EDGE: Town On Trial Read online

  ‘Six, seven, eight…’ Crystal Dickens moaned. ‘Please let there be no more.’

  Edge rasped in response, ‘Lady, don’t count on it.’

  Chapter Ten

  EDGE left The Lucky Break Saloon by the kitchen door while the shooting-out on the east trail continued to occupy the attention of the Howling Coyote hands and to keep Crystal Dickens intent upon blotting from her hearing and sight everything that was happening around her.

  It was ended by the time the gelding was saddled and he led the horse out of the stable and swung up into the saddle. Hoofbeats and raised voices replaced the sounds of gunshots in the hot morning air as the half-breed rode on a diagonal line from the rear of the saloon into a gap between two of the old adobe buildings on the south side of Lone Star Street.

  He crossed the broad, tree-lined street at the same easy pace he had done everything since turning away from the window in the saloon. And was seen by only a few women clutching their children and the more timid male citizens of Irving, for the majority of the town’s population had been drawn on the run to the corner where they could gaze fearfully toward the cause of the shooting.

  Then he went between the dry goods store and the mission church where work on renovation had been temporarily interrupted, and left town on the trail that snaked north-eastwards.

  He did not look backwards at any time as he followed the trail for half a mile to where it began to parallel the course of the stream in a wide sweep around the base of a hill, where he crossed the fast-running water on foot, leading the gelding by the reins and testing each step carefully. White Creek was about sixty feet wide at this point, but Edge had to cover half this distance again as he veered to left and right and avoided water any deeper than waist level.

  And before he had ridden another half-mile, almost to the crest of the hill, his pants had dried to an uncomfortable stiffness in the morning sun. As he came close to the brush-covered ridge he was able to see the scattering of farms to the north. Maybe a dozen of them in a valley with the rapidly narrowing stream meandering along the bottom. Nothing bigger than twenty acres. All with creek frontage and each property separated from its neighbors by wire-strand fencing. Small houses with at least one out-building apiece, surrounded by fields cropping cotton, corn and melons.

  Smoke rose from a few chimneys and here and there a man or woman worked in the fields. But most of the valley’s population seemed to be aboard the two flatbed wagons which were rolling slowly down the trail toward Irving.

  Across the stream from the farms, a scattering of cattle grazed the open rangeland.

  Edge merely glanced at the peaceful pastoral scene as he swung down from his horse, sliding the Winchester from the boot; aware that he had probably been seen by the people on the wagons even though they were still the best part of two miles away.

  Then he moved with the gelding out of their view, up and over the crest, from where he could see just the treetops and the roofs of some of the buildings of Irving above the ridge of an intervening hill. But he had not come out into the rolling range of the Howling Coyote spread to view the town, glanced at the rooftops and trees only briefly to check his bearings. Then led his horse down the hill’s eastern slope, along a gulley where his approach put to flight a bunch of twenty or so Long-horns, and up a steep grassy bank dotted with immature Alligator Junipers.

  Close to the top of the bank he tethered the gelding’s reins to one of the shrub-high trees and only then became aware of the greasiness of the palm of his right hand fisted around the frame of the Winchester. The sweat of tension erupted by the possibility that the sharpshooter may well have changed his position after bush-whacking the horsemen on the trail, and could have aligned his telescopic rifle sight on the half-breed at any moment.

  Still sweating, still directing frequent glances to his left, Edge climbed to the very top of the bank, covering the final few feet on his belly. Where he looked through the spiked foliage of a juniper and allowed his thin lips to curl back in a grim smile.

  Hal Crowley had not moved away from the vantage point where he shot at the men on the trail. That it was the Howling Coyote foreman there could be no doubt, for the half-breed looked down upon the man over a distance of no more than sixty feet. And at that range he could recognize the lines of the .50 caliber Sharps buffalo gun with a ten-power telescope mounted on the barrel.

