EDGE: Red Fury (Edge series Book 33) Page 3

  Edge dropped two nickels on the bar top. ‘So why didn’t you fill it up with beer?’

  The fat man was able to abandon his false attitude and he scowled as he replaced the glass under the pump faucet.

  ‘I knowed he was trouble, Cass,’ the sour-faced woman growled dully.

  ‘Obliged,’ the half-breed said, his tone still even and his lean face impassive as he took the brimming glass and sipped the beer.

  ‘You know every damn thing, Grace!’ Cass snapped as he dropped the two coins into a drawer beneath the counter. They hit bare wood rather than rattled on money already taken. ‘Truth is, you don’t know nothin’.’

  He flicked a cloth at a dust mote which was about to settle on the polished bar top. Footfalls sounded on the boardwalk outside. Then a man entered the building.

  ‘Afternoon to you. Just passing through San Lucas, mister?’

  ‘Sure ain’t nothin’ for no one to stop long for,’ Grace muttered.

  Edge did not look at the newcomer until the man reached the bar, ten feet to the left. Then saw a man only an inch shorter than himself. Of about the same late thirties age. But thinner. Beanpole thin. With a hollow-cheeked, sunken-eyed face. A thin moustache along his top lip, the same jet black color as his neatly clipped hair. The deep-set eyes were also black. Dressed in a brown shirt, brown cotton pants and brown boots. A white Stetson hung between his shoulder blades. A .38 Whitney with a lot of fancy scrollwork engraved in the frame and on the cylinder was stuck carelessly into the right pocket of his pants. Much plainer was the five-pointed tin star pinned to the left breast pocket of his shirt.

  ‘Never stay anyplace long, sheriff,’ the half-breed told Lee Temple.

  ‘Usual, Lee?’ Cass asked eagerly.

  ‘You know it’s too early in the day for me, Mr. Lutter,’ the lawman replied without shifting his steady gaze away from Edge. Then: ‘No offence, mister, but I consider it my duty as peace officer here to keep informed about what’s happening in San Lucas.’

  Edge was used to being viewed with suspicion by strangers -particularly conscientious lawmen who recognized in his deceptively nonchalant bearing and world-weary coldness of eye a deep capacity for violent singlemindedness of purpose should trouble threaten.

  ‘What the hell ever happens in San Lucas since the paydirt near run out and the Apaches hit us?’ Grace muttered against the sound of her clicking needles.

  ‘No offence taken, sheriff,’ Edge assured.

  Temple nodded in acknowledgement and vented a soft sigh of relief. Then, to Lutter, ‘I think maybe I’ll break my rule and have a belt.’

  The bartender took a bottle of tequila and a shot glass off the shelf and set them down in front of Temple. Who filled the glass, put the stopper back in the bottle and pushed it away. He took the drink at a swallow and shuddered.

  ‘I got reason for asking, mister. You come to town from the east? Through the Cedar Mountains?’

  ‘North. From Silver City.’

  ‘Where we should’ve set up in business,’ Grace complained.

  Temple showed a frown of disappointment. ‘Don’t suppose you saw any hostile Indians in the country you crossed?’

  ‘Didn’t see another living thing until I reached the Butler place, sheriff.’

  Grace made a sound of disgust in her scrawny throat. ‘Bet there wasn’t anythin’ hostile about the welcome you got from that Butler woman, mister.’

  Temple sighed again. But this time it seemed to be a time-consuming exercise while he subdued an urge to anger. ‘I told you before about that kind of talk, Mrs. Lutter,’ he said softly, gazing at the woman who refused to look up from her knitting. ‘You ought to count your blessings and hold your tongue.’

  More footfalls hit the boardwalk. Running. The man in a hurry coming out of the office of the mining equipment company and across the front of the bank to the doorway of the Lutters’ place.

  ‘Riders comin’, Lee!’ he yelled in high excitement. ‘A whole bunch of them.’

  Temple and the Lutters all looked fearfully at the doorway, then suspiciously at Edge as the half-breed finished his beer.

  Edge used the back of a hand to wipe foam off his top lip and said to the lawman: ‘If they know me, feller, I don’t know it yet.’

