she had spoken nothing but the truth and nobody deserved to die for doing that. While the person responsible for such a killing deserved the worst that a bad future could hold.
But had the dog not played a part in the violence back on the trail, there would not have been any kind of future for Edge or the woman. And before that, in the restaurant, the presence of the dog had aroused- enough interest in the three gunmen to keep them from blasting at Edge before the Lakeview sheriff made his play and took the heat out of the situation.
These dangerous incidents apart, the big German shepherd had still done enough to more than earn from the half-breed whatever it was that had almost led to the wanton murder of the hapless Polly Webster. By the simple process of doing no more than he was doing now as they rounded the southern tip of the arm of lake and started back northward—by being there and asking no more than to be there.
"Shit!" Edge rasped aloud, and spat to the trail side as he reflected that no human companion—male or female—could ever be so undemanding.
The woman was directly opposite him across the narrow stretch of lake and she called.
"Did you say something, Mr. Edge?"
"Just shit, lady!" he answered.
"You're disgusting!"
"Yeah," he growled in a rasping whisper. "It's difficult to see how anyone can take to me, ain't it?"
The dog gave a sharp half bark that carried no note of alarm. And when Edge glanced down at him he saw the mouth was partly open, the tongue lolling out, the fangs and eyes shining brightly in the moonlight—in an expression of canine delight that was matched by the vigorous waving of the tail.
"I know, feller," the half-breed said in a soothingly even tone. "And I think you're pretty terrific too. Except for your taste in food."
Yet again, the German shepherd made it seem as if he understood complex human speech—whined and set his ears back along his head. A sad expression entered his eyes to convey a look of abject contrition, which, despite all else, drew a grin across the face of the man as he murmured:
"That's right, feller. It's a dog-eat-dog world we're living in. Eating people is wrong, even when they happen to be sonsofbitches."
Chapter Fifteen
The man called Edge shot the dog with no name.
The grin wiped from his face a moment after he squeezed the trigger of the rifle he had tilted down off the saddle and angled back across his left thigh. By which time the German shepherd was blind in death, the animal eyes showing total trust in the apparent good humor of the man until the bullet smashing into the head between the eyes abruptly ended every sensation.
The man felt a numbness that had to bear some resemblance to the emptiness of death as he instinctively worked to bring the gunshot-spooked horse back under control while his mind was filled with a rapidly changing series of images of the dog in the quieter times since the first violent meeting between man and animal. More, good times than bad, especially during those contented days and nights at the claim.
The mare was calm now and Edge swung down from the saddle. Leaned his rifle against a tree. He had no bedroll blankets so shrugged out of his sheepskin coat and used this as a shroud for the dog, who lay on his side, tail and legs extended and head covered with blood. Stooped to drape the coat over the carcass. Then rose with an easy strength to lift the considerable weight and rest it across the saddle on the mare.
There had been no bad times until other people showed up—the Galtons at the claim. And the bad times had increased almost in proportion to the number of people the man and dog came across in town.
"It's for the best, Mr. Edge," Polly Webster said in a melancholy tone as she reined in her horse a few yards off from where the half-breed was returning to his after retrieving his rifle. "You'd be constantly worried when next the creature's liking for human flesh caused you to—"
"Get your own mind back down between your legs and stop trying to read mine, lady," Edge cut in on her coldly as he canted the Winchester to his left shoulder and started to lead the mare along the trail with his right hand on the bridle.
The woman gasped, then snarled, "Disgusting is right!"
Did not start out in the wake of Edge again until he was perhaps fifty yards ahead. And drawing close to where the trail angled away from the shore of the lake and began to climb the timber-clad slope to the top of the promontory's landward end.
The half-breed was aware of exactly where he was as he trudged along the muddy track, feeling no colder without the rain-sodden coat on his back than when he wore it. And, but for a blurred mental picture of the upturned head of the German shepherd a moment before he shot him, the mind of the man was uncluttered by memories. A blurred image that was a true one, since the reality had been lacking in sharpness . . .
Then even this was gone and that part of his mind not concerned with monitoring the signals from the eyes, ears, and sixth sense for danger was determinedly concentrated upon what he intended to do at the top of the slope he was climbing.
"Mr. Edge, do you consider it wise to approach so openly?" Polly Webster asked with a strong note of unease in her voice. Speaking from just a few yards behind the half-breed, having closed the gap with nervous glances in every direction as the slope began. And the trees grew close to both sides of the track, their foliage all but blotting out the light of the moon.
"How's that, lady?"
"It could be dangerous for us if somebody misinterprets our reason for being here."
"I'm not a thief in the night, lady," he answered, speaking at a normal conversational level that sounded close to shouting in contrast with the woman's rasping whispers. "Could be mistaken for one if I approached like one."
"I'd like to know what you are here for!" she countered sourly.
"You're not the only one, sis!" the towering Max Webster growled.
"And nobody invited you either!" the pretty-faced, stout-bodied Janet Galton added in a similarly harsh tone.