  He was a tall, cadaverous looking man in his forties with short-cropped black hair, a prominent nose and a thin moustache. Dressed in a brown shirt and pants with a grey Stetson hanging down his back. Edge saw him in profile, seated on a flat rock behind a clump of six-feet-high buttonbushes that concealed him from the trail, where a horse lay dead, a half-mile beyond. The rifle was resting across his thighs and he was playing a bored game of pitch and catch with a pebble that arced monotonously from one hand to the other. And each time the stone was in the air he cast a glance away from it, looking over the angled buffalo sticks and through the foliage of the buttonbushes at the trail. He was humming tunelessly. Then abruptly became silent and allowed the pebble to fall to the ground as he stared fixedly ahead.

  Edge glanced in the direction where something had attracted Crowley’s attention: and saw that three more riders were heading toward Irving from the east had cantered into view from out of the fold of two hills. Then movement closer at hand drew his narrow-eyed gaze back to the Howling Coyote foreman. Who rose from the rock to go down on one knee behind the bushes, nestling the barrel of the Sharps in the vee of the buffalo sticks and pressing his right cheek to the stock of the rifle.

  The half-breed, with a much closer target than Crowley’s, needed only his left hand under the barrel to steady his aim through the Juniper. And the muzzle wavered hardly at all in the part of the second it took to pump the action of the Winchester.

  Crowley moved his thin cheek away from the stock of the Sharps as the only sign that he had heard the unmistakable series of metallic sounds of a bullet being jacked into the breech of a repeater.

  ‘Let go of the gun, stand up and turn around, feller,’ Edge instructed flatly. ‘Or drop down on the other knee and pray.’

  ‘I’m not a believer,’ the man answered, no quiver of fear in his voice.

  ‘Believe me,’ the half-breed urged. ‘Or in a very short while you’ll find out if you were wrong about the other feller who claims that vengeance is His.’

  ‘You’re Edge,’ Crowley said as he allowed the stock of the Sharps to fall, the barrel still resting on the buffalo sticks, came to his feet and turned around. He elevated his arms slightly from the elbows so that his hands were at chest-high and forward, the right one at least eighteen inches away from the butt of his holstered Remington sixgun.

  The half-breed rose, too, and aimed the Winchester from the hip as he pushed between the Junipers and started down the slope.

  ‘The scope of your knowledge doesn’t impress me, feller,’ Edge told him.

  Crowley was a fatalist, so that as the half-breed came closer to him and he could see the cruel set of the thin mouth and the ice-cold glint in the slitted eyes, his attitude did not alter. A man had got the drop on him and what kind he was didn’t matter. He was maybe afraid of dying, but not of the instrument of his demise.

  ‘On the Howling Coyote we look after our own, Mr. Edge,’ the lean-bodied and thin-faced man said levelly. ‘When I heard you was aiming to see young Dean Warford hang, I did what I do best to try to stop you.’

  ‘When it’s said a man did his best, the talk is about a loser,’ Edge countered as he came to a halt at the foot of the slope, a short spit away from Crowley.

  ‘Didn’t get a chance at you until the afternoon. Sun hit the lens in the telescope, I figure.’ He shrugged. ‘In the morning with the sun behind me . . .?’

  ‘You did fine this morning,’ Edge pointed out with a movement of his head.

  Crowley turned his emotionless gaze toward the south, where the three riders were moving at a gallop after pausing to chec
k out the dead horse.

  ‘Got one of them plumb through the side of the head,’ he said. ‘Rearing horse took the second bullet. Dumb luck. Good for one of them, bad for me.’

  ‘You heard the Donnelly woman was hiring on professional guns?’

  ‘Right, Mr. Edge. And you’re not going to ask me how I knew those guys were it? Instead of cowpokes, drummers, Texas Rangers or eastern dudes come west to gawp at us natives? Reckon you’re the kind that knows the difference well as me.’

  ‘Figured you ain’t always been a cattleman, feller.’

  A dull light of nostalgia entered the dark eyes of Crowley and he sighed. ‘Started out as one on the family spread up in Wyoming. Then come the war. Always was a hotshot with a rifle. Killed me a good few Yankees with a scope rifle. Perry long-gun it was in those days. Guess you was a Yankee?’

  ‘Was. But that has nothing to do with this. Just an American, like you.’

