The man outside reached the top of the stairs, broke stride, and fisted a hand around the knob. Edge allowed him to turn it, then closed his grip and yanked at the door.
Below in the saloon, the two Devil’s Disciples thudded their feet against the floor boarding. The sound covered the small yell of surprise that was vented by the man on the outside stairway.
“Edge!” Hiram yelled in warning as the two gunmen started up the inner stairs.
The man outside was jerked across the threshold—for an instant his left hand as tight around the doorknob as his right was fisted on the butt of his drawn Colt.
“No introductions necessary, kid,” the half-breed muttered as his right arm swung toward the shocked face of the Devil’s Disciple.
As he spoke the final syllable of the last word, his victim released the hold on the doorknob. But the man had no time to get off a shot. He was folded forward from the waist, his head held up to stare at the half-crouched form of Edge silhouetted against the saloon lights. This attitude exposed the full length of his neck, from the point of the jaw to the top of his kerchief.
The sharpened point of the blade sank into the skin just below the Adam’s apple. It drove deep to slice through the jugular vein and puncture the windpipe. The man’s gasp ended with a moist gurgle and he fell to his knees as he dropped the Colt. He lived for a moment more, to stare regretfully up into the impassive face of his killer. Then he tilted to the side and toppled, his own weight drawing him off the deadly blade. His death rattle powered a great gush of blood from the wound as the unorthodox weapon came clear of the flesh.
“Hey, Yale!” Sokalski yelled as he raced up the stairs and Edge snatched up the Winchester. “The bastard’s in here, Yale!”
The half-breed’s lips curled back and his eyes narrowed to glinting slits as he stepped over the corpse slumped on the threshold. “Seems your buddies are going to reach deadlock,” he rasped.
Bright moonlight bathed the back lots of the buildings lining the southern side of the street, but it was patterned with contrasting patches of deep shadow. Beyond, the rising ground of the basin offered little cover except the growing crops of wheat and sugar beet.
The wind rippled the plantings like the waves of a dry sea. Closer, it lifted and swirled the litter of town-living around the corners of the buildings. But nothing more substantial than this was moving until Edge ignored the canting stairway and leapt down from the outside landing. He hit the ground surefooted, legs bent and braced to absorb the impact, then powered forward as part of the same fluid movement.
For part of a second, he saw a man in silhouette through a rear window of the saloon: facing the window to peer out across the back lot. A man so tall that he had to go down into a deep stoop to see beneath the lintel.
Then Edge ducked onto the rear porch of the meeting hall, pumping the action of the Winchester as he withdrew into the shadows. Behind him, the wind obliterated his footprints in the dust an instant after he had made them. And a moment after he gained cover, three horsemen galloped their mounts from around the side of the stage-line office, one of them leading a riderless animal. All four raised a cloud of dust as they skidded to a halt at the foot of the stairway. The moaning norther snatched at the billowing particles and hurled them out across the fields.
The three riders were encased in ankle-length coats and their horses were a mixture of grays and chestnuts, geldings and mares. The narrowed eyes of the half-breed recognized a chestnut gelding as one of the horses that had been brought to High Mountain behind the Concord coach. Then, as the men looked up toward the head of the stairs, he recognized two faces: the tooth picker and the solitaire player who had been in the saloon when he first entered.
Another man appeared on the landing and peered down. “Grummond?”
“Who friggin’ else?”
“The bastard’s killed Yale! Slit his friggin’ throat, frig it!”
All four snapped their heads from side to side, worried eyes raking over the shadowed buildings. Edge pressed his back against the meeting-hall door and loosened his double-handed grip of the Winchester held slantwise across his chest. But the searching eyes failed to spot him.
“So Yale makes it look even better,” Grummond called up. “You got him?”
“What you want him for?” the man replied, surprised.
“Stone, dummy!” Grummond snarled.
“Sokalski’s handlin’ it. I better cover him!”
