The half-breed handed back the Remington to its owner.
‘Dear God, I didn’t know…’ Vince started, taking the gun before he looked down at his empty holster. Then he leaned to the side to peer around Edge toward where Regan and the girl were stooped over the inert form of McArthur.
‘If I thought you had, kid,’ the half-breed said flatly, ‘you’d be as dead as I figure your Pa to be.’
The boy slid the gun back in the holster and nodded. ‘Yeah, when we got him inside and started to uncover the wound, the Doc saw he was gone.’ He showed embarrassment and looked away from the steady gaze of Edge. ‘I just broke up, mister. That must have been when that guy took my gun.’ He recovered and looked directly back at the half-breed. ‘I want to thank you for tryin’. For bringin’ Pa to town. Now he’s dead, though, nothin’s changed. Except that I want that crazy sonofabitch found even more. And the money ain’t the most important thing no more.’
Edge nodded and climbed up on to the wagon seat. Asked: ‘You coming?’
‘Where?’
The old timer wasn’t through here tonight. But he won’t be far away. In case it rains.’
Vince shook his head. ‘No. I can’t do anythin’ until tomorrow but I want to see that Pa has a proper burial.’
‘Suit yourself.’
The boy reached out a hand to hold the bridle of one of the team horses. ‘If you find him, mister…? You’ll let me know? You won’t just…?
‘Depends where he is and where you are, kid,’ Edge answered. ‘Matter of a stolen horse to be settled first thing. After that, maybe we can do business on that finder’s fee.’
Vince nodded morosely and let go of the bridle. ‘Reckon that’ll have to be good enough.’
Edge released the brake, clucked to the horses and steered them into a tight turn across the width of the street, sensing the distrust in the eyes of the boy as they gazed at his back.
As the wagon rolled slowly southward, Millicent emerged from the saloon after helping Regan to carry the corpse of McArthur inside. She held up a hand and hurried to the side of the wagon when the half-breed reined in the team.
‘Mister,’ she said in a hoarse whisper, and shot a nervous glance over her shoulder toward the batwings. ‘I want to ask a favor.’
‘Only give them in exchange, lady. And yours don’t appeal to me.’
She was petulantly impatient, then showed anger when another glance over her shoulder revealed Pat Regan standing on the threshold of the saloon. ‘Damn him,’ she rasped, and raised her voice to snarl up at the half-breed: ‘Now you killed the Doc, reckon I’ll see if I can be of any help to the injured man!’
‘He ain’t just injured anymore,’ Edge answered. ‘If you want to help his son, take a shovel.’
She tossed her head. ‘Then I’ll comfort the livin’.’
‘Why not?’ Edge murmured as the whore swung away to head along the street. “He’s already gone to pieces. Maybe do him good. Having a piece go to him.’
Chapter Five
WITHOUT the need to consider a dying man in the back, Edge made better time on the return trip to the ark and shack of Telly Attinger. But he did not push the team too hard. Primarily because there was no urgency: and also because, he was forced to admit to himself, he was not anxious to find what he expected at the end of the southbound trail.
And he was still more than a quarter of a mile from his destination when he saw the first sign that his suspicion was well founded. For in the bright light of the moon he saw just two horses in the corral out back of the darkened shack. When he had left there had been the mounts of Augie and Vince plus Crystal Dickens’ stallion.
After he halted the wagon, he saw it was the woman’s horse which was missing.
Still not hurrying, and with a set expression of indifference carved across his features, he took the team from the traces and turned them loose in the corral. Then went in through the open doorway of the shack and struck a match: intending to light the kerosene lamp. But in the initial flare and then the flickering light of the flame, he saw as much as he needed.
The place had been wrecked by the process of a frantic search, which had not ended until a desperate clawing at the dirt floor had uncovered a metal-lined hole in the ground to the left of the now cold stove. The lid which had rested over the hole, once covered with stamped down earth, had been flung across the room in the exhilaration of the find. And the lamp on the floor beside the hole had been left burning in the haste to escape: was now empty of oil.
Edge allowed himself just a short grunt of mild displeasure as he blew out the match flame an instant before it would have burned his thumb and finger. Then he backed from the shack and went around to the rear, without glancing at the massive ark held upright in the cradle of timber.
He got his saddle and bedroll from the wagon and elected to use the all black gelding of Augie Attinger rather than Vince’s pinto. But the color did not influence his selection, which was based solely upon the fact that Augie was dead.
Then he led the horse on a slow circuit of the shack and ark: swinging wide so as not to be confused by the surfeit of signs in the immediate area. And did not climb into the saddle until he was certain of the direction in which the woman had ridden. A little to the east of north, starting out from beside two elongated indentations in the earth just beyond the corral fence. Grave size, but with the ground concave instead of convex.
And not for the first time, the slow riding half-breed recalled something the old timer had yelled when he was on his knees between his son and grandson after the boy exploded his gun. No other folks must die on account of what I been told to do by the good Lord. And, before that, when he was forced to admit he doctored the food: wouldn’t knowingly harm any living creature.
