EDGE: The Killing Claim Page 2

  The cabin was built at an angle across the cen­ter of the clearing, facing the rock outcrop at the southwest corner along which Edge was leading the horse, watched every inch of the way by the dog poised to lunge forward again.

  Then the rock curved away and there was yielding brush to offer an escape out of range of the canine threat. But it offered scant defense against a volley of gunfire should the old man de­cide he needed to take his suspicion of the in­truder that seriously.

  Edge turned to cut the corner of the clearing, moving parallel with the windowless side of the cabin.

  "Listen, mister! I ain't got nothin' here at the place that's worth more than a few cents! And I didn't mean that about settin' the hound on you! I called him off the first time, didn't I? And I didn't set him on you! I was asleep, see! First I knowed there was someone outside the place was when the ruckus woke me! You got a gun, I bet?"

  He sounded close to tears. Perhaps too close. Overplaying the part of a frightened old-timer at the mercy of a stranger who means him no good. So Edge stayed fully alert to the possibility that the man in the cabin had a gun and was awaiting the right opportunity to use it. He peered un-blinkingly at the side and then the rear wall of the cabin, in search of a hole or a crack through which the barrel of a revolver or a rifle could be jutted. While all the time he moved toward a gap in the trees at the far corner of the clearing, which could well be the start of a pathway around the lake to the town.

  "And I reckon that if I did set the hound on you again, mister—well, I reckon you'd use that gun to kill him! Wouldn't you, I bet?"

  There was a weed-choked vegetable patch on the far side of the clearing with the remains of just a few neglected rows of crops struggling to sur­vive. Edge led his horse around the side of this and reached the twenty-foot-wide gap in the trees. Allowed a brief smile of satisfaction to draw his lips fractionally apart when he saw that it was the start of a little-used trail. Which curved down from the high ground to give access to the lake-shore on the far side of the promontory.

  He swung up astride the no longer nervous gelding and made to heel his mount away from the clearing and on to the trail.

  The old man in the cabin called, "Help me, stranger!"

  Edge stayed the move to leave and looked back over his shoulder at the windowless rear and side of his crude home. Convinced by the degree of pleading in the voice that the old man inside was not acting. Then, after stretched seconds of frowning thought, he swung down from the sad­dle. Hitched the horse to a clump of brush and moved with long, silent strides toward the cabin. Drew the Colt out of his pocket but did not cock it when he reached the front corner, just fifteen feet away from where the dog lay.

  The animal had heard his approach and was tensed to move against him, eyes afire with latent viciousness, ears pricked, and fangs bared. He growled and brought the still frowning man to within a part of a second of killing him. But the sound of the old man's voice, low and bitter, caused the big German shepherd to become wea­rily docile again. He even yawned as he lowered his head to the ground between his front paws, to­tally ignoring the man with the aimed gun.

  "Easy there, old buddy. That stone-hearted sonofabitch don't wanna lend us a hand, that's his loss. We'll make out, same as we always have. And I promise you this, boy, before I cash in my chips, I'll cut you loose. We don't need nobody else when we got each—shit, mister, what's the idea of creepin' up on a man like that?"

  "Didn't mean to, feller," Edge answered as he peered through the other, unopened window in the facade of the cabin. But the glass was too dirty and he could see nothing clearly. "Can't help it if I'm the quiet type."

  "Suits me fine if you've a mind to come in and sit a spell, stranger," the old man replied with a note of eagerness now. "Just need you to listen to what I gotta say. And after I'm through sayin' it, you only gotta answer me yes or no."

  "Take long?"

  "Few minutes to tell. Rest of your life to reap the benefits, mister. What d'you say?"

  "Not a thing for a few minutes," Edge answered and moved away from the dirt-smeared window to the door.

  As he reached forward with his free hand to lift the latch, the dog raised his head, turned it, and vented another warning growl through his bared fangs.

  The man beyond the door soothed: "Easy, old buddy, Friend."

  The dog allowed his tongue to loll out and be­gan to thump the ground with his tail. And imme­diately looked as trustingly innocent and harm­less as a puppy.

