EDGE: Red Fury (Edge series Book 33) Read online

  His father had. On the farm in Iowa. And Jamie used to say that his elder brother Josiah was a real noisy sleeper.

  Edge bared his teeth in a silent snarl and shook his head in self anger. He was not Josiah C. Hedges any more. His father, his kid brother and his wife were all long dead. Like a whole bunch of other people he had known - killed violently or allowed to die peacefully, men and women, good and bad, some killed by the man eating at the pine table in the hot and squalid room and many not, before, during and after the brutal war which had begun the process of changing a farm boy named Hedges into the man called Edge.

  He was angry at himself now, as he rattled down his spoon and pushed the empty plate away from him, because he had allowed his mind to reflect on the past. It was a futile mental exercise he had been indulging in far too much recently. At the start there had seemed to be some point to his reflections, there had been a preconceived plan to identify the reason why he had become the kind of man he was. Perhaps believing that if he could find the key to this, he might be able to change. Or maybe he had simply sought an excuse - justification for being what he was.

  Whichever, it was no longer of any importance. For he had long ago come to accept his lot, if not with deep-down equanimity, at least with stoic indifference.

  Then, for a black period, his concern with his past had hovered dangerously close to self-pity as he delved into his memory and elected to dwell only upon those experiences which had robbed him of the people and possessions he held most dear.

  Whereas, of late, he considered his penchant for looking backwards resembled the vocal ramblings of old men at bar tables or sitting around grocery store cracker barrels, men for whom the distant years gone by were easier to recall than yesterday and who had neither the faculties nor the energies to fill their tomorrows with anything more than memories.

  And Edge was too young for that. But old enough, it seemed - and not sufficiently in control of his own thought processes - for the plaintively sung words of a folk song called Sioux Indians to trigger across his mind first one and then many other vivid images of violent incidents from his past.

  He had lost Beth to the Sioux.

  ‘Why’d you have to sing that song down here in Apache country, lady?’ he asked as he set down his again empty cup, just as the bedroom door creaked open.

  ‘What?’ she asked, bleary-eyed, as she took the stopper from a fresh bottle of rye whiskey.

  ‘Nothing,’ Edge said with a sigh as he rose from the table. ‘Coffee in the pot and some food in the skillet. I can pay you cash for what I’ve had or replace it in kind.’

  ‘I never eat before sundown, mister.’ She leaned a shoulder against the door jamb and tilted the bottle to her full lips. Just a mouthful. Then she replaced the stopper. The single snort acted to take some of the slackness out of her stance and put a little animation back in her eyes. ‘You’re not from around here?’

  ‘I’d guess that not many people are. Except Apaches.’

  He glanced out through the open doorway across the broad area of scrubgrass, sagebush and cactus to the heat-hazed Hatchet Mountains in the distance. Cracking his eyes to the merest slits of ice blue against the bright light which now slanted into the room as the sun began its decline down the western dome of the dazzlingly blue sky.

  She was struggling to recall something, fastened on it and nodded. ‘Yeah, you came in from the north, didn’t you? Just before I passed out?’

  ‘You got it.’

  ‘Ain’t much life up that way for a lot of miles, that’s for sure. Apart from sidewinders and buzzards and a few bobcats. Not even no Injuns, far as I know. But white folks live in San Lucas down on the southwest trail.’

  He nodded. As, far out to the southwest, the hoofs of a single horse beat at the hard-packed ground. ‘Obliged for the information, ma’am. How d’you want paying for the food and coffee? Feed and water for my horse?’

  ‘Name’s Lorna Butler, mister.’ She was still standing on the threshold between the bedroom and the main room. Continuing to recover by the moment from the effects of drinking herself into unconsciousness. ‘You don’t owe me nothin’, Mr…?’

  ‘Edge, Mrs. Butler.’

  ‘Call me Lorna.’

  ‘I always pay my way.’

  ‘You already did, Mr. Edge. In advance. By bringin’ me inside after I passed out. If I’d woke up after sleepin’ it off in that midday sun I’d be feelin’ a whole lot worse than I do now. And now I feel fine.’

