Edge: Arapaho Revenge Page 8

  "Evening," Edge replied, like the lawman speaking against the constant barrage of sell­ing words that Marx was spreading over his audience. But the drummer had abandoned the megaphone now that he was sure the crowd was as big as he was going to get.

  "Cy Meek," the lawman said with a curt nod, continuing to suck on the match and to lean against the wall of the saloon.

  "Edge," the half-breed countered, staying aboard the Frenchman's wagon, but turning on the seat to look over the heads of the crowd across the street, into the interior of the freight wagon that was now exposed by the removal of the panels.

  "I'm the sheriff of this town," Meek said, and there was a tone of irritation in his voice as he spoke to the stranger whose attention he had apparently lost.

  "I'm just somebody passing through, sher­iff," came the even voiced reply. "Figure to head on out after I've purchased some sup­plies."

  The glinting blue eyes of the half-breed were briefly distracted from the display of merchan­dise on the wagon across the street. And he met, for just a moment, the gaze directed at him by the baldheaded and almost toothless old timer who was watching him from the dimly lit open doorway beside the blacked out window of Cecil Downing's Undertaking Parlor midway along the western side of the street. The old man, attired in somber clothing in more urgent need of renewal than the outfit of the sheriff, was looking at the half-breed in a way he had become used to being surveyed by strangers who perceived him to be a drifting loner unlike most others of his type. And so he returned his attention to the uncovered freight wagon, aware that the lawman had seen the distant exchange of anxious resentment for disdainful indifference.

  "Name that matches my nature, most of the time, Mr. Edge," Meek said. "Along with mild."

  "Like my name, sheriff, I can sometimes be real sharp, sheriff. Right now though, I'm going to be blunt."

  "About them two drummers?" Meek was both interested and wary, as if he felt he should hear what the stranger had to say but knew he would not like it.

  "Hey, you fellers with the Indian stuff to sell!" Edge yelled, his voice cutting across and curtailing the excitedly spoken sales talk of Marx. And abruptly the half-breed was the focal point of all attention. Work even halted on the broken down locomotive as the railroad­men became conscious of a tension in the sudden silence that dropped over the town. A silence during which Edge was disconcertingly aware of breaking one of the few rules by which he lived his life, and momentarily regretted it before he went on—speaking to forestall an at­tack by a different brand of embarrassment to that he had unfamiliarly endured when he was with Nalin. "If any of it has blood on it, is the price higher?"

  Spenser looked toward Marx with a plea emanating from every line of his face. While Marx switched his expression from a glower to a grin as he held the ice-eyed gaze of Edge and yelled back:

  "Depends, mister! If Jason or I can guaran­tee the blood's genuine, then it makes the item more expensive! But if we bought the item off an Indian who might well have stained it with animal blood, then we make no extra charge! Does that answer your question, sir?"

  "Hey, you got any artifacts that you can guarantee have real blood of a real Indian on them, Mr. Marx?" a matronly looking blond-haired woman in the crowd asked excitedly.

  "I'd sure like to see some!" a man added with similar eagerness. "My wife back home in Caro­lina would just love to have an Apache moc­casin or somethin' like that with the blood of the savage that wore it still—"

  "You don't want old style stuff like that," the half-breed cut in on the souvenir hunter. "Latest fashion is Arapaho artifacts. Right, drummer?"

  Marx had not allowed the grin to slip from his ruddy-complexioned face. And now he broadened the expression and nodded vigor­ously as he divided his attention between his audience, Edge and the wares displayed on the wagon. While he returned to his sales pitch.

  "The gentleman is absolutely correct, folks! Why, it sounds almost as if he is a partner of Jason Spenser and myself! Is that not so, Jason?"

  The older, taller and more heavily built man was less expert at concealing his true feelings. And was broodingly uneasy as he constantly chewed at his top lip beneath the thick mus­tache and switched his gaze back and forth be­tween Marx and Edge. With eyes that con­tinued to be vaguely sad. He did not respond to the query and his garrulous partner hurried on after just a fleeting half scowl to reveal he was angered by the lack of co-operation.

