"Uh?"
"That's right, I didn't tell you, did I. Well, after the Galtons done all their talkin' together—when they agreed to go shares in what's found—they got into tryin' to figure out where best to start lookin'. And they reckoned in the cabin. On account of that was where their pa spent his last days. And a man with a fortune hid someplace would want to have it close by him out in a lonely piece of country like this is. So he could protect it against thieves."
He shrugged and looked quizzically at the half-breed, who offered no response. "And anyway, it sure is easier diggin' in the dirt floor of the cabin than out in them mine tunnels." Another shrug. "And that's a fact."
There was a pause then, Max Webster having said as much as he was able without actually asking Edge for help if it was needed. While the half-breed had nothing to say as he cast his mind back to the time spent with the dying old man, trying to recall some word or phrase that might have been a clue to where a hoard of gold dust was hidden on the claim. But he abandoned this search of his memory after just a few moments. For he had no right to such a hoard if it existed, nor any reason to help any of those trying to locate it.
The thick walls of the log cabin continued to trap inside any noise made by the eager searchers. The growing timber did not mask the thud of hooves on sodden ground, which signaled the approach up the trail from the lakeside of a small group of riders.
Webster heard the same hoofbeats and grimaced as he swung around from facing Edge and groaned: "Shit. More trouble and I left my rifle over by—"
An oilskin-garbed form appeared at a corner of the cabin. It was Polly Webster, who shouted in high excitement: "Max! Get over here! They've found somethin'!"
The big man started to run toward his sister as Janet Galton, out of the cabin but out of sight of Edge and Max Webster, shrieked:
"Ralph, there's more company comin', damnit!"
"Guess that'll be the Lakeview sheriff and a posse," Edge said, but Webster was already out of earshot. So the half-breed shrugged and turned to retrieve his Winchester and then began to unhitch the reins of the mare from the clump of brush.
The riders brought their mounts to a halt where the track from the lake entered the clearing on the far side. And Sheriff Herman shouted:
"I'm lookin' for the man named Edge! He still around here, Mrs. Galton?"
The half-breed swung up astride the mare and looked across the clearing behind the cabin. Saw the duster-coated Herman and ten or maybe a dozen other men—three of them draped over and tied to their saddles.
"I'm still here, feller!"
The posse all snapped their heads around to peer, a little fearfully, toward Edge. Tensed to draw guns if the Winchester should be brought down from his shoulder. The half-breed called:
"My horse going to be all right?"
"Frig your horse!" the Lakeview lawman snarled and heeled his mount out of the group —trailing on lead lines the three with corpses for riders. "I told you not to take the law into your own—"
"Eddie Herman, it was them or Edge and me!" Polly Webster cut in, torn between the need she felt to defend the half-breed and an eagerness to follow her brother back into the cabin.
Inside of which, voices were raised in high excitement. Once more each competing with the others to be heard, with the result that little real sense could be made of the occasional snatch that sounded in isolation.
"... I got it . . ."
"Hot damn, this is . . ."
"Lid's clear . . ."
". . . locked . . ."
"No!"
"Shit, we got it!"
"Bring the . . ."
". . . Janet . . ."
"Polly, come see ..."
Then, as the woman made to turn to respond to her brother's eager call and the grim-faced Herman with the posse following closed with the impassive Edge, the cabin exploded.
With an ear-splitting crack and an earth-shuddering blast, the roof was tossed high and the walls collapsed inwards. A great tongue of yellow flame licked up at the violently detached roof—seemed to grip it and jerk it back down, but in a thousand pieces. This debris hidden in a twisting ball of black smoke that followed the flame into the night sky. Went much higher and did not return, as the flame had returned to become many smaller tongues of fire. Yellow, red, blue, and green now. Roaring as the dry inner sections of the collapsed cabin were burned. Hissing as the rain-sodden outsides were steam dried before being consumed.
Polly Webster had been knocked to the ground by the blast. And those men who were not blown from their saddles had been thrown from them as the horses reared in panic at the sound, sight, and smell of the explosion.
And for stretched seconds, as pieces of debris showered down over a wide area of the clearing, they all remained pressed to the storm-dampened ground. Hands instinctively clasped over their heads. Some curled up into the smallest possible size. In as much danger from the pumping hooves of widly bolting horses as from blasted chunks of timber.
Then the final piece of shattered cabin roof thudded to the ground. All but two of the horses, which had bolted blindly down the trail, were confined by the trap of the trees and the cliff rim to scraping at the ground, tossing their heads, and snorting as outlets for their fear. And the fire was less forceful in the speed and sounds with which it continued with the destruction of the cabin.