  The Lutters seemed unconvinced of this, but Temple nodded curtly that he was prepared to accept the statement as true. Then, as he turned to head for the doorway, he transferred the Whitney sixgun from his pants pocket to the waistband of his pants. At the belly, with the butt jutting to the right.

  Cass Lutter came out from behind the bar and went in Temple’s wake. His wife curtailed her knitting but remained on the stool.

  ‘Who knows,’ she said to the slower-moving Edge, ‘could be our lucky day. Bunch of high spendin’ customers!’

  She laughed, scornful of her cynical wishful thinking. Edge ignored her and she took up her knitting again.

  Out on the boardwalk, shaded from the afternoon sun by the buildings at their back, several people stood peering intently down the slope toward where a group of horsemen were starting up the grade. Temple and Cass Lutter, a slightly built, bespectacled man of about fifty who had called attention to the approach of the riders, a thirty-year old couple in front of the bank, two young men in the doorway of the stageline office and a girl of perhaps twelve or thirteen at the open gate of the arid garden fronting the sheriff’s house.

  There was distant shouting in the air and people began to emerge from their crude homes and from the tunnels to watch the progress of the newcomers.

  Seven men were coming up the slope, four uniformed cavalrymen riding in a column of two with three bare-chested prisoners between the leading and trailing pairs. They were seen to be prisoners from the sagging lengths of rope which linked them together at their necks. Then, as the riders came closer, the men forced by their bonds to ride three abreast were identifiable as Indian braves.

  ‘Francie, get back into the house and at your studies!’ Sheriff Temple barked, raising a hand to fist it around the butt of the Whitney.

  ‘Aw, Pa!’ the pretty young girl at the gate complained.

  ‘Do it, Francine!’ the lawman roared, adding emphasis to her full name. ‘Or I’ll tan your rump until—’

  The girl said something under her breath that was probably an obscenity. But whirled around, her petticoats crackling, and stormed up the walk to the house front door.

  ‘You men get your guns,’ Temple rasped glancing to left and right.

  Everyone on the street except for the sheriff and the half-breed went back into their premises. When they re-emerged with a shotgun, two rifles and three revolvers, the woman remained inside the bank.

  ‘Looks to me like the army have got the situation well in hand, feller,’ Edge murmured.

  Then did a double take at the scene on the lower half of the slope and realized he could be wrong. For the prisoners and escorts were no longer alone on the trail. The further they rode up the hill, the more men, women and some children left their claims to converge into a swelling group at their backs. And the soldiers - a captain, lieutenant and two sergeants - became suddenly aware of this. So that their previous composure was replaced by nervousness as they glanced over their shoulders, raked their eyes to left and right and then peered up at the men with guns on the street ahead

  The two officers were in their early forties, one of the non-coms was more than fifty and the other less than thirty. All of them were travel-stained and trail-weary: unshaven for at least two days, sweat run and with a great deal of grey dust clinging to their flesh, their clothing and their horses. The lines of strain and exhaustion seemed to cut deeper into their weathered skin with each passing moment.

  In contrast, the trio of Apache braves looked well-rested and untroubled: untouched by what had gone before and not concerned with what lay ahead. Resigned to their fate, whether it be decided by army justice or civilian vigilante action.

  They were all in their mid-twenties,
dressed only in white cotton pants and moccasins, metal armbands and leather headbands stripped of feathers. No paint on chests or faces.

  ‘Men from Fort Catlow have no authority in San Lucas, mister,’ Temple rasped through teeth clenched in a sneer of deep hatred.

  ‘And strangers that try interferin’ in San Lucas business with Injuns’ll get treated same as if they was Injuns,’ Cass Lutter added with equal enmity.

  ‘You like Indians, stranger?’ the blond-headed, pot-bellied young man in front of the stageline office called tensely.

  Edge was midway through rolling a cigarette. He ran his tongue along the gummed strip before he answered: ‘I don’t like anybody, feller.’

  ‘Yeah, you look that kind,’ Lutter said and, like everyone else on the street, concentrated his attention on the riders as they neared the intersection.

  The half-breed struck a match on the door-frame of Cass Lutter’s premises and lit the cigarette.

