She half turned to peer towards the south west, using both hands to supplement the shade of her hat brim. ‘If my father believes you do not know, then it is no business of yours, señor’
There was concern in her tone.
‘He’s been gone a long time?’
A nod. ‘With my mother. Since early morning. Do you know how far it is to Amity Falls?’
‘Don’t know a thing about this part of the country. Nor the people in it. Any of the people.’
‘It is my father who will need to be convinced.’
‘Isabella, tengo hombre!’ her brother called, maintaining his despondent patrol around the wagon.
‘I will prepare a meal,’ the girl told the man. ‘It will be cold. My father warned against fires. There are Shoshone Indians in the area. You will eat with us. It will not be a feast.’
The man nodded. ‘There sure ain’t anything to celebrate, lady.’
Despite the fact that he was securely bound, she circled wide around him to climb up over the tailgate of the wagon.
‘Hey, hombre, what’s your name?’ Pedro asked after walking his sentry route twice more, then halting on the spot vacated by his sister.
‘Edge,’ the man answered. He had closed his eyes when the girl went from sight. He did not open them now.
‘Edge? That is not a Mexican name. It was your mother who was Mexican?’
‘Father, kid.’
‘Then how come you’re called Edge, hombre?’
‘It’s a long story. And you and your sister’ve got troubles enough of your own without listening to mine.’
Pedro gave a short, hollow laugh. ‘Okay, hombre. If it turns out we have to kill you, we’ll just put that name on the marker.’
‘Stop this talk of killing!’ Isabella snapped. ‘And take these.’
She thrust two tin plates over the tailgate of the wagon. Pedro rested the Winchester reluctantly on the ground and complied with the order. He placed one plate beside Edge and retreated to where the rifle lay. The meal was comprised of cut up jerked beef, beans and a chunk of sourdough bread. There was a spoon to eat it with and Pedro shoveled the food greedily into his mouth.
‘I will feed you or you will go hungry, Señor Edge,’ the girl stated, squatting down close to the prisoner with a plate of her own. ‘You must remain tied.’
She had brushed her hair and wiped the old sweat from her face. And used too much cheap perfume to mask the muskiness of former fear.
‘A little slower than your brother takes it,’ Edge said. ‘I’d hate to disappoint him and choke to death.’
The girl was herself eating as discreetly as the conditions and implements allowed.
‘Hombre!’ the boy snarled. ‘You will not talk so tough when my father gets back.’
Beans and crumbs of bread were showered from his mouth as he voiced the new threat.
‘Finish your food and get back to watching for Indians,’ his sister countered.
The weariness was back in her tone but her words had the same effect as if she had shrieked them at Pedro. The only outward sign of his disgruntlement was a child-like sullenness.
‘From up on the wagon seat,’ Edge suggested. ‘It ain’t much, but any kind of height is better than nothing in open country.’
‘Concern yourself with your own business, hombre,’ the boy rasped, wiping his plate clean with a final piece of bread which he thrust into his mouth.
Edge chewed on a chunk of beef the girl had spoon-fed him. ‘You laid claim to my tongue and eyes, kid,’ he allowed in a growling tone. ‘Means my scalp is still up for grabs. Sooner it wasn’t a Shoshone brave got his hands on it.’
Pedro resumed his guarded duty, tossing his plate and spoon into the rear of the wagon as he passed. After one and a half circuits, he climbed up on to the front of the wagon and stood erect on the seat.
Isabella continued to eat and to feed Edge. Twice, her light brown face became flushed as her gaze was trapped from its wandering by the ice-blue eyes of the man. After that, she worked hard at looking everywhere except directly into the glittering slits beneath the hooded lids. But then the silence, marred only by the monotonous buzzing of the flies, got to her.
‘I am terribly afraid that we may have made a mistake about you, señor,’ she blurted out, her voice low as if she did not want her brother to hear the admission.
‘Figure you’ve gotten used to being that,’ Edge answered.
‘Mistaken?’
‘Afraid. What’s in the wagon? A million dollars worth of family heirlooms?’
She caught her breath, looked sharply at his impassive face, then away again.
