Apache Death Page 5

  Two of the army sergeants rushed from the Lucky Ace, revolvers drawn but unfired as they pitched into the street, each with two arrows in his chest. Crouching tight against the saloon wall, with only shadow for cover, Edge snapped off two shots into the Indian pack and saw two bodies slide under the galloping hooves of following ponies. He dropped off the end of the sidewalk and ducked into an alley as an arrow embedded itself into the spot where he had been a moment before. Down at the fort the army bugler started to sound call but this and every other sound of the battle was suddenly swamped by a tremendous explosion that caused the ground to tremble and sent a waft of hot, stench-tainted air rushing along the street.

  "Nice to start things with a bang, old boy."

  Edge peered into the darkness and saw the Englishman rising from the ground, dusting off his suit. "The wagon?"

  "I would think so. Trying to blow off the gates of the fort. Went up too early though, I'd say."

  A woman screamed and Edge turned his attention to the street. The whore from the Pot of Gold who had found his nakedness so beguiling, had been snatched up from the sidewalk by a horrifically daubed brave who had slung her face down across his pony, and was preparing to plunge a knife into her back. Edge fired and the bullet shattered the braves jaw. He fell backward off the pony and the woman-screamed again as blood and bone fragments showered her. The pony veered toward the side of the street and the woman's head crashed with a sickening, cracking sound into a sidewalk support. She thudded to the ground, head at an awkward angle.

  "Bad luck, old boy," the Englishman said. "It was a gallant try."

  "Can't you do any damn thing but talk?" Edge snapped at him as he pumped more bullets out toward the galloping Apaches, bringing down one pony and two braves.

  "My little under and over weapon is only suited to card school disagreements; old boy," the Englishman' said easily. "I seldom carry a rifle."

  Edge glanced back at the street, which was suddenly empty of live Apaches, the group having rode past, toward the fort. But there were at least a dozen near-naked, coppery brown bodies strewn in the dust, interspersed with as many dead white men and three women.

  "There's a whole damn arsenal out there," Edge said as he fed more bullets into the Spencer's magazine.

  "But they have such a violent kick," the Englishman said with distaste, grinning as Edge spun to look at him.

  "You ain't that fastidious."

  The Englishman's expression showed admiration. "A gunslinger with four-dollar words in his vocabulary. Rainbow surprises' me more and more."

  Edge finished loading the rifle. "England ain't the only country with schools." He glanced out at the street. "What about that rifle? They'll be back through here."

  The Englishman sighed. "Needs must when the devil drives, I suppose," he said, rose into a crouch and darted out toward the nearest discarded weapon. An arrow whistled through the flame-lit air, the noise of its travel cutting across the crackle of burning buildings. With the skill of a man experienced in such things the Englishman hit the ground, rolled over twice, snatched up the rifle and was on his feet and running back in a fast, fluid motion. The arrow thudded into the stock of the rifle. "You almost got me killed," he said with mock petulance as he crouched back in cover and started to pull out the arrow.

  "Keep back, you idiot," Colonel Murray's voice barked from the saloon doorway. "They aren't finished yet."

  "Strange creatures, Indians," the Englishman muttered in a conversational tone as he skillfully checked the load and action of the newly-acquired rifle. "So unsubtle."

  On the roof of the restaurant across the street a man eased erect and loosed off a rifle shot. Something whistled through the air and the next moment the rifleman screamed and pitched forward, falling into the street, frantically trying to yank out a tomahawk that was sunk into his chest.

  "But they can be effective," Edge rejoined as the thud of body on to sun-hardened ground ended the man's scream.

  "That's only a three-dollar one," the Englishman said.

  "Colonel?" Edge called.

  "What is it?" came the answer.

  "Did they reach the fort?"

  "Not even near it. Must know they didn't stand a chance when the explosive wagon blew too early."

  "Then why don't the critters get the hell out?'' another voice caned from across the street.

