Name On The Bullet - Edge Series 6 (35 page)

‘I said where – ‘

Edge went up the stairs two at a time and reached the start of a long landing as unseen eavesdroppers forcibly slammed closed several doors at either side. He could hear Haydon yelling after him as he reached the nearest door, where he drew back a leg and kicked it open with a boot heel. Two women screamed as he stepped on to the threshold, his Colt aimed into the room as the door banged against the wall before it rebounded back and hit him hard on the shoulder. No longer young, both the women were clad in scanty red underwear intended to make them look at their most appealing. If they would have tried to mask their state of undress in difference circumstances, fear made them forget false modesty now.

‘The Sheldons – which room?’ Edge raked the gun from side to side and his narrowed, icily glittering eyes locked their gazes with his own: the combination forming a threat that trapped their voices in pulsing throats for stretched seconds. Then he tilted the Colt upwards and squeezed the trigger: to explode a shot that shattered the overhead lamp and spilled a spray of pungent kerosene down on to the bed below. ‘Which room?’ he repeated.

‘They were lodging down at the frigging end of the frigging landing, you trigger happy sonofabitch!’ the older, blonder, more solidly built whore shrieked while the other one pressed a hand tightly against each ear. ‘But you’re too frigging late! They cleared out of here while you were still messing around with a dead man down at the cemetery!’

‘Where are they headed?’

‘Don’t be so frigging stupid!’ she snarled. ‘How the frigging hell would a couple of whores like us know where a couple of killers like them are gonna go? So now, unless you plan on availing yourself of our services, get the frigging hell out of this room, and attend to your own frigging business!’

Edge felt a greater anger begin to well up inside him as he looked from the openly terrified whore to the one who was struggling to hide her fear behind an anger of her own. And for a moment he read in both faces a look of deeper terror that signalled they thought he was about to fire the Colt at something more vulnerable than a kerosene lamp. Then:

‘Yeah, stupid is right, ladies,’ he allowed with a slow shake of his head as he slid the revolver back in the holster. ‘And in my book there’s no fool like an old fool.’

‘In my book, too!’ the blonde said with scorn in her tone and her expression. ‘So I figure it’s about time you called it a day, mister!’

Edge slid the Colt into the holster and nodded as he replied: ‘Yeah, I had a good run. But there’s no doubt that it’s time for the final chapter.’

CHAPTER • 20

_________________________________________________________________________

HE TURNED around, moved slowly to the head of the stairs and started down,
aware of doors opening again as the rest of the whores realised the danger was past. The lobby was empty of the living now: except for a noisy swarm of flies that had joined the first two in showing voracious interest in the bloodied face of Robert McGowan pressed against the carpet. He noticed that the under-and-over derringer that had killed the old man was no longer on the floor nearby.

After he crossed to the doorway and cracked his eyes against the brightness of the day he saw just two people were within his range of vision, limited because of how the street snaked out of sight beyond neighbouring buildings. When he had unhitched his gelding from the rail and swung up into the saddle he turned the animal and heeled it into an easy walk. Slim Haydon, his left hand fastened around the upper right arm of Hannah Foster, set a slower pace than that of the horse and neither the lawman nor his prisoner felt drawn to turn their heads until Edge rode up along them. Then the lawman asked:

‘There ain’t no one at the hotel knows where Sheldon and his woman are headed for, right?’

‘It figures they wouldn’t announce their plans, feller,’ Edge answered evenly.

‘So there’s an end to it, as far as this town is concerned,’ Haydon said with a sigh.

‘One killing and one killer in custody. It’ll be up to Gene Hooper over in Brogan Falls if he wants to take things further with the murders committed in his jurisdiction.’

‘Neat and tidy from your point for view.’

‘I really am sorry, Edge.’ Hannah Foster sounded like she meant it and showed a remorseful expression when both men looked at her.

‘No sweat, lady,’ Edge said evenly and dug for the makings. ‘I’ve got what I came for.’

‘Did you check McGowan’s body for the two hundred and some bucks she talked about?’ Haydon asked.

‘If you did, you wasted your time,’ Hannah put in quickly. ‘Because the long arm of the law here searched the corpse and took it.’

Haydon was unmoved by her implication that he was dishonest as he said: ‘A little of it’ll be used to bury him. And the rest will be held in the event any next-of-kin lay claim to it.’

‘I don’t figure his Brogan Falls family will want a cent of the old timer’s money.’

‘But it’ll be here for them if they or anyone else can provide proof of entitlement,’

Haydon said flatly as he gently patted a bulging shirt pocket.

Edge struck a match on the walnut butt of his holstered Colt as Hannah asked dully:

‘You ain’t gonna try to find Fletcher Sheldon and Sarah Tucker? Collect the reward Julia McGowan said the town will put up?’

‘I’ve seen that good looking young woman,’ Edge replied evenly. ‘And if I ever run into her and she’s with a feller who looks anything at all like the one I saw shoot down Wendell Quaid . . . well, it could be I’ll lay claim to the bounty.’

‘That’s good.’

‘Is it?’

‘I’d hate to think of you wasting your time on a wild goose chase.’

Haydon switched his puzzled gaze between Edge and the woman, saw she smiled and the man astride the horse looked as uncomprehending as he was.