‘I ain’t a thief, lady,’ he added, watching the pulse at the side of her throat reveal how fast her heart was beating. ‘Nor a rapist if that’s something else that’s bothering you.’ He turned his head to scowl briefly along the side of the wagon. ‘I just might give your brother something to remember me by. But he’ll live.’
When he returned his attention to her, Isabella had gathered up the soiled utensils and pulled herself erect. From his low angle, looking up the profile of her body, the curves of hips, belly and breasts were almost painfully sexual in silhouette against the bright sky.
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘It is for our father to decide.’
She spun around and her quick movements in walking to the rear of the wagon and climbing up over the tailgate served to emphasize her fully blossomed sexuality.
‘The eyes, hombre,’ Pedro called, leaning out from the side of the wagon to stare menacingly down at the prisoner.
‘I got no complaint about those, either,’ Edge muttered, moving his head so, that the top of the wheel rim tipped his hat forward lower over his forehead.
Inside the wagon, Isabella made small noises cleaning the plates and spoons. The flies maintained their constant buzz, alighting and taking wing. Soon, Edge could hear only the flies and his own regular breathing as background noise to his thoughts. Vague, lethargic thoughts about his latest troubles in a troubled life. Shallow thoughts which he kept in his mind, chasing each other around in endless circles. An apparently useless exercise in which another kind of man may have indulged to keep at bay anxiety about his fate. But this man had learned from many harsh lessons that it was futile to worry about the outcome of any situation over which he had no control. So he contemplated his predicament in order to keep his mind off the nubile body of a woman half his age.
Until a new sound abruptly emphasized his helplessness: and flooded more sweat from every pore in his flesh. At the same time, fear seemed to contract his insides into a small, tight, ice-cold ball at the pit of his stomach.
There had been the creaking of a board in the bed of the wagon. A familiar enough sound. But this time it disturbed from lethargy a coiled diamond-back snake which had been sleeping in the shade of the crippled vehicle. And it was the rattle of anger from the vibrating tail of the creature which triggered the half-breed’s fear.
Isabella gasped. Then she rasped: ‘Pedro!’
The boy had heard the rattler, too. ‘Hey, hombre,’ he called lightly, looking along the side of the wagon and grinning. ‘Maybe this will decide it for you before the return of mi padre, eh?’
The girl was looking down at Edge from the rear of the wagon, the horror inscribed into her face making her look like a small child.
The half-breed moved just his head, to lift the hat brim up from over his eyes. Then turned slowly from the neck to gaze at the four feet long western diamond-back slithering from out of the shade into the bright sunlight. The reptile’s anger at being aroused was gone. The only sound it made was a low, rasping one, caused by the friction of its flesh against the dust. Its yellow eyes gleamed and its jaws were wide, the forked tongue constantly extending and retracting between bright fangs.
‘It’s like the Garden of Eden, is it not, hombre?’ Pedro Montez taunted. ‘Adam tempted by Eve. Now we have el serpiente.’
Edge’s vision w
as misted by the beads of sweat which dripped off his forehead and splashed on to the hooded lids of his narrowed eyes. The rattler was six feet away and slithering slowly closer. Cautiously curious now: perhaps seeing the unmoving man as a newer, more comfortable place to coil up against and sleep. The half-breed curled back his lips and spoke in a rasping tone through his clenched teeth.
‘It ain’t an apple that’s about to get bit, kid.’ It was a struggle to keep his breathing shallow.
‘Pedro you must—’
Isabella was staring at her brother along the side of the canted wagon. Edge altered the direction and focus of his own gaze.
The boy nodded, and his grin of pleasure was momentarily replaced by a scowl of disappointment. Then, as he took his right hand away from the Winchester and reached across the front of his body to draw the knife from the sheath, intent concentration showed on every plane of his face.
The rattler was within twelve inches of exploring Edge’s thigh with the darting tongue. A muscle spasmed involuntarily in the man’s leg. Most of the stocky length of the snake became immobile. Only the tail moved, trembling fast to sound the staccato warning of dangerous fear. Then the head rose, jaws gaping to their widest extent, drops of venom beaded at the needle sharp tips of the fangs.
