EDGE: The Prisoners Read online

  Was she a victim of circumstances? Living with her husband in this isolated situation because the course she had chosen to take down the years had led her into a trap from which there was no escape?

  She as much a prisoner as was Joe Straw. And Crystal Dickens, who had been confined to her New England home for so long by family ties.

  Crystal had made her escape bid - staked everything she possessed upon finding happiness with this man called Edge.

  While Kate Ford, for just a couple of hours, had allowed her imagination to run through the possibilities of what life might be like if Edge and not her husband was the man who gave direction to that life.

  Crystal suffered the reality. Kate Ford regretted that her fantasy could not become fact. Was Crystal happy now? Thanking her lucky stars that her relationship with Edge was at an end. Would Kate Ford soon look around her home and at her husband and reflect with a smile of quiet joy that she had much to be thankful for?

  He shifted into a more comfortable position against the back of the seat and the side of the stage as the sounds and movements of the Concord settled into a regular cadence after the jerking din of the start. And fastened his thoughts as well as his eyes on Joe Straw.

  Another victim of circumstances. A half breed Indian viewed with contempt by almost everyone with whom he came into contact. What series of events had led him to sell his own mother into slavery? What kind of desperate straits had he been in when he held up the stage and was forced to kill or be killed? Then ran and discovered he did not have what it took to kill his pursuer until he was in another trap from which the only escape was the ultimate act of violence.

  If anyone should be a hard bitten and embittered cold hearted killer, surely it was Joe Straw. A half breed outcast born as a result of rape. Getting the shit kicked out of him all his life and simply suffering a different brand of humiliation on those infrequent occasions when the do-gooders like Mrs. Dora Naulty poured pity over him.

  And he knew what his harsh life should have made of him. But could not force himself to be anything he was not. And what he was not was a man like Edge.

  Another half breed with Mexican instead of Comanche blood in his veins. But equally an object of scorn in the eyes of most pure blooded Mexicans and Americans. Here, though, the resemblance ended.

  Edge enjoyed a happy family life during his childhood and youth. Until the War Between the States ended this period of his history. But tens of thousands of other young men went away to war and the vast majority of those fortunate enough to survive were able to return and rebuild a replica of what once had been.

  It was unlikely that any came home to the brutal journey’s end that awaited this one.

  Riding this stage along the dusty trail across the desert, Edge experienced no regret at having responded so brutally to the scene of violence he found at the Iowa farm so long ago. But the ice-blue eyes that surveyed his prisoner from between the narrowed lids did lose a little of their glitter as he reflected upon the events which followed from the end of the trail of vengeance.

  Events in which countless men and women had been caught up. Hating him, indifferent to him, liking him and some - very few - loving him. Those whose lives were not ended by or because of him had been influenced by him.

  How many for the better?

  Perhaps there were some, but in his present mood he could not recall them. Unless he projected his thoughts into the realm of what may have happened had he not been at a particular place at a particular time. But he was who he was and therefore where he was: as much a prisoner in his own life as everyone else. Not by force of circumstances, though. By choice.

  Which was a gut twisting self admission to make for a man who enjoyed total freedom and, paradoxically, failed to enjoy it. Was capable of changing others by his example, for better or worse, and yet he remained constantly the same.

  Because he had solely the need to stay alive. Did not want anything.

  Like Joe Straw wanted to be as hard and mean as his experiences should have made him.

  Like Kate Ford wanted more out of life than meeting the needs of her husband and stage line passengers.

  Like her husband wanted no more customers who caused trouble.

  Like Crystal Dickens wanted to be loved by Edge.

  Like Clyde and his buddies wanted to let this hair down after four months of range riding.

  Like Stewart and McBride wanted to be rich.

  Like John Hackman wanted to avenge the death of his father.

  Like his father wanted to protect the property of the passengers on the stage he was driving.

  And on this stage. . . .

  Like the driver and shotgun wanted to make up lost time.

