EDGE: The Day Democracy Died Read online

  The Negro vented a low sigh of relief.

  ‘Hold still!’ Stanton snapped at him as the subject turned his head to look towards Edge.

  Conrad resumed his pose fast, but not before he had time to see the glitter in the half-breed’s eyes and recognize what it signified.

  ‘Best everyone in Democracy does like this gent says, mister. He’s got some real tough helpers.’

  The comment persuaded Stanton to look at Edge for a second time. Harder and longer than when he had glanced at him as the door closed. The green eyes did not lose their dead look. But his expression altered from vacant to menacing by a mere curling back of the thin lips over teeth too perfect to be natural. The lawman talked between the clenched teeth.

  ‘You look tough, stranger. And I guess that’s what you are, right enough. But you better listen to what Conrad Power tells you. Or get on your horse and ride out of Democracy.’

  The Negro decided he could move without arousing Stanton’s chagrin now. He got up fast from the sofa and hurried across the lobby to get behind the desk. It was familiar territory to him and he looked at ease there.

  ‘I ain’t armed, stranger.’ The sheriff was not afraid. Merely stating a fact.

  ‘Nor got any helpers close by, seems to me,’ Edge answered.

  ‘Told you - prevention’s better than cure.’ He slotted his brush into the palette, stood up and placed the materials of his hobby on the chair. ‘Conrad here’ll bear witness I tried it with you, stranger.’ He nodded to the Negro. ‘Check him in.’

  He had a gangling, easy walk for a man of his years. It carried him nonchalantly across the lobby and up the stairs. Halfway to the top, a woman stood aside for him to pass. He ignored her and she grimaced at his retreating back.

  ‘You’re lookin’ for a room, feller, I got the best one in the house,’ the woman called cheerfully as she reached the foot of the stairs. ‘Course, it comes at a higher rent - on account of the extras a man gets in it.’

  She had jet black hair that flowed softly to her shoulders. It was the only soft thing about her. Her thirty-year-old face was basically pretty, but she lost the effect by using too much paint and powder in an attempt to add sensual allure to her features. She was short, and probably plump - but boning beneath the tight bodice of her high-necked, long-sleeved, flame-red gown forced her body into the too rigid lines of conical breasts and nipped waist. She walked with an accentuated sway of her hips and did a graceless pirouette before coming to a halt.

  ‘Fay Reeves, mister,’ Power announced without enthusiasm. ‘Resident whore of the Palace Hotel.’

  ‘Figured she might be,’ Edge muttered. He touched the brim of his hat to the woman and stifled a yawn as he turned to the desk. ‘Any room but hers. Only extra I’ll pay for is a bath.’

  The Negro was dividing his attention between Edge and the balcony at the top of the stairway. But his hands were fumbling beneath the desk and he came up with the register and a key.

  ‘Been a long, hard day, uh feller?’ the whore asked. Then forced a girlish giggle. ‘I can top it with a long, hard night. If you know what I mean.’

  Power did some more fumbling under the desk and produced a pen and inkpot. He was concentrating entirely on the balcony now. When footfalls sounded up there, his hands shook. Edge had to take the key from him to see that it was labeled with the numeral seven. Then he turned the register, opened it and filled out his name, adding the number of his room.

  Fay Reeves had started the forced giggle again, but curtailed it. Edge dropped the room key in a shirt pocket, lifted his gear and turned.

  Sheriff Gene Stanton was descending the stairs. He had donned a black Stetson, yellow oilskin coat and knee high overshoes. Again he ignored the suddenly nervous whore and the equally anxious Negro clerk. But, at the double doors, he looked over his shoulder to fix Edge with his dead eye stare.

  ‘Don’t get too comfortable here at the Palace, stranger. Pretty soon you’ll be roomin’ as a guest of the county.’

  Then he stepped outside and closed the doors firmly behind him. His footfalls on the sidewalk were soon masked by the falling rain.

  ‘You crossed up that bastard?’ the whore exclaimed, eyeing Edge in a new light. Her blue, paint encircled eyes showed an odd mixture of admiration and pity.

  ‘Wouldn’t give the gent his guns,’ Power supplied.

