There were four stoves down what had once been the central aisle. But tonight only one was burning, and the big two-handled cauldrons and some less bulky water carriers were stacked neatly at the foot of the bell tower just beyond the doorway to the right.
The spring that was the reason for the resurgence of Santa Luiz after its failure as a mission was at the base of the west wall, in the area where the altar and pulpit would have been. The crystal clear water emerged from the ground and trickled down a smooth stone into a small pool. The four travel and tension weary men gratefully drank cups of the sweet tasting, refreshingly cool water, while the fifty or so old timers silently watched and waited for some sign or word that might mean their ordeal was close to being over.
‘Damn,’ Larsen muttered after he had drank his fill. ‘Someone oughta be watchin’ in case the Apaches try anythin’.’
‘Jonas Cole and Ed Dalby are up at the top of the bell tower,’ Frazier supplied. ‘It was them told us you men were headin’ down the trail. We figured you knew what you was doin’, so we all stayed real quiet’
‘Didn’t wanna do nothin’ to stir up them Injuns we knew was in the hills,’ the bearded, gaunt faced John Newman added. ‘You boys sure did take a chance walkin’ down here like that, large as life.’
‘We was all prayin’ for you,’ a woman called weakly from one of the beds.
She was the only regular bedridden patient of the makeshift hospital section of the mission. Everyone else was on their feet or seated on bedding which had been brought from the houses and spread on the floor.
‘Took a vote,’ Frazier explained as Amelia Randall gathered up the cups and withdrew from where the Santa Luiz councilmen and the quartet of outsiders were grouped beside the pool. ‘Everyone was of the opinion we’d feel better about the way things are if we was all here together in this place.’
The stockily built, totally bald Jake Donabie said quickly: ‘But we’re ready to go where you want and do whatever you say to help, Mr. Edge.’
Spoken words of agreement and several nods trickled and rippled among the large group of anxious old timers behind the councilmen. And the grey haired Amelia Randall augmented:
‘We’re real grateful you done what the Indians asked and come back with the unfortunate Mr. Von.’
The German obviously appreciated the woman’s sympathetic attitude toward him and seemed about to correct her impression of his name. But Marshal Larsen got in ahead of him, and explained sourly:
‘You people oughta be thankful to him for that. But don’t look to him for any more good work - unless it’s to help himself.’
This drew exclamations of anxious surprise from the audience. To which the half breed showed no response as he finished rolling a cigarette. He lit it.
Larsen sighed and reclaimed the attention of the worried old people. ‘This situation is my problem now. As a marshal of the Territory of New Mexico and because this here man—’ He gestured with his Winchester toward von Scheel— ‘was under arrest for murder by me when Edge and the Indian come to Thunderhead and told me about the way things was here.’
‘Murder?’ Arnie Prescott exclaimed, leaning hard on the stick that favored his club foot. This clearly spoken query silenced the mutterings of the crowd.
While Larsen told of the killings at Los Alamos, Edge smoked the cigarette and rasped.the back of a hand across the bristles on his jaw as he watched the handsome Apache brave struggle to keep in check his mounting impatience.
‘Old and blind?’
‘How awful!’
‘That’s terrible!’
‘He ain’t nothin’ but a monster!’
‘Mr. Von, how could you...?’
The responses to the lawman’s story of the Los Alamos murders came fast and furious. Then were abruptly curtailed when Lloyd DeHart snarled:
‘So why pow-wow with the ’Paches? Iffen this guy is due to be hung up Santa Fe way, just turn him over to Ahone’s bunch and our trouble’s over.’
It was impossible to tell what proportion of old timers were for DeHart’s solution and how many were against during the short, heated, confused discussion it triggered. ‘This is how it must be, white eyes!’ Poco Oso shouted above the noise of arguing voices. ‘To hold fast to the laws of your people because of this evil man will mean that you all will die!’
‘Shut up!’ Larsen snarled, whirling to aim his rifle at the determined Apache.