"Dear God, Max!" Polly Webster shrieked as she staggered upright and swung around—made to run toward the blaze but was beaten back by the heat.
"Everyone okay?" Herman yelled as he rolled over and sat up, rubbing at a leg where a piece of falling log had hit him. He made an anxious survey of his posse, all of whom moved to sit or stand up. Calling the names of friends and responding with their own.
"Hell, look at my buggy!" a man yelled angrily and pointed a shaking arm at the overturned rig with a wheel gone and the shafts snapped.
"Frig your buggy, Ephraim Browning!" another man snarled. "Billy Kitteridge and Sam Nelson was in that shack! And the Hall kids! And poor old Max Webster!"
"Wantin' to be rich old Max Webster!" another member of the posse growled as all of them rose to their feet.
Polly Webster dropped despairingly to her knees, arms loose at her sides and head bowed.
Edge finished talking softly to the chestnut mare to calm her, while he continued to rub at his wrist, bruised when the blast threw him against a tree.
"That crazy old bastard must've rigged some kinda box to blow when it was opened up," a Lakeview man called.
"Shit, Barney Galton must've bought near fifty sticks of that dynamite off me this past year!" another shouted. "One or two at a time. Figured he was usin' them in his mine tunnels."
"Planned it all that time back."
"Must've had a real hate for them sons of his."
"Didn't like Lakeview folks much, but he couldn't've known some of them would be in the shack when it—"
"He was crazy, wasn't he? Hated everyone and everythin' except for that dog of his. Craziest man I ever did come across."
"I reckon everyone's crazy about something," the town's lawman said dully as his first contribution to the discussion.
This after he had balefully watched Edge check that the mare was not injured. Then mount the horse and take out the makings to roll a cigarette.
When the cigarette was lit, the half-breed blew out the match and flicked it toward the fresh grave. Told Herman: "Dog was heading back here when he was running scared. Place he felt safest at, I figure."
"One of the gunslingers kill him?"
"Edge killed him," Polly Webster answered suddenly as she rose to her feet, but continued to face the heap of charred debris. "Because the animal started to eat one of the corpses."
Herman grimaced and swallowed hard. Then accused with a sneer, "Harder than killing a man, was it?"
"What needs to be done, needs to be done, sheriff," the half-breed replied evenly. "I asked you already about my horse?"
&nb
sp; The lawman spat before he said: "John Payne says your horse'll be fit to ride in a couple of days, mister. But you can walk him out of Lakeview any time you're ready. No charge. All the money you left is in your saddlebags back at Frank Benson's livery stable. John Payne don't want no part of blood money."
"Then that's some more I have to have somebody put in the town poor box, feller," Edge answered tautly. "Always pay my way. Some way."
"Ain't nothin' wrong with bounty money," Polly Webster growled. "Not when it's earned killin' the kind of men you found back on the trail, Eddie Herman. That were fixin' to shoot me down like a—"
"You want to go tell Mary Benson that, Polly?" the sheriff cut in sourly. "This bounty hunter hadn't come to Lakeview, those three wouldn't have followed and Frank would still be alive."
"It happens!" the woman replied as she at last turned away from the burning remains of the cabin, the smoke from which was beginning to carry the sickly sweet aroma of over cooked human meat. "If Barney Galton hadn't sent them letters to his sons and got more than just Ralph and Lee stirred up about a pile of gold ..." Her features formed into a familiar expression of sourness as she glanced once more at the scene of blackened destruction. Then looked around just as briefly at the grim-faced posse, the scowling Herman, and the impassive Edge. To finish on a low note: "Greed and hatred is what's led to all the killin' and grief that's happened. Been the same since the world began, my opinion."
Now she searched the clearing with her eyes for her horse, saw the gelding over near the rock outcrop, and went to get him.
The Lakeview lawman sighed with weary resignation and massaged both his bristled cheeks as he growled: "Yeah, all right, Polly. Have it your way!"
"Seems to me, Eddie," a member of the posse muttered, "the only one that had it his way was Barney Galton."
"And look what happened to him," Herman recalled with a brief grimace as he began to gather together the horses with dead bodies draped over their saddles. "He lost out on seeing the way things finished."
Edge took a final draw against his cigarette and dropped it to the wet ground, where it sizzled out. Resisted an urge to glance over to where he had dug two graves. Heeled the mare into movement and tried not to be conscious that there was no German shepherd following him.
"And what a finish," a man rasped.
"Yeah," the half-breed murmured for just his own ears, which heard better than his eyes were seeing as he glanced at the charred debris that covered eight fire-blackened corpses before he turned to gaze directly ahead. A dead heat.
EDGE: The Killing Claim Page 14
