"I seen an Injun for sure!" the man who gave the warning blurted defensively to end a lengthy vocal silence during which the night had been disturbed only by the sounds of the buildings burning down.
"Ain't nobody doubtin' you, Fred," a woman assured.
"What you figure they got in mind to do, Mr. Meek?" Glenn Royale asked.
"Only one thing's sure about that, kid," the sheriff growled. "That we folks won't like what
it is."
"Ain't that the truth."
"How many you figure?"
"Glenn and Mr. Edge say about thirty."
"Well, we outnumber them, even if we don't include the women."
"Could be them redskins out there have somethin' up their sleeves that don't take account of any head-on fight, George."
"Somethin' like the folks that was in the cars that were strung to the engine when it left here last night, Mr. Meek?"
"Had a crew aboard the train, too," a railroadman pointed out.
There was a short lull in the talk as the townspeople considered the implications of fighting Indians who held hostages. And the men with rifles tightened their grips on them while those with holstered revolvers draped hands over the butts. Some recalling old fights with the Indians and some thinking only of the current trouble which had started so violently.
"Could be everyone was slaughtered when the savages stopped the train, Mr. Meek."
"Wouldn't have gone down without puttin' up a fight, neither!" a railroadman said with determination. "So could be there ain't so many Injuns out there as the deputy and the stranger reckon on."
This suggestion triggered a whole buzz of talk that acted to relieve some of the tension that had built during the lull. But there were few in the throng who allowed their attention to be drawn away from the moon shadow under the bluff—willing to discuss what might happen, but not ready to risk missing the first sign of the Arapaho's next move.
Sheriff Cy Meek was one of those who did shift his attention away from Trio Bluff, when Deputy Glenn Royale said in a rasping whisper no one else could hear:
"Reckon you should know the prisoner's out, sheriff."
The older lawman looked grimly into the concerned face of the youngster for as long as it took him to demand: "How?" Then he peered out along the trail and railroad track again.
"Couldn't see clear, sir. But I guess there's a chance that whatever tore the hole in the front of the office busted down the bars."
Meek nodded shortly and muttered: "Saves me goin' back to the office and lettin' him out, kid. He's the kind of guy who can handle himself in a fight and that's the kind we're goin' to be needin'."
"He ain't here, Mr. Meek. I been lookin' for him, but I ain't seen a sign of him since you told me to help fight the fire."
The sheriff's burnished face was fleetingly visited by a look of anger before it became merely grim again and he growled: "So maybe he don't want to mess in other folks' troubles."
"Somethin' else, sheriff."
"Yeah, kid?"
"While I been lookin' for Edge, I also been noticin' them two traders ain't around either." "I noticed that, too."
"And since there ain't no doubt but they're the reason for what's happenin', I reckon they should lend a hand here."
"Sheriff!"
"I see him, Fred," Cy Meek said into the silence that had gripped the crowd in the wake of the anxiously spoken word as everyone saw what had caused the exclamation.
The appearance of a lone figure at the southernmost point of Trio Bluff—moving out along the railroad track in an awkward gait on the ties. Between rails that no longer glinted so sharply in the lessening light of the moon as the first grayness of the false dawn made inroads against the dark of night. Then the shadowless, soft light of the new day could be seen to perceptibly increase as the figure moved to more than fifty feet beyond the point of the bluff. There to come to a halt, hands hanging low at his sides and empty.
The same light of dawn acted to dim the flames of the fires that had now burned low within the ruined church and bakery. But nobody in the town that smelled so strongly of burning paid any attention to the dying fires. Nor to the increasing level of light spreading across the sky from the east. Nor even, after he had come to a halt, to Chief Yellow Shirt.
Instead, every gaze was fixed upon the scene in back of the lone Arapaho—in which two files of braves were stooped and straining as they emerged into the open. One column to either side of the track, hauling on lengths of rope that were tied to the coupling of a railroad day car. Also tied to the car were six corpses. Three strung up along each side of the car by ropes noosed around their necks and running over the roof. But the four men and two women had not died by hanging, for the blood of bullet or blade wounds stained their clothing. There was a lot of dried blood, too, on their heads and faces from where they were scalped.