  Like the nervous partners in the Phoenix restaurant business wanted to be back in familiar surroundings after being away from home.

  Like Mrs. Dora Naulty wanted whites and Indians to live in harmony together.

  Edge pursed his lips and allowed a silent sigh to vent between them as he shifted his gaze to the monotonous panorama of the desert landscape passing the window.

  By acknowledging this, where did it leave him? If all he needed was to stay alive, why was he riding this stage with the sole object of taking the hapless Joe Straw to the gallows? He could eat and drink and provide the other necessities for survival for a long time to come on the bounty money he collected in Tucson. And before his stake was exhausted there was surely a better than even chance of raising more money from a less hazardous chore than the one he had set himself when he rode toward rather than away from trouble at the head of the valley. A chore which would not have brought him into contact with the two prospectors and the four drunken cowhands. And Joe Straw. Put his life on the line for as long as it took to reach Crater.

  Maybe the half breed Comanche was right. Which brought him back to the paradox. He needed only to stay alive, and yet did have a death wish. And could care nothing for those who had the misfortune to get caught in the no man’s land of his emotional battlefield.

  But no, this could not be right. If he cared nothing about them, why should his mind be troubled by the line of thinking that occupied him now?

  The answer clicked into the forefront of his mind almost the instant after the query was posed. The incidence of two coincidences happening in such a short space of time.

  Firstly there had been Crystal Dickens who, if he had allowed her, might well have been able to work the same changes in him as Beth Day. But he rebuffed her every approach. Simply used her as he used everyone else when he felt the need. Then had been able to ignore the memory of her because he was well practiced in the art of forgetting everything which did not have a bearing on what held his attention at the present.

  Secondly, John Hackman who was riding the vengeance trail after the killing of his father just as, long ago, Josiah C. Hedges had sought out the murderers of his kid brother.

  This pair of parallels was too startling for his subconscious to absorb and kept deeply buried. Parallels with the only times in his life after the watershed of the war when he had wanted anything.

  The love of a woman he loved, and revenge against those who had robbed him of someone he loved. Both aims were realized and in achieving them he experienced happiness and a sense of triumph.

  Between Jamie and Beth, and Beth and now . . . ? Hunger and thirst, heat and cold, weariness and pain.

  Discomfort. Lust. His body and mind assaulted by the demands which are made upon every living thing if life is to be preserved. But in satisfying them he felt . . . nothing.

  So, the answer was, he had failed to recognize the emotion which troubled him because he never had experienced it before. Crystal Dickens and John Hackman by entering his life in such quick succession had triggered memories of automatic responses which were pleasant. And from this had come the feeling he never did have before and which spread a grimace of disgust across his lean features.

  Envy.

  He envied what Joe Straw had felt w
hen he twisted the knife in Hackman’s belly after sinking it in to the hilt. Kate Ford’s attraction to him. Fred Ford’s ability to be happy running his way-station in the middle of nowhere. The single-mindedness of purpose that had kept Crystal Dickens searching for him and the determination with which she had sought to keep him. The way the cowpunchers were able to get drunk without thought of the consequences. The avarice of the prospectors. The revenge motive which kept John Hackman on the trail of Straw. Old man Hackman’s readiness to die in the line of duty. The simple desires of the other people aboard this stage and the uncomplicated sense of satisfaction they would experience when they got what they wanted.

  ‘I said, are you feeling quite well, young man?’ Mrs. Naulty snapped at Edge.

  He shifted his unseeing gaze away from the desert terrain passing the window and glimpsed his hands which were fisted around the barrel of the Winchester. His knuckles were white from the tightness of his grip and now that he was again aware of his surroundings he felt pain in his hands. Then he looked at the woman. And glanced at Tait and Carver, who had interrupted a game of two hand poker to eye him with the same degree of curiosity as Mrs. Naulty.

  ‘Ma’am?’

  ‘You are looking very pale.’

