THE BLUE, THE GREY AND THE RED. (Edge Series Book 6) Read online

  "I reckon he knows something, Captain," Forrest said with an icy grin.

  Seward giggled.

  "Been out in the sun too long," Rhett murmured to the prisoner. "You're starting to peel."

  "You bastard Yankee!" the prisoner hissed.

  "Hard man," Douglas said to Hedges.

  "But soft in the head," Hedges replied, prodding forward with the razor and then slashing downwards.

  The raider winced, then screamed. What seemed to be a length of red yarn appeared across his right cheek from the comer of the eye to the comer of the mouth. Blood washed down the lower half of his cheek.

  "Stop it!" a woman shrieked.

  "Stop this." The civilian who had been crying lashed out a fist and the woman crumpled. "They took my daughter," he rasped.

  Down the dark street, a piano began to jangle and high-heeled shoes slapped a stage. Men roared their approval of the dancers.

  "I can go deeper," Hedges urged his victim. "They took my girl."

  The prisoner gathered spittle in his mouth. As he ejected it, Hedges ducked and then came up with the razor flashing. The blade hooked into the comer of the man's mouth and raked upwards. When it came free of the flesh, the lower half of the man's left cheek flapped away. His exposed back teeth ground together in a grin of agony. Blood cascaded down to widen the stain on the front of his uniform, Tears spilled from his dark eyes before he screwed them shut. His mouth moved, but emitted only a gurgle.

  "I don't think he can talk, sir," Scott said, a little nervously.

  "He just ain't trying," Hedges answered. "Maybe he ain't too worried about his face. Drop his pants."

  While Rhett and Douglas continued to keep the weakened prisoner upright, Forrest moved forward and reached for the raider's belt buckle.

  "Now don't get excited, Bob," he murmured to Rhett.

  The prisoner sucked in his belly. "Wait," he croaked, spraying blood with the word. "BrookervilIe. They're at Brookerville."

  Hedges gripped Forrest's shoulder and jerked him away. "Where's that?" he demanded.

  "Ten miles. East."

  "That's right." This from the man whose daughter had been kidnapped. "It's just a village. Hardly that."

  "Obliged," Hedges said to the raider and slit his throat. Rhett and Douglas allowed the limp. form of the dead man to fold onto the ground in a widening circle of blood.

  "My life, you didn't have to kill him," a Jewish voice exclaimed from the shadowed facade of a storefront across the street.

  "With a face like that, I did him a favor," Hedges muttered as he stooped to wipe the blood from his razor, using the uniform tunic of the dead man.

  "Such favors don't do me."

  Hedges turned to stare levelly into the wan face of one of the musicians who was regarding him with horrified contempt.

  "You got a big mouth, fiddler." The words were low, but vibrant with menace. The man backed away, as if the voice had a physical strength which was pushing him into the shadows.

  "We goin' after the crud, Captain?" Forrest asked, cutting across the pool of tense silence that engulfed this end of the street.

  ''What do you think?"

  "I think you think a lot of a certain party, sir," the sergeant answered.

  "And now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of that party," Rhett said excitedly.

  "And we're just the type," Scott said.

  "Right," Hedges answered, turning to start along the street.

  The others fell in around him, the pace quickening.

  "You didn't have to kill him," the fiddler yelled after them when they were almost out of earshot.

  "Go jump off a roof!" Seward shrieked back at him.

  *****

  The Skyline Hotel was in a prime position on the very peak of Nob Hill, offering panoramic views across the city to the bright blue of the ocean in the west and to the darker blue of the ragged mountains in the opposite site direction. It was an impressive building of stone and had an entrance flanked by marble pillars. A negro dressed in red velvet livery took charge of Vic Paxton’s horse and despite himself, the young deputy was more than a little over-awed as he entered the plush lobby with its wall-to-wall carpeting and flimsy looking furniture.

