‘Obliged.’
‘Didn’t even give me a damn cent after…’ Her voice trailed away as she saw that the gelding was moving, steered off the main trail and on to the spur. ‘Hey, Apaches won’t be in town no more!’ she called. ‘You want to take me in with you, mister?’
‘Never did take a ride with a whore,’ the half-breed answered. ‘Don’t aim to start.’
‘I said you was mean, didn’t I?’ she snarled, hiking up the hem of her nightgown and starting to trail him on foot.
‘Didn’t deny it,’ he replied with his back to her.
Although the trail cut a hairpin route up the slope, the incline was still steep. The gelding, allowed to make his own pace, climbed faster than the whore.
‘Wouldn’t cost you a damn thing!’ she yelled breathlessly after a stumbling run had failed to close the gap. She halted, panting. The mounted man turned another sharp bend. Meg Richards dropped to her haunches and squinted upwards. ‘The Sullivan bunch are mean bastards!’ she shrieked. ‘But I’ve come up against worse. But you top the damn lot, mister! And I’ve worked some of the toughest places in the country. Hays, Ellsworth, Newton, Wichita...’
She ran out of breath to power more words, and fell hard on to her rump, bare legs splayed out from under the nightgown hem. Abruptly, her face brightened, as she looked up and saw that the half-breed had halted his gelding. But then she glowered again, as she saw there was no warmth in the smile that was directed down at her.
‘Could explain something,’ Edge said easily.
‘What’s that?’ she snarled.
‘How them places got to be called cow towns.’
Chapter Seven
MEG RICHARDS had had a long run out of Vintonville, but terror of the Apaches and the coldness of the mountain night would have helped to combat exhaustion - until she thought she was safe. The walk back, in anger and under the blazing sun of a new morning, would probably take more out of her.
But Edge had no part of his mind free to spare a thought for the tough and ill-used whore as he rode over the ridge and peered across a plateau at the small town. The huddle of buildings were sited some two miles away and the morning was already far enough advanced for heat shimmer to blur distant shapes.
Beyond the ridge, the ground fell in a gentle slope, losing perhaps thirty feet in a quarter of a mile. From the foot of the slope, the trail ran arrow-straight towards the town. Small hillocks, scattered boulders, mesquite clumps, cottonwood groves and many varieties of cactus appeared on the arid plateau, providing cover if a man chose to take his time in approaching the town.
Edge remained on the trail, to the foot of the slope and then across the level ground. The heat shimmer closed in like a slick curtain to advance the horizon, but the easy walk of the gelding more than kept pace. And the hooded, slitted eyes of Edge picked out greater detail of Vintonville and its backdrop.
A single-street town of single-storey buildings made of adobe and frame and even sod. A few patches of smoke smudged the over-heated air above the town. Behind it was a long, low bluff.
Closer still, he saw man-made tunnel entries in the base of the bluff. Recently made, just as the buildings were recently erected. The sun glinted on the narrow-gauge rail tracks that emerged from some of the tunnels. Small trucks were backed up against the hand winches used to haul them out of the openings. Several wagons were parked under the bluff, empty and with no teams in the traces.
The familiar, canopied, high tandem gig was parked on the town’s street. As empty as the wagons and with the horses out of the shafts. It stood, canted on to its shafts, at the edge of the boardwalk in front of the largest building in town.
As he rode past the town marker, Vintonville - Elevation 3,000 ft - Welcome Stranger, Edge saw it was the only building that was not a private home. He also saw evidence of the Apache attack.
Bullet scars in adobe. Arrows and one lance jutting out of timber. A pile of ashes and charred beams that had once been a house. The dark brown stains of dried blood in the dust of the street. In the same dust, ejected shell cases, and a confusion of tracks: unshod ponies, the imprints of moccasins, bare feet and factory-made boots. Clearly cutting across all these were the ruts left by the fat man’s buggy.
But there were no dead in sight - human or animal. And the air held no taint of death. Just the scent of wood smoke mingled with cooking food. The only sound was the clop of the gelding’s hooves.
The smoke rose from a chimney at the rear of the large building. Eyes watched the newcomer from behind the glass windows of this building. Few of the houses had the luxury of glass. Many were still shuttered. Edge sensed no living thing in the gloom behind the unshuttered windows of the houses.
