EDGE: The Killing Claim Page 3

  He continued to stare fixedly at Edge, the strength of the gaze undiminished. But his voice had gradually become fainter. And he seemed abruptly to realize this, paused to take a deep breath, and then spoke faster as well as louder—as if afraid he would not be able to finish before the will to go on was exhausted.

  "After you done that, mister, you work this claim. You shift that cave-in outta the mine and you find your reward. And if Ralph or Lee show up and try to take it away from you, you tell them it was their father's dyin' wish for you to have it. And if they don't take that as the truth, you do what you have to, to protect what's your own."

  Again his voice weakened, but his gaze across the room at Edge remained firmly fixed. The half-breed began to roll another cigarette as the stove heat started to warm the chill ear of the cabin.

  "You look like a man who can manage to do that all right, mister," Barney Galton added.

  "What's mine these days ain't much, feller. Most of the time I guess I manage to take care of it."

  The dying old man's eyelids began to droop and he complained: "Damnit, the fire's makin' me drowsy, mister. Like to hear you say you'll do like I asked. Before I go?"

  He fought to make his eyes as wide as possible and for a stretched second they stared fixedly at Edge again as a match was struck and the ciga­rette was lit.

  The eyelids eased down in front of the eyes and the old man pleaded in a strained whisper "Mister? . . ."

  On a stream of tobacco smoke that had only a short and marginal effect on negating the evil stench of the rapidly warming air, the half-breed answered "Bury you, feller. And see if I can find a good home for your dog. No charge."

  Galton was unable to get his eyes open again, but he did manage to express a grimace with his mouth. And there was even a degree of venom in his tone when he growled "Then get the hell back on your horse and ride on your way to Lakeview, mister! In all my near eighty-nine years I ain't never took nothin' I didn't pay for—in one way or other! And I ain't gonna start bein' a friggin' pan­handler on my friggin' deathbed!"

  With his topcoat still on, it was getting to be too hot for Edge beside the stove and he moved to the makeshift table and lowered his rump on to the crates that formed a bench.

  "That's right, on your way!" the old man said in a taunting tone as he heard Edge's footfalls on the hard-packed dirt floor. "It'll be the way it was gonna be before you come pokin' your nose in around here! Sayin' you was gonna shoot my dog! Lightin' fires nobody asked you to light! Complainin' about the smell of me I can't help! Why, when I was able bodied I washed up and shaved every day and…"

  Almost as soon as he began to censure Edge, tears squeezed from under his eyelids and ran across his cheeks. And then the prospect of dying alone, helpless to free the dog from his tether, acted to constrict his throat and choke off the words. His wasted frame started to tremble with silent sobs as the tears flowed faster.

  The half-breed sat at the table, quiet and unmoving, sucking every now and then against the cigarette angled from a corner of his mouth. He gazed through the cloud of smoke and out of the smeared window at the blurred scene of the brightly sunlit clearing, pointedly not looking to­ward the bed where Barney Galton lay weeping in a well of loneliness while he waited to die. But unable to block from his ears the sounds of the old man's ragged breathing.

  The cigarette was smoked down to the shortest of butts and Edge allowed the tobacco to bum out just before it was about to singe his lips. Then, perhaps five minutes later, the old man com­plained:

  "Damn you, mister, for not closin' the friggin' door after you!"

  Now Edge softly spat out the butt of the ciga­rette and looked toward the bed to see that Galton was trembling with imagined cold while his face and exposed upper body were beaded with sweat.

  "Door's closed, feller. I told you about feeling the cold, didn't I?"

  He rose from the crates and started to unbutton his sheepskin coat, intending to go to the bed and drape it over the almost dead man.

  "You sonofabitch!" Galton snarled weakly, and managed to crack open his eyes to direct a look of hatred at Edge. "I told you to leave my place, mis­ter! I told you Bamy Galton don't take nothin' for nothin'!"

  "You and me both, feller," the half-breed said evenly, holding back from approaching the bed.

