Edge realized that he was probably supposed to serve the drinks and urge the guests to start eating. But after he had opened the first bottle the other men - the isolation of life on far-spread farms leaving them short of the proprieties - immediately set the pace for eating and drinking. He was grateful for this. For after the further embarrassment of having to stand beside Elizabeth again - like some tableau in a city museum - and be toasted by the guests, he was relieved of all formal duties.
“Tell me something,” the preacher asked as Danny Ross, encouraged by his father, took a mouth organ from his pocket and began to play My Western Home.
Elizabeth was in whispered conversation with Mrs. Striker and Mrs. Cain. Edge stood in the kitchen doorway, watching the children as they attacked the food and the men downing drinks. The wedding feast was disappearing with encouraging rapidity.
“What’s that?”
“How did you come to be called Edge, Mr. Hedges?”
Edge’s expression changed as his mind travelled back across the blood-soaked years, recalling the shouted threat which had followed him into the night after he had sliced half a man’s face away.* (*See: Edge: The Loner) In the few short moments while the tall half-breed reflected on the distant past, his eyes narrowed to glinting slits and his mouth was formed into a thin, cruel line. The preacher saw the expression and felt his insides tighten with fear, sensing the evil and violence lurking beneath the surface veneer of the man. “Long time ago and a long way from here, preacher,” Edge replied softly, moderating his expression as he saw the other man’s nervousness, but injecting into his voice a tone which warned against further enquiry.
“Should we call you Mr. Hedges or Mr. -”
A shrill whistle cut across the drone of the mouth organ and babble of conversation. In the next instant the front door burst open and the kitchen window shattered. Two rifles exploded as a single sound. The bullet fired by the brave at the front door tore into the back of the preacher’s neck and angled upwards, bursting clear, in a spray of blood and membrane, through his right eye.
In the kitchen, Cain threw himself in front of the younger Striker boy as he saw the rifle barrel zero in through the smashed window. The bullet punctured his lung and he gasped a shower of blood into the face of the screaming child.
For a second, as the Indians worked the lever actions of their rifles, drunken eyes raking over terrified faces in search of the next targets, only one man moved. The shrieks of women and screams of children merged into an ear-piercing, high-pitched sound of boundless terror as Edge launched himself across the room.
He saw the muzzle of the Indian’s rifle swing around to cover him and waited a split-second for the dark-skinned finger to grow tense around the trigger. Then he went down and to the side, rolling. He knocked Mildred Johnston hard to the floor with his shoulder as the Winchester roared. The bullet ricocheting off the coffee pot on the hob and gouged a long furrow along Mrs. Cain’s forearm.
Edge snatched a flaming log from the fire as another rifle shot sounded in the kitchen and a man screamed. Elizabeth went into a crouch and darted across to the injured Cain woman. The brave in the doorway uttered a wailing war cry as he pumped another shell into the breech. Edge hurled the blazing log, springing to his feet. The log spun through the air, trailing smoke and dripping flaming splinters. It smashed into the Indian’s face. He gave an agonized roar and staggered backwards, dropping his rifle and flinging his hands up to his face. Edge lunged across the thresh-hold, his right hand streaking towards the back of his neck.
As he emerged into the biting cold outside, his arm swung down, hand clutching the razor. The Indian’s feathers and hair were on fire, but he was still on his feet. His eyes flashed hatred between scorched skin and he jerked out his tomahawk and threw it in a single, fluid action. Edge dove under the spinning weapon and thrust the razor forward and up. An agonized scream split the air just behind him. But the Indian merely gasped. The blade of the razor sank deep into his naked stomach and swept up to his throat with the ease of a twig trailed in water. Drenching blood erupted from the gigantic split in his flesh and he fell backwards, his body opened up from navel to Adam’s apple.
A gun roared, inside the cabin, and Edge whirled. Mary Johnston had tried to escape through the front door. Now she was in a grotesque sitting position, back resting against the frame. The entire blade of the tomahawk was buried deep in the centre of her chest. Four fingers of her left hand were scattered on the ground from where she had made a futile attempt to fend off the weapon. They looked like red and white chips of wood. A gold wedding band glinted dully on one of them.
