His narrowed eyes, glinting slivers of ice blue under the hooded lids, searched, for something specific. Chief Acoti and his braves and the men from San Lucas were far away, the Indians probably scattered all over the border country to evade whites. To regroup later. Soon, Temple would realize that he and the others had no chance of engaging the enemy in a pitched battle in the mountains. That if such were possible, the Apaches would have fought at Black Bear Bluff. And once he realized this, the logical conclusion to be drawn was that Chief Acoti intended to achieve his original objective, come what may. Regrouped and with the squaws left in a place of safety, the Apaches would ride for El Cerro de Muerto. So Temple and his men would have to do likewise.
Thus it was, based upon this line of thinking, that Edge watched for a single rider. Little Fawn, who could well have slipped away from Black Bear Bluff under cover of the smoke and the frantic retreat of the Apaches. Watched as Edge and her husband rode away, then found a discarded rifle, captured a loose pony and moved out on their trail. Burning with hatred for Edge, irrespective of whether or not she considered Calvin to be a prisoner of the half-breed.
But if the young and pregnant squaw was trailing the two riders she stayed well hidden in the foothills of the Cedar Mountains and took no action against Edge. And the sun was well down behind the ridge of the Hatchets, the crescent moon and glittering stars were bright against the sky, and the cool night air was caressing the exposed skin of Butler and the half-breed when a muzzle flash stabbed through the darkness.
A short-lived finger of dazzling yellow, streaking away from the dark bulk of the Butler ranch house.
Edge hurled himself sideways off the mare, using the Spencer in a two-handed grip as a bar to crash into Butler’s side. So that the youngster and he toppled to the ground at the same time. Butler’s yell of pain and alarm sounded in unison with the crack of the gunshot.
The bullet hit a rock and ricocheted off to the left, some ten feet in front of where the two men lay and the horses veered away to the sides.
‘Shit!’ Butler rasped. Then tried to raise his voice to yell ‘Ma!’
A second muzzle flash. From the same spot as before - the stoop at the south-west front corner of the house. The bullet burrowing into the head of the gelding and dropping the horse into an inert heap. Fired by a rifle across a range of more than three hundred yards.
Edge cocked the hammer of the Spencer and bellied towards the dead horse, pulling himself along on his elbows.
‘No!’ the youngster implored and raised himself up on to his own elbows - cupping his hands around his mouth. ‘Ma!’ he shouted louder now. ‘Ma, it’s Calvin! Calvin and Edge!’
The half-breed achieved the cover of the carcass. And took aim across the unmoving neck. Drawing a bead on the area of darkness at the corner of the house. But staying his finger on the trigger. Within a fraction of an inch of exploding a shot the instant another muzzle flash stabbed out into the night.
‘Cal? Calvin? Am I hearin’ right?’
Lorna Butler’s voice was shrill with fear and expectation.
‘Yeah, Ma! It’s me! Don’t shoot no more! Look, I’m gonna stand up and show you!’
Calvin did as he promised. He made it up to his knees, fell over and then struggled painfully erect. He held his arms stretched out to the sides. The blanket cowl had slipped off his head.
‘And I got Edge with me! You remember Edge! You won’t shoot no more, will you, Ma?’
There was movement on the stoop. Then a sound. Not recognizable as the clatter of the discarded rifle on the boarding until Lorna Butler came running out of the moon shadow, arms outstretched towards her son.
He began a staggering run to meet her, moaning at the pain which the violent movements of his limbs triggered.
Edge vented a weary sigh and got to his feet. And by the time he had reached the mare and started to lead her by the reins, the mother and son were locked in an embrace. She sobbing and he speaking fast, soft-toned words.
When he was close enough to understand the words Calvin was speaking - a stream of tearful apologies - while Lorna Butler was countering with distressed demands to know what had happened, Edge made to swing around the couple. But the woman called his name. Then:
‘Will you tell me what’s been happening, mister ? Why Calvin’s dressed this way? And what you came—’
‘Okay, mister, you can take off now. You done what you figured you had to and I’m safe home with Ma.’