  Crowley nodded his acknowledgement that he was due to die out of a grudge of recent origin. Then, ‘After the war was lost I did a little hell-raising. Ran with outlaws. Got my ass in a sling and could have put my head in a noose if I didn’t join the other side. So was a Ranger for awhile. Until all the rules and regulations got me down. Worse than the army. Hired on with Mr. Love then. That’s my life story, Mr. Edge. Looks like you’re the only one who’ll know my death one.’

  ‘Your boss tell you to bushwhack me and the Donnelly guns, feller?’

  Crowley pursed his lips and shook his head. ‘Oh no, Mr. Edge. Joseph Love is not the kind of man to order killings. It was a bunch of the boys who rode out to find me and tell me what happened in the Red Dog. About you being the big witness who was likely to get Dean Warford hung. And the same bunch that told me how mad Mr. Love was when he found out about the shot I took at you. And that hard men were heading into town.’

  ‘You figured to pick them all off one at a time from up here?’ the half-breed asked.

  The tall, thin man shrugged his narrow shoulders again. ‘Enough of them to scare others away. Handguns aren’t my style, Mr. Edge. I’m not going to draw against you. So you’ll have to blast me in cold blood.’

  ‘No sweat, feller. Figure you had to be icy calm to fire at me from near a mile away. One other thing before you have to go.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘If your boss is so full of the milk of human kindness, why are Irving folks so shit-scared of him?’

  ‘Well, I’ll tell you,’ Crowley started to answer.

  And went for his gun.

  A move the half-breed had been expecting ever since he called him to surrender. Because it seemed obvious that Crowley’s icy calm indifference to his fate was a fake. The man had been around a long time and in many dangerous situations. And still had a great deal of life expectancy if he could call upon his experience of past tight corners to escape this one.

  So, while appearing as outwardly nonchalant as the other man, Edge was constantly poised to respond to Crowley’s inevitable move. But was surprised by the nature of the action.

  For the man did not reach for the holstered Remington. Instead, hurled himself backwards. Into and through the buttonbushes. Reaching for, grasping and lifting the Sharps as he threw himself past the angled buffalo sticks. And for part of a second the mind of the half-breed was filled with the image of a man named Adam Steele. Another man who had taken a long-range shot at him and missed. And who rated his rifle so much higher than a revolver that he did not even carry a handgun.

  Then Edge took two forward steps, the muzzle of the Winchester still trained upon Crowley as the ranch foreman struggled to bring the Sharps to bear from where he lay on his side among the bushes.

  But it was neither the repeater nor the buffalo gun that cracked out a shot. Instead a Frontier Colt that was a perfect match for the revolver in the half-breed’s holster. This one in the fisted right hand of Joseph Love. Who was in a half-crouch on the far, lower side of the vegetation in which Crowley lay. Dressed in the same stylish attire as yesterday except that the ten-gallon hat had been replaced with a Stetson. And wearing on his distinguishedly handsome face an expression of depthless anguish as he saw his bullet blast a hole in the scalp beneath his foreman’s short-cropped hair. A hole that gouted a great splash of dark crimson as the head flopped to the ground after the body had become limp.

  ‘If you still want to know, sir, I’ll tell you,’ the rancher said as he tossed the smoking revolver into the bushes and raised his grief-stricken gaze from the corpse to the half-breed.

  Edge eased the rifle hammer gently forward as he released his hold on the barrel and canted the rifle to his shoulder. His lean features continued to display a look of dark and evil menace as he countered,

  ‘You didn’t do me a favor, mister.’

  Aware now that the instant during which the half-breed might have killed him was past, Love was staring fixedly down at the corpse.

  ‘He said you take care of your own around here,’ Edge went on. ‘Make it a point to take care of my own wherever I am - trouble.’

  Love wrenched his head up and showed that anger was struggling against grief for command of his features. ‘So let another man take care of this, stranger!’ he snarled. ‘Or go to hell after you’ve sent me there! I had more respect and admiration for Hal Crowley than anyone I’ve ever met or heard of! From Jesus Christ himself to Robert E. Lee! But the crazy fool screwed me up worse than I’ve ever been screwed up in my life! And since I got the chance to put him where he belongs on account of that, I wasn’t about to let some hard-nosed, hard-talking, smart-assed drifter with a fast trigger finger do the job for me!’

