Name On The Bullet - Edge Series 6 (21 page)

Edge tipped his hat, tugged on the reins to wheel his horse and heeled the animal into a gentle canter eastward, unable to hear the sound of any other hooves above those of his own mount. For a time he firmly controlled an impulse to look back: until eventually he slowed the horse to a walk and chanced a glance over a shoulder. Saw the approaching riders as they galloped across the ford in a high spray of sun-sparkling water. Then the straggle of houses along a curve of the trail that passed for the town’s main street hid them from him again: and he from them.

The last building on the east side of Pine River Junction was another large one, as derelict as the hotel at the other end of the street. Most of its windows were broken and one of a pair of large doors hung off its hinges, alongside the gap where the second was missing. The cavernous interior was lit by shafts of dusty sunlight entering through the glassless windows and several holes in the high roof and in this he could see a scattering of pieces of rusted machinery to show the place had been a sawmill. Probably closed down when the expansion of the town came to a premature end, he thought.

There was no sound beyond the subdued clop of the hooves of his gelding now and when he looked back again it was at first glance like every building in town was as abandoned as the sawmill and the hotel. And the pall of smoke from scattered chimneys was the only sign that his impression was wrong for he could again not see the riders who were out of sight behind intervening buildings. Then a bell clanged in the distant schoolhouse and after a short silence the high-pitched yells of children released from lessons into the freedom of their midday break sounded across the community.

High pines were spread out across the valley bottom on this side of town and soon after passing the former sawmill Edge rode into the extensive forest once more. And in the cool shade of the trees he dug out the makings and rolled a cigarette. And was able to half convince himself that the sweat drying on his forehead and at his armpits had been squeezed from the pores by the noon day heat in the river valley. Rather than the tension of expecting the newly arrived group of riders to chase hell for leather after him. He lit the cigarette and grinned at the memory of the feeling of unease that had accompanied him out of town: now found it simple to resist the impulse to demand speed from his mount. The subdued sounds made by his horse and the shriller calls of woodland birds provided an unobtrusive background noise to his unhurried progress while his ears remained attuned for the first audible sign to signal pursuit. Or to reveal that Adam Steele was close by.

He rode for an hour or so, then angled off the trail to a spot some thirty yards into the timber where he dismounted. Took out some jerked beef and sourdough bread from one of his newly stocked saddlebags and squatted on a tree stump to eat the food washed down with canteen water. While he blocked from his mind any thought about the Timberland Saloon and its thirst-quenching stock in trade back at Pine River Junction. The hobbled horse champed noisily on a patch of lush summer grass and birds continued to call and sometimes a dead branch cracked and fell to the forest floor. Thus the time passed pleasantly in the quietness of the timber and Edge felt comfortably weary enough to allow himself to drift into a kind of half sleep as contentment suffused him. Because he knew that if all was not as right as it could be in his world, it was as right as it had been for a long time now that there were no overt sights or sounds of imminent violent trouble to undermine his sense of well-being. Adam Steele . . ? It was up to the Virginian to come looking for him if he truly felt beholden. Or if he was hungry: which would surely be a priority for the man as the day lengthened since the fine breakfast they had both eaten at the Guthrie farm.

It was not yet evening, but the afternoon had run most of its course when Edge jerked awake and took a few moments to recall where he was and why he was there. Realised he had been disturbed by something other than having had his fill of sleep. As he eased upright and wriggled his back against the rough bark of the pine to relieve the stiffness at the base of his spine he heard a melodious whistling from some distance off. Then he scowled when he saw that his horse was still saddled: irritated with himself for indulging his own comfort without first attending to the needs of the animal.

He rose to his feet and grimaced when he recognised the familiar tune that was being whistled by somebody on the turnpike: a man ambling unhurriedly from the direction of Pine River Junction, leading a horse. As he moved toward the sound, his right hand was poised to draw his revolver until the whistling stopped abruptly and Adam Steele called grouchily:

‘Hey, Edge? Are you around here, damnit? Is anyone around here? I don’t care who you are so long as you have something I can eat.’

As Edge dropped his hand away from the holstered Colt he spread a grin across his heavily bristled face and rasped: ‘You can eat all the chow I’m carrying, feller. As long as it keeps you from whistling that lousy Rebel song.’

He emerged on to the trail and in the failing light saw a smile of relief show briefly on the recently beardless features of the Virginian. Then Steele expressed the same brand of weariness that sounded in his voice when he growled: ‘You sure are a sight for a sorely empty belly, Edge.’

‘And you sure took your time getting to where you can fill it. So I guess maybe you could have something to tell me?’

‘Nothing good.’

‘Why don’t that surprise me?’ Edge turned and headed back into the timber. Steele followed him and grinned when Edge gestured toward his hobbled horse as he invited: ‘Help yourself, feller. There ain’t anything too fancy to tempt the taste-buds of a high born Southern gentleman but at least you only owe me five bucks for your half of what it all cost.’

Steele went to the horse and chose the same simple fare as Edge earlier. He swallowed some of the dry food and took a drink of water from his own canteen before he squatted close to where Edge was hunkered down at the base of the tree again, rolling a cigarette. ‘There’s a posse newly arrived back there.’

Edge nodded. ‘I saw that bunch of riders at a distance: when I was heading out of one side of town and they came in the other.’

‘I saw how that happened, but I couldn’t tell if you’d spotted them.’