Edge turned, too, drew the Colt and smashed it against the temple and forehead of the brave. Poco Oso groaned in the sudden silence, dropped hard to his knees and pitched forward.
Larsen transferred his glowering gaze from the unconscious Indian to the heavily bristled face of the half breed. And rasped: ‘You sure are full of damn surprises, mister!’ That’s one Injun done for,’ the morose eyed Elmer Randall muttered. ‘But there’s a whole lot more out in the hills waitin’ to hear about Von here.’
‘My name is von Scheel,’ the German said dully. ‘In the language of—’
‘Keep your mouth shut, killer!’ DeHart snarled. ‘You think we care you got some high-hatted double barrel name?’
‘Why, mister?’ the lawman asked, his anger abating. ‘You said your job was finished. So it’s down to me now.; And I was countin’ on usin’ him to do a deal.’
‘You reckon them people from Thunderhead didn’t like what they saw here and took off back to town?’ Jake Donabie put in. Some of the old timers were as eager as he to have this answered. But many more shared Larsen’s degree of expectancy as they gazed at Edge.
The half breed ground out the glowing ashes of his cigarette under a boot heel. ‘The men from town are out there. They’re too eager to have an excuse to kill Apaches so they’re not going to turn tail and run home while the chance of some slaughter is still high.
‘Laid out this Apache because he saved my life this morning and I owed him.’
‘Mister, I’m glad you ain’t indebted to me,’ a wizened man with a deformed right arm muttered.
‘He was itching to help his people get their hands on this feller. Scratching that itch could’ve got him killed.’
‘You have not forgotten your promise to me?’ von Scheel asked miserably, obviously with little hope of ever leaving Santa Luiz alive.
‘Hey, the Injuns are comin’ over the ridges again!’ one of the watchers at the top of the bell tower called. There was an eerie quality in his voice as it travelled downward and then spread across the cavernous interior of the former church.
Old women clung to their elderly husbands and strained words of reassurance were given in response to terrified exclamations.
‘If your invite to truce talks was to gain time, mister, we ain’t used it wisely,’ Larsen growled.
‘Ahone never would have done any deal to keep his son alive unless he got von Scheel into the bargain. You have any other ideas?’
Larsen scowled. ‘All the way from Thunderhead and ever since we been here, I was countin’ on Ray Hoy and them others that figure the only good Indians are dead ones.’
Edge clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth and nodded. ‘That’s the right idea, feller,’ he said as he turned and began to walk down the former aisle, passing the stoves. ‘And after all that shouting when we first got here, we have to figure they’re counting on us.’
He pulled open the door and stepped out into the cool, brightly moonlit night. His narrowed eyes raked over those sections of the encircling ridges that were not obstructed by buildings and trees. The Apaches he could see were mounted on ponies in the familiar groups of three, rifles ported to their thighs.
He had been seen emerging from the doorway and a bird call was used to signal this to the unsighted braves. He moved across the front of the building and turned to go along the side where the moon cast shadows from the neat crosses marking the graves of those old people who had not been cured by the clear air and the cool spring water.
Another imitated bird sound announced his prog
ress. It was not in his nature to wonder, as he skirted the graveyard, how many more crosses would need to be erected after the inevitable fight between Apaches and whites. Or if one would bear his name.
He angled away from the rear corner of the former church and continued at the same easy pace until he was totally isolated some hundred yards beyond the building. He came to a stop at the point where the ground began to rise.
He waited, listening to the trickling spring water and peering up at Chief Ahone and the two braves who flanked him. Then unshod hooves clopped against the rocky ground as the three Apaches heeled their ponies forward. The rope reins were tugged to halt the animals twenty feet away from where the half breed stood.
With implicit trust in the alertness of the braves ringing the basin, those on either side of the chief ignored the buildings of Santa Luiz to stare challengingly at Edge, their fingers hooked through the trigger guards of the rifles angled upward from their thighs.
