EDGE: THE LIVING, THE DYING AND THE DEAD (Edge series Book 29) Read online

  Table of Contents

  JADED EDGE

  COPYRIGHT

  DEDICATION

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Other titles in the EDGE series

  Jaded Edge

  In Denver, Edge is hired to protect a rich old gentleman heading east with a coffin containing his mysterious Oriental wife.

  On the way, Chinese assassins and hired guns threaten to kidnap the body of the “princess” … and kill whoever gets in their way.

  Many deaths later, Edge discovers the true identity of the Oriental woman and her worth … in gold!

  THE LIVING, THE DYING AND THE DEAD

  By George G. Gilman

  First Published by Kindle 2014

  Copyright © 2014 by George G. Gilman

  First Kindle Edition February 2014

  Names, Characters and incidents in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual events locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is purely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information or storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.

  Cover Design and illustrations by West World Designs © 2014. http://westworlddesigns.webs.com

  This is a High Plains Western for Lobo Publications.

  Cover Illustration by Cody Wells.

  Visit the author at: www.gggandpcs.proboards.com

  For R. W.

  An outsider who nonetheless gets first look

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE SKY above Denver had been clear for three weeks but the city and surrounding country still showed evidence of the blizzard which had swept down the Rockies from Montana in the north to the Colorado border with New Mexico Territory in the south. A partial thaw had melted most of the snow where it had simply settled and lain dormant in sheltered areas. But where the wind had swirled and drifted the flakes it was still piled high and was crusted by the frost which ended the thaw - seemed set to maintain its grip on the eastern slopes of the Continental Divide until spring came.

  One part of the city completely free from snow, although overlaid like everywhere else by a sun-sparkling carpet of frost crystals, was the Union Pacific railroad depot. But only one train had moved out and none had rolled into the depot since the blizzard hit central Colorado. And although it was close to noon there was very little activity around the lines of stalled cars, the locomotives with cold fireboxes and the buildings which flanked the rails.

  A brakeman was checking the couplings on a line of freight cars loaded with iron girders. An engineer was polishing the brass levers in the cabin of his locomotive. A group of heavily coated men stamped their feet and blew into their cupped hands as they peered out along the twin tracks that stretched eastwards from the depot. Three colorfully dressed Orientals emerged from the dispatcher’s office and moved along a line of boxcars. The man called Edge dropped a half-smoked cigarette and heeled it to shreds into the frosty ground. An old man spat his disgust at this waste of good tobacco.

  ‘Hey, mister! You told me I could have all the butts you were through with!’ The old timer’s frown cut deeper lines into his face and his voice was high with whining disappointment.

  The much taller and younger Edge glanced at his complaining companion and nodded absently. Then, as he returned his attention to the Orientals he unfastened the top two buttons of his black leather coat and reached inside. He drew the makings from his shirt pocket and handed them to the abruptly surprised older man.

  ‘Here.’

  What?’

  ‘Roll yourself a smoke, feller.’

  ‘Gee, thanks.’

  ‘Just the one. Never break my word. Might consider another man’s arm if he stole from me.’

  The dirty, unshaven and rancid smelling oldster looked briefly up at the profile of his benefactor and realized that what he had just heard was no idle threat. He thought momentarily of giving back the tobacco and papers. But he needed a cigarette more than ever now.

  ‘I’ll be inside, mister. Too damn cold out here.’

  ‘I won’t miss you until I need another smoke, feller.’

  They were standing in front of the open doorway of a small shack on the south side of the depot. It was warm inside, the heat generated by a small stove in a corner. A long table ran down the centre of the shack, flanked by eighteen chairs. Edge, who continued to watch the Orientals moving along the train of boxcars, and the old man who sat down on the chair nearest the stove were all that was left of the eighteen-man snow clearance crew which had been hired by the day to help the regular depot employees. They had been laid off a week ago and were at the depot today because the word was that it was hoped to clear the eastbound track, and both intended to leave Denver on the first available train. They had chosen to wait in the familiar surroundings of the shed rather than the main depot building because a great many other people were anxious to leave the city and neither man liked crowds.

