There was a long-handled shovel among the wagon’s equipment and Edge, Pedro and Mr. Ree took turns at digging the grave in a hollow beneath a tree screened from the trail by an outcrop of rock.
Whether it was because of their grief - rekindled by the interment - or due to the fact that they had come to trust their travelling companions, the Montez twins remained out of sight behind the rock for a long time after the grave was filled in and marked. Giving the half-breed and the Siamese ample opportunity to abandon them and steal the golden wagon if they were so inclined.
When the Mexicans emerged, their eyes were red-rimmed from spilled tears. But dry.
‘We have decided that one day we will return to these mountains,’ Isabella announced when the wagon was rolling again, Edge and Pedro in their familiar out-rider positions. To bring the bones of our father to this place and set them in the ground beside the resting place of our mother.’
‘It is a fine ambition, madam,’ Ree said.
‘We think so.’ Her former chagrin towards the Siamese had disappeared.
‘Hombre?’ Pedro said after a while.
‘Yeah, kid?’
‘You could have taken the wagon. We could not have stopped you. I forgot a lesson. But it did not matter this time, eh?’
‘You got lucky. It happens.’
‘It happens, also, that more than a body was buried just now,’ Ree suggested. ‘There is trust between all of us now?’
Isabella nodded. ‘If there can be that,’ she acknowledged, looking hard at Edge. ‘When there is a lack of understanding.’
‘I figure we understand each other, lady,’ the half-breed told her evenly. ‘It’s just a matter of getting you to see things my way.’
She showed a wan smile. ‘You have taught my brother well in your ways, Señor Edge. But he has been a willing pupil. It will be much more difficult for you to—’
‘No sweat,’ the half-breed cut in on her with a smile that was almost warm. ‘You just ain’t had his advantages.’
‘Advantages?’
‘On the job training.’
CHAPTER TEN
THERE was no rebuke from Pedro, and Isabella’s response to the double entendre was merely a long-suffering sigh.
The atmosphere of harmony remained with the wagon for more than ten days. On the trail through the San Juan Mountains when the only other people they saw were at the widely spaced stage line way stations, in Cedarville and two other towns, and on the fields and pastures of isolated farms. The weather stayed fine, the heat getting more intense as they came down from the high country of the Colorado Plateau and headed across the north-western corner of New Mexico Territory.
They replenished their supplies at town stores and farmsteads, but always made their night and noon camp in open country. The trouble which had begun north of Amity Falls and had dogged them relentlessly until they were south of Mountain City seemed a lifetime in the past.
There was a great deal of talk. About San Parral. About Montana. About Siam and China. And often there was laughter, for Mr. Ree could compose bad poetry on humorous subjects as well as serious ones.
Edge never volunteered information about his own past and he was never pressed on the subject. Once, while the wagon was rolling, Pedro taunted him good-humouredly about his endless surveillance of the empty country stretched out on all sides.
‘Old habits die hard, kid,’ the half-breed had replied evenly. ‘Like a man who gets his in the back.’
On another day, at noon camp while her brother and Mr. Ree attended to watering the animals, Isabella said, ‘You once told us that what waits at the end of the trail was your own business, Edge. At that time, you did not know what waited there, did you?’
‘A life without any surprises in it must be pretty dull.’
‘San Parral is at the end of this trail. A few adobe houses, a church, a cantina. Some fields and lemon groves. Very dull for you. For me, home. And a handsome young boy named Luis who loves me and who I love in return. You make jokes, Edge. But inside you are a serious man. Because you have been hurt often, I think?’
‘Any time you want to see my scars, just let me know.’
She responded to his grin by deepening her frown. ‘My brother and I owe you much. We can spare none of the gold to repay you. Pedro has nothing you want. I regret that what you desire of me cannot be given.’
‘Something else I told you a while back,’ Edge said. ‘That nothing’s lost until it’s been won.’
She sighed deeply. ‘It is plain to me I am wasting my time in talking with you,’ she rasped, and whirled to move away, to start preparing the meal.
