‘More,’ she croaked after her tongue had come out to taste the water.
‘Later,’ he answered.
‘Please.’
‘Shut up!’ he snapped.
She forced open her eyes wider than they wanted and grimaced at the pain it caused. ‘You have a right to be mad at me, but can’t you wait until…?’
‘Shut up and listen!’ he ordered. Then went down on his hands and knees and pressed an ear to a rail. Grunted when he felt the vibration to back up the humming sound.
The woman screwed her head around to stare at him, and despite the sun-punished ugliness of her face her features clearly showed terror.
‘Is it…?’ she started. And gasped to signal that she could now feel the trembling of the rails.
‘Figure you don’t need me to lay it on the line for you?’ he said as he got back up on to his haunches and glanced along the railroad, drew the razor from the neck pouch.
He could see only two hundred yards of track before it curved out of sight beyond the start of the man-made cutting through the hills. But neither he nor the woman needed to see the approaching train. For it was close enough now for the thud of the locomotive’s pistons to mask the humming of the rails.
‘Hurry, hurry!’ Crystal Dickens screamed.
Edge worked fast but not frenetically, first sawing through the rope which held her neck trapped and then slicing through the bonds at her knees.
‘I can’t move, I can’t move!’ she shrieked, the blisters on her lips bursting to leak their liquid contents as she forced her mouth wide.
The half-breed did not hear her panic because the thunderous sounds of the approaching train filled his ears as the locomotive raced into the curving cutting.
But he did not need to hear her words: knew that after being held a prisoner in one posture for so long, it was unlikely she would be able to move a muscle.
He threw himself off the track with the train whistle blasting out to mask every sound except for the scream of locked wheels sliding along rails. Certainly the strident warning of the whistle covered the scream of the woman as he hooked his hands under her armpits and wrenched her clear of the locomotive’s skidding wheels. A scream of agony triggered from each nerve ending in her body as her every fiber protested the sudden jerking from inertia.
Then she was silent and limp in merciful unconsciousness. And Edge felt pain. From the jetting steam that hissed from valves and billowed over the woman and himself as they sprawled along the side of the track bed, only inches from the spark-showering wheels.
Time played tricks as Edge lay between the unfeeling woman and the track, shielding her from scalding steam and searing sparks: so that it seemed to take an incredibly long sequence of seconds, minutes and even hours before the ground ceased to tremble, the clatter of wheels was curtailed and the halted locomotive began to vent a steady hissing sound, almost gentle in contrast with the cacophony of the train’s emergency stop.
Then Edge heard the beat of hooves on rock and raised his head in time to see the black gelding gallop out of sight around the curve of rock from which the train had appeared. Next men’s voices, harsh with anger and shrill with anxiety.
It was the brakeman who was snarling obscene demands for an explanation as he climbed down from the caboose some forty yards away from where Edge eased painfully up on to his haunches. And the engineer and fireman who were worried as they ran along the side of the line of stalled freight cars.
The half-breed rolled Crystal Dickens gently over on to her back before he straightened up to his full height and turned to face the thin, short, somewhere around fifty-year-old brakeman who was first to reach him.
‘What the frig you people think you’re a doin’?’ the railroadman snarled breathlessly. ‘You could’ve caused a wreck, you know that?’
Edge, lips curled back from his teeth and slitted eyes glinting dangerously, reached out one hand toward the man. Bunched the lapels of his worse for wear uniform jacket together, lifted him clear of the ground, swung into a half-turn and slammed him hard against the side of a car. The slightly built man was dumbstruck when he realized the extent of Edge’s strength and the power of the emotion seething in him. Then was forced to vent a cry of pain as his spine and the back of his head impacted with the car side.
‘Hey, you! What’s Charlie done to you?’
The engineer was in the same age group as the brake-man and looked just as scared as he stopped short. It was the much younger, coal and oil stained fireman who snarled the words when he skidded to a breathless halt: much closer to where the woman lay and the half-breed held the man a prisoner against the car.