  "A large number of the items you see arrayed before you were obtained from a band of Ara­paho Indians! Feathers and moccasins, chokers and ties, breechclouts and aprons, shirts and leggings, armbands and anklets, folks. And we have a good range of bead jew­elry! A drum or two as used by the Indians when performing war dances!"

  While he listed the goods for sale, the drum­mer waved a hand to indicate the exposed rear of the wagon on which it was all displayed. Along with much that was not of Indian origin—jars of candy, pots and pans, cartons of sta­tionery, some wooden toys, a number of books, bottles of scent and packages of powders, some medicines in a variety of containers, framed prints of seascapes and a number of stringed musical instruments.

  Just once during this time, he was able to catch the eye of the obviously perturbed Spen­ser, when he gestured with hands and head that the man should play his part in emphasiz­ing the artifacts being mentioned. But the scowling man remained where he stood beside a rear corner of the wagon, and just shook his head.

  "Ain't you got no weapons, mister?" a man wanted to know in sour tones. "No knives or tomahawks or bows? With arrows to go with them, maybe?"

  "I'm sorry, sir," Marx countered hurriedly.

  "The party of Arapaho Jason Spenser and I parlayed with to obtain this merchandise were not of a warlike disposition. They—"

  "Sheriff?" Edge said, looking and sounding the same as when he had first intervened to hinder the drummers. Remained on the seat of the buckboard, half turned to look across the street. No hint in his even tone and impassive expression of the ice cold anger that was con­centrated at the pit of his stomach—or the effort he needed to make it keep it from ex­panding and becoming critically hot.

  "Somethin' you should know, mister," the lawman countered, his voice also lacking ten­sion or volume. But it acted to hold the both eager and anxious attention of the large crowd across the street that had initially been cap­tured by Edge in speaking the single word.

  And now it was the half-breed's turn to be­come the focus of every eye again, as he ig­nored the implication of a warning from Meek and said to the sheriff while he directed his glinting-eyed gaze elsewhere:

  "There are no Indian weapons aboard that wagon because there were none to be had. Just a whole arsenal of rifles these fellers used to gun down the Indians so they could steal the stuff."

  Marx and Spenser exchanged a glance and on this occasion both were equally uneasy. But in back of the older man's nervousness was a tacit question. To which his partner was about to reply with a nod, until the potential customer for Arapaho weapons put in, as sour toned as ever:

  "Well, good for them, Injun lover! A bunch of redskin savages gettin' blasted away is the best news I heard this year!"

  Eddie Marx vented a silent sigh through compressed lips, and then resurrected his familiar grin—with a glint of triumph added—when a woman in the crowd rasped:

  "So now you had some good news, Otis Sny­der, maybe you'll stop being the biggest misery in town. Some hope!"

  There were a few gusts of high humored laughter, and some nervous titters. And the blond-haired, chubby-faced, stockily-built Marx prepared to strike while the mood was there and reopen his sales pitch. But a number of people in his audience still remained turned toward the half-breed, as if they were trapped by some palpable force emanating from the ice blue slivers of his eyes. And it was Edge who spoke before the drummer could utter the first word his lips shaped.

  "Women, children and old men past the time for carrying arms, sheriff. Counted four babies not o
ld enough to walk."

  A stretched second of almost total silence fol­lowed the even-voiced revelation, kept from being absolute by the shrill chirpings of many cicadas. Then one of the repairmen working on the locomotive dropped a tool that clattered noisily on the footplate. And exclamations ranging from horrified shock to brutal contempt exploded in an odd sounding chorus from the crowd. While frowns of every degree, some sour scowls and several triumphant grins showed on the faces of the people at the side of the wagon.

