EDGE: Ashes And Dust (Edge series Book 19) Read online

  Table of Contents

  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.

  Ashes and Dust

  By George G. Gilman

  First Published by Kindle 2013

  Copyright © 2013 by George G. Gilman

  First Kindle Edition June 2013

  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 © 2013.

  This is a High Plains Western for Lobo Publications.

  Cover Illustration by Cody Wells.

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

  For S.M. who spreads the word while I stay out of the picture.

  Chapter One

  THE glass-sided hearse was drawn by two black horses, and four men rode in escorting positions, two on each flank. The progress of the small funeral procession was appropriately slow but it nonetheless moved in a pall of red Texas dust formed by a fusion of the many minor explosions of motes from beneath plodding hooves and turning wheel rims.

  Thus, an interested observer would have difficulty in picking out individual details of the hearse, the two living passengers it carried and the quartet of riders surrounding it.

  But the sole observer was totally indifferent to this first sign of life - and death - he had seen in many days. Sitting on his bedroll in the mouth of a cave, shaded from the harsh glare of the early morning sun, he continued with the chore of shaving. He had no mirror to foreshorten the focus of his eyes and he looked at the hearse and escort simply because they were in the centre of his field of vision.

  He knew precisely where the horses would be reined to a halt, for the grave was ready dug. He had seen it the previous night, when he decided the cave-pocked hillside on the north bank of the Rio Grande provided a good place to bed down. Fresh dug, for the sandy soil displaced from the deep, six feet by three hole was damp. He had been mildly intrigued, but no more than this.

  Now, as the dust settled on and around the stalled hearse and horses, his mind registered the scene and its component movements with a complete lack of emotion. He was as detached and unfeeling as the rocky hill slope from which he watched.

  The Rio Grande was better than a hundred and fifty feet wide at this point, flowing muddily between low, sparsely vegetated banks. Behind the northern bank were the foothills of the Texan Santiago Mountains. To the south was spread the arid ruggedness of the Sierra del Burro of Mexico’s Coahuila region. Only the river drew a distinction between the two countries. The barren terrain was the same and the sun was as searingly cruel on both sides of the frontier.

  ‘You dug the hole all by yourself, Miss Diamond? A lady like you?’

  The speaker was one of the four horsemen. They had all dismounted and allowed their animals freedom to sidle across to the river’s edge and drink: while they themselves went to the brink of the grave and peered down into its depths.

  ‘I’ll allow it was not an easy thing to do.’

  The four dismounted men were like the country surrounding them. Big, rugged and covered with red dust. They looked like cowhands who had wandered in from the range without being entirely sure where or why they were going. And now that they were here they looked out of place and embarrassed. If they were mourners, they had not dressed for the part. They wore workaday denim pants and shirts and low-crowned, wide-brimmed hats. Each carried a holstered gun at his hip. Dust was clogged in their pores, held there by old sweat.

  The woman seated beside the driver of the hearse looked even more out of keeping with the hot, harsh, empty Big Bend country of southern Texas. She was a tall, slender blonde in her late twenties or early thirties dressed entirely in black - shoes, ankle-to-throat loose-fitting gown, gloves and narrow-brimmed bonnet with a face-curtaining veil.

  As she responded to the cowhand’s comment, she raised the veil and brushed a white handkerchief over her face. The action revealed features that were both strong and handsome: could perhaps have been made beautiful by the skilful application of make-up. But the pale, blemish-free skin was untouched by paint or powder. And, looking across and down over a distance of some two hundred yards, the watcher in the cave was unable to catch more than a fleeting impression of possible beauty before the veil swung back to conceal the face.

  ‘There really was no necessity, ma’am,’ the driver of the hearse said as he carefully climbed down and then held out both hands to assist the woman.

  He was a short, pot-bellied man of about sixty with a round, red face and bowlegs. He wore the black cassock and white reversed collar of a priest.

  ‘It was necessary for me, Father Donovan,’ the woman replied shortly as she allowed herself to be helped to the ground.

  Their voices were carried a long way in the empty silence of the Big Bend country: the only other sounds the trickling of the sluggish river and the wheezy breathing of the weary horses. From the panting of the animals and the contoured lines of dust-colored lather on their backs, it was obvious the funereal approach to the graveside had not been maintained from the procession’s starting point. The pace had been fast and furious until the end was near.

  ‘Shall we proceed?’ the woman said after she had made a slow, complete about-turn. It was as if the grave she had dug was not sufficient by itself. Before the final act of the funeral took place, she wanted to assure herself that this section of riverside was the right one. And there were confirming landmarks - the western end of a butte at the top of the cave-riddled slope, which lined up with a distant pass between twin peaks in the Sierra del Burro.

  ‘Whatever you say, Miss Diamond,’ the eldest of the cowhands allowed. He tipped his hat off his head to hang down his back by the neck cord.