Edge squeezed his eyes closed and allowed the dangerous layer of his rage to rasp out in a sigh. Then said, as he set Charlie down on his feet and released him: ‘He riled me, feller.’
‘The lady?’ the engineer asked and took a few nervous steps forward. ‘Is she hurt?’
‘Figure when she wakes up she’ll decide there were times when she felt better.’
‘What in hell happened?’ the fireman wanted to know, grimacing down at the woman’s sun-punished face.
‘That’s all I friggin’ asked,’ the brakeman growled, as he smoothed down the crumpled lapels of his ancient uniform jacket. There was no call for him to do what he done to me!’
‘Like for you fellers to get her aboard the caboose, out of the sun,’ Edge said.
‘Sure. Sure, we’ll do that.’ The engineer was eager to help: obviously afraid the brakeman was in danger of arousing the half-breed’s anger again. ‘We’ll roll into Ventura in less than thirty minutes, mister. There’s a kinda doctor there named McArthur. He’ll know what to do for what ails the lady.’
Edge turned away from the group of railroadmen without enlightening the engineer about the fate of Gerry McArthur.
‘Hey, where you goin’?’ the young fireman demanded.
‘Get my horse.’
‘Ain’t you gonna ride in on the train?’
‘Like for you to wait.’
‘Frig that!’ Charlie snapped, and dug a watch from his vest pocket. ‘You already put us behind schedule. Anyways we don’t handle livestock. Or passengers for that matter, in the normal run of things.’
‘Keep your hair on, Charlie,’ the engineer placated and nodded to Edge who had halted to look back over his shoulder. ‘We’ll wait a few minutes, mister. Then we gotta pull out. To pick up a load of ore which is all we usually carry.’
The half-breed spat at a car wheel and the globule of saliva dried almost at once on the hot metal. ‘If you fellers leave before I get back, you should know about something I carry.’
‘What the frig you talkin’ about?’ the testy brakeman wanted to know.
Edge pursed his lips and rasped curtly: ‘Grudges.’
Chapter Six
IT took Edge ten minutes to find the still nervous black gelding, capture him and bring him back to the stalled train. Where the irritable brakeman helped to coax the horse aboard a freight car while the fireman was working to keep up steam pressure in the locomotive’s boiler and the engineer sat beside the comatose woman in the caboose.
‘We can pull out now?’ Charlie asked with heavy sarcasm as Edge unsaddled the horse.
‘No sweat, feller.’
The brakeman climbed off the car and stooped to raise the sidegate. Asked: ‘Well, ain’t you friggin’ comin’?’
This horse don’t like trains,’ Edge answered as he took out the makings. ‘I’ll ride with him.’
Fear encroached on Charlie’s testiness. ‘But what if somethin’ happens to that woman?’
‘If she wakes up and asks where I am, you tell her, feller.’
‘She could die on me.’
Edge ran his tongue along the gummed strip of paper and finished rolling the cigarette. ‘If it’s extra to haul dead weight, I’ll pay.’
He struck a match as Charlie slammed up the gate and fixed it in position. Moments later he was in the
caboose and the engineer was climbing down.
‘She’s breathin’ easier now she’s in the shade, mister,’ the railroadman reported. ‘I sure hope that quack in Ventura has somethin’ to take the heat outta those burns on her face.’
‘He ain’t around anymore, feller.’
‘McArthur’s left town?’
‘Body and soul. He’s left everywhere.’
The engineer gulped. ‘You mean he’s—’
‘Maybe has just a ghost of a chance of returning.’
The man shook his head in dismay and started to trudge morosely along the line of cars toward the hissing and smoking locomotive. And muttered: ‘Whatever is this world comin’ to?’
Edge glanced northwards, to where the bank of clouds had thickened and darkened: but had not encroached any further across the otherwise blue sky. ‘Figure awhile yet before the end,’ he murmured.
The engineer clambered up on to the locomotive footplate and the half-breed braced himself in a corner of the car: cigarette slanted from a side of his mouth while he held the gelding’s bridle in one hand and stroked the animal’s neck with the other. Then began to talk softly to the horse whose ears were pricked and nostrils flared.
