Elizabeth’s short laugh cut across the invisible ties which held Edge and his gaze swept up to her face. He saw a mischievous sparkle in her eyes.
“You said you were going to see me, so I got ready to show you,” she said, pointing across the room to where her undergarments were stacked in a neatly-folded pile on a bureau. “You’re showing a flush, Edge. I’ll want to see what else you’ve got before I know you can take me.”
He had to force the words out around a lump in his throat. “I’m playing with two hands,” he croaked, feasting his eyes on her rippling flesh again.
“So, why don’t you use them, Edge,” she urged softly, taking a step closer to him.
He rose to meet her and as she sagged against him, he lifted her in his arms. “You’re ready to go for the middle?”
She nodded, and showed nervousness for the first time. “But it’s a bluff, Edge. I’ve never played this game before,” she said softly.
He carried her to the bedroom, moving sideways through the doorway. “Just take it easy, Beth,” he replied as he laid her gently on the bed. “Nothing wild.”
He quickly stripped off his clothing and Elizabeth’s innocent nervousness increased with each new plane of his hard body which was revealed to her.
“What do I have to do to please you?” she whispered as he stretched out on the bed beside her, cradling her head in the crook of his arm as his hand cupped her breast.
“Lose something I’m glad you saved for me, Beth,” he answered, his lips moving lightly on hers.
She made one final attempt to keep up the light-hearted poker analogy. “So what have you got?” The tears began to stream down her face, but no sound emerged from her trembling lips. Edge rolled on top of her and sank into her. She gasped her pain.
“A natural straight,” he murmured.
CHAPTER THREE
For Edge and Elizabeth, the terror which had struck so tragically on their wedding day seemed to become a distant memory from the moment of their waking after they first made love. The following morning, Edge fixed the broken window in the kitchen and buried the dead horses in the corral. Elizabeth busied herself with making curtains while he attended to these chores, and when he was finished they didn’t talk about what he had done.
Nor did they talk about the Indian raid in the days and weeks which followed – and there was little time to think about it, or anything else. For they filled the daylight hours with work on the spread, driving themselves so hard that at nights they fell into a deep sleep immediately after they had made love.
Edge received a gruesome reminder one morning, when water-bloated and fish-nibbled bodies of the two braves drifted into the shore of the lake. The hardly recognizable Indian forms were bound together by a tangle of weeds and he buried them like that, in the soft mud of an inlet, above the waterline now that the spring sunshine had evaporated the excess of winter rain from the lake.
He considered mentioning his find to Elizabeth, but decided against it. Despite the conclusions he had drawn from his period of introspection on that bitterly cold day, his life with Elizabeth had so far proved immeasurably happy. And his wife gave every impression of sharing his joy. But each morning when he awoke, his first act was to reach out and touch her sleeping form. He recognized this as a symptom of continued distrust of the new phase in his life. And he did not want to give fate the least opportunity to attack him again. So he held his silence, fearful that Elizabeth would be reminded of his invitation for her to leave him – and take it because the reappearance of the dead braves was proof of his assertion that wherever he went and whatever he did, violence would never be far away.
So he did not tell Elizabeth about the graves in the inlet and pushed the fact into the back of his own mind, to where most of his past had been relegated. It was safe there, for he was able to draw a blind across everything that had happened to him up to the day Elizabeth had agreed to become his wife. He was helped in this by the woman, who was never moved to ask questions about his past. Just as Edge never voiced any curiosity about Elizabeth’s life during the years before he met her. They merely accepted each other for what they were, choosing to ignore the circumstances which formed the character of their partner.
It was as if both had been reborn on the day of their wedding, with a new destiny: which was to love each other to the exclusion of all outside influences. A measure of their success was that Edge felt himself unburdened of his fatalistic attitude and Elizabeth discovered that her plans to alter her husband did not have to be put into effect For Edge, born of farming stock, was able to settle back into the mould without the least difficulty: and in so doing, the taint of the killer was gradually eradicated, the ambience of violence dropping away from him in stages like discarded clothing.