Edge leapt across her body, aware of the sudden silence which had settled over the cabin, punctured by an occasional sob or child’s whimper. Elizabeth stood in the centre of the room, the brave’s Winchester still aimed from her shoulder. The second brave had got into the cabin, but not far. Her shot had taken him in the side of the head, splashing blood and brain matter across the kitchen wall. It had been a second too late to save Ed Johnston. The farmer’s body was sprawled across the food table beneath that of the Indian. The hilt and handle of the brave’s knife seemed to be growing out of Johnston’s open mouth: the point had burst clear at the back and pinned the man’s head to the table.
A downdraught whined into the chimney and wood smoke billowed from the fireplace. It masked the acrid odor of exploded powder. People began to cough, then to shiver as fresh, ice-cold air streamed in through the open doorway.
“Oh, my God!” Sarah Striker screamed, rushing across the room to where her two babies gurgled happily on a spread blanket.
The other women, the trembling of shock taking over from the shivering of cold, staggered from room to room, seeking out their children. Mildred Johnston, a thin wailing sound pouring from her lips, flung herself into the kitchen and dragged the brave off her father’s body. Then she pulled the knife from his mouth and began to slap his face, her hysteria rising as his staring eyes continued to show a complete lack of response.
Edge wiped the razor on his pants leg and slid it back into the pouch as he moved to the side of his wife and eased the Winchester away from her. She looked at him blankly for stretched seconds, and only then did the shock pass so that she could recognize him. She flung herself suddenly into his arms.
“I’m not going to break down, Edge,” she whispered. “It’s not new to me, is it? I’ve been through it all before – the blood and the agony and the death.”
She had, but Edge knew it made no difference. He could see it in the way she held her eyes tight shut and fists clenched and could feel it in the taut stiffness of her body pressing hard against his own. And he knew it would take more than a word of agreement to prevent her pitching into hysteria. So, as he felt the first tremor shake her body, he stepped away from her. His right arm continued to encircle her shoulders. His left hand folded into a fist. Her eyes remained screwed shut, but her mouth fell open to vent a scream of released shock. He pulled the punch, but clipped her hard enough on the side of the jaw to drop a dark blanket over her tormented mind. Her body sagged and he swept her easily into his arms.
Danny Ross’s eyes held harsh accusation as he stared at Edge. “What you do that for, mister?” he gasped.
“Man ought to start marriage the way he means to go on, kid,” the half-breed answered, heading for the door to the cabin’s only bedroom. “I can’t stand a noisy woman.” He didn’t mean it to sound harsh: had a vague idea of injecting something into the tragic atmosphere which would at least help the boy to appreciate that life went on despite death. But Edge had learned the lesson too well himself - had lived through too much death. So much so that he had grown indifferent to it. So that the familiar cold grin curled his lips as he spoke and the utter lack of compassion in his slitted eyes combined with the mirthless smile to reveal his true attitude to the carnage the Sioux braves had brought to his wedding day. He was left alive, and so was Elizabeth. And he could feel nothing that others had
died around him because there had been too many years of blood-soaked violence, draining him of the capacity to pity.
He went into the bedroom and closed the door on the reproachful stare of the boy. He laid his wife’s limp form gently on the bed, then went to the fireplace and struck a match to the balled up paper among the ready-set logs. It was very cold in the room and the fire took a long time to generate heat to all the corners. During this period, Edge sat on the foot of the bed, staring out of the window at the sun-sparkled water of the lake. For the most part, Elizabeth breathed evenly, as if she had slipped from enforced unconsciousness into a deep sleep accepted willingly by a mind unprepared yet to face the horrors which waking would bring. But occasionally, a low moan would escape her lips and her arms would flail weakly.
The sounds of grief and shock from the living room and kitchen gradually diminished and eventually there was just the shuffle of feet and low murmuring of occasional instructions as the dead were carried outside.
