"Edge?" he asked.
"He's fixed the wheel and now he's puttin' the mules to the wagon, Mr. Rochford," the full-bodied, no longer over-painted woman supplied.
"All ready to leave, feller?" the half-breed asked as he moved to the front of the stoop steps.
"I needed help. Mrs. Shay provided it. She told me what happened. What Helen did."
"She likes to talk more than I do," Edge said and went up the steps to take over the task of guiding the blinded Englishman as, in the distance, the hooves of several horses beat at the ground—lunged from a standstill to an immediate gallop. "How much do I owe, ma'am?"
"This gentleman settled all accounts, mister," Rosie Shay answered as she surrendered with a frown of reluctance her grip on Rochford's arm.
"Your bill was little enough, sir, and I will not take it from the fee that was agreed."
Edge's only response was to tell Rochford when to step down. Then gave him even-voiced instructions that enabled him to climb aboard the wagon and lower himself securely on the passenger's side of the seat. After this, Edge climbed up and sat on the driver's side. Touched his hat brim and nodded to the woman on the stoop as he kicked off the brakes and flicked the reins.
"Goodbye, Mrs. Shay, and thank you so very much," the Englishman called in his cultured tones as the wagon jolted slightly in coming off the blocks and was steered into a tight turn.
"Good luck to you, mister!" she answered. "And I reckon you sure deserve it after you had so much of the bad kind!"
Eyes watched from secret places again while the clop of hooves, creak of timbers and clatter of the wheel-rims masked every whispered word that was spoken as the rig rolled by.
"I left some money with Mrs. Shay to cover the services of the local doctor, Edge," the rigidly seated, fixedly face-forward Englishman said as the wagon crossed the intersection. "Do I owe anybody else for anything that was done for me or Helen while I was not conscious? Or for you?"
"You have two dollars, feller?"
Eagerly anxious to provide what was needed, Rochford quickly delved a hand into an inside pocket of his suit jacket and took out a sheaf of bills. Invited: "Take it. And please take something on account of what you are owed. I know I do not have the full—"
"Just a couple of bucks for now," Edge cut in as he reined the mules to halt the rig outside the still open doorway of the forge. "Pay for the wheel."
Already familiar with the layout of the place, the half-breed did not need to light his way into the forge of the dead Silas Reeves, where he left the money under a horseshoe on an anvil. Then, up on the seat alongside Geoffrey Rochford, it was necessary to turn the wagon again: to head back along the street and swing across the intersection.
"Are you sure that is all, sir?" the Englishman asked at length. "What about Helen? Did she not incur any—"
There was just a small knot of Fallon citizens outside the dimly-lit jailhouse now. Clustered around a flatbed wagon on which four burlap-wrapped forms were already loaded, neatly side by side. The half-breed recognized none of the townspeople, and the corpses had been shrouded in such a way that it was impossible to distinguish between Arch Hayden and Leroy Engels, Sonny the kid and Toby the black man.
"No sweat, feller," Edge assured evenly as the wagon rolled on by the stationary one. "Your wife paid them all back.
Chapter Fifteen
Edge drove the wagon slowly through the night and into the morning. Cold, tired, hungry and in no good mood for conversation. While his passenger talked a great deal, unconcerned that he drew no vocal responses from the man beside him and resigned to the fact that he was not able to see how the half-breed silently received what was being told him. Simply grateful to have a perhaps attentive listener for what he had to say—which amounted to a denial of Rosie Shay's parting comment to him with a defense of his wife.
Maybe Geoffrey Rochford would have talked for the entire night without need to repeat any incident that proved his good fortune in persuading Helen to marry him more than adequately compensated for the bad luck that had dogged him all his life. But, as the false dawn broke, another norther swept down the broad valley. There was no rain in the dirty grey clouds that were racing across the high sky but the wind was both bitterly cold and noisily powerful. Moaned and whined against and around every obstacle in its path—as if in frustrated aggravation that the way was not entirely clear. The wagon was just such an obstacle and soon after the norther began to blow, noise made all but shouted talk futile. And there was the added discomfort of flying dust and tiny pieces of vegetation that stung the face and against which it was best to keep the mouth closed.
