He surveyed the dismounted riders with a jaundiced gaze. ‘I don’t like the look of those guys, Captain.’
‘You got your mind on the job?’ Edge asked.
‘Damn right. There’s a time and a place for everything.’
The half-breed moved to the rail and Rhett joined him. The men continued to stand in a tight group with their horses, a few yards away from the wood stock, not talking as they watched the loading process. Their faces were blue and pinched by the cold: impassive beneath hat brims and between the upturned collars of their coats.
‘Good time and place for a raid,’ Edge answered, after glancing up and down the river to find it still deserted.
‘Boat I was aboard on the Mississippi got hit by raiders one time, Captain. But the guys got on at different stops. Didn’t join up until they were ready to—’
The leader of the group had unbuttoned his coat. He looked to be in the same late-twenties age group as the rest. Under the coat he was dressed Western style, complete with gun belt and tied-down holster. The gun he drew was an Army Colt. It came out of the holster slowly and the man looked at it with an air of distaste.
‘Captain!’ Rhett rasped.
‘Tell Ferris it’s time for trust, feller,’ Edge answered softly, turning his back to the rail and unbuttoning his own coat. Tie gives the letter to you and you give it to the woman.’
It was uncomfortable, having the shotgun stuck into the front of his gun belt. But the coat was loose fitting enough to fasten again.
‘What’s she to do with it, Captain?’
‘Use her imagination.’
As Edge turned around again, a man shouted: and a shot rang out.
‘What if he won’t give it me?’
‘Kill him or count me out.’
It had been Fryer who yelled, as the leader of the group swung towards him: and aimed the Colt at him across ten feet of undisturbed snow. The bullet drilled a neat hole through the front of Fryer’s coat and the thin woodcutter flipped over backwards. A final pump of the dying heart spurted bright crimson across the pure whiteness of the snow. Fryer collapsed like one of his felled trees. The roustabouts were immediately as still as the corpse, sculptured into attitudes of lifting logs and carrying them towards the gangplanks. For a stretched second it seemed that the only movement in the entire world was of the men behind the killer sliding Winchester rifles from their saddle-boots. And the only sounds, the working of the lever actions against the hiss of escaping steam.
Some of the rifles were aimed at the roustabouts and others at the wheelhouse above the deck where Edge stood. Rhett was no longer at his side, having backed away and entered the cabin of Horace Ferris.
‘What the—?’ Ferris asked.
‘Got a proposition, Mr. Ferris,’ Rhett started, then closed the door on the rest of it.
‘He’s to show we mean business, sailor boy!’ the killer called, loud, but in a lazy, conversational tone. ‘Kill every sailor boy down here and a lot of folk aboard you don’t do like you’re told.’
He was looking up at the wheelhouse.
A door opened behind Edge to the left.
‘What’s happening?’ Charity asked fearfully.
‘Stay inside!’ Edge rasped through clenched teeth, his lips hardly moving. ‘Expect a visitor.’
‘Who are those men?’
‘We haven’t been introduced, lady. Just shut your mouth, then the door.’
Elsewhere, on the upper and lower decks, doors and hatches were flung open in response to the single shot.
The leader of the group had holstered his Colt. From one pocket of his coat he drew three sticks of dynamite, lashed together with tape. From another, his hand emerged holding a match. He struck it on a thumbnail. There were screams and gasps as the match flared brightly. In the still air it burned without flickering.
‘Shuddup!’ the man snarled, loud and viciously angry. The command brought silence and he allowed the match to fall. It did not go out until it touched the snow. He drew out another match, but did not strike it. ‘Folks’ll die and your boat’ll be so much driftwood on the Missouri, McBride. If that’s what you want.’
‘What do you want?’ the master of the Delta Dawn demanded, his voice taut with fear.
‘These guys to move into a nice, tight group,’ came the response, with a wave of the dynamite to encompass the roustabouts. ‘So we can cover them easy.’
He paused, a quizzical look on his heavy stubbled face.
‘Do it!’McBride yelled.
‘Quick or dead,’ the leader of the group augmented.