  The people in the lobby were all dressed expensively and the glances they cast in Paxton's direction were designed to make him feel ill at ease in his dusty work clothes. But as he crossed to the polished desk he rubbed his arm across the left side of his chest and swung slightly from side to side to ensure that everybody saw the glint of the tin star. But the people were rich enough to be above the law and failed to be impressed. The woman behind the desk liked Paxton's immature good looks and smiled brightly at him, her blue eyes wide with unashamed interest.

  "Good morning, officer," she greeted.

  She was about thirty and her youthful prettiness was receding. She attempted to cheat time with a great deal of make-up. Morning sun highlighted the lie. Paxton kept his expression hard as he dug the token from his vest pocket and held it up.

  "This one of yours?" he demanded.

  The woman fluttered her eyelids, the lashes as false as her youth. "I'm just the receptionist, dearie," she taunted.

  "I didn't mean personal," Paxton told her.

  "You're rather early. I'm off at midday and you wouldn't need that."

  She was dressed in a high-necked gown of green silk, nipped in tight at the waist. The fabric clung close to her upper body and swelled as she sucked in her breath. With an effort, Paxton was able to keep his eyes locked on her face.

  "Emmeline Greer?" he asked.

  The woman shook her head. "You're too late, feller."

  "Why?"

  "She's gone."

  "Where?"Paxton snapped.

  Already aware that she had failed to generate any interest from the young deputy, the woman dropped all attempts to be appealing.

  "How the hell would I know? There's plenty of other five-dollar screws upstairs." Her voice was low, inaudible to the others in the lobby, but harsh.

  "When did she go?" Paxton demanded.

  "This morning, early. Madam don't keep girls here if they don't want to stay."

  "She go alone?"

  "Guy called for her. In a carriage. Looked like she was going to a ritzy place."

  "Why? What makes you think that?"

  "It was a high-priced rig. New paint and lots of polish. Had this picture on the doors."

  "What picture?" Paxton sensed he was on to a strong lead and the excitement of this was audible in his voice.

  "How much it worth to you?" the woman asked, her expression suddenly avaricious.

  "Five bucks," Paxton told her.

  She nodded, satisfied with the offer. "Kind of Biblical. An apple and a snake."

  Paxton grinned and slapped the token down on the desk. "Thanks," he said as he turned.

  "What's this?" she demanded.

  "It says on it that it's worth five dollars," he pointed out.

  "Not to me it's not," she snapped.

  Paxton shrugged. "You've just been screwed for five bucks," he said, and strolled back across the lobby, filled with enough confidence to force San Francisco's gentry to turn away from his steady, clear-eyed stare.

  As the deputy was retrieving his horse from the elegantly attired Negro high on Nob Hill, the carriage which had taken Emmeline Greer away from the Skyline Hotel was parked outside of the jailhouse in a less well-endowed section of the city. A coachman was polishing the brasswork with a soft cloth. Inside the building, the rig's owner was staring at Edge with an expression of unadulterated hatred that seemed strong enough to melt the iron bars of the cell.

  "You killed the only thing in the world that I give a damn about," Lydia Eden said, her voice trembling with emotion.

  "No, lady," Edge answered. "Twice."

  Her brow furrowed.

  Edge picked at his teeth with a fingernail. He talked around his hand. "No, I didn't kill him. That's once. No, because
for anyone that gets as rich as you, money is the only thing to give a damn about. That's twice"

  "Watch your mouth!" Red Railston snapped.

  Edge was stretched out on the rancid mattress, resting his head against the end wall, his black hat crushed up to give a modicum of comfort to the tenderness of his skull. Railston was resting his heavy rump against the corner of his desk. The woman stood on the stone floor in the center of the office, out of reach of the bars. She was in her mid-fifties and once may have been as pretty as her son had been handsome: but some of her long years had been hard ones and had taken their toll. Her face was long and thin enough so that the bone structure showed through and the yellow-tinged, parchment-textured skin seemed to be draped in flaccid creases from her tiny field-green eyes to the delicate line of her pointed jaw, with her thin mouth as a slightly more pronounced, darker colored fold. Her hair was short cut and the color of autumn wheat stubble. Although her body, concealed from neck to ankle in a deep black dress, was so thin it was almost painful to look at, there was about the woman an aura of strength which emanated from her spiritual, rather than her physical make-up. Thus, Ballston's bulk appeared to shrink into insignificance beside the subtle power of Lydia Eden.