‘The memory ain’t what it was, but my eyesight’s still pretty good for a feller of my age.’

Steele shrugged and flushed some more food down his throat with water. ‘Saw them talking with a couple of local men. And if one was the storekeeper who you did business with, I reckon mention would have been made of you?’

‘Nobody rode after me.’ Edge was disconcertingly conscious he could not be entirely sure of this because he had fallen asleep.

‘I needed to stay pretty far to the east: kept myself hidden in the timber. So the town was out of sight for a long time.’

‘You were too far off to recognise anyone in the posse?’

Steele grimaced. ‘I reckon my eyes work about as well yours, given how many years we’ve been using them. But from more than a mile away, I don’t reckon I could have recognised you. Even if the sight of you is branded deep into my brain.’ He smiled wearily to stress it was intended as a joke.

Edge smoked his cigarette and Steele continued to eat until the other man ended the pause. ‘You know what I think, feller?’

‘You know I’m not a mind reader.’

‘I think we don’t have a thing to worry about from that bunch who rode into town.’

‘We don’t?’

‘Unless something bad happened in Broadwater that I don’t know about, all you’re wanted for is killing that federal marshal.’

‘I was as innocent as a mortal man ever can be in the Providence River Valley - until
you
shot Al Strachen.’

‘The only cause of concern to a feller named Haydon – who’s the Pine River lawman –

was how the telegraph wasn’t working. So maybe the wire being cut was the only reason those fellers rode out of Broadwater. And the line from here to Sacramento and everywhere else is still in good shape, as far as we know.’

Steele nodded as he picked up on the point Edge was moving toward, swallowed a final mouthful of food and said: ‘The county and town lawmen around here won’t be too concerned about the killing of a federal marshal. Given the chance they’d arrest us for sure: but I don’t reckon any one of them would go to too much trouble to do that if trouble’s what we put them to?’

‘So I figure they’ll think they’ve already done all they need to - which is send a telegraph to Sacramento with our descriptions to be circulated all over.’

‘That’s right: both of us. Those men from Broadwater surely stopped by the Guthrie place and so they know a guy who looks like you is riding with somebody they know to be me.’

Edge said: ‘Descriptions that’ll fit hundreds of fellers who look something like us. So as soon as we ride clear of this part of the country there won’t be too much for us to worry about.’

Steele stood up, went to his horse and checked the tautness of the cinch. Said when he was satisfied: ‘After I’ve got my half of the supplies stowed away, I think it best we go our separate ways. Like we’ve already discussed?’

‘Right, feller. You go help yourself.’ Edge remained where he was and finished the cigarette while Steele claimed his share of the supplies from the saddlebags. Then he rose to his feet and announced: ‘I need to take a leak, feller.’

‘One of the few pleasures left to us outlaws,’ Steele said sardonically as he swung up astride his horse.

Edge turned his back to him and unfastened the front of his pants. ‘One of the few that ain’t against the law now the fellers in Washington are reaching out further west every damn day with new rules and regulations.’

‘I reckon most of them make sense to ordinary decent people. The kind we’ve both tried to be, uh?’

‘We sure as hell did a lot of dangerous riding close to the wind trying to be that kind, feller.’

‘Came closer to dying more often than the average man,’ Steele muttered. ‘After the war was over and done with, anyway. Hey, do you give any credence to the law of averages?’

Edge swung up astride his horse. ‘No more than I give any credence to the past coming back to haunt a man. As long as he doesn’t dwell on it.’

Steele said: ‘Haunt people like ghosts are supposed to do?’

‘What?’ Edge tugged on the reins to turn his horse back through the trees toward the turnpike and started to swing his head to direct a puzzled look at the Virginian. But failed to see the butt of the Colt Hartford hurtle down at his head. Then felt the bolt of pain that stretched from his right temple to the soles of his feet and reached to the tips of his fingers before a darkness far blacker than that of the gathering night engulfed him. Next he toppled out of his saddle and slid to the ground.

Steele pushed the rifle back into the boot and eyed the unconscious man with a melancholy gaze. And matched his tone to the emotion as he said: ‘But you have to believe in that particular something that went bump in the night.’

CHAPTER • 12

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EDGE HEARD voices and footfalls, the intermingled sounds muffled: like he was in a
drunken stupor was his first conscious thought. Then an instant later he was plunged into a waking nightmare of searing pain that exploded in his skull and expanded to intense agony as he recalled how that sonofabitch Adam Steele had slugged him with the butt of his goddamn fancy rifle. And a hatred for the Virginian was suddenly more powerful than the suffering that filled his entire being.

He was not aware that he cried out - in pain or maybe in rage at the way the pain had been inflicted and the man responsible for causing it. But he surely did for as he struggled up into a splayed legged sitting position on lush grass and dead pine needles and pressed both hands to the sides of his throbbing head a man yelled in triumph:

‘I hear him, you guys! Yeah, he’s over there!’

‘They must’ve heard that back in town, you young idiot!’ a second man snarled. Then thudding footfalls signalled that at least two running men were drawing close. One of them was shouting in high excitement and although the words did not register in Edge’s mind he knew from the tone and the vividly remembered circumstances before Steele knocked him out that the pair stumbling through the timber toward him meant him no good.

‘Lay a hand on that frigging pistol and you’re dead!’ It was a breathless snarl from the second, older sounding man who had spoken.