  The old man was too exhausted to maintain high emotion and he began to tremble again. And there was a tremor in his voice as he forced out, "Don't make no sense to me, mister."

  "Good chance I could be in much the same kind of spot as you when my time's up, feller. Maybe I figure that if I see you through it, somebody'll be around to—"

  "I friggin' told you that unless you take on the claim, I don't—"

  "Going to do that, feller."

  "What?" This time his lips drew back from his almost toothless gums in a manner to suggest the trace of a smile instead of an unmistakable sneer And then he started to laugh again. The longest and the loudest yet, as he experienced a simple joy that transcended pain and fear, before the of coughing hit him. A racking, uncontrollably paroxysm that shook the man and the bed beneath him.

  And set the dog to howling. For more stretched seconds than seemed possi­ble, the emaciated man in the bed suffered the constant jerking spasms that seemed violent and strong enough to break his bones. And then he died. After he had snapped open his eyes and just for an instant was immobile—gazing at Edge with boundless gratitude. Then a final jerking action attacked his every muscle and he was still for all time. Eyes open, but showing no expression now.

  The dog vented a final, very mournful howl, and rose on his hind legs, to put his front paws on the ledge and his snout through the narrow crack at the bottom of the window. He began to whine pitifully. Until Edge came close to the stinking bed and stooped over the corpse, when the ani­mal curled back his lips and growled ominously.

  The man looked bleakly at the dog as he closed the death-glazed eyes of Galton and then pulled up the blanket to totally cover the corpse. Said evenly: "It's all right, feller. I ain't going to eat him."

  Chapter Three

  Just as earlier he had spoken to his gelding to ease the spooked mind of the horse, so now Edge talked in a soothing tone to the uneasy German shepherd.

  "He said for you to treat me as a friend, feller. And I guess you don't find that idea very appeal­ing. Know how you feel. Don't make many myself. Which, I figure, has to give us at least something in common."

  The dog had stopped growling and was whin­ing softly again as he tried to force the window open wider with his snout. But it was firmly stuck.

  "But before we do much more about develop­ing our relationship, I have to get the body buried. So this is what's going to happen next, feller. I'm going to wrap up the remains in these bed blankets and carry the whole bundle outside. Leave it over to the side of the clearing where he said he wanted to have the grave. Then go find the mine, bring back a shovel, and do the bury­ing chore."

  The dog had ceased to whine now and dropped down from the window. Sat below it with his head cocked first on one side and then the other, listening to the voice of the stranger.

  Edge went on, as he stooped over the bed to free the bottom blanket from under the mattress: "Between me coming out of the door and reaching the side of the clearing, you'll have a chance to take a chunk out of me. But I'll have a gun in my hand and if you try, you won't—"

  The dog gave a short, sharp bark which sounded of impatience.

  "All right, I'm not usually this talkative, feller," Edge countered, speaking as much for his own benefit now as he hefted the blanket-wrapped corpse up from the bed and fought back down his throat the threat of retching when the most pow­erful wave of stench yet was released. "Just wanted you to know how we stand. Kind of like warning a man not to point a gun at me twice un­less he's ready to squeeze the trigger the second time. You attack me again, you'd better go for the throat. And get it."

  He stood beside the bed with the rancid-smell�
�ing body draped over his left shoulder. And gri­maced through the window at the dog, which barked again. Then he turned to go across the single room of the cabin, eased open the door, and drew the Frontier Colt from his coat pocket. Thumbed back the hammer before he used a boot to draw the door open wider.

  The German shepherd was still under the partly opened window. But was standing now and moved just his head to follow the slow progress of Edge, who walked in a shallow arc to go around the animal. Sideways for a few yards and then backwards, so as to keep watching the dog and aiming the revolver at him.

  Except for the inanimate gun, which held no fear for the dog, there was not a trace of aggres­sion in the manner of man or animal. While over on the far side of the clearing, the gelding cropped leisurely at a patch of lush grass beside the start of the trail down from the lakeside prom­ontory.