‘And just maybe the two of you can live happily ever after, feller,’ Edge muttered. ‘But it’s a little late in the day for me to ride off into the sunset.’
No longer in danger of intruding on private family talk, he led the mare directly past the Butlers and between the house and the barn. Then across the yard and into the stable. After he had tended to the feed and water needs of the horse, he went around to the front of the house. The door was open and the rifle was gone from the stoop. There was no light on inside. He could hear Calvin talking.
‘You got nothin’ to worry about, Ma. Chief Acoti won’t lead a war party on this place. But best you leave the lamp unlit anyway. I ain’t exactly good to look at under this blanket.’
Edge banged the barrel of the Spencer on the door-frame.
‘Not good to look at? What you talkin’ about, boy? You hurt? Those sonofabitchin’ Indians harm you?’
‘Come in, if you got to,’ Calvin called to Edge.
A match scraped and flared as the half-breed crossed the threshold. And Lorna Butler gasped. She was standing by the shelf between the two dilapidated armchairs. Her son was sprawled in one of the chairs, a Winchester rifle on the floor by his bare feet. Outside, as they approached the house, Calvin had apparently been able to hide his injuries from his mother. But now in the light of the match she could see the scabs on his arms, lower legs and on his chest where the blanket gaped.
‘Oh, my God!’ she shrieked.
She swayed, and dropped the match, which spluttered out.
‘I’ll take care of it myself!’ Calvin rasped.
Edge crossed to the kitchen section of the room and drew a cup of water from one of the drums. A second match was struck and touched to the wick of the kerosene lamp on the shelf.
‘I warned you about runnin’ with them savages, didn’t I warn you!’ Lorna Butler groaned. Her voice was still a little high-pitched, but she had herself under better control now. ‘I’ll light the range fire. Boil some water. You could get infected all over.’
Edge moved out of her way as she bustled into the kitchen area. And she seemed to be unaware of his presence as he sat gratefully on one of the chairs at the pine table, sipping the water from the cup.
He did not realize how near to exhaustion he was until he was seated. And experienced a brief feeling of admiration for the youngster’s stamina as he looked across the room and saw Calvin’s green eyes staring at him out of a face that was drawn and etched with great suffering in the soft light of the lamp.
‘I ain’t gonna say it again, mister.’
4What’s that?’
‘Thanks. Far as I’m concerned, we’re even.’
Lorna Butler was kneeling in front of the range, raking out the ashes. ‘Why don’t you go to your room, Cal,’ she urged. ‘Soon as I’ve boiled some water, I’ll come see to your cuts. And I’d like for Mr. Edge to stay awhile. He can tell me how you got to be in such a state.’
She was stone cold sober. And it was emotional strain rather than liquor which made her pronounce the words slowly and distinctly, as if she felt that to slur just a single syllable might tip her over the brink into hysteria.
‘I’m stayin’ right where I am, Ma. While he’s around. I don’t know why he’s still here. Or maybe I do.’
He shifted his attention away from Edge to glance at his mother. She was dressed in the same way as yesterday. And as she stooped and moved, pushing paper and kindling into the range, then setting light to it, her full curves pressed against the tight-
fitting shirt and pants.
Lorna Butler looked at her son and confirmed from his expression what she thought she had heard in his voice.
‘You think that at a time like this I would—’
‘Not you, Ma,’ Calvin cut in. ‘But it could be that he’s been havin’ second thoughts about what happened yesterday.’
‘Have to admit I thought about it the once, feller,’ Edge said after he had drained the cup dry, briefly recalling the sight of Lorna Butler sprawled on the ground in a drunken stupor. ‘But we all make mistakes.’
‘Thanks for nothin’,’ the woman snapped as she began to fill a pot of water.
‘Don’t trust him, Ma. He ain’t hangin’ around here because he likes the friggin’ scenery.’
Edge pursed his lips and let his breath whistle out. Then he took the Colt Paterson from under his belt, set it on the table and got to his feet. ‘Needed the drink of water and to sit on something that wasn’t moving for awhile, is all.’ He took a dollar bill from his hip pocket and dropped it on the ancient revolver. ‘For what my horse had got through out in the stable.’