  This for another stretched second, before the expressions became frozen and the chirping of the cicadas provided the only sound in the whole of Calendar again. The fresh shock again signaled by Edge. But with actions instead of words this time. The half-breed powering to his feet and turning from the waist, as his right hand streaked to the holstered Colt, fingers curled and thumb extended. To grip the butt of the revolver and cock the hammer as the barrel slid clear of the holster. And the gun was tilted up to become leveled from the hip, the fore­finger across the trigger. All this performed as part of a single, fluid movement that seemed to take place in the batting of an eyelid. But not one of the eyelids hooded over the glittering slits of the half-breed's eyes, which did not blink as he watched Jason Spenser. And saw the drummer stoop, open a box slung under the rear of the wagon and come upright with what he had taken from the box. Did not himself start to come erect and draw the Colt before he saw the Winchester Spenser held in a two-handed grip.

  "No, Jase!" Eddie Marx roared, his complex­ion shaded from ruddy to near purple as his voice reached almost feminine shrillness.

  Marx was staring down at Spenser as he shrieked the plea. And Edge was concentrating his attention on both men. Which perhaps made them the only two people on the street who did not see how the sheriff of Calendar re­sponded to the threat of gunplay in his town. But then, as Spenser thumbed back the hammer of the repeater while the rifle was still aimed at the night sky, the half-breed sensed danger behind him. And a part of a second later was aware that the source of that danger had captured a large share of tension-filled atten­tion.

  Jason Spenser was among those who felt compelled to look from Edge to Meek, and he was suddenly locked in a frozen attitude with the Winchester still not aimed at a target.

  "Goin' to kill you sure as the Devil made little green applies to give folks the bellyache, Edge," the lawman said grimly. "If you fire your gun with intent to kill either or both them men over there. And after seein' how fast you are with that gun, I won't have no bad feelin' about back shootin' you."

  The half-breed remained as immobile as Spenser while Meek spoke. But without the startled look that had spread suddenly over the fleshy face of the salesman. And now he moved just his lips to counterwarn the lawman:

  "It's just as sure, sheriff, that I'm going to kill you. . . ." He paused briefly until the gasped and other subdued utterances of shock had died down. "... if you ever again aim a gun at me and don't kill me first. Same goes for everybody else who can hear me. Always try to give folks the warning. Just the once."

  He needed to move his hand just fractionally back, to tilt the revolver and slide it into the holster. But kept his thumb on the cocked hammer and his forefinger to the trigger until Spenser obeyed Marx's hissed command to:

  "Put the damn rifle down, Jase."

  Then Edge eased the hammer of the Colt for­ward after Spenser had performed a similar action on the Winchester and dropped his hand away from the holstered gun after directing a cold-eyed glance over his shoulder to check that Meek was putting up his long-barreled Smith and Wesson. Then relief became a rasp­ing sound that drowned out the chirping of the insects.

  "That somethin' I was tellin' you, you oughta know about this town, Mr. Edge?" the sheriff said.

  The half-breed turned all the way around and Eddie Marx at once began over again to cap­ture the attention and imagination of this audience:

  "Now folks, wasn't that kinda scary and ex­citing? Well, no more exciting than some of the items Jason Spenser is going to show you! And every last one of them genuine, if it's souvenirs of savage Indians that interests you! But that's not all we have to offer. Merchandise from all four corners of the. ..."

  Against the huckstering patter of the man aboard the freight wagon, Edge said wearily as he climbed down from the buckboard: "Yeah?"

  "Calendar folks don't care much for Indians. Of any nation or any kind."

  "Obliged, sheriff," the half-breed answered, as he dragged his gear off the rear of the buck-board to bundle it under his left arm.

  Meek jerked a crooked thumb at the entrance of the saloon. "Buy you a drink?"

  "Always pay my own way."

  "Have it your way."

  "Usually do, sheriff."

  The lawman shrugged as he turned away to push open one of the batwing doors and say: "Well, I'm gonna have a brew myself. After you."

  Edge shook his head to decline the offer of entering the Cottonwood Saloon in front of Sheriff Meek. And told him evenly: "Obliged again, but the way things are here, I'd rather not have the law behind me."

  Chapter Eight

  THE SALOON was longer than it was wide, stretching three times as much back from the street as its two story facade on the street. It was brightly lit by twin rows of ceiling hung kerosene lamps, but empty of patrons until the grim-faced sheriff and the impassive half-breed entered.

