Name On The Bullet - Edge Series 6 (18 page)

Steele cut in: ‘Ma’am, we’re not – ‘

‘You don’t have to be afraid of us, lady,’ Edge assured with a fleeting smile.

‘I ain’t afraid,’ she countered evenly. ‘But one thing I sure am is hungry.’ She swung around, returned to the doorway and paused on the threshold. ‘What I was about to say was that there’s plenty of decent food here. And I’d guess you two could use some of that before you go about what concerns you?’

‘Getting something hot and good to eat is about all that concerns us at the moment, I’d say,’ Steele said and glanced at Edge.

He asked: ‘Do you mind if we put our horses in the stable and give them a little feed, Mrs Guthrie?’

‘Good mannered and with a thought for your animals.’ Her tone was lighter than it had been so far and she almost smiled. ‘You gentlemen are impressing me more by the moment. You do that, and I’ll see to fixing breakfast. For more than just the one I planned on when I woke up and found George wasn’t home again.’

She went into the house and Edge said as Steele made to turn around:

‘You go keep the lady company, feller. And keep on sweetening her with that Southern charm of yours. I’ll take care of the animals.’

‘I bet you wouldn’t have made the offer if that woman was twenty years younger and forty pounds lighter, uh?’ Steele challenged good-naturedly.

Before Edge could reply, Rachel Guthrie called in a resigned tone from within the house: ‘My hearing’s as good as it was twenty years ago, mister. And if I were younger and not so fat as I am maybe George wouldn’t spend so many nights gambling in town. Would’ve been home to blast a couple of barrels of buckshot over your heads before you got halfway down the track from the trail.’

Steele grinned lopsidedly at Edge and murmured: ‘It seems like it could need all my Southern charm to see she doesn’t put something in the breakfast chow that shouldn’t be there, uh?’

‘That’s another good reason for riding the lone trail, feller,’ Edge rasped through teeth gritted in a cold-eyed smile as he started back across the yard and Steele made to enter the house. ‘The less a man gets to talk, the less risk he runs of opening his mouth and putting his foot in it.’

He led the horses into the stable where three others were already en-stalled, the animals and their accommodation as well cared for as everything else about the Guthrie farm. Which he thought augured well for the food the woman had promised: and some thirty minutes later he discovered the truth of this when, after he and Steele were told rather than being invited to wash up, they sat down to eat.

The food was plain but wholesome, just as the furniture was unpretentious but comfortable: enabling a middle-aged couple to live here with enough small luxuries to turn a house into a home. They had finished eating and were drinking second cups of coffee when hooves sounded on the track from the trail, the animal trotting as it neared the house.

‘Well, I guess that’ll be the man himself,’ Rachel announced with the trace of an accent that still betrayed a vestige of her Irish origins a continent and an ocean away from here.

‘So it’s a good thing I saved him something to eat. Unless it’s not the food he’s come back for.’

Her careworn face expressed philosophical acceptance that she could either be wrong or right in her wished-for expectation and was prepared to go along indifferently with whatever was to happen when her husband entered the house. But halfway to the door between the kitchen and the parlour she paused and showed a mixture of trepidation and pleading.

‘I never can tell what kind of mood George will be in when he comes home after an entire night spent in town. So if he behaves badly toward any of us, I’d ask you to please remember this is our place. And that I’m well used to dealing with whatever occurs within these walls?’

‘Sure, ma’am.’ Steele half rose from his chair in deference to a lady leaving the room.

‘No sweat.’ Edge remained seated and continued to roll a cigarette as the rider was heard to rein in his horse on the yard.

Rachel halted again on the threshold between the two rooms to look back and smile nervously at her guests. And there was just a faint hope in her eyes when she added: ‘If the cards have gone well for him, you couldn’t wish to have a finer host than George.’

Before she could avert her face from the men at the table there was a series of sounds out in the yard and her tenuous smile darkened to a worried frown as she clenched her thick fists at her sides. First the man cursed, then his mount whinnied and the flat of a hand thudded on horseflesh before he snarled:

‘Stand still while I’m dismounting, you good-for-nothing lousy excuse for an animal!