  She smiled brightly, as if to prove just how good she felt. The cantering horse was closing with the homestead but she showed no sign that she could hear the steady thud of hooves.

  ‘I’ll go along with that,’ Edge allowed.

  ‘You could do somethin’ that’d make me feel even better, Mr. Edge,’ Lorna Butler said quickly as the half-breed started for the doorway.

  He halted and looked across the room at her. ‘What’s that, ma’am?’

  ‘Lorna,’ she reminded and the brightness of her smile was displaced by seductiveness. ‘Won’t be right, you callin’ me ma’am if you do what I want you to.’

  She splayed her legs, placed her hands on her full lips - still clutching the bottle by the neck - and thrust out her breasts.

  ‘No strings, Mr. Edge. On account that my need just has to be greater than yours.’

  ‘Obliged, ma’am. But I only stopped by for some food and a little rest.’

  ‘So your luck’s’ changed, hasn’t it? Come on over here. I’ve never been turned down before and no man has ever been disappointed.’

  The half-breed was sexually aware of the sensuous woman who flaunted her willing body in the bedroom door. Aware, too, of the rider approaching the homestead, although he was not yet in sight. But the strongest assault on his senses was made by a vivid memory of the filthy and rancid bed upon which he had set down the liquor-sodden woman.

  She either saw in his lean, dark, deeply lined face a sign of his arousal or simply assumed that as a man he would be unable to resist the temptation of her wanton offer. And she sought to encourage him by licking her pouting lips and softening her tone.

  ‘Come on to Lorna, honey. You can’t tell me you didn’t have yourself a little sample of what’s on offer when you carried me in here.’

  ‘Company’s coming, ma’am.’

  She cocked her head, listening. The horse was being walked over the final quarter mile towards the homestead. She was briefly annoyed, then rebuilt the come-hither look across her features.

  ‘That’ll just be my boy Cal come home from town, mister. He won’t bother us.’

  ‘He’d bother me, lady.’

  Her scowl was for Edge now. ‘He’s just a nineteen-year-old kid, is all. And he don’t care what I do, anyway.’

  ‘I care what I do,’ Edge answered levelly and restarted for the doorway.

  ‘What’s the matter, mister?’ she flung after him. ‘Don’t you have any balls?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am. But I’m particular about the women I ball.’

  ‘Man, did I make a mistake about you, you sonofabitch!’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ he muttered as he stepped out onto the stoop. ‘You were wrong. And I try never to make a mistake.’

  He was outside, looking toward the approaching rider, when Lorna Butler hurled the bottle. It hit the door-frame, shattered and sprayed strong-smelling rye whiskey and sun-glinting shards of glass across the stoop.

  ‘Damn, damn, damn, shit!’ the woman shrieked as she realized what the outburst of temper had cost her. ‘That was my last friggin’ bottle!’

  ‘And it’s a long time until sundown,’ Edge responded softly as he headed along the front of the house and then the side to the yard out back.

  The lone rider on the trail was demanding a gallop from his horse now, after having seen the half-breed emerge from the house.

  In the stable, Edge took his time at saddling the fed and rested grey mare and encouraging her out from the stall. While he was doing
this he heard the rider halt his mount out front of the house and yell, ‘Ma, who was that?’ as he leapt to the ground. Then less stridently spoken words, from both mother and son as they talked inside the house. Only the sounds of their voices carried out across the yard and into the stable, not the words themselves.

  A few moments later, as the half-breed led the mare from the shaded stable into the glaring sun, the rear door of the house was wrenched open.

  ‘Hey, you! What the hell do you think you’re doin’?’

  Over the distance at which he had last seen Cal Butler galloping his horse ahead of an elongated cloud of grey dust, Edge received a general impression which matched the clothing in the boy’s wardrobe. Six feet tall with a rangy build. Now, as the youngster stepped out into the yard, he could be studied in more detail. He had the same hair color as his mother, but wore it longer than she did, in a similar style to the half-breed. He had also inherited Lorna Butler’s good looks, but in a very masculine fashion - the features rough hewn, the green eyes not so large and the jaw aggressive in its thrust. He had been shaving for long enough to have a dark shadowing on his cheeks and jaw although the day was only halfway through its course. He was dressed in patched and shiny work clothes, the black Stetson looking to be the oldest item of his apparel. Around his waist was a gunbelt with the holster worn high, the wooden butt of the ancient Colt Paterson jutting forward for a left-hand cross draw.

