EDGE: Rhapsody in Red (Edge series Book 21)

by George G. Gilman

  “Hey, it’s damned cold enough already!” Virginia snarled.

  Edge ignored her as the familiar sounds of a rolling stage were borne into the room on the cold stream of air.

  Across the street, the lawman had swung open his office door and stepped out onto the sidewalk. Edge eased the window wider and pushed his head through. As his face felt the icy touch of the mountain air, his slitted eyes raked the length of the street. He counted eleven black-garbed Devil’s Disciples emerging from the shadows and then striding toward the hotel.

  At the western end of town, lamps were lit again, to supplement the light of fires and from the moon. Shouts were raised and people appeared. The Tallis men quickened their pace. The fast-moving stage rounded a bend in the trail where it cut through the tent town. Excited, half-dressed people scurried out of its path: then sprinted and stumbled in its wake as the driver worked to bring down the headlong pace of the team on High Mountain’s street.

  Lamplight began to shaft from the windows of the flanking buildings and doors were jerked open. Silhouetted forms clad in nightclothes peered out toward the source of the noisy excitement.

  Below Edge’s vantage point, the batswings were pushed open and held—by the two Devil’s Disciples who had been killing time with cards and tooth picking. The gunmen from the shadows, studded lettering on their backs glinting in the overhead lamps, formed into two single files from the entrance a quarter way across the street.

  “What’s the ruckus?” the whore wanted to know, climbing from the bed and draping a blanket over her nakedness.

  “Looking’s still free in this town,” the half-breed replied, shifting so that she could see down into the street.

  The big coach juddered to a halt outside the saloon and its nearside door swung open. Each Devil’s Disciple raised a hand to fist a jutting gun butt. The excited crowd of out-of-towners, joined by a number of local citizens, broke from the strung-out throng behind the coach to swarm around it. The noise—of shouts, shrieks, cheers, and hand clapping—was louder than the earlier din of merrymaking that had been spread throughout town. For it was now concentrated in one small area as the crowd pressed hard against the towering forms of the Devil’s Disciples who had moved to close a defensive circle around the coach.

  The black-garbed men snarled warnings at the excited sightseers. But they were ignored—perhaps not heard above the tumult of other voices. And nobody looked into the gunmen’s grim faces, for all eyes were directed at the coach.

  “That’s Tallis!” Virginia yelled, going up on her toes to put her lips close to his ear.

  The leader of the Devil’s Disciples had appeared at the open doorway of the coach, and the big vehicle tilted to one side as he put his weight onto the top step. Dressed in the same somber style as his men, he was a good deal older, taller than most of them, and bigger built than all. Close to fifty, he was grotesquely ugly, the lamplight shining on a face that emanated evil. The forehead was low, above deep-sunk dark eyes. The flesh of the cheeks hung in sacs, flanking a misshapen nose. His mouth was a long slash between bloodless lips, the jaw beneath pushed off center by an old break that had not set back into its original line. The skin tone was the color of unbaked dough-inscribed a dozen times on forehead, cheeks, and jaw with the livid scars of ancient knife wounds. His head was square-shaped on a short neck between massive shoulders. Below, his torso seemed squat and disproportionate to his long, thick legs.

  “The kind that stands out in a crowd,” Edge muttered as Ben Tallis thrust his muscular arms high into the air, then turned from the waist in both directions to survey the noisy crush of people.

  “Six times meaner than he looks,” the whore shouted in the half-breed’s ear. “Got a whole lot more scars all over his body. Comanches did it and left him for dead.”

  “Likely that changes a man’s point of view,” Edge allowed as Tallis’s unspoken demand for silence was obeyed.

  “Hear tell he wasn’t no Sunday-school teacher before the Injuns got to him,” Virginia said, and whispered now, for the moaning of the wind had become the only sound again.

  “My friends!” Tallis roared, his voice as harsh to listen to as his face to look at. “They are here and you will see them! But we must have restraint! My men are charged with the protection of all! You and those who will entertain you!”