Gasps and cries, some obscenities and a few pleas to God, the thud of a fainted woman hitting the ground and the clicking of several gun hammers being cocked were the low volume sounds which rose from the tight-knit crowd of watching men and women as they saw the gruesome tableau placed before them. Then a new and more tense silence gripped the people of Calendar as the car was rolled to a halt by the sixteen braves on the ropes, perhaps ten feet in back of where the patient and resolute figure of Yellow Shirt stood.
It was light enough now for the waiting throng to see what was happening behind the car, at the base of the bluff. Where the remainder of the band of Arapaho sat their ponies, some of them holding the reins of the mounts of the braves who had hauled the car into view—and who now abandoned the ropes and returned to join the mounted men. And one woman.
Reins were handed from brave to brave and then every Arapaho except for Yellow Shirt was astride a pony. And then every mounted Arapaho except for Nalin heeled his pony forward. Some to the left and some to the right of the railroad car with its gristly appendages. An equal number to either side who reined in their ponies when they were level with their chief. Thirty Arapaho in all, including Yellow Shirt and Nalin. The whole large group suddenly as silent and unmoving as the larger number of Calendar citizens after the line of ponies was halted.
The whites with hands on guns or close to them. The Indians unthreatening for the moment in the way their rifles were slung across their backs and their hands remained almost pointedly far away from their weapons belts.
The silence was absolute to the many human ears for the stretched seconds while the light of the rising sun and then the leading arc of the sun itself made an impression on the landscape that would have been virtually featureless had it not been for Trio Bluff, Calendar and the twin rails—once more glinting brightly—that connected them.
"Hell, what are they waitin' for?" Cecil Downing snarled and did not quite manage to mask his fear.
"For somebody here to make the first move, way I see it," Edge answered, not needing to raise his voice much higher than normal to be heard by everybody grouped between the hotel and the restaurant. So solid was the silence under the bright, cold light of the new sun which was then broken again by the shuffling of feet and the venting of fresh sounds of shock as the Calendar citizens turned to peer at the half-breed—and open up a corridor for him to pass through. He and his two charges.
Edge, in back of the tied up and tied together Eddie Marx and Jason Spenser, was several yards away from the crowd—just passing the overturned locomotive—when he made his response to the disreputable looking undertaker. Having waited patiently for his captives to recover consciousness out back of the livery stable. Then forced them to be quiet—if not patient—by aiming the Colt at Marx and the Winchester at Spenser until Yellow Shirt called the first play. Then, again with the tacit threats of the two guns to urge quiet compliance with his demands, the half-breed had directed the helpless men down the alley between the livery and a dry goods store and to make a left turn on to the street. The three of them undetected by anybody until he spok
e the even-toned comment that drew such startled attention to the prisoners and himself.
"So nobody ran out?" Cy Meek said, a little huskily, as he swung around, to put his back to the distant band of Arapaho and face the captives and captor at the end of the pathway between the two sides of the crowd.
"There was a rumor?" Edge asked, aware of people closing the gap behind him, but making no attempt to emphasize the already patently obvious fact that the revolver in his right hand was just a foot or so away from the spine of Spenser while the muzzle of the rifle sometimes brushed against the back of the other trader's suit jacket.
"Me and Jase figured to draw off the Indians, sheriff!" Marx blurted as he and his partner were forced to come to a halt in front of Meek, who was now joined by Royale—neither lawman moving his rifle away from its aim at the cloudless, sun-bright sky. "It's us they want and no fight of Calendar people. This drifter jumped us and laid his rifle over our heads before he would explain why he was hitching up our team."
"Can see where he assaulted you guys, all right," the sheriff murmured, wincing as he briefly looked at the contusions on the sides of their heads. "What do you have to say to that, Mr. Edge?"