  "What you going to do, Red?" Edge taunted. "Hang me for talking out of turn?"

  Mint Julep, who had backed into a comer of his cell when Lydia Eden entered, could not suppress a giggle.

  "It could happen to you, alky!" Railston roared, turning his anger towards an easier target.

  "You'll hang, saddletramp," the woman spat at Edge. "And burn in the fires of hell for eternity."

  Edge worked a piece of old meat out from his teeth and spat it towards the bars. It sailed between them and hit the floor close to the hem of the woman's skirt. Railston came away from the desk, his face dark with anger. Lydia Eden raised a bony arm across his chest and it pulled up the marshal as effectively as a leveled Winchester.

  "Leave him!" she ordered. "Noon tomorrow will be his time."

  ''Money buys speed, too," Edge muttered.

  "Judge Ryan can't be bought," Railston answered.

  "That's right," Mint Julep put in. "He runs a straight court." He turned sad eyes towards Edge. "Course, he always hangs a killer."

  "And you killed my little Chad," Lydia Eden accused.

  "I didn't kill him," Edge answered softly. "He was so dumb rich he was an accident looking for someplace to happen. Last night he found the right scene."

  "He was a fine boy," Lydia Eden retorted, the abhorrence gleaming from deep within her eyes.

  Edge held her gaze and the gleam in his eyes was as strong as her hate. But the emotion he showed was of scorn. "Why did you come here, Mrs. Eden?" he asked quietly.

  She showed a row of small, very white teeth in a vicious sneer. "The marshal told me you were full of pride. I wanted to see it. Then at noon tomorrow I'll be able to see just how much of a sniveling coward you are when they put the rope around your neck."

  The hate from within the woman seemed to chill the air in the sunlit room. Railston grinned through the bars. "Man like him will die hard, Mrs. Eden," he said happily.

  "Happens to every man that gets hung," Edge replied easily, continuing to stare into the crinkled face of the woman. "Did you, know a man that's hung ejaculates as his neck snaps?"

  Lydia Eden sucked in her breath and drew back, shocked.

  "You've got a filthy mouth!" Railston bellowed, reaching for one of his guns but not hooking it from the holster.

  "I get it!" Mint Julep yelled, cackling. "I get it. A man dies hard. He's gotta be to do that."

  'Mrs. Eden glanced at the delighted drunk, wrinkling her nose.

  Edge grinned at him, enjoying the woman's sudden change from ice-cold hatred to feverish embarrassment. "Shows a man is brave to the end," Edge said to the drunk.

  "How's that?" Mint Julep asked, still giggling as Railston's face colored to a deep purple.

  "Way he keeps his pecker up," Edge said.

  "I get it, I get it," Mint Julep shrieked as Lydia Eden whirled and strode hurriedly to the door.

  Fuming, Railston drew his side iron and pumped a bullet into the cell. It smashed into the wall and showered the drunk with stone chips. Mint Julep shrieked and cowered into a ball, hands clasped above his head, knees pressed hard against his chest.

  "Hold your stupid tongue," the marshal, bellowed. "There's a lady present."

  "Not anymore," Edge tossed in.

  Railston snapped his head around in time to see the hem of Lydia Eden's mourning dress trailing over the threshold. He scooted after her to help her into the carriage. Edge looked at the trembling form of Mint Julep.

  "Didn't we meet someplace before?" he asked.

  Mint Julep's eyes had been screwed shut. Now he opened one and breathed a sigh of relief as he saw the office was empty. He opened the other eye and gave Edge a watery stare, his face contorting into a thoughtful frown. After a few moments he shook his head.

  "I don't know, mister. Sure as hell you never bought me no drink. I always remember guys who bought me a drink."

