Table of Contents
Title
Credits
Author's Note
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
COMING SOON!
© George G. Gilman 2012
For
A.R.J.
and his fellow drummers in the West
(as well as North, South and East)
Author’s Note
This book relates the further adventures of Captain Josiah C. Hedges during the American Civil War. While the story is complete in itself, the reader’s enjoyment may be enhanced if he first reads Killer’s Breed and The Blue, The Grey And The Red.
Chapter One
THE sun was at the midday peak of its height and intensity and nothing moved on the dusty floor of the wide valley between the brooding Sierras. An eerie silence clung to the cluster of buildings at its centre which seemed to be held prisoner in the shimmering heat mist by the dual silver threads of the railroad track, stretched in an arrow straight line from one end of the valley to the other.
In an inky patch of shade from a rock overhang against the north facing side of a slab-like bluff, a man sat astride a roan mare and studied the desolate vista. He was a tall man - over six feet - and deceptively lean for his more than two hundred pounds was evenly distributed upon his frame and not a single ounce of it was excess fat. He wore a sweat-stained black shirt and levis, dusty from a long ride, and tight fitting enough to reveal the muscular development of his body. His face was poised on the borderline between handsomeness and ugliness so that the decision had to be made by the beholder. A fusion of Mexican and northern European blood had formed the features, so that clear blue eyes contrasted vividly with the dark coloration of skin stretched taut over high cheekbones. The whole was framed by thickly matted black hair which reached from under a low-crowned black hat to brush the man’s broad shoulders.
It was a face which, even in repose, looked incapable of expressing warmth and as the man looked out across the valley, narrowing his eyes to mere glinting slits and folding back his thin lips to emit a low whistling sound, a subtle hint of underlying cruelty could be seen in his features.
He was armed with an ageing Colt-Walker in a holster tied down to his right thigh and a Winchester rifle slid into the boot behind his saddle. He carried a third weapon but its presence was merely hinted at by a tell-tale bulge at his back, extending from under his hair and following the line of his spine for three inches. This bulging of his shirt was caused by a leather pouch containing a cut-throat razor.
The man on the roan mare was called Edge.
His survey completed, he heeled his mount forward, out into the burning heat of the sun, on a diagonal line towards the huddle of buildings. He held her down to a walk and appeared to be utterly at ease as he rode, straight in the saddle. But he was constantly alert, his hooded eyes sweeping the arid terrain, his right hand primed to claw for the pistol or rifle.
But he had covered a little more than three-quarters of the mile distance to the buildings before he heard a sound above his own regular breathing and the slap of the mare’s hooves against the sun-baked ground. Edge did not break pace: simply concentrated his steady gaze upon the centre of the group of buildings, trying to recognize the origin of the sound. It was a gentle creaking noise, as if from a door swinging on neglected hinges in a wind. But the cadence was too steady and there was no wind today.
Edge steered his mount between two buildings, The Big Valley Saloon and the Big Valley Bank, to emerge upon a plaza. To the left and right it was flanked by a large house with an impressive verandah, and a church with a half-finished bell tower and a schoolhouse. The fourth side of the plaza was formed by a railroad track with the depot beyond. A sign proclaimed: BIG VALLEY STATION.
Every building except the church seemed to be complete in all respects save one—there were no people. The tiny town of Big Valley had been built and then immediately deserted, for there was about it an unmarred newness that bore no mark of habitation.
Edge showed no reaction to the strangeness of the town as he halted his horse in the centre of the plaza and raked his glinting eyes across the facades of the buildings. Then, when he had pinned down the direction from which the creaking sound came, he concentrated his scrutiny upon the cool shade of a doorway at the centre of the depot building.
“Come and set a spell, young feller,” a man invited easily, his voice croaky with age. “Don’t do a body no good being out in the sun like you are.”
Edge shaded his eyes with his hands, but was still able to see no further than the black rectangle of the open doorway. He rode a few more yards to the railroad tracks, then dismounted.
“Anyplace I can water the animal?” he asked.
The regular creaking continued. “Ain’t a drop to be had within twenty miles of here, young feller.”
Edge unhooked the canteen from the saddle horn and shook it. It sounded no more than a quarter full. “What time’s the train due?”
“Goes through here at one. You come to watch her?”
Edge shook his head. “Get on.”
A cackling sound came out of the depot and it took Edge a moment to realize the old man inside was laughing.
“I say something funny, mister?”
The man inside contained his guffaws. “You sure did, young feller. Ain’t a train stopped here in Big Valley since the town was built. No need. Ain’t nobody to get aboard and there sure ain’t nobody wants to get off.”
Edge slid the Winchester from the saddle boot. “Train’ll stop today,” he said.
“Why’s that, young feller.”
“Cause I want to get on it,” Edge answered easily, beginning to lead the mare across the track.
“Horseshit,” the old man croaked.
“Wrong - horsemeat,” Edge shot back, raised the Winchester and pumped a shell into the animal’s brain.
As the horse sighed and rolled over on to its side across the track, the creaking sound ended abruptly.