  "This isn't the main attack," the colonel replied. "Probably trying to pick off as many of us as they can to make it easier later. Now cut out the talk and watch out for them."

  Silence settled again, broken only by the crackling of flames and whimpering of a woman. Edge looked away from the street down to the other end of the alley where a flatbed wagon was standing. An outside stairway canted up the wall of the side of the saloon and he rose and moved stealthily toward it

  "Where are you going?" the Englishman whispered.

  "Alleys have got two ends and I've only got one pair of eyes," Edge answered, starting up the stairway.

  "Above and coming down!" the Englishman hissed.

  Edge snapped his eyes up and saw the Indian leaping off the roof, tomahawk raised for the kill. Clearly silhouetted against the sky streaked with black smoke. Edge turned and fell full length on the stairs, whipping up the Spencer and squeezing the trigger. The force of the bullet smashing into the brave’s forehead twisted his falling body and it corkscrewed to thud headfirst into the alley. Edge pulled himself into a sitting position and glared down at the Englishman.

  "All you had to do was pull the trigger."

  The Englishman grinned. "You tested me in the saloon, old boy. You're rather fast yourself."

  Edge grunted, got to his feet and went up the remainder of the steps, sensing rather than hearing the progress of the Englishman behind him. The gambler could move like a cat. At the top of the stairway there was an open landing with a rail at the side and by standing on the rail Edge could reach up and hook his hands over the roof, then haul himself aloft. There were no other Apaches up there, but Edge crouched low, careful not to silhouette himself against the skyline as the Englishman pulled, himself up on the roof.

  They, squatted in silence for a moment, surveying the surrounding rooftops in the flickering light of the flames and hearing the occasional rifle and revolver shot. Then Edge moved forward on all "fours.

  "Hey," he whispered.

  "Yes?" The 'Englishman was right behind him.

  "What are we competing for?"

  The Englishman laughed, curtailed it and snapped off a shot across the street. A brave in the process of hauling himself on to the sidewalk canopy in front of a grocery store, screamed and dropped back, clutching at his groin. He died under a hail of bullets from the soldiers and civilians in The 'Lucky Ace below.

  "Spoiled it," the Englishman said. ''I wanted the bastard to suffer."

  They reached the other end of the saloon roof and stretched out full length alongside each other to look down at the destruction wrought by the exploded wagon. It had ripped the facades off several buildings on the east side of the street and it was difficult to see how many people it had killed.

  "Oh dear," the 'Englishman, said, "I don't envy Mortimer if he has to fit all those bits of bodies together before he buries them."

  "You didn't answer my question," Edge said.

  The Englishman grunted, "You don't gamble, you slept on your own in a bordello and you collected that bounty almost by accident. So I asked myself why you came to Rainbow in the middle of an Apache uprising. I answered that it has to be for the same reason I did."

  Edge turned to look at him and saw that the smile had gone, that his companion was wearing the same expression with which he had regarded Carl Drucker moments before he shot him.

  "Which makes it a competition, old boy. Because I'm not sharing it."

  They held each other's gaze for a moment, then returned their attention to the street as a bugle sounded at the fort. The gates were thrown open and a troop of cavalrymen charged out, firin
g for effect as they emerged.

  "They're playing my tune," Edge muttered.

  "What is it?" the Englishman asked as the Apaches were flushed from hiding, pouring into the street on their ponies.

  "Never did know the name," Edge replied, starting to fire at the galloping Indians. "Only know it means kill anything that moves."

  The Englishman began to fire now, as others among the town's defenders opened up, trapping the Indians in a vicious crossfire as the cavalry showered them with lead from behind.

  "Like fish in a barrel," the Englishman shouted gleefully as the braves began to tumble from their ponies, screaming their agonies. A bullet from Edge's Spencer smashed into the chest of a brave a split-second after the Apache had released an arrow which entered the throat of a man shooting from a doorway.