"Mr. Edge, shit!" Downing snarled. "He's an escaped prisoner and an Injun lover to boot!"
"Cecil, there's no excuse for the use of such language and—"
"Guilty of laying my rifle across their heads, sheriff," the half-breed cut in on the preacher's castigation of Downing. "And if anybody makes a move to change the way I've got these fellers—"
"I was meanin', what you got to say about their story they was figurin' to lead the Indians away from town?" Meek interrupted.
"More likely to believe that the sun won't like the look of things around here and will slide back the way it came."
There was a hubbub of rasping talk, all of it in tones of enmity. But nothing could be heard clearly and it was impossible to tell if the dislike was directed at Edge or the two traders. And since all three were watching only the sheriff, there was no opportunity for a visual check. Then the uneasy exchanges were curtailed when Meek nodded and said:
"Guess you know I go along with you in figurin' these guys were wrong to shoot up the Indian camp?"
"Me, too!" Glenn Royale added quickly.
And there was another burst of dissatisfied talk—indicating that the vast majority of Calendar citizens were on the side of the two murdering traders.
"Shut up, kid, and shut up the rest of you!" Meek snapped, not shifting the fixed gaze of the dark eyes away from the glittering slits of the half-breed's blue ones. "But that don't mean I'm goin' to stand back and see you hand these guys over to Arapaho mercy, mister. Tied up the way they are. Or any way. Unless they agree to be exchanged for the train passengers that ain't hangin' on the outside of the car."
Now he did glance momentarily to the left and right inviting a response from the prisoners. His unchanged expression of grim determination suggesting he already knew what the reply would be.
"Like hell we agree!" Spenser muttered.
"On the run, aboard our wagon, we had a chance, Mr. Meek!" Marx added hurriedly. "But we aren't about to commit suicide."
"Right," Edge said. "Unless the sheriff and his deputy get out of the way, you are about to get murdered. Same thing if anyone without a badge tries to stop me doing what I have in mind."
"What you got in mind, mister?" Spenser demanded to know tremulously as he saw the look of resignation under the grimness of Meek's sun-ravaged face.
"Hey, sheriff!" the ever-observant Fred called anxiously. "Things are movin'."
Edge looked between the heads of his two prisoners and Meek and Royale,'out along the track to where the line of Arapaho braves continued to sit stoically astride their ponies at either side of their chief.
Hans Linder, red-eyed and gaunt-looking as he grieved for his dead son, said from close to the half-breed. "He has his fingers on the triggers of the guns, Mr. Meek. I do not think we can—"
"Yeah, Hans," the lawman cut in. "And a mind made up to do what he has to do." He raked his dark-eyed gaze over the grim faces of the tense townspeople and warned: "Anyone tries anythin', they'll kill Edge, sure enough. But that won't do anythin' to save the lives of these other two strangers."
Meek looked hard into the impassive face of the half-breed for a stretched second, like he was tacitly pleading for an assurance that he was doing the right thing. But he learned nothing before he turned and stepped out of the way, gesturing with a jerk of his head that Royale should do the same. And the young deputy did so, and two of them to peer out at the slightly different scene at the point of the bluff.
The movement Fred had spotted was of Nalin riding her pony out from under the early morning shade of the cliff, swinging wide to go around the line of mounted braves to Yellow Shirt's right. And now she completed the slow ride—reached the center of the line at the front and got smoothly down from the back of the pony. Pressed the rope reins into the outstretched hand of the chief. Then turned and, choosing not to walk on the awkwardly spaced ties or the broken rock of the rail bed, started toward town at the side of the track.
"Let's go meet the lady, fellers," Edge instructed, and nudged the rifle muzzle against the back of Eddie Marx.
"Sheriff?" the city-suited trader pleaded huskily.
"That the squaw you helped, Mr. Edge?" Meek asked. "Yeah."
"I'd rather you blast us here and now than be handed over to those savages," Jason Spenser said tautly.