  His flesh and clothing were sweat-stained and dusty from the ride. Anger, perhaps augmented by fear as he received a close-up view of Edge, caused fresh sweat to dampen his frown-lined forehead.

  ‘Figured on leaving, feller,’ the half-breed replied evenly.

  ‘Just like that, uh?’ Cal Butler snarled, his rage mounting.

  ‘Son,’ his mother whispered anxiously from within the house.

  ‘Good reason I should stay?’

  ‘With six feet of dirt on top of you, you won’t be goin’ no place, mister!’

  He was standing full on to where Edge had halted, the half-breed’s left hand holding the reins of the mare. His right hand hung loosely at his side, a few inches away from the Remington butt. Both Butler’s thumbs were hooked behind his gunbelt buckle.

  ‘It don’t matter, Call’ Lorna Butler urged.

  Edge sighed and nodded. ‘You’re calling the shots, feller. But listen. If you get that old five-shooter out of the holster and aimed at me, be sure to kill me. Always try to give folks the warning, if there’s time.’

  ‘You give my Ma a bad time!’ The fear was showing through the anger now, triggered by the unmoving stance, soft tones and impassive expression of the half-breed. Compounded by his own doubt as he recognized something familiar in his mother’s voice.

  ‘By not giving her a good time,’ Edge allowed.

  ‘That weren’t your idea, way she tells it!’

  His youth was against him. An older man, who had learned from the harshness of life that damaged pride was easier to salve than injured flesh would probably have backed down. But Cal Butler felt he had to finish what he started. And he streaked his left hand across in front of his right.

  ‘Crazy kid,’ Edge rasped between clenched teeth. And had the Remington drawn, leveled and cocked before Butler had fisted his hand around the butt of the ancient Colt.

  ‘He’s all I’ve got!’ Lorna Butler shrieked, hysterical with desperation.

  ‘Freeze!’

  Butler ignored the command and jerked the gun awkwardly clear of the holster.

  Edge squeezed the Remington’s trigger. Fired with the revolver low down, eighteen inches in front of his body. The bullet drilled a neat hole into Butler’s left upper arm. And exited through the back amid a spray of crimson droplets. As the injured youngster was spun into a half turn, his own gun flying out of his hand, the blood splashed on the threshold and the damaging bullet cracked across the main room and shattered the already cracked window at the front of the house. Butler’s back thudded into the doorframe and he gasped and went down on to his haunches.

  ‘Cal!’ his mother shrieked, throwing herself down beside the youngster.

  As Edge flipped open the chamber cover, used the ejector rod to push out the expended shellcase and reloaded.

  ‘I’m okay, Ma!’ the boy protested, but accepted her help in getting to his feet as Edge, the Remington back in its holster, swung up astride the saddle. He glowered at the half-breed. ‘He winged me, is all.’

  The glower increased in malevolence as Edge settled in the saddle. This in stark contrast to the expression of ingratiating adulation which his mother directed towards the mounted man.

  4You could have killed him, couldn’t you? I want to thank you. I want to thank you. It’s all been my fault and I don’t deserve—’

  ‘Quit it, Ma!’ Cal cut in shrilly. ‘He’s just a cheap gunslinger and we don’t have to toady to the likes of him!’

  With a choked cry of alarm, the woman stepped in front of her son, fearful that Edge might respond to the taunt with another, more damaging gunshot. She even spread her arms to the sides to emphasize the protective stance.

  But the tall, lean man astride the mare simply tugged on the reins and tapped the animal’s flank with his heels. To head for the gap between the corners of the barn and the house.

  ‘Thank you!’ the woman called. ‘I’m really sorry for the trouble I caused!’

  ‘Aw, screw it!’ her son spat out vehemently.

  Edge showed a wry smile with his mouth as he murmured: ‘Trouble is, I didn’t.’