  The senior officer, who had a bushy red moustache and a knife scar on his right cheek held up a hand to halt his men and the prisoners at the far side of the street. And squinted his eyes as he raked his gaze over the line of gun-toting civilians on the sidewalk.

  ‘I told you we should have rode around this place, captain!’ the older, thinner, more weathered of the two sergeants growled.

  ‘Is anyone in authority here?’ the captain demanded as the stockily built, square-faced lieutenant shot a glowering glance at the sergeant.

  ‘Duly elected sheriff is the best we got,’ Temple announced, taking a half pace forward, his hand still fisted around the butt of the Whitney in his waistband.

  ‘Captain Costello, Eighth Cavalry from Fort Catlow, sheriff,’ the senior officer said and executed a token salute. Then waved his arm to either side, to draw attention to the crescent of people from the claims which arced around behind and on the flanks of the halted horsemen. ‘Be obliged if you would disperse this crowd, sir. So that we may secure the prisoners, refresh ourselves and rest until nightfall.’

  ‘Ask you something, captain?’ Temple posed.

  ‘Sir?’ Costello was anxiously puzzled by the lawman’s deceptively calm tone and attitude.

  ‘Say your wife, daughter, best friend or whatever was murdered and you had the killer brought to you with a rope around his neck ... would you just go on home on the say-so of a stranger?’

  ‘I told you, I told you!’ the older non-com said harshly against a background murmur of many voices agreeing with the sheriff’s point.

  ‘Shut up, Jaroff!’ Costello snapped, not shifting his suddenly hardened gaze away from the angular, mustached face of Lee Temple.

  ‘You recognize these Indians, sir?’

  ‘It was night, captain. They came and they went in less than fifteen minutes. All anyone here saw was that they were Apaches. The killing was discriminate. Nobody’s going to give much of a damn which Indian killed his particular kin.’

  The younger sergeant, who at close quarters looked to be no more than twenty or twenty-one, licked sweat beads off his top lip. As his pale blue eyes swung frantically back and forth in their sockets, searching in vain for a friendly face. When he failed to find one, he steeled himself to combat the threat of panic and spread an expression of grim determination across his features. Which matched the looks on the faces of Jaroff, Costello and the lieutenant.

  ‘Is anybody going to give much of a damn about killing officers and men of the United States Army, sheriff?’ the captain countered.

  ‘Or facing up to the consequences of such a crime?’ the lieutenant added.

  ‘Who’d know, soldier boy?’ Cass Lutter taunted through teeth bared in a sneer.

  If any of the captive braves understood what was being said or even sensed the dangerous situation which was developing, they showed no sign of it. In addition to being roped together by their necks, they also had their wrists bound behind their backs and their ankles lashed to the stirrups of the Apache saddles on their ponies. They sat rigidly erect, staring directly ahead into a middle distance that held no fear for them.

  Captain Costello became as rigid as the Indians. But with shock. He raked his gaze along the line of men on the boardwalk and then stared at Temple. His voice croaked as he said: ‘You mean that every man, woman and child in this town would condone the murder of my men and—’

  ‘That shouldn’t be necessary!’ the sheriff interrupted grimly. ‘All you have to do is ride on out of San Lucas and tell your commanding officer at Catlow the truth. That you were outgunned and we forced you to hand over the prisoners to us.’

  ‘And we’re ready to face up to the consequences of that, sir,’ the slightly built, pale faced, city-suited man in front of the bank added. He had a Winchester rifle held double-handed across the front of his thighs.

  The pot-bellied young man out front of the stage line office also had a Winchester, right hand fisted around the frame and the barrel sloped to his shoulder. The older man at his side carried a revolver which he held loosely at his thigh, aimed down at the broad-walk. The bespectacled man in front of the mining equipment office carried a revolver in a similar manner. Lutter carried the double-barrel shotgun diagonally across his chest, both hammers drawn back. Temple continued to grip the butt of the Whitney jutting from his waistband.

  The uniformed men had no way of knowing Edge was a neutral and although no one in the crowd to the left and right and behind them showed a weapon, it probably seemed reasonable to assume that some of them were armed. So the officers and sergeants from Fort Catlow were certainly outgunned.