In the murky first light of the new day, the half-breed was able to take his bearings through eyes barely cracked open to the onslaught of the debris-laden wind. Saw that he was on the stretch of trail that ran past the area of rearing rock bluffs that guarded the deep basin where Selmar and his hands had captured the quartet of ill-fated rustlers. And he tugged on the reins to turn the mules off the trail to head for one of the canyon-like gaps in the rock wall. The trail had been relatively smooth in contrast to the uneven pastureland which the rig now jolted and yawed over.
"Something is wrong?" Rochford yelled.
"Just with the weather, feller! I think I know a place where we can get out of it!"
"I am entirely in your hands, sir!"
In amongst the rocky ravines the sounds of the wind were louder and eerie. Likewise when the wagon emerged on to the lodge to come to one side of the natural amphitheater and Edge and the Englishman could hear the norther as it tore through the pines that grew thickly to the very rim of the far side of the basin. The true dawn had broken by then and with less dust being raised and thrown through the gusting air Edge was able to see clearly down into the massive crater: and he drew back his lips to display a grin of satisfaction as he saw he had been right to come here. That this weird place which yesterday had created such odd effects with sound in a surrounding stillness was this morning serene in the same tranquility below the rim as had existed when he was first here. Then there had been a column of smoke from the rustler's fire to exhibit the full extent of the perfect quiescence of the bottom land. Whereas now there was just the unmoving trees and brush to show what it was like down there while up here anything that was not rock-solid was shaken and swayed and bent to the forceful dictates of the norther.
Then, after yelling at Rochford to hold tight because of a steep downgrade, Edge urged the mules off the rock ledge and on to the grassy slope: steering the animals over a zig-zag route that was the easiest way but still needing to hold the wagon with the brakes more often than the wheels ran free. As, by slow degrees, the many sounds of the wind became lower in volume after it had ceased to buffet the wagon.
"God, what a relief," the Englishman said at length, speaking an almost reverent whisper that produced no eerie echo while the norther continued to rage across the basin. "What is this place? How did you find it?"
"Another time, maybe," Edge replied wearily as the wagon reached the flat base of the crater and he hauled on the reins and locked on the brakes to halt the rig. "Been a long time since I slept and unless I get me some—"
"Oh, I'm terribly sorry, sir. I never realized—"
"No way you could have known, feller," the half-breed interrupted him. "Sit tight for awhile, until I get a camp set up."
"Whatever you say."
It took the half-breed some thirty minutes to do what was necessary—take the mules from the traces and hobble them, gather kindling and fuel and light a fire on the ashes of the old one, break out his gear from the rear of the wagon and unfurl his bedroll with his saddle positioned to serve as a pillow. Then he stood at the side of the wagon and explained to the patient Englishman:
"Animals are taken care of, there's a fire and I'm going to bed down alongside it. You want to be near the fire, or maybe you want to stretch out on the bed in the back of the wagon?"
While
Edge had prepared the camp, Rochford had listened hard to all the sounds he made—and moved his head as if to gaze at him with the sightless dark eyes beneath the bandage that was now as grey with dust as everything else about the men and the wagon.
Listening to the half-breed talk to him, the Englishman faced directly to the front and nodded several times. Then answered:
"When I decide what to do, I shall do it, sir. I wish you to go to your rest and leave me to my own devices. After all, there is a chance I will never regain my vision. And so the sooner I begin trying to fend for myself, the better."
"Okay, feller."
"I'm most grateful."
Edge moved into the area of warmth emanated by the fire and removed only the sheepskin coat and the Stetson. Shared the shelter of his blankets and the coat with the uncocked Winchester and blotted out the sight of the scudding grey clouds and the swaying trees above the basin's rim with the hat over his face. Wanted to respond to what the Englishman called to him, but the need for sleep was greater—and forced itself upon him as Rochford finished saying:
"For I know you are making no effort to find Helen, Edge. Yet."