Rigid inside his casual outer shell, every muscle tensed for action, he reined in the gelding diagonally across the street, from the largest building. It stretched for half the length of the street’s eastern side. There were two signs on the roof, their painted lettering faded and peeled by weather, Miner’s Rest Hotel and Vintonville Store. Beneath one was a pair of batswing doors. There was a one-piece, full-length wooden door under the other. Sun flashed on the clear-glass panes of the windows, effectively hiding the faces of the watchers.
Edge draped his hands over the saddle-horn and raked his narrowed eyes along the lengthy facade of the dual-business premises. He had halted his horse at the mouth of a narrow entry between a soddy house and an adobe one.
‘Sullivan’s law!’ the fat man said evenly, shattering the tense silence that had lasted for five seconds after the gelding was halted. ‘I wanted us to meet again, and I got it.’
The half-breed’s impassive expression did not flicker in a single line. He merely zeroed his glinting stare on the batswing doors. Then eased a foot from a stirrup. The two houses would not provide the best cover in the world. But, when a man elected to act the way Edge did, he had to take what was available.
‘You got something I want, feller.’
Edge’s muscles coiled tighter. The batswings had started to open. But then he remained firmly in the saddle. The doors swung slowly, creaking on dry hinges. What pushed them was Sullivan’s bulbous belly. His revolver was in the holster and he didn’t carry the Winchester. Both his hands were busy. One scratching his chest inside his shirt, while the fingers of the other ran back and forth along his bushy moustache.
‘You done right to stay easy, Edge,’ the fat man said in the same even tone. ‘I ain’t the bushwhackin’ kind. Never friggin’ have been. ’Ceptin’ when a man’s got more friggin’ firepower than me. What I got you want?’
He had stepped out on to the only strip of boardwalk in town. The doors fluttered closed behind him. Reflected sunlight continued to veil what was behind the windows.
‘My bankroll, feller.’
There had been quiet confidence in the flesh-squeezed green eyes. For a moment, they expressed bewilderment. Then a slow burn of anger. He pursed his lips and spat. ‘You reckoned you’re an honest man, mister,’ he said, his tone brittle now. “And I’m gonna friggin’ believe you. ’ Cause you seen the way I operate.’
‘You’re a real expert with a knife, feller,’ Edge allowed.
Sullivan ignored the comment. ‘And you wouldn’t’ve come ridin’ here large as friggin’ life unless you had a good friggin’ reason. Not with that sittin’ there in full sight.’
He spat again, and the globule of moisture hit a wheel rim of the buggy. The metal was hot from the sun and the wetness hissed.
‘How’d you trail us?’
‘First I looked. Then I listened. Your buggy cuts deep ruts, feller.’ He showed an ice-cold smile. ‘And you made quite an impression on the local whore.’
Sullivan laughed, his rolls of fat trembling. ‘All work an’ no friggin, play makes a dull bunch of boys.’ The humor left him as abruptly as it had come. And anger glinted again in the green slits of his eyes. ‘I’m believin’ you, like I said. Ask you to believe that I didn’t take nothin’ off you?’
His tone and expression made it a query. Edge nodded his acceptance of the man’s word.
‘Means one of your boys is real dull, feller. No way smart to hold out on a boss like you.’
‘You’re callin’ it right again, Edge. Me and the boys are a friggin’ team. Best bunch of bandit-hunters the friggin’ Mexican government ever hired. Share and share alike, all the way down the friggin’ line. What I wanted - and what I got. Didn’t make no friggin’ changes when we headed north of the border.’
‘This man, Senor Sullivan! He seeks to make trouble between us!’
Garcia’s voice came from deep inside the hotel. But the bitterness was plainly audible when the words reached out into the bright, hot sunlight.
‘That Mex dude sounds like he might be the one,’ Sullivan growled.
‘No, senor!’ Garcia shrieked. His footfalls thudded against the floorboards. He crashed awkwardly out through the bats-wings, useless arms swinging limply at his sides. He sagged against the front of the building. ‘I did not do this thing!’
His dark eyes swung a plea back and forth between the fat man and the mounted half-breed.