The locomotive inched forward and the line of cars clanked into each other as they were jerked into movement. The horse snorted, curled his upper lip and trembled.
‘Easy, feller, easy,’ Edge drawled, needing all his strength to hold the bridle and keep the animal from tossing his head, maybe as a signal that he was about to rear. ‘All right, all right. It’s a lot better than me riding you. One, two, three . . . Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday . . . January, February, March. . .’
By the time he had counted slowly to ten, ran through the days of the week and half the months of the year, the train was moving steadily, the clack of rolling wheels sounding a regular cadence. And the gelding was calm, maybe relishing as much as the half-breed the cooling effect of the slipstream. Then it was necessary only every now and again to stroke the animal’s neck and murmur more words close to a pricked ear - when the car jolted on one of the curves.
Less occasionally, after the cigarette had gone out but remained slanted from his lips, Edge glanced over his shoulder toward the caboose which was immediately behind the car. But if there was any change for better or worse in Crystal’s condition, Charlie made no attempt to signal it.
But for most of the time the half-breed maintained a narrow-eyed survey over the country to either side of the track: searching the rocky terrain for three riders. And failing.
Then the locomotive was throttled back more than usual as another curve showed ahead. And did not pick up speed on the straightway. For at the end of it was Ventura.
Little interest was shown in the slowing train by the men working the claims on which their tents were pitched, and just here and there a head was turned or a hand was raised in greeting. Smoke wisped up from dying fires on which midday meals had been cooked, and on a few of the claims men lingered over a last cup of coffee before returning to work.
Two people engaged in a digging chore on a lot out back of Regan’s Place were not grubbing for silver bearing rock. Around them the arid earth was dotted with wooden crosses to mark the unfenced area as the local cemetery. And as the train rolled to a halt, Edge recognized the gravediggers as Vince Attinger and Millicent the young whore.
‘…yeah, that’s right, Don. He sure looks like the one Pat told me gunned down Gerry McArthur.’
Edge looked toward the railroad depot building and saw a small, rotund, bald headed man in a neat uniform emerge from the shade of the awning. Flanked by the engineer and the fireman. Then toward the caboose as Charlie yelled: ‘She don’t look no better nor no worse, mister,’
The half-breed nodded and answered: ‘Obliged.’ Then cinched his saddle to the gelding and lashed his bedroll to the back.
He guessed he wasn’t supposed to hear the engineer’s warning to the depot manager: ‘Be careful, Mr. Crane. He riles easy.’
He was working to loosen the fastenings on the side-gate when the smartly uniformed man came to a halt and demanded: ‘What’s this about a woman on the line and you dragging her clear, sir?’
There was one and I did it, feller,’ Edge supplied. ‘Like for you to lower this gate gently. This horse is spooked by loud noises.’
That’s not good enough, sir,’ the manager countered. ‘I have to put in a report to head office about incidents on the line. With full details.’
The engineer moved hurriedly forward to comply with Edge’s request and then all the railroadmen backed off when the gelding got skittish as he was encouraged down off the car. Then, when the horse felt firm ground beneath his hooves, he was docile again.
‘Sir,’ the manager called when Edge began to lead the animal toward the caboose. ‘Please, sir. We all have our jobs to do.’
The half-breed hitched the reins to the guard-rail on the rear platform of the caboose and climbed up the steps. Halted to look toward the anxious man in the uniform. Nodded and replied: ‘That’s right, feller. Or to put it another way, we all have our business to mind.’
Inside the caboose, Charlie had done what he could to make the woman comfortable - had taken both cushions off his swivel chair and placed them under her head, then moved a couple of heavy crates to wedge her against the side and prevent her from rolling around.
Edge shifted the crates, got both arms under her and lifted her: draped her limp form gently over a shoulder to carry her out on to the platform and down the steps.
‘She’s not—’ the engineer started anxiously.