  Now he felt the tightness of the frown on his face and made a conscious effort to reshape his features into a grin. ‘Not green?’

  ‘You feel sick, young man?’ She showed concern and made to get to her feet. ‘I have a jar of sal volatile in my valise on the rack.’

  He shook his head. ‘Obliged, ma’am. But I ain’t sick.’

  She arranged herself back into the erect, prim and proper posture on the seat between Joe Straw and Franklin Carver as the poker game got under way again.

  ‘Just troubled in the mind, it’s my guess. And I’m pleased to hear it. Irrespective of how those men came to die in the mountains, you should have taken the trouble to bury them. Or at least covered them. As a matter of common decency.’

  Edge returned his gaze to what lay beyond the window and felt mild surprise at the degree to which the sun had slid down the south western section of the cloudless sky; at how long he had been locked in his private world of self- analysis. Soon it would be dusk, which meant he had passed most of the afternoon looking for an obvious answer that, when he found it, aroused self-anger. Gone as quickly as it came.

  ‘You cannot pretend you did not hear what I said then, young man!’

  ‘I heard, ma’am.’

  ‘And have no answer?’

  ‘Didn’t hear any question.’

  ‘I was rather hoping you would offer some explanation for your barbaric behavior on the trail through the mountains. Which I find difficult to reconcile with what the couple at the way-station told me concerning how you assisted them.’

  ‘I don’t understand myself sometimes, ma’am. Don’t expect you to.’

  The stage, which had been making steady progress across the desert, now began to make a little more speed as the trail took a downgrade into a hollow.

  ‘It is my experience that talking is often a great help when one is troubled.’

  Edge craned his head to look forward out of the window: saw that they were entering a shallow depression in the desert. It extended for perhaps a mile. Then there was an upgrade flanked by outcrops of rock at the crest.

  ‘Then you carry on, ma’am,’ he said as he settled back in his seat, satisfied that the slight forward cant of the stage would not cause Straw to tip off his seat.

  Mrs. Naulty vented an unladylike grunt. ‘It is not I who am troubled, young man!’

  ‘Sure you are, ma’am. Seems to me you’re worried by what ails most every woman I’ve ever met.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ She sounded ready to be insulted.

  Then was, as Tait and Carver were unable to suppress an urge to laugh when Edge told her:

  ‘Scared you’re going to die before your mouth wears out.’

  CHAPTER TEN

  THE woman uttered a choked cry and then lapsed into glowering silence, sharing her anger among the poker players who laughed and Edge for giving them the reason.

  For several minutes there were just the terse exchanges between Tait and Carver as they played their no stakes game of five card draw to be heard above the thud of hooves and the creaking of harness and timbers.

  Then Harry Dodds shouted: ‘What the hell is that, Charlie?’

  ‘What the frig does it look like?’ the driver snorted and brought the stage to a halt.

  There was nothing frenetic about the unscheduled stop, for the team were moving slowly as they hauled their burden up the final few yards of the grade. Then had no time to get back to their regular cadence on the flat before the order was given to halt.

  ‘A dead mule, Charlie.’

  ‘Real bright, Harry.’

  Two men showed on the rocks to either side of the stalled Concord. Clyde and Ward on the side where Edge and Joe Straw sat. Sonny and Dave opposite them. Each of them held a leveled Winchester with the hammer cocked and a forefinger to the trigger.

  Sonny aimed his rifle at Franklin Carver. Ward covered Charlie. Dave had a bead on Harry Dodds. And Clyde had his sights aligned on Edge.

  ‘Nobody gets to die if everybody acts as bright as Harry!’ the top man of the quartet of cowpunchers yelled.

  ‘Damnit to hell, a hold up!’ Dodds wailed in disbelief.

  Charlie sounded far less perturbed than the man riding shotgun. ‘Unless we got some rich passengers, you boys are wasting your time,’ he said evenly.

  ‘Figure we got more money than all of you people, old- timer,’ Dave snarled.