‘Like pointing guns, feller,’ Edge said evenly to Sullivan. ‘I got an objection to Mexicans being called anything but what they are. On account of I’m half Mexican myself.’
This time it was Sullivan’s turn to nod in acknowledgement. Then added the threat. ‘I’ll remember, mister - for as long as I have to.’
‘Senor Edge,’ Garcia pleaded. ‘I swear to all that is holy, I did not take your money.’
‘You’re the only one I’m sure about, feller,’ Edge allowed.
‘Only one who wasn’t out of my sight the whole time at Waycross.’
‘Outside!’ Sullivan roared over his shoulder, then strutted out into the centre of the street.
A woman’s head showed above the batswings. Grey-haired and wrinkled with pale colored eyes glazed by remembered horror.
‘My friggin’ men I’m talkin’ to!’ Sullivan snarled, using both hands to scratch at his crotch. ‘An’ friggin’ move it!’
They filed out of the hotel, eyeing Edge hatefully and with nervous glances towards the fat man and at each other. Sonny Boy, Bassett, Evers and all the others who had been at Fort Waycross. The old woman was shoved aside and a man protested. An obscenity and the crack of a hand against flesh silenced him. All the men wore holstered revolvers and some carried Winchesters. But no gun was pointed towards Edge. Not even when he drew his own rifle from the boot as he swung to the ground.
‘Out here on the friggin’ street!’ Sullivan ordered. ‘In a friggin’ line so I can friggin’ see you.’
Garcia made to comply along with the others.
‘Not you!’ the fat man roared. ‘You’re in the friggin’ clear, ain’t you?’
‘You’re sure settin’ a lot of store by what this guy says, Mr. Sullivan,’ Jesse Carpenter growled.
‘Shuddup, Jesse!’ his brother muttered. ‘He’ll get his when the time comes.’
As Edge crossed the street, rifle canted to his shoulder, the red-headed twin without the mole was the Sullivan man who passed closest to him. The man glowered darkly. But the half-breed’s expression did not alter by a flicker as a memory was flipped to the forefront of his mind.
As the men lined up, like an ill-disciplined army unit out of uniform, Edge stepped on to the boardwalk - on the other side of the batswings from Garcia. The aroma of brewing coffee wafted out on the fetid air. Edge glanced over the tops of the doors, aware that the disabled Mexican was watching him closely.
Both doorways gave on to a single room, long and narrow, using up the front half of the building. A quarter of the space was taken up by the store, its produce stacked on shelves and in heaps across the floor. Most of what remained was given over to a saloon, with a long bar and a scattering of chair-ringed tables. An archway at one end gave on to the accommodation section at the rear of the building.
There were seven men and six women in the saloon, ages ranging from below twenty to over eighty. All of them wore the same look of remembered horror as the old crone Edge had seen in the doorway.
‘First the Dry Wash renegades,’ a dungaree-clad man of middle years intoned. ‘Then the outlaws. Now you. What this town do to deserve so much heartache?’
He was sitting at a table with five other men. One man was behind the bar, dressed as if he belonged there. The rest of the people were in couples or small groups at other tables. Some were drinking coffee, others liquor. If none of the Vintonville houses had been overcrowded and all occupied, the people amounted to about a quarter of the probable population.
‘The Apaches, I can’t speak for,’ the half-breed answered evenly, as Sullivan strutted up and down the line of men, peering into each flinching face. ‘For the rest, you got a town whore who opens her mouth as much as her legs. Could use a cup of coffee.’
‘All friggin’ right!’ Sullivan snarled.
‘Get it yourself!’ a woman snapped at Edge as he turned to watch the scene on the street.
‘Give it to him!’ a man countered the woman. ‘Ain’t we had trouble enough?’
‘You heard what I told Edge!’ the fat man continued. ‘I buy his story. He settled his friggin’ score with Garcia so he had to have another friggin’ reason for comin’ after us. He was all set to head in the opposite friggin’ direction.’
‘Here!’
The youngest woman - a distraught-looking but still pretty blonde in her mid-twenties - thrust a mug of coffee over the top of the doors. Edge dug out a handful of loose change.
‘How much?’
‘No charge!’ Her expression was as harsh as her voice. ‘In times of trouble, decent folks share what they have.’