His sleep was uncharacteristically sound. Of a kind that only near-total physical and mental exhaustion could bring to a man like Edge: hovering him on the very brink of unconsciousness. A dreamless sleep—although during the moments of coming awake he was disconcertingly disorientated and he thought the sounds he heard were the remnants of audible images that had been troubling his sleeping mind while he was oblivious to reality.
"Edge?" a man said in the tone of a demand, that seemed to echo without being repeated. "Something is happening."
The brittle words were spoken in competition with the crackling of a good fire and were accompanied by a dragging sound: all heard against an utter, almost palpable silence. And the waking man recalled where he was and why he was there. Felt warm and well rested and ravenously hungry. Then experienced a sense of relief that the norther had finished blowing, as he pushed his hat on the top of his head and sat up to say to the Englishman:
"Easy, feller."
But then was far from easy in his own mind when he blinked against the glaring light of a cloud-scattered but sun-bright late-morning sky and saw the menacing situation which the blinded man had sensed: or maybe had heard as it developed.
In the immediate area of the campsite, little had changed with the weather since Edge went quickly to sleep in the early morning. The fire had been kept burning warmly to combat the winter cold that was little relieved by the sun. And Geoffrey Rochford had needed to climb down off the wagon and moved cautiously to find fresh fuel and feed the flames with it. Had gathered more than would ever be needed and this was piled on the other side of the fire from where Edge had bedded down. The dragging sound was made by the Englishman as he came around the fire from the heap of fuel—pulling with his hands and pushing with his feet s that he slithered along the ground on one side of his rump. His head was turned and held rigidly, his face toward the long slope they had zig-zagged over to get to the bottom of the basin. The expression on his green-eyed broken-nosed, pale-as-the-bandage face was of terror of the unknown for a moment—then he came close to smiling in relief as he halted his move when Edge offered the misplaced reassurance. Misplaced, the half-breed realized, when he raked his slit-eyed gaze away from the brightening face of Rochford to peer in the direction where the man sensed danger.
"You have cause not to be, I think," the Englishman said. Still unafraid now that the half-breed was awake, but knowing there was probably something to be afraid of. "I'd rather you did not try to spare my feelings, sir. For a man who has been made suddenly blind, there cannot be very much more ... providing he has somebody he can trust to act as his eyes in times when—"
"You know we're at the bottom of a pretty steep slope, feller," Edge cut in, continuing to sit on the ground, half draped by blankets and the sheepskin coat—his right hand still lightly gripping the frame of the Winchester. "There's a high curve of cliff on the other side of us. Guess you've noticed that the lay of the land does strange things to sounds. At the top of the slope there's a line of men still in their saddles. I figure they're close to a mile away from us. But they can hear every word we say. Sun's out now and they can see us real good as well."
"Not strangers?" Rochford asked, face still upturned as if he was trying by an effort of will to regain his sight so he could see for himself the scene that was being so laconically described for him.
"No, feller. The Fallon sheriff, Clark Selmar, who's the biggest rancher in the valley. Floyd Cassidy his top hand, Whitney Turner and a half dozen other C-bar-S hands I recall seeing from the last time I was here. Some men I saw at the Palace Saloon last night. Some more I don't recall. But I guess they're all Fallon people. I count nineteen men in all."
Rochford waited for a stretched second for Edge to go on. Then opened his mouth to voice a question, but was unable to start it before his wife shouted:
"And one woman, Geoffrey! I'm with them and I'm coming down! They've let me go, my darling!"
The Englishman wrenched his head from side to side—turning to look toward the sound of Helen's voice as she announced her presence and then staring sightlessly back at the half-breed. His expression implored an explanation.
Edge had dug the makings from a pocket of his shirt and now he let go of the Winchester as he stood up and began to roll a cigarette. Said as he did so:
"Yeah, and your wife, feller. Riding the chestnut gelding. She looks to be in pretty good shape. The Fallon posse is just waiting and watching."