  She shook her head. ‘Feller, did you just ask for trouble.’

  ‘Just held on to a couple of ways of handling it is all,’ the half-breed answered. ‘Room upstairs?’

  Power glanced at the register. ‘Yes, mister. First door on the right. Overlooks Main Street and Union Square. I’ll fix you a tub and some hot water, mister. But, like the gent says, don’t you get too comfortable in there. He ain’t never said he’d do nothin’ without he didn’t do it.’

  ‘First time for everything,’ Edge replied.

  ‘And a last,’ the whore countered. ‘Best a man dies in bed than in a bath - if you know what I mean.’

  She put her hands on her hips and swung sideways on from the waist, to present the profile of her stoutly supported upper body to the half-breed.

  ‘And I guess they’ll have to kill you to take you, uh mister?’ Power asked. It was obvious from his expression that he regarded the outcome as inevitable.

  ‘So I figure I just need the one fight on my hands,’ Edge told the whore as he stepped around her.

  She looked confused. Then giggled. ‘I can be took real easy, feller. All you got to do is pay the price and I surrender.’

  Edge halted briefly and looked her up and down, his mouth-line betraying the hint of a smile.

  ‘Give you a real hot time, feller,’ she encouraged.

  ‘Can see how I could work up a sweat, ma’am,’ he answered as he formed a fist and flicked his forefinger away from the thumb. The nail made a sharp sound against the boned undergarment beneath the bodice of her gown. ‘Looking for a chink in your armor.’

  Chapter Four

  The Palace Hotel was not all front. The stairway, the balcony and the hallways leading off it were all carpeted. There was matting on the floor of room seven, which was additionally furnished with a double bed, two winged chairs, a bureau and a clothes closet. Two landscape pictures which had obviously been painted by Democracy’s sheriff hung on the walls.

  The rain had stopped now and although the moon was just a pale three-quarter orb behind thick cloud, enough light filtered in through the net curtains hung at the two windows of the room for Edge not to need the lamp on the washed wall above the bed.

  From the windows, he was’ able to look out over half the town. It was as quiet as it had been when he rode in, but now another building showed a light - halfway along Main’s north section, on the opposite side of the street.

  Edge dropped his saddle and bedroll in a corner of the room, then added his topcoat and hat to the pile. He moved one of the winged chairs against the wall opposite the door, sat down and began to take shells from his gunbelt and feed them through the loading gate of the Winchester.

  Before he had been in Omaha, where he saw the print of Bismarck, he was in San Francisco. The hotel he stayed in there was called the Palace. And a picture painted by a far superior artist to Stanton had been the motive for a great deal of killing.

  Edge had done his share - as coldly as he had gunned down the two deputies back at the way station. But he was being paid to do a job then.

  Today - yesterday and today, he was reminded as the town clock chimed the single note of a quarter after midnight - there was no money involved. Not for him, anyway. And, as Laura Warren had groaned at the start of the trouble at the way station, it was not his fight. Yet here he was, waiting in the gloom and cold of a strange hotel room, having made it his fight.

  Knuckles rapped lightly on the door panel. He pumped the action of the rifle and glanced out through one of the windows.

  The panorama of that section of town was still deserted. The single light
continued to shine.

  ‘It’s me,’ Fay Reeves called nervously. ‘I’ve got the tub.’

  ‘Guess you’ve been maid lots of times,’ Edge answered.

  She opened the door wide and glowered at him through the dim light.

  ‘I’m doin’ a favor for Conrad, that’s all.’

  She leaned behind her and dragged the tin tub across the threshold. Edge continued to sit in the chair, the Winchester resting across the two arms.

  ‘You that whore with a heart of gold?’

  She straightened and massaged the small of her back. ‘Feller, you made enemies enough crossin’ words with that bastard Stanton. But you’re lucky, too. I’m neutral. Conrad’s gone to get you some help.’

  Edge did not reveal his surprise. ‘Just need some hot water to fill the tub.’

  She spat on the floor, then immediately regretted it and spread the saliva with the toe of her shoe. ‘You’re crazy, you know that? You don’t know nothin’ about this town. You want me to straighten you out - if there’s time before you wind up dead?’