  ‘And we didn’t get it by thievin’,’ Ward added.

  Up on the seat, Charlie and Dodds had their arms raised high, the bearded driver moving his jaw rhythmically as he continued to chew on a plug of tobacco. He gazed sadly at the dead mule that was sprawled across the centre of the trail with a blood crusted bullet hole between its eyes. While the shotgun constantly swung his head to peer anxiously at the four young men with leveled rifles.

  Inside the stage Tait and Carver sat in frozen attitudes, their gazes locked and their hands clawed to their thighs. The playing cards were scattered to the floor around their feet.

  Dora Naulty had recovered from several moments of shock. It left her pale faced, but her bright eyes suggested her mind was clear and working smoothly. She had glanced at the men flanking the stalled stage and then more rapidly at her fellow passengers. Decided Tait and Carver were as useless as the oblivious Joe Straw in terms of having an effect on what was going to happen next. So she looked questioningly at Edge.

  Who in turn gazed impassively out of the window at Clyde - knowing it was this triumphantly smiling young cowpuncher with the aimed Winchester who would dictate what was to follow: and was prepared to adapt his plans to meet whatever course of action Edge elected to take.

  Edge said and did nothing during the exchange between the men outside the stage and the short silence that followed.

  ‘Meant what I said, mister. We ain’t killers.’

  ‘Unless you have to be, feller.’

  With the door window open, there was no need for either man to raise his Voice.

  ‘Don’t have any quarrel with anyone aboard except you. But if you start the lead flyin’ no tellin’ who’ll get hurt.’

  Charlie spat tobacco juice between the rumps of the two rear team horses. ‘I got it. You boys are the ones were givin’ the Fords a hard time this momin’.’

  ‘Best you be as quiet as you’re bright, old timer,’ Dave rasped.

  Clyde expressed mild irritation. Then: ‘What my buddy says applies to everyone. Quiet and still. Except for Edge. He’s gonna step out of the stage. Holdin’ that rifle one handed by the barrel. And with his other hand a long way from his bolster.’

  Tait and Carver managed to unlock their stares and while Carver looked pleadingly out at Ward and Sonny, Tait said huskily:

  ‘You ha
ve to do as he says, sir. For the sake of the innocent.’

  Edge reached with his left hand to turn the handle and swing open the door while his right remained fisted around the barrel of the Winchester. Then he paused to glance at the terrified Tait and the grey haired man was shaken by a momentary fit of trembling as he met the glinting eyes of Edge.

  ‘You ain’t got a rifle aimed at me, feller.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘So you ain’t got what it takes to give me orders.’

  He stepped down on to the trail and now both Clyde and Dave tracked him with their rifles. Edge held his matching Winchester out to the side, then lowered it, to rest it against the rear wheel of the Concord. Took two paces away and came to a halt directly beneath the rock on which the pair of

  tense young men stood.

  He was tense himself, beneath the surface impression of calm that he emanated with his expression and attitude. Afraid of the menacing situation, but able to keep the fear in check - an ice cold emotion which would add determination and strength to whatever counter move he was able to make if an opportunity to retaliate came about.

  Like everyone else, with the exception of Joe Straw, he was sweating. But it was not so much the heat that squeezed salt beads from pores now. For the sun was already half hidden behind the distant south western horizon. The sky was crimson in that direction. Elsewhere, the brilliance had left the blueness of unclouded infinity. The first hint of the cold of night could be felt in the air.

  Edge could see the eyes of Clyde and Dave looking down at him. And sensed the almost palpable pressure against his rigid back as everyone else stared at him through the gathering dusk.

  ‘Ease out the revolver and toss it away, mister,’ Clyde ordered, grimacing as he failed to keep the nervousness from his voice.

  Edge complied, holding the Frontier Colt with just the tips of his thumb and forefinger. When the gun thudded to the trail some ten feet from where Edge stood, Franklin Carver gasped: