‘What you say to that, hombre?’ Pedro demanded, after nodding vigorous agreement to everything his sister yelled at Edge. ‘You are not riding in stupid company, you know!’
‘Just the under-capitalized kind,’ the half-breed allowed evenly, rasping the dusty back of a hand over the bristles on his jaw.
The girl’s anger subsided. ‘I like to think that providence ensured you were with us at the time your guns were needed, señor.’ She showed a wan smile. ‘So proving our trust in it is well-founded.’
‘One member of the present company might figure providence don’t merit nothing but anti-trust, lady,’ the half-breed replied.
Isabella nodded her head and there was sadness in her big eyes again as she looked at the tall, lean man on the horse. ‘Si, señor. Just one. I do not know who has suffered most You or my father. But my father, if he recovers from this new torment, will continue to have faith. I will pray for you.’
‘Do that,’ Edge invited, peering hard into the south-west, where smudges of smoke showed above the heat shimmer in the foothills of some high ridges. ‘Could just be I’m the answer to a maiden’s prayer.’
CHAPTER FOUR
AMITY FALLS did not exude an aura of love and friendship to the newcomers. And the second part of the community’s name was also an untruth on this late afternoon. For water merely trickled in meager lethargy down a steeply sloped course into the slow-running stream which formed the town’s northern limit.
It was an untidy scattering of crudely constructed buildings of brick, stone and timber situated on the eastern slope of a hill with a jagged ridge. The sun was already behind the ridge, so that the single street town was in deep shadow, this early twilight contributing to its somber atmosphere.
The wagon and its escorting rider clattered across a trestle bridge, the height and span of which suggested the stream became a raging river at the time of the spring thaw.
The first buildings were a cautious distance from the water course. A general store on one side and a law office and jailhouse on the other. There were wide gaps between a stage line depot, a saloon, a bank and a livery stable on the same side as the store. Likewise the schoolhouse, church, an office building with several shingles at the entrance and a meeting hall were set far apart on the other side. Small houses in unkempt gardens were scattered in disarray behind the commercial premises, a well trodden path from each leading out on to the street.
Also well defined was a trail which followed a line of least resistance up and over the western ridge. To the mining area which was the reason for the town’s existence, Edge guessed. For there was nothing immediately apparent in the town itself as to why Amity Falls should be there.
Smoke curled up from every house chimney and there were lights in some windows. On the street, only the Dragonara Hotel and City General Store were open for business. The smoke drifted on mild currents of warm air. The wagon and its escort progressed slowly along the street. Nothing else moved and the silence seemed to have a tangible oppressiveness.
‘There,’ Senalda said anxiously in Spanish, pointing out between her son and daughter. ‘The building on the right at the end. There is a sign which says a doctor is there.’
‘It looks dark and empty, mother,’ Isabella answered. Then she became aware that Edge was no longer riding beside the wagon. She instructed her brother to halt the team, then leaned to the side to look back. The half-breed had dismounted and was hitching the reins of his horse to the rail out front of the hotel. ‘You are no longer with us, señor,’ she called, a little fearfully.
‘All Indians ain’t lazy!’ Edge called back. ‘Same as all doctors ain’t drinking men. Some of them are, though.’
‘We will wait.’
Edge swung open a door, stepped across the wedge of lamplight and closed the door behind him.
‘Father is my responsibility,’ Pedro growled, wrenching over the brake lever and swinging down to the street. ‘I do not wait for strangers to—’
He was muttering in low-voiced anger. Isabella and Senalda could no longer hear what he was saying as he strutted towards the hotel. The two women glanced anxiously around them at the quiet, unmoving town. And perhaps it was the first chill of evening which caused them both to shudder.
The Dragonara Hotel held no surprises for the half-breed. It was a single storey building, as lacking in frills inside as it was out. The saloon section was small, and even given a cramped appearance by a bar counter along the rear and ten tables, each ringed by four chairs. A door in a side wall was labeled with the information: Rooms this way.