The roustabouts complied, hurrying to crowd together at a spot indicated by the man with the dynamite. Some dropped their burden of logs and others did not. The door of Ferris’s cabin opened.
‘He said you’d better be straight, Captain,’ Rhett growled, heading for the door of the neighboring cabin.
‘Figured it wasn’t you who said it,’ Edge muttered, moving towards the Hurricane Deck as Rhett entered the woman’s cabin without knocking.
The man with the dynamite shared one ability with the half-breed: he could appear nonchalant and at ease while maintaining a careful surveillance of his surroundings.
‘Everyone aboard stay still!’ he snarled, and his dark eyes stared viciously at Edge for a moment. Then began to rake the boat from stem to stern again.
The roustabouts were in the huddle demanded of them. The Negro was not among them. Their close grouping enabled three of the riflemen to cover them.
‘I asked what you want?’ McBride roared from the wheelhouse.
‘Every cent you got aboard,’ came the reply. ‘Eight of my men’ll collect. Be as scared as you folks when they come aboard.’ His head swung from side to side, to ensure that every passenger and crewman saw the grim determination in his eyes. ‘Least sign of trouble, they’ll start blasting. Get blown up with the boat same as you folks. But willing to take the risk.’ He waved the dynamite towards the huddle of roustabouts. ‘Anyone happens to go on living, won’t ever sleep much after seeing these men get it.’
He gave a low-voiced order and eight of the riflemen advanced, away from the horses. They split into two groups of four and divided to board by separate gangplanks.
‘Hear this!’ McBride yelled. To the passengers and crew of my ship. There is to be no resistance! I repeat, no resistance!’
Many voices spoke softly, all of them contributing to an angry and fearful mumble. The man with the dynamite struck the second match and watched it flare. The talk was abruptly curtailed and the match was dropped. Another was drawn from the pocket as the two groups of boarders came off the bowing gangplanks and their footfalls crunched the snow on the Main Deck.
The door of the woman’s cabin was cracked open. ‘Anything I can do, Captain?’ Rhett asked anxiously.
‘Get out here,’ the half-breed told him. ‘They find you inside with a woman they’re sure to figure something’s queer.’
Rhett opened the door just wide enough to allow him to slide out sideways. He closed it again and glowered at Edge.
‘There are just so many cracks a man can take, Captain.’
Edge glanced sourly over his shoulder. ‘No comment, feller.’
He returned his attention to the dock. With no trace of fear, the man with the dynamite and the three riflemen behind him continued to wait patiently: completely exposed and ready to commit wholesale slaughter. The eight members of the bunch who had come aboard subdivided again - into pairs. Four remained on the Main Deck while the other four climbed up to the Hurricane and Boiler Decks. Then the man on the Hurricane Deck was left on his own, his partner taking the stairway up on to the superstructure to head for the wheelhouse.
‘You don’t think it’s a straightforward raid, Captain?’ Rhett asked, the whine of complaint gone from his voice. One of his hands was inside his topcoat and jacket, obviously fisted around the Apache Knuckle-duster. ‘Or you just being overcautious.’
Everyone - pa
ssengers and crew - were on the port side of the boat, having been drawn there by the killing of Fryer. Two riflemen advanced on to the companionway from the Boiler Deck and one from the Hurricane Deck.
‘Money?’ the man approaching from forward demanded. He held his Winchester one-handed, stock pressed to his hip by an elbow. The hammer of the rifle was cocked. His free hand was extended. He looked cold and tired and breathless, the expelled air from his lungs billowing like steam as it forced exit through his clenched teeth.
Rhett hesitated, waiting for a lead from Edge. The half-breed dug into his hip pocket, leaning forward slightly to conceal the bulge of the shotgun. Behind them, the two men were making similar demands from other passengers.
‘One shot and all hell will be broke loose!’ the man with the dynamite warned.
‘I told you people!’ McBride augmented.
Edge put his bankroll into the man’s hand. It was pocketed and the hand extended to accept Rhett’s money. His roll was bigger, bulked by the five hundred dollar advance Ferris had given him.
