EDGE: Massacre Mission

by George G. Gilman

  Amelia Randall held back to say to the reluctant seven: ‘That’s about the most sense Lloyd Dehart ever did speak, you men. If we stay here to be killed, it’ll mean these two young men will be dyin’ for nothin’.’

  Three of the crestfallen old timers responded immediately to what she said. The others waited for Frazier to nod and turn away.

  ‘We’ll be prayin’ you’re right about help comin’ from Thunderhead,’ he murmured.

  Larsen acknowledged this with a nod, then snapped his head around when the unconscious Apache groaned his intention of returning to awareness.

  Somebody shouted up to the bell tower that it was time to leave and the two men who had been on watch came down the adobe steps and hurried out of the building.

  Amelia Randall said sadly to the German: ‘You’re a wicked monster, Mr. Von, who maybe don’t deserve what these fine men are doin’ for you. But I’d be no better than them savages up in the hills if I didn’t say God be with you.’

  ‘Danke,’ the totally drained and dispirited man murmured.

  Frazier shepherded the woman out of the doorway, his one good eye threatening to spill the same brand of tears that were coursing down her cheeks. When he closed the door, the sound echoed eerily within the confines of the virtually empty building.

  ‘Don’t turn the Apache loose until I get back,’ Edge instructed as Poco Oso rolled his head and groaned again.

  ‘I ain’t as stupid as you appear to be, mister!’ Larsen snarled. He stepped back from the awakening brave and cocked the hammer of the Winchester, angling the barrel down toward him.

  ‘Vhy are you being so stupid, Herr Edge?’ von Scheel asked flatly as he started up the stairway that canted across each tower wall in turn, unrailed around the well with the bell rope hanging down the centre. ‘A man like you?’

  The half breed did not answer.

  ‘Even if you survive, there vill be no profit for you? And you do not strike me as the kind of man who does things unless there is revard.’

  ‘Maybe I’m trying to buy my way into heaven, feller.’

  ‘This I do not believe.’

  ‘You’re right. There ain’t enough goodness in the world to buy me that ticket.’

  The stairway was illuminated only by the moonlight that filtered in through the four arches at the top of the tower. And much of this did not get past the rim of the big bell that was hung from a beam under the tower roof. In the dim light, von Scheel stumbled on a broken stair tread and with his hands tied behind him, would have fallen into the well had not Edge reached forward to steady him.

  ‘You’ve got the idea, feller,’ the half breed said tautly ‘But don’t get over eager.’

  ‘Vhat you mean?’ He halted.

  ‘Keep climbing.’

  They reached the top of the tower, emerging on to a parapet in the east facing arch, from where they had a bird’s eye view of the straggling line of old timers moving up the moonlit slope toward the ravine. Could see, also, three groups of Apaches in menacing attitudes astride their ponies. Some aiming rifles at the Mission of Santa Luiz and some covering the exodus, suspicious of a tricky

  Both Edge and von Scheel did no more than glance at the panoramic scene. Then the prisoner watched as his captor began to haul up the bell rope.

  ‘You tell me now vhat you mean, bitte!’

  ‘Turn around.’

  The half breed’s tone was even. But his slitted, ice-blue eyes glinting in the moonlight made von Scheel do as he was told.

  Edge threaded the bell rope between the man’s bound wrists and lowered it back down the tower. ‘You stand right here where you can be seen, feller.’ Now he gave closer attention to the ridges encircling the basin, ignoring the Apaches below them as he sought some sign that the men from Thunderhead had taken advantage of the situation. But he saw nothing. ‘And if things go the way I plan, I’ll be back up here to get you sometime. If they don’t, you got a choice.’

  He spat through the archway to the dusty plaza below. ‘Either way, you’re for the high jump.’ He stepped off the parapet and on to the stairway.

  ‘Herr Edge!’ Von Scheel sobbed. ‘The old man spoke of the third gun! Our enemy is mutual! I could be of help if—’

  ‘It wasn’t part of the deal, feller. Just keep it in mind that they also serve who only stand and wait.’

  He continued on down the stairway, aware of the hanging bell rope quivering as the nervous trembling of von Scheel was transmitted to it.

  ‘All set?’ Larsen asked from beside the spring, where he continued to keep the Apache covered.

  ‘Just need for the last of the old timers to make it into the ravine,’ the half breed answered as he opened the door and took the makings from his shirt pocket. ‘Then we turn him loose.’

  ‘On your feet and forward, Indian,’ the lawman ordered.

  And when he had brought the grim faced Apache to the threshold, he asked: ‘Light me, too?’

  ‘Figured you’d given them up,’ Edge said as he struck a match and ignited the cheroot gripped between Larsen’s teeth.

  ‘It’s my last one. Been saving it’

  ‘It is traditional among white eyes for condemned man to have final smoke,’ Poco Oso said flatly, while all three peered across the plaza, past the aspen grove and up the trail to where the stragglers of the departing old people were still silhouetted darkly against the moon whitened slope below the flanking walls of the ravine.

  ‘You’re beginnin’ to irk me, Indian,’ Larsen growled. ‘Best you keep in mind that if I kill you here and now, it’ll be one less hollerin’ savage to aim at when the scrap starts.’

  ‘But you will not. You and he, you have too much honor. For this, I respect you. The Apache has greater pride in defeating enemy he respects.’

  ‘Be a real pleasure to pay my last ones to you,’ Larsen muttered.

  At last the two men with the bedridden woman moved out of sight into the ravine. An imitated bird call unnecessarily signaled this development to all the Apaches who were in a position to see it for themselves.

  ‘I go now?’ Poco Oso asked, gazing intently but with distrust at the half breed.

  ‘Make it a rule never to break my word.’

  The Apache nodded curtly, swung to the side and lunged into a run. He covered the front of the building and then disappeared around the corner to sprint between the side wall and the graveyard.

  ‘He’ll tell his pa we’re figurin’ on help from the Thunderhead men,’ Larsen rasped.

  ‘If that’s going to make any difference, feller, we figured wrong.’

  ‘You just gotta be one of the coolest guys I ever did meet, Edge.’ He did his trick of spitting out of one side of his mouth while the cheroot remained gripped in the other. ‘Cold as a block of ice, damnit.’

  The half breed arced the part smoked cigarette out on to the plaza where it bounced in a shower of sparks. Then, as Poco Oso began to shriek out a warning in his native tongue, he responded: ‘But by all accounts a hell of a lot harder to see through,’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  EDGE DREW the Colt from his holster and powered away from the doorway, angling for the closest house on the south side of the plaza.

  The one group of Apaches he could see from his viewpoint slammed their heels into the flanks of their ponies and began a headlong gallop down the slope. Other unshod hooves hit the dusty ground. Other Apache throats gave vent to high pitched warcries.

  ‘I’m stayin’ with my prisoner!’ Larsen yelled. And flung the door into its frame.

  The sound of its closing was masked by a fusillade of rifle shots and the barrage of echoes that bounced off the surrounding ridges.

  Bullets sprayed adobe dust from walls, snagged at the foliage of the aspen grove and bit into the surface of the plaza.

  Edge crashed his shoulder against the door and half staggered into the house, grimacing from the pain of impact. He paused to get his bearings in the spartanly furnished household. Then veered b
etween the furniture to move less frantically through another doorway to the kitchen which gave access to the cultivated area at the rear of the house. He crouched at the side of the kitchen window and peered out.

  Three groups of Apaches were racing their ponies down the southern slope of the basin. Firing for effect, their piercing warcries counterpointing the cracks of the gunshots.

  But there were only seven braves advancing on the cluster of buildings. Two had remained close to the ridge, their eyes watching for the Thunderhead men Poco Oso had warned of, their rifles ready to blast them.

  Edge used the Colt to smash a hole in the window. And one of the seven braves threw his arms wide and tipped off the back of his pony, blood spraying from a hole in the side of his head.

  Edge’s teeth were already displayed in a vicious grin between the drawn back lips. He rasped through them, ‘I hope that wasn’t just a lucky shot, Larsen.’ Then grunted with satisfaction as another report sounded from the church.

  A second Apache was hit and fell from his horse, tumbling to the side and bleeding from a hole in his back. The attackers had veered away from the line of direct advance and had swung to the side, galloping their mounts in a circle around the cluster of buildings, beyond effective revolver range, triggering wild shots from their own rifles.

  While he watched, the Frontier Colt unfired in his right fist, Edge heard two more shots from within the church. But these were aimed in the opposite direction and Edge had a fleeting image of the tall, black-clad lawman whirling away from one window, pumping the action of the Winchester as he raced across the church, and then blasting shots from another window.

  Dust rose from beneath the pumping hooves of the attackers’ mounts, partially veiling the galloping ponies and their whooping, hollering riders. Muzzle flashes streaked the violently shifting cloud, the stench of exploded powder wafting pungently.

  The braves who remained as the rear-guard up near the ridges moved only their heads as they searched for the white eyes reinforcements Poco Oso had warned were hidden in the rocky hills. Their ponies were motionless.

  Their Apache brothers attacking the Mission of Santa Luiz hung low to the sides of their galloping mounts and exploded shots from under the necks of the straining animals.

  The swirling dust and the speed with which the shrieking warriors rode, made it impossible for Edge to estimate the effect Larsen’s Winchester was having. He knew only that the lawman was still blasting at the Apaches: could pick out the irregular reports of a rifle fired from nearby, against the constant barrage of shooting by the battle frenzied braves. All Larsen’s fire directed to the north now. While Edge watched to the south, having to curb the anger of impatience, waiting for the circling braves to spiral within effective revolver range.

  But this was not to be.

  From somewhere up on the high ground, a signal was given. This was seen by a designated brave and when he sheered away from the circle, the others followed.

  Just for a second, Edge was held in the grip of non-comprehension that rooted him to the spot, gazing with his narrowed, glittering eyes at the line of Apaches streaming back up the slope. Then he shook himself out of immobility. He swung a leg over the ledge of the smashed window and started into a crouched run the moment he was outside, racing toward the nearest of the two sprawled braves who had been brought down by Larsen’s Winchester.

  He counted less than twenty braves in the withdrawing line. From above them, a fusillade of rifle fire cracked. He heard the whine of bullets through the air and saw spurts of dust close by.

  ‘You’re outta your damn mind!’ Larsen shrieked.

  Edge began to zig-zag. Cursed when he saw that the rifle of the nearest dead Apache was a single shot Spencer. It was another ten yards to where the Winchester of the second gunshot brave lay in the dust

  He covered the additional ground, stooped lower while still running, fisted a hand around the rifle, picked it up and skidded into a turn. Began the same zig-zag tactic to get back to cover. Where he ignored the window to go through the door, crashing his already pained shoulder against it.

  More Apache bullets pocked the adobe wall of the house which had been heavily ravaged during the attack.

  He leaned against the inside kitchen wall, breathing deeply, as the rattle of gunfire and thud of impacting bullets became less frantic and then was curtailed, Moments later, the sound of hoofbeats ceased,

  ‘Edge?’ Larsen called, his tone nervous,

  ‘Quit worrying, feller!’

  ‘Crazy sonofabitch!’

  The half breed pumped the lever action to send an expended shell to the floor and jack a fresh round into the breech. ‘Nothing ventured, nothing gained,’ he growled softly.

  ‘Oh, sweet Jesus,’ Larsen said. Not much louder than normal conversational level, but clearly audible against the trickling of the spring water that was the only other sound in the stillness of the night. Then he raised his voice to snarl: ‘Maybe you can go for a couple of Gatling guns next time.’

  Edge folded away from the wall to peer out through the doorway, and leaned around the frame to look toward the ridges to the west. The brutal grin of satisfaction at having claimed the repeater rifle was replaced by a grimace as one of the Apaches up there began to laugh. A harsh sound of scorn.

  ‘Edge! Larsen! Apache killer!’ Poco Oso named each white man in the mission, shouting the words in the tone of obscene curses as he curtailed his laughter. ‘You are fools to think you can trick the great Chief Ahone! You white eyes are like the smallest of children when you seek to outwit the Apache!’