  To the side of the rock outcrop around which Edge had ridden into the clearing, he cautiously lowered his burden to the ground. Still gripping the revolver but no longer constantly watching the silent and unmoving dog, which was now sev­eral yards away. Then, because he was specifi­cally looking for it, he easily found a well-trodden way into the timber, which quickly took him out of sight and range of the German shepherd.

  It was just a narrow footpath that twisted and turned among the fir trees and intervening brush, all the while dropping down an incline not so steep as the slope that he had ridden up from the shore of the lake. And it ended in a rocky hollow at the base of a low cliff face with a number of holes cut into it—all of them demanding that a man be on hands and knees to enter them. Ten in all along the escarpment, which had trees grow­ing along its rim. Just as there were other trees growing around the horseshoe-shaped curve of the shallow depression at the base of the rock face.

  Littering the area outside of several of the adits was a scattering of implements, most of them rusted and broken. Miner's candlesticks and man yokes, picks and shovels, timber props and sections of carts, pails and pans, axes and hammers Edge made for where the most serviceable looking of the shovels lay, going down into the hollow and walking over ground made up of small chunks of rock that had been taken from the ten tunnels. And without using time to delve more deeply into the workings of Barney Galton's claim, returned up from the hollow and along the gently rising, twisting, and turning pathway to the clear­ing.

  The dog had now moved from under the cabin window and was lying on his belly, head resting on the blanket-wrapped body of his former mas­ter. Silent and looking at Edge with the most dole­ful of eyes.

  "No sweat, feller," the man told the animal. "Unless you ain't fed up with that by the time I get the grave dug."

  He started straight in to work on the chore, just a feet feet from where the German shepherd watched him and within easy reach if the animal turned abruptly vicious again. Aware of this dan­ger, he talked as before to the grieving dog—first with the revolver resting still cocked on the ground and then, when the work negated the need for the coat, nestling with the hammer for­ward in his holster.

  "I'm crazy, you know that, feller? I could have been long gone from here. Down that trail from the other side of the place and maybe even ar­rived in town by now. Having me a drink or eat­ing a meal. With my eye on a woman to share my bed tonight in a hotel where other men are paid to do the chores. And with no damn troubled con­science about not coming back to the place when he called out for help."

  He looked long and hard at the dog while he rested for a few moments in the grave that was as wide and long as necessary but only a foot or so deep. Seeing the animal clearly for perhaps the first time. Close to a hundred pounds of lean-built dog, four feet high and half again as long from the base of the tail to the nose. Various shades of brown and gray short hair, with a long and nar­row triangle of white on his chest. A finely shaped head with ears fast to prick, eyes that were clear even when they expressed the animal's sadness. And a full set of unbroken and gleaming white teeth—this the only feature of which he had taken much notice before, allied with the powerful bulk of the animal.

  So a handsome dog in good health. Which had been well cared for before Barney Galton had his accident. Maybe had been overfed, for he cer­tainly did not look undernourished after so long without any food except for one bizarre meal.

  "Instead of which, I'm suddenly in the grave-digging business. With a chance of getting my throat ripped out if you take it into your head to make the try. And if that don't happen, I'm stuck with you unless I can find you a home. Unless he wasn't as crazy as he seemed to be. And there really is a fortune to be made out of his claim. In which case—hell, I'm not joking about being crazy, feller."

  This last growled after a yawn caused him to look toward the dog for the first time in a few minutes. And he saw the animal was now stretched out on his side with his back to the corpse and the gravedigger, about to go to sleep.

  "I'm almost talking to myself."

  He worked faster now, sweating constantly but not heavily in the bright sunlight of the cool fall afternoon while his mind remained as empty o thoughts as his face was vacant of expression. He had selected a site severed feet in from the trees fringing the clearing and he did not hit any roots. When the grave was deep enough to accommo­date him upright to his chest, he called a halt to the digging and climbed out of the hole.