Within two months, as they ploughed and planted the fields, built a barn and remodeled the cabin into a house suitable for family life rather than the habitat of a drunken old-timer, Edge became a new man – to himself and in the eyes of a wife who grew to love him with greater intensity each day. Elizabeth began to call him by his given name of Josiah and eventually he thought of himself thus, rejecting Edge as a harsh-sounding nom de guerre that had no part in his new life. It was as if it belonged to another man entirely.
When he went to town – at first accompanied by Elizabeth and then, as rumors of a Sioux uprising diminished, on his own – the people he met addressed him either as Mr. Hedges or Joe. He never went to Spearville except for a practical reason: to return the buggy and buy a wagon and team and then to purchase supplies, farm equipment and seed. The money for these necessities of life came from the bankroll he had earned in Summer. This was kept in a secret hideaway he had discovered in the bedroom of the cabin while he was fixing a section of wall-paneling which had developed the rot. The paneling concealed an alcove to the right of the fireplace and whatever its original purpose, it had been used by old man McCord to store his supply of whiskey. There was still a dozen bottles lining two of the narrow shelves at the back of the high, narrow closet when Edge discovered the panel had hinges. It was the cheapest kind of rot gut and he emptied the raw liquor into the lake. Then he made and fixed in place a new door which blended with the rest of the wall in as clever a way as the old one. And it was behind this that he lodged the money left over after his purchase of the property.
As gentle spring gave way to a fierce summer, the stack of bills became smaller. But the spending of the money was producing results in the form of material prosperity. The cabin and its extensions were worth at least three times what Edge had paid for the property and the fields around pit on three sides were richly carpeted with ripening wheat and rye.
Edge felt deservedly content and at peace with the world as he harnessed the two horse team to the buckboard in the warm sunlight of an early August day. He was going into Spearville to check on the availability of a couple of milk cows. He had already fenced off the sloping pasture that extended from the back of the wheat field to the tree line of the spruce forest behind the house and, following a discussion with Elizabeth, had decided that cows would be more useful to them than the horses he had originally intended to buy.
Elizabeth emerged from the house just as he was finishing tightening the traces to the correct tension. She wore the red and green floral-patterned dress he had bought for her on a previous trip to town - one of the few luxuries he had indulged in amid so many necessities of life. She had rebuked him for the waste of money, because the dress had been made for beauty rather than practicality. It was low cut and hugged her figure like a second skin to the waist, then flared away in the froth of many petticoats to her ankles. Hardly the gown for a farmer’s wife who had no interest in even the limited social activity of Spearville. But Edge enjoyed seeing her in the dress so she wore it from time to time, during the few inactive periods in their busy life on the farm.
“Something special, Beth?” he asked, turning at the sound offer footfalls across the yard. His clear blue eyes, wide
and gentle, drank in the sight of her like a young man experiencing the first nervous stirrings of love.
She smiled as she held out the hundred dollars she had taken from the hideaway. “Ten minutes after you’ve gone, I’ll be back in grey denim,” she replied. “But I’d prefer you to remember me like this in case you go into the saloon and happen to see the dancing girls.”
Edge grinned as he took the money, put it in his shirt pocket and swept his wife into his arms. He kissed her gently on the lips, then looked down at the exposed tops of her breasts as they flattened slightly against his chest. “If I remember you like this, I won’t even look at The Crazy Lady girls,” he promised. “But if any one of them just happens to catch my eye, there’s an even better memory, of you I got in reserve.”
From the moments preceding the consummation of their marriage, Elizabeth had never displayed modesty, false or genuine, in regard to their love-making. Now she laughed, the sound shrill and clear in the quiet morning air. “Just so long as you don’t try making any comparisons, Joe.”