Else you ain’t long for this stinking world!’

Edge and Steele exchanged a glance under arched eyebrows as the woman caught her breath. Then she hurried across the parlour and swung the door open wide as her husband reached the porch.

‘George, you’ve been – ‘ she started.

‘George, you been drinking and gambling again!’
the man broke in, his voice pitched femininely high in cynical imitation of a rebuke he had obviously heard many times before. Then he reverted to the harsh tone he had directed at the horse: ‘That’s absolutely right!

And the card playing didn’t go so well for me. Which means all that liquor in my belly has turned to vinegar. So it’s best you don’t hinder me, right? I’ve got debts to pay and I’ve come for the means to pay them!’

‘No, George!’ There was shrill desperation in her voice. ‘Please, that money’s for the new plough and if you – ‘

‘Get the hell out of my way, woman!’

His heavy footfalls sounded within the parlour and his wife gasped. Maybe from fear or perhaps because he had shoved her painfully aside.

‘When I’ve paid what’s owed and get back in the game, I’ll win plenty to buy the tools we need to – ‘ He strode purposefully across the room until he reached the kitchen threshold then came to an abrupt halt. A fifty years old man of over six feet with a broad, muscular physique that showed whatever dissipation had threatened from too many nights of too much drinking he had countered with heavy manual labour invested in the farm. He was dark haired and handsome, even though his sun burnished face sprouted a growth of at least twelve hours of bristles and his blue eyes were bloodshot from lack of sleep and over-indulgence in liquor. He wore a brown suit, a scarlet vest, white shirt and black bootlace tie that had seen a lot of better days a long time before the outfit got crumpled during the all-night card game. ‘What the hell is this?’ he demanded. His abrupt halt and the shock of surprise caused him to sway and he needed to grip the doorframe on both sides to steady himself as his narrowed eyes switched a suspicious gaze between Edge and Steele.

‘George!’ his wife pleaded in a desperate tone from behind him in the parlour.

‘The kind of breakfast your wife provided for these two hungry fellers was closer to heaven than hell,’ Edge said.

‘This,’
Steele added, ‘amounts to a pair of men who are most grateful to Mrs Guthrie for her hospitality. And now we’ll be on our way since you object to us being here.’

‘You – ‘ The angry farmer broke off and blinked as he suddenly registered the two men seated at his table were calmly unruffled in face of his ill-temper: had not responded in kind to his snarling opening.

‘They’re just passing through strangers who were in need of some food.’ Rachel Guthrie’s tone was placating as she showed herself behind her husband. ‘So I fed them some breakfast and allowed them to lodge their horses in the stable for a while. Now they want to be getting on their way.’ Her expressive brown eyes showed another plea to her guests.

‘Sure, lady.’ Edge rose from his chair.

‘We’re grateful to you, Mrs Guthrie.’ Steele stood up.

There was non-comprehension and suspicion in equal measure in the clouded eyes of Guthrie as he continued to switch his gaze from one man to the other. Saw Edge carried a revolver in his tied down holster on the right side and that Steele was something of a dude in a city-style suit not too dissimilar to his own: but that had cost a lot more. Then the farmer felt confident enough of his balance to move one of his hands away from the doorframe, straightened to his full height and took a deep breath. Spread a neutral expression across his bristled face and cleared his throat before he said tautly:

‘Well, okay. Me and the missus like to keep open house for passing through strangers who are civil toward us and don’t try to take nothing we ain’t ready to give free and willing.’

He nodded emphatically: ‘Yeah. That’s the way of it. Nice to have you boys drop by, but now I reckon you oughta be getting on your way. So me and the missus can talk through a little domestic matter that’s come up.’

‘No sweat.’ Edge struck a match on the butt of his Colt, lit the cigarette and eyed the woman through the rising tobacco smoke. ‘Like Steele said, lady: we appreciate what you did for us.’