  He began to pick pieces of stone from his clothing as Edge wriggled down to spread his body full length on the mattress, then covered his face with the crumpled hat. His mind peered backwards through the curtains of time past.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The preacher's wife had been sick. The vomit had spewed from her slack mouth and formed into a hard, crusted trail over her chin, down her neck and across the limp, sac-like elongations that were her aging breasts. Her naked body was bowed backwards over the bar in the Brookerville Saloon, with her ankles hooked under the brass rail and her arms extended high above her head, held rigid by ropes tied to her wrists and hitched to the self behind the bar. She had emptied her stomach as the man entered her and fainted before he was finished. Two other women approaching middle years were dead, both as naked as the preacher's wife. One hung upside-down by her ankles from a ceiling beam, dripping blood which oozed out of two large bullet holes in her stomach. The other had been crucified upon the top of an upended table leaning against a wall, suffering long minutes of agony from the nails driven through her flesh before a merciful bayonet had been driven deep into her stomach and twisted viciously to bring death.

  Four younger women, among them Jeannie Fisher, crouched against the wall, trying to hide their nakedness with their hands as two of Terry's Raiders menaced them with Springfield rifles. On the far side of the bar-room, the remainder of the guerillas lounged arrogantly around two tables, firing their imagination with whiskey straight from stolen bottles as they waited for their leader to command further entertainment. In an army only now, after long years of war, beginning to understand the need for discipline, the Confederate raider groups were becoming an anachronism. Bands such as that commanded by Bill Terry were comprised of outlaws and gunslingers who regarded the war as an opportunity to legalize their bestial brutality. They recognized no rules except those laid down by the strongest member of the group and even such strength could be undermined or merely ignored should a leader show sighs of giving the war effort precedence over the less ambitious aims of his men.

  But Terry would never fall into such an untenable position because he wore the Confederate grey with the same intention of his men—to kill, rape and loot with an impunity that only a Union bullet could penetrate. Thus he had organized and led the raid on Murfreesboro with no tactical objective in mind except to alleviate the boredom of himself and his men after a long period of inactivity.

  Terry was a self-appointed captain who had long ago ceased to demand the privileges of rank beyond those he was able to maintain by his speed and accuracy with a captured Union officer's saber. He was not a big man, but he was built with a solid compactness which, allied with his agility, more than compensated for what he lacked in brute strength. He was forty years old and had learned the art of cruelty as slavemaster on a Virginia cotton plantation before joining up with an ex-safemaker who decide
d it was more profitable to blow open strongboxes than to build them. The nucleus of the raiders was formed in the year before the Civil War exploded into being, and each man had greeted the opening of hostilities with gleeful delight. And the bloody trail they had cut across the intervening years served only to heighten their anticipation for newer, more depraved experiences. So that in the sputtering lamplight of the Brookerville Saloon, surrounded by the empty buildings of a deserted village, the men of Terry's Raiders reveled in the sight of the women's naked dead bodies and waited with slavering, whiskey-run lips for the black-bearded man with a captain's insignia to call forward the next terrified victim.

  His dark eyes red veined from the liquor, Terry slapped down his bottle on the table and swished his saber around to point at a fresh-faced youngster who had been drinking without enthusiasm and whose meanness of features was underplayed by a deep anxiety.

  "I reckon the Yankees killed your twin, Matt," Terry said coldly. "Or if they did not, he'll be wishing they had right now. You take the little girl with the birthmark on her ass. You take out your revenge on her, Matt." The youngster hesitated for only a moment, then stood up, swaying slightly with the effects of the whiskey. The others roared out a cheer, then fell silent as Matt walked with slow care across the space cleared in the center of the bar-room.

  "You're the one," he said, halting close to the dangling body of the upended woman and pointing a wavering hand between the two guards to where a young blonde girl of eighteen was crouched.

  The girl whimpered and pressed herself against the rough wood of the wall. One of the guards, who had first crucified and then disemboweled the woman given to him, jabbed the muzzle of his rifle into the girl's narrow hip. The second guard, who had bound and raped the preacher's wife, reached down, grasped the girl's left breast and jerked her away from the wall, flinging her to the feet of Matt.

  "No!" she screamed, scrambling onto her knees and clasping her hands together, looking up at the young man with her eyes imploring him to be merciful.