The boy drew back his right hand at shoulder height, then hurled it forward. The knife spun free of his grip, rotating glinting blade over matt black handle. The point dug into the body of the snake just behind the bulge of the head. The jaws snapped closed, then sprang open again. The point of the knife broke clear of flesh. The snake folded double and rolled. Then extended to its full length and writhed in death throes. Its jaws continued to open and close in time with the agonized contortions of its body. The sound of its rattle seemed to fill the entire world. Then it became still and silent on a deathbed of disturbed dust.
‘Obliged, kid,’ Edge said, blinking sweat off his eyelids. ‘Figure that wipes the slate clean between us.’
‘Si, Pedro,’ Isabella gasped. ‘Gracias. Muchas gracias.’
‘De nada,’ her brother replied with heavy sarcasm. He swung down to the ground and moved forward to stoop and pick up the snake. He examined the dead reptile with keen interest, then withdrew his knife, replaced it in the sheath without cleaning the blade, and dropped the corpse. He laughed, flicking his gaze from Edge to Isabella and back to the dead rattler. ‘Adam, Eve and the serpent,’ he said, relishing the analogy. He crooked a thumb and stabbed it against his chest. ‘Does that make me God?’
Isabella grimaced. ‘You are the son of Antonio Montez,’ she countered flatly, peering out towards the south-west.
Edge and her brother looked in that direction, too. Far away, indistinct in the heat shimmer, two riders could be seen making slow progress with a burden that was slung between their horses.
Pedro shrugged. ‘No matter. To you, it makes little difference, hombre. My father becomes God to you. With the decision of whether you will live or die in his hands.’
‘Now he’s Jesus Christ,’ Edge muttered, craning his neck to look up at the girl as Pedro returned to stand on the wagon seat.
Isabella responded to his vaguely humorous look with an expression of anxious sadness. ‘You would do well not to blaspheme, señor,’ she warned. ‘for my father is deeply religious and quick to anger.’
‘Like God, his wrath is great!’ Pedro taunted bitterly.
‘Do not profane the Trinity!’ the girl urged vehemently. ‘Ignore my brother, señor, and—’
‘The son don’t bother me, lady,’ Edge muttered, shifting his gaze away from her to look out towards the riders, who became more clearly defined as they drew closer. ‘But from what I’ve heard, I ain’t gonna get to love the father.’
‘I will pray for you, señor.’
Her brother spat into the dust. ‘I pray he will kill you, hombre.’
‘If he does, kid, you’ll all get haunted by a very damn unholy ghost.’
CHAPTER TWO
ANTONIO MONTEZ was a big man. Six feet tall, Edge guessed as he watched the Mexican dismount. Broad at the shoulders and wide at the hips. Too thick around the waist, maybe, but the extra weight would stay firm and muscular for as long as the man remained active.
He was over fifty and if any of his years had been easy ones, he showed no signs of it. There was the dirt of trail dust ingrained into the leather-textured, dark skin of his face. That every trail before this one had been hard to tread and survive was also plain to see in his squinting eyes, misshapen nose and set of his mouth.
Edge looked up at the man standing over him and wondered if he was seeing a reasonably accurate image of himself in years to come. If he lived that long.
Montez and his wife had not quickened their pace as they came close enough to the crippled wagon to see that all was not as they had left it. The woman, who looked older and was bulky with fat rather than muscle, had merely remained in the saddle, patiently awaiting the outcome, as her husband slid to the ground and asked a single question.
He spoke in his native tongue, his tone flat. ‘What is this?’
Isabella climbed down from the wagon, listening anxiously as her brother replied from his vantage point. The boy gave an accurate account of Edge’s approach and capture and gave it bias only by the obvious dislike in his voice. His father listened attentively, fingering one of his gray sideburns and using a toe of a boot to toy with the dead snake.
