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  ‘'First wrong choice is to start to scream, lady,”

  Edge told her evenly. “You’ll drown in your own blood from a cut throat before you finish it. Second one is to act the dumb blonde so I have to put the pressure on you. Best to tell me what I need to know and that way your headache won’t get any worse.”

  “Please, mister,’’ she hissed through her gritted teeth, and then closed her eyes tightly. “You murdered the man I was going to marry. Frank’s dead so there’s nothing you can do to cause him more harm. And I can’t understand. Why do you want to cause me more suffering than you have by shooting him down like some mad dog you’d cornered in a—”

  “Okay, lady. The way you dress for bed 1 couldn’t help but see you ain’t a true blonde. And I’ve heard enough to know you’re not dumb. All you have to—”

  “This is crazy. Like a nightmare. My whole world is getting turned upside down.” There was a tremulous shrillness in her voice and her eyes began to emanate a hard glitter as she moved toward hysteria . . .

  EDGE

  1:

  THE LONER

  EDGE

  2:

  TEN THOUSAND DOLLAR AMERICAN

  EDGE

  3:

  APACHE DEATH

  EDGE

  4:

  KILLER BREED

  EDGE

  5:

  BLOOD ON SILVER

  EDGE

  6:

  THE BLUE, THE GREY AND THE RED

  EDGE

  7:

  CALIFORNIA KILLING

  EDGE

  8:

  SEVEN OUT OF HELL

  EDGE

  9:

  BLOODY SUMMER

  EDGE

  10:

  VENGEANCE IS BLACK

  EDGE

  11:

  SIOUX UPRISING

  EDGE

  12:

  THE BIGGEST BOUNTY

  EDGE

  13:

  A TOWN CALLED HATE

  EDGE

  14:

  THE BIG GOLD

  EDGE

  15:

  BLOOD RUN

  EDGE

  16:

  THE FINAL SHOT

  EDGE

  17:

  VENGEANCE VALLEY

  EDGE

  18:

  TEN TOMBSTONES TO TEXAS

  EDGE

  19:

  ASHES AND DUST

  EDGE

  20:

  SULLIVAN’S LAW

  EDGE

  21:

  RHAPSODY IN RED

  EDGE

  22:

  SLAUGHTER ROAD

  EDGE

  23:

  ECHOES OF WAR

  EDGE

  24:

  THE DAY DEMOCRACY DIED

  EDGE

  25:

  VIOLENCE TRAIL

  EDGE

  26:

  SAVAGE DAWN

  EDGE

  27:

  DEATH DRIVE

  EDGE

  28:

  EVE OF EVIL

  EDGE

  29:

  THE LIVING, THE DYING AND THE DEAD

  EDGE

  30:

  WAITING FOR A TRAIN

  EDGE

  31:

  THE GUILTY ONES

  EDGE

  32:

  THE FRIGHTENED GUN

  EDGE

  33:

  THE HATED

  EDGE

  34:

  A RIDE IN THE SUN

  EDGE

  35:

  DEATH DEAL

  EDGE

  36:

  TOWN ON TRIAL

  EDGE

  37:

  VENGEANCE AT VENTURA

  EDGE

  38:

  MASSACRE MISSION

  EDGE

  39:

  THE PRISONERS

  EDGE

  40:

  MONTANA MELODRAMA

  EDGE

  41:

  THE KILLING CLAIM

  EDGE

  42:

  BLOODY SUNRISE

  EDGE

  43:

  ARAPAHO REVENGE

  EDGE

  44:

  THE BLIND SIDE

  EDGE

  45:

  HOUSE ON THE RANGE

  EDGE

  MEETS ADAM STEELE: TWO OF A KIND

  EDGE

  MEETS ADAM STEELE: MATCHING PAIR

  GODFORSAKEN

  -BY-

  George G. Gilman

  PINNACLE BOOKS

  ATTENTION: SCHOOLS AND CORPORATIONS

  PINNACLE Books are available at quantity discounts with bulk purchases for educational, business or special promotional use. For further details, please write to: SPECIAL SALES MANAGER, Pinnacle Books, Inc., 1430 Broadway, New York, NY 10018.

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance, to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  EDGE #46: THE GODFORSAKEN

  Copyright © 1984 by George G. Gilman

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

  A Pinnacle Books edition, first published in Great Britain by New English Library.

  New English Library edition / March 1984 Pinnacle edition / August 1984

  ISBN: 0-523-42265-2

  Cover art by Bruce Minney

  Printed in the United States of America

  PINNACLE BOOKS, INC.

  1430 Broadway

  New York, New York 10018

  987654321

  For R.P. the out-of-town money man.

  George G. Gilman was born in 1936 in what was then a small village east of London; he attended local schools until the age of fifteen. Upon leaving school he abandoned all earlier ambitions and decided to become a professional writer, with strong leanings toward the mystery novel. He wrote short stories and books during evenings, lunch hours, on weekends, and on the time of various bosses while he worked for an international news agency, a film company, a weekly book-trade magazine and the Royal Air Force.

