EDGE: The Prisoners Read online

  Not that it mattered to Joe Straw. He merely studied the stranger as a mental exercise - a solid piece of reality on which to fasten his awareness. Otherwise he might allow his eyes to close and submit to the demands of his pain and exhaustion and drift into a sleep close to unconsciousness.

  The dying sheriff also looked up at Edge. But saw him less clearly for his eyes were blurred with tears which he was unable to fist away. For in the wake of searing agony had come a paralyzing numbness that made it impossible for him to move any muscles below his neck.

  ‘Who are you?’ he asked, speaking in a hoarse whisper.

  Edge dropped down on to his haunches and at close quarters confirmed his guess about the knife that was buried to the hilt in the centre of a great bloodstain which was already drying on the shirt of the lawman. To withdraw the blade from the depths of the belly would certainly hasten death.

  ‘Name’s Edge, feller. Only way I can help you is to finish you the same way as the horse.’ He read the two words engraved on the tin star: CRATER, COLORADO.

  ‘Let the bastard suffer, man,’ Straw growled. ‘You saw the way he blasted at me when I didn’t have no chance to defend myself.’

  ‘Guess that’s what you’ll do, Edge,’ Hackman forced out through his clenched teeth.

  ‘Why’s that?’

  The lawman blinked his eyelids several times in an attempt to clear his vision of the tears. But it failed and he continued to see the squatting man as little more than a dark silhouette against the dazzlingly bright sky.

  ‘I ain’t seein’ so good. You talk like a white man. But you look like some kinda Indian. Like Straw.’

  ‘Pa was Mexican, feller. My Ma was from Northern Europe. I figure myself to be an American. Forty next birthday and riding from Tucson to wherever this trail takes me.’ He took the makings from a shirt pocket and began to roll a cigarette. ‘But why should my life story interest a lawman a lot of miles away from home, feller? Especially one who ain’t got too long to live what’s left of his?’

  ‘I know that sure enough, mister. But this weepin’ that makes it hard for me to see ain’t because I know I’m ready to die. It’s because I’m gonna die before I bring Joe Straw back to Crater.’

  Edge struck a match on the butt of his holstered Frontier Colt and lit the cigarette. ‘Figure there never was anybody went to the grave happy he did everything he wanted.’

  Hackman acknowledged that he would not see clearly again and he squeezed his eyes tight closed. ‘Want you to know somethin’, mister.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘I don’t blame you for what happened.’

  ‘Wasn’t planning to lose any sleep over it, feller.’

  ‘I’d like to thank you for givin’ me the chance to stick him, man,’ Straw put in, his voice stronger now.

  Edge shifted his impassive gaze from the bloodless face of the lawman to fix it on the half smiling features of the half breed Comanche. ‘I’d like for you to keep your mouth shut,’ he said evenly.

  Straw’s expression altered to a glower. ‘What’s Hackman to you, man?’

  ‘Somebody who wanted something real bad and ain’t going to get it,’ Edge replied to the question of one man but returned his attention to the other.

  ‘The stage line put up a reward, mister,’ the lawman croaked. ‘One thousand lousy dollars. ’

  ‘Which you as a sheriff ain’t in line for?’

  ‘If I had ten times that much, I’d pay it to see Straw strung up in Crater.’

  ‘Personal, uh?’

  ‘My old man was drivin’ the Denver to Crater stretch, mister. Straw blasted his head off with a shotgun.’

  ‘The crazy old timer tried to kill me!’ Straw countered. ‘It was him or me, for frig sake! I didn’t have to hurt no one else aboard the stage!’

  Edge pursed his lips and allowed a sigh to trickle out with tobacco smoke as he unfolded to his full height. Then stepped over the unmoving form of the dying sheriff.

  With a wail of fear, Straw tried to roll away from the advancing man with a cigarette angled from a comer of his mouth.

  Hackman wrenched his head to the side and snapped open his eyes. Yelled: ‘Dead or alive, the stage line’ll pay the reward! But I’ll have died for nothin’ unless Crater folks see him hung!’