He kissed her lightly once more, then swung up on to the seat of the buckboard. As he looked down at her the sunlight struck her red hair at such an angle that it seemed to be run with threads of gold. He could not recall when he had last seen her looking so radiantly beautiful.
“The Crazy Ladies saloon might be like heaven to some fellers,” he said. “But they sure don’t have any angels there.”
She bobbed her body in an overplayed curtsey in acknowledgement of the compliment, then trilled with laughter again. “Must be all that ambrosia I’ve been eating,” she said.
“The guy at the grocery stores told me it was canned rice,” Edge answered.
“He’s just got no imagination,” Elizabeth countered.
“But I have,” Edge said, tearing his gaze away from her upper body, its every curve faithfully reproduced by the dress. “And I better get rolling before it starts working overtime.”
The laughter went out of her green eyes to be replaced by devotion. “The sooner you go, the sooner you’ll be back, Joe,” she said. “Take care.”
“I will,” he promised, and clucked to the horses, tugging on the reins so that they hauled the buckboard in a tight turn.
He drove out along the trail which curved around the shore of the lake, and didn’t look back. But when he reached the far shore he glanced across the sparkling mirror of the broad sheet of water and saw that she was still standing in the yard before the cabin. He waved and she responded, then waited until he had swung away from her again, on the trail snaking between the hills towards Spearville before she turned and entered the house.
She went into the kitchen and there was enough coffee in the pot to pour herself half a cup. She took a long time to drink it, enjoying this period of deep reflection upon her happiness: marveling at the unruffled calm which had come to a partnership created amid so much tragedy. But then sadness intruded upon her reflections, arising from the empty stillness in the house which stressed the lack of her husband’s presence.
She knew how to deal with this, however: had learned on the previous infrequent occasions when Edge was gone that the only way to alleviate the threat of depression which his absence brought was to throw herself into work. So she rose from the kitchen table and went out into the living room, deciding that Edge’s trip to Spearville presented her with the perfect opportunity to decorate the bedroom. She had asked him to buy two cans of pale blue paint several weeks ago, without telling him why she wanted them. He had probably forgotten all about the purchase by now and her handiwork would be a complete surprise to him.
As she crossed the threshold into the bedroom she rubbed the ache in the small of her back. A bird whistled shrilly from the spruce forest above the cabin. She smiled and thoughts about the old adage which linked the color of blue with a boy. She realized it was a foolish whim, but acknowledged that her determination to paint the bedroom blue wall strengthened by the hope that it would provide a lucky omen. She wanted desperately for the baby forming inside her to be a boy.
The bird among the trees whistled again, and she frowned. There was something derisive in the sound. But then she smiled and hummed as she prepared to start work. All her other dreams had come true and she was not going to allow any stupid bird to mar her newest hope.
CHAPTER FOUR
Spearville was not much of a town. Just a short main street with three narrower ones leading off the north side and petering out to nothing after two hundred feet or so. But, as the only settlement of more than a few buildings in a rich farm belt, it was reasonably prosperous. It had. a half dozen stores stocking the essentials of life in the rugged Dakotas and one of these - Rand’s Dry Goods had a section at the rear devoted to such trifles as ladies ready-made gowns, candy-bars for the kids and even books and out-of-date magazines.
It was to this emporium of unnecessaries that Edge went after concluding his deal with the agent of a Kansas cattle-breeder. He had obtained what he considered a bargain and decided to celebrate by buying Elizabeth a present. He selected a much-thumbed and incomplete set of the works of William Shakespeare which, Mrs. Rand told him, had belonged to the late Reverend Dawson. But there was nothing within the books to reveal their last owner. In the autumn and winter evenings to come, when the weather and early darkness halted work at the farm, Elizabeth would appreciate the books.
He left the store and placed them under the seat of the buckboard. The two cows tethered to the rear eyed him balefully and swished their tails at the irritating flies which buzzed in the hot air of late morning. The two horses were content under the shade of the awning outside the store. He had intended to head straight back to the farm after concluding his business in town, but the drive in had been dusty and the frame buildings flanking the street seemed to hold the heat of many days in a closed trap.