"No sweat to kill you," Edge replied evenly.
"No!" Marx rasped, head snapping around to direct a pleading look up at his taller partner.
"No," Meek echoed, a good deal calmer, peering in turn at Spenser, Edge and Marx. Then hardened his tone and expression as he promised: "Nobody's goin' to get handed over to the Indians. This isn't just somethin' I use to scare folks with." He moved his rifle up from where he carried it across the base of his belly and then lowered it again. "It's a tool of my trade that I know how to use. And if the worst happens, I'll use it on you two. First, if you get my drift?"
He continued to look at the captives and captor in turn as he spoke—and finished with a fixed look of determination at Edge.
"She's stopped, sheriff," Fred reported.
"You mean this is some kind of trick you're pulling on the Indians, mister?" Eddie Marx asked, hope in his voice and his florid face.
The half-breed's nod to the sheriff was barely perceptible, and did not reveal if he was acknowledging his understanding of what the lawman had said or was confirming that Marx was right. Then he said:
"She's waiting, fellers. And ladies don't like being kept that way."
"Please, Jase," Marx said in a whining tone. "While there's a life there's hope, uh?"
He tried to smile, but instead looked sick to his stomach with fear.
"Okay, Indian lover," Spenser growled bitterly and started forward, out of the crowd of people-Marx close to his side and Edge immediately behind.
"Gossip is all," the half-breed murmured reflectively. “We’re just good friends …. I hope"
Chapter Twelve
NALIN HAD come to a halt on the trail just before it reached the railroad crossing. She looked as beautiful as he remembered her, but not so fragile. Dressed in the same rawhide skirt, but the shirt he had cut to examine her wound had been replaced by a white blouse of some fine fabric, city-styled for a white woman. She no longer looked to be in physical pain, but in the bright light of the now fully risen sun, Edge was certain he could see mental anguish in back of the firm resolve she expressed as he gave a one-word order to halt the prisoners. Twenty feet away from where she stood, the same five hundred yards distant from her people as the three white men were from the grouped citizens of Calendar.
"How you been, Nalin?"
"Yellow Shirt and the braves are impatient, Edge," she replied in a monotone, and he thought she was having as much difficulty in keeping emo
tion out of her voice as she had in avoiding a meeting of her eyes with his. "You will give us the murderers of our people and—"
"No he friggin' won't," Marx snarled, and gasped when the muzzle of the rifle was jabbed hard into the base of his spine.
"She knows enough bad English language, feller."
Nalin went on as if there had been no interruption: "—in return the white eyes from the train will be set free."
"To be buried, Nalin?"
Still she refused to meet him eye-to-eye. Kept the look of hatred on her lovely face as she answered:
"Nobody was harmed when the train was stopped. The white eyes you see displayed on the car were executed for wearing the clothes and adornments stolen from our camp. Everybody else from train is alive and well in the car. Will be exchanged for these son of a bitch murdering bastards."
"See what you mean about her language, mister," Marx said, his confidence expanding by the moment.
"Best you keep that overworked mouth of yours closed, Eddie," Spenser growled as, like the half-breed, he saw a look of puzzled suspicion dilute the hatred on the beautiful face of the slender young girl.
"You killed a few and hurt some more when you ran the engine into town, Nalin," Edge said.
"The extent of damage could not be foreseen, white eyes," she answered. "But locomotive is sent as a warning. We will stop at nothing until murderers of our people are punished. You have brought them to me as prisoners. You give them to me now."
"What's happenin', Edge?" Cy Meek roared.
And Yellow Shirt raised his hands to cup them at his mouth and yell an equally short demand at Nalin in the Arapaho language.
"Your people and mine both grow more impatient, Edge," Nalin said. "Why should more time be wasted with words? You know that I am not well regarded by my people. Should I succeed in this, perhaps it will be better for me. But the patience of Yellow Shirt is exhausted, the fact that I am here with you and murderers will not prevent—"
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