  The others did likewise and then all four ambled self-consciously to the rear of the hearse. The priest reached up on to the seat and lifted down a heavy prayer book. The woman moved to the side of the grave, opposite to where the displaced earth was heaped. She bowed her head and clasped her hands together on the shallow swell of her belly. Her back was towards the man in the cave as he finished shaving and tipped away the scummy water from the skillet.

  He went to the rear of the cave, unfastened the hobble rope from his gelding’s forelegs and led the animal forward. As he saddled him, the horse viewed the scene below with the same brand of disinterest as the man.

  Although they were not dressed for their parts, the cowhands adopted suitably mournful expressions as they became pallbearers. And their gait was measured as, with the plain pine box balanced on their broad shoulders, they moved from the hearse to the grave. The woman had to take two steps backwards to allow the men to get into position. The priest was already in his place at the head of the grave, the prayer-book open across his pudgy hands.

  The woman nodded to the priest, who leaned close to the book to read from
it with shortsighted eyes.

  ‘We beseech you, O Lord to accept unto the Kingdom of Heaven the soul of this our departed brother, Boyce Robert Diamond. In common with all mortal men, he has sinned and...’

  Father Donovan spoke with a rich, Irish brogue and as he intoned the prayers of the interment service his words rang across the empty country with a deep resonance. And, as if in deference to his somber tones, the horses became quiet and even the river’s gentle sounds seemed muted.

  Up in the cave, the man adjusted the gelding’s saddle cinch and began to pack his gear into the bedroll.

  By pre-arrangement, or perhaps because of the mounting heat, the funeral service was short. The pallbearers lowered the casket into the grave. The four ropes were tied to each corner and when the box could sink no further they were released to thump hollowly on the pine lid.

  ‘Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,’ the priest intoned.

  He closed his prayer book and in the silence that followed his final word the flat sound had the quality of a gunshot. The woman was first to stoop and scoop up a handful of dry dust. It floated rather than fell down into the grave. The four cowhands put their hats back on their heads before they made similar gestures to the corpse. There was another short interval of silence, then the woman swung away from the graveside and strode purposefully towards the hearse.

  ‘Thank you for your assistance, gentleman,’ she said, her voice as strong and as lacking in grief as before the service. ‘I am most appreciative.’

  ‘We can’t say it was a pleasure, Miss Diamond,’ the spokesman of the cowhands replied wetly, as if he felt the need to spit. ‘But we’re glad we could help a lady like you.’

  There was a carpetbag on the running board of the hearse. The woman delved a gloved hand inside it and came up with four brown envelopes. ‘Ten dollars per man,’ she said. ‘The agreed terms.’

  Each man touched the brim of his hat as he accepted his envelope.

  ‘Won’t cost you no extra for me and the boys to fill in the grave, Miss Diamond.’

  She shook her head. ‘That will not be necessary. I wish you a pleasant ride back to Dream Creek, gentlemen.’

  They all touched their hat brims again, and backed slowly away from the woman, like minions in the presence of an acknowledged better. Then they turned and their movements became hurried from the far side of the grave to where their horses waited. They mounted quickly, nodded their farewells to the priest, and heeled the animals into a canter. Dust from beneath the hooves drifted across the burial place and Father Donovan fanned a hand in front of his face. The woman was unconcerned by the swirling motes as she went to the still-open rear of the hearse and drew out a long-shafted shovel.

  As she began to fill in the grave, the priest appeared set to protest at a woman doing such work. But then he gave a shrug of resignation and moved to the hearse. He placed the prayer book up on the seat, released the brake lever and led the two-horse team down to the edge of the river.

  The animals sucked at the muddy water. The four riders crested a low rise and went from sight. The dust of their progress settled. The woman spaded dirt into the hole with a steady, seemingly effortless rhythm. The man in the cave checked that his gear was securely fastened, then swung up into the saddle. The gelding raised and turned his head to give the man a dispirited, one-eyed look.

  ‘It’s OK, feller,’ the man muttered, stroking the horse’s neck. ‘Their mourning don’t have to darken our day.’

  He was about to urge the horse into movement with his un-spurred boot heels when a distant sound halted his action. It was a familiar enough sound, but one which he had not heard in many days - until the funeral procession had approached less than an hour previously. Now, others were nearing the lone grave. A lot faster than the hearse and its paid escort: and everyone riding a horse. No rig of any kind. At least half a dozen, riding animals with shod hooves.

  They were coming from the west, riding around the base of the rise over which the four cowhands had gone from sight. The priest looked in that direction, peering anxiously across the downward canting necks of the drinking horses. The woman interrupted her work with the shovel and lifted her veil to gaze along the curve of the riverbank. For no more than a second, the strength of her features was dissipated by naked terror. But then her jaw became firmly set and her mouth line registered defiance. The veil dropped back over her face as she stooped over the shovel and began to work frantically with it.

  The man astride the horse in the cave sat and waited, as impassive as a carved statue. Until the silhouetted forms of six riders showed in the pall of their own dust, reining their mounts out of a gallop. Then he spat into the gray ashes of his doused fire.

  ‘Texas is getting as overcrowded as hell has to be,’ he rasped.

