EDGE: The Final Shot (Edge series Book 16) Read online

  She screamed for her husband again as the youngster picked himself up off the glass-littered floor. John’s second frantic response was followed by the revolver shot and thud of his body pitching to the floor. Seward dropped his hand and parted his blood-dripping lips to show a broad grin.

  ‘Sounds like he ain’t gonna make it, honey,’ he said, allowing the rifle to drop to the floor. Then he shot out a hand to fix a clawing grip on her shoulder as she attempted to roll away. ‘Looks like I am.’

  She screamed and he lunged on to the bed, smashing a folded knee into her stomach. She vomited with pain and terror.

  Forrest blasted the lock on the back door and crashed it open with a shoulder. He charged across the dark kitchen and threw wide another door. It opened in time for him to see John go full-length to the floor in the broad hallway. Bell ran into view from an archway to one side of the front door and the rapport which the men had developed over the long years of fighting side-by-side proved itself again. They sensed the other’s presence before they saw each other, yet did not even flinch. They both looked at Hedges’ face framed in the shot-gun-blasted hole at the top of the door.

  ‘Whatever happened to Southern hospitality, you reckon?’ the Captain asked lightly.

  A man in his early twenties yanked open a door at the side of the hallway and lurched out. He was dressed in Long Johns. A bullet from Scott’s Spencer cracked out of the room in his wake gouging a bloody rut across his upper arm. He turned towards the back of the house and saw the grinning Forrest. He screamed, pulled up short and whirled around. Bell and Hedges surveyed him from that direction with the same brand of evil good humor. Scott lumbered into the doorway of the room from which the man had escaped. The man stared into the open doorway of the room across the hall and saw Seward fumbling open the front of his pants as he held the struggling, vomiting woman a prisoner beneath him.

  ‘Why?’ he screamed at the top of his voice, the veins standing out like blue ropes on his neck.

  He snapped his head in all four directions again, his wide eyes pleading. Four rifles and a revolver cracked, belching more blue gun smoke to strengthen the taint already thick in the hot air.

  ‘Because you were there,’ Hedges said softly as the body corkscrewed to the floor, gushing thick crimson from the wounds in its naked torso.

  ‘Billy’s got a dame!’ John Scott yelled furiously as the man crumpled in front of him and gave him a clear view into the bedroom opposite. Then he stared at Forrest. ‘God-damit, Frank, Billy’s got himself a friggin’ woman!’

  Bell sprinted forward, curving around the body of the old man at the door and leaping that of the naked John. But Scott lunged into the room first. Then Forrest. Bell was third to swell the audience for the rape that was being enacted on the big double bed.

  Seward yanked himself out of the front of his open pants and grinned at the men crowded in the doorway. Then he used his knees to force wide the woman’s legs and thrust himself into her. Marsha gasped with pain, and the final violation of her body drained her weakening will to resist further.

  ‘Yiiipppeeee!’ Seward yelled in wild delight as he began to drive his pent-up lust into the wooden unresponsive body of the woman beneath him.

  ‘Come on, Billy, quit hoggin’ that stuff!’ Bell urged.

  Scott didn’t trust himself to speak: simply matched his heavy breathing to the cadence of the rapist’s thrusting strokes.

  Forrest watched the cruel act for long moments, experiencing arousal and struggling to quell it. In that time, more gunfire sounded from the front of the house as Hedges blasted at the lock and bolts on the door. As the door crashed open and the Captain’s footfalls thudded in the hallway, the Sergeant advanced into the room. He reached the head of the bed as Hedges barged in between the two troopers on the threshold, Seward had his passion-crimson face buried in the woman’s neck as he clawed at the mounds of her breasts flattened under his heaving chest. Marsha stared up at Forrest, her eyes imploring help while her vomit-run lips moved in silent pleading.

  ‘Yes,’ she managed to utter as Forrest drew the Colt from his holster.

  ‘She likes it!’ Seward moaned.

  Hedges skidded to a halt halfway across the room as he saw what the Sergeant intended.

  Forrest cocked the revolver, rested the muzzle against the soft flesh beneath Marsha’s ear and squeezed the trigger. The gun was so angled that the bullet went up into her head, burrowed through her brain and burst clear of the top of her skull. Blood and grey ooze splashed around the hole in the bed headboard.

