Edge: Bloody Sunrise

by George G. Gilman

  But the Sioux came, and Beth suffered a horrifying death in a manner that forced her husband to accept the blame.

  That terrible time was long gone now. A time of searching and finding and killing. And of the contemplation of suicide, he was lately able to admit to himself—for years he had refused to acknowledge he considered such a sure way to end what he endured in the wake of Beth's dying, while he was in a drunken stupor and prey to insidious attacks of self-pity. But he beat the fate that beckoned him so alluringly toward defeat. And rode out again on to the dangerous land where the threat of death was always as close to him as was his shadow in midday sunlight: and where he was now more competent than ever to survive against the odds. Because he was convinced by the tragic experience of the death of his wife he was des­tined never to have and to hold for long any­thing that was worthwhile—outside of his own continued existence.

  And so it was without the hopes and dreams of any ambition beyond the simple one of staying alive that he had ridden the endless and aimless trail that brought him to Elgin County. A man with few needs and no wants, without pretensions or pretense—except to­ward himself at first when he would not admit that he had sunk so deep into a slough of de­pression, fate had almost won.

  * * *

  GABE Millard swung open the right side door of the rockaway and growled with bad grace: "Here we are, Mrs. Irish."

  His announcement cut across whatever the woman was talking about to swamp the silence and interrupted the half-breed's train of ab­sorbing thought. And both passengers were mildly surprised to realize the carriage was halted at the foot of the broad steps which led up to the terrace out front of the brightly lit house.

  Pearl Irish climbed eagerly out on to the gravel surfaced driveway, a strained look on her heavily wrinkled and unmade-up face as if the effort to talk silence out of existence during the short trip from town had drained her emotional reserves. While the half-breed stepped down from the rockaway with his features impassive and no feeling of self-disgust for being so withdrawn that he had failed to be aware of what was happening around him for many minutes. For the line of his thinking had a bearing on his present cir­cumstances and he had trusted his sixth sense for impending danger to signal a warning if a threat appeared.

  "Nice smooth ride, feller," Edge said to Mil­lard, who had not helped the woman from the rockaway: instead had started to go toward the country wagon with the canopy top that was parked in front of the larger rig. "But I don't tip."

  "Let me give you one, mister!” the gunman without a gun rasped as the red headed Bob

  Lowell leaned over the side of the country wagon's driver's seat at the sound of the harsh­ly spoken words. "You ain't as good as you think you are."

  "And it sounds like you ain't as modest as you said you were, feller," Edge answered as he followed the woman up the steps.

  "Sometimes the kid here ain't on the ball, Joe."

  "After Mayor Gray, Gabe's the best there is, stranger!" Bob Lowell said enthusiastically.

  "First is first, second is nowhere," Earl Gray announced flatly from the top of the steps. And directed a complacent smile down at the abruptly self-conscious Lowell and the again self-controlled Millard. Then injected surface warmth into the expression as he spread his thick arms to the sides and turned to usher Edge and his daughter toward the house. "Come along in, Joe. And kindly forgive the change in our arrangement. Which was inten­tional from the outset."

  As the newcomers went by him, he moved be­tween them with his arms down at his sides again. But his voice retained the effusive tone when he continued as they crossed the flag-stoned terrace:

  "A man does not become as successful as I have without the assistance of high quality help, Joe. Nor stay at the top. And to make sure his help stays high quality, he has to keep them on their toes. One way of doin' that is to spring changes on the bastards. Surprise them and check they keep pace with the changes you make."

  They had entered the house through a double doorway and Pearl held back to close the studded oak doors. Edge glanced over his shoulder at her and was in time to glimpse the embitter­ed grimace she directed at her obese father be­fore she turned. And the fat man gestured with a pudgy hand for the half-breed to enter an arched doorway into a room on the left. Waddled ahead of his guest from the chandelier lit, wood panel walled, highly polished floored, night air-cooled hallway into a sitting room. Which was as spacious and elegantly furnished and decorated as the hall. But was warmed by a blazing log fire in an ingle fireplace and had a deep pile carpet on the floor. And the walls were stucco, hung with a score of paintings in gilt frames.