  The grave was still less than three-quarters filled in when the riders skidded their sweating mounts to a halt. For a few moments, as the dust drifted back to earth, they remained in a tight-knit group, midway between the hearse and the woman. The priest merely stood and looked, his once-red face suddenly a waxy white. The woman continued to work furiously with the shovel, ignoring the newcomers.

  It was difficult to tell much about the six men. They were assorted shapes and sizes and wore dust-covered clothing bought for hardwearing rather than style. The common denominator among them was that each had pulled up his neckerchief to conceal the lower half of his face.

  ‘Don’t keep on with the dirt spadin’, lady. Only makin’ extra work for us.’

  ‘And we ain’t ones for workin’.’

  The first comment came from the biggest man in the bunch. Almost six inches over six feet, he had broad shoulders and barrel chest that swept down into his belly with no clearly defined waistline. The sleeves had been roughly torn out of his shirt and his burnished, hirsute arms seemed to have the color and texture of strong young tree trunks. He spoke with a Southern drawl, pitched low.

  The other speaker punctuated his remark with a musical laugh. High, like his voice, which also indicated his roots had been in the South. He was a head and shoulders shorter and his build was a lot slighter. His voice said he was several years younger.

  ‘’Ceptin’ when it’s worth our while, George.’ This man was medium in all physical appearances - height, build and tone of voice. The kind of man who would not be noticed in a crowd. But he made himself noticed now, as the woman continued to pretend the men were not there. His right hand clawed out an Army Colt from a shoulder holster. Then he slowed his actions, to draw a bead at arm’s length.

  ‘Please don’t!’ the priest yelled.

  The woman continued to remain inside the invisible shell of her private world. Until the gunshot and its bullet shattered the illusion. The bullet struck the shovel as she screamed: then ricocheted to bury itself in the diminished heap of dirt at the graveside. The woman dropped the shovel as if the impact the bullet had reverberated painfully up the wooden shaft.

  ‘Con said to quit it, bitch!’ the gunman rasped as he slid the gun back into its holster. Then he turned to glare at the priest, his eyes glinting out between the top of the mask and the shadow of his hat brim. ‘And we don’t want no more argument from you, holy man!’

  ‘What do you want?’ the woman demanded breathlessly. As she dropped the shovel, she had staggered backwards and gone into a half crouch to keep from toppling. Now she seemed frozen into the back-straining posture. It was obvious she was staring hard at the masked men from behind the veil.

  ‘Reckon you know that,’ the big man answered. ‘And if you or the priest try to stop us puttin’ our hands on it, this here place could get to be a regular little Boot Hill - you know what I mean?’

  He carried a double-barreled shotgun, slung to his back by a leather strap that was looped over his right shoulder and across his chest. The twin barrels were pointed downwards and the strap was loose. All he had to do was jerk on the leather and grab the gun at the frame and barrels as it swung around. He aimed it midway betwee
n the woman and the priest. His action was fast and the only accompanying sounds were the hiss of leather strap over denim shirt and the clicks of the cocking hammers.

  ‘They quietened down all of a sudden, Con,’ the youngster with the high-pitched voice said.

  Con grunted, swung the gun and squeezed one of its triggers. The woman screamed again and fell hard to her rump. But she hadn’t been hit. The charge had torn into the heap of dirt and sent a spray of it over the woman. The two horses hitched to the hearse had snorted when the revolver shot cracked out. At the louder blast, they reared. But they managed only a few strides of a potential bolt before the weight of the lock-wheeled hearse halted them. The horses of the masked men did not move a hoof. Neither did the mounted gelding in the cave.

  ‘Reckon we can take it they know what I mean,’ Con drawled. ‘Get to it, boys.’

  As the other five slid from their saddles and advanced on the grave, their leader broke his shotgun, ejected the spent cartridge and reloaded with a fresh one taken from a loop on his gun belt.

  ‘Opening a grave is sacrilege!’ the priest exclaimed, his voice reedy with fear.

  ‘Depends what it is a man worships, mister,’ Con answered evenly. ‘You and the woman just buried our Almighty.’

  ‘I don’t ... I don’t understand,’ the priest stammered, eyes darting between the gun-toting man astride the horse and those at the grave.

  The youngster had snatched up the shovel and dropped down into the hole. He started to hurl out showers of loose, dusty earth.

  ‘Con means the Almighty dollar, holy man!’ the one who had exploded his revolver yelled excitedly.

  The priest continued to rake his confused gaze from Con to the graveside and back.

  ‘It’s my fault, Father!’ the woman put in miserably, as she climbed painfully to her feet. ‘I should have told you, but I didn’t know—’

  A short, very fat man took two fast paces towards the woman. His approach frightened the woman into silence and she raised her arms to defend herself. He laughed harshly, grasped one of her wrists and jerked it down and then up again. The woman shrieked her agony and was forced to turn around as the hammerlock was applied. The fat man’s free hand streaked around her side and dodged her other hand. He cupped his palm and his blunt fingers clawed to fix an arrogant grip over the mound of her breast.