Edge stepped up on to the planking of the depot and went through the doorway. “Best she went quick,” he muttered. “I seen animals die from lack of water.”
As his eyes became accustomed to the murky interior of the depot, Edge saw the old man sitting in the rocking chair. He was thin of body and wizen of face, dressed in a grey suit cut on city lines which had seen better days. His skin was crinkled and stained dark by the sun, emphasizing the whiteness of his hair and the ragged moustache which decorated his upper lip. He submitted silently to the scrutiny and then began to rock back and forth in the chair as Edge moved his gaze to look at the room.
There were benches along two walls. A counter with a wire mesh shield partitioned off a third of the room. Over a square hole cut in the mesh was a sign which read: TICKETS. A large pile of crates were stacked in a comer. One of the crates had been dragged across and rested close to the rocker. All the bottles except one had been opened.
“Redeye,” the old timer croaked, reaching down a bony hand to draw the full bottle from the crate. “What’s a man need water for?”
The shade of the room was deceptive and the trapped heat served to emphasize the stale odor emanating from the old man.
“To maybe take a bath in,” Edge said with a grimace, advancing no further into the room.
The old timer uncapped the bottle and sucked at it noisily. “I ain’t one for the bathing,” he said. “Name’s Rose, young feller.”
“By any other nam
e you’d smell as lousy,” Edge said, moving inside now, to sit on one of the benches. “Depot manager?”
“I’m anything you want me to be in Big Valley. Today I’m depot manager ‘cause there’s a train scheduled through. Ain’t no train tomorrow. Maybe then I’ll run the hotel, or act like a preacher at the church. Might even teach school. Ain’t done that for a long time.”
Rose’s voice sounded rational, but Edge realized he was either drunk or insane, perhaps both.
“You the only one who lives here?”
The old man’s wrinkled face became sad. He nodded. “Ain’t the way I planned Big Valley when I built it. I figured to see streets being laid out from the plaza like spokes on a wheel. Weren’t no gold in the hills, though. And there sure ain’t enough rain in five years to make anything grow in the valley. So no reason why folks should move out here.”
Edge’s impassive features showed no sympathy for the old man’s shattered dream as he took out the makings. Rose apparently expected none, for he showed again that whatever he required could be extracted from a bottle of redeye.
“Like a drink, young feller?” he asked, holding out the bottle with spittle crawling down the neck.
Edge shook his head and lit the cigarette.
“Pleased of that. Last one I got.”
“Then what?” Edge asked with disinterest.
A fresh expression entered the bleary eyes and the ancient face showed something close to excitement. “A man builds a town, he’s got a right to destroy it.” He began to move the rocker again and the creaking sound restarted, as the runners curved down on to a loose floorboard. “You reckon, young feller?”
“I reckon,” Edge replied.
The conversation lapsed and the only sounds in the tiny town came from the rocking of the chair and the lazy buzzing of flies feeding upon the spilled blood of the dead horse. With the occasional wet noise of Rose sucking at the bottle.
But when a full thirty minutes had slipped by in the odorous, unmoving heat of the depot, each man content to be alone with his own thoughts, a new sound came in across the barren valley floor. Edge’s expression did not alter as he listened and when he finally recognized the noise as that of a wagon and two-horse team, he confined his action to pumping a fresh shell into the breech of the Winchester.
“Hell, don’t scare ’em off, young feller,” Rose said hurriedly. “Big Valley ain’t bin this busy since the construction crews left.”
The wagon was coming from the other side of the valley to where Edge had rode out of the mountains and had. to bump across the track to enter the plaza. It was a flatbed with sides, driven by a young man. A woman, ten years his senior, rode as a passenger.
“Anybody around?” the man called anxiously as he brought the wagon to a halt.
Edge raised the canteen to his thin lips and studied the newcomers as he sipped at the tepid water. The man was, in fact, no more than a boy. He was about eighteen, standing two inches under six feet with a solid-looking, muscular body clothed in a brand-new, badly cut business suit. He wore no hat. His face was round, full of cheek and stubborn of jaw. His hair was the color of old hay and seemed to be of the same texture, worn long in a fringe that stopped short of his anxious green eyes. As far as Edge could tell, the boy carried no gun.
“Come on in and set a spell, my boy,” Rose croaked in his standard greeting. “And you, young lady.”
The woman matched her companion in height, but her build was thicker, generous with the curves of her sex which she exhibited proudly by wearing a white dress cut low at the front and hugging her tightly to the waist. Her long hair was jet black, falling to her shoulders from under the wide brim of her hat. The face, in the deep shade of the brim was too long and angular to be pretty but there was about its structure, the set of her full lips and carefully applied make-up around her grey eyes, an unsubtle sensuality.
She moved with a forced elegance as the boy helped her down from the wagon. But the sight of the dead horse and the feeding flies upset her composure and a sudden lack of gracefulness marked her hurried progress across the track and into the depot. And the grimace that painted her face as she caught the smell of the old-timer cut across all she had learned about being a lady.
“Jesus Christ, what a stink!” she hissed, then shot a hurried, anxious glance over her shoulder to where the boy was taking two valises from the wagon.