  "That's fine, feller. I like most animals better than I like most people," the half-breed said to the dog.

  He pushed the Colt back into his coat pocket and hinged open the door with his other hand. Came close to gagging on the stench that as­saulted his nostrils from inside the cabin.

  "Except when they try to put the bite on me," he added.

  Chapter Two

  "Thought you said you was the quiet type, mis­ter?" the old man complained with acid sarcasm as Edge shifted this gaze from the placid dog to the interior of the evil-smelling cabin, now much better lit with the sunlight that angled down through the open doorway.

  "Fine, feller. From now until you're through, it'll be like the cat's got my tongue."

  The German shepherd abruptly sprang to his feet, lips curled back from his saliva, gleaming fangs, every hair bristling as he vented the most menacing snarl yet. Then, as when Edge had first rode into sight around the outcrop of rock at the top of the cliff, the animal launched into the at­tack.

  But the half-breed had reacted the moment the dog signaled the start of this new explosion of vi­ciousness. Stepped across the threshold and slammed the door before the dog was four footed. And was leaning his back against the inside of the door when the animal slammed a shoulder into the outside. Remained in this position, grimacing with ice-cold anger, while the dog bounced off the door with a yelp of pain and raced away from the cabin. Yelped louder when he was again jerked to an abrupt halt by the tether.

  "Easy, old buddy!" the old man cried, the ef­fort required to shout the command causing a fit of coughing to rack his body.

  When it was ended, the dog could be heard padding back to his accustomed place below the partly opened window, panting and whining.

  "What happened?" Edge asked, a modicum of the cold anger that glittered in the slits of his hooded eyes sounding in his voice.

  "Weren't my fault," the old man answered quickly and defensively. "Nor his. Nor yours neither, I guess. You couldn't know that he always acts that way to anyone who mentions . . ."He lowered his voice to a rasping whisper to add, "Cats."

  "Anything else I should know to keep me from having to shoot your dog?"

  "No, mister. Long as you don't mention them other animals again and give me no reason to set him on you, he'll be the same with you as he is with me."

  Edge nodded and reached inside his coat to take the makings from a shirt pocket as he raked his eyes over the single, twenty-by-ten-foot room that was all the cabin contained.

  It was as spartanly furnished as it was crudely built. Had a hard-packed dirt floor and walls and peaked ceiling of untreated logs with chunks of time-loosened bark hanging from many of them. Against the rear wall, directly opposite the door where Edge continued to stand, was a potbellied stove without a fire in it. In the center of the half room to the left was an arrangement of wooden crates that served as a table with a backless bench along one side. Close to, but not under, the partly opened window in the other half of the room was a narrow bed in which the old man half sat and half lay, uncomfortably propped up against the iron frame of the bed-head, naked above the waist and with a blanket draped over his belly and legs.

  The man looked very sick as well as old, with a grotesquely thin torso and arms in which every bone seemed to be sharply contoured by almost translucent skin. There was a skeletal quality about his totally hairless head too. But instead of being dough gray in color and smooth in texture, the skin that draped his dome and the bone struc­ture
of his face was stained a dark brown by countless hours of exposure to the elements and was heavily crinkled by the hard-to-estimate years of his living.

  He did not move, even to blink his tiny eyes nor to moisten his cracked and arid lips, while Edge rolled a cigarette and lit it with a match struck on the frame of the door. And it would have been easy to assume that he had suddenly died. Which, Edge reflected as he drew deeply against the cigarette, would be the best thing that could happen for both of them. The ancient because he could surely have nothing good left to live for, and his visitor, who could then get out of the cabin, with its nauseatingly fetid atmosphere that threatened to expel from deep within the half-breed something more solid than the tobacco smoke that now trickled from a corner of his compressed lips.

  "Name's Barney Galton and I wanna thank you for droppin' by, mister."

  Edge nodded shortly as he sucked in and ex­haled more smoke. Seeking to calm his churning stomach and hopeful the smoke would go some way toward masking the evil stench that ema­nated from the bed.