  ‘Here you are, mister. Thanks.’

  The tobacco poke was thrust into Edge’s unexpectant right hand.

  ‘Obliged,’ he said, replacing it in his shirt pocket and re-buttoning his coat without shifting his gaze from the trio of Japanese as they halted beside a car about midway between the locomotive and caboose.

  ‘You know them guys?’

  ‘Seen them a couple of times.’

  ‘Fancy dressers, ain’t they?’ With a cigarette to smoke the old man was content again to stand outside in the bright, cold sunlight beside the preoccupied Edge.

  He was right. The three men who slid open the big side door of the boxcar were garbed almost entirely in clothing which emphasized their nationality. They wore long, brightly colored silken robes and wide brimmed, shallow crowned conical hats. The robes were belted at the waist and each man carried a sword in a curved scabbard hung at his left hip. On the right hip each man wore a Western holster with a Colt revolver nestled inside.

  On the two previous occasions Edge had seen the men they had been astride powerful stallions, saddled Western style.

  ‘Friends of yours, mister?’

  ‘Helped me out of a tight spot once.’

  There had been nothing furtive about the way the men approached the train and located a particular boxcar. But in cracking open the door and climbing aboard they were cautiously watchful, confident of their right to be where they were but prepared to deal with objectors. Only Edge and the old timer were in a position to see what they were doing and for stretched seconds Oriental and Occidental eyes locked. Three pairs of almond shaped eyes set in the yellow tinged skin of faces which had been weathered by some fifty years of living: faces decorated with thin, drooping, waxed moustaches. One pair of grey, squinting eyes that had seen more than seventy years of life. Looking out of a pale, loose-skinned face, grimed by many days of dirt and stubbled with a week’s bristles. And one pair of the lightest blue, slitted narrower than those of the Japanese.

  These were the eyes of Edge, their coloration inherited from his Scandinavian mother. At odds with most other features of his face which were drawn from the bloodline of his Mexican father. It was a leanly sculptured face, basically h
andsome but with an indefinable set - no matter what expression the man wore - which caused many who looked at him to regard it as ugly. The skin, drawn taut between high cheekbones and firm, slightly thrusting jaw, was stained dark by heritage and exposure to the elements. And was scored by more and deeper lines than were merited by the mere passing of close to forty years. The nose was hawk like and the mouth was comprised of wide, thin lips traced along the top and down at each side by a moustache that emphasized the half-breed’s Mexican origins. Also very Mexican was the jet blackness of his thick-growing hair, which he wore long enough to brush his shoulders.

  It was a face in which many of the lines cutting away from the eyes and mouth told of past suffering. While the cold glint in the hooded eyes and the set of the mouth warned of the cruel streak which the man had developed as a result of his experiences. A face which seldom smiled, unless with bitter humor, and which could strike icy fear into the heart of anyone who had offended the man called Edge.

  His frame was built on the same lean lines as his face for although he weighed in the region of two hundred pounds, the dark toned flesh was firmly molded to the bones.

  He was clothed in a low crowned grey Stetson, a black leather jacket over a grey shirt, black pants and black, spur-less riding boots. Around his waist was a worse-for-wear gun-belt with a tied down holster on the right. His jacket was rucked up on that side, to allow him access to the Remington revolver which jutted from the holster. A straight razor, which was as deadly a weapon as the gun, was concealed in a leather pouch which hung down under his shirt from the nape of his neck, held in place by a beaded leather thong worn beneath his grey kerchief.

  He inclined his head slightly and briefly, as a sign of recognition rather than friendliness, when one of the Japanese did a double take toward him and gestured for the other two to do the same. This was the only clue that the recognition was mutual before the door of the boxcar was slid almost closed.