  The effort required to shout the words was too much for the sheriff’s punished system to take. His eyes snapped closed involuntarily now as he slid into unconsciousness, each breath sounding like it could be his last.

  Straw stared in horror at the toe of the boot Edge had drawn back to launch in a kick at his face. Then puffed out his cheeks and emptied his lungs in a cooling draught up over his sweat beaded face when the foot was lowered gently to the ground.

  ‘Gee, man,’ he rasped, needing to force his voice around his bobbing Adam’s apple. ‘You could’ve broke my friggin’ neck there.’

  ‘Keep that in mind, feller,’ Edge said evenly. ‘We’re a lot of miles from where we’re going and if you don’t do like I tell you, kicking your head off your shoulders is just one way I can kill you. And I’ve got no reason to give a shit about how the people in his home town feel about not having a hanging to see.’

  ‘Why?’ Straw demanded. ‘It ain’t worth it, man! That bastard said it! A lousy thousand bucks!’ His panicked roll away from Edge had brought him up against the carcass of the stallion. Now he used the hand of his good arm to get leverage on the saddlehorn and push himself to his feet. His gun-shot left arm hung loosely at his side. ‘All the way to friggin’ Crater for that?’

  Edge dropped his cigarette to the trail and stepped on the glowing ash. ‘I got nowhere else to go, feller. And it’s a thousand dollars more than what’s waiting for me anywhere else.’

  Straw shifted his intense green-eyed stare from the face of Edge and moved it to and fro, shortening and lengthening the focus as if he were seeking some visual stimulus to trigger a line of reasoning to dissuade his new captor from taking him back to hang. But nothing occurred to him and he abandoned the attempt. Hung his head and hunched his shoulders, right hand reached across the front of his body to gently hold the blood crusted bullet wound.

  His tone was as dejected as his posture. ‘Of all the lousy friggin’ luck, I have to run into a money grabbin’ sonofabitch like you, man.’

  ‘From where I saw it, you were running away from me, feller.’

  ‘I thought you was him!’ Straw stabbed a finger toward the man with a knife in his belly. ‘If I’d knowed you was some cheap bounty hunter lookin’ for easy pickin’s -’

  ‘Way things are, I can’t be averse to getting called a bounty hunter. But like to think of myself as a gambler.’

  The half breed Comanche sneered. ‘A chance is sure what you’re takin’, man. Same as me. And with a hangin’ rope waitin’ for me at Crater, I’m gonna be ready to risk my friggin’ neck every step of the way up there. And that puts your life on the line as well.’

  John Hackman abruptly stopped breathing. There was no gradual slackening of the rate or any coughing or a choking sound. His lungs simply vented what was in them and did not suck in any more.

  ‘There goes one loser, man,’ Joe Straw said with a brand of evil glee. ‘Wonder which of us two Lady Luck plans to shit on next?’

  His grinning green eyes followed Edge as the taller man moved to where John Hackman’s horse stood in obedient docility. Did not alter their expression as the lawman’s Winchester was drawn from the boot and hurled several yards out from the trail.

  Then Edge gestured with his head for the half breed Comanche to come and mount the gelding.

  ‘So okay, man. You got the top hand right now. But there can be a different deal almost any time.’

  ‘I’m not playing your game, feller.’

  Straw seemed reluctant to move away from the dead horse. Asked absently: ‘How’s that, man?’

  ‘Not making any deals,’ Edge answered with a cold smile that showed just a sliver of teeth between his dra
wn back lips. ‘Looking to hit the thousand dollar jackpot with a one armed bandit.’

  CHAPTER THREE

  STRAW started toward Edge, then pulled up short and shook his head. ‘Look man, how’d you like to collect near twice that much and no lousy trip to a one horse town to make?’

  ‘Like I just said. No deals.’

  The half breed Comanche was having an argument with himself and the depth of his doubt showed on his weary face. Then he blurted: ‘Shit, I ain’t gonna leave it here for some other passin’ through drifter to enjoy!’