  His first short (love) story was published when he was sixteen and the first (mystery) novel appeared ten years later. He has been a full-time writer since 1970, writing mostly Westerns, which have been translated into a dozen languages and have sold in excess of 15 million copies. He is married, has a dog and lives on the Dorset coast, which is as far west as he intends to move right now.

  Chapter One

  THE big Texas sky was featured only by the glaringly bright and blistering hot noon sun. The twin rails of the single-track Prospect and North Texas Railroad cut a gleaming arc across the red and brown and gray and green country of rolling hills, rearing outcrops and meandering dry washes under this pale blue sky with the dazzling daub of yellow.

  At this hottest time of the day, work perhaps slackened but did not stop on the building that was being constructed a short way to the west of the railroad track, in a supplies-Iittered area bounded on the other three sides by a cluster of wickiups, a strangely eroded outcrop of gray rock, and a campsite comprised of an elderly covered wagon, a remuda of team horses and Indian ponies and a collection of actual and improvised furniture. A fire was burning in a circle of stones, and a blackened cooking pot suspended in the flames from a tripod of irons was giving off aromatic steam that almost masked the acrid taint of the burning cordwood.

  Norah Loring was dividing her attention between the fire and the vegetable stew cooking over its heat and a darning chore as she sat on a rocking chair in the sparse midday shade of the wagon’s sid
e. She was additionally shaded by a large hat that was as worn and as unfashionable as her dress and her boots. But, despite the drab colors and lack of style about her clothing, she could not fail to be what she was: a fine-looking woman who had not yet reached the prime of her life. She was, in fact, just twenty-three years of age, and the bloom of youth was in the process of fading as the far more attractive signs of blossoming womanhood began to replace it. This in the prominence of her delicate facial bone structure beneath her pale, unblemished skin; the way in which the innate knowledge of her kind was subtly hinted at by an odd lightness that occasionally glinted in the depths of her gray eyes; and even in the set of her not quite full lips when she smiled at a secret thought that once would have caused her to blush.

  This pretty face on the brink of becoming beautiful was framed by thick, shoulder-length, naturally curled hair that was colored somewhere between blonde and auburn. Appropriately, her body and limbs were adequately concealed by the highnecked, low-hemlined and long-sleeved dress. But on those occasions when she rose from the rocker and moved the few paces to attend to the fire or the contents of the cooking pot, it was easy to see that she was a slender but certainly not thin woman: alluringly proportioned for her height of more than five and a half feet.

  When she was finished with the darning of her husband’s black frock coat, she set aside the garment and the needle and thread on a nearby upended crate and gazed adoringly across at where Austin was working with the Indians on the small chapel. Working not as hard nor as fast as any of the five Apaches, four Comanches and the lone Cheyenne, perhaps—because he was more than twice the age of the oldest brave—but with a greater degree of enthusiasm for the labor than any of the younger men. This seen in the quiet smile that permanently wreathed his sweat-run face and the slow deliberation with which he finished each task to his own satisfaction before he moved on to the next; while at the same time he maintained a cautious but beneficent watch over the braves engaged on the more arduous work.

  Not that the Indians were unhappy as they strained and sweated and even perhaps sometimes cursed in their native tongues as they toiled in the draining heat of the high sun. They grinned and laughed and traded an almost constant stream of badinage amongst themselves. And occasionally they made goodnatured fun of Austin, although they always paid close attention to his instructions and the tactful criticisms which he issued from time to time: did their best to do what he asked of them.

  But the stripped-to-the-waist braves, some wearing breechclouts of rawhide while others wore native-made hide or store-bought denim pants, enjoyed the chores simply because they knew they were pleasing the Reverend Austin Henry Loring by helping their friend and benefactor to build his chapel beside the rock of Jesus. Whereas the minister, attired in black boots, pants, shirt with a white cleric’s collar and a wide-brimmed, low-crowned hat of gray with a black band, derived his brand of profound and serene contentment from the sure and certain knowledge that he was doing God’s will: harbored the conviction that never before during the more than twenty years since he was ordained a Baptist minister had he served the Almighty to the complete satisfaction of the Lord until he began to build this chapel.

  This was what Austin had told his wife in the night after the day he had dug the first shovelful of dirt that started the construction of the timber and adobe building on the sagebrush-choked, stone-littered, rock-hard acre or so of ground between the tracks and the fifty-feet-high limestone outcrop. That had been less than eight weeks earlier and in that time, to Austin’s way of thinking, a great deal had been achieved. Two sides and the rear wall of stark white adobe were up and three-quarters of this single-story area had been flat-roofed with timber. And the as yet unglazed arched frames of the side and rear west windows were in position. Now Austin and his band of inexpert but cheerfully willing helpers were preparing to start work on the belfry tower which was planned to rise more than twice as high as the rest of the chapel at the east front of the building.