‘Ain’t nothing plain about you, Isabella,’ Edge had murmured, glinting eyes watching the sway of her body and the way the sunlight added a sheen to her swinging hair.
It was three days after this exchange, as they neared the Mission of Santa Cristobel on the southern bank of the Chaco River, that the long interlude of peace was violently shattered.
There was a hot wind blowing from the east, billowing dust and tumbleweed out of the mouth of Chaco Canyon and hurling the debris high and wide across the open country spread to either side of the dried up river bed.
But they had seen the yellow adobe buildings of the mission - a high-towered church and three other buildings skirting a courtyard - before the thick dust drew a choking veil across the scene. And they made for the shelter of the mission, kerchiefs pulled up over their nostrils and mouths and eyes narrowed against the stinging motes.
Visibility was only a few feet and every sound was blanketed by the howl and hiss of the wind. The animals were skittish, but the horses responded to the calming influence of expert riders. Mr. Ree had more trouble controlling the ox team, until Edge leaned down from one side and Pedro the other to take hold of the traces and steer the nervous animals on a direct route to the mission.
The courtyard was entirely enclosed by the buildings, except for a gateway just wide enough to admit the wagon. The double gates were invitingly open and, once the wagon was inside, Edge and Pedro swung fast from their saddles and ran back to close them.
The strong, hot, dust-laden wind fought their efforts every inch of the way. And their muscles were not relieved of strain until Mr. Ree joined them and slid a stout plank through two iron brackets to keep the gates securely fastened,
The noise of the storm did not abate. But they were sheltered from the direct force of the stinging, choking dust. For the wind lost power after curling over the gates and the roofs of the buildings. The dust continued to swirl and eddy, though, like a restlessly moving gray curtain hung across the buildings surrounding the courtyard.
Edge opened the door closest to the gateway and stepped into a small schoolroom furnished with crudely made but neatly aligned furniture. Wind-borne dust danced in the hot air, growing thicker by the moment until he had crossed the room and fastened shutters over the two glassless windows.
The dust settled on a dirt floor, twenty desks and chairs suitable for children, a larger desk and chair at one end of the room, a blackboard on an easel and two free-standing closets. Most of the pictures which had once been pinned to the walls were now scattered across the floor. Those which had been sheltered from the main blast of the wind were obviously drawn and painted by young hands. Indian.
‘Where are the children?’ Isabella asked as she entered the schoolroom and gazed around, puzzled and a little afraid.
‘Maybe it’s July Fourth,’ Edge replied.
‘What?’
‘Or some other holiday. Where’s Pedro and the reason poetry’s a dying art form?’
‘Taking the animals to the stables. I remember this place from when we came north. We spent a night here. It is run by Mexicans. For the Indians. Apaches, Utes and Navahos. There is the mission church. This school. A house for Father Ramon and the three men who assist him. And a stable. All seem to be as deserted as here. I do not like it.’
‘We’re stuck with it until the st
orm blows out,’ Edge told her, pulling the kerchief off his lower face.
She imitated his action, and even with half her face its natural color and the other half stained by sweat-pasted dust she was startlingly beautiful. The half-breed found her more appealing than ever, perhaps because the final vestiges of girlhood had been stripped from her by the harrowing events along the violence trail they had travelled. Now, she had the face of a full-grown woman to match her body. And, despite the fact that in chronological terms she had aged only a few weeks and was still almost young enough to be his daughter, Edge felt suddenly easier in his mind.
Because a burden of guilt had been lifted? Had it really been self-reproach which had set his behavior pattern towards Isabella Montez? The thought that he was some kind of monstrous ogre lusting after the innocent flesh of a child?
But then he met her wide eyes and saw the fear in them. A much deeper fear than the nervousness she had experienced when she first entered the schoolroom. And he knew that he was the reason for this new terror: that the glittering eyes under the hooded lids and the way his lips were curled back from his teeth made her terribly afraid of him.
