EDGE: Town On Trial Page 5

  The lady was lookin’ for you,’ the hotel owner and mayor of Irving reported flatly. ‘It was her choice to check out of my place. I told her about the folks that take in boarders.’

  There was a brand of embarrassed regret in the fat man’s tone and attitude - as if he felt the need to apologize but could not bring himself to speak the words.

  ‘I’m not lost, feller,’ the half-breed answered, and muttered for his own ears as he turned and started toward the corner: ‘Just temporarily misplaced.’

  The lack of noise and movement on White Creek Road - the name painted on the saloon facade up under the eaves - was in contrast with the activity on Lone Star Street. Where women with baskets moved from store to store or stood in pairs and groups talking, men carried bales and sacks and crates from doorways to wagons, the blacksmith was shoeing a horse out front of the open doors of his forge, small children played shrill games while older ones recited their times tables in the school-house, a patent-medicine salesman was holding the attention of a small gathering at the rear of his wagon and a half-dozen Mexicans were engaged in restoration work on the mission church.

  There were more people on the street and in the business premises than lived in Irving. Farmers and their wives, he guessed, who had not entered town from the east trail. Then, as he drew level with the mission, he saw that another trail entered Irving at the side of the church: from the low, rolling hill-country to the north.

  As he strolled along the south side of the street in the hot shade of the boardwalk awning, the half-breed sensed an underlying atmosphere of tension that had not been immediately apparent when he turned the corner and got a first impression of the slow-paced activity on the street.

  Those people who greeted him did so absently, then did a double-take. While many more appeared not to notice him until he was past, when he became aware of the surreptitious glances they shot at him. But, he quickly came to realize, he was of relatively minor interest to the citizens of Irving and the out-of-towners. Who, in doing whatever business or chores engaged them in the commercial centre of Irving, felt drawn to look often toward the facade of the sheriff’s office: where six horses were hitched to the rail.

  The brick-built lawman’s office was on the north side of the street, beyond the mission church and the end of the north trail, between an adobe building which housed a dry-goods store and the frame-fronted premises of the Huber Livery Stables. It was toward this last that the half-breed was headed when he stepped down off the sidewalk and angled across the street. And sensed animosity directed toward him from behind the sun-glinting windows of the law office. But the one-piece wooden door remained firmly closed and it was almost possible to feel against his skin the relief that was generated by the people on the street as he entered the hot, horse-smelling shade of the livery.

  ‘Reckon you’re Edge,’ a man growled unhappily from a stall.

  ‘You’ve got the name right. You also know what everyone else in this town does about me?’

  ‘What’s that, Mr. Edge?’

  He emerged from the stall with a pail in his hand. A man of fifty or so. Not tall, but broadly built, with muscular flesh rather than fat pressing against the fabric of his shirt and pants. Curly-headed and with a round, florid face featured with small dark eyes, a snub nose and a small mouth. A dull-looking man who, if he did lack brains, made up for it with brawn.

  ‘I wouldn’t know, feller. But whatever it is it seems to scare them.’

  He looked into the stall and saw that a foal only a few days old was lying on the straw inside, nose white from the milk-feed Huber had given her.

  ‘Orphan?’

  ‘Yeah. You’re the new owner of the Red Dog? Word is from the land office.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Saw one of Love’s hands gun down Rusty Donnelly last night?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘And plan on tellin’ the court it wasn’t self-defense?’

  ‘Why should that scare anyone but the Warford kid?’

  ‘He’s like the foal, Mr. Edge. He’s an orphan.’

  ‘Me, too,’ the half-breed answered and went to the stall where his gelding had spent the night.

  ‘And me. But we didn’t get kinda adopted by Joe Love.’

  Gently, Edge backed his horse out of the stall which was clean and had some feed still in the box. ‘You give a good service for fifty cents, feller,’ he said.

  “The preacher don’t charge a thing for his services,’ Huber countered flatly. ‘Any kind.’

  ‘How does he make a living?’

  ‘Love endows the chapel. You’re takin’ the geldin’ out because there’s a stable at the Red Dog, I guess?’

  ‘Right.’ Edge dug some coins from a pants pocket and placed four bits on the table where Huber had set down the pail.

  ‘This is a small town. Part of a close-knit community. There’s a certain order of things around here. Ain’t everyone agrees with it, but they abides by the rules because, on the whole, it’s a pretty good place to live in.’

  ‘Ain’t just foaling mares that die in it, feller,’ the half-breed said evenly as he led the gelding by the reins toward the open doorway.

  ‘Reckon I’ve talked around what I had to say, Mr. Edge,’ Huber growled. ‘But you got my meanin’, I guess?’

  ‘Figure others will try to make it plainer?’ Edge said, looking back over his shoulder at the liveryman.

  Huber smiled wanly. ‘Felt I had to offer a friendly warnin’. I’m one of them that don’t agree with the way some things are. Luck to you.’

  Edge spat at the hard-packed, hoof-trampled floor of the livery. ‘Tell you something about luck, Huber,’ he growled. ‘The harder people work at whatever they want, the luckier they get at it.’

  The grin froze on the florid face and the man snarled: ‘Talk’s easy, stranger. But the storm you’ll maybe talk up could give you a real hard time!’

  ‘Obliged for your concern, feller.’

  ‘And not just for you!’ Huber called after him as he led the gelding out on to the sun-bright street. At the same time as Love and his men emerged from the law office: the group made up of seven now for Warford was with them. Then, a few moments later, four somberly-clad pallbearers came out of Barlow’s Funeral Parlor which was directly across the street from the livery stable.

  The quartet carried a plain pine coffin which they eased carefully into the glass-sided hearse parked by the sidewalk, under the anxious supervision of the frock-coated and top-hated Stan Barlow who Edge recognized from his visit to the saloon the previous night. When the casket was safely inside, the rear door of the hearse was closed and fastened. And then a young preacher with a surplice over his cassock came out of the funeral parlor, followed by Estelle Donnelly and Crystal Dickens, the younger woman supporting the arm of the elder.

  The town had become silent and remained so while the elderly mortician moved around the hearse to take hold of the bridle of one of the pair of black-plumed horses: and the preacher, two mourners and four pallbearers took their places behind the vehicle. The scrape of bootleather on dusty street sounded very loud: then was masked by the turning of wheels and slow beat of hooves as the cortege moved off.

  Without exception, every male bystander removed his hat. Women bowed their heads as the funeral procession rolled and shuffled by.

  ‘It could’ve been me in there, Mr. Love,’ Dean Warford growled.

  ‘Shut your stupid mouth, you hot-headed sonofabitch!’ the rancher rasped venomously. ‘And pay your respects!’

  ‘I ask no respects from—’ the bereaved mother started.

  ‘Please, ma’am,’ the young preacher hissed. ‘Let us not sully this most solemn of occasions.’

  The funeral had progressed beyond the mission church before Joe Love signaled to his men - by donning his big hat - that they were at liberty to move and speak. This as, yard by yard, the town’s business activity was resumed after the passing of the hearse.

  ‘Mount up,
men,’ the distinguished-looking rancher ordered. Then looked hard-eyed at Edge when he was astride his own horse. ‘Understand you’ve purchased the Red Dog, sir.’

  ‘Would seem so, feller.’

  ‘I wish you a long and prosperous stay in our town. And there’s no reason why that shouldn’t be so. Last night’s unfortunate incident was not representative of Irving, sir. Trouble of any kind is very much a stranger here.’

  ‘Just like you,’ Warford rasped at the half-breed.

  Just as earlier, the people on the street were devoting only part of their attention to their chores: but now they cast furtive glances in just one direction.

  ‘It was a mistake,’ Love went on. ‘A terrible and tragic mistake. Which the young are prone to make from time to time.’

  ‘Nobody’s perfect,’ Edge drawled.

  ‘Quite so, sir. But we do the best we can. The people of this community of ours consider themselves extremely fortunate to live in what they think of as God’s own place in God’s own country. But when we make human mistakes we ensure that justice is always tempered with mercy. As I am sure it will be in this instance. Good day to you.’

  He backed his horse away from the rail and tugged on the reins to turn him. His men followed his example, but then aped Dean Warford in the way they shot menacing glances back over their shoulders at the half-breed.