‘We perhaps acted hastily, father,’ Isabella said quickly when Pedro was through. ‘He did nothing - said nothing against us. It is just that he looks like - like a—’
‘A man who would be hard to trust,’ her father finished for her, then sighed and looked up at his son. ‘Get the wheel off the horses, Pedro. Isabella, your mother and me have not eaten since we left here this morning.’
The youngsters hurried to comply with the requests, the girl climbing back into the wagon while the boy jumped to the ground, rested the Winchester and went to the horses. He helped his mother from the saddle and then began to untie the ropes which held the mint new wagon wheel between the animals.
What are you doing here, Señor Edge?’ Antonio asked flatly as his wife stepped up alongside him and looked dully at the half-breed. ‘I regret the need to ask about your business.’
The woman was a head shorter than he was. Perhaps she had been beautiful once, but the hard years had wrinkled her skin and soured her expressions. She was garbed in a shapeless and shabby black dress and kept the sun off her sparse, very gray hair with a dirty white mantilla of lace which may have cost a lot of money a long time ago. She dragged her feet through the dust when she walked and, in repose, her head hung low.
‘I’ll tell you just the once, feller,’ Edge said evenly in English, looking back to the man, who was dressed poorly in Western style, his clothes owing nothing to Mexico. ‘This trip I’m out of Nebraska heading south-west. Where I’m going and what I’m going for ain’t none of your business. Your wagon and your kids happened to be right in my way. But I was ready to ride on around them. Until my plans got changed.’
Antonio wore an old .36 Griswold six-shot revolver stuck into his belt on the right hip. The brass-framed copy of the Colt Dragoon made for the Confederacy. The man cupped a hand over the wooden butt plates, then turned and went to his horse.
‘You are going to kill him, father?’ Pedro asked eagerly as he rolled the wheel through the dust.
‘You disgust me,’ his father said wearily, and drew a Sharps rifle from his saddle boot.
‘Father!’ Isabella exclaimed, leaning from the rear of the wagon with a food-laden plate in each hand.
The man ignored both his children, returning to the place where his shadow fell across Edge, and thumbing back the hammer of the rifle. It was one of the Beechers Bible models, as ancient and ill-cared for as the handgun. Like the man himself, and his wife.
‘A bullet in the heart from this, señor, and you will tell nobody anything anymore. Not even once. I think
you are not in a position to dictate terms.’
Edge was stiff from being in the same enforced sitting posture for so long. The kid had scared him with the rope. The rattlesnake had been more terrifying. The heat of the day felt as if it had lasted a lifetime.
But hard-learned lessons are not easily forgotten. And he recalled now, even as his temper began to fray, that anger, unless it is coolly controlled, can be fatal. He had survived often by applying this tenet and had come close to death more than once when he ignored it.
So he kept his expression neutral and his voice even. ‘You’re a family that talks a lot about killing. So far, all that’s dead is a rattler.’
‘You think I will not kill you, if it proves necessary, señor.’
Every Montez was in front of Edge now, Pedro having leaned the new wheel against the broken one and Isabella come down from the rear of the wagon, still holding the plates. Now she seemed as resigned to the result as her mother. The boy was making a poor effort at controlling his excitement. Antonio looked as if the burden of responsibility weighed heavily on his broad shoulders.
‘All it takes is the guts to squeeze the trigger, feller,’ the half-breed allowed. ‘And I figure you got the guts.’
‘As you would have in my position, señor. But I need something else. A reason. In this case, a belief that you mean us harm.’ He shrugged, almost imperceptibly. ‘But there is no way this can be proved. So I must be influenced by my impression of you. I regret, señor, it is not a good impression.’
Edge nodded: as prepared to die as he always was, accepting the possibility of sudden and violent death as a calculated risk of the kind of life that had been thrust upon him. ‘I’m having some regrets of my own, feller. But I’ll be through with them soon. Yours will last longer.’
Antonio nodded, in acknowledgement and understanding. ‘I can only pray that I am taking the—’
He started to swing the Sharps towards the target.
‘Stop talking about it!’ Isabella shrieked, hurling the plates and their contents into the dust and throwing her hands up to her face. ‘If you have to do it, do it!’
EDGE: Violence Trail (Edge series Book 25) Page 2
