The Living, the Dying, and the Dead
Page 13
He looked at the sculptured gold and finely cut gems bleakly for a few moments. Then dropped the tools in the casket and stepped back from the crate.
"You have it?” Louie asked hoarsely.
“Found the gold, but it ain’t mine. Like to go check on Silas now.”
“Momento!" the Italian snapped, and addressed a burst of words in his own language at Franco.
Marco expressed relief as he retreated to the Concord, taking the handkerchief from his face. The sick-looking Franco also removed his mask, to protect his hands from die touch of decayed flesh, as he delved into the mutilated body and lifted out the Golden Buddha.
Men gasped as gold, diamonds, rubies and emeralds glistened and glinted in the moonlight.
Sui Lin vented a moan of despair.
Edge turned and started along the boardwalk toward the rear of the sleeper car.
“Signor!” Louie called after him, causing the halfbreed to halt and look back.
“Yeah, feller?”
“You should know that Mr. Marlon was offered the statue first. He was willing to pay a fair price. The others tried to steal it”
Edge did not reply. Simply continued on his way to the sleeper car, as Louie and Franco went toward the Concord coach. Sui Lin cupped both hands over her mouth and nose as she moved nervously up to the crate to peer in at the ghastly remains of her sister.
Once aboard the car, the half-breed lengthened his stride to reach the berth where the old man lay. He jerked the curtain aside and delved under the blankets to bring out Sui Lin’s Winchester and Martin’s tiny revolver before he even looked at the old man’s face.
In the moonlight shafting through the car window, the heavily bristled flesh looked the same color as that of the corpse outside. The hairs growing from Martin’s nostrils wavered fractionally as air sucked in through the parted lips was expelled through the nose.
“You sure are making me work for my money, you old bastard,” Edge growled as he heard a shout and then the clop of hooves and creak of timbers as the Concord rolled forward.
“Edge-san” Sui Lin called desperately as she entered the sleeper through the rear door. “What can we do against so many?”
“Our best,” the half-breed responded, and tossed the My Friend revolver toward her.
She failed to catch the gun and stooped to pick it up from the floor.
“It’ll make a noise is all,” he told her as he leaned over an unmade berth across the aisle from where Silas Martin was dying. And crashed the muzzle of the ' Winchester against the window to shower shattered glass on to the track side.
The Concord was almost into the cottonwoods by then, but still close enough to the depot for the men aboard to hear the smash.
Both Carlo and Rico whirled to look back, and Edge used his first bullet on the man with the reins, seeing blood spurt from the center of a face carved with shock.
Rico started to turn the other way, then pitched forward, off the seat to go down between the two nearest horses.
Another shot exploded as the half-breed pumped the lever action of the repeater. Louder than a report from the My Friend or any of the Colts carried by Marlon’s men.
Perhaps from Edge’s Winchester which Louie had taken with him?
But it was Carlo who took the bullet, screaming as he tumbled over the side of the stagecoach.
The team made to bolt in reaction to the shots and falling bodies. But then dropped dead in their traces as a violent fusillade of rifle fire filled the warm night air on the north fringe of the small Kansas town.
Muzzle flashes stabbed out of the cottonwoods to either side of the stalled Concord. And Edge stayed his curled forefinger on the trigger of the Winchester j as he heard the smashing of glass, the screams and curses of trapped men and the continuous barrage of gunfire.
Then came stretched seconds of utter silence.
He shifted his gaze away from the bullet-scarred Concord to peer into the darkness of the trees, swinging his rifle first one way and then the other. It was so quiet that he could hear the steady drip of dead men’s blood as the droplets fell from the cracks at the base of the coach doors.
“Edge-san, what . .
Sui Lin’s tense spoken query was curtailed by another burst of rifle fire. And Edge threw himself down into the aisle as a dozen bullets smashed through windows or tore into the timber sides of the sleeper car. He peered along the dusty boards as another volley of bullets was triggered from the cottonwoods and saw that the girl was also on the floor. A dark stain slowly expanded its area from beneath the side of her head pressed to the boards.
“Whore, ought to have the sense to know when to go down,” he muttered and eased up on to his haunches to look into Martin’s berth.
The hairs in the old man’s nose no longer moved. When the half-breed delved a hand under the blankets, he failed to locate any rise and fall of the chest “You cashed in at the right time, Silas,” he said as he drew the old man’s money from a jacket pocket “Now it’s my turn.”
He took what was owed and replaced the balance of the money. Only then turned to look through the smashed window toward the cottonwoods. In time to see the shadowy figure of a man step from the bullet-riddled, corpse-laden Concord, clutching to his chest something which seemed to catch fire when the moonlight briefly struck it “Guess Marlon didn’t know about you fellers,” he rasped.
Then the man was gone, swallowed by the blackness among the trees. Other footfalls sounded in the timber. Silence again for a while. Next the thud of hooves as many horses were urged to a gallop. This sound soon fading into nothingness.
Edge left the bodies of Silas Martin and Sui Lin aboard the sleeper without looking at them again, and stepped down on to the boardwalk. He held the Winchester in the crook of his arm as he leaned against the side of the caboose, dug out the makings and rolled a cigarette.
The warm night air neutralized the acrid taint of drifting gunsmoke. But the stench of Mai Lin’s decomposed flesh was as strong as ever.
Lights began to show at windows and doorways in the small town. And before he had smoked his cigarette a small group of the more adventurous citizens had come on to the street which ran alongside the boardwalk. They were hurriedly dressed, their faces heavy and their hair tousled from sleep. They came to an abrupt halt, grimacing as they caught the cloyingly sweet smell from the open crate.
“Hey, mister!” a man called fearfully. “What was all the shooting for?”
“And for God’s sake, what’s makin’ that stink?” somebody else demanded hoarsely.
The whole group backed away a pace as the halfbreed moved his rifle—but only to cant it to his left shoulder. Then he straightened up from the side of the caboose and flicked the stub of the cigarette down on to the track.
“Same answer to both questions,” he said evenly, his lean features almost completely shadowed by the brim of his hat as he moved between the crate and the caboose and stepped off the boardwalk heading for the ambushed Concord to retrieve his own Win- 153
Chester and the Remington. “Something I never knew there was.”
“What you talkin’ about, mister?” a voice shouted after him as he crossed the track.
He spat a stream of saliva far ahead. “Whore with a heart of gold.”
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Chapter Five
Chapter Nine