“My God, what are we going to do?” Elizabeth whispered.
Edge turned to look at her and saw she was staring up at the ceiling with wide eyes. There was a dark, painful looking bruise on her jaw, but she made no move to touch it. Her body was motionless.
“You heard what the preacher said,” Edge replied. “Death hasn’t parted us yet.”
Knuckles rapped lightly on the door panel and Edge stood and moved across the room. He pulled open the door and Mrs. Cain lifted her tear-ravaged face to look at him.
“George is dead,” she said dully. “So’s the Reverend Dawson and Mr. and Mrs. Johnston. We’re going into town. It’ll be safer there. You and Elizabeth ought to come with us.”
The living room was empty except for Mrs. Cain, who was holding her savagely gashed arm across her body with her other hand. But her eyes showed no pain. They were as dull and flat as her voice. Edge glanced over his shoulder at Elizabeth. She was still staring up at the rough planking of the ceiling, but she had heard Mrs. Cain’s suggestion and sensed her husband’s eyes on her.
“The Reverend Dawson spoke the words,” she reminded him hoarsely. “Love, honor and obey. I made the promise.”
Edge nodded and looked back at the new widow. “Obliged you thought of us,” he said. “But I reckon we’ll stay at home.”
Mrs. Cain’s numbing grief was pierced by a flicker of concern. “But the Indians?” she exclaimed. “Those two were only the start of it.”
“Mrs. Cain!” Jed Hayhurst called from outside.
“You’re set on staying here?”
Edge nodded. The woman looked around him and nodded to Elizabeth, then moved to the front door of the cabin.
“It would be polite to see them off, Edge,” Elizabeth suggested softly.
Edge moved in the wake of Mrs. Cain. Of the white dead, only their blood remained to show where they had fallen. But the unmoving corpses of the two braves had been left where they were. He watched Mrs. Cain climb aboard the Hayhurst wagon. The dead were loaded on the Cain’s buckboard, which was driven by Bertha Striker. Jim Striker drove his own buggy. The preacher’s buggy, with the horse still in the shafts, was where the Reverend Dawson had left it.
“Reckon you’re a fool not to come with us,” Striker growled. “But even a fool deserves a chance. Savages slaughtered your horses. Reckon the preacher wouldn’t mind if he knew we left you and the wife his horse and buggy.”
“Obliged,” Edge replied as the drivers ducked to their horses and turned them towards the lakeshore trail which headed for town. “I’ll bring both in when I come to town to fix up supplies.”
“To give to the Sioux,” Ephraim Ross called wryly.
“What’s mine ain’t easy to take away,” Edge answered.
He watched his departing guests until they were clear of the yard, then turned back into the cabin. Through the open doorway of the bedroom he could see that Elizabeth was still in the same position on the bed. He went into the kitchen and lifted the dead Sioux’s moccasin-clad feet to drag the body across the living room and out of the front door. He heard his wife begin to cry, very softly. He closed the door on the sound and caught hold of the second dead Indian in the same manner as the first. Then he hauled both of them across the frozen ground of the yard to the shore of the lake. Fragments of iced blood crackled and broke away from the bodies, leaving a trail.
He rested for a moment, his expelled breath looking like grey smoke in the air. Then he lifted each body and hurled it as far out into the water as his strength permitted. They splashed to their watery graves several yards from shore. Bubbles rose to mark the spots for a few moments, and the surface of the lake became calm again.
Then he squatted down, took out the makings and rolled a cigarette. The cold stream of air from the north made it difficult to strike a match. So after he had smoked the first cigarette, he lit the second from the stub of the old one. He fired four more in the same manner, and smoked them in reflective silence, unaware of the sun passing its midday peak to begin its slow slide towards the western horizon: and not hearing the sounds made by Elizabeth as she moved about inside the cabin.