  The black-haired beauty with the perfect complexion from the millinery store sat on a sofa set at right angles to one side of the fire­place. She was dressed in the same plain black dress that fitted snugly to her slender figure as when he first saw her. Just as the fat man had not changed from the white fringed yellow shirt and sheened black pants—but he no longer wore the gunbelt with the matching Tranters or the white Stetson.

  Edge removed his hat and nodded a greeting to the woman who smiled with what seemed to be genuine warmth. But could not have been because she shared the expression between the two men, one of whom she had called a shit, and the other she had so obviously disliked on first meeting.

  "This is Hedda Trask, Joe," Gray introduced as he lowered himself carefully on to the center of an identical sofa across the front of the fire­place from the woman. “Hedda and me have an understandin'. That's fine there, Joe."

  Edge had advanced halfway into the room and came to a halt as the fat man spoke the instruction and Pearl Irish stepped across the threshold and closed the door. Which placed him midway between the blazing fire and the window that spilled light out across the terrace. Fifteen feet from each and also equi­distant from Gray and Hedda Trask. Who he turned to face as the fat man's daughter angled across the room to join the millinery store owner, and immediately looked less feminine than ever in comparison with the beautiful woman at her side.

  "My girl is family so she has the run of the house, Joe," Gray said in the same even tone as before and with the smile still sitting easily on his bloated features. "And the plan is that Hedda'll be family someday soon. You're just a passin' through stranger owed a favor. That I intend to repay. Nothin' else."

  There was a large, square mirror hung on the wall above the double decker mantel in which the half-breed was able to see a reflect of most of the room and of himself—standing hat-in-hand, unshaven and grimed with trail dust, dressed in the worse-for-wear outfit of shirt, pants, boots and sheepskin coat with the butt of the Frontier Colt jutting from the holster tied down to his thigh and causing the hem of the coat to be slightly pulled up.

  Just for a second did he glimpse the merest suggestion of high anger show in the glint of his ice blue eyes between the narrowed lids. Before he controlled the emotion within him and masked any outward clue to what he felt. And said:

  "You don't owe me a thing."

  The fat man held up a hand and the jeweled rings on the stubby fingers glinted in competition with the half-breed's eyes—but needed the light sources from the fire and the lamp chandelier to do this.

  "Nobody argues with Earl Gray in his home, his town or his county, Joe." The smile was gone now and the tone of voice was the same one he had used during the preamble to the double killing—after he controlled his rage. "In the June of 'sixty-five, you met up with seven men just mustered out of the Union army. One of them named Elliot Thombs was the bastard who murdered my son-in-law. Stuck Zach Irish with a knife after the Petersburg battles a couple of months earlier. Stuck him just be­cause Zach give him an order he didn't like. Then the bastard ran—deserted just before the peace signin'. Not givin' a shit that my girl was left a widow with four girls of her own to raise."

  Gray turned his head to spit in the fire and while his face was averted, the two women briefly changed their expressions—which had been of melancholy reflection since the
fat man had started to talk about the killing of Captain Zach Irish. Now, just for a second at the most and independently of each other, the widow ex­pressed tacit bitterness toward her father and the woman he had plans to marry directed a scowl of deep-seated hatred at him.

  "I didn't do no fightin' in the war, Joe. Too busy out here in the West. Grubbin' for gold in California, learnin' the cattle ranchin' business in Texas and the southwest territories and generally gettin' money to make more money. And learnin' how to protect what I worked friggin' hard for against the bastards that figured to take it off me easy. Man don't get to be fast as you saw I was any other way than by hard work. And for a man my size—on account of a glandular defect, Joe, not overeatin'—it's harder to do most things."

  Now he just shook his head and Hedda Trask almost made the mistake of scowling her hatred at him again when she thought he was going to take the time to spit in the fire.

  "But I'm gettin' off the point, Joe."

  "I was gonna say that, Dad."