‘Take five cents, lady!’ Edge hissed. ‘I pay my way. All times.’
‘Don’t argue with him, Dorrie!’ she was told.
She took the money, Edge pocketed the change, and accepted the mug.
‘Obliged.’
‘Which one of you friggin’ cheatin’ bastards stole his bankroll?’ Sullivan demanded.
‘Under different circumstances, senor, you are a man for whom I could have admiration.’
Garcia’s words had a genuine ring. But, when Edge glanced at the handsome face, made haggard by pain, he saw the latent hatred lurking behind the dark eyes. He took a mouthful of coffee, swilled it around in his mouth, and spat it out with the trail dust that had been gritting his teeth.
‘Circumstances alter more than cases, feller,’ he muttered. ‘I should have been carrying my bundle a long way from here.’
‘Hey, Edge!’ the fat man growled when his demand had drawn only a series of low-voiced denials from his men. ‘Where was the friggin’ money stashed?’
The half-breed raised the hand fisted around the mug, to point across the street towards the gelding. ‘Saddle-bag. Wrapped in doeskin. Stolen after the horses were hid from the Indians.’
‘Hell, Mr. Sullivan!’ Sonny Boy rasped. ‘All this worthwhile for the kinda money a guy like him’d be carryin’?’
The fat man scratched himself, then wrinkled his fleshy brow in a frown. He eyed Edge pensively. ‘You never said how much friggin’ money was took, mister? Not that it makes any friggin’ difference. Principle’s the friggin’ same.’
‘Principle oughta be the same,’ the half-breed muttered. ‘You fellers been nowhere for any high spending.’
‘I gotta friggin’ know, mister!’ the fat man barked. ‘On account we come north friggin’ loaded with Mex Gov … Mexican Government pay. Only friggin’ lookin’ for what’s yours. Rest’ll be divided up between us.’
‘Ten grand, feller.’
Nobody heard the final word, for gasps of surprise and grunts of disbelief had greeted the figure.
‘If it had been ten cents, senor, you still would not have had it returned to you.’
Garcia hissed the words softly, under cover of the noise, which had been augmented by a ro
ar of derisive laughter from the quaking Sullivan.
Edge sipped the coffee. His right hand was fisted around the frame of the Winchester canted to his shoulder. He lowered the other occupied hand to steady the stock and smoothly pumped the action. The fast series of metallic clicks were like audible periods to end the sounds of surprise and incredulity.
‘I am a fool not to realize you had considered this, senor,’ Garcia breathed, his voice even lower.
Sullivan’s fleshy face still wore the hangover of his laughter. But his flesh-crowded green eyes met the slitted blue ones of the half-breed and showed avaricious acceptance of the figure.
‘A guy like you with that friggin’ much? Stolen, uh?’
Edge had a vivid memory of another hot day. On the banks of the Rio Grande in the Big Bend country. Of a grave and a woman who was not all she had seemed to be. The woman who had unwittingly triggered this new attempt to turn his back on violence and death. Just a fleeting memory. For the reality of now was too pressing. He had a cocked rifle at his shoulder and violence and death were again just the movement of a trigger finger away.
‘There was a lot more where it came from,’ he replied. Then added, cryptically: ‘My piece was the only part not hot.’
Sullivan scratched, then shrugged. ‘It don’t friggin’ matter, anyways. Ain’t one of my boys should have anythin’ close to ten friggin’ grand.’ He swung to rake his eyes along the line again. ‘All right, the bastard that took it gonna own up?’
Some of the men met Sullivan’s stare without flinching. Others looked at the ground. Some glowered at Edge.
‘Senor Sullivan, no man will speak his own death sentence,’ Garcia called somberly.
The fat man scratched both armpits, his fingernails loud against the sweat-soaked fabric of his shirt.
‘Fast if he friggin’ tells it now! Slower than that stinkin’ ’pache if I have to search the saddlebags!’ His head raked a glower along the line again. ‘I want it!’
The new demand was met by silence, brittle with a mixture of fear, anger and resentment. Edge drank a final mouthful of coffee, and tossed the empty mug into the street. It hit the right boot of the twin without the mole. Coffee grounds made a dark stain on the coating of grey dust.
EDGE: Sullivan's Law (Edge series Book 20) Page 8