The expensive Colts were still smoking at the muzzles. Then, as the doomed man looked up—expressing a silent plea for mercy with his eyes above the kerchief mask—the guns spat bullets. The man’s eye sockets became dark pools of crimson. The next instant his brains spewed from the twin exit wounds and he toppled back to cover the gory mess.
“All right, I give up!”
Hiram had taken only a part of a second to complete his kill, and the narrowed eyes of the half-breed were searching for new sources of danger before the dead man measured his length on the ground,
“I’m the last one!”
The sleet was falling thicker and faster, lancing down at an angle before the force of the wind, stinging exposed flesh and pasting clothing to the body. The fourth ambusher stood rigid beside the toppled boulder, his rifle held two-handed high above his head. His eyes were wide with terror as he stared at the muzzle of the half-breed’s aimed Winchester.
“Obliged for the information, feller,” Edge told him evenly, and winced as he got to his feet. “Eases my mind if not my body.”
The survivor was dressed the same as his dead partners, in an ankle-length black coat with the collar turned up to brush the underside of his hat brim. There was a gunbelt slung around his waist on the outside of his coat. He wore gloves, and the only flesh exposed to the weather was the top half of his face above the mask.
“Damn it, I figured we was all gonnas for sure!” Augie yelled.
He scrambled down from the coach and hurried in a half circle to get behind the captive, then lunged in close, plucked the revolver from the holster and the rifle from the gloved hands. Then:
“It’s all okay, folks! We bagged us the whole bunch of ’em!”
Edge canted the rifle to his shoulder, and massaged his bruised right hip which had suffered the brunt of both recent falls.
Hiram’s spurs jingled as he turned, spun his guns on the way to the holsters and moved toward the side of the coach. There was an expression of grim hardness on his features, which somehow looked many years older than before. But there was also a suggestion of the tears of grief behind his green eyes. As he started to ease the body of his aunt from its undignified position across the window frame, the other door of the Concord swung open and the passengers disembarked into the wind-driven sleet.
There were seven of them—five men and two women, all middle aged to elderly and attired in high-priced clothing unsuited to the change in the weather: tweed suits and cravats for the men and silk gowns for the women; derby hats and sunbonnets. The clothes were powdered with dust from the long trip, and the sweat of the day’s heat and the evening’s terror was a dry sheen on bristled and painted faces. Throats pulsed, eyes darted this way and that and tongues licked trembling lips. Low gasps and a single shriek sounded as fear-filled eyes located the bloody pulp of Luke’s head.
“If I may speak on behalf of my fellow passengers, we owe you gentlemen a debt of gratitude.”
The Britisher was least frightened of the elderly passengers. Close to sixty, he was a tall man with a build that was muscle turned to flabbiness. He had the ruddy complexion of a heavy drinker, but his gray eyes were bright and clear. His sideburns were gray, linking up an even thicker mustache that was mottled gray and black. He carried a silver-topped cane in one hand and a drinking flask in the other.
“Thought it was you wanted to surrender, feller,” Edge growled, and spat.
The red-faced man seemed on the point of an angry retort. But he brought himself under control with a slug from the flask. “A man must temper his will to fight if there are ladies who could be further endangered, sir,” he said, very distinctly as he made an effort to keep from slurring.
“You reckon we should hogtie this here bastard?” Augie asked.
“Driver, there has been enough foul language!” the Britisher chided.
“Leave the sidewinding critter to me!”
All attention swept towards Hiram as the kid straightened up from beside the body of his aunt. His eyes were red-rimmed, but if he had cried the sleet had washed the tears from his face, and there was no sound of grief in his harsh tone.
“Get away from behind him!” the youngster ordered Augie.
The wind gusted stronger and the elderly passengers held their hats to their heads.
“A prisoner’s got rights!” the stage driver yelled.
Hiram advanced slowly along the side of the Concord, eyes not blinking against the attack of the minor blizzard. “They killed my kin,” he croaked, and did his two-handed draw.
“Law’ll take care of him!” Augie shouted, but leapt to the side.
“Stop him!” the prisoner shrieked, suddenly trembling. He dropped his hands to his face and dragged off the kerchief. “Please?”
He was about the same age as Hiram, but paler and thinner. There were tears in his dark eyes and as his lips quivered, spittle ran from the corners of his mouth. He thrust out his hands, palms uppermost in a gesture of helplessness.
“Get hung for sure!” Augie yelled.
Hiram showed again his ability to ignore interruptions that didn’t suit him. He continued to advance, alongside the quieted team now, his matched guns leveled at the quaking man.
“Edge!” the ruddy-complexioned foreigner roared. “This must be stopped. The villain must be handed over to the authorities.”
The other passengers were dumbstruck by the menace of a new evil lurking over the carnage that had erupted in the sleet-veiled gorge.
“Got business of my own to attend to,” the half-breed answered evenly, and started to turn away.
“Please!” the ambusher shrieked, and lunged forward.
His aim was to reach whatever protection was offered by the huddle of elderly passengers. All save the Britisher scampered away with choked gasps. The mustached man held his ground, dropped the flask, and yanked at the silver knob of his cane.