  As he spoke, displaying perfect teeth in what might have been a grin or a scowl, he continued to swing back and forth and rake his searching eyes over the eager faces of the watchers. The sheened back of his buckskin jacket was studded with the letters of his name.

  “So keep your enthusiasm for the next three days, my friends!” he went on. “And let us not have any unseeming incident to mar the arrival of Mr. Rollo Stone!”

  As he spoke the name of the festival’s main attraction. he leapt to the street. And another figure appeared in the doorway. Tall, slim, and youthful with a pale, angular face that expressed anxiety as roars and shrieks of greeting burst from more than two hundred throats. The young man snapped his head from side to side, then nodded at something Tallis yelled at him and shouted something of his own back into the coach before springing to the ground.

  Three other youngsters stumbled over each other as they hurried out and rushed in the wake of Stone. The tumult of shouting rose in volume and the coach rocked as the crowd pressed closer. Then a barrage of abuse and warning was vented from the pulsing throats of the Devil’s Disciples as they linked arms to hold back the crush.

  The driver leapt down from his high seat and joined Tallis in helping to control the frenzied admirers of the musicians.

  “Oh, no!” the whore gasped. “Look!”

  Edge didn’t need her shaking hand to direct his attention toward the weak link in the human chain of gunmen. He had already spotted the fear in the face of one of the Devil’s Disciples—then seen the man snatch his arm from around the waist of the black-garbed figure beside him: and go for his gun.

  Stone and his group were in a bunch, about to step up onto the sidewalk, when the protective ring was broken. The men to either side of the gap were pushed aside by the weight of the pressing crowd. Then, as the massive figure of Ben Tallis charged forward to close the opening, all but one woman held back.

  She was a heavily built matron with her hair in curlers and a quilted robe wrapped around her bulky form. With an agile swerve and bob, she evaded the outstretched curve of Tallis’s arm and lunged toward the quartet of musicians.

  The group had halted momentarily on the sidewalk, to glance fearfully back as the break in the line was greeted by a renewed burst of frenzied sound.

  In an instant, the noise was silenced—save only for a choked moan trailing from the matron’s gaping mouth as she hurled herself toward Stone.

  The blond youngster screamed, perhaps mistaking the woman’s expression of hysterical adoration for a snarl of hatred. Fear rooted him where he stood and he could only thrust out his arms in a meek gesture of defense.

  The gunman who had panicked whirled free of the line, and drew his Colt.

  “Don’t, Nye!” Ben Tallis roared.

  The crowd ceased to surge forward.

  Sheriff Fyson leapt down from the opposite sidewalk and started to sprint across the street.

  The matron clasped Stone’s outstretched hands and fell hard to her knees. The three men around Stone clutched at his clothing as the woman tipped him toward her.

  The Devil’s Disciple squeezed the trigger of his Colt and its report silenced the start of a new vocal outburst. As a spray of crimson exploded from the back of the matron’s head, she relinquished her grip on Stone’s hands and prostrated herself at his feet Stone screamed again—a strangled cry of horror—and was hauled upright by his colleagues.

  The crowd backed away, those at the forefront again jostled by others at the back seeking a clearer view of death on the single street of High Mountain.

  “Get inside!” Tallis roared at the quartet of musicians, then swung toward th
e killer as his order was obeyed. “You crazy lunkhead!” he yelled, and drew his own gun.

  “Hold it!” the sheriff snarled.

  He had forced a way through the crowd and taken long strides around the rear of the stage. His Remington was out and as he came to a halt and issued the command, he swung the gun between Tallis and the man who fired the shot.

  “Real law business, goddamn it, Tallis!” He lowered his voice without taking any menace out of his words. “I warned you, cousin. I warned you, goddamn it. No killing of innocent people!”

  Rage made Tallis uglier than ever: twisting his mouth line, giving his dark eyes an evil glow and causing the slack, knife-scarred flesh of his cheeks to quiver. But he directed it for only part of a second toward Fyson. Then, pushing his half-drawn Colt back into the holster, he concentrated his powerful glower toward the shocked gunman. He did not utter a word or even lean closer to the luckless Devil’s Disciple. But the man read a volume of meaning in the face and was transformed into a trembling wreck who bore no resemblance to his rigidly waiting partners.