There were four ceiling lamps, each turned down to half wick. The smell of kerosene was mixed in with the other saloon odors of tobacco smoke, stale liquor and unwashed bodies. No cheap perfume, though.
A single bartender positioned at a midway point along the counter reluctantly unbent from over a magazine as Edge entered. Two men seated on opposite sides of the table closest to the bartender raised their eyes disinterestedly from the cards of a two-handed poker game and then resumed their concentration on the play. As he crossed to the unwelcoming bartender, Edge learned there was a ten cent limit to raises.
‘Get you something, mister?’ the bartender growled, licking spittle from the corners of his mouth. He was fat, fifty and dull-eyed. Dressed in pants and an undershirt crusted with dirt and old sweat.
‘Rye and a beer. If your fingers ain’t too tired from following the words.’
The jibe went over the bartender’s head, or he chose to ignore it. ‘In the same glass?’
‘Sometimes. Not tonight.’
The beer was drawn, the whiskey poured and both glasses set down in front of Edge.
‘Anything else, mister?’
The door from the street was opened.
‘Kid would like to know if there’s a doctor in the house, feller.’
‘Doc, you’re needed,’ the bartender said unnecessarily.
‘I heard, Barney,’ one of the card players responded.
‘Most urgently, señor,’ Pedro added, anger bubbling just beneath his anxiety.
Edge turned to look at the two local customers. The doctor was dressed city style, in a suit, vest and necktie which were all frayed and faded black. He was a short, stockily built man with thin sandy hair and a pale, freckled face. He had the soft hands of his profession and hard looking green eyes.
‘And I need a five or a wild deuce to fill a straight,’ he went on. ‘One card, Fred.’
‘Urgently, I said!’ Pedro snarled, and drew the ancient Griswold. His handling of a gun wasn’t up to the standard of his roping and knife work. The draw was slow and awkward. And he had the revolver leveled at the back of the seated doctor before he pulled back the hammer. His anger rose to the surface and the gun trembled in his fist.
The doctor was not afraid. He glanced briefly at the boy, then back at his cards without altering his expression of faint eagerness.
‘I said one, Fred.’
The dealer was in the same mid-fifties age group. Bald, dull-eyed, thick-bodied and smelling of horses. He had holes in his shirt and his pants were patched. He was as unmoved by Pedro’s gun as the doctor.
The card was taken and the doctor placed it in his hand, his expression the same as before.
‘Dealer takes two,’ Fred announced. ‘And reckons you didn’t make the straight, doc.’
Pedro advanced stiffly between the tables.
The door to the hotel rooms creaked open.
‘Beat it, Chink!’ Barney snapped.
The door closed again, not all the way.
Edge sipped his beer, narrowed eyes shifting their gaze from the almost closed door, to Pedro, to the card players. And he sensed small movements behind him.
‘I’m puttin’ up two cents that says I got somethin’, Fred,’ the doctor said pushing the coins into the pot. Then he hardened his tone as Pedro halted two feet behind him, the muzzle of the Griswold almost brushing the sandy hair on the nape of his ne
ck. ‘And I’m givin’ you Mexes fair warnin’. Anyone that’s sick’ll have to be taken more than a hundred miles to another sawbones. If I ain’t around to take care of them, that is. And if you try anythin’ with me, boy, you’re friend’ll be in real bad shape. Too bad for any doctorin’, I reckon. With a hole clean through him back to front.’
Edge turned just his head, slowly. Barney was grinning. There were gaps in the expression from missing teeth. He was resting a .52 Starr carbine on the bar top, the muzzle in line with the base of the half-breed’s spine.
‘Best you aim that thing away from me, feller,’ Edge muttered.
‘Pay two cents to call your bluff, doc,’ Fred announced with a sigh, adding the money to the pot. ‘Got me three of a kind. Two fives and a wild one.’
‘Rest easy, or rest in peace,’ Barney said to Edge, still grinning.
‘You had the warning,’ the half-breed replied evenly, facing front again. His stance remained nonchalant, but his eyes continued to rake from the group at the table to the cracked open door and back again.
‘Didn’t want to scare you, Fred,’ the doctor said, spreading out a natural straight on the table, six to ten. ‘Ain’t that pretty.’
‘Now you come to attend to my father!’ Pedro ordered. ‘If you do not, I will kill you. For he will die anyway. Unless he is helped at once.’
‘But live longer than your friend,’ the doctor pointed out coldly. He cupped a hand over the money in the pot and dragged it across the table to add to the pile of coins in front of him. ‘Perhaps you had better speak to your impetuous companion, Mex. As one greaser to another.’
He had finished speaking before he looked up at Edge. Abruptly, his calm indifference to the situation was gone. He saw the tall, lean half-breed closely for the first time. Perhaps he recognized in the glittering brightness of the slitted eyes and the basic construction of the dirt-grimed and thickly bristled face that Edge was only part Mexican. Or perhaps he was too afraid of the latent menace emanating from the hard-set expression on the face to consider anything less important than saving his own life.
‘Barney!’ he said, and the word was a croaked plea.
Fred saw the sweat of terror break out on the suddenly trembling flesh of the doctor’s face. He started to turn, his chair creaking.
The door in the side wall creaked open another inch. A short, nervous laugh sounded from beyond it.
‘You come now!’ Pedro ordered, leaning forward to press the muzzle of the old revolver into the neck of the doctor.
Edge whirled to the right, dropping the beer glass and throwing his arm to the side. It was the action of a killer able to recognize to what extent another man was able to kill.
Every man is ready to take the life of another, given the right circumstances. The doctor had looked at the cold anger on the face of Edge and naked terror had sparked his killer instinct. But he had no weapon and there was a gun pressed against his neck.
Barney was alarmed by the abrupt move of the half-breed. The sudden, incredibly fast transition from apparent nonchalance into controlled reflex action. But his first response was to back away.
The right hand of Edge slammed down, trapping the carbine barrel to the bar top for an instant: still aimed at where his back had been a moment before. Then he pushed it at an angle across the scarred wood, as his left hand streaked up to the nape of his neck - and came away even faster.
The bartender only then saw the expression which had terrified the doctor. His grin had evaporated the instant Edge began the move. Now he looked at evil personified in glinting eyes and lips curled back over gleaming teeth. And naked fear created the killer instinct in a small town bartender.
But the Starr was aimed at the table closest to the bar.
Fred vented a groan of anguish and threw himself hard to the floor, tipping over his chair. The doctor might have been a stone statue after a rain shower, unmoving and dripping with sweat as the boy continued to hold the gun muzzle against his flesh.
The space between the bar and the bottle and glass lined shelves behind was restricted. Barney stepped back further, and could retreat no more. Saliva ran from the corners of his mouth as he struggled to wrench the carbine free of the half-breed’s grip. To his terrified eyes, Edge seemed to grow taller. His left arm, with something that glinted in lamplight protruding from the fist, appeared to stretch like thick elastic.
But Edge was just a man. One who objected to having a gun aimed at him. Part Mexican and angered by those who insulted his dead father’s nationality. Intelligent enough to take advantage of the weaknesses in others when his life was on the line.
Thus, he only seemed taller and with a suddenly longer reach to the panicked Barney. In fact, he had used his right hand trapping the carbine to give additional power to his legs. His feet were clear of the floor as his belly slammed across the bar top.
Barney saw the blade of the open straight razor as more than a glint. He saw that it had a point, honed to the same degree of sharpness as the cutting edge. He surrendered his hold on the carbine and raised his hands to cover his face as he tried to lunge to the side.
For part of a second, he had been poised to kill in defense of his own life. The strongest reason of all. But he had been part of the same second late. Now he sought to escape. And again his timing was wrong.
The fist of the half-breed reached the bartender’s face before the man’s own hands. Barney’s mouth was wide, but his throat was too constricted to give vent to a scream. Until the point of the razor penetrated the moist soft flesh inside the mouth. Then it was Edge’s knuckles, hard against the teeth and lips of Barney, which barred the sound. He twisted his wrist and jerked the fist away.
The point of the razor burst through the skin high on Barney’s left cheek. Tiny droplets of blood sprayed away from the wound. His scream was strident. Then drowned by warm wetness as the razor slashed a torrenting cut to the corner of the man’s mouth
The shock to his nervous system brought merciful unconsciousness to Barney. But, before he crumpled to the floor behind the bar, everyone in the saloon saw the lower portion of his left cheek flap down to display his gums and surviving teeth awash in a rising flood of bubbled crimson.
Edge unfolded from across the bar and turned around to face the horrified card players and angry Mexican boy. His own expression was impassive again.
‘The feller didn’t pay attention to my warning,’ he said evenly, flicking beads of blood from the razor before he slid it back into the neck pouch. ‘Had to give him a sharp lesson.’
‘Holy cow, doc!’ Fred gasped. ‘Go see to Barney!’
The door at the side of the fetid and crudely furnished saloon opened wide and a figure garbed in a long, flowing white gown and cone-crowned hat emerged.
‘Please, sir,’ the newcomer announced in a high-pitched, whining voice. ‘I am dedicated to non-violence. I am a gentle man.’
He was an Oriental, both his tone and attitude obsequious. As Edge looked coldly at him, he thrust his arms stiffly above his head.
‘In that outfit, I’ll have to take your word you ain’t no female,’ the half-breed growled.
‘My father!’ Pedro snarled. ‘He is outside in the wagon. You will come now.’
‘Go to hell, Mex!’ the doctor retorted, starting to rise. ‘This town takes care of its own first.’
Edge had warned the bartender long before he made his move. And Pedro had threatened the doctor. But the boy’s response to this latest example of intractability was the more explosively shocking. Certainly more final.
He simply squeezed the trigger of the Griswold. The powder burn of the short range shot was as pungently acrid as the smell of cordite. The doctor died instantly, as the bullet severed the nerves to the brain, punctured the windpipe and blasted the jugular vein before bursting clear at the front of the throat and burying itself at an angle in the table top. The corpse dropped hard down on to the chair, then tipped forward to slump across the table. Coins and
playing cards were scattered to the floor.
The Oriental laughed. The sound short and shrill.
Out on the street, Isabella yelled a single word, ‘Pedro!’
‘Lousy shot, kid,’ Edge growled. ‘A hundred miles is too far. Your old man just died.’
Fury was gone in an instant from the handsome young face. And replaced by anguish as his dark eyes shifted their glassy stare from the smoking revolver to the dead man and back again.
‘Madre de Dios!’ he cried. And tears of despair erupted and coursed across his quivering cheeks.
He whirled as his sister once more shrieked his name. Closer now. Then lunged into a blind run for the door, his pumping legs kicking aside the chairs in his path.
‘Sir, I am skilled in the ancient Oriental art of curing the sick by means of acupuncture!’ the oddly attired man at the open door to the room section called.
Edge picked up the glass of whiskey and nodded towards the door as Pedro wrenched it open and raced outside.
‘If you’re ready to take a chance you might give the kid the needle, feller,’ the half-breed invited.
The man was confused and hesitant for a moment. Then he lowered his arms and picked up the skirts of his gown before giving chase to Pedro.
‘Amor mio, hermano!’ Isabella cried in strident relief.
Edge ambled across the saloon, and halted on the threshold to swallow the rye in one gulp. He banged down the empty glass on a nearby table, then delved into a pocket of his pants, pulled out a handful of loose change and funneled it into the glass.
‘For the beer and liquor,’ he told the waxen faced Fred, who was only now beginning to climb unsteadily to his feet. The man’s shock expanded as he saw a sardonic grin spread across the bristled face. The kid was supposed to pay: but seems he’s in too much of a hurry to stand around.’
EDGE: Violence Trail (Edge series Book 25) Page 5