‘She’s hot as hell, but she ain’t gone there yet,’ the half-breed answered. ‘What do I owe for the ride?’
‘A horse and two passengers from Colorado Junction would cost—’ the manager said.
‘No charge,’ the engineer cut in and received an angry glare from the uniformed man. Ignored it and explained: ‘It was a mercy mission.’
‘Obliged, feller,’ Edge responded and with his free hand unhitched the reins from the guard-rail.
‘Surprised you understand what Don’s talking about, sir,’ Crane growled. ‘Way I hear it, you didn’t understand the meaning of mercy when you shot down Gerald Mc Arthur.’
‘Words I understand,’ Edge answered without turning around as he moved away from the rear of the train. ‘It’s people that sometimes puzzle me.’
Crane vented a grunt of scorn. ‘I’ve met your type before!’ he called after the departing half-breed. ‘What you fail to understand, you destroy!’
Now Edge did look back as he led his horse over the railroad track. Answered: Take the engineer’s advice, feller. Watch what you say or there could be a question mark over your future.’
There was a babble of talk behind him, Crane speaking angrily while the train crew tried to placate him. But none of it loud enough to be heard by Edge as he moved with the unconscious woman and the horse along the street. He was heading for the tent of the dead McArthur, and by the time he reached it there were signs of increased activity out on the claims. The silver miners loading heavy-looking sacks on to hand carts which, when fully laden, were trundled down to the trail and along it toward the newly arrived train.
He and Crystal Dickens were inside the tent before the first of the carts was pushed past the closed entrance flap. It was a three man wedge tent of a design the half-breed had often seen in army camps during the War Between the States. Reasonably cool in the heat of early afternoon, the canvas subduing the glaring light of the sun to a restful shade of green.
Along one side was an unfurled bedroll on a short legged cot, the blanket stained with the spilled blood of Augie Attinger. Across from this was a Boston rocker chair, a four drawer chest without legs, two wooden crates containing a supply of canned and jarred foods and cooking and eating utensils, and a latrine pail that was empty. There was a tin pitcher and basin on the chest and a Paul Revere candle lamp hanging from the underside of the tent ridge.<
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Edge arranged the woman in what seemed to be the most comfortable posture on the cot and covered her with McArthur’s blankets and those from his own bedroll. Then he looked through the drawers of the chest. The lower two contained clothing and the others were untidy with jars, bottles, cans and earthenware tubs of medicaments: these mixed in with a selection of tarnished surgical instruments. None of the containers were labeled and Edge open several before he found a likely looking white salve.
It smelled and felt right, but first he tested it on himself - used the razor from the neck pouch to make a small cut on the ball of his thumb and spread a little of the ointment on it. After a few seconds, when he failed to feel any sting, he spread the salve thinly over the disfigured face of the unconscious woman.
In the cool and restful light of the tent, tiredness threatened to catch up with him. So before making any attempt to rouse Crystal Dickens, he used the tepid water in the pitcher to wash up and shave. It still felt as if there was grit under his eyelids and his muscles seemed to be made of rubber, but it was better than before.
And now, as the to and fro traffic of the pushcarts continued outside, he squatted beside the woman and began to trickle water from a canteen into her mouth. After a few seconds she moaned softly. Then her tongue protruded in an involuntary move to secure more water for her parched throat. Her eyelids flickered but stayed closed. She sighed and seemed to be sinking back into a deep sleep rather than unconsciousness.
‘Come on, lady,’ he growled, and tried a shock treatment - forcing open her lips with a thumb and finger and pouring about a quarter of a cupful of water between them.
Some of it went into her windpipe instead of her gullet and she choked, gagged and then groaned. Her head was wrenched to the side and her eyes snapped open: were glazed for stretched seconds.
‘Welcome back,’ he said softly and her eyes cleared of the film and became filled with remembered terror. ‘You’re all in one piece, lady,’ he went on in the same even tone.
She had a dim recollection of hearing his voice before. Now she straightened her head on the pillow and peered directly into his face.
EDGE: Vengeance at Ventura Page 6