  ‘I figure everyone in San Lucas agrees with what Ross Reed just said, captain,’ Temple announced and silenced the murmuring voices which had followed the comment by the man in front of the bank. ‘And we’d certainly prefer to handle the situation that way. We have no wish to harm you or your men.’

  Costello listened grimly to this, then shook his head. ‘There can be no deal of that nature, sheriff,’ he said, his voice evenly pitched and his bristled, sweating and dirty face looking less weary. These hostiles were captured after a skirmish in which six troopers of my patrol were killed. Ten more hostiles escaped, taking with them a wagon laden with stolen rifles. It is important the prisoners be interrogated at Catlow.’

  The line of men on the boardwalk exchanged tense glances while the people in the crowd began to murmur again, their tones anxious.

  ‘Lieutenant Hillenbrand,’ Costello said.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Sergeants Draper and Jaroff?’

  ‘Yes, sir?’

  ‘Captain?’

  The three were as grimly determined as Costello. Deep down afraid and still close to exhaustion, but able to draw courage and strength from each other - perhaps even from the mounting tension which seemed to have a palpable presence in the hot afternoon air.

  ‘It is essential that we eat and rest before we head for Catlow. That building there.’ He pointed a filthy finger at the saloon and store. ‘That appears to have what we require. We will ride to it and dismount. Sergeant Draper will attend to the horses. Hillenbrand, Jaroff and I will release the prisoners from the ankle bonds and take them inside. You will not draw your weapons unless provoked to do so. In that event, your duty is to protect yourselves, each other and the prisoners. Good luck to you. Forward.’

  The uniformed men suddenly looked more weary than ever, almost as if the calmly and quietly spoken words of Costello had lulled them to the brink of much-needed sleep. But they responded without hesitation to the order to move. The Apaches, familiar with the routine which had been established over the long ride from their place of capture, touched their heels to the flanks of the ponies as soon as the captain and lieutenant urged their mounts into motion.

  Cass Lutter vented a low snarl and swung his shotgun to the aim, pressing the stock against his shoulder. The Winchester and revolver of the men out front of the stage line office also became trained upon the close-knit group of riders slowly crossing the str
eet.

  Ross Reed looked nervously towards the sheriff.

  ‘Lee?’ the man who ran the mining equipment company called, his voice shrill with tension.

  ‘Easy, men!’ Costello urged and all the uniformed riders kept their hands on the reins, away from flapped holsters and the stocks of Springfield carbines jutting from forward-hung boots.

  Sunlight glistened on the sweat beads that bubbled on their foreheads and squeezed between the bristles on their jaws and cheeks.

  The crowd which had converged onto the trail and followed the prisoners and escorts advanced no further. It seemed that every pair of eyes, except those of the Apaches and the three men aiming guns directed a stare towards the gaunt face of Sheriff Lee Temple.

  Edge saw the hollow-cheeked, sunken-eyed face in profile, saw the sweat sheening the skin and the tic that spasmodically moved the bristles at one end of the thin moustache. For stretched seconds in the hot silence that was broken only by the clop of hooves, Temple attempted to outstare just one man - Captain Costello. He failed and squeezed his eyes tight closed.

  ‘Come on, Lee!’ the pot-bellied man with a Winchester leveled from his hip urged hoarsely. ‘Give the damn order, why don’t you!’

  Temple’s left hand which hung at his side was clenched into a fist as tight as that of his right around the butt of the Whitney.

  ‘No, Pa, you can’t!’ his daughter shrieked from the house which was set back behind the line of the other buildings on the one-sided street. ‘They wouldn’t want this!’

  Temple vented a groan of despair, snapped open his eyes and saw that Costello and Hillenbrand were within twenty feet of where he stood.

  Edge waited until the lawman opened his mouth. Then drew his Remington before Temple could speak, cocked the hammer and pressed the muzzle into the nape of the man’s neck. He was able to do this without moving his feet - was close enough so that his right arm was still bent at the elbow. The half-breed spat the cigarette away from the corner of his mouth to arc it out onto the street.

  ‘No one has to die, sheriff. But if they do, you’re first.’