Edge nodded to Rose. “He ain’t much for bathing.”
The woman seemed about to pass another acid comment, but checked herself as the boy thumped the bags down behind her and grinned into the depot. Rose nodded a greeting but Edge’s cold expression did not waver.
“There’s a dead horse on the track,” the boy said.
“They must know that, Alvin,” the woman replied and her carefully modulated voice was as much a sham as the rest of her facade.
Rose sucked the last drop from the last bottle and slotted it into the crate. “Young feller wants to get aboard the train. Good a way as any to stop her. Set yourselves down.”
Alvin looked at the woman and licked his lips. She nodded and allowed him to escort her to the bench that was vacant. When she was seated, she took off her hat and began to fan herself with it. Edge looked for long moments at the rising flesh of her breasts exposed above the dress, then dragged his gaze away to stare out into the harshly sunlit plaza. The creaking of the loose floorboard again became the only sound in the heated depot.
“Can we buy tickets here?” Alvin said at length.
“No, sir,” Rose replied. “Railroad company reckoned I had no right to build no depot, so they wouldn’t grant me no franchise to sell tickets.”
Alvin looked confused. “What do you think, Beth?” he asked.
“The conductor will have tickets, dear,” the woman replied.
“Come far?” Rose croaked.
Alvin bobbed his head. “Redwood City, up north.”
“That’s mighty far,” Rose agreed. “More’n thirty mile, I reckon.”
Edge stood up and stretched. “You won’t be needing the team?”
Alvin shook his head. “I guess not. I thought I’d sell them and the wagon here in Big Valley.”
A cackle of laughter spilled from under the old-timer’s moustache. Edge ambled out into the plaza and stepped across the tracks. The two newcomers could not see him from where they sat and both started as the shots rang out.
“Don’t look like he’s got an ounce of kindness in him, does he?” Rose asked the couple. “But he’s a man with a feeling for horses. Don’t want ’em to die of thirst.”
As Edge came to stand in the doorway, he was feeding three fresh shells into the Winchester’s magazine. Alvin opened his mouth to speak, perhaps to protest. But Beth rested a hand on his arm and shook her head in warning.
A train whistle wailed, far off, and the sound had the timbre of an animal’s plaintive cry.
“She’s a-coming, folks,” Rose said, pushing himself up out of the rocker and moving wearily towards the doorway, staggering only slightly from the effects of the whiskey.
Edge crossed to the ends of the planking beside the track and hooded his eyes to stare into heat shimmer at the western approach of the valley. A tiny black speck with a plume of smoke hovering above it appeared at the extremity of the track, where the twin gleam of the rails emerged into a single thread of silver.
Rose stepped ponderously over the track and angled across the plaza towards the broad stoop of the mansion. The couple stood behind Edge, the boy holding a valise in each of his smooth, hairless fists.
“Guess I should thank you for putting the animals out of their misery, mister,” he said. “I ought to have done it. Only I don’t carry a gun.”
The woman placed a proprietary grip on his coat sleeve. “I’m not marrying you because you’re good with a gun, Alvin,” she assured the boy.
Edge turned a cold grin towards the woman, his narrowed eyes raking over her voluptuous body and settling for a few mom
ents upon her sensuous features. Then he looked back along the track, to where the dot that was the locomotive had expanded and the smoke plume had darkened.
“A man’s gotta do what a man can do best,” he muttered. “One guy’s meat is another man’s Winchester 66.”
As Beth emitted an unladylike grunt of disgust, Edge continued to watch the approach of the train, recalling the last time he had ridden the railroad.
Chapter Two
THE engineer was a small, rotund man with round eyes in a round face. His eyes were black and his face was very white. He had been happy that morning, driving the big locomotive and its swaying passenger cars south through the sunlit undulations of eastern Georgia. So had his crewman. Both were in high spirits because the South Western Railroad did not often give raises and when the company showed beneficence, this was a cause for celebration.
It was the summer of 1863 and had either of the men been concerned with the Confederate cause in the bloody Civil War that gripped the nation, their moods would have been a great deal heavier. It had been a bad year for the South. In May, General Stonewall Jackson had died of gunshot wounds accidentally inflicted by his own men. In the same month Grant had begun his siege of Vicksburg which in July he captured together with 30,000 Rebel troops. Port Gibson, Port Hudson and Gettysburg had also fallen to the Federal armies that year. True, Lee was moving north from Fredericksburg, launching a second invasion against the Yankee strongholds, but the omens were not good.
However, the ageing engineer and his younger colleague had no interest in the conflict. They operated their locomotive far from the battle zones and the closest they came to enemy troops was the daily halt at Anderson. And the wretched creatures fenced in behind the pine stockade and the cord marking the deadline of the nearby Andersonville Prison Camp posed no threat to the innocent employees of the railroad company.
Until that fine summer morning when Captain Josiah C. Hedges and six of his troopers broke free of the miserable squalor and killed the crewman as they commandeered the locomotive.* (*See—Edge: The Blue, The Grey And The Red.)
EDGE: Seven Out Of Hell (Edge series Book 8) Page 1