They stepped out of the timber on either side of the trail as Edge leading his horse with the mounted woman immediately behind the mare reached the top of the rise. Where the track gave on to the clearing with the log cabin as its center. The tall man and the fat woman both warmly garbed against the cold bite of the night air. He with a rifle and she with the bullet-nicked shotgun. Each held in gloved hands across the base of their bellies—ready to be swung and raised to augment the threats implicit in the scowling faces.
"Max!" Polly Webster blurted joyfully. "Thank God you're all right!"
"I told her you were big enough to take care of yourself, feller," Edge said as he halted, not needing to tighten his grip around the frame of the Winchester. For he had just the right kind of hold on the rifle and had shifted his thumb to the hammer when he first suspected there were guards at the way in to the clearing.
"I was worried, that's all, Max," the sister of the suddenly embarrassed-looking man assured.
"Like I am about you coming back to the claim, mister!" the Galton woman snapped, her eyes flicking this way and that. "And where's that brute of an animal that almost—"
"Dead, ma'am," Edge cut in on the untrusting woman as h
e completed making a cursory survey of the brightly moonlit clearing. And became the subject of a survey himself, by the group of men who gathered at a front corner of the cabin, close to where the rented buggy was parked.
The horse that had pulled the rig from Lake-view and the mounts of the men who had ridden from town were hobbled out back of the cabin.
"Who is it?" Lee Galton yelled, the tone of his voice expressing angry impatience.
"Edge!" the bearded brother's sister-in-law called back, making the name sound like an obscenity.
"And my sister Polly!" Max added.
"Plus a dead dog," Edge added, a hint of impatience in his voice.
He tugged on the bridle of the mare and started toward the abruptly startled Janet Galton and Max Webster. Then added, as the pair looked at each other for a first move to follow, "Who I've brought home to bury."
"What?" the fat woman gasped, but stepped aside.
"Sis?" the towering Webster queried with a puzzled frown and also moved out of the half-breed's path.
Edge's contribution had not been spoken loudly enough to carry to the Galton brothers and four Lakeview citizens grouped at the corner of the cabin.
The bearded and battered-faced Lee demanded, "What's goin' on here?"
Then the shorter, thinner spectacle-wearing Ralph started, "You told us you agreed to relinquish all rights to my father's—"
His wife interrupted, "He says he's only here to bury the dog, Ralph!"
There was a sudden babble of talk among the six strong group beside the cabin. The sense of what was being said not carrying to the ears of Edge, but he was able to detect the note of incredulity in the competing voices. Then, as he veered to the left to go around the neglected vegetable patch and behind the cabin, voices were raised.
"We heard shootin'!"
"Like a damn battle at first!"
"Way over the east side of the lake!"
"Then a shot close by!"
"Edge, damnit, you can't just—"
"He's got somethin' wrapped in a cover over his saddle!"
The half-breed ignored the actual and the implied questions as he made directly for the elongated mound with the rock-formed cross on it over by the outcrop on the far side of the clearing.
Polly Webster rode her horse into the clearing and on to the once carefully cultivated area of land.
"Hey!" Janet Galton snapped.
"Polly, you better take care—" Max started.
"The crazy man means what he says!" the woman cut in on the many voices as she halted her mount. "His dog ran away in the storm and he came after it. Three men left town in a hurry as well. After they shot and killed Frank Benson while they were tryin' to shoot Edge. The first gunfire you heard ..."
Polly Webster continued to give her startled audience an account of the events that led to she and Edge arriving at the claim. While the half-breed commenced the chore he had set himself. After first hitching the mare to a clump of brush and relieving her of the burden of the dead dog.
He noticed indifferently that after the body of Barney Galton had been exhumed to check on the manner of his death, his son had made a neat job of reburying the corpse and replacing the cross of stones.
The shovel that had been used for the opening and refilling of the grave had been discarded nearby and Edge used this to dig a hole for the dog alongside the last resting place of his onetime master.
After a chorus of questions when Polly Webster had finished, the volume of voices was lowered and Edge was unable to understand what was being said as he worked steadily at digging the grave for the dog. Then it was as if he was alone in the clearing, when everyone else was in the cabin, its thick log walls totally muting whatever exchanges took place inside.
Until, when he had almost dug down as deeply as was necessary, he heard heavy footfalls on the rain-soddened ground as counterpoint to the thud of the shovel into the dirt. And looked up to see Max Webster approaching him. The big-built man no longer carried the rifle. The half-breed continued with the grave.
"I don't think it's crazy, you doin' this," Webster said as he halted a few feet off from the grave.
"So I'm not touched, feller," the half-breed answered as he tossed a final shovelful of earth out of the four-foot-deep, elongated hole. And climbed up out from it. Pushed the blade of the shovel into the heap of displaced earth and took the makings from a shirt pocket.
Webster was briefly puzzled by the response, then shrugged his shoulders. "We're the crazy ones, sir. Them Galtons and us Lakeview people that come out here with Lee. There ain't nothin' here on old Barney's place worth the ride around the lake for."