  The town’s lawman stepped onto the threshold of his office as Edge watched the group of cattlemen ride away down the street, Love responding with a touch of his hat brim to the many greetings that were directed to him.

  ‘It’s a hell of a long way from being heaven on earth, mister,’ Wilde said. ‘But I’d say you weren’t no angel. So why start a fire that could burn some people who don’t deserve it?’

  ‘Told him more or less the same thing, Wes,’ Jake Huber muttered from the doorway of his livery.

  The two Irving men eyed each other, a little shamefaced.

  ‘Maybe that good old boy is right,’ Edge said pensively.

  ‘Glad you see it that way,’ the sheriff said with a sigh that was at odds with his spoken sentiments.

  ‘Maybe this really is God’s own place,’ the half-breed went on, and spat into the dust out of the side of his mouth as he urged the gelding forward. ‘But if it is, I don’t figure God is Love.’

  Chapter Six

  EDGE sensed relief in the hot morning air as he led the gelding along the busy main street of Irving where the tempo of daily life had quickened. There was a great deal of happy laughter in the talk, people seemed to move with a new-found lightness in their tread, there were easy smiles for the half-breed as he passed, and friendly warmth in the greetings spoken to him. No more did the men and women constantly interrupt their mundane domestic and business assignments to direct secret attention toward a centre of potential trouble.

  The atmosphere, he thought, was probably much as it would have been had the people watched a Texas twister whirling toward them - then seen it make a sudden deviation and race away to spare their town from its path of destruction. They had been terribly frightened, but now the threat was removed.

  Save for a few exceptions here and there among the throng of people - men and some women who turned their heads away from the cool and level gaze of Edge’s ice-blue eyes, to hide from him the same brand of shame which he had seen in the faces of Jake Huber and Sheriff Wes Wilde.

  Then he turned the corner onto the deserted stretch of White Creek Road, having put the town and its problems out of his mind. Until he stood for a few moments to survey the weathered frame facade of the saloon while Joel Pepper played soft and mournful organ music badly and the young preacher intoned the graveside funeral service. Then he experienced a stab of cold anger in the pit of his stomach. Which expanded when the music and prayer ended and he heard a distant thunder of galloping hoofbeats, turned and looked through the streamside trees to glimpse the rancher and his men just before they rode out of sight beyond arise.

  ‘It’s the law hereabouts, mister,’ Sam Pepper said from the doorway of the hotel. ‘Long as cash money is posted with the sheriff, a prisoner waitin’ to be tried gets bailed out. Town council meetin’ last night set bail on Dean Warford at a thousand dollars.’

  ‘I care, feller?’

  ‘You look like you care about somethin’, that’s for sure.’

  ‘Just me,’ Edge told him and led his horse along the alley between the saloon and the hotel. Then thought, but did not say aloud: ‘…and what’s mine.’ For, aside from the basic question of whether he was morally entitled to ownership of the Red Dog, he was not certain whether he wanted the place. Knew only that if he did, he wanted no part of the kind of town where the people walked in dread of an uncrowned ruler. But short of dismantling the saloon and shipping it elsewhere to be rebuilt. . .

  ‘Okay, mister, I’m ready to go to work for you,’ Moses announced as he entered the stable where Edge was installing the horse. ‘I dug a fine grave for Mr. Donnelly so somebody else can fill it in. I’ll get right on with the new sign paintin’ and then I’ll go buy my new clothes.’

  The black man’s sharp-featured face slipped easily out of its mournful set to show a grin of pleasure.

  ‘Like for you to have some feed sent over for my horse, feller. And bring in some drinking water.’

  ‘I’ll sure do that, mister. But can I move the animal to another stall? He’s in the one where I sleep.’

  Edge glanced up at the sagging roof and then at the holed walls of the dilapidated building. ‘Figured you picked the warmest and driest place, Moses. From now on you sleep inside the saloon.’

  The negro looked anxious.

  ‘Something wrong?’

  He sighed. ‘Just hope you know what you’re doin’, mister. You already made sure you won’t get no drinkin’ customers. Havin’ me tend the bar. And with me beddin’ down in one of the rooms, you sure as hell won’t get nobody rentin’ the rest of them.’