  Seward yelled in terror and leapt off the abruptly still body. He hit the floor in a crouch and straightened up with a jerk, eyes bulging with insane rage as he stared at Forrest.

  ‘You bastard!’ he screamed. ‘You blew her friggin’ brains out!’

  Forrest had slid the Colt back in the holster and now he aimed the Spencer at the crazed youngster’s exposed genitals. ‘Yours are hangin’ out, kid,’ he rasped. ‘That weren’t the kind of ride we come here to get.’

  There was a tense period of stretched seconds when Seward seemed on the point of going for the Colt jutting from his waistband. Then, as his erection shriveled, his rage subsided. A weak grin spread across his face, which was speckled with signs of the woman’s nausea.

  ‘That was some bang we give her, Frank,’ he said, his tone ingratiating. He began to fasten the front of his pants.

  Forrest dropped the aim of the Spencer and winked at Seward. ‘She was crazy for it, Billy. Blew her mind.’

  ‘Sweet Jesus, what a waste,’ Scott sighed, raking his disappointed gaze over the naked curves and hollows of the corpse.

  ‘What you do it for, Sarge?’ Bell groaned.

  ‘’Cause he knew the Captain wouldn’t go for it, that’s why!’ Scott rasped.

  Forrest whirled, bringing up the rifle again. Scott saw the killer glint in the non-com’s eyes and took a backward step. He came up hard against the wall. Hedges had no time to level his own Spencer. He simply stepped into the line of fire - facing the Sergeant. But it was to Scott he spoke as locked stares with Forrest.

  ‘You’re a stupid sonofabitch, trooper!’ he said, his voice ice-cold. ‘Forrest wanted to screw her worse than any of you.’

  ‘So why—?’ Bell started.

  ‘He’s got to be first at everything,’ Hedges cut in.

  Now it was Forrest’s turn to bring his killer rage under control. It took him less time than Seward. Just a second before he flicked his wrist to cant the rifle across his shoulder as he parted his lips to show his tobacco-stained teeth.

  ‘Like I said, Captain, we know each other real good.’

  ‘Aw shit, Billy, why didn’t you wait?’ Bell groaned.

  Seward shrugged. ‘You were all kinda busy shootin’ up everythin’ else around the house.’

  ‘Hey, you guys comin’?’ Rhett yelled from the corral immediately at the rear of the house.

  Seward took a final look at the dead Marsha and spat as he stooped to pick up his rifle. ‘No friggin’ chance,’ he muttered as Hedges turned to head for the door.

  Forrest broadened his grin and draped an arm around Seward’s shoulders, steering him in the wake of Scott and Bell. ‘Tell you what, Billy,’ he said. ‘I’ll give Bob the word you couldn’t finish what you started. He’ll give you a hand.’

  * * *

  THERE were a dozen customers in the saloon. Apart from the drummer with the bloodied nose who was at the bar, they were all seated at tables. Again with the exception of the salesman, they were all elderly - not one under sixty and some in their eighties. A few of them were breathing heavily and had crimson complexions from the strain of hurrying back to their tables after watching from windows and batswing doors. They avoided looking at the tall half-breed until he had passed them, dumped his gear on the floor and hooked a boot over the brass-rail at the foot of the bar.

  His position, at the end of a direct line from the entrance, placed him six feet away from th
e drummer. ‘Relax, feller,’ he said evenly. ‘We finished our business together.’

  The salesman was rigid and he stiff-armed his shot-glass of whiskey to his lips. He sank it at a gulp and the liquor seemed to lubricate his joints. He nodded curtly. ‘I’m sure glad of that, Mr. Edge.’

  The bartender had been talking to the drummer. They were about the same, mid-thirties age, but the bartender was tall and thin as opposed to the short build and broad girth of the drummer.

  ‘Beer,’ the half-breed requested.

  The two pumps were immediately in front of him. The bartender approached them cautiously and his hands shook as he drew a glassful of the foamed, pale amber beer.

  ‘Obliged,’ Edge said, glanced at the price list pinned above the shelves behind the bar and dropped two nickels beside the glass. He swallowed half the drink at one go and nodded his appreciation of the relief it gave his dust-dry throat. ‘Lot of old people in Monksville,’ he said.