For his consciousness was turned inwards, excluding all outside influences, as he considered the mistake he had made in marrying Elizabeth. If he had thought about it before, he would have realized he was one of life’s losers – doomed to win only his own survival while those around him perished. That he had never considered his existence in this way before was due to the fact that it had never mattered. For while survival was the only important thing, the winning of it was paramount. But it had all been a trick of fate. All the agony and the killing had only seemed to wring him dry of emotion: in fact, all the normal human feelings had been driven into the deep storage of his heart. And there they had remained, waiting the right moment to be released by love for a woman.
Elizabeth had opened that store and Edge, confounded by the stupor with which love is able to enshroud the strongest of men, had been fooled into believing a new kind of life was being offered to him.
But it was not to be. As he straightened from his squatting position, becoming suddenly aware of how intensely cold he was, he acknowledged the certainty that he was destined to lose Elizabeth. The two Sioux braves, now resting on the bed of the lake, could have as easily killed her as the others. That they had not harmed her was just another twist of fate, designed - Edge was sure - to warn him of the futility of seeking happiness. He was supposed to suffer anguish every second of time until the fatal blow was struck. But as he turned to walk back towards the cabin, the coldness attacking his flesh was as nothing compared to that which knifed into and stayed in his mind.
As he approached the door, it was opened and Elizabeth stood there. Beyond her, the cabin was neat and spotlessly clean again. There was not a trace of the carnage to be seen and Edge realized he must have stayed out by the lake a very long time.
“Where have you been?” she asked as he stepped across the threshold, feeling the heat from the fire caress his face and body.
“Guess you could say I’ve been drowning my sorrows,” he answered.
“You took a bottle out there?”
“Water was good enough.”
She looked at him quizzically, then shrugged. “You’re cold, Edge,” she said, taking his hands in hers.
He stared deep into the green pools of her eyes, trying to form the words to tell her of his decision. “Clean through,” he replied at length.
“Come over to the fire,” she said, tugging at him gently. “Get warm.”
He shook his head. “That’s only good for the outside, Beth,” he told her softly. “I’m death on legs. Ain’t nothing can warm that out of me.”
“Goodness, what are you talking about?” Elizabeth demanded.
“Killing follows me around,” he answered, allowing himself to be led to the fire and letting her urge him into a padded armchair. “It never mattered before because I didn’t give a damn for anyone except me. But now it’s differe
nt. I’m gonna lose you, Beth. And I’d rather see you walk away from me alive than—”
“You stop that kind of talk, you hear!” she snapped, dropping to her knees in front of him and staring up into his face with imploring eyes. “Death on legs, indeed! You’re no different from any other man. Except that you’re the one I love.”
Edge looked down at her upturned face and struggled to generate the hate that was supposed to be over the narrow dividing line from love. But he found it was not so easy as that. The coldness was still a palpable force within him, but he could not direct it towards the woman kneeling at his feet.
And when she smiled suddenly, he gave up trying. Her hands went to the back of her neck and her fingers began to work busily.
“What are you doing?” he asked quickly, as he realized she was unfastening the buttons at the back of her dress.
She held the smile in place. “If you’re so sure I’m going to catch something fatal from you, I don’t want to go as a virgin angel,” she answered easily, then laughed at the shocked expression which crossed his face. “We’re married now, Edge,” she reminded him. “And the preacher said something about that making it all right to satisfy our carnal desires.”
Edge blinked, immediately forgetting the recent killings and the result of his long period of self-examination. Elizabeth softened her smile and rose slowly to her feet, holding the dress in place with her chin. Then, as she tilted up her head, the neckline fell away. The firm mounds of her pink-crested breasts thrust nakedly forward at his eye level. She wriggled her hips briefly and shook her arms. The dress pulled free of her wrists and fell softly to the floor about her feet. A heat much greater than that from the fire engulfed Edge’s body, inside and out, as he raked his eyes over the pale nakedness of his wife. The red triangle crowning the twin columns of her slender legs held his gaze like some tangible force demanding his undivided attention. But, at the same time, a counter-force held him transfixed in the chair, unable to move.
Sioux Uprising (Edge series Book 11) Page 2