  Edge glanced out of the window again, then did a double take. The north section of Main Street was no longer deserted. The light in the window continued to shine, but it was dimmer. Three men were moving away from it towards Union Square. The tall, oilskin-clad figure of Stanton was in the middle. He was flanked by men of lesser height but broader build. They were dressed Western style, coatless to show the holstered gun-belts slung around their hips.

  ‘Want you to leave,’ the half-breed growled. ‘Company’s coming and I’ve got my reputation to think of.’

  ‘For dyin’ a fool?’ she snapped.

  ‘For not consorting with your kind. Beat it, whore.’

  She was not insulted. Merely dismayed. She opened her vividly painted mouth to say something, then turned and went out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

  Edge glanced out of the window again and watched as the three men crossed Union Square and moved out of his field of vision in front of the hotel. He stood up then, and eased open the window. The room had never been warm but the outside air which streamed in was a great deal colder. He heard the footfalls of the men against the sidewalk, then the door opening. As soon as they were inside the lobby, he swung his legs over the sill to step on to the hotel porch roof. He closed the window, checked that a man had not been posted outside, and lowered himself to the sidewalk below.

  When he reached the angled entrance of the hotel, a movement on the west section of the cross street caught his eye. Three people were crossing from one side to the other, ignoring the plank walkways and splashing through the ankle-deep mud in their haste.

  Conrad Power’s ebony face was sheened in the pale moonlight. He was leading the way and a man and a woman were struggling to keep up with him.

  ‘Ain’t exactly the Seventh Cavalry,’ the half-breed rasped softly, then opened one of the doors just wide enough to allow him to step through.

  As far as he could tell, the approaching trio had not seen him. And Gene Stanton was not aware of him. For the door made no sound in opening and closing, and Edge’s tread was silent on the rush matting inside the threshold.

  The elderly sheriff had his back to the entrance and was studying his painting, head cocked to one side as he absently wiped his brush on a piece of rag.

  ‘You in there!’ a man snarled upstairs. ‘Edge! This is the law and you’re under arrest!’

  Edge stepped off the matting and on to the wooden floor. He purposely set his heel down hard.

  Stanton snapped his head erect, then around. For a moment, his eyes did not look dead. He peered into the face of the half-breed and saw an index finger pressed to the lips. Then looked at the aimed Winchester, held in just one hand, an elbow supporting the stock to the hip. It took less than a second for the sheriff to appraise the situation and for that short time terror animated the green eyes. But he controlled it, before he swung his gaze up towards the balcony.

  ‘Come out with your hands up, Edge! Or we come in shootin’!’

  As the same deputy shouted the demand and threat, Edge spoke softly to Stanton, advancing on him.

  ‘Death’s like your view of the law, feller. Except there ain’t no cure for it.’

  ‘You hear me, Edge?’

  The half-breed motioned with the Winchester as Stanton looked back at him. The rifle was held two-handed now and the sheriff complied with its tacit order. Still holding the brush and the cleaning rag, he moved towards and through the open doorway into the saloon.

  ‘Count of three, Edge!’

  Inside the brightly lit saloon, the half-breed indicated Stanton should sit at a table with his back to the lobby.

  ‘One!’

  Edge sat down opposite the sheriff and rested the Winchester against his chair. Then he moved the chair slightly so that he had a clear view around Stanton into the hotel lobby. He draped his right hand over the jutting butt of his holstered Colt.

  ‘Two!’

  Two gunshots exploded the silence following the single word. A door crashed open and a window shattered.

  ‘Seems a man can’t trust the law in this town,’ Edge muttered.

  More glass was smashed and footfalls pounded the floor of room seven. The deputy who had crashed through the door tripped on the bathtub and vented a curse as he went down.

  ‘He ain’t here!’ This was yelled by the second deputy - the one who had followed his revolver shot in through the window. ‘Gene, watch out! He ain’t in his room!’

  ‘Nice when folks worry about you,’ Edge said.

  ‘What’s the idea?’ Stanton croaked, raising a hand to wipe saliva off his lower lip.

  ‘To stay alive, feller.’