  ‘Hey, them guys don’t look like they need to ride freight trains,’ the old timer growled.

  ‘You work for the railroad anymore, feller?’

  ‘You know I don’t.’

  ‘So it’s none of your business.’

  The filthy, unshaven face showed a pained expression. ‘Just makin’ talk is all, mister. Anyways, you been eyeballin’ them as much as I have.’

  ‘That’s none of your business either.’

  ‘Pardon me for friggin’ livin’!’ the old man snarled, and drew a final iota of satisfaction from the last shreds of tobacco before he abandoned the tiny butt to the frosty ground.

  ‘Granted,’ Edge answered, his cold blue eyes shifting in their slitted lids to locate a wagon as it rolled into the depot between a pair of gates.

  ‘You ain’t the easiest guy in the world to get along with, are you?’

  The half-breed pursed his lips and sighed softly. ‘We shoveled some snow together, feller. That doesn’t have to make us bosom buddies, does it?’

  ‘You don’t want me around, is that it?’

  ‘You any use to me?’

  The old man expressed injured pride, then scorn and, finally, pity. Edge saw none of these facial changes for he continued to watch the slow moving wagon as it was steered over a series of timber track crossings and then along the side of the line of boxcars. It was an enclosed market wagon pulled by two black horses and driven by a hard-eyed young man in his early twenties. There was tension in the way he sat the wagon seat and suspicion in the way he tried to keep watch on every part of the depot at once.

  ‘If you live to be as old as me, maybe you’ll learn it don’t do a guy no harm to have friends, mister!’

  The pity was gone by the time Edge glanced again at the old timer: to be replaced by disappointment.

  ‘You seemed like a right guy to me. My mistake.’

  ‘Yeah, feller,’ the half-breed said to the stoop-shouldered back of the old man as he started away from the shack toward the group of railroad men waiting at the start of the eastbound track. ‘You’re right. I’m wrong.’

  Then Edge moved away from the doorway and began to step over rails and ties, on a catty-cornered course toward the boxcar in which the Japanese were concealed. He knew, without being able to see them, that the Orientals were watching his advance. Perhaps as intently as the hard-eyed young man driving the enclosed wagon. The half-breed halted, one track away from the almost closed door of the boxcar, and waited for the wagon to roll past him and come to a stop, its rear level with one side of the door.

  ‘We don’t need no help,’ the driver growled, remaining in his seat as he leaned to the side and looked back. ‘And all the paperwork’s been done if that’s what bothers you.’

  ‘Who’s we, feller?’ Edge asked evenly.

  The wagon had a tailgate with double doors above. The latch was raised from the inside and the doors folded open gently, pushed by the hands of a man slightly older than the driver. He was dressed in the same city style as the man up front - grey derby, dark blue suit and white shirt with a black bow tie at the collar. In one of his hands he held a double-barreled shotgun. The sound of the driver climbing down off the wagon caught Edge’s attention and he saw that the younger man was now carrying a similar gun. When the half-breed shifted his eyes back to the man in the rear of the vehicle, he saw that this one now held his gun in both hands. Neither weapon was aimed at Edge. But two pairs of dark eyes in pale faces warned that the situation could quickly alter.

  ‘Him and me,’ the man in the rear answered.

  Edge nodded stoically. The fellers in the boxcar out-number you, but I figure those shotguns even the odds.’

  The driver had reached the back of the wagon. So that both were in a position to snap their heads around and swing their guns: to aim at the door of the boxcar as it was rolled open.

  ‘We wish not to kill nor to die.’

  ‘Just to have back what is ours.’

  ‘You are innocents who have been duped.’

  The trio of Japanese stood in a line in the open doorway of the car. Their round, sallow complexioned faces were expressionless and their arms were akimbo: hands far away from the hilts of the swords and butts of the Colts.

  ‘Hold it, Luke!’ the man in the rear of the wagon snapped.