He stepped back inside, over the corpse of Yale, while Grummond remained in the saddle—a hand resting on his booted rifle and his eyes resuming the careful search of the buildings—and the other two men dismounted. One of these started up the stairway as the other lifted a lariat from his own horse and moved to the spare mount.
Edge remained unmoving in the shadows, his lean features set in impassive lines that betrayed nothing of what he was thinking.
There was shouting inside the Peaks Saloon and Hotel and out on the street beyond, but the sounds created by the wind blurred the words.
Sokalski stepped out onto the landing, a nightshirt-clad form draped across his arms. He came down the stairway and transferred his burden to the other man.
“I don’t like it we ain’t got that bastard Edge, Sol,” the man complained. “He could be watchin’ us right now.”
“He’s long gone, or Ben’ll handle him,” Sokalski snarled. “You guys just get this jerk up to the Hole and do like you’re supposed to!”
He swung around, raced to the top of the steps and stooped to pick up Yale before disappearing inside the building. The slumped, unconscious form of Rollo Stone was carried to the ground and, while Grummond cursed at the others to hurry, was lashed to the saddle of the spare mount. Then the two men swung astride their horses. The animals were jerked into a turn, then heeled into a gallop—due south from the rear of the building, pumping hooves trampling the crops until the kidnappers veered to the side and raced up the trail toward the distant pass.
Edge watched them for a few moments, then tried the door of the meeting hall. It was unlocked and swung open under gentle pressure. Inside, the cold air still smelled of cigar smoke, liquor, and perfume from the dance. Moonlight through the windows showed an empty central space with chair-ringed tables enclosing it. The half-breed’s long legs carried him fast to one of the windows flanking the double front doors of the hall’s main entrance. He lifted the window just a fraction, to admit a biting stream of colder air . . . and the sounds of the latest disturbance to hit High Mountain this troubled night.
He reached his vantage point in time to see Ben Tallis lunge from the doorway of the law office in response to a shout from Sokalski.
“The bastard’s got Stone, Ben! Him and some others! They killed Yale!”
As the massive figure of Tallis came to a halt in the center of the street, the rear door of the meeting hall swung open. Edge tightened his grip on the Winchester, but turned just his head to look over his shoulder. Another big man stepped out onto the moonlit former dance floor.
“Only me, cousin,” Fyson drawled.
“Figured it might be,” Edge answered, and resumed his watch on the street.
“Saw you and what happened. Through the window. Got out the same window. Nobody saw me. Except you, I guess.”
He advanced nonchalantly toward the half-breed, arms curled around his back and big hands thrust deep into his hip pockets.
“For a man that came looking for a big game, you sure got into a rough one, cousin,” the former sheriff continued blandly.
“Tallis started this deal long before I showed up, feller,” Edge answered. “Seems I’m just a side bet he plans to take along with the pot.”
“Yeah, cousin,” Fyson agreed as he towered over the tall Edge for a moment, then stooped to peer out the window. “I been waiting for something like this to happen, ever since that bunch got here—Ben Tallis being what he is.”
“What is he?” the half-breed asked as the ugly leader of the
vigilantes was joined at the center of the street by Sokalski. “Apart from an ugly bastard—and I ain’t one to hold the way a man looks against him.”
“One-time buffalo hunter until the Comanches carved him up for killing a squaw. Then a peace officer up in some town in Northern California. Got his badge taken away for hanging a man before the trial.”
Tallis and Sokalski were engaged in deep conversation, most of it about a sheet of paper the latter had brought out of the saloon.
“Had six deputies that got fired along with him. Went on a hell-raising spree from one end of the state to the other. Didn’t commit no bad crimes. Just raised Cain—and the small army you seen here in High Mountain.”
“I figure this joker’s part of it, Ben!” the other Devil’s Disciple who had been in the saloon yelled. “Shouted a warnin’ that we was comin’ after Edge.”
Hiram Rydell stumbled into the field of vision from the window. The black-garbed man moved up behind him, still aiming the two silver-plated Colts he had used to shove the youngster forward.