  As Norah rose again from the rocker and went to stir the bubbling stew, she resisted the urge to shake her head in covert admiration of her husband’s forbearance. To her way of thinking, much more should have been achieved toward the completion of the chapel since they had arrived aboard the wagon and watched the off-loading of the building supplies from the freight cars. But just the Cheyenne brave arrived on the appointed day. Two of the Apaches came a week later and the other three and one of the Comanches more than a week after that. The final trio of Comanches did not put in an appearance until ten days ago. Whereas if they had all been here at the time they promised, their wickiups built and . . .

  She glanced toward her husband once more and halted her train of thought with a sigh, yet again resigning herself to what was undeniable—that this man could not be judged by the yardsticks that were normally applied to others. Even when he was not attired in his clerical garb and engaged in obvious spiritual pursuits, in her view Austin always looked and acted every inch a man of the cloth. And, as his wife, she had seen him totally naked and overflowing with sexual passion which he released into her own brazenly nude body. Now, as this image came unbidden into her mind, she experienced a tremor of excitement. Then she felt her cheeks flush when her husband seemed to sense her secret thoughts and looked toward her— his fleetingly wicked smile suggesting that his own mind had been host to a notion not dissimilar to that which disturbed her. And then he winked, so that she could be entirely sure again, if she was in need of such reassurance, that his divine love of God was not so totally fulfilling that he would ever neglect to love her with every temporal fiber of his body. And Norah grinned, almost laughed aloud, as she marveled at the extent of what could be tacitly transmitted by the swiftest and simplest of signs between two people so deeply in love with each other.

  Then she returned to the unnecessary task of stirring the stew, and Austin continued with measuring and marking the planks of timber from which two of the Indians were making the door of the chapel. The husband once more entirely concerned with doing the will of God, the wife reflecting on how that knowing and close to salacious wink by a man of such profound religious beliefs served to speak volumes about the kind of person he was.

  Austin Loring was not a physically striking man. Standing a little less than six feet tall in his boots, he had a slender and even frail-looking build: weighed not much more than a hundred and fifty pounds with little variation between the girth of his chest, his waist and his hips. Because he was so thin, his arms and legs seemed to be overlong. His features were gaunt, with jutting brows, prominent cheekbones, pointed nose and sharp jaw; and at times, when he was morose, his face could resemble the death mask of a man who died from a wasting disease. But, invariably, there was a brightness in his deep-set blue eyes and a cast to the line of his mouth that left no doubt he was a man full of life and eager to have others share his delight in the pleasure of simply being alive. He had a head of strong-growing gray hair and his wrinkled and weather-burnished face was clean-shaven. His features, hair color and the slightly stooped attitude in which he carried himself all contributed to Austin Loring’s looking his age of fifty-six. Only when he was overtired or sunk into a slough of depression did he appear to be much older. But in the two and a half years since the marriage vows were exchanged, there had been few times when she had seen him in either state: just once when without reason he felt cause to doubt her love for him and now and again when his early plans for the building of the chapel suffered setbacks. For the rest, Austin Henry Loring practiced fortitude in the face of hardship, tolerance toward his fellow man, and a sometimes irritating faith that the Lord will help those who help themselves.

  “Norah, my dear.” Not until her husband spoke to her was she startled out of a dreamlike, soporific state of detachment from her surroundings. And became apprehensively aware that an expectant silence had descended on the part-built chapel as Austin gazed quizzically at her and the Indians peered stoically to the north. “My, you we
re miles away just then. Do you think we can stretch what’s in the pot to fill four more plates.”

  He gestured with a hand in the direction the braves were looking and now Norah gazed behind the wagon and across the curve of sun-glinting railroad track. And her frown of foreboding took a firmer hold on her pale-complexioned face as her squinting eyes focused upon a quartet of horsemen. Seen almost at the limit of vision, they emerged from the shimmering heat haze, closing with the construction site at every slow pace taken by the horses.

  Norah felt suddenly and strangely chill in the heat of the day, then discovered she needed to make a conscious effort to drag her anxious eyes away from the distant riders; seeing that Austin, too, showed signs of trepidation. But then he clapped his hands sharply and vented a deep laugh that sounded only slightly less than spontaneous. And probably the livestock and the fire and the stew in the pot had never ceased making sounds—it was just that Norah had been too involved with a strange inner tension to hear what was happening in the real world until Austin’s double signal. She was a little less disconcerted by her response to the approach of the riders when she saw that some of the Indians were also discomfited, as her husband chided:

  “Come, come! Anyone would think what we are doing here is a guilty secret about to be uncovered! For a moment there, I even found myself affected by your dismay.” He laughed again and this time it sounded purely of a joke against himself. “Well, my dear, what of the food? If the strangers accept the invitation I intend to give them, will it stretch? From the delicious aroma, I ould guess lunch is almost ready?”

  ‘‘If each of us has a little less, there’ll be enough to go around, Austin,” Norah said.

  “A little less for somebody and he will not be so round,” he answered, mopping the sweat off his grinning face with a forearm as he poked the forefinger of his other hand into the bulbous flesh hanging over the waistband of the Cheyenne’s pants.