  “We’ll discuss the matter, High Fy,” Tallis said at length, bringing his emotions under control and turning toward the sheriff. “Seems like a mistake was made.”

  “He can be real smooth when it suits him,” the whore whispered to Edge.

  The half-breed ignored her as he rolled a cigarette from the makings taken from his shirt pocket.

  “Get discussed in the meeting hall when circuit judge holds court there, cousin,” Fyson drawled. “Week from Thursday.” He jerked the Remington toward the woman’s killer. “Drop the gun and move over to the law office, cousin.”

  “Ben, you ain’t gonna let me go to jail?”

  Tallis shifted his dark-eyed gaze toward his man, then looked beyond him as footfalls thudded hard against the saloon threshold.

  “I’m backing you up against these varmints, sheriff!” Hiram Rydell growled.

  “Crazy kid,” Edge muttered as he lit the cigarette.

  Tallis became the latest man to view Hiram’s outlandish clothes with scorn. Then he sighed as he looked back toward Fyson. The sheriff had shown no reaction to Hiram’s appearance from the saloon.

  “It was a mistake, High Fy,” Tallis insisted softly.

  “And we’ll discuss it before a week from Thursday, I’m thinking. But you can take in my boy for now.”

  There were sounds of disapproval from the ring of black-garbed figures, and a gasp of dismay from the man at the center of the trouble. Tallis silenced the noise with an all-encompassing glare.

  “Like I told the man!” he snapped. “We’ll talk it over about what Nye done. Law office’s gotta be a better place than out here on the street with a norther set to blow!”

  Another glare around the faces of the Devil’s Disciples produced nods of agreement. And Nye even started to form a knowing grin as he dropped his gun. But the expression was driven off his features by the heavy menace emanated by Tallis’s eyes. Then the ugly leader of the vigilantes thrust his hands high in the air again and swung back and forth to address the crowd.

  “All right, friends,” he said grimly. “It’s been real tragic, but let’s all learn from it. I asked you all to contain yourselves, didn’t I? Be grateful now if you’d all return to your beds. Rest up and prepare yourself for the wonderful three days ahead of you. And let’s hope the fine music you’re gonna hear will help blot out of your minds what just happened here. Off you go, folks!”

  He had yanked his hat brim low to shadow the burning emotion of his eyes. And his voice now had a soothing quality that was totally at odds with his previous demeanor.

  The crowd responded to his plea, the people withdrawing from in front of the saloon to move with mournful slowness back to where they had come from—with the exception of Harvey Danby, who advanced to stoop beside the inert woman with the shattered skull.

  “Dead as all get out,” the mortician reported to Fyson.

  The sheriff sighed and nodded.

  Tallis waved a hand as a sign of dispersal for his men, and all save Nye and another black-garbed figure moved away.

  “That’s Sokalski,” Virginia told Edge. “Probably gonna tell his boss about you.”

  “Let’s us mosey on over to the cells,” Hiram growled, stepping down from the sidewalk and aiming both silver-plated guns at Nye.

  “What in hell is that?” Tallis asked, interrupting the stream of whispered words Sokalski was pouring into his ear. He had pushed his hat on to the back of his head, to show that his eyes were brimming with more rage than ever. But his slash of a mouth was screwed into the line of a sneer as he pointed at Hiram.

  “Young feller with a lot of guts, cousin,” the lawman answered.

  “And no damn sense,” Edge muttered.

  Tallis vented a harsh laugh. “You’re gonna need a lot more and a lot older if you figure to hold Nye, High Fy.”

  “You and your varmints don’t scare us none!” Hiram countered. He jabbed his guns into Nye’s back. “Move it, critter. Right on over to the slammer.”

  Nye did so, but only after he had looked at Tallis and received a nod. Fyson scooped up the discarded murder gun before using his long strides to catch up with the prisoner and escort.

  Tallis and his first lieutenant entered the saloon, the ugly man’s face becoming totally captured by rage again as he heard Sokalski’s report of the earlier shootings in High Mountain.

