“Don’t he look beautiful in his birthday suit?”
Joe didn’t move a muscle at the sound of the voice, crystal clear in its mocking tone as it carried on the silent night air. He knew it came from his left and that the man was no more than ten