Only the mouth and jaw of Ahone were not shadowed by the broad brim of his Stetson. The mouth was set in a sullen line.
‘You did well to follow my orders, white eyes. To make my son prisoner was foolish. To allow himself to be captured he shows himself to be useless hostage. But I would not trade the bravest of my braves for the Apache killer.’
Edge nodded. ‘He said that.’
What else has been said? I allowed you much time with my friends of Santa Luiz. A decision has been made to give me what I ask?’
‘The man who killed the Mescalero Apaches with bad whiskey has murdered some whites, too. The stranger who came back here with me is a territorial lawman, Ahone. He plans to see the feller hang.’
One of the braves grunted his displeasure.
The chief shook his head slowly from side to side just once, in a manner that suggested sadness as much as a negative response.
‘How many white eyes he kill?’
‘Three.’
‘His crime against Apaches much bigger. It only right he suffer more than quick death by hanging. You give him to me now.’ This last was snapped in the tone of an order.
‘No,’ the half breed said simply.
The brave who had been Ahone’s spokesman on the ridge snarled a terse retort in his own tongue.
‘Figure you didn’t call me anything I ain’t been called before, feller.’
‘We make you our prisoner then,’ the chief countered, his unshadowed mouthline angry now. But he managed to keep his tone as even as that of the half breed. ‘Test how long it takes for man who is to die anyway to be handed to us. How many times you have to scream.’
Edge curled back his lips to display just the tips of his teeth in a sardonic smile. ‘The way you feel about Poco Oso, feller? That’s about the same as the people in the mission feel about me. I’m all right as shits go, so if I have to go...’ He shrugged.
‘And if we take you, white eyes, the lawman will kill Apache killer? Quick.’
‘If I die, so do my debts and promises.’
‘What that means I do not know nor care, white eyes.’ The anger which was mostly hidden by the shadow of his hat brim now began to sound in his voice. ‘But I grow tired of the waiting. And of this talk that leads nowhere.’
The flanking braves nodded and grunted their approval.
‘It’s been a long day and I’m pretty tired myself, Ahone,’ Edge said, hardening his own tone. He had known there was little chance of the Apaches allowing Larsen to take von Scheel away to be hanged. But because they were Rancheria Indians, content until now to live by the laws of the whites, it had been worth a try, ‘So here’s the offer. You let the old people go...’
The braves snorted their contempt, but were forced back into defiant silence by a one word command from Ahone.
‘…Soon as they’re out of this bottom land in the ravine, I’ll turn loose Poco Oso. That’ll leave just the lawman, me and the feller you want at the mission. And the way you’re so hungry to have him, I figure you’ll come try to get him. Just be me and Marshal Larsen in the way.’
Now the chiefs mouth displayed a sneer. ‘The Tonto Apaches have not always been at peace with the white eyes land stealers!’ he hissed. ‘In many combats where I have been, our enemies who should become prisoners are just dead. From the single bullet saved for themselves.’
Edge nodded. ‘The old people have no horses. A lot of them are cripples. How far are they going to get if Larsen or me make it a fast end for von Scheel? And you still have it in mind to slaughter your friends because you didn’t get what you wanted?’
The two braves did not like the compromise, but they confined the expression of their opinions to sneering looks.
Edge ignored them to peer fixedly at the moon shadowed face of the chief. Who thought deeply about the plan for perhaps ten stretched seconds. Finally nodded curtly.
‘I agree. Because of friendship there has been between my people and the white eyes elders of the Mission of Santa Luiz.’
Edge thought the clincher had been the promise of the safe return of his son. But Ahone was not about to admit this in the hearing of the grim-faced, tautly angry braves.
‘I’ll start things moving,’ the half breed said and made to turn around.
‘I make one condition, white eyes!’ the chief said harshly.
Edge remained in a half turn and cocked his head to one side, quizzically.