The woman whirled around at the range. ‘I’m sorry! Don’t go!’
I don’t know what’s between Calvin and you. But I know I’ve got no call to get on my high horse. I deserve any bad mouthin’ you give me.’
‘Forget it, Ma!’ her son said shrilly. ‘We don’t need him. We don’t need no one. I done a lot of thinkin’ on the ride from Black Bear Bluff. Soon as I’m able, I’m gonna go try to find Little Fawn. And God willin’, I’ll find her, Ma. She’s gonna have a baby. I didn’t tell you that before, did I? You’re gonna be a grandmother pretty soon. In a few months. But the kid won’t be born around here. I’ll find Little Fawn and we’ll all clear out of this part of the country. Build a place like this. But on land where we’ll have a chance of makin’ a real go of things. Where we’ll be able to forget all—’
Lorna Butler’s face had become ugly with bitterness from the moment her son revealed that Little Fawn was pregnant. And she no longer listened to him after that - was concentrating on finding the words which would express how she felt.
‘Just like your rotten father!’ she said at length, cutting across his voice and driving him deeper into silence with the intensity of emotion in her staring eyes. ‘The both of you runnin’ with the stinkin’ savages for just one reason and pretendin’ it was somethin’ else. Him always sayin’ it was so the Apaches’d leave him alone to scratch for silver. And now you, lyin’ about tryin’ to hit back at San Lucas folks. And the both of you suckin’ up to the friggin’ savages because you lusted after their women! Couldn’t be content with women of your own kind and had—’
‘No, Ma!’ Calvin shrieked. And tried to rise from the chair. But his limbs had become too stiff and he groaned in agony and fell back. ‘Little Fawn and me … she’s the only one ... you got it all wrong!’
‘Wrong, have I? Your rotten father screwed around at every friggin’ Apache camp where all the squaws weren’t toothless hags. And you got his blood in your veins. It got him killed in the end. And look at you!’ She spat forcefully into the bubbling water in the pot on the range. ‘What was your dark-skinned whore doin’ while that was happenin’?’
‘Shut up, Ma!’ Cal shrieked. ‘Shut your filthy mouth about my wife! She ain’t no whore. I was the first! She ain’t like you! She ain’t never spread her legs for a bottle of cheap liquor!’ He lashed out with a bare foot and kicked the Winchester: managed to trap the scream of pain in his throat but could not prevent a grimace contorting his features as he suffered the effects of the move and the impact. ‘All the whiskey gone from San Lucas now? You started sellin’ your body for guns instead?’
His mother used the time it took him to vent his anger to bring her own fury under control. And her voice was pitched close to normal when she spoke: raking her eyes from Calvin to Edge - who had moved to the doorway - and back again.
‘I was given the rifle. With nothin’ asked in return. By Cass Lutter.’
‘That penny-pinchin’ crud don’t give nothin’ away,’ her son snarled.
The bitter comment from her intransigent son convinced Lorna Butler that only Edge would listen to her with an open mind. And her eyes pleaded for a hearing from the tall, lean half-breed who stood on the threshold.
‘Cass was always good to me. Better than all the rest. He rode out this mornin’ and told me about the army men bein’ killed and Temple headin’ up a posse to go after the savages that done it. He wanted me to go to town with him. Said it looked like the Apaches was fixin’ to go on the warpath. And if they did they’d kill any whites they could. But I told him I’d rather take my chances out here than suffer the kind of treatment the women of San Lucas would give me. After I told him I didn’t have a gun, he left me the rifle. I took them shots at you because I thought you was savages.’
‘All you hit was a horse, lady,’ the half-breed said. ‘It wasn’t mine, so no harm done. Far as I’m concerned.’
‘You’re all friggin’ heart, mister!’ Calvin growled
‘He brought you back home,’ his mother tossed towards the youngster. Then gazed at Edge to urge, ‘Please stay. It’s the town the Apaches aim to hit. That’s for certain. You head for there, you’ll be ridin’ into trouble. But if you stay here it could be they’ll pass us by.’