“Started to hire himself and his men out,” Fyson went on in the same flat tone of voice as Edge vented a low grunt of irritation. “Guards, escorts, private policing jobs. High charges, and something always went wrong—but worked so no blame falls on Tallis and his bunch. And always some killings or bad beatings to keep down the rumors.”
“I ain’t no two-bit kidnapper!” Hiram snarled as he pulled up short in front of Tallis and Sokalski.
“I know you’re not, punk!” Tallis yelled, and once more swung his head from side to side to direct his harsh voice along the length of the street. He held the piece of paper high and waved it violently, clutching it tight against the tug of the wind. “This here ransom note prices you higher than that!”
Tallis was playing to an audience again, but this time he did not allow even a momentary grin to alter the lines of the grim expression etched into the tortured flesh of his face.
“Fifty thousand dollars!” he roared toward the crowd approaching from one end of the street, then swung to look in the opposite direction—from where more shocked, weary-eyed people were advancing. “Fifty thousand dollars! That’s what this guy Edge and his helpers are demanding for the return of Rollo Stone!” He glowered at Hiram, and the young dude’s veneer of toughness showed cracks under the strain of holding the vicious gaze.
Then the kid finally managed to tear his eyes away from the trap of the enraged glower and he wrenched his head from side to side and stared back over his shoulder. The advancing crowds were swelling in size by the moment, as more people emerged from the buildings. Lamplight shafting from almost every window and doorway in town turned night into day: bright enough so that nobody noticed when storm clouds raced across the sky to blot out the moon.
“Has to make it look like he’s on the side of the law,” the ex-sheriff drawled. “So he can get another job for his bunch. Takes more organization, but it beats being your hit-and-run type outlaw, huh cousin? Tallis is a real smart feller.”
“One might say positively devilish, sir,” Baron Finn-Jenkins called softly.
Both Edge and Fyson started to turn, the half-breed swinging the rifle and the taller man going for his Remington. Then they recognized the familiar cultured tones of the Britisher, froze, and relaxed as they returned their attention to the street.
“It’s proof of what I claimed!” Tallis bellowed to his audience of townspeople and visitors, with a sprinkling of his own men spread amongst them. “The kidnappers struck while my protection was lifted from High Mountain! Let it be a lesson to you people! But don’t you fret about young Stone, you hear? Me and my men are back in business! And the man you all came to see will be back here to play for you tomorrow! You have the word of Ben Tallis on that!”
He brought both hands down to his sides, then nodded toward the law office and rasped an order at Sokalski and another at the man behind Hiram. Sokalski spun to head back toward the saloon while Hiram was forced across to the law office, his own fancy guns held hard against the small of his back.
“All you folks return to your beds!” Tallis yelled. “You won’t be disturbed no more tonight!”
Then he turned to stride in the wake of Hiram and the kid’s captor. For a few moments, the watchers remained where they were. Then the first spots of icy rain were flung down at them, and this did more than the urgings of the Devil’s Disciples to send the crowds of people scurrying back toward warmth and shelter.
This first flurry of wetness turned abruptly to a downpour of sleet, falling as hard and thick as during the storm among the high peaks.
But before the weather drew a constantly moving curtain along the street, the watchers at the meeting-hall window saw the first three moves which opened the next phase of Tallis’s plan: First, as the Britisher crouched down between Edge and Fyson, the Devil’s Disciples who had been left in stark isolation on the street as the crowds broke up once more fanned out to recommence their search of the town’s buildings. Then, in the law office, Hiram Rydell swung round to face Ben Tallis. The man behind the kid shoved him hard in the back and Hiram was flung forward. Hiram’s mouth gaped in fear, then was crunched closed as Tallis’s fist smashed into his jaw. The young dude staggered backward, and collapsed into the open arms of the man behind him. He was hauled toward the door to the cellblock. Blood trickled down from both corners of his mouth. Finally, Sokalski emerged from the saloon, followed by the dapper-dressed Duke Box, and both ducked their heads against the wind-driven sleet as they hurried across the street.