  ‘I am, Brad. But damnit, I almost let them have both barrels.’

  The centrally placed Japanese in the line shifted his attention to Edge who continued to stand with surface casualness on the far side of the sun-glinting rails. ‘Unless you have hidden motive, we are all indebted to you, sir. We did not think the casket would be so heavily guarded. Your warning has saved lives.’

  ‘It’s a trick!’ Luke snarled. ‘Cover the tall guy, Brad!’

  Edge drew the Remington in a shockingly fast series of movements, all of them linked smoothly together. His right hand reached for the butt and slid the gun from the holster. The hammer was cocked before the barrel was clear of the leather. And the muzzle was trained on Brad’s narrow back before the young man had swung his head.

  There was still a veneer of the casual about the half-breed’s stance. But his gaze was as rock steady and as threatening as the revolver in his brown skinned fist. The blue slivers of his slitted eyes seemed impossibly cold, perhaps inhuman. And the total lack of emotion in them acted to freeze Brad where he stood, with just his head turned to look back over his left shoulder. The man opened his mouth to speak, but Edge’s voice sounded first.

  ‘I’m not in the business of saving lives,’ he said evenly, and saw Luke chance a fast, anxious glance at him before returning his attention to the unmoving, implacable Japanese. ‘But words cost me nothing. Anyone points a gun at me better squeeze the trigger right off. Or I’ll kill him, sooner or later.’

  The warning given, he pushed the Remington back into the holster. As smoothly as he had drawn it, but much more slowly.

  Brad kept his mouth open for long enough to draw in a deep breath. The fresh, bitingly cold air in his lungs did little
to dispel the fear which had gripped him when he found his eyes locked with those of Edge.

  ‘Just what is your business here?’ Luke asked tensely, guessing from the sounds behind him and Brad’s reactions that the revolver was back in the holster.

  ‘It’s finished now,’ the half-breed answered. ‘A favor’s been returned. Never like to feel beholden to people.’

  Two of the Japanese were as puzzled as Luke and Brad. But the one in the centre, who had the scar tissue of an old knife wound along his right jaw line gave a curt nod of understanding.

  ‘We saved your life far to the north of here. You consider you have saved ours, sir.’

  Three for one, feller. But let’s not get into counting heads.’

  ‘If we did, there were many more than one aboard the boat, sir,’ the scarred Japanese countered.

  ‘Only one that mattered,’ Edge responded as he turned away from the boxcar and wagon. ‘To me.’

  He retraced his footsteps back across the rails and ties toward the shack and sensed three pairs of eyes watching him from behind.

  ‘Okay, get down out of that car!’ Luke demanded. ‘And beat it!’

  ‘Can we not come to some arrangement, sir? We are prepared to pay a reasonable price to have returned to us that which is ours.’

  ‘You don’t get outta here damn fast, we’ll blast you!’ Brad warned, his anger powered by remembered fear. ‘And the law’ll be on our side.’

  The brakeman had completed his chore of checking couplings on the far side of the depot. The engineer had run out of brass to polish. And, like the old timer, they had gone to join the group of trainmen watching for the return of the locomotive and four cars dispatched earlier to check if the eastbound track was open. If anyone but Edge was aware of the leveled shotguns at the boxcar, they were watching from cover.

  By the time the half-breed got back to his vantage point at the doorway of the shack, the Orientals had submitted to the threat of the guns. They were down off the train and moving away from the rear of the wagon. They did not look back or at Edge. Instead, straight ahead. At the end of the train they altered course and went toward the main depot building. But they did not enter it — went from sight around one side of it. Both Luke and Brad watched them all the way, crouching down on their haunches so that they could see the lower halves of the Orientals’ robes under the stalled cars of the trains. Only when they were certain the trio had left the depot did they spare a hostile glance for Edge, and spotted him in process of lighting a freshly rolled cigarette as he leaned against the doorframe of the shack.