‘Your friend has gone?’ the chief asked.
Edge’s fear had expanded for a stretched second and, after taking the cigarette from his lips, he went through the motions of scratching his cheek to mask the shaking of his hand. He had done his share of Indian fighting in the violent past. Much of it down here in the south west and Mexico where the hostiles were invariably Apaches. But when Ahone asked about the German drummer, the half breed realized there was a good chance he was off the hook.
‘He ain’t a friend, feller. Just somebody I made give me a ride after he scared my horse into breaking a leg.’
‘That’s right, Chief Ahone,’ Frazier put in anxiously. ‘It was plain there was no love lost between the drummer and Edge here.’
‘I want to hear from you, Phil Frazier, I ask you,’ the Apache leader said quietly, but with cold menace which was emphasized by the fact that he did not turn to look at the man.
‘Philip, take care!’ the short and stout Mrs. Frazier called.
‘He took off in the middle of the night,’ Edge supplied, aware of a new and deeper tension that was gripping the old timers. And guessing that whatever degree of faith they had previously had for Ahone was totally negated by what they considered an uncharacteristic attitude toward the one-eyed Frazier. ‘Said how he was real anxious to be long gone before you and your braves reached town.’
The city-suited Apache nodded as he shifted his cold eyes from the half breed to the sign in the dusty plaza that a wagon had recently arrived and then left the way it came.
‘He has gone toward Thunderhead. The way back is guarded by a band of my braves. If the Apache killer had attempted to return, I would have known of it.’
Edge dropped his half smoked cigarette and ground out its fire under a boot heel. ‘You sure you’re on to the right feller?’
‘Why should I have doubt, white eyes?’
‘He didn’t strike me as the Indian fighting kind, feller. Just a fat little drummer with an itch for an easy dollar peddling paint and perfume to ladies.’
Ahone grimaced. ‘This is what Joe Winchester of the Mescalero tribe tells to my Tonto braves who are working here for the white eyes of Santa Luiz. That the Apache killer he now sells to women. But a year ago, he has something else in his wagon. Whiskey which he sells to the stupid Mescaleros. Bad whiskey, white eyes. This many braves die of the poison he sells. And this many squaws. Even a child sick with the fever.’
The chief, speaking in a dull toned voice, held up fingers to show that fifteen men and four women had been fatally poisoned by the rotgut liquor.
They were fools, but they were our brothers. And all Apache braves are sworn to avenge them. You will help us, white eyes.’
Edge said nothing. Simply cocked his head in a quizzical gesture.
‘As the Mescalero are brothers of the Tonto, so you and the people of Santa Luiz are one. You will hunt the Apache killer and bring him to me to suffer the punishment for what he has done.’
The chiefs comparison triggered a surge of anxious whispering among the old timers. Ahone waited for this to subside and revealed just a slight sign of incomprehension at the backs of his dark eyes at Edge’s lack of reaction.
‘You will do this,’ he went on in a harsher tone, ‘because if you do not, I will kill every white eyes here.’
This time the burst of talking was much louder than whispers. The Apache chief had unequivocally confirmed the suspicion his previous comment had aroused. Shock and some hysteria was vented on a rising crescendo that filled the plaza with a babble of sound, against which no protest could be clearly heard.
But the brave who was holding his own and Ahone’s horse understood an order signaled by the chief. And he aimed his Spencer repeater skywards and exploded a shot into the hot, shimmering air. Silence came with a tangible, suffocating presence.
Ahone turned his back on Edge and swung his head from side to side to ensure that all the elderly citizens of Santa Luiz could see the determination in his face. The goatee bearded Newman was hit by a coughing fit and the Apache chief waited patiently until it was over. Then:
‘Okay,’ he said to Edge but loud enough for all to hear. ‘We Tonto Apaches of the Gallo Rancheria have no wish for war with white eyes. But we will not crouch in our wickiups when there is chance to punish the one who killed many of our brothers. And if we must go on warpath to do this, so be it’
He pointed the index finger of a rock steady hand at Edge. ‘Whether it be so, you shall decide. You will track the Apache killer, find him and bring him to this place. Alive, white eyes. On penalty of the lives of all these others of your kind.’