"It's all right, my darling!" the honey-haired woman in the no-longer-quite-so-white dress called as the half-breed paused to strike a match on the butt of his holstered revolver. "The sheriff and his men caught up with me easily! But after I explained what those brutal beasts did to me ... well, a great many of them have wives. Some have daughters. They agreed to take no action against me for what I did at Fallon, Geoffrey. They were taking me back to the town to fetch you when the smoke of your fire was seen. And the tracks of the wagon. Oh, my darling Geoffrey, it is all going to be so wonderful for us after the doctors make you see again."
There was no need for a horse-rider to zig-zag down the slope and Helen Rochford veered off a direct path from top to bottom only when a natural obstacle made it necessary. And, as she drew closer and became aware of the strange acoustics of the basin she dropped her voice to a normal conversational level.
"It is not a cruel trick, is it?" the Englishman asked, turning from his wife to face Edge again.
"It's no trick, Rochford!" Sheriff Jack O'Rouke yelled. "In the cold light of day it was decided your wife had sufficient provocation for what she did to be entered in the Fallon records as justifiable homicide! But I give the lady and your traveling companion fair warning! If she or Edge ever set foot within my jurisdiction again the killings in which they were involved will be reexamined!"
O'Rouke was first to jerk on the reins to wheel his horse away from the top of the slope. But the rest of the posse was quick to follow his example. The sounds of the sudden mass departure were initially loud but then were immediately curtailed as the Fallon men rode off the rock ledge and into the ravine.
"Good God!" Helen Rochford spat scornfully as she rode the gelding off the slope and across the final few yards to the campsite. "I would have to be out of my mind to even think about returning to this awful place again!"
"Help me, sir?" her husband asked, extending a hand toward Edge. "I would not wish to fall into the fire."
The half-breed gripped the wrist of the upraised arm and steered rather than pulled the blinded man to his feet. This as the woman reined the gelding to a halt and swung wearily out of the saddle. Smoothed her trail-dirtied and travel-crumpled dress with the palms of her hands and then finger-combed some of the tangles out of her hair. Smiled through the smoky heat shimmer above the fire at the two men as she made a token gesture
of rubbing off the dust that was ingrained into the pale skin and her blue-eyed, snub-nosed face and said: "I expect it to take at least two hours and two bathsful of really hot water for me to be; clean and presentable again."
She found her gaze in the trap of Edge' glinting eyes, and tried to brighten her smile in the hope of encouraging something other than the ice cold response from him. And only managed to get free of the trap when her husband said softly:
"A blind man does not care what his wife; looks like, Helen."
He extended his arms with the palms of his hands inwards and his fingers splayed: inviting her to come to him. On his darkly bristled face was an expression of melancholy that made it look as if he was close to spilling tears from his sightless eyes.
"It is nice to know that somebody is pleased to have me safe and well and free," the woman said bitterly. Then replaced her sour glower with a radiant smile and injected happiness into her voice as she came quickly away from the horse and around the fire. "Yes, my dearest husband. Please forgive me for the terrible accident I caused. I promise you—"
He turned to the sound of her so that she was able to move easily into his outstretched arms that closed around her in an embrace. As Edge turned, also: but to put his back to the couple as they kissed and the woman's voice was curtailed. The half-breed unsure of whether he could conceal from Helen Rochford the fact that her deliberate attempt to arouse his lusting jealousy was having an effect upon him.
"But he does care about what she is, Helen," Geoffrey Rochford said evenly after perhaps two seconds. "And you are evil. Utterly and totaly evil in your selfish striving to fulfill your depraved desire to dominate men."
Edge controlled the compulsion to turn around and look at the couple as the Englshan spoke so dispassionately to his silent wife. Continued to keep his back to them as he regularly drew in smoke from the cigarette and exhaled it, thumbs hooked over the buckle of his gunbelt and narrowed, heavily hooded eyes staring fixedly into the middle distance. His mind reflecting upon every rotten thing he knew about this bitch siren of a woman—from when he first saw her as she launched a kick at the belly of a dying horse until, just a few seconds ago, she had directed the seductive smile at him—her pleasure in the sexuality of the situation enhanced by the presence of her husband who was blind to the smile and to the way she swayed her body.
EDGE: The Blind Side Page 12