“Hold it!” Augie yelled.
The handle snapped away from the cane—and a length of steel blade started out of the wood.
But Hiram’s guns exploded before the sword was clear of its unorthodox scabbard. Edge halted in his half-turn as the ambusher was hit in the hip, twisted with a scream, and went down. The man’s belly took a bullet. Then his chest, left of center. He was dead as he sprawled to his back. But the young dude’s hatred was not quenched until he exploded a final shot into the throat of the corpse.
For a moment, Hiram stood stock still, his red-rimmed eyes empty of expression as they stared at the blood oozing from the dead man. Then excitement and pride were etched into his features as he swept his gaze over the shocked faces of his fellow-passengers. But his new mood did not reach fulfillment until his gaze found the impassive half-breed.
“Hell, he sure got what was coming to him, didn’t he?”
“Figure that’s a matter of opinion, Hiram,” Edge muttered, glancing from the scowl of Augie to the varying degrees of shock expressed by the faces of the passengers.
“Doggone it!” the kid snarled, and spun his guns to the holsters. Then he whirled and lunged toward the Concord.
The Britisher shoved the sword back into the stick and retrieved his flask, to suck greedily at the liquor inside. Augie hurled away the confiscated guns and began to drag Luke’s body from under the team. The men huddled together and spoke soft words while the two women knelt in silent prayer.
“Look what they did to her!” Hiram demanded at the top of his voice, drawing all attention back to himself. “They had to pay! Every last one of them.”
The kid was holding the stiffening corpse of his aunt, her bulk and weight seeming to cause him no problem as he held her out in justification of the murder.
“A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do! Ain’t that what’s said, Edge?”
The half-breed pursed his lips as he turned up his coat collar against the bite of the wind-driven sleet.
“Figure it’s written more than it’s said, Hiram,” he answered evenly.
He turned unsteadily, then bowed stiffly towards the seated half-breed. And belched.
“I reckon I put in my two cents worth!” Hiram claimed as he lowered the body of his aunt to the water-run ground.
“You and Aunt Emma both,” Edge allowed with just the hint of a quiet smile in the set of his mouth line. “Where there’s a will there’s always relatives.”
CHAPTER FOUR
THE wind strengthened and hurled the sleet harder and heavier into the gorge, the ice-cold downpour creating a fast-flowing stream that rushed around the booted feet of the living and washed the crusted blood off the dead. It also hastened preparation for resuming the journey to High Mountain.
But Edge was not aware of this until he returned to the stalled Concord after backtracking out of the gorge to go in search of four horses and a dead man. He found the geldings ground-hobbled a hundred feet back from where the corpse was slumped on the rim of the gorge. He led all the animals down to the coach again, with the stiffening body of the hold-up man lashed to a saddle.
“We thought you had deserted us, sir,” the Britisher called as the half-breed hitched the quartet of horses to a rear spring of the Concord.
“Told ’em you hadn’t,” Augie supplied.
Both were on top of the coach. The baggage had been restacked to clear a space and some of the cases had been opened to provide clothing as makeshift shrouds for the bodies of Luke and the woman. One tightly wrapped form was already lying on the roof. Hiram and a couple of the rich old-timers were in the process of raising the second.
“We just want our own dead, Edge,” the kid growled. “Don’t want what’s left of these varmints.”
“Ain’t what you folks want concerns me,” the half-breed answered as he checked that the horses were securely hitched, then moved towards the corpse of the second man he had killed. “Maybe the law wants these fellers—for a price.”
The shrouded corpse was safely delivered into the hands of the men atop the coach and Hiram suddenly expressed another beaming grin. But it was an expression that no longer held the mildest hint of naive wonder. “What they call bounty money, huh?”
“Right, kid,” Edge confirmed as he began to lash the body to another saddled horse. “And if you feel the calling, those two are yours.”
“Dang it, why didn’t I think of that!” Hiram exclaimed, and whirled to splash through the rising water.
“Son, your father is a millionaire!” the Britisher roared.
“And it’s about time he didn’t have to pay my way no more!” the youngster yelled back, stooping to lift the first man he had killed.
Edge climbed up to the seat vacated by Luke as Augie resumed his accustomed position and bit off a chew of tobacco. All the coach passengers were already inside out of the weather as the Britisher lowered himself to the ground.
“You, sir, are owed a debt by us all!” he proclaimed breathlessly, glaring up through the driving sleet. “But that does not prevent me from thinking that you set an extremely poor example to that young man. He is becoming a younger shadow of you. Why, he’s even talking like you!”
“I ain’t owed anything by anybody, feller,” Edge replied evenly without looking at the pompous old man. Then, to Augie: “You want to get this rig rolling? Before it starts to float the wrong way from where we’re headed?”
“I been worryin’ about that myself, young feller,” the driver muttered.
“Worrying never got anybody anywhere,” the half-breed countered.
“Okay, men!” Rydell yelled as he took his place on the roof and the Britisher climbed into the coach with an angry slam of the door. “All done. Let’s hit the trail. Head ’em up, move ’em out!”
“That’s for cattle,” Augie growled, then kicked off the brake and cracked the reins over the backs of the team.