In that moment, as both of them realized it was the first time they had been alone together since they met, she was suddenly a young child again. Despite the recently matured face and the fully-developed body, Isabella Montez was a young girl who had caused him no harm. And had suffered enough.
‘Señor Edge?’ she whispered hoarsely.
‘No sweat, kid,’ he told her, crossing the dusty room and being careful to swing wide of her. ‘Stay here while I check out the place.’
Had the moment of terror not been, perhaps she would have insisted on staying close to him. But she nodded gratefully as he pulled open the door. Then, as she was about to sit down at a desk of one of the absent Indian children, a smile of shining happiness spread across her lovely face.
‘Luis!’ she exclaimed. ‘Mi—’
Edge was half turned towards her. As he saw the smile and heard her words, a movement scratched at the periphery of his vision. Confusion replaced her smile. There was a gunshot - away from the schoolroom. The sound of it muted by the noise of the storm.
The half-breed felt the familiar tight ball of cold fear at the pit of his stomach. And received a fleeting glimpse of the man outside the doorway before the muzzle of a rifle hit him in the stomach and the taut fear became white hot agony, which exploded and sent searing heat to every nerve ending in his body. He was folding forward then, and the effort of channeling all his strength to his legs prevented him from getting a hand to his holstered Colt.
Through eyes misted by the tears of pain, he saw a pair of scuffed boots set firmly on the dusty ground of the courtyard. The stock of the rifle crushed his hat and it was as if he wore no hat and was bald. The impact of the blow had, to his own ears, the sound of another gunshot, much closer. He was certain his skull was cracked open and that the liquid contents of his head was gushing out. More agony than he had ever felt before. Then nothing. No sense of falling. Just the pitch darkness of a deep mine.
‘I am sorry for the shock, Isabella,’ Luis Porrero said across the form of the half-breed crumpled on the threshold. ‘Three years is a long time. There are changes. People change. You will come outside.’
He was about twenty. Tall and slender, with a strong-featured, good-looking face. His clothes were old and worn and poor quality. But his crossed-bandoliers, double-holstered gun belt, two Colt revolvers and Winchester rifle were all new.
‘You are now a bandit?’ the girl gasped, her wide-eyed gaze moving between the unconscious Edge and the face of the boy she had planned to marry.
‘If you do not come outside, I will kill you where you stand,’ Luis warned. To prove myself fully to my new friends.’
She hesitated only a moment, all her attention concentrated on the handsome face. Then she saw that he meant what he said and she advanced on the doorway. She turned sideways-on, to squeeze over the threshold around the slumped half-breed.
The hot wind out of Chaco Canyon was losing power. There was less noise and the dust inside the surrounding adobe buildings was beginning to settle on the courtyard.
‘You have killed him!’ she accused dully. ‘He was a good—’
‘To me, he was nothing!’ Luis interrupted, and gestured with the rifle for her to walk ahead of him.
In his dark eyes now there was an expression not far removed from the look which Edge had directed at her a few moments ago. When she could not see him, and his eyes roved over her from the rear his lust expanded. ‘Why?’ she asked.
‘Did I become a bandit?’ he countered. ‘That, too.’
She saw Pedro and only now, when relief flooded through her, did she recall the shot which had coincided with the opening of the schoolroom door.
‘Because I want more than San Parral can offer me,’ Luis answered. ‘And a larger share of the gold you bring.’
‘Gold?’
Pedro was emerging from the stable, his hands clasped on top of his hatless head and a rifle in the hands of another bandit nudging him in the back.
‘Did your father not tell of the letter he wrote to my father, Isabella?’
‘Letter?’
‘He did not. My father died from fever last year. I opened the letter. Your father wrote he was coming home to San Parral. With his wife and you and your brother. And much gold to make life good for the village. He wrote that preparations should be made for the wedding. He wanted to surprise you, I suppose.’