He folded the finger into the fist of his hand and shuffled his feet to do a complete turnaround, arm still extended to encompass the entire shocked population of Santa Luiz.
‘Kill me now, if you’ve a mind,’ the morose faced Elmer Randall blurted. ‘But I’m gonna have my say, Ahone! Why you doin’ this? Why the stranger? He ain’t got no reason to care what happens to us.’
The Apache chief was facing the half breed again, and did not glance over his shoulder at the complaining old timer.
‘Is up to you, white eyes,’ he said bleakly. ‘Ahone speaks true when he says we do not want war. If it be known that just one Apache brave is hunting a white eyes, there will be much trouble. So you take much care. Unless what man with spiked beard speaks is true. For if these elders die, it will spark a fire which will burn for long in the whole of Apacheria. How much do you not care?’
‘My guns are up on the ridge,’ Edge said.
‘They will be where you left them.’
‘I don’t have a horse.’
Ahone issued an order in Apache and the dismounted brave brought forward both ponies and extended the reins of that of the chiefs to the half breed.
‘You can ride without saddle?’
Edge took the reins and nodded in reply to the query.
‘You have until the sun is at its highest in the sky tomorrow, white eyes. If the Apache killer is not brought to this place then, the massacre will begin.’
He claimed the brave’s pony and swung astride him. The brave without a mount climbed smoothly up to ride double behind another.
Ahone announced to the frightened throng of old timers: ‘I say again, it is my wish that we will always be friends.’
Then he gave a hand signal and the braves who had remained silent and virtually immobile since reaching the plaza wheeled their ponies and heeled them into movement. Some leaving the plaza the way they had arrived. Others veering away in other directions. Heading for concealment on the ridges around Santa Luiz, from where they could look down upon the community at every angle and also keep watch on the terrain to all sides.
When the dust of their leaving had settled, Edge had fastened the canteen and saddlebag to his bedroll, draped the gear over the base of the pony’s neck and was astride him. The unshod hooves thudded on the plaza in the wake of the sounds receding up the surrounding slopes.
‘Pay no mind to what my Elmer said, young man!’ Amelia Randall called. ‘We trust you. And all our hopes and prayers go with you.’
Many heads nodded in agreement, but hopelessness was expressed on most of the time worn faces.
The one-eyed Phil Frazier moved into the pony’s path and struggled to keep his voice evenly pitched when he said: ‘We’re all countin’ on you, Mr. Edge. I beg of you not to let us down. Ain’t many of us who ain’t had the allotted span like it says in the Good Book. But the older folks get, the sweeter life is.’
The half breed touched the brim of his hat. ‘Obliged, feller.’
Frazier’s natural eye expressed puzzlement as the rider tugged on the reins to veer around him.
‘For giving me something to look forward to.’
CHAPTER FIVE
JUST AS Chief Ahone had promised, the half breed’s Winchester and Frontier Colt were still on the dusty ground where he had dropped them in the shadow of the rock outcrop. As he chec
ked their loads he sensed the presence of several braves nearby. But he could not see them.
He had ridden more than a mile southwards over the parched terrain under the blistering sun before the sense of being watched ceased to cause an itch between his shoulder blades. But a few minutes later, as he rode along a pebble Uttered stream-bed that probably ran with water for only a few hours a year, he was conscious of being under surveillance again. He displayed no outward sign of his discovery and continued at the same pace, maintaining the same attitude as before. His slitted eyes checked the way ahead and casually moved to glance in other directions from time to time. His easy riding posture astride the saddleless pinto pony gave no clue to his state of readiness to respond in the event of danger striking.
The water course angled across a gentle upward grade and by the time he reached the crest he had a bearing on his watcher - in front and to the right
He reined in the pony and stroked the animal’s neck. Murmured softly at the pricked ears: ‘If it’s the ghost of Joe Winchester, I got to hope he didn’t learn to be a straight shooter in the happy hunting ground.’