‘You will place the Apache killer at top of mission tower. So all my braves may see he remains alive.’ Now the chiefs lips parted in an icy smile. ‘And I think you will agree to this, white eyes. Because you know that after the elders have gone, of the three who remain, the Apache killer will be safest of all. Until you and territorial marshal are dead. Concerned no more.’
The half breed nodded. ‘If s a deal, feller.’
The Apaches wrenched on their reins to wheel the ponies and then heeled them into a canter up the slope. And they were back in their accustomed positions as a link in the encircling chain before Edge re-entered the tension charged atmosphere within the mission church.
‘Well?’ Larsen asked huskily, the single word query encapsulating the questions that showed in every pair of eyes turned toward the tall, lean man as he closed the door at his back.
‘Some of us have got bright futures,’ the half breed answered wryly.
‘Damnit, mister!’
‘You and me I ain’t certain about. But the old timers are going places. And the drummer, he’s going up in the world.’
CHAPTER TWELVE
THERE WAS a mixed response from the more than fifty people crowded into the mission church become hospital-health spa after Edge was through telling them what he had agreed with Chief Ahone. Some of the old timers started to smile, some to express dismay and others showed indecision from the moment it was clear they were to be allowed to leave Santa Luiz.
Larsen remained tight-lipped and cold-eyed, alternately closing and opening his fists around the barrel and frame of his Winchester.
Fritz von Scheel swayed back and forth, pale faced and dull-eyed, his Adam’s apple rising and falling in the rapid cadence of his breathing.
Poco Oso was still unconscious, laying where he had fallen, the blood from an area of broken skin at his temple congealed to an ugly crust.
The German dropped hard to his knees and let his chin fall on his chest in an attitude of total despair when the half breed revealed the Apache chiefs condition for releasing the old people. And it seemed that every citizen of Santa Luiz began to talk at once after Edge drawled:
‘There ain’t no more to it, so let’s get started.’
He went to where von Scheel was kneeling and hooked a hand under the man’s armpit.
‘Shut up!’ Larsen yelled across the din of voices. And as the noise subsided, he ordered: ‘Move on out.’
Lloyd DeHart and Arnie Prescott were among the group of men and women who needed no more encouragement to shuffle along the aisle toward the doorway.
Larsen nodded
his satisfaction with this, then glowered as low keyed protests began to be voiced.
‘Arnie, you can’t!’ Amelia Randall called angrily after her husband.
‘Easy, Amelia,’ Phil Frazier urged, his calmly spoken words effectively silencing the new disturbance before Larsen could snarl another order. Then, drawing nods from a few old men and wide eyed stares of dismay from other of his fellow citizens, he went on: ‘We can’t do it. Not all of us. You’re just guessin’ about them Thunderhead folks. If they don’t show up, there’ll just be two of you up against better than thirty Apaches.’ His one good eye constantly looked from Edge who was heaving the German to his feet to the unmoving figure of Larsen and back again.
‘You through?’ the lawman rasped.
Six men of great age and with a variety of physical disabilities had formed into a close group behind Frazier. Others had fallen back.
‘We ain’t got any weapons, Marshal. But you men got three between you. One of us can use the spare gun. And we can reload. And if anyone gets hit, there’ll be another to take his place. For awhile.’
‘You through now?’ Larsen said in a harder tone.:
Frazier sighed. ‘Reckon so.’
‘We’re obliged,’ Edge drawled as he began to lead von Scheel toward the area at the base of the bell tower. ‘But you people ain’t needed here.’
DeHart dragged open the door and called: ‘Come on. He’s said it plain enough, ain’t he? Lots of you been prayin’ like crazy for him to get back here so as the Injuns’ll leave us alone. Iffen we don’t do like him and the marshal says, all their trouble’s been for nothin’.’
He led the way outside and the group by the door were quick to follow. Then those who had detached themselves from the six of the same opinion as Frazier, began to drag their feet toward the doorway. Two of them carried the bedridden old woman between them.
EDGE: Massacre Mission Page 11