  "You got a name?"

  "Edge, feller."

  "You got the look of a Mexican about you."

  "From my pa, feller. You want to get said what needs to be said? So I can get on over to Lakeview."

  "Somethin' special for you over in that place, Mr. Edge?"

  "Hopeful of stores where I can get some sup­plies. You want to cover yourself better against the cold? So I can open the door."

  Gabon's crinkled face had been totally expres­sionless until now, the loose skin at his throat more animated than his lips when he spoke. But after the question was asked, he arranged his fea­tures into the form of a puzzled frown. Which lasted for perhaps two seconds before a look of disgust displaced it.

  "Guess I smell real bad by now, Mr. Edge?"

  "Can't recall the time I ever came across any man who smelled worse, feller. That wasn't dead."

  Now the old man expressed self-pity as he de­fended "It ain't just that I made a mess in the bed.

  “And I couldn't help doin' that, mister. On ac­count of the accident."

  And now he grimaced with the effort needed to move one of his wasted arms, the skin-and-bone hand rising into a claw. But he was too weak even to clutch at the blanket he wanted to drag off his legs.

  "I've smelled gangrene almost as many times as I've smelled shit, feller. And seen enough poisoned wounds to last me a lifetime. There a doctor in Lakeview?"

  The cracked lips were drawn back from gums in which just six or so teeth were still rooted. And Barney Gabon's naked chest and belly tremored with draining laughter.

  Edge waited with patience for the inevitable end result. And then continued to keep his back to the door while he smoked the cigarette as the emaciated old man was painfully racked by a fit of hacking coughing. Then said evenly, "Like what's left of your life, feller, the few minutes you mentioned are running out fast."

  Galton tried to breathe deeply in the hope of speeding his recovery from the exhausting bout of coughing. But this was itself another drain on his diminished resources, and his anguish brought tears from his eyes. And he squeezed them tightly shut and began to talk very fast.

  "If I can hang on until midnight, I'll be eighty-nine, mister. Like to do that, but it ain't so impor­tant to me. Be good to die here at the place where I been for forty-nine years, come tomorrow. Like, too, for somebody to take care of the dog after my time's up. You can open up the door if you like, mister. I don't feel the cold no more. Just like I ain't smelled myself for a long time now. You fig­ure I'll get them kinda things back before I cash in? Or maybe I'll go blind and deaf as well before the end?"

  "I figure you can't tell, feller," Edge answered. "Does different things to different people."

  He kept the door closed and, after he dropped the butt of the cigarette to the dirt floor, made the act of crushing it out the first step toward the stove.

  "But you ain't got the time for that kinda talk, Mr. Edge," the dying man went on, eyes still closed and Adam's apple moving more than his lips to voice the words. "You come into the place to hear how me cashin' in can make you rich."

  Edge dropped to his haunches before the stove and grunted with satisfaction when he saw a fire had been laid inside. He struck the match on the side of the stove and lit the kindling. It caught im­mediately, tinder dry from having been in the stove for several days.

  "I told you I don't feel the cold no more!" Gal­ton said in a tone that was almost vehement as he stared with eyes that were briefly glittering at the man who came erect beside the stove.

  "People who take time to die usually feel the cold real bad, feller."

  "So what the hell if I freeze the other leg off?" the old man demanded. He could not maintain his anger, and after a long pause for several breaths he spoke in the familiar rasping tone. "I ain't askin' not a thing of you except that you listen, Mr. Edge."

  The half-breed nodded slowly several times as he peered at the blanket-draped contours of Gal-ton's lower body and saw that the stained and crusted fabric covered just the thigh and knee of the man's left leg.

  "How long ago, Mr. Galton?"

  The old man shifted his head slightly to look at the filthy window just above and a little to the side of his left shoulder, where six lines had been in­scribed in the dirt. "Counted six sunrises since I got to this bed, Mr. Edge. Ain't so certain how long I was in the mine after the cave-in. Black as pitch down there and I kept comin' and goin'. Un­conscious like, for a lot of the time."