  "That was Red Hagan," the Englishman said. "Bounty of a hundred dollars if you want to try to collect." He loosed off a shot and brought down a pony which pitched its rider onto the front of a burning building. A moment later the screaming brave rushed out into the street with his long hair blazing.

  "Damn hothead," Edge muttered and ended the man's agony with a bullet in his heart. Another pony went down but its rider leaped clear and landed on the run as he drew a knife. He slashed at something in shadow and collapsed with blood spurting from three bullet holes in his back. A fat man rushed from the shadow, the crimson mess of his partially removed scalp flapping down over his forehead like an opened trapdoor.

  "Looks like Sheriff Beale," Edge said easily.

  "I always maintained he had a hole in the head," the Englishman came back dryly as Beale's chest was suddenly bristling with a half dozen arrows and his dead body collapsed in the path of the onrushing ponies.

  Then the surviving Apaches were past, fleeing down the center of the street with the cavalry troop behind them, the ponies widening the gap so that the rifle fire became sporadic as it diminished into the distance.

  "Get some buckets and put out these fires," Colonel Murray shouted from below, then moving into sight at the center of the street.

  Other men started to move then, seemingly with no purpose. But under Murray's direction a human chain was formed and sloshing buckets of water began to pass along the line. Edge and the Englishman got to their feet, the latter carefully dusting off the dirt from his suit. Edge eyed him reflectively for a moment, then began to reload his Spencer.

  "Don't suppose," he said at length, "you'd believe me if I said I didn't know what you were talking about a while back."

  The Englishman was wearing his easy smile again. "Then why did you come to Rainbow?"

  "Clean sheets and a bath."

  "Did you get them?"

  "Yeah."

  The Englishman started back along the rooftop. "So, now you can move on."

  Edge's eyes narrowed to slits and glinted dangerously in the firelight. "Hey, English."

  The Englishman turned around to face him and recognized the menace in the other's demeanor. He adjusted his own position, sideways on to Edge.

  "Yes, old boy?"

  "I don't like being told what to do."

  Each was holding his rifle across his stomach, in both hands. The excited noises from the street seemed to fade off into the distance.

  "Merely a suggestion."

  "Stick your suggestion up where you sit down, English."

  The silence between them was like a solid block of crystal clear ice. Across it, each could see every minute detail of the other's physical state of readiness. And, with the perception of skilled gunfighters, each was aware of the other's mental process. A demonic angel of death counted off the seconds. Then the Englishman made a sound with his tongue against his teeth and his handsome face was suddenly wreathed in the familiar smile as the tension flowed from his body.

  "If we’re not competing, old boy, there isn't any sense in killing each other. Let me buy you a drink?"

  "No, thanks," Edge responded as the Englishman went to the end of the roof and began to lower himself to the stairway. ''With you dressed up so fancy people might start to talk."

  Only his head was visible over the angle of the roof now, still wearing the gentle smile. "My goodness, honey-child," he drawled in a high-pitched, Deep South accent. "People have called me odd, but never queer."

  Edge spat as he went from sight. "You're sure curious," he muttered. "And' you've made me curious."

  He began to move toward the stairway.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THE Pot of Gold had the atmosphere of a deserted building and it seemed likely to Edge that he could trust his sixth sense. For down at the other end of the street, across the intersection, a vast crowd of people were still fighting the fires: perhaps the whole town was there. Certainly there was no one in the opulently furnished saloon, its overturned chairs and tables, spilled drinks and discarded personal effects bearing mute witness to the panic which had erupted from the Indian attack.

  There was an opened, half-empty whisky bottle on the bar and Edge used the muzzle of the Spencer to reach across and hook a clean glass from a mirrored shelf at the back. He poured a stiff jolt and took it at a single swallow before crossing to the foot of the stairs and starting up. The hallway was empty, with some doors hanging open, others tightly closed. There was no sound. The register was on top of the desk at the head of the stairs and he leaned forward and ran his finger down the list of recent entries. The name above his own was Lord Hartley Fallowfield, which Edge guessed was about as English as anybody could get. The man had checked in three days previously and been given room number fifteen. Edge straightened and moved along the hallway, his boots making a lot of noise. The door of room fifteen was at the end, on the opposite side from his own and he used the muzzle of the rifle to rap on the panel. The silence he had interrupted continued when he finished.