The way ahead now lay across a broad expanse of grotesquely eroded sandstone where not even a blade of scrubgrass grew; barren land cracked by ravines between jagged topped walls of rock that were often sheer. A dead and dangerous piece of territory for man and animal even if nature were the only enemy. For although it was only a few square miles in area, a rider could easily become lost in the maze of ravines and die before he found a way out. Or among the flanking ridges the soft sandstone might crumble beneath a mount to plunge horse and rider into a death fall.
There would certainly be a way around the daunting expanse, but it would take several hours. So the half breed chose to press on due south. Seeking to save time which would improve the chances of the threatened old timers at Santa Luiz. And would also offer him more opportunities to find out who was accompanying him - and why.
He clucked the pony forward and headed down into a ravine that zig-zagged far across the dead land in a series of dog-leg turns: sometimes just wide enough for a rider to pass along and at others fifty feet from one rock face to the other. The depth varied from twenty to maybe seventy-five feet. Inside at the lowest stretches in the solid shade it was hot as hell, as if the sheer walls held prisoner the heat of a thousand high summers.
Edge had constantly to run the back of a hand across his narrowed eyes to brush away the beads of sweat which trickled off his brow and threatened to sting the sensitive membranes and blur his vision. Often he spat the salty moisture that gained entry to his mouth through lips curled back in an eager grin.
By watching him from ahead in the manner of Joe Winchester, this Apache had in this terrain become the pursued. And Edge was hungry to corner him, but patient. There was no danger: if the brave meant him harm he could have made his play a hundred times before now.
Perhaps a half mile into the twisting and turning ravine, it was intersected by another which curved off out of sight to the right and dead ended at a cave in to the left. The way ahead was clear for two hundred feet before a sharp, upward turn. Edge halted the pony, dismounted and took a drink of Santa Luiz spring water. It tasted of heat and the taint of being in the canteen several hours. He allowed the pinto to drink a little from his cupped hand, then let the rope reins hang from the bridle to the ground. And the well schooled animal remained still at the centre of the intersection of the ravines. He left all the gear, including the Winchester, draped upon the pony and swung to the left. Thirty feet in that direction and some ten feet up the debris of the ancient cave-in brought him to a spot where he could squat on his haunches, out of sight of where the pinto stood and able to keep watch on every approach to his hiding place.
He cocked his Colt and held it loosely in his right hand hanging between his knees. With his left he continued to rub at the greasy sweat which beaded on his smooth forehead and trickled irritatingly down through the bristles on his cheeks and jaw and throat. He started to smell the odors of his armpits, his crotch and his feet. It was a stink that a hard country drifter like Edge was used to. And he endured it with the same brand of stoicism as the discomfort of his position among the rocks.
Time slid into history while Edge kept his ears strained for the first sound that would indicate the Apache was coming to see what had happened to the white eyes. He would see the horse and suspicion would win the battle with curiosity which had been taking place in his mind since he realized Edge had stopped. And then he would become ultra cautious. Certainly he would not make a direct approach to the quiet, abandoned horse. For which Edge had made allowances by taking up a position from which he could cover every direction.
How long he squatted on the rugged rocks would have been difficult to guess were it not for the movement of a line of shade as the sun swung across the sky. In the heat and the stillness the passing of time could play tricks in a man’s mind. Thirty minutes or a little less, he estimated, when he heard the distinctive sound of an unshod horse walking along the ravine from the south. And now the half breed’s eager grin broadened as he tipped backwards, on to his rump and then stretched out on his back.
The pony was heading for one of its own kind and there was scant chance that an Apache brave was astride him. So, sprawled out on his back, Edge’s slitted, glinting eyes raked the skyline of the ridges where they met at the intersection of the ravines. Listening as intently as he watched, struggling to block the clop of unshod hooves from his mind.
He heard a pebble rattle, fifteen feet above and to the left of him. His lips curled back further from his gleaming teeth. He tracked the muzzle of the Colt and his eyes to the point where he knew the Apache was going to show himself.