‘It sure isn’t like I thought it would be,’ Rhett muttered bitterly. ‘Bob wrote you never allowed anybody to—’
‘Open that door!’ the rifleman ordered after he had put the second roll of bills into his pocket. ‘We gotta check everywhere.’
‘Not in the war, feller,’ Edge replied conversationally. ‘Nor in Omaha.’
Rhett gave a curt nod of understanding. His hand remained under his coats, gripping the combination revolver, knife and knuckle-duster. The rifleman did not see the signal of acknowledgement and Rhett continued to watch Edge closely, but not pointedly.
Further along the companionway, the two men who had come aboard at the stern were robbing the other cabin passengers and getting no resistance.
Edge opened the door of Ferris’s cabin and stepped aside. He saw the gray-haired, overweight occupant standing by the bed, still in his nightshirt. The rifleman showed no reluctance in putting his back towards Edge and Rhett as he stepped across the threshold. He used the heel of a boot to kick the door closed.
‘Feller wants a cut of what you got,’ Edge said quickly, his face impassive as he looked across the rifleman’s shoulder just before the door closed.
And it never did close, because Edge put his boot against the base of the frame. The door hit the side of his boot and bounced open - to crash into the back of the rifleman. The man started to turn in surprise and fear. Which gave Horace Ferris the time he needed to bring the knife from behind him and hurl it. Although the night shirted man lacked speed, he possessed power and accuracy with his throwing arm.
The knife sank deep into the rifleman’s chest, left of centre. He was starting to fall, the Winchester already loosed by dead fingers, as Edge gripped the handle of the swinging door and pulled it closed. He caught a brief glimpse of the face of Ferris: expressing a mixture of fear, satisfaction and pride.
Rhett grinned fleetingly. ‘What now, Captain?’
‘Silence is golden, feller,’ Edge replied softly as the two men from the stern halted outside the door of the woman’s cabin. ‘Noise could be leaden.’
‘Anyone inside?’ one of the riflemen demanded.
The other divided his suspicious attention between the half-breed and Rhett and the passengers at the other end of the companionway.
‘I’m not decent!’ Charity called shrilly.
‘Just your money we want, lady,’ the spokesman for the pair growled, and pushed open the door. He expressed disappointment. ‘You got all the best parts covered.’
He stepped across the threshold. The other one remained outside. The voices of Charity and the rifleman contributed to a low mumble. On the deck above the cabins, footfalls crunched on crusted snow.
The sun burned a hole through the cloud cover above southeastern Iowa. It was the color of fresh spilled blood: a complete disc, clear of the horizon.
Down on the dock, the trio of riflemen and their dynamite-toting leader were as patiently unruffled as ever. Only the horses moved, scratching at the snow to try to locate grass. But there was only hard-packed dirt below, frozen solid.
The rifleman emerged from Charity’s cabin, stuffing some money into his pocket. Edge tugged at the lobe of his right ear. Rhett was confused for a moment, unsure whether or not it was a signal and, if it was, what it implied. Then he recalled the itch which the half-breed had developed before claiming a hostage at the shipping company office in Omaha. Rhett became visibly tense.
‘Where’s Clay?’ the spokesman for the two riflemen asked.
Edge hooked the thumb of his free hand and jerked it at the door to Ferris’s cabin.
‘Back off, both of you.’
One Winchester was aimed at Edge, the other at Rhett. The two went to the rail.
‘How you doin’?’ This from the man who had come below from the wheelhouse and was approaching from the Hurricane Deck.
‘Gonna give Clay a hand. I think maybe we’ve got what we came for.’
The man at the cabin entrance sloped the Winchester to his shoulder and used his free hand to turn the handle and push the door. It swung open without hitting any obstruction. The two men who remained outside glanced down at the dock. So did Edge.
They saw that the man with the dynamite was looking up at the companionway, as ready as ever to strike the match. The three guards continued to aim their rifles steadily at the roustabout hostages.
‘Where’s Clay?’ the rifleman at the doorway snarled, starting to whip his Winchester down.