"You came around the lake, feller," Edge reminded as he rolled the paper around the tobacco.
Webster grimaced. "Yeah. Me and the Hall boys. Sam Nelson and Billy Kitteridge. With not the brains and good sense of one man spread around all five of us."
"Somebody else said something like that," Edge answered and lit the cigarette with a match struck on the butt of his holstered Colt.
"We all know we ain't the smartest," Max Webster said flatly. "And I guess that Lee Galton was told what a bunch of dumb clucks we are. By folks that had more sense than to pay any attention to what was in the letter old Barney wrote him."
Edge cupped his hands around the end of the cigarette as he drew against it, deriving a little warmth from the red-hot tobacco leaves.
"Same letter Barney wrote to Ralph we found out after we got here," Webster went on, eager to talk and uncaring that he had such an unresponsive audience of one. "Didn't have no trouble like Lee did when his brother and Mrs. Galton jumped him the first time. They couldn't do nothin' like that against six of us. So Lee and Ralph and Mrs. Galton they put their heads together and decided to throw in together. Which is the way old Bamy wanted it to be."
"What are you and others from town in for?" Edge asked as the expression on the face of the big man seemed to plead for encouragement to go on.
Now Webster briefly smiled as he patted the area of his hip pocket.
"Lee gave us twenty dollars each to ride out here with him. And there's the promise of the rest to make it up to a hundred when his inheritance is found. His and Ralph's inheritance, that is."
"Which you don't figure is here, Max?" the half-breed said indifferently as he arced the partly smoked cigarette into the sodden timber and went to where the coat-wrapped carcass of the dog lay.
"Look at it this way, sir," Webster replied quickly, obviously pleased to be arousing some degree of interest in Edge now. "Old Barney Galton worked this claim for almost as long as anyone can recall. Lived over here in that shack like a hermit. Grew and shot most of what he ate. When he did come to Lakeview, it was to change a little bit of gold dust into money at the bank and buy some trifle he wanted."
Edge considered only briefly reclaiming his sheepskin coat. But decided against it and kept the carcass of the German shepherd wrapped in it as he dropped to his haunches to lower the burden into the grave. Said evenly, "I've got it, feller," when Max Webster stepped forward to lend a hand.
The bigger man allowed, "I like to do things myself, too."
Edge began to shovel the dirt back into the hole.
"Where did I get to?"
"Old Man Galton bringing just a few grains of gold to Lakeview, feller. Maybe because he was hoarding most of it here on the claim?"
"That's what some folks used to say," Webster muttered and almost pushed his hat off when he scratched the side of his head. Then he shook his head. "But there ain't no one ever did really believe that, sir. Stands to reason. Man that spends most of his life out here in the wilds breakin' his back digging rock outta the ground ain't gonna—"
"So you and the others came around the lake happy with just the twenty bucks advance?" Edge said.
Webster nodded his head vigorously and grinned, like he was happy somebody else had unexpectedly supplied the answer to a question that had been bothering him for a long
time. "Yeah, yeah! That's right, sir." But then the happiness went out of his face to leave him looking perplexed. "Then again, the way them Galtons are goin' so hard at it, it figures they believe there's an inheritance out here." Again his features altered their set and he expressed grim determination. "And if there is, I ain't gonna be satisfied with no hundred bucks, I can tell you. I ain't smart, but I ain't that dumb either. I could've got my head blowed off by that shotgun of Mrs. Gabon's and I'm gonna want payin' for puttin' my life on the line. Payin' good money, sir. Enough so I can buy a house on the lakefront. And Polly can get herself a husband and don't have to— well, set her cap at men like she did with you."
Edge directed a surreptitious glance at Max Webster and decided the giant of a man was saying exactly what he meant, with no devious hidden intent veiled by the words he spoke and expression he showed.
"The letters Barney Galton wrote his sons mentioned a hoard of gold out here, Max?" Edge asked. And was hit by the thought that perhaps Webster was trying to be devious after all. Was taking the trouble to do all this talking in order to interest him in the doubtful inheritance the father had left his sons. In the event that Lee Galton objected to paying more than a hundred dollars a man to his hired help.
"No, sir. Barney just wrote Lee and Ralph that he figured he was nearin' the end of his time. He wrote he forgave them for not takin' care of him the way sons should. And he said they should come visit him here at the claim. And when they got here, he'd see they had all they needed to last them for the rest of their lives."
Edge completed the dog's grave with several flat-of-the-blade thuds of the shovel at the dirt. Then tossed the shovel away and did not even consider marking the mound with a cross of rocks.
"Guess a letter like that would get me a little stirred up, feller," the half-breed told the bigger man. "If I didn't know the local gossip about the man that wrote it being a little crazy."
"Yeah," Webster agreed dully. Then brightened. "But we ain't got nothin' to lose. We didn't come traveling all the way out here from back East. We can just stick around and see what turns up in the cabin."
EDGE: The Killing Claim Page 13