  Chapter Three

  San Lucas was seven or eight miles south west of the Butler homestead, in the foothills of the Hatchet Mountains. It was not so much a town as a scattering of claims across a rocky slope. With at least one tunnel sunk into the ground on each quarter-acre claim. Every claim also had a home of some kind, variously built of timber, adobe, sheets of metal or even burlap. Here and there a flatbed wagon was parked beside a shack or tent. Well-trodden tracks zigzagged among the claims over the perhaps two square miles of land which had been staked by the citizens of San Lucas.

  The trail from the Butler place cut a direct line from a fold between two hills up the slope to where a row of more substantial structures was built just below the crest. The trail intersected with the short, one-sided street which ran along in front of the buildings and became an open trail again at the south-western end - reaching up to and curving over the top of the hill.

  The buildings on the street were all constructed of timber, single-storey with boarding laid directly on the dirt outside to form a sidewalk. At the centre was the longest and deepest building with a faded paint sign on the roof proclaiming: GENERAL STORE - SALOON - HOTEL - LIVERY. To the right of this was the office of the Texas-Arizona-New Mexico Stageline Company. Next to this a house surrounded by a picket fence with a shingle by the gate proclaiming: SHERIFF LEE TEMPLE. On the other side of the building which provided San Lucas citizens with most of their creature comforts was the MINERS BANK and THE SAN LUCAS MINING EQUIPMENT COMPANY, with their signs done in gold-blocked lettering on their windows.

  From the foot of the slope, the settlement looked - even in the bright sunlight of afternoon - grim, disillusioned and unwelcoming. And as the half-breed rode his horse slowly up the grade between the dilapidated shacks and patched tents, the impression of sullen dejection which emanated from San Lucas was strengthened. Here and there, women of various ages and a few old men watched Edge’s unhurried progress from the windows, doorways or tent flaps of their crude homes. None called out or made any gesture of greeting and he could sense their total indifference to his presence. The only sounds in the settlement, apart from the measured clop of the mare’s hooves, were muffled by distance, rock and earth - coming from deep inside the tunnels. But the thuds of picks and shovels seeking a way into ore-bearing rocks did not reach up to the street: where Edge read the signs which labeled the buildings, then rode across to the largest one and dismounted. The mare was the only horse
to be hitched to the rail outside the single doorway of the multi-purpose establishment.

  ‘Howdy, stranger,’ a man greeted cheerfully as Edge crossed the threshold, his tone at odds with the forbidding atmosphere which pervaded outside. ‘What can I get you?’

  He was a short, fat man of about forty-five with a round, red face under a totally bald dome. He stood behind the saloon counter which ran halfway along the rear wall of the place. The store counter, spread with a display of foodstuffs, dry goods and haberdashery items ran down the wall to the left. There was an entertainments platform across the room from this, with most of the intervening floor area set with chair-ringed tables. A thin woman some ten years older than the man, with a pocked face and absolutely straight grey hair, sat on a stool behind the store counter. She looked up from her knitting as Edge entered, tightened her mouthline to show an even more sour expression, then returned to clicking the needles.

  ‘Beer,’ the half-breed responded as he reached the bar counter and hooked a booted foot on the rail.

  ‘Be a pleasure, sir.’

  He began to draw the brew from a pump.

  The glass into which the beer spurted was spotlessly clean. As was the boarded floor, the paneled walls, plastered ceiling, the tables, chairs, counters and display shelves. So, too, the flesh and grey shirts and white aprons of the cheerful bartender and the woman who grimaced as she knitted behind the store counter. But there was a certain tawdriness about the couple and the place they ran - as if they had to make an effort to conceal disenchantment behind a thin veneer of efficiency.

  ‘Be ten cents, sir,’ the bartender announced as he set down the glass before Edge.

  Close up, the falseness of his attitude could be seen. The smile of his thick lips and yellow teeth had a fixed quality. And the glint in his small, dark eyes seemed to be comprised of a mixture of enmity and greed.

  ‘Can you get a whisky in this glass, feller?’

  ‘Sure can.’ The pudgy hand which had been extended for payment turned and wrapped around the glass.