  Then he swung around and back-tracked to the dead horse. Was about to drop down on to one knee, but froze at the sound of a gunshot. And wrenched his head around as the bullet took a piece of leather out of the saddlehom: saw that Edge was shaking his head in a gesture of mild rebuke as he bolstered the smoking Frontier Colt with far less haste than he drew it.

  ‘Ain’t nothin’ in the saddlebag but what’s left of the money I took off the friggin’ stage, man!’ Straw snarled. Then brought his high emotion under control. ‘Best part of eighteen hundred dollars.’

  ‘Just get on the horse like you were told, feller.’

  Straw looked on the point of accepting the challenge implicit in the other man’s quietly spoken words. But then, his actions jerky with anger, he moved away from the dead grey, veered to the side to snatch up his displaced Derby and jammed it on his red hair.

  This while Edge went to the carcass and stooped to check on the contents of the uppermost saddlebag: saw it contained only a variety of well used bills.

  ‘All right if I see if the lawman was carryin’ any food, man?’ Straw asked sourly. ‘It’s a lot of hours since I last ate.’

  ‘No sweat,’ Edge allowed as he began to take out the loosely packed money, the bills mostly ones, fives and tens.

  He kept watch on Straw while he was doing this and saw the man bring from Hackman’s saddlebag some wax paper wrapped packages which he held in the hand of his good arm and tore at with his teeth to get at the food inside.

  Edge ignored some coins which formed part of the stolen booty and crossed to stow the bills in one of his own saddlebags. Straw had partially appeased his ravenous hunger by then and was sucking water from one of Hackman’s canteens.

  ‘Eat while you ride, feller.’

  Straw was totally involved with the food and drink: expressed surprise when he looked around and saw Edge was astride the black mare.

  ‘Somethin’ oughta be done about my arm, man!’ he complained. ‘It oughta be cleaned up and bandaged. Or else poison could set in.’

  ‘Maybe there’s a town with a doctor in it up ahead.’

  ‘And maybe there friggin’ ain’t!’ He spat out pieces of half chewed food as he snarled the response. ‘My arm could drop off from gangrene before we find . . . ’

  Fear replaced anger again as he backed off from the gelding out of the path of the mare which Edge steered across the trail.

  ‘Now what, man?’ he demanded.

  Edge caught hold of the gelding’s bridle to turn the horse so that he headed down the slope. Then released it, reached backwards and landed an open handed blow on the animal’s rump. The horse snorted and lunged from a standstill into an immediate gallop. The slitted blue eyes of the mounted man looked bleakly down at Joe Straw who was staring after the dust trading horse in aghast amazement

  ‘What the hell you do that for?’

  ‘Now you have to walk until we catch up with him, feller. When your legs start to ache, it’ll keep your mind off that bum arm of yours. Move out, uh?’

  ‘You’re some mean bastard, man!’

  Edge nodded. ‘And from what Hackman said, it seems I got competition.’

  ‘You don’t know the friggin’ half of it!’ Straw snarled, tossed away a piece of wax paper, put the stopper back in the canteen with his teeth and started to trudge in the wake of the bolting horse.

  ‘Know my half well enough,’ came the evenly voiced response as Edge set his horse moving some ten feet behind his prisoner.

  The big, strong mare was as new to him as most of his clothing. Purchased in Tucson some three weeks ago with a portion of reward money he had not even realized he was in line for when he did some killing up north. But there had been reason enough for them to die and so the fact that they were wanted men with a total price of fifteen hundred dollars on their heads was nothing more than a lucky break for the man called Edge.

  Although he never relied upon luck, he had come to accept the bad brand philosophically and to take full advantage of the good variety. No longer indulged in morose reflections that fortune was inclined to frown more than smile upon him.

  For the most part his youth and young manhood had been a series of happy times shared with his parents and younger brother on a small Iowa farmstead. Only the accidental shooting of his kid brother - that made Jamie a cripple - and the peaceful passing of their parents cast the shadows of regret and grief across his memories of those early years.