  ‘You stick around, lot of us won’t get no older, young feller,’ a man at one of the tables growled.

  Edge had addressed the question to the bartender, who had started to wash glasses that gleamed from recent polishing. Now he turned and leaned his back against the top of the bar. The direction in which everyone was looking pinpointed the man who had spoken. A man of about seventy, with a lot of silver grey hair atop a healthy-looking face out of which light brown eyes twinkled. Well-dressed in a city-style suit but with a white Stetson resting on the table beside a half-empty bottle of rye and a completely empty shot glass. He had mottled hands with fingers ringed by ornate jewelry. A gold watch chain arched across the front of his brightly-checked vest.

  He was alone at his table.

  Edge pursed his lips and wiped a line of clinging froth off the top one.

  That a criticism or a comment, old-timer?’ he asked evenly.

  ‘Maybe a prediction?’ the well-dressed man replied and poured himself another drink. His hand was rock steady, for he and Edge were the only unafraid men in the saloon. Everyone else was tense and expectant of the worst. ‘Bill Harman was a good lawman.’

  ‘I shot the deputies, I did not shoot the sheriff,’ Edge reminded.

  The old-timer sipped his rye. ‘Does that matter?’

  Edge grinned. ‘Just want the record to be right.’

  ‘You get the needle real fast, mister.’

  ‘And I’m real sharp, ain’t I, feller?’

  The man nodded. ‘Can’t argue with that.’ He sighed, finished his drink and stood up. He looked around the saloon. ‘You men on the Town Council, come on over to the law office with me. We got us a new appointment to make.’

  Five of the men stood up, none of them looking happy, and followed the silvery grey haired one out into the square. The light beyond the batswings was tinged red by the setting sun. Edge swung around towards the bar again and finished the remainder of his beer. He banged the glass on the counter top and nodded to the bartender for a refill.

  ‘He the big white chief around Monksville?’ he asked.

  The man was still highly nervous and had trouble getting his vocal chords to work. But once he had started, he seemed reluctant to stop. ‘That’s Mr. Scott Gerstenberg. He’s the mayor. Him and the councilors got the job of trying to elect a new sheriff now Bill Harman’s dead. Won’t be easy. Harman had enough trouble swearing in a couple of temporary deputies.’

  He put the fresh beer down and clawed the price into his apron pocket.

  ‘Maybe the mayor predicted how temporary they would be,’ Edge suggested wryly.

  ‘Weren’t on account of you, mister,’ the bartender hurried to reply. ‘Leastways, that’s not what Bill Harman said. He reckoned as how Melody Devine’s brothers were heading for town to give the Andrews boy what they reckon’s due to him.’

  Edge blinked. ‘Melody Devine, for Chrissake?’ he muttered. Then: ‘What he do to her?’

  He sensed a new mood emanating from the old men left in the saloon and glanced over his shoulder. They were hanging excitedly on the bartender’s words.

  ‘He had his way with her,’ the bartender replied, dropping his voice. ‘Against her will, you know what I mean?’

  Edge nodded. ‘Like a lot of other folks in this place, I can imagine.’

  ‘Melody runs the drugstore across the square. Busiest store in town, on account of Monksville being a place so many old people have come to retire to. Old people get aches and pains, you know what I mean?’

  Edge nodded absently, losing interest now that he knew as much as he needed to know about the situation in Monksville. But the bartender was one of those kind who could best control his emotions by constant talking.

  ‘So she hired Jeff Andrews when he come riding through a few months back. Now, there’s been stories about what went on between them two after the store closed nights. But ain’t no one knows for sure. Don’t matter now, though, ‘cause there ain’t gonna be no trial. All that matters is that Melody screamed rape and straight after he took it on the lam, she headed out for the Devine Ranch down south.’

  Edge had been drinking his beer steadily. Now he set down the empty glass but made no move for it to be filled a third time. The bartender showed him a shrug.

  ‘With no one like Bill Harman around to protect the prisoner. Andrews ain’t gonna be alive to stand trial. The Devine boys are real tough characters.’

  ‘But you’re tougher than ten of their kind, mister.’