  The stage driver began to off-load the roof baggage as the town mortician reappeared on the street, trundling a pushcart toward the sprawled corpse of the woman. After the law-office doorway had slammed closed, the squeak of the pushcart’s wheels and the moan of the wind became the only competing sounds as lighted windows began to darken.

  “No offense, but I’d rather not be close to you when Tallis evens the score,” Virginia muttered grimly.

  Edge flicked his half-smoked cigarette out into the wind and lifted his rifle from against the wall. “My trouble and nobody else’s. Leave my stuff here?”

  She shrugged, then grinned. “For that two dollars I owe you?”

  He nodded. “But my loss is yours, if the gear goes missing. Who’s that?”

  As he closed the window, a middle-aged short, rotund, round-faced man in a high hat, stiff collar, and city suit emerged nervously from the stage.

  The whore glanced down at him and broadened her grin. “Guy who organized this whole festival shindig. He don’t look it, but he’s the best customer we whores got in this town—when he ain’t in a high-stakes poker game. Name’s Duke Box.”

  “Obliged for your help, ma’am,” the half-breed told her as he crossed to the door.

  “You gonna stir up more trouble, Mr. Edge?” Virginia asked anxiously. “Because if you are, I reckon I’ll hang around in the room for a while.”

  “Handle it if it happens,” he answered. “But just aim to win me some money at poker is all. And if that feller likes high stakes, maybe I’ll give Duke Box a play.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THE saloon was still crowded beneath the cloud of blue tobacco smoke—but only with hard drinkers and heavy gamblers. Rollo Stone and the other three members of his ensemble had retired to their rooms after the long trip from Denver. And neither Ben Tallis nor any of his men were among those lined at the bar or seated at the tables.

  But the trouble which would inevitably come to a violent head between the tall half-breed and the black-garbed gunmen was obviously on the mind of everyone who watched Edge descend the stairway. For even though all returned immediately to low-voiced conversation or to cards after glancing briefly at him, Edge read the mixture of anxiety and excited anticipation in their eyes.

  A way was cleared for him to the bar, and the sweating owner of the place hurriedly supplied him with a beer and a whiskey. Edge knew that, for once, it was not merely the latent menace which he always carried with him that caused the nervous shuffling aside. Of greater concern to those who moved from him was the knowledge t
hat one or more than a dozen guns might blast lead toward them at any moment.

  “Obliged,” he told the man behind the bar as he offered payment and tipped the hard liquor into the foamed beer.

  As he slowly sipped the drink, the noise level in the saloon returned to what it had been before he was spotted on the stairway, and the spaces on either side of him were filled—by a washed and shaved Augie on the right and the swaying, almost purple-faced British Baron on the left.

  “I warned you, young feller,” the stage driver reminded with a rueful shake of his head. “That Tallis and his bunch ain’t the kind to tangle with. And all over gettin’ a damn horse from one side of the street to the other.” He chewed on a wad of tobacco. “Gotta be better reasons than that for dyin’.”

  “The two men who attempted to stop him considered it worthwhile,” the Britisher countered. Although he had to lean heavily on the bar to keep from falling, his speech was no longer slurred. “Not that it was merely the matter of the horse, I feel. There was the question of the pointing guns, was there not?”

  “It bother you fellers?” Edge asked evenly, shifting his slitted eyes from one man to the other.

  Augie shrugged. “Like to see the whole damn Tallis bunch dead, mister. But that’ll take more than just one man to do. Even a man like you.”

  “I am merely interested in such a man as you, sir,” the Baron said. “I am something of a student of human nature and I have never come across anybody like you before. Even when I served for Her Majesty’s forces in India. I saw many who placed little value on human life—including their own. But all had a streak of madness in them. You, sir, are completely sane and as such there is a logical reason for everything you do. Which goes beyond such matters as weapons aimed at you and the need to move a horse from one point to another.”

  “My business, feller,” Edge said, finishing the laced beer.

  The Baron nodded. “I realize that. And I do not question you, sir. But I trust you do not object to my studying you?”