“You don’t look like the kind that moves the way a hunting Apache does, feller,” Edge muttered as he shifted his gaze to the Baron. His hooded eyes still glinted more brightly than usual—with the fires of a cold anger that had erupted at the sight of Hiram Rydell going down under the brutal attack.
As the three men drew themselves erect at the window, the rigid stance of the Britisher and the man’s grim expression gave no hint that he had been close to falling down drunk a few minutes ago.
“And you do not look the kind to allow his judgment to be clouded by a foolish young boy, sir,” the Baron replied distinctly. “Just as, until now, Sheriff Fyson showed no sign of being a man of action. But appearances can be deceptive, can they not?”
“I was damn sure nobody saw me, goddamn it!”
“Only I, sir,” the Baron assured. “And I was late in joining you because I needed to be certain nobody saw me. All attention was diverted to the street.”
“What’s your interest, cousin?” Fyson demanded.
“I would suggest we find a more secure place than this to discuss matters of mutual interest, gentlemen. Those thugs in black are not wandering about in this foul weather because they enjoy it.”
“He talks funny, but he talks sense,” Fyson drawled with a meaningful look at Edge. “Tallis won’t have this wrapped up tight until you’re dead, cousin.”
“Quite so,” the Britisher agreed. “I think the first thing to do is leave town for a place where we may plan our campaign.”
“Wrong, cousin,” Fyson countered. “First thing we do is get us a Tallis man and find out where they took Stone.”
“Place called the Hole,” Edge supplied.
Fyson grinned. “Livermore Hole?”
“Just said the Hole, feller.”
The Britisher smiled now. “Very well. We can make our way there, recover the unfortunate Mr. Stone, and then plan our next move.”
His glance toward the half-breed invited agreement.
“Seems there ain’t a lot of mutual interest, feller,” Edge replied, moving from the window to the front door of the meeting hall. “Aim to spring Hiram out of jail before I do anything else.”
The Baron sighed. “Not a very auspicious start to our alliance,” he complained.
“Ain’t that what a musical event like an open air festival is all about?” Edge said as he pulled open one of the two doors.
“How’s that, cousin?�
� the towering Fyson drawled.
The half-breed glanced over his shoulder as he stepped out into the storm. “Everyone doing his own thing.”
CHAPTER NINE
THE few lighted windows and the many lanterns that were strung overhead were disembodied patches of blurred brightness through the wind-driven sleet. Edge and the two men who followed him out of the meeting hall were like wraiths as they moved to the center of the street.
Neither Fyson nor Baron Finn-Jenkins had anything to fear from the prowling Devil’s Disciples—unless they were seen with the half-breed. But the center of the broad thoroughfare was probably the safest place in town to hold a hurried discussion—for as long as the minor blizzard continued to billow its wet curtain of falling sleet around the trio. The men searching nervously for Edge were concentrating their attention on the more obvious hiding places among the flanking buildings.
It was the Britisher who did most of the talking, his lips moving fast beneath the bushy mustache turned white by clinging sleet. When he was finished, the half-breed vented a grunt of acknowledgement.
“Sounds all right, cousin,” Fyson said.
Then they split up and in a moment were lost to each other’s sight. Fyson took long, easy strides toward the front of the law office. The Baron, dropping back into his pose as a drunk, weaved along the center of the street before veering in the direction of the livery. Edge went into the alley between the law office and the church, cocked rifle canted to his shoulder and right hand scratching the side of his jaw—six inches from the handle of the razor nestled against the nape of his neck.
He heard the door of the office open, then the even drawl of Fyson’s voice.
“Evening, cousins. Just come over to see if I can help any. On account of—”
The door closed to curtail the ex-lawman’s offer and to mask whatever responses greeted it.
Edge moved silently and quickly down the length of the alley, empty now of the Concord and horses. He stayed close to the stone wall of the office, then the cell block, narrowed eyes peering through the storm-lashed darkness and ears strained to catch the slightest sound not caused by the blizzard.
EDGE: Rhapsody in Red (Edge series Book 21) Page 10