"Perhaps if I were not now blind, I could have made the same allowance as before, Helen," Geoffrey Rochford went on after a brief pause during which Edge had expected the woman to launch into a shrill denial of what her husband was saying, "when you gave yourself to man after man and I was able to forgive you. Because you had chosen to marry me despite what I am. And I could look at you and placate my jealousy with pride in you."
Edge turned now. His head, then from the waist and finally moved his feet. To lock his eyes with those of Helen Rochford. Blue on blue. But narrowed as opposed to wide. As the man struggled to control an impulse to intervene while the woman was slowly throttled to death.
"But I cannot bear to be literally in the dark while you make your pathetic attempts to pretend you are faithful, my darling wife. Dear God, you were even able to cast your evil spell over this man Edge. To make him want you as much as he hates you...." Rochford wrenched his head around and with his quickly acquired ability that compensated for the loss of sight was able to remain face to face with the silent and unmoving half-breed as he challenged: "Isn't that right, sir? Can you say without truth that you never intended to search for my wife until after you had ridden yourself of me? Done what you could for me in order to salve your conscience while you were looking for her so that you could—"
"You can let go of her now, feller," Edge said flatly.
"No! If you want to have her that much, you'll have to kill me! Taking her away from me won't be enough because—"
"You can only kill somebody once," Edge cut in on the man again. "And your wife is dead already."
The blinded man stood with his head turned and his mouth open for perhaps three seconds. Then tinned toward the woman again, willing himself more strongly than ever to be able to see. But he was denied the sight of the blue-tinged, bulging-eyed, bloated-cheeked and protruding-tongued face of his wife above both his hands locked securely around her throat. And, below his hands, her limp body and limbs that without life also lacked sexual attraction.
"Help me?" Rochford moaned.
Edge went to the man, encircled an arm around the slender waist of the corpse and gently pulled one from the other. And, when Rochford had surrendered his supporting death hold on his wife, the half-breed lowered the burden carefully to the ground, clear of the fire.
"You could have killed me before I finished it," the Englishman said impassively as he let his arms fall loosely to his sides.
"Yeah, I could have."
"But you didn't."
"I ain't a thief, feller. Especially I don't rob the dead."
"You'll help me still, sir?"
The half-breed's cigarette had gone out and he stooped back to pick up the cold end of a burning stick. Relit the tobacco and answered: "Take you as far as Tucson and put you on the stage."
"I'll pay you four thousand dollars for that. Since you feel unable to accept it as the agreed fee for—"
"Four thousand less what Rosie Shay charged you for my room, feller. I pay my own way."
"Suit yourself, sir."
"Usually do." He moved away from the fire toward the wagon. "I'll get us ready to roll."
"Should we not eat first? Or at least have a cup of tea? A drink perhaps?"
"I'll find us a better place," Edge answered, shifting his gaze away from the corpse beside the fire and then glancing around the rim of the basin as his voice resounded off the curve of cliff.
"Just as you wish," Geoffrey Rochford allowed, and lowered himself carefully into a cross-legged posture on the ground. And remained quiet with his own thoughts, left the half-breed alone with his, until they were both back up on the seat of the wagon. The mules in the traces, the unsaddled gelding hitched on at the back and the blanket-wrapped corpse of Helen on the bed in the rear. When the Englishman ended the long silence with: "I do so appreciate all you have done for me, Edge."
"No sweat," the half-breed replied, and urged the mules into movement. Steered the team over the same zig-zag route by which they had come down the steep slope.
"I think I have an idea of just how difficult it was for you to resist the advances of my late wife, sir," the Englishman argued, staring blindly ahead. "And, who knows, a man such as you might well have been exactly what Helen needed to become a whole and fulfilled woman. Much more than all those others I always pretended I never. . . . But, of course, I am deeply gratified that you felt unable to...."
He did not look grateful for anything as he sat rigidly on the seat of the jolting wagon, sightless eyes perhaps filled with remembered images of his no longer alluringly beautiful wife —while tears spilled from them to make irregular channels through the dirt and bristles on his cheeks. Edge looked at the grief-stricken man for just a second or so, before he turned his attention to the task of driving the wagon out of the basin. And murmured, softly enough for the sounds of the slow rolling wagon to mask what he said:
"Maybe one day I'll be grateful, too. But right now I'm real sorry I didn't try a little ardor."
EDGE: The Blind Side Page 13