The painted cut-out of a foaming glass of beer hung above the sidewalk in front of the saloon looked almost real, and Edge was made very aware of his dry throat as he glanced across the street. “Come on over and take a drink.” Edge turned towards the speaker. It was the stern-faced Jed Hayhurst, who had stepped out from the barber’s shop, his hair neatly clipped and his face white with talc after a shave. “It sounds like a good idea,” Edge replied. Hayhurst nodded and the two men moved out into the sunlight, quickening their pace towards the cool-looking shadows beyond the batswing doors of The Crazy Ladies. There were a half-dozen men inside, four engaged in a poker game and two leaning on the bar, fanning themselves with their hats. Inside, it was not so cool as it had looked from the street and the two girls sitting near the piano were sweating as freely as the men. Salty moisture had cut furrows through the heavy make-up on their faces and there were dark stains on their dresses beneath their armpits. Edge thought fleetingly of Elizabeth’s good-natured warning and the corners of his mouth turned up in a smile.
The girls’ expressions had been morose, but as the two men crossed to the bar, they raised sensual looks of allure and stood up. Their bodies adopted an accentuated swaying motion as they moved between the tables, hands smoothing the dresses over their hips.
“Like to buy a couple of nice girls a drink, fellers?” the blonde asked.
Up close, her black roots showed. So did her age, which was at least ten years more than the twenty-five she had looked from the doorway. Her more recently rinsed partner was even older.
“Two beers,” Hayhurst told the fat bartender.
“That all?”
“Obliged,” Edge told him.
“I said—” the blonde began, her smile wilting. “If you go find us a couple of nice girls, we’ll consider it,” Edge interrupted.
The blonde swung around to stare at the bartender, her eyes blazing with anger. “He’s insulting us, Jake!” she exclaimed.
Jake was midway through pouring the second beer. He looked up and at Edge, his obese frame starting to grow taut and his expression hardening. It was obvious he intended to come to the woman�
�s defense.
For the first time in many weeks, Edge felt his facial muscles moving in such a manner that he knew his expression had become a cold grin. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror behind the bar and saw it - lips curled back so that they hardly seemed to exist, skin dragged smooth over cheekbones, and eyes narrowed to mere slits of glinting light.
Jake had worked behind the bar in saloons from the Mexican border to New York City and he had stayed alive by recognizing that expression as the mark of a man prepared to kill on the slimmest provocation. He finished drawing the second beer and set both foaming glasses on the bar top.
“Forget it, Martha,” he urged. “Heat’s set everyone’s nerves on edge.”
Edge and Hayhurst gulped half their drinks at a swallow.
“A nerve that guy’s certainly got,” Martha muttered petulantly.
“It’s what gives me the edge, maybe,” the half-breed answered.
“Go screw yourself, mister,” Martha rasped, whirling and stomping back towards the piano, the other woman hard on her heels.
“Ambrosia, those dames ain’t been eating,” Edge muttered.
“Can it, feller,” Hayhurst urged, noting that the other customers were showing an interest in them and anxious that his wife should not learn he had got into a saloon brawl over a couple of whores.
Edge shrugged easily and readjusted his smile to one of warm humor. “Okay, but women have got to learn I’ve got me a farmer’s wife now. I ain’t a bachelor no more.”
Hayhurst finished his beer and ordered another. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Food for thought,” Edge replied, pushing forward his glass for a refill. “My brand of humor.”
They sipped their new drinks, enjoying the taste rather than relishing the mere coldness of the beer. They spoke of their crops and the effect of the weather on growth; of Edge’s grand plan to build up the tiny McCord place into the biggest dairy and wheat spread in the Dakotas; of Bertha’s imminent confinement with what would be her sixth child; and of a rumor that a railroad spur was to be laid up to Spearville.
Sioux Uprising (Edge series Book 11) Page 3