  The dog raised and turned his head to see what was happening, but made no other move nor any sound at all as Edge put the corpse into the grave with as much dignity as was possible, made sure Barney Galton was put to rest face up. The dog lost interest and was spread flat out on his side again during the whole time it took for the displaced earth to be shoveled back into the hole.

  The elongated mound of fresh earth was for the present a grave marker in itself. But time and na­ture would eventually camouflage such a sign of man's mortality. So he used a dozen or so small rocks, dug from the earth but not put back, to shape a cross on top of the mound. This symbol, too, would one day be obliterated. But it was as much as the man called Edge was prepared to do in his unaccustomed role of undertaker. And when he stood up from completing this final touch, he felt strangely embarrassed in his own company, as if ashamed of what he had done.

  The dog whined softly, like he sensed a darken­ing of the man's mood and was ready to be sympa­thetic to it or afraid of it.

  Edge shook free of the feeling and as the dog rose on to his haunches, asked of him, "You ready to give that friend stuff a try, feller?"

  He dropped on to his haunches and extended a hand, palm uppermost. The dog thrust his head forward and tentatively sniffed the brown-skinned hand. Then licked at the dried sweat of the man's labors. Edge allowed this for a few mo­ments before he began to ruffle the fur on the head of the animal. The dog panted, his breath hot. The man eased slowly upright and stepped closer to the still seated dog, as he reached with his free hand into the hair at the nape of his neck. The dog eyed the open straight razor with the same trusting disinterest as he had earlier viewed the Colt.

  All the time this was taking place, Edge talked in the familiar soothing tone, telling the German shepherd that he was a fine dog and describing the kind of meal they would shortly be sharing.

  Then he brought the razor toward the head of the dog from the side. And cut through the tether rope just above the knot that was not of the run­ning kind.

  "There you go, feller," he said with a note of re­lief in his voice now as he stepped back from the animal and slid the razor back into its concealed sheath. Added, "If you want to, that is."

  The dog looked uncomprehendingly up at the man, in search of but failing to find a word of command that would register. Or maybe a particular whistle such as Galton had used to bring the first attempted attack to an end.

  "How about eat, feller? You understand eat Food? Grub? Chow?"

  The animal was obviously concentrating hard but gave no response of any kind until, with shrug and a short sigh, Edge stooped to retrieve his topcoat and turned to move away
from the grave. When the dog immediately rose an moved in close to the man's left leg, tail swayin’ and eyes bright as they gazed up in eager search of approval.

  Edge grinned down at the big dog and offered "It's a start."

  Then, for the next thirty minutes or so, while Edge prepared and cooked a meal from the diminished supplies in his saddlebags, the dog was constantly beside him except when he was inside the cabin which was now warm with stove-heated air that no longer smelled of the previous owner. But he never got under the half-breed's feet—was fast and agile enough to be always out of range when the man suddenly slowed or changed direc­tion unexpectedly. Almost as if he anticipated the intentions of his new adopted owner.

  Which was disquieting at first. Just as it was strange to see the dog freeze for a full second or so outside the doorway each time Edge stepped over the threshold. Like he was waiting that short time for the man to change his mind, before he considered it permissible to sink down on to his haunches.

  But after a while the half-breed accepted sim­ply that the big German shepherd was no more nor less than an expertly trained animal that needed little more out of life than to give loyalty and obedience to the man who was his master.

  Food and drink were among the additional re­quirements, and the dog drank eagerly when the man refilled his dry bowl at a front corner of the cabin. And ate voraciously from a plate of salt pork and beans that Edge set down just outside the open door. While he ate his share seated on the crate bench at the crate table. A meal that was a combination lunch and supper, for the sun was low beyond the timber-clad ridges in the south­west before it was eaten and dusk was in brief charge of the light while full night hovered ready to stake a not-to-be-denied claim.

  Edge rolled a cigarette to smoke with his coffee and as he lit it he experienced an infrequently felt sense of contentment. And yet again the dog seemed to read the mood of the man and matched it. Lay down on his belly with his head between his paws and vented a sigh as he peered through the doorway at the man seated in the rapidly darkening room.