  Edge nodded again. "Guess the idea of me bringing a doctor from town was pretty funny, fel­ler."

  "Funniest thing since I give the dog my leg to eat. When I was still strong enough to take off the boot and push it out through the window here. Before the meat got too rotten."

  There had been a number of times during the more violent periods of his life when the man called Edge had experienced the eerie sensation of being in the grip of a waking dream—or night­mare. Starkly aware of what was happening to him and yet not quite able to believe that it was credible. But never had he felt more strongly them now that he was the only subject of sub­stance in a situation of otherwise absolute unreal­ity.

  "See, not bein' able to get myself any food, that didn't bother me none," Bamy Galton went on in' a tone that would have been matter-of-fact had it not been forced to sound weak and rasping. "Last thing I been feelin' is hungry, I can tell you. Thirsty some, at first. Not even that for a long time. But the dog. I had to feed my old buddy. It was real lucky it rained a time or two so that his drinkin' bowl got refilled."

  The dying old man was entering, a state of calm delirium that had an almost hypnotic effect on Edge. He felt a powerful urge to get out of the cabin but was rooted to the spot, while in a part of his mind he conjured up vivid images of what had happened to the man.

  Saw a mind picture of him falling under a del­uge of crumbling rock. Then of him crawling through the wooded country to this cabin in the clearing. Leaving a bloody trail from the terrible wound where half a leg had been torn loose. Clutching the dismembered part of the leg for no logical reason because his agony-assaulted mind could not possibly process rational thoughts. Reaching the cabin to be greeted by the big Ger­man shepherd. Coming inside and now feeling something in addition to awesome pain. Shiver­ing in a cold sweat, so closing the door. Dragging himself over to and up on to the bed. Still hug­ging the detached part of his leg.

  Later emptying his bowels and his bladder, helplessly trapped in the bed. Then being made to face up to the inevitable realization when the stink of his own waste became combined with a more awful stench—given off by his own flesh de­composing before he was dead.

  The high peak of agony was perhaps past by then. And perhaps he could feel no pain at all. Which would have made the howling of his starv­ing dog that much harder to bear.

  And then came the most vivid and yet unbe­lievable image of all—of Barney Galton turning on the bed, raising the window, pushing
the lower half of his leg through, and almost closing the window again as the ravenous animal gorged on the human meat.

  Was it then that the fever hit the old man and caused him to tear the clothing off his emaciated body? Or had that happened while he sweated through the deadly attack of gangrene?

  Or maybe the image Edge had received of the pus beginning to infect the wound had been out of chronological order. . .

  But what did it matter?

  What difference did it make that he had experi­enced similar sensations of being present and yet detached from events in the past?

  What was important was that he knew for cer­tain he was awake. Standing in a log cabin in northern Montana. Having just lit a fire in a stove so that a man who would soon die would have no reason to feel any brand of cold unless it be from the stirring of the air by the wings of the Angel of Death.

  "But none of that matters, mister," Barney Gal­ton was saying, to cut in on the series of images Edge struggled to blot out. "Thing is that if I was a religious man, you'd be the answer to the prayers I would've been offerin' up. And this is what you gotta do."

  The half-breed felt compelled to look toward the dying man and then sensed his gaze was held in a trap by the strangely strong stare in the small eyes amid the folds of crinkled skin.

  "Nobody ever tells me what I have to do, fel­ler," Edge countered, and although it was the truth, the tone of voice in which he spoke the words made them lack conviction in his own ears.

  The old man seemed not to have heard him—or chose to totally ignore what he said.

  "You gotta take care of my old buddy out there. And not hold against him that he ate part of me. People have made a meal outta people before, knowin' what they was doin'. A dumb animal, all he knows is hunger. And you gotta bury me on the place. Over to the south side of the clearin'd be nice. Close to the mine that made me rich to show I don't hold nothin' against it for killin' me, and furthest away from the high-nosed folks that live across the lake. You’ll find the tools you need over at the mine."