‘Is there something I should know about?’ the lawman asked. ‘And remember, Hannah: come the trial I can have some influence on whether or not you – ‘

‘Edge had his chance, didn’t you?’ she posed and gestured ahead as they crossed the bridge over the gently flowing river.

Both men looked in that direction and saw the familiar figures of George and Rachel Guthrie standing beside their dilapidated flatbed parked out front of the law office.

‘I still don’t know what the hell you’re talking about!’ Haydon complained, angry about the game the woman seemed to be playing.

Edge nodded and suggested: ‘Those two shots in the timber awhile ago – not Fred Whitney shooting meat for his pa’s saloon?’

She shrugged. ‘While you were so busy with a man who died all those years ago, somebody else was more interested in what’s been troubling people more recently.’

‘You set it up for George Guthrie to kill Sheldon?’ The lawman’s incredulous gaze was fixed upon the flatbed out front of his office and the elderly couple standing beside it. ‘Is that what you’re saying, woman?’

‘I heard from Edge how that old farmer felt cheated out of some bounty money a long time ago. And when Edge didn’t show too much interest in collecting some new money . . . ‘

She shrugged again. ‘I owed Julia McGowan a favour for the way she got me out of the Brogan Falls jailhouse. And I had no intention of killing anyone except the sonofabitch who murdered Vic. And I didn’t fix for the farmer to kill anyone: just made mention of how there was some Brogan Falls money on the heads of Fletcher Sheldon and Sarah Tucker.’

As the rider and the couple walking beside his mount drew close, Guthrie yelled: ‘Hey, Slim! I got a couple of wanted killers on the back of my rig! And I need for you to take them off my hands! And then give me some kind of official paper that’ll make sure I get the bounty that’s due on them!’

George Guthrie’s excitedly raised voice and the subject of which he spoke caused curtains to twitch and doors to be cracked open in nearby houses. Edge rode on slightly ahead of the walking couple, aware of the nervousness with which Rachel Guthrie eyed him and the smirking triumph that glinted in the watery eyes of her husband. He reined in the gelding alongside the flatbed and saw how a burlap sheet did not quite entirely cover the two unmoving human forms sprawled among recent purchases from the town stores. Recognised the booted ankles of Sarah Tucker from the distinctive print of her dress that showed under the covering. And saw that one of the man’s legs was heavily bandaged, the white of the dressing sullied by trail dust. He tipped his hat to the woman: ‘Mrs Guthrie?’

She made to nod in acknowledgement of the greeting, but then quickly averted her gaze and looked shame faced.

Her husband sneered: ‘There ain’t no way you’re gonna cheat me out of what’s rightfully mine this time, mister!’

‘No sweat,’ Edge said and turned his horse.

‘Did they put up a fight, George?’ Haydon asked, a look akin to contempt shaping his bearded features.

‘He was a gunfighter, damnit!’

‘A lame one and just a kid, George.’

‘A man don’t fire a gun with his damn leg and younger means faster in his line of work.’

‘Was his lady-friend armed?’

Guthrie countered bitterly: ‘I didn’t stand around asking no damn fool questions, Slim!

That woman you got such a tight hold on, she said they were wanted for murder: dead or alive. Now, do I or don’t I get that piece of paper I need from you to make sure I collect my just dues from Brogan Falls folks?

‘Not until there’s been certain identifications made and I’ve had Josh and Hal take care of the corpses in the proper manner!’ Haydon snarled. ‘Before that, I got to lock up another killer who shot down a man in a cold blood.’

He urged Hannah Foster toward the doorway of the law office and glowered up and down the curve of the sunlit street where people had begun to show themselves: nervous but curious to find out what now was happening in their usually quiet town.

‘No hard feelings, Edge?’ The whore showed a cynical smile and added: ‘And I ain’t talking about the kind a man has for a hot blooded woman: and hot blooded was sure what I was when I killed that sonofabitch McGowan just now!’

‘No, lady,’ Edge murmured as he heeled his horse forward and reached behind him to check that the burlap wrapped bundle was still securely fastened in place. ‘Right now my feelings are all good.’

Haydon pushed open the door of his office and after the woman had crossed the threshold he held back to growl at Edge: ‘Mister, if you ever think about riding this way again, think again, uh?’

‘It’s all a matter of time, sheriff.’

‘I said – ‘

Edge showed a glinting eyed grin as he cut in on the irritated lawman: ‘It’ll take me a half second to have a second thought.’

Hannah said from within the law office: ‘Ain’t this guy a laugh a minute?’

‘Besides,’ Edge said. ‘There are two good reasons I won’t need to come back to this town.’

Guthrie guffawed and boasted: ‘On account of I’ve nailed the two killers, so there ain’t no – ‘

‘Pine River Junction has nothing for me,’ Edge said and touched the burlap wrapped package again. ‘And now no body.’

THE END

• Name on the Bullet
  
• Dedication
  
• Chap - 1
  
• Chap - 2
  
• Chap - 3
  
• Chap - 4
  
• Chap - 5
  
• Chap - 6
  
• Chap - 7
  
• Chap - 8
  
• Chap - 9
  
• Chap - 10
  
• Chap - 11
  
• Chap - 12
  
• Chap - 13
  
• Chap - 14
  
• Chap - 15
  
• Chap - 16
  
• Chap - 17
  
• Chap - 18
  
• Chap - 19
  
• Chap - 20
  
• THE END