The riflemen outside craned their necks to see past the one in the doorway: to look at Horace Ferris, still in his nightshirt, and near the rumpled bed, both hands behind his back.
Edge groaned, loud and dramatically. He pushed his right hand under his coat, between two fastened buttons at his chest. His back slid down the rail palings as his feet slithered on the snow covering the deck.
‘Captain?’ Rhett yelled, his voice high with concern.
Ferris’s fear expanded.
‘Feint,’ the half-breed rasped as his back hit the deck. ‘With an e.’
All the riflemen had snapped their heads around to stare at the collapsing half-breed. For a moment, they were simply startled. Then suspicion became uppermost - as they saw the apparently prostrate man fold up his knees and raise his back from the companionway, his weight braced on his shoulders.
‘Ben!’ the man in the cabin doorway shrieked.
He and the other two swung their rifles towards Edge and Rhett.
The half-breed canted his knees to one side and squeezed one trigger of the shotgun. The rifleman on the left was lifted off his feet and tossed hard against the cabin bulkhead. Death showed as a look of grotesque ugliness on his pale face. The cause of his death was even more monstrous to witness: a deep crater in his abdomen - the crimson of blood speckled with the dark spots of the damaging lead shot, flanked by the pure whiteness of the exposed hipbones. All of it apparently frozen until the corpse crashed into the bulkhead. Then the stomach and intestines spewed out: a pulpy ball with slimy tentacles that spattered to the trampled snow, to be hidden a half second later when the man with a hole in his middle fell to cover his displaced insides.
The other two riflemen on the companionway died at the same moment.
The one in the cabin doorway took the knife of Ferris in his back. He took two forward steps, short and inelegant, then dropped his rifle and reached behind him with both hands to try to grip the knife. The strength went from his legs and he dropped hard to his knees and tipped forward.
Rhett killed the third with the revolver action of his combination weapon, using the Apache Knuckle-duster with the same degree of speed and skill he had displayed at the card-table. The man took the bullet in his right eye, staggered backwards with a shrill scream and fell across the other two men as they went down. He was silenced by death before he was still.
They sure did more than faint with an a, Captain!’ Rhett yelled, with a grin pasted
to his handsome face.
Edge had already grabbed one of the discarded Winchesters and was rolling over on to his stomach, the unyielding wood and metal of the shotgun digging painfully into his belly and chest. His hooded eyes, narrowed to glinting slits in the sunlight reflected on snow, saw a match flare.
‘We ain’t finished yet, feller,’ he growled against a background of screams and shouts. ‘Take a spell later.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
Rage carved deep lines into the face of the leader of the bunch. As he touched the match to the fuse of the dynamite, the expression that contorted his features was even more starkly displayed in the sparkling light of the hissing flame.
Calmly, Edge took aim, resting the barrel of the Winchester on the lip of the deck, angling it down at his target.
Gunfire crackled.
On the wharf, three of the roustabouts crumpled, adding new bloodstains to the snow.
On the Main Deck of the Delta Dawn, one of the raiders put a bullet into the heart of an elderly woman passenger. Then he whirled to race for the stern gangplank. His three companions tried to escape without wasting time on personal retaliation.
All four of them could see the spluttering fuse burning towards the bundle of dynamite as their leader raised his arm to begin the throw.
On one knee, Rhett fired a hurriedly picked-up Winchester. One of the guards on the hostages was flipped over backwards, blood squeezing through the fingers of his hands as he covered his face, The other two, caught in the process of pumping the lever actions of their repeaters, were smashed to the ground by an assault of hurled logs and then the weight of the attacking roustabouts.
The dynamite sticks were released by the swinging arm: hurled in a graceful arc through the sun-bright air.
Edge angled the Winchester skywards between two of the rail palings. The muzzle tracked the bundle, caught up with it, and moved ahead. The brown-skinned finger squeezed the trigger.
Rhett fired his rifle a second time: and his bullet drilled a hole through the hard-packed snow where the leader of the bunch had been standing a moment before. The man had whirled, drawn his Colt and dived for the cover of the log pile.
Edge: Echoes of War (Edge series Book 23) Page 10