  Then came the War Between the States and the harshest of all times. Which he fought as Lieutenant and then Captain Josiah C. Hedges of the Union cavalry, coming to accept the brutal horrors of war with something close to detached equanimity for most of the time. Such an attitude kept him sane during the long, harsh years when he daily faced the danger of being killed not only by the Rebel enemy but also at the hands of six of the most vicious and amoral troopers who served the Yankee cause. And unwittingly learned the grim lessons of survival that were to stand him in good stead when fate decreed he should become the man called Edge. This in the immediate aftermath of the war’s end, when he returned to find his home a burning ruin and Jamie a mutilated corpse being ravaged by buzzards.

  He tracked down and killed the men who raided the Iowa farmstead, and in stepping outside the law took the new name. And as Edge, he had needed to kill countless other enemies on the endless trail that had brought him to this barren valley in the Santa Rosa Mountains. For, time and again, the cruel fates had conspired to lead him into situations which demanded he kill or be killed.

  The fates or that streak which had been implanted in him by the continual chain reaction of violent experiences which filled his past since the war.

  Yeah, Joe Straw was right. He was a mean bastard. Had to be to stay alive while he rode the long trail from one explosion of violent trouble to the next. Never anymore attempting to avoid involvement because he had learned the hard way that there was no escape from it.

  Thus had he watched from afar as the half breed Comanche spotted him, panicked and made the move that proved his downfall. Then made a move of his own which, he was prepared to admit, was a contributing factor in the death of Sheriff John Hackman.

  It was a mile out along the valley floor that the black gelding had come to a halt at the end of the gallop triggered by Edge. And until they reached the quietly standing horse the man who was walking said nothing. Just occasionally directed a hate filled glance back over his shoulder at the impassively riding Edge.

  This as the man in the saddle maintained an apparently indifferent survey in every direction: his narrowed eyes looking out from the shade of his hat brim in search of anything on the sun parched landscape that might signal danger.

  But there was nothing that caused him to do a double take. There was himself and there was the horse under him. The weary, resentment burdened man half walking and half staggering ahead of him. The black gelding they were moving toward. And the group of a half dozen buzzards gorging on the dead horse and the corpse of the young lawman in back of him. Elsewhere within his range of vision all that moved was the sun on its imperceptible crawl down the south western section of the cloudless sky.

  ‘All right, man, you made your friggin’ point.’

  Straw ran his right hand over his sweat beaded face and his green eyes met the gaze from his captor’s blue ones. Edge nodded and began to roll a cigarette while Straw hauled himself awkwardly up astride the saddle of the dead Hackm
an’s horse.

  Edge lit the cigarette and said: ‘Point is where you ride, feller,’ as he flicked the dead match along the trail. ‘No hurry.’

  Straw clucked his mount forward and growled: ‘I couldn’t if I wanted to. I’m bushed.’

  ‘What you want is of no consequence,’ Edge drawled as he set his own mount moving ten feet behind the man.

  There was another long silence between them as Joe Straw relished the relative comfort of being in the saddle. But this time he totally ignored the cause of his predicament as he indulged his responses to pain and misery and humiliation. Then he began to reflect upon the stupidity of his own actions that had led to his undoing. But this served to sow the seeds of self anger which he soon realized was a futile waste of time. Time better spent on considering the present and contemplating the future. Figuring how he could escape from the big, taciturn, cold hearted sonofabitch who for the moment had the upper hand.

  ‘That John Hackman was as dumb as his old man, you know that?’ he said suddenly, and this time there was a slight grin on his handsome face as he glanced at his captor.

  ‘I never knew his Pa.’

  Straw spat to the side as he turned to face front again. ‘Wasn’t no valuable freight aboard the stage, man. Just a couple of rich old biddies and a couple of newlyweds with their honeymoon stake. Between them they had more money than I ever figured to make from holdin’ up the stage. But it weren’t near enough for that crazy old bastard to get himself killed over.

  ‘The one ridin’ guard, he did the sensible thing, man. Tossed away his gun and stuck his hands in the air. But old man Hackman, he went for a friggin’ itty-bitty .38 while I had a cocked double-barrel aimed plumb at him. Can you see the sense in that?’