  Edge put his hat back on and rasped the back of a hand over the bristles along his jaw-line. Then dropped the hand down at his side—just behind the jutting butt of the Colt.

  Gray directed one of his withering looks at his daughter and went on: "Soon as I heard about Zach bein' murdered by one of his own men, I went lookin' for that man. Left behind every friggin' thing I'd worked my balls off for and went lookin'. Pretty soon found out Thombs was dead. Tracked down a Mexican he was ridin' with and he told me how it happened. And found out the Kansas law wanted you for murderin' the bastard. Nothin' I could do, seemed to me. So I come back out West with just one of the wanted posters that was issued for you in Kansas. And when I got back—had a place down in the south west territories then—I found a bunch of four C.S.A. deserters had jumped my claim. And was a long way to­ward cleanin' out that motherfrigger of a lode.

  "And I knew, Joe, that if I hadn't got back when I did—if I was chasin' the killer of Zach Irish all over the country—them bastards would have kept me from gettin' to be rich. And one of the things I like best about bein' in this vale of tears, Joe, is bein' rich. Which is why I've had the word out to look for you ever since the lode them bastards located started to pay off. So you can share in my good fortune. How does one hundred thousand dollars sound to you, Joe?"

  "Quite a number, feller."

  "Mayor, Mayor Gray or Sir, Joe," the gross­ly overweight man in the sheened, too snug fit­ting clothes said with a sigh and looked just mildly irritated at having had to remind the half-breed again.

  "Make you a deal," Edge offered.

  And Gray was too intrigued by the evenly spoken invitation to take exception to the lack of the courtesy title again. "A deal?"

  "You keep the hundred thousand bucks and I'll ride off your property tonight so I won't have to call you anything."

  Earl Gray sighed again and this time there was a degree of light in his widely spaced dark eyes that pointed to a more explosive sen­timent than mild irritation.

  "You already have the money, Joe," he said, making an effort to remain controlled which showed in the way his fleshy face became beaded with sweat. "When Gabe and the Lowell kid came in from the Sweetwater crossin' and said they were almost sure it was you behind them, I had Joshua Morrow of the Elgin City Bank and Trust open an account in your name. And transfer the money from my account to the new one.

  "There ain't a thing wrong with the money, Joe. It's all honestly earned in the line of

  business."

  "Not by me, feller. Put a bullet in the head of Elliot Thombs to keep him from killing me. If it happened to do you a favor—"

  "You're arguin' with me in my home, Joe!" the fat man cut in, and his tone was shriller now. He took a handkerchief from a white frilled pocket of his shirt and patted the sweat off his brow and cheeks: and took the heat out of his voice to warn: "Don't do it anymore. And call me what I insist on bein' called. Or all your new found wealth will buy you is one hell of a rich man's funeral."

  Edge remained unblinkingly impassive and did not move a muscle in his tall, lean frame as Earl Gray delivered the ultimatum. And was aware of the switch to cool composure made by the fat man, the tacit plea for him to do what her father demanded on the timeworn face of Pearl Irish and the half smile of contempt that played on the lips of the beautiful Hedda Trask. This as his sixth sense for a lurking threat rang a warning at the forefront of his mind—after he had seen in the mirror an in­distinct image of something moving just out­side the window fifteen feet behind him.

  "You're the wrong gender to be a mare, feller," the half-breed said flatly, his stance of apparent relaxed nonchalance unaltered. "But you sure as hell are getting to be something of an old nag."

  Chapter Seven

  EARL Gray's very white teeth gleamed be­tween his drawn back lips as his fleshy cheeks and his many chins quivered and his bejeweled fingers clawed at the fabric covering of the sofa. Then his mouth gaped wide and he bellow­ed: 'Gabe!'

  This as his daughter became crestfallen and the beautiful face of Hedda Trask continued to display contempt for Edge, but now the ex­pression tempered with something that was close to pity.

  The half-breed remained tense like a wound spring behind the wafer thin shell of seeming unguardedness for the two seconds that sep­arated his voice from that of the fat man's. Not trusting either of the women or the shaking Gray to be projecting the emotions they actual­ly felt.

  Just like him.

  The door in the arch came forcefully open, burst inwards with the crash of a booted foot kicking it. As Edge reached a decision about the two women and a man on the sofa—they were no immediate threat. And for just a part of a second his eyes, narrowed to the merest slivers of glittering blue, shifted the direction of their ice cold gaze to the mirror: specifically to the reflected image of the window behind him. Where, at the instant after the kick began to fold the door inward, he saw the eagerly smiling face of Bob Lowell—pressed so close to the pane that the kid's nose was flattened at the tip. Seen clearly, then partially obscured by the mist of condensation on the glass when Lowell breathed out.

  Edge was already starting to raAke his gaze away from the mirror by then—eyes racing along the sockets as he also turned his body, dropped into a crouch and brought his right hand into his side. The door hit the inner wall and his clawed hand fisted around the butt of the Frontier Colt. This at the moment that the face and form of Gabe Millard came into sharp focus. The gunslinger from Dodge City now without his frock coat and no longer minus the tools of his deadly trade—a .45 caliber Smith and Wesson Schofield with a wooden butt in a cutaway holster tied down to his left thigh, and a sawed-off Purdy double-barreled shotgun clutched in his right hand.

  The shotgun was already angled to draw a bead on a target and the hammers were cocked as the black clad man stood splay-legged on the threshold of the room, his pale face still seem­ing somehow mournful despite the grin he di­rected toward Edge. Then he squeezed the two triggers to explore the twin loads of shot with a deafening roar, a double flash and a billowing cloud of smoke.

  At the same moment clawed the Smith and Wesson from the holster, thumbing back the hammer as part of the same series of smooth movements. In precisely the same manner as did Edge—but the half-breed was fractionally faster: unprovoked by the discharging of the shotgun that had served to make Gabe Millard over-confident. The Dodge City gunslinger ob­viously certain the sight and then the blast of the Purdy would distract Edge. But instead the half-breed's moves were completed in a manner that took account of just one fun­damental fact—his life was in danger from at least one source.

  And he dealt with this first—drew, cocked, aimed and fired the Frontier Colt at the chest, left of center, of the blond haired, pale faced man in black at the arched doorway. While he was starkly aware of the shotgun being fired, and knew he was not its target. The revolver in the rock steady left hand of Gabe Millard was the threat.

  The gunslinger was not clearly see
n at the moment Edge squeezed the trigger of the Colt: was distorted by the muzzle flashes and smoke of the Purdy's firing, and by the sudden move the half-breed had to make—to hurl himself to the right, down at the floor, and into a roll. To get out from under the six lamp chandelier that was torn out of the ceiling by the twin loads of the shotgun.

  Pearl Irish and Hedda Trask screamed in concert and Earl Gray vented a bellow of rage that sounded like a giant wild animal in great pain. This against the crash and shatter of the chandelier hitting the carpeted floor and the lamps breaking to spray oil and flame in all directions. So that the low groan uttered by Gabe Millard was unheard by anybody but the man himself: as the sad grin froze on his face, he looked down at the bloodstain blossoming on the dark fabric of his shirt front and then died on his feet. The shotgun slipped from his right hand and the revolver from his left, his arms fell limply to his sides and his knees bent so that he fell forward into the room and lay prone and inert.

  Edge powered into a final roll and brought up his head and the cocked again Colt toward the window he was much nearer now. Saw Bob Lowell's face still pressed against the pane which no longer fogged: because the kid was holding his breath in shock, excitement dis­placed by horror on his round, button-eyed countenance.

  "Water! Bring water! My house is burnin' down!"

  Desperation drove Earl Gray's voice to a shrill pitch against the crackling of raging flames; before the black smoke hit the back of his throat and he began to cough and choke.

  And then footfalls sounded on the carpeted floor, running lightly. While Lowell dragged his stunned gaze away from the corpse of the man he had admired so much to locate the killer. Then executed a violent shake of his head that seemed to deny everything he had seen, before he drew back from the window, whirled and raced away across the flagstone terrace.