“Beat a rug! This strip of country sure is packed with a mess of trouble, ain’t it?”
Augie mouthed an obscenity as the Concord jolted forward, the hooves of the team raising spray to add to the sleet beating into the faces of the men on the seat. He steered the horses carefully through the space between the fallen boulder and the gorge wall, then sighed. “Don’t never rain but it pours, son,” he growled.
Edge remained silent, conscious of a deepening sense of resentment he felt towards the young New York dude. The stuffed-shirted Britisher was half-right. When Hiram was not quoting phrases from the worst kind of Western pulp novels, he did ape the half-breed’s way of talking. But more important than this—and it had nothing to do with imitation—the kid’s actions and reactions during the hold-up attempt had been like a frantic tableau from Edge’s own past. And, as Augie skillfully handled the team and Concord against the forceful rush of water, the half-breed was prepared to admit that the foreigner was totally right and possessed the perception to witness the acts of the older man and recognize that once he had been as impetuous and lacking in self-control as the youngster.
Edge hunched lower in the seat and crushed his hat harder onto his head as the Concord lumbered out of the gorge. The wind gusted with unhindered power across a barren mountain slope, as if seeking to wrench the men off the coach; hurled sleet turned to hail with stinging force against their faces.
“The hell with him!” the half-breed rasped.
“Who?” Augie yelled.
Edge hadn’t realized he spoke his uncharitable thought aloud. “Feller with the mustache right around his head,” he muttered.
“He’s from England!” Augie shouted above the howl of the wind. “One of what they call noblemen over there! Lord or somethin’! Got a double-barreled handle!”
“Finn-Jenkins!” Hiram supplied from behind the seat. “Critter’s called a Baron!”
“What’s that you say he’s called, son?” Augie yelled.
“Baron!”
“Damn shame his mother wasn’t,” Edge rasped, more softly, so that the raging of the weather and noise of the rolling coach masked his comment.
Then he shook his head, irritated at himself. The British nobleman had said nothing of which the half-breed was not already aware. He had merely spoken the truth and by so doing had emphasized in Edge’s mind the uncharacteristic ambivalence he felt towards Hiram.
He had gotten to like the kid during the hot and uncomfortable ride through the afternoon: for his naivety and his eagerness to learn. But it was possible to like somebody from a distance, without involvement. Then had come the ambush and, in the process of slaughtering the attackers, the kid had gotten close enough to Edge to pierce the defensive barrier against involvement. They had saved each other’s life and flying lead had forged an affinity.
On the foundation of such an affinity, it was dangerously easy for a relationship to be built: an involvement which, Edge knew from bitter experience, would be doomed to end in tragedy. And he had sworn never to suffer that brand of anguish again—until his cruel ruling fate proved once more that even his firmest intentions were destined to fail.
So the resentment had been born.
The storm ended more suddenly than it had begun. As the Concord crawled sluggishly higher into the mountains, the sleet and hail area was driven away to the south. The norther died with a final mournful howl of defeat and the high clouds raced for a minute or so more, then began to swirl slowly and break up across the face of an almost full moon. The air became eerily still and starkly clear as blue moonlight gained unobscured access to the mountain landscape. Frost crystals started to sparkle, more brightly than the folds of snow draped atop the highest peaks.
“Well, I’ll be!” the kid gasped, gazing around in wonder at the cold beauty of the bleak scene spread out on all sides.
“You�
�ll be what, Hiram?” Edge growled.
“It’s beautiful! Beats anything was ever painted on a book cover.”
“All I know is it’s damn cold!” Augie rasped as the Concord gained the level ground through a rock-strewn pass. He yelled at the team and cracked the reins. The horses responded eagerly to the command for speed. “Beats me why folks want to come up to this Godforsaken place to listen to a fiddle player!”
“Rollo Stone is the greatest violinist in the world,” Hiram argued, reverting to his cultured New York accent. “And he composes all his own pieces. People go wild about him. Especially the women. And there are going to be others at High Mountain. The Alice Cooper Choir and Robert Dillon, the famous baritone. As well as the Jefferson Surrey Orchestra. Lots of other famous musicians, too. Why, it’s going to be the finest festival of music ever staged.”
Edge glanced over his shoulder and saw that Hiram had donned a warm coat that completely covered him from neck to ankles as he sat cross-legged on the swaying roof of the Concord. It was buttoned to the throat and its fur collar was turned up. The white ten gallon hat, stained by mud and somebody’s blood, looked incongruous atop his youthful face.
The youngster seemed to be embarrassed by the half-breed’s empty gaze, and showed a nervous grin. There was not a hint in his appearance or manner that he had recently murdered two helpless men. “I like music almost as much as reading,” he explained, making it sound like an excuse.
“Supposed to be better for kids than hanging around poolrooms,” Edge allowed sardonically.
“There she is, folks!” Augie yelled with audible relief. “End of the line.”
The half-breed swung his head around to face front as the coach sped through the pass and its bulky driver hauled on the reins to slow the team for a tight curve on the other side. Heads were thrust from windows to catch a first glimpse of the Concord’s destination.
EDGE: Rhapsody in Red (Edge series Book 21) Page 4