  ‘This is our land, white eyes!’ the brave’s father yelled, sounding as brutally triumphant as Poco Oso. ‘Land we know as well as the bodies of our squaws! Fools, as my son called you! Not to know we would guard against such action by men who cannot speak to Apache without lying! Look, white eyes! And prepare to be as they are!’

  There was the slapping of hands on horseflesh and the shouting of words to further urge the animals into gallops. Six horses, with shod hooves. Heavily burdened with three riders apiece. Unwilling, but unfeeling riders. Draped over the backs of the animals and lashed in place. Men who wore no hats. So that as the horses galloped close to the Mission of Santa Luiz and trampled the cultivated plots and then slowed to go between the buildings, Edge and Larsen could clearly see they had been scalped.

  ‘But we didn’t hear no shootm’,’ the lawman said thickly, as if there was add tasting bile in his throat

  ‘Knives and lances, I figure,’ Edge responded, with no need to raise his voice after the horses came to a halt, scraping at the ground and snorting their discontent on the plaza. ‘Them fellers likely didn’t get the chance to draw a pistol or unboot a rifle.’

  It had happened in the area of the ravines where he tried to turn the tables on Poco Oso, he guessed. Maybe just one sentry had been posted there. It would be enough - one pair of eager eyes watching from a high point for the bunch of unsuspecting whites to ride into the maze of narrow ravines. A secret signal to bring more braves silently to the expanse of barren, broken land. A wait; Then a flash of lethal metal weapons. Some screams of fear. Some of pain. Honed points and edges biting into flesh. The surprised men from Thunderhead trapped between the rock walls and defenseless against attackers from above. Next the scalpings, and the hauling away of the mutilated dead to be used by Ahone to whatever advantage presented itself. But not until after his son was either dead or no longer a captive of the white eyes.

  ‘They ain’t gonna believe it wasn’t our idea,’ Larsen called bitterly.

  ‘Poco Oso knows it wasn’t,’ Edge replied. ‘But the way we figured to spring a surprise on them, revenge is going to taste real sweet.’

  Up under the western ridge, the Indians were forming into a single line of attack. The half breed counted them and called:

  ‘You hit just three to the north, feller.’

  ‘Five ain’t bad for a guy who ain’t a crack shot!’ Larsen snarled def
ensively.

  ‘Not criticizing. Just making sure no Apaches sneaked in close while the rest were giving us the runaround.’

  ‘Get some help from you this time, mister? Now you got a rifle.’

  ‘Seems we’re all the help we’ve got, Marshal.’

  ‘Set me free and give me a gun!’ von Scheel shrieked, his voice sounding disembodied as it floated down through the moonlit night from the top of the bell tower.

  ‘He could’ve lent a hand, damnit!’ Larsen said sourly.

  ‘Too late to have second thoughts,’ the half breed growled to the lawman at the church window as, at the centre of the line of mounted braves to the west, the city-suited Chief Ahone raised an arm high in the air. Then dropped it. ‘Anyway, you tied his hands.’

  Only Edge heard his sardonic comment as the thunder of unshod hooves on the slope was almost masked by the war whoops of the victory sensing Apache.

  ‘Bitte, bitte, bitte!’ the helpless and totally exposed German up on the bell tower screamed at the top of his voice.

  Edge spat a globule of saliva at the ground as he withdrew into the doorway. And rasped: ‘You and me both, feller.’

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  THIS TIME the Tonto Apaches of the Gallo Rancheria were coming for the kill. Galloping flat out in a well held line until, on a signal from Ahone, they split into two groups, rifles blazing.

  Edge neither knew nor cared how Larsen planned to meet the attack. And guessed the marshal from Santa Fe had the same attitude toward himself. They were two against twenty-nine. The odds were hopeless and in such a situation each was on his own. Certain he was doomed to die and facing this prospect with the determination to kill as many of the enemy as possible before weight of

  numbers won the day. It was better that each white man should fight his private battle, gaining what comfort he could from being aware of the presence of the other but not needing to look out for him.One half of the attackers angled to the north of the church and the other to the south.

  Edge stretched out of the doorway and triggered a shot. And with the killer’s grin parting his lips and narrowing his eyes to slits, saw a brave go off his pony. Causing the Apaches behind him to have to veer their mounts around the tumbling body.