  He tried the handle, which rattled but refused to turn. His expression impassive, he leaned his back against the opposite wall, raised his long leg and sent the heel of his boot crashing against the outside of the lock. There is never much to protect in a whorehouse and this lock was a mere token. The door swung wide and thudded against the inner wall. Edge stepped across the threshold and glanced around a room which was identical to his own. Even when he had spent a few moments allowing his eyes to grow accustomed to the dimness, he could recognize nothing that made it different in any way. He closed the door behind him and stood, whistling in low key for perhaps a half minute before starting his search. It didn't take long because the Englishman traveled light: the tallboy, wardrobe and bureau were all empty. None of the floorboards or wooden panels on the wall showed signs of having been prized up to form a hiding place and thus there was only the double bed to merit close attention. With a casual lack of haste, Edge stripped it of coverlet, blanket and sheet, shaking each and tossing them into a comer. There was no slit in the pillow until he made one and shook out the filling. It contained nothing else. There was only the mattress under the bottom sheet and Edge emitted a grunt of satisfaction when he saw the knife scar on the side: a neat slit some six inches long.

  He knelt down and drove a hand inside, had to probe with his long fingers for several moments before he found a square of thick paper. He withdrew his discovery and carried it across to the window. He bad to lean his rifle against the wall to open the paper from its two folds, turning it toward the light from a kerosene lamp which spluttered outside, illuminating the bordello's sign. His lips parted in a grin when he saw he had found a map, old and stained, faded in parts and ragged at the edges. It was crudely drawn and bore no lettering but was clearly a map of the valley in which Rainbow was situated, the position of the town marked by a childish drawing of the army fort. The course of the river was marked, and the lines of the two ridges to north and south which formed the valley. There was no stage trail, perhaps because one had not existed at the time the map was drawn. But there was a dotted line which led from just east of the fort, on a zig-zagged course up and over, or perhaps thro
ugh, the northern ridge, ending at a heavily inscribed cross.

  "X marks the spot, old boy."

  Edge spun, his right hand streaking toward his holstered Colt and it was in his hand and cocked as he finished the turn, his narrowed eyes fastening on the .Englishman as a clearly outlined silhouette framed in the open doorway with the lighted hallway beyond. But the Englishman's hands hung loosely by his sides and Edge halted his finger' on the trigger, a sliver away from the kill.

  "You ought to be dead," Edge said softly.

  The Englishman shook his head, smiled and stepped into the room. "You're fast, Edge. A man who shoots as fast as you do has to have good reflexes in other directions." He glanced around at the pile of bedclothes and scattering of filling from the pillow, making a sound of distaste from deep within his throat. "But you aren't very tidy, are you? Not subtle at, all."

  Edge waved the paper. "But like the Apaches, effective. What does it mark?"

  The Englishman sat on the edge of the mattress, wearing the easy smile again. "You really don't know?"

  Edge was still holding the gun. "No."

  "Of course, it's obvious you don't. If you did I really would be dead, wouldn't I?" The smile was suddenly replaced by his expression of deadliness. "You must realize then, that I'm not going to tell you."

  Edge grunted, folded the map and pushed it inside his shirt front. He stood for a moment of reflection as he studied the man on the bed. Then he tossed the Colt across the room so that it landed with a gentle thud on to the discarded bedclothes.

  "It won't be easy," the Englishman said.

  "Nothing I ever, got was ever any good," Edge answered as the Englishman released his small double barrel under-and-over and tossed it in the same direction as the Colt.

  "Not Queensbury rules, I suppose?" the Englishman asked still sitting on the bed as Edge stepped up to him.

  Edge stood before him, clenching and unclenching his fists."What are they?"