  Edge had lifted his gear when the voice of Gerstenberg spoke from behind him. He turned and saw the mayor halted halfway through the batswings. The faces of some of the town councilors looked over the doors. They still were not happy. The mayor wore an expression of calm expectation.

  ‘You offering me a job, feller?’ Edge asked.

  ‘A temporary one.’

  ‘Only kind I ever take.’

  Expectation blossomed into a smile. ‘Then you’ll wear the badge?’

  ‘Thousand dollars a day and—’

  ‘You’re crazy!’ the mayor cut in, the smile fading as his brown eyes became as hard as stained marble.

  ‘—I do it my own way,’ Edge finished.

  ‘No deal.’

  The half-breed started towards the doorway. The councilors backed away, but Gerstenberg held his position until the last moment. He let the doors swing back into place so that Edge had to push through them to reach the sidewalk outside. Now, only the trailing half-sphere of the red sun showed above the ridges of the Panamint Mountains, visible in the far distance after the heat shimmer had been wiped from the horizon. A hint of the desert’s night coldness was refreshing in the darkening air.

  ‘Hey, Scott, they’re comin’!’ a man called, his tone reedy and anxious.

  All eyes swung towards the roof of the courthouse. A man was crouched up there, clinging to a chimney. He was staring down into the square, but his free hand was pointing towards the south.

  The mayor became apprehensive for the first time. ‘All right!’ he said suddenly, and glared around at his councilors, challenging them to contradict him. Then he fixed his hard stare on Edge’s impassive features. ‘A thousand. For one day. Circuit judge will be here tomorrow.’

  The half-breed stepped down from the sidewalk, transferring all his gear to one arm. He held up the index and middle finger of his free hand.

  ‘I said the circuit judge will be here—’

  ‘Grand, not days,’ Edge interrupted.

  Anger turned Gerstenberg’s features a violent scarlet. He tried to speak, but all that emerged was a string of strangled sounds. Spittle ran down his jaw.

  ‘I just found out how badly you need me, feller,’ the half-breed drawled as hoof beats pounded against the fast-cooling air. ‘I add it up to two grand bad.’

  ‘Ain’t no man worth that kinda money, Scott,’ one of the councilors rasped as the sound of the approaching riders swelled.

  They were in sight of the men on the square now - three of them galloping flat
out along the south trail towards Monksville.

  ‘Damn right!’ the mayor snarled.

  There was a rocking chair to one side of the saloon entrance. Edge dropped into it and rested his gear at the side, Winchester stock angled up within easy reach. He nodded his easy acceptance of the opinions.

  ‘We’ve all got our problems. Mine ain’t here yet.’ He tipped his hat forward over his forehead and his narrowed eyes glinted more brightly out of the deep shadow. He began to rock the chair, very gently.

  Gerstenberg looked desperately along the street and out on the trail. The riders were close enough now to be discernible as two men with a woman between them. He made a sound of disgust and dug a hand into a pocket of his well-cut jacket. He snatched out the badge taken from the corpse of Bill Harman and dropped it into Edge’s lap.

  ‘Fifteen hundred!’ he growled. ‘Not a cent more.’

  Edge didn’t move. The councilors did, hurrying to get off the square and into the cover of the saloon. The hoof beats were very loud now, amplified by resounding off the facades of the buildings flanking the street.

  ‘Will you do it?’ the mayor asked and his anger and anxiety was mixed with a note of pleading now.

  ‘Get lost, feller,’ Edge said flatly. It could have been a refusal or a piece of advice.

  Gerstenberg swallowed hard, then pushed through the batswing doors to enter the saloon. The trio rode into the square, hauling on the reins of their horses to slow the animals and angle them across to the law office. The body of Harman had been taken away: likewise those of his two deputies from in front of the stage line depot. The stage was still where it had halted, the team standing quietly in the traces. The newcomers flicked cursory glances at Edge then ignored him. Edge watched them carefully from under the tilted-forward brim of his hat. He saw a beautiful, statuesque blonde woman of about thirty who looked more than able to take care of herself in any trouble involving a youngster of Andrews’ years and build. And two beefy men in their late thirties - high, wide and handsome. But the basically well-formed features of the whole family were contorted by the hatred in their hearts.