Then became as unmoving as the rocks on which he lay, holding his breath and feeling the salt beads of sweat turn to ice on his face. His reactions instinctive to the terrifying sound of a rattlesnake, the vibrating tail of the creature no more than two feet from his head.
For the second time this morning he saw the head, shoulders and revolver gripping fist of an Indian appear above a rock, in silhouette against the brilliance of the sky.
The rattler’s rough textured belly made dry slithering sounds on the rocks. The sound of its anger diminished.
But without being able to see the snake - the brim of his Stetson blocked his view - the half breed was certain the creature had turned to bring its mouth with the exploring tongue and deadly fangs closer to his head.
The Apache brought his other hand into sight and moved it in front of his face. Just before sweat rolled into his eyes to reduce the clarity of his vision, Edge saw that a finger was extended and pressed to the lips in a gesture to order silence. The half breed thought, but did not say: I ain’t about to whistle the Battle Hymn of the Republic, feller.
The rattler’s head came into view on the very periphery of his vision. It was a diamond-back. Yellow and black with a beady eye that surveyed Edge’s unmoving profile with apparent disinterest, while its tongue flicked constantly to taste the air. Its fangs gleamed more sharply than the teeth of its potential victim. The rattle in its tail ceased to sound. Until a shadow fell across its head. The shadow of a hand clutching a revolver.
The shadow of the gun fell across Edge’s cheek as the diamond-back raised and swung its head to strike.
The gunshot seemed to the ears of the half breed to have the power of a twenty pounder cannon. The angry rattling was curtailed and a liquid warmer and stickier than sweat splashed across Edge’s face.
Both ponies snorted in response to the shot and its echoes along the ravines.
Edge let the stale air trapped in his lungs rasp out in a noisy sigh through his clenched teeth. Then used the back of his free hand to wipe the sweat from his eyes and the blood and pieces of snake flesh off his cheek.
‘Hey, white eyes! Can now see why some of us Indians call you people pale faces!’ The brave, who had come erect on the top of the rock face, vented a harsh laugh
.
Edge, feeling like he was drawing on a final reserve of strength, folded up into a sitting position. He glanced at the almost headless snake and muttered: ‘Long time since I been so rattled.’
‘What you say, white eyes?’
Now that the terror was diminishing, Edge recognized the voice of the same brave who got the drop on him at the rock outcrop above Santa Luiz.
‘Whatever it was, it was out of order, feller,’ he growled and tilted his head to look up at the Apache. ‘First thing I got to do is say much obliged.’ He holstered his Colt and hauled himself to his feet.
‘Just doing the task my father set me,’ the brave answered, putting away his own gun. Before he started along the ridge to where he could make his way down into the ravine over the cave-in he added: ‘He said to make sure you carry out the task he set you.’
‘One I owe you,’ Edge acknowledged as he started down to where the two ponies were calm again in the wake of the gunshot.
The Indian paused on his journey to the same end. He drew a knife and with a single powerful slashing action severed the rattle off the tail of the diamond-back. He stowed it in a pouch on his belt and grinned as he patted the bulge. ‘Agent at Gallo pays well for these. Think he gets much more from stupid white eyes in the city.’
‘The cities don’t have all the stupid white eyes,’ Edge answered.
The brave, who was in his mid-twenties, short but with a powerful build, wiped the grin from his craggily handsome face and became as impassive as the half breed. ‘You pretty stupid to try to trick Poco Oso. But the snake, he was lucky for me. Make it easy. You planned to kill me?’
‘If you’d aimed that old Colt at me, feller. Hardly ever allow a man to point a gun at me twice. Just needed to know who was watching me and why.’
The Apache nodded and matched Edge’s actions of swinging astride his bay pony. ‘Now you do know, white eyes. Poco Oso, only son of Chief Ahone. Who like his father does not trust anyone he does not know. Red or White. And now this is known, we ride together?’
EDGE: Massacre Mission Page 5