  Edge showed a bitter grin: ‘Really am blackening my character around here, ain’t I?’

  Again he heard the Negro chuckling as he left him to go into the Red Dog, the barroom of which was still deserted. But it was a little cooler in there now that the sun had climbed high enough up the eastern dome of the cloudless sky so that its glare fell short of the doorway and flanking windows.

  He waited until the hearse and the people involved in the interment of Rusty Donnelly had moved back along White Creek Road and turned into Lone Star Street before he took a chair out onto the shaded stoop and sat down: to roll, light and smoke a cigarette. Then he sank lower in the chair and tipped his hat forward so that its brim masked the pleasant view of timber, flowing stream and low hill country beyond. He did not doze, speculate on the future or reflect on the past. Merely enjoyed the peace and solitude. And did not have to make any effort to keep from his mind images of hatred and revulsion he had seen on certain faces as people returning from the funeral glanced into the saloon.

  After awhile, he heard Moses climb out of a front upper-storey window. Then smelled paint. The Negro began to whistle happily as he worked on the sign. Footfalls hit the boarding of the hotel stoop, then moved along the street. They halted and there was the sound of nails being wrenched from timber. Edge tipped his hat back on the top of his head and saw Sam Pepper, an angry, tight-lipped frown on his fleshy face, in process of tearing down the for sale sign.

  ‘Got a feller working for me who was going to do that,’ the half-breed said evenly.

  Pepper tossed the sign on to the stoop. ‘Word is you’ve hired on that nigger to do more than the shit chores, mister!’ Pepper rasped. ‘So best you keep that sign handy. On account of you’ll need it again when you go broke from havin’ no customers.’

  Moses had curtailed his whistling.

  ‘You going downtown, feller?’ Edge asked.

  ‘I am. Stage is due and I’m expectin’ guests to be aboard.’

  ‘Word spreads fast in this town, uh?’

 
; ‘What you gettin’ at, mister?’ His anger was undermined by perplexity now.

  ‘About me having title to this place and about the help I’ve hired. Guess everyone knows who and what he is. Moses, who’s a Negro. Or a black. Like for you to make it known that if I hear anyone call him nigger I’ll treat them the same way as if they’d called me a greaser.’

  ‘You make your own threats, mister!’ Pepper snarled as he turned and strode away.

  ‘Just did,’ Edge called after him.

  ‘Man, oh man,’ Moses rasped softly from up on the stoop awning. ‘You sure are fixin’ to make things hard for yourself in this town, mister.’

  ‘It’s where I’m living for awhile, feller,’ the half-breed answered as he tipped his hat over his eyes again. ‘And where a man lives he ought to feel at home.’

  Thirty minutes later, after the Negro had finished the sign and gone for the horse feed and his new clothes, Sam Pepper came back along White Creek Road, obsequiously accompanying two middle-aged couples and an elderly woman who looked uncomfortably hot and disheveled in their smart city-clothes after a grueling stage-ride.

  ‘Morning,’ Edge offered as he raised his hat from his eyes, touched the brim but did not alter his relaxed posture in the chair.

  The two men averted their heads and the three women made ladylike sounds of disgruntlement. Sam Pepper showed a self-satisfied smirk as he ushered his guests over the final few yards to the hotel entrance.

  ‘Never did say it was a good one,’ the half-breed murmured.

  Then stared fixedly out across the street, through the foliage of the trees, over the stream and at a point on a distant hillcrest. For a stretched second he saw just a patch of brown brush. But then again something shiny flashed in the sunlight. Just a pinpoint of glitter against the gently-rolling terrain. Almost a mile away and half that distance north of the trail. It could have been caused by a hundred and one innocent things. But the puff of white smoke was unmistakable.

  With a grunt of anger, Edge powered himself forward from the chair: and threw himself to the side the instant he was clear of its arms. His ears were attuned to catch the crack of the gunshot and he heard it as his shoulder hit the stoop boarding. But nobody else could have separated it from the noise made by the stage as it came around the corner with four fresh and eager horses in the traces. He heard also, almost in unison with the report, the thud of the bullet burying itself in the timber of the saloon wall: looked up and saw wood splinters fly from a point six inches above the top strut of the bow-back chair in which he had been seated.