  The deputies stormed out of the room as both entrance doors of the hotel were flung open and Power led his relief column into the lobby.

  ‘Stanton!’ the man with the Negro shouted breathlessly. ‘Stanton, if you’ve killed him there’ll be hell to pay.’

  ‘How about if I get killed?’ the lawman called flatly, not taking his dead eyes off Edge’s face as the half-breed raised his left hand to tug at his earlobe. ‘What then, Lovejoy?’

  The Negro pulled up short in the centre of the lobby. Lovejoy and the woman slammed into him, one of them stumbling against the easel. It tipped and the still wet painting fell face forward on to the floor.

  The two deputies came to an abrupt halt, halfway down the stairs. Their guns were still drawn but they did not bring them up to the aim as they leaned over the ornate banisters to stare through the doorway into the saloon. Every face expressed a mixture of anxiety and anger.

  ‘Don’t plan on killing anyone else,’ Edge announced, as the town clock chimed the half hour. ‘You want to tell your men to come on down, sheriff? But best they leave their guns on the stairs.’

  ‘You sure are one cool customer, mister,’ the Negro gasped.

  ‘Cold’s the word, feller,’ the half-breed corrected, continuing to tug at his ear. ‘As well as dirty, thirsty and tired.’

  The two deputies were both in their early thirties. Scowls fitted well on their hard looking faces. Lovejoy was a match for Stanton’s age. But he was more than a head shorter and a great deal heavier. There was just a ring of sandy hair on the crown of his head. His skin was deeply wrinkled, the complexion ruddy. The woman was a homely forty year old, a brunette with a dumpy body. She had big brown eyes and an aggressive jaw line. Both she and Lovejoy had obviously dressed hurriedly after Conrad Power roused them.

  Edge moved his left hand slowly from his ear to the nape of his neck. For a moment, it was hidden under the thick fall of his long hair. When the hand re-appeared, it was fisted around the wooden handle of a straight razor, with the point of the blade honed as sharp as the edge. The blade glinted briefly in the lamplight as the half-breed reached across the table.

  ‘No!’ Lovejoy shrieked.

  The woman gasped.

  Power’s teeth gleamed white in a grin of pl
easure.

  The deputies swung their guns to the aim now.

  Gene Stanton proved he was a brave man. He curled his lips in a grimace, but did not attempt to move away from the razor as its point rested against his throat. The pulsing of the flesh became more rapid.

  ‘Prevention’s better than cure,’ Edge reminded.

  ‘Gene?’ the deputy with a squinting right eye called anxiously.

  ‘Do like he says, Nugent. You, too, Forman. This man ain’t no ordinary saddle-tramp.’

  Stanton watched Edge and the half-breed watched the two deputies. They straightened on the stairway, stooped to lay their guns on a tread, and came down. For a few moments, they were out of Edge’s field of vision.

  ‘You people come on in,’ the half-breed invited.

  Conrad Power again took the lead and the three of them stood at one side of the entrance. The two deputies appeared in the lobby and at a nod from Edge took up a position on the other side. Then Edge grunted his satisfaction and leaned back in his chair, sliding the razor back into the leather pouch that was held at the nape of his neck by a beaded thong. Forman, the deputy with a pencil thin black moustache, saw the move as an opening.

  ‘Don’t!’ his partner, Nugent, growled.

  Forman did a double take and saw the propped Winchester and the half-breed’s right hand draped over the Colt butt.

  ‘Right,’ Stanton confirmed, not taking his eyes off the face of Edge. ‘We’ve got nothin’ to lose by listenin’ to the stranger.’

  Everyone concentrated on Edge now.

  ‘Get me a drink, Conrad,’ he said. ‘Take care of one of my needs. Whiskey.’

  ‘I’ll get it,’ Fay Reeves called.

  She rose into sight at one end of the long, copper-topped bar counter.

  ‘Anything you don’t do around this place?’ Edge asked.

  She came out from behind the bar with a full and uncorked bottle and a shot glass. ‘Plenty, feller,’ she replied as she set them down on the table and moved back to where she had been. ‘But it’s not me people are interested in right now.’