Rachel nodded rapidly and expressed deep relief as she peered around the side of her husband’s solidly built frame.

‘That’s the best breakfast I’ve eaten in quite a while and better than I expect to have for a long time to come, ma’am,’ Steele added as he moved away from the table behind Edge.

The woman’s attempt at a smile was spoiled by the way she needed to constantly lick her lips as she touched her husband’s arm, signalling that he should step away from the threshold so the visitors could move out of one room into the other. Guthrie was more disconcerted than his wife but he realised what she was asking of him, did as she directed and managed to raise an uneasy, embarrassed half grin for Edge and Steele as they went by him. Then his wife became impassive when Steele implied a tacit message of sympathy as he and Edge crossed the neat and clean parlour in which her unkempt and grouchily hungover husband struck such a discordant note.

‘You take care of yourself now, lady,’ Edge said as he pulled open the door and stepped out into the brightly sunlit morning.

‘And you be sure to see nothing bad happens to this fine wife of yours, Mr Guthrie,’

Steele added.

‘Hey!’ Every trace of his new found self-control had drained from the farmer with the single harshly spoken exclamation as he strode heavily back across the parlour. Rachel entreated: ‘George, please don’t!’

Steele had stepped out of the house and now halted alongside Edge. Then both of them swung around as the powerfully built man appeared in the doorway, his face fixed with a darker expression of anger than when he first saw the two strangers seated at his table.

‘Just what do you mean by that, squirt?’ His big hands clutched at the lapels of his suit jacket.

Steele’s tone was brittle, warning that he was on the verge of losing patience with the irascible Guthrie as he started to reply: ‘I mean – ‘

‘It sounds to me like this
fine wife
of mine’s been saying things about me!’ Guthrie cut in, a sneer in his voice and on his face as he emphasised the words used by Steele. ‘And if that’s so and she’s told you stuff that ain’t no business of yours to know, then it’s . . . ‘ He expressed puzzlement, like he suddenly realised he was not making any sense and his diatribe was not going anywhere that he could remember he intended. Then he shook his head violently and glowered his contempt for Steele as he stepped back into the house and slammed the door. Which cut off what his wife started to protest:

‘George, you don’t have to be so – ‘

Edge expelled a trickle of smoke and growled: ‘He sure is one touchy sonofabitch, ain’t he?’

Steele said in the same taut tone as before: ‘He doesn’t deserve her. In my opinion when a woman like that is – ‘

They had both started to turn away from the house but halted when Guthrie roared an obscenity. Then the oath was followed by a sound similar to the one when he had landed the punishing blow on his gelding that was now hitched to the rear of the wagon across the yard.

‘Feller, it ain’t none of our concern, so best to leave it like – ‘ Edge broke off then gave a resigned sigh as Steele whirled and lunged at the door. Used the heel of a boot to send it crashing back against the inside wall. It banged into his shoulder on the rebound as he stepped on to the threshold. Edge moved up close behind him but remained in the doorway when the Virginian advanced into the room.

Rachel was struggling up from where she had been sprawled backwards over the armrest of a chair to one side of the fireplace. Her wide eyes were filled with glistening tears as she pressed one hand against a cheek and extended the other at arm’s length to fend off the second blow she expected as her husband advanced on her. But the sound of the violently opened door diverted Guthrie’s rage and he swung around to challenge:

‘Didn’t I just warn you two saddle-tramps to – ‘ He lunged toward Steele, his arms raised, the hands clawed like he craved to tear the Virginian’s head off his shoulders. But the excess of liquor that set fire to his emotions had acted to sap his co-ordination. The stone cold sober Steele adroitly ducked under the trembling hands of the disorientated man: directed a vicious right-handed punch into the pit of his distended belly. And Guthrie halted abruptly in his tracks, dropped his arms hard to his sides: stared in disbelief at the smaller man as Steele straightened up in front of him. Edge had draped a hand over his holstered Colt but now let go of the revolver as he growled:

‘He ain’t so big, but he knows what to do with what he’s got, uh feller?’