The wind and the dust were now completely gone. The sky was blue again and the blistering sun shone with bright intensity on the Mission of Santa Cristobel. Pedro and Isabella were being guided across the courtyard towards the arched entrance of the church. Four men stood in the shade of the porch way - Father Ramon and two others in clerical garb, and a third bandit. The priest and his assistants had their hands tied behind their back and were gagged by filthy rags.
‘We have been betrayed,’ Isabella told Pedro as they came together at the centre of the courtyard. ‘By—’
‘I have seen him,’ Pedro answered flatly, still expressing the same brand of hatred which had spread across his face when he first saw and recognized Luis.
The bandit who had captured him was ten years older than Luis. He had a flabby build and a round, heavy-jowled face.
The man who stood behind the bound prisoners was about fifty. His build was big, but solid. He had a moustache and beard, neatly trimmed, and a gold ring at his right ear. Both men were dressed in a similar manner to Luis and were armed in the same way. Luis had a sombrero on his head while the other two allowed their headgear to hang down their backs.
‘One of the holy men is missing, Alberto,’ Pedro’s captor said. ‘The signal shot?’
Alberto shrugged. ‘Hold still,’ he told Father Ramon, and leaned his Winchester against the prisoner, stock on the ground and muzzle to the priest’s rump. He took out a cigar and lit it. ‘Bullets are expensive. Why be wasteful, Felipe?’
The Montez twins were ordered to halt, fifteen feet in front of the other three prisoners. From this close, Isabella and Pedro could see the shock in the eyes of Father Ramon and his helpers, and the tracks of their tears across their cheeks.
Alberto was smiling as he spoke. Now, as he blew out blue tobacco smoke, his expression became grim. ‘The father, Luis?’
‘It was not Señor Montez,’ Luis replied. ‘A gringo I never saw before.’
The cruel eyes of Alberto switched from Isabella to Pedro and back again. ‘Well?’
Pedro was tacitly defiant. Isabella had looked pityingly at the priest, then glanced about the courtyard, her eyes seeking the little Siamese.
‘Just we three?’ Alberto snarled.
Isabella looked fearfully at him. ‘The man is a friend who has helped us,’ she supplied, having difficulty speaking the words. ‘My father is dead. My mother, too. One killed by Indians. The other by American soldiers.’
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The obvious leader of the bandits nodded and vented a sigh of satisfaction. ‘It is good. Like I say, bullets are expensive. Two we save.’
Isabella gasped at the callousness of the man. Pedro dropped his hands from his head and curled one arm around the shoulders of his sister.
‘Do not torment us!’ he snarled at Alberto. ‘If you intend to kill us, do it now!’
Alberto was holding the cigar to his lips. He blew out another stream of smoke, then drew one of his Colts. His action was smooth and fast. Isabella screamed and felt her brother become rigid with terror.
The revolver bucked in the bandit’s hand. He drew calmly against the cigar. The bullet cracked between Father Ramon and one of his helpers, and tore into Pedro’s chest. The boy took a backward step, his arms falling to his sides. Blood blossomed into a large stain on his shirt front and he went down, curling into a fetal position. His sister’s scream reached a shrill peak and was curtailed. She crouched down beside the boy.
Alberto slid the revolver back into its holster and continued to smoke. ‘He asked and I gave, señorita the bandit said evenly. ‘We owe a favor to the Montez family. To your father, for writing of the gold to Luis. But your father can be given no more. So it is his son who collects.’
‘You are animals!’ Isabella tried to shriek. But her words emerged at the level of a hushed whisper as she raked her gaze around the impassive faces of the three bandits.
Alberto clenched the cigar between his tobacco-stained teeth and picked up his Winchester. He took two backward steps, into the deep shade of the porch. But the sunlight could still reach the barrel of the rifle as he leveled it, ‘No!’ the girl exclaimed, and this time her voice was loud. The single word as she sprang erect echoed between the facades of the surrounding buildings.
EDGE: Violence Trail (Edge series Book 25) Page 12