‘I don’t figure I scare them that much, lady.’
She shook her head. ‘You know what I mean. It’s safer here than in town.’
‘Safer still a long way from either place,’ Edge answered.
The woman squeezed her eyes tight closed, clenched her fists at her sides and sighed. ‘Well, I ain’t gonna go down on my knees and beg you to stay, mister,’ she said quietly.
‘That’s right, Ma,’ her son put in quickly. ‘We don’t need him. Hey, I just had a thought. Maybe we won’t need to go find Little Fawn. What with all the shootin’ and runnin’ at the bluff, maybe she ducked outta sight. I told her about this place lots of times. She could be headin’ this way even now. You fix me up, Ma, and we’ll be able to get the hell away soon as she comes. You, me, Little Fawn and the baby she’s gonna have.’
Lorna Butler’s once beautiful and still handsome face suddenly looked as haggard as that of Calvin’s. She licked her slightly pouted lips, like someone who was thirsty. But in her case, not for water.
‘All right, son,’ she said, defeated. ‘And like he said, live happily ever after.’
Calvin’s features became youthful again as he grinned - and there was a glint of triumph in his green eyes as he swung his head to look across the lamplit room at Edge. ‘Good-bye, mister.’
His mother was dull-eyed when she nodded, and said, ‘You’re the kind who has to go his own way, ain’t you?’
The half-breed showed a cold grin to each of them in turn, flicked the index finger of his left hand against the underside of his hat brim, and answered, ‘Never have been one to run with the pack, ma’am. And you don’t need a joker for happy families.’
Chapter Eleven
Edge reflected briefly on the Butlers as he rode the mare - still barebacked and controlling her with an Apache rope bridle and reins - down the south-west trail towards San Lucas. And decided that he wished them well.
Calvin, although he favored his mother in physical appearance, obviously had - as Lorna pointed out - inherited many of his father’s characteristics. And the youngster had set out to achieve what he felt very strongly he had to do by siding with the Apaches against the whites. Naively, maybe, in the way he trusted the Indians. But then the son did not have his father’s advantages of maturity and experience. And there had been no serious flashpoint between the Apaches and the whites until the silver lode was discovered under El Cerro de Muerto.
While Lorna had been a faithful wife and then a dutiful widowed mother through bad times, until it seemed that fate had robbed her of her son just as surely as her husband was taken from her. And in the even harsher times
that followed she harmed nobody but herself by selling her body for the liquor that insulated her against the loneliness of her life.
The half-breed rolled a cigarette, struck a match on the Spencer stock and spat to the side before he lit the tobacco. He closed his eyes for the moment when the match flared. So that in the following moment his pupils were just as dilated as before, able to maintain their apparently casual surveillance over the moonlit terrain.
Yeah, he wished the Butlers well. But doubted if the unseen wounds would heal as quickly as the cuts in Calvin’s flesh. Probably would never heal. The mother hated the Apaches too deeply and her son’s wife was half-Apache. The son hated his mother for becoming a bottle-a-screw whore and knew he was to blame.
Tonight, the son needed solace and comfort for his hurt. And his condition reawakened the long dormant maternal instincts within her. But despite these circumstances, Lorna Butler was aware of the loneliness Calvin could not assuage and so had desperately wanted Edge to stay at the house. While to Calvin, the half-breed had represented every San Lucas man who had violated his mother’s body.
Edge had left, but not as a final payment of the debt he owed the youngster. They had agreed this account was settled. His reason was entirely practical and a matter of total self-interest. He needed to re-equip himself and his horse and get fresh supplies from San Lucas, while the town on El Cerro de Muerto still existed.
He put all thoughts of the Butlers out of his mind as he continued to ride the south-west trail. Not entirely content, for he would have preferred to make better speed. But the mare was as weary as he was, so he chose to conserve energy by maintaining an easy pace: and counted on the Apaches taking time to shake off pursuit, regroup and launch their attack.
EDGE: Red Fury (Edge series Book 33) Page 10