  Red patches showed through the tan of Love’s cheeks and he sprayed spittle as he flung out the harsh words. Then, the emotion expended, he looked suddenly exhausted and much older than his years.

  ‘Hell, Edge,’ he growled and rubbed his brow with the fingertips of both hands. ‘I got no reason to be mad at you.’

  ‘Maybe I should be grateful for that,’ the half-breed murmured, feeling his own cold rage contract into a tight ball at the pit of his stomach. The way the feller you were mad at ended up blowing his top.’ He spat into a buttonbush as he turned to go for his horse. And added, ‘A little disappointment has to be better than a hole in the head.’

  Chapter Eleven

  ‘IT’S not so much that Irving people are afraid of me like mice are scared of a barn owl, Mr. Edge,’ Joseph Love said suddenly after a long silence. ‘It’s just that all of us people around here have a good thing going. Nobody wants to upset the way things are and they sort of look to me to maintain what’s called the status quo.’

  They were almost at the trail, having walked down from the patch of buttonbushes where Hal Crowley had died. The corpse was now slumped over the saddle of the gelding which Edge was leading by the bridle, needing to reach back on occasion to keep it from sliding to the ground.

  They were the first words either man had spoken since the rancher told the half-breed he had come out of town on foot, and asked if he would help bring the body to Irving.

  ‘You know what I mean?’

  ‘And the price they pay is to let your hands get away with murder?’ Edge responded as they turned on to the trail a quarter mile east of the bridge over White Creek.

  ‘No!’ Love came back quickly and angrily. Then sighed and shook his head slowly. ‘There never was a killing in Irving until Dean shot Rusty Donnelly. Trouble sometimes. After a round-up or when the boys got back from a drive to the north. Hard drinking and some fighting. That happens in cow towns. Men who work with cattle don’t get to let their hair down very often. And when they do, it can get out of hand.

  ‘But I always took care of it. Paid for the damage. And the doctor bills of anyone who didn’t work for me and happened to get caught up in the hell raising. Then there was one time, early last year, when there was a shooting. In front of the mission on Lone Star Street. One of my boys, too falling down drunk to know what
he was doing, pulled a gun and put a hole in the belly of a young farmer from north of town.

  ‘Only time we ever had a trial in the courthouse that wasn’t over some stupid property dispute or small time thievery. Well, Mr. Edge, I let it be known that it could all be sorted out, same as always, without all that legal paraphernalia. The shot boy was going to live and I offered a big chunk of money by way of compensation. But his father wanted more. One hell of a lot more. Majority opinion was that the farming people should have taken my money. And when it came to the trial they made it known how they felt by bringing in a not guilty verdict.’

  ‘What value did you put on Estelle Donnelly’s son’s life, feller?’

  They were almost at the bridge now and Love pulled up sharply and whirled toward Edge. ‘Listen, mister!’ he snapped. ‘I didn’t approach that woman! There’s no amount of money can compensate a mother for the loss of her son! I told you yesterday! In this case, justice has to be seen to be done! And that’s what I wanted! It wasn’t me who took off to San Antone to hire gunslingers! And you heard from Hal’s own lips that I had nothing to do with having him try to kill you! Or sharp-shoot at the men Estelle Donnelly brought to town! That’s why I had to kill Crowley myself, for God’s sake! What he was doing was as bad as what she is! And he was doing it in my name! People have to know that I put a stop to it!’

  ‘They can’t hear you from here,’ Edge said, and started forward across the bridge.

  Love moved up on the other side of the corpse-burdened gelding as the organ began to sound in the chapel. Then, after the opening notes, the inexpert playing of Joel Pepper was all but drowned by massed voices singing the somber lines of ‘Abide with Me’. Enough voices to suggest that a large proportion of Irving’s population were packed into the small chapel. Outside of which were parked the flower-decked glass-sided hearse and a flatbed wagon. The casket had been removed from the hearse but four plain pine boxes remained on the wagon.