  Two people were behind the long bar counter that stretched three-quarters of the way down the left side of the elongated room, beyond which was a dais on which stood a closed lid piano, three chairs and three music stands. A strip of uncluttered space, some ten feet wide, reached all the way from the front to the rear of the room. And on the other side of this was an array of close-packed, chair-ringed tables. Most of them bare topped but a few, in the far corner, covered with green baize for card games or with mechanical gambling equipment on them—two roulette wheels, boards for Diana and Hazard, a wheel of fortune and the goose and jar of balls for Keno.

  There were oil paintings on the walls, two mirrors behind the bar, sawdust on the floor and plain dust on most everything. The place smelled of kerosene oil rather than tobacco smoke, liquor and sweat.

  The two men who were at the end of the bar closest to the window that gave a view out on the street looked like a father and son. The one close to fifty, fat and pale and balding and smilingly anxious to please. The other in his early twenties—slender in build and with a thin and callow face. A head taller than his father, showing no sign of ever having had to struggle with his conscience or work until he was ready to drop when the task finished. Resentful of the fact that he might have to be of service to the only customers in the place.

  The older man rasped something out of the side of his mouth to the young one, who needed no further urging to withdraw to the far end of the bar counter where he leaned forward, head in his hands, to pore over a book.

  "Mr. Meek, Mr. Edge," the older bartender greeted effusively. "I'm real glad that situa­tion out there did not get ugly. And in celebra­tion of this, I offer you a first drink on the house."

  Both bartenders were dressed in white shirts, black bow ties, black pants and white waist aprons. The white parts of their outfits a little wilted looking and grubby. And the man who made the free drinks offer soiled his apron some more when he rubbed his sweaty palms down it, as his only two customers bellied up to the bar, Edge dropping his gear to the floor in front of it.

  "Don't be stupid, Hans," Meek growled. "I know you can't afford to give liquor away and Mr. Edge always pays for what he has—as you well overheard if you caught his name."

  The bartender shrugged his fleshy shoulders and made his smile wan as he pulled a foaming beer for the sheriff. Then said, as he drew another at a nod from the half-breed:

  "But it sounds good, Mr. Meek. To say it. Even if I did hear what Mr. Edge told you. And know that even if you knew I could afford to give you a drink, you would not accept it. Be­cause as sheriff of this town you want to
owe nobody a favor."

  "Sure, Hans," Meek said absently. "This here is Hans Linder, Mr. Edge. And down there is his son Bruno."

  "From Germany, but now Americans, Mr. Edge," the older Linder said smilingly. "I am very pleased to know you."

  "Figure customers'd be welcome here if you know them or not, feller?" the half-breed said after he had taken half the beer at a swallow. And now placed a dollar bill on the bar top alongside Meek's dime. "Bottle of whiskey and a shot glass, uh?"

  "You bet." The order was filled and there were a few coins in change that Edge put in his pocket before he emptied the beer glass, left it on the bar counter and went with the shot glass and bottle to the nearest table. He also left his gear where it was.

  "It will happen for us and when it does, we will be ready for it, sir!" Hans Linder said emphatically, and drew a sound of disdain from his scowling son.

  "I ain't happy for you, feller," the half-breed said. "But don't mind me. Been a rough day."

  The medium height, slenderly built, good-looking for his age Cy Meek turned from the bar with his glass held in both hands and leaned back comfortably, a heel hooked over the rail. And said: "Hans means about the herds and the drovers, Mr. Edge. Now we got the AT and SF spur down into Calendar, the ranchers down south will start comin' to our town."

  Bruno Linder, without raising his eyes from the book, vented another inarticulate sound. That could have been taken to be a whole lot cruder than the first had the lawman been of a mind to treat it as such. But only the boy's father directed a frowning look toward him. While Meek continued to peer at Edge as the half-breed poured whiskey into the shot glass until it was brimful. The sheriff waiting for a response which was not delivered until the whiskey was downed in a single swallow and the glass refilled. When Edge began to roll a cigarette and asked: