Edge: Bloody Sunrise

by George G. Gilman

  "Sun’ll be up any moment now, sir!" Pop yelled. "Folks are already gettin' hustled out on to the street. Like to go out of my own ac­cord, if you don't mind?"

  The old timer had refilled the pots and strug­gled with them back on to the stoves while Edge stood in the windowless cubicle, swirling the towels around in the hot water and occasionally slapping the surface with the flat of his hand. To make the sound effects of a man taking a bath while the steam from the cooling tub lessened but that coming over and under the door from the heating pots increased.

  "No sweat, feller," he called, and heard the old timer's footfalls receding to the doorway, directly opposite the cubicle where the half-breed was supposed to be in a tub.

  Pop's footfalls rang on the sidewalk and then he stepped on to the street surface. Edge was on the chair set against the right side partition wall by then. And before his straining ears caught the scrape of a more cautious step on the sidewalk boarding, he had swung up and over the partition: between the two feet gap from its dusty top to the ceiling. And had low­ered himself silently to the floor of the next cubicle when the intruder moved over the threshold into the bath house, unimpeded by the door for the old timer had not closed it.

  The cubicle in which the half-breed now stood, his back pressed into the corner of the front and side partitions—an inch away from the gap of the part open door—was just as steamy as the one he left, despite the fact that its tub was dry. And maybe the high humidity of the atmosphere was largely responsible for the sweat beads that oozed from the dirt grimed pores of his face and hung stickily in his bristles. But some cause had to be attributed to the tension he felt coiling within him as he listened for other tell-tale sounds to mark the! slow and cautious progress of somebody mov­ing from the doorway of the building toward| that of the cubicle in which Edge had bolted himself.

  But it was difficult to hear anything because of the angrily boiling water in the three pots on the stoves. Although this worked to the ad­vantage of the half-breed, too—made it impossible for whoever was out in the anteroom to realize there was a suspicious silence exist­ing in the supposedly occupied cubicle.

  Not just somebody was advancing on the cu­bicle—then coming to a halt immediately in front of the bolted door. Two people. One hissing:

  "Now!" as the other drew in a sharp, hushed breath. The both of them women, which did not alter the moves Edge made as a booted foot crashed against the door of the next cubicle: to tear the screws of the bolt out of the timber and provide shattering entrance for the intruders.

  Women or men, young or old, fence sitters or committed to one side or the other. All of them had contributed directly or indirectly to his humiliating surrender in the middle of the bril­liantly lit town. And whether they had actually witnessed his back down or not was of no con­sequence. For he had long ago ceased to care what others thought of him. Only what he was in his own estimation mattered to him.

  And it was his opinion in hindsight that he should have called the bluff of the fat man.

  Taken the risk of Earl Gray meaning what he said. And if he lost, then drilling a bullet deep into the despotic man mountain before the bar­rage of gunfire from all around cut him down.

  But there was no if about it. He would have lost and as he stood out on the intersection with every eye fixed upon him and every ear attuned to catch his response, he had never been more certain of anything in his life before. Because Earl Gray's reputation as a ruler of his domain was on the line and a man who had to bluff only did so from a position of weakness. And this man could not allow himself to be seen as weak in front of a townful of people whose free will be had bought with money and who equated wealth with power. Not even to spare the life of a man he did genuinely wish to help. A man he admired as he had admired no other since he lost his revered son-in-law. Until that moment when he forced Edge to back down. And in so doing saved both their lives: but at the same instant had created a virulent contempt at the very opposite end of the emotional spectrum from the feeling he had nurtured for the man previously.

  The deputy who had crashed open the door was the youngest, shortest and most heavily built of the Irish sisters: Anne. Who was the closest of the pair to Edge as he swung out of the cubicle doorway, and chopped viciously down on the wrist of her gun hand with the heel of his hand. She vented a cry of pain as her fingers sprang open and the Army Colt was released. A sound which altered tone to one of naked terror as the damaging right hand of the; half-breed was withdraw and his left streaked across to fasten on her throat. She choked and clawed with both her hands at his that gripped her. Her revolver clattered to the floor and she was forced to go forward, through the doorway into the cubicle. And slammed into her skinny, sister, Joy. Whose Colt was still in the holster as she turned in response to the cries and scuf­fling sounds—the meat cleaver she had intend­ed to bring down on to the man supposed to be in the bathtub still held high above her head in a two handed grip.

  Her thin face with its many angles and hard­ly any curves was a mask of hatred and it was probably an obscenity rather than a mere scream she intended to vent from her gaping mouth. But then she started to topple side­ways from the impact of the collision with her sister as she half turned. And uttered just a low moan of alarm as she was tripped over by the end of the tub, abandoned her hold on the cleaver and flailed her arms in a vain attempt to retain her balance. Then grabbed at Anne to try to stop herself from falling.

  Edge reached his free hand around the choking Anne to clench it as a fist in the red hair under the rear brim of Joy's hat. And took a forward step, thrust both arms out at full stretch and leaned from the waist. He glimpsed their faces as they glimpsed his through the constantly shifting clouds of thick, hot steam.

  The sisters showed matching masks of terror, while the sweat beaded features of the half-breed expressed merciless impassiveness. So that the women knew without doubt, as their heads and torsos were plunged into the no longer scalding water, that the man was re­solved to kill them.

  Just as they had intended to kill him.

  They struggled instinctively in the manner of anyone drowning, but the confined space within the tub restricted their efforts. While Edge, up to his sheepskin coated arms in the water, maintained his iron grip on the throat of one sister and the hair of the other; to force their heads hard against the bottom. His own head turned to peer over a shoulder into the swirling curtain of opaque steam. Prepared to release the half drowned women only if a new danger materialized in the cubicle doorway.

  Then water ceased to slop over the sides of the tub as the sisters got weaker. And their struggles faltered to a complete stop—the lithely built Joy outlasting Anne by perhaps five seconds. Only then did Edge straightened up and let go of the throat and the hair. And dried off his hands on an unsodden length of towel as his two victims remained on the bottom of the tub, wedged there face to face, their heads concealed by their hats which float­ed on the surface of the now still and crystal clear water.

  The fires in the stoves continued to crackle and the water that boiled in the pots bubbled and sometimes splashed, to hiss angrily on hot metal, as Edge emerged from the cubicle. Stepped on the discarded meat cleaver and nudged the fallen revolver as he ran the towel over his sweat-beaded face. Then froze with the towel so positioned he was able to peer over the top of it at the two figures which loomed out of the vapor no more than a yard in front of him. Caught off-guard with both hands up to his face but in the split second after the shock of realizing this, aware of the sixth sense for danger had not let him down. Saw through the binning, eye stinging steam that the only im­mediate threat was to Pearl Irish. Who stood totally immobile, her green eyes staring fixedly at the half-breed and her mouth slightly open. Like a waxed sculpture of the embodiment of terror. While the much taller and broader figure of Chris Hite who stood slightly behind her to her left expressed a wide grin of pleasure—as though he were the second part of a tableau designed to portray the two extremes of human
emotion.

  For perhaps a full two seconds the woman sheriff and Earl Gray's top man remained as unmoving as the half-breed. And as silent. Then the fat man's daughter started to say:

  "You killed my little—"

  But her voice was choked off by a rush of blood into her throat which then burst from her suddenly widened mouth: as she leaned for­ward from the waist. Then went to the side, bent double, after she had slid off the nine inch long blade of the knife in Hite's right hand.

  A rifle was gripped in his left hand. And he tossed this toward Edge, who hurled down the towel and instinctively thrust out his hands to catch the weapon.

  "Your Winchester, Mac," Chris Hite said flatly. "Just took it outta the boot on your saddle. Ready to finish the fight that you started by showin' up around here?"

  "I wasn't intending to throw in the towel, feller," the half-breed answered, hooked a booted toe into the sodden fabric and shifted it across the floor. Against the staring-eyed face of Pearl Irish where it began to soak up the pool of blood spilled from her gaping mouth. "Even when I didn't know I had a second to help me clean up the law in this town."

  Chapter Fourteen

  AGAINST the twin cracks that sounded close to being one as two handguns were exploded on the street, Hite said:

  "If I was top hand when you showed up, Mac, it wouldn've been me the fat man fixed for you to gun down. And it could've been me in place of Antrim or Sterlin' or them other two guys that got killed out at the east county line. Ain't no money big enough to keep me on the payroll of a man who sets up his help the way that fat sonofabitch does!"

  The smile was gone and the more familiar scowl was in command of the mean eyed square face of the man again. As he punctuated his staccato-voiced explanation with a spit and sheathed the knife on the opposite side of his belt from the holster with an Army Colt in it. And retrieved his rifle from where it leaned against one of the stoves.

  "Just you figured that?" Edge asked as he moved forward, pumping the action of his Winchester. As, out on the street down toward the mid-town area where the shots had sounded, a man started to plead shrilly for his life to be spared—imploring Earl Gray to believe that he was sorry he had a hand in the doomed attack on Elgin City.

  "There wasn't no time to take a vote, Mac," Hite answered as he turned alongside the half-breed.

  "Mayor Gray, you runt!" the grossly fat man cut in on the pleading homesteader. "You give me the title or I'll gut shoot the both of you—"

  Again his matched Tranters exploded almost simultaneously. And his bellow or triumph sounded in unison with the report of a shot fired against him. Which obviously missed be­cause he crowed:

  "Try to trick Earl Gray, would you? No frig­gin' chance, sodbuster!"

  "Heard the fat man tellin' two of his bitch granddaughters to come take care of you, Mac," Hite went on after the interruption of the sounds of violence from outside. "Then he told me and her to back them up." He jerked a thumb toward the crumpled up corpse of Pearl Irish, now lost behind the veil of steam as he and Edge drew near to the open doorway.

  "Was on the way to here that I figured it out. About Gabe Millard and them other four guys he had killed or let be killed. And now he was fixin' to put pay to you. Hey, better let me check first."

  They were side-by-side on the threshold of the bath house. The steam here neutralized by the cold air of the brightly sunlit morning. So they were able to see clearly a length of street directly outside the building: totally deserted.

  "And you're the only guy he ever had any respect for since Zachary Irish. So if he was havin' you killed, ain't nothin' he wouldn't do if the fancy took him. Seemed to me. So I made up my mind to get the hell out soon as I could. But when I seen you'd turned the tables on them bitches, altered my plan. Like to get outta this town and county knowin' the fat slob ain't around with an axe to grind and money to keep it sharp."

  The fast and toneless talking hard man had barred Edge's exit with the rifle held across in front of him. Now he spat out on to the side­walk and stepped across the threshold. Shifted the Winchester so that he could raise it and wave it in the air as a signal toward the crowd­ed area of the mid-town intersection. This as he displayed his teeth in a smile that only the half-breed was close enough to see was marginally away from being a sneer.

  "All taken care of, Mayor!" he roared.

  And Edge, watching intently for Hite to signal him, responded to the unexpected before the man on the outside of the sidewalk had time to make or voice a sign.

  "Mayor!"

  "Granddaddy!"

  "Watch out!"

  "He's gonna—"

  "You crazy bast—"

  "Oh, my God!"

  These warnings and pleas and many other shrilly voiced words that sounded less distinct­ly, overlapped and competed for attention. Chorused raucously in the chill air before a gunshot cut across the din and silenced it. At the same moment Edge emerged from the steamy atmosphere of the bath house: to crack his eyes to the narrowest of slits against the harsh glare of the newly risen sun shafting along the street.

  Saw a scene on the intersection that was almost a replica of the one which had been staged when he first rode into Elgin City last night. But with nature instead of kerosene lamps providing the lighting. And certain other, more vital, differences at the center of the evil tableau.

  Four men, roped together in pairs, were al­ready dead: victims of the maniacal fat man's fast drew Tranters. Edge could put a name to only one of the four—Seth Corey.

  Two other pairs of men were roped in the familiar fashion to face up to the obese Earl Gray who insisted upon his hapless opponents matching him in size. Two of the homesteaders with names the half-breed could not recall, were forced to stand in front of the gallows: the sour-faced Laura Irish holding one by the arm while her pretty sister Gloria maintained a grip on the other.

  It was the homesteader named Clay Averill, roped to a helpless man who Edge now recalled as Jacob Astor, who had drawn and fired the Colt loaned by one of the women deputies. To drill a bullet into the enormous bulge of Earl Gray's belly while the fat man had his head turned, distracted by the voice of Chris Hite.

  "Shit!" the hard man with a change of heart snarled. "I wanted to do that personal and—"

  The rest of what he said was swamped by the pandemonium that erupted on the intersection. An uproar composed of screams and roars and cries and curses and gunfire and running foot­falls. The unarmed, reluctant witnesses to the brutal execution ceremony gone wrong sudden­ly whirling to race for cover. Their backs to the center of the intersection where the hysterical­ly giggling Averill pumped shot after shot into the flabby flesh of Mayor Earl Gray. While his helpless fellow prisoner stared on in horror. And Laura Irish jerked the Colt from her hol­ster and pressed its muzzle to the side of the head of the man she held. Her own head wrenching from side to side to locate the per­plexed and shocked hard men—who with a single exception stared at the bullet riddled fat man. Ignoring the woman's bellowed orders or maybe not even hearing her against the bedlam of noise.

  The exception was Sam Tufts, who was as shocked and fascinated by the sight of his part­ner and Edge together on the sidewalk out front of the bath house as were the rest of the hard men by the fact of the multiple wounded Earl Gray remaining on his feet.

  Then Tufts flung his rifle to his shoulder, to draw a bead on Chris Hite: who was himself startled into temporary immobility by Gray's incredible endurance. But Edge exploded a shot from the hip, to drill a bullet into the chest of the tobacco chewer, left of center. And a mess of tobacco sprayed from his mouth as he dropped his rifle and staggered backwards, to collapse and die in the porch of the church.

  And Hite died, too, corkscrewing off the side­walk to sprawl face down on the street, a rapid­ly blossoming dark stain on the back of his dark vest.

  Edge dropped down into a crouch then, and half turned as he pumped the action of the repeater and slammed the stockplate to his shoulder. Raked the ba
rrel to the aim and squeezed the trigger again. To blast a shot dia­gonally across the street—the bullet finding the chest of the sallow-faced Prentice Gilmore. Who had backshot Hite from the doorway of his feed and seed store and who now staggered backwards into his premises. His spectacles flying off his nose as his head jerked in reaction to being shot. And his wife began to wail.

  A sound that was suddenly the only one in the entire town of Elgin. For perhaps three stretched seconds as Edge shifted his gaze and the direction of the rifle muzzle toward the mid-town area again.

  Where Clay Averill was as horrified as Joseph Astor—the Colt in his hand empty of bullets and no longer aimed at grossly obese man with six blood blossoming holes in his silk, fringe-trimmed shirt front. The two home­steaders trapped between Laura and Gloria Irish were equally stunned by the scene at the center of the intersection—the man with a gun pressed to the side of his head seemingly less concerned by this than the moves the fat man was making.

  To lift his hands and bring them in so that they draped the ivory-gripped butts of the Tranters in his holsters. But not with the in­tention of drawing them against Averill and Astor. For he turned away from the trembling pair of roped together men, shuffling his feet on the street and remaining rigidly upright as if he felt he might fall down and die too soon if he came around any other way.

  Edge straightened up, crossed the sidewalk and stepped down off it while this was hap­pening. And canted the Winchester to his shoulder before he swung out the lever action and folded it back, to drop a discharged cart­ridge into the dust beside Chris Hite's body and jack a live one into the breech. His cracked eyes never shifted from the scene on the inter­section where Earl Gray made the only discern­ible movements.