No other and knowingly were the key words which could well mean that two earlier passing through strangers to the shack of the crazy old man had failed to realize anything was wrong with the food Telly Attinger had cooked up for them.
But, as before when he considered these out-of-context snatches of fervid rantings by the religious fanatic, Edge wasted little time reflecting upon them. Because the words and their implications were no concern of his. And on this occasion he turned his thoughts to the brown-eyed, dark blonde woman from New England via New York City: and tried with total lack of success to feel contempt toward her for what she had done and was doing.
The high wind at the start of the night had smoothed the terrain and obliterated whatever sign was impressed into the dust before the storm. And with the bright moon low in the sky, casting clearly delineated shadows, it required little concentrated effort for the half-breed to stay on the hooftracks left by Crystal Dickens’ horse. Particularly so, after he realized the woman had her sights fixed upon an outcrop of rock which jutted up into the sky like a shortened finger from among the ridges to the east of Ventura.
And he allowed himself a quiet smile with his lips when he discovered this. For he had taught her the importance of taking a bearing on some distant feature of the landscape when riding across flatlands. This on the long ride from Irving Texas to Telly Attinger’s folly.
What else had he taught her? Back in the small Texas town, during the long days and nights on the trail, and at the crazy old timer’s shack? That she was doing the wrong thing in hooking up with him. He had made that plain from the very outset and then he never missed any opportunity to re-emphasize his opinion. By hurting her pride or causing her physical pain.
But never had he come straight out and told her he did not want her with him. For that would have been a lie. And despite the kind of man he had become after he found the mutilated corpse of his brother at the Iowa farm, he still retained a fingerhold on a pitifully few of the finer human virtues. Truth was one of these.
Occasionally he allowed himself to bend his set of personal rules: as when, riding on the wagon with Vince and the dying Augie, he had claimed to be happy with his own thoughts. He was far from content
then, while he considered Crystal’s motives for remaining at old man Attinger’s shack. Suspecting the worst of her.
And now he knew he was right to doubt her. Had seen for himself undeniable evidence of her guile and cunning. She had never intended to wait for the old timer to return - and her decision to stay behind while the wounded man was taken to Ventura certainly formed no part of any test to see if the half-breed would come back for her.
The desire for easy money was her sole reason. For, like Edge, she had heard Telly Attinger make a point of warning them his cache was not hidden in the shack. And had figured out that, because the old man spoke unbidden in these terms, there was a good chance he lied. Added to this was the thought that a man with a great deal of money to protect was likely to store it close to him. And until his vision came true and the flood swept across south-eastern Utah, the shack was a safer place than the ark.
The secret compartment in the galley of the boat? In periods of sanity between religious fervor, maybe Attinger figured there would still be value in money after the waters receded.
The half-breed spat into the dust and took out the makings from a shirt pocket as he abandoned this line of thought. Which was entirely theoretical and virtually never ending, in the way it demanded more guesses concerning why Aristotle Attinger stabbed his son and rode off into the night because of the discovery of an empty hole in the floor.
Abandoned it because the money and the trouble it had caused in the Attinger family was of scant interest to him.
Crystal Dickens was - had been ever since he first saw her in the Red Dog Saloon back at Irving. But he had endured an inner struggle to deny the attraction he felt toward her. And had succeeded during the entire time they were together. Needing her but knowing from the harsh experiences of the past that to admit this was to declare open house to pain and suffering. For the woman and for himself.
He struck a match on the rifle stock and touched the flame to the end of the newly rolled cigarette. And in the flare the slivers of ice-blue eyes between the almost closed lids expressed to the empty night a powerful mixture of anguish and hatred.
He tossed the match away and a tremor shook his hand.
The gelding under him snorted.
‘It appears I’m real cold, feller,’ the half-breed said softly, stroked the animal’s neck and halted him for a few moments while he took his top coat from the bedroll and donned it: turning up the collar so that it brushed the underside of his hat-brim around his ears and at the nape of his neck.
He clucked his mount forward again.
It was crazy.
He felt a great attraction to and need for the woman. And she had been willing to fulfill his desires. But to accept what she offered was to invite yet another cruel twist of his ruling fate. And to protect both of them from this, he had shown her only the very worst sides of what he was.
Thus were they both suffering anyway - and how could he blame her for what she had done? A green girl from Vermont who had come west in search of a man and found him. A man who had taught her much more than how to ride across deserts and through mountains without going around in circles. Who had, by example, taught her that the world in which he existed was a hard one: and his design for staying alive in it was to beat it at its own game. And to hell with the consequences.
That had been his code for a long time. So why had he put her to the test by allowing her to remain at the old man’s shack? And why, after she had taken a course of independent action which owed much to what she had learned from him, was he tracking her?
It had to be because, in this case, the consequences did matter.
He told himself he was riding through the Utah night because all the evidence pointed to Crystal Dickens being a thief.
And after this he gave up searching his mind for answers, as he continued to scan the country on all sides in his habitual attitude of vigilance from behind a shield of apparent indifference to his surroundings.
The eastern horizon was lightening in advance of dawn by the time he rode off the flatland and into the hills. And as he rested himself and his horse while he sat on a rock and ate a breakfast of jerked beef washed down with water from his canteen, the sun came up. It was completely clear of the horizon, bright, yellow and pleasantly warm when he climbed into the saddle again, his coat back in the bedroll.
The sign was more difficult to see now, because of the daylight and the hardness of the higher ground which was less susceptible to retain impressions of hooves. But the tall, lean, long haired half-breed was skilled in the art of tracking and he made good time through gulleys, along arroyos and across slopes. Only occasionally had to dismount and lead the horse by the reins to ensure he did not miss some vital sign that the woman had swung on to a different course.
The column of rock which had been her marker toward the hills was now behind him and after awhile he knew that a flat-topped rise with a niche cut into its rim had become her new destination. And her course continued to lay east of north - she veered to left or right only when the way directly ahead was obstructed by an escarpment, steep drop or ravine.
Above the mesa-like rise and as far as the eye could see to either side of it, a bank of dark cloud was building up. But very slowly. To the south, east and west the sky was a brilliant blue. The sun’s heat and glare reached a greater intensity with each minute that elapsed and the shade temperature seemed to be no different from out in the dazzling light.
Edge drank sparingly from his canteen and also rationed the gelding to just an occasional few drops of water offered in his cupped hands.
He sweated a great deal and was constantly aware of the discomfort of sprouting bristles on his lower face. Was conscious, too, of the gritty sensation under his eyelids from lack of sleep. But the rigors of life on the trail were nothing new to a drifter such as Edge. And on the hot morning of this Utah day he paid even less attention than usual to the ordeal. For he knew that if disaster hit - his food and water were taken from him somehow or the gelding went lame - then the tent town of Ventura was within easy reach to the south-west.
But at mid-morning the signs of another source of danger showed. The portents of a threat - an assumed threat - that caused the half-breed to draw back his lips and crack his eyes to the narrowest of glinting slits as he reined in the gelding and swung down from the saddle.
It was at a point where two natural trails through the hills came together under a triangular shaped crag - one from the north-east and the other the north-west. Crystal Dickens had rested here. Lit a fire and drank some coffee. Eaten a can of beans. Urinated. Had kicked off her boots and walked around bare footed for awhile.
All the signs were there to be read.
And they had been seen and interpreted by eyes other than those of the half-breed.
Three riders who had been heading down the trail from the north-west. Two heavily built men and one of average size. A cigar smoker in the trio. Maybe the same one who spat a great deal. They had come upon the campsite after the woman left to continue on her northeastward way. How long afterwards and the period of time they had spent there it was impossible to judge.
What could be seen was that they had remounted their horses and taken off in the wake of Crystal Dickens.
Edge remained under the crag for less than a minute, staying astride his gelding. Then took the same route.
With the sign of four horses to follow, the tracking chore was much easier. But the half-breed resisted the temptation to demand a faster pace from his mount in the blistering heat. It was not simply the risk of exhausting the gelding that caused him to keep his progress cautious. Greater speed meant more noise and he was wary of announcing his presence on the back trail of the trio following the woman.
And when he discovered, at high noon, that he need not have been concerned about anyone hearing his approach, he did not consider his caution as wasted effort. For, countless times in the past, he had escaped death by being on his guard against a menace there was n
o rational reason to expect was there.
He rode out of the mouth of a gully and halted his horse at the top of a man-made embankment. To look down a shallow incline at the sun-glinting tracks of a railroad curving around the base of a hill which had been blasted and cut away to improve the grade for the line.
To the south-west the rails and ties were featureless. Crystal Dickens was lying across the track to the northeast, perhaps a hundred yards away from where Edge dismounted and led the gelding carefully down the slope.
The woman heard the shod hooves striking the smooth rock and wrenched her head to the side to peer toward the source of the sound.
‘Edge?’ she shouted, her voice hoarse and her tone making the name into a query.
He did not reply. Reached the foot of the embankment and led his horse at an easy walk alongside the track which was laid upon a two-foot high bed of crushed rock.
‘Edge?’ Crystal shouted again, and sobbed. ‘Answer me, please! Is it really you?’
‘Been told there ain’t nobody like me, lady,’ the half-breed said now. ‘So I guess it has to be.’
‘Thank God! Oh, my dear God! Thank you!’
When he was level with her, he left his horse and stepped up on the track. Saw why she had not been certain who he was.
They had tied her ankles together and her wrists behind her back. Then roped her knees and her neck to the rails. Several hours ago. Long enough for the searing sun to raise blisters on her face which she could turn to left and right but never achieve shade for all of it at one time. So that no part of her facial flesh had escaped the punishment of exposure to sunburn - including her eyelids which were raw and inflamed, all but blinding her. Apart from her hat which was beside the track, she was fully dressed and there was no sign that they had done anything to her except leave her to fry or be cut into three by a locomotive.
He dropped to his haunches beside her, tipped a little water from a canteen into his cupped hand and trickled it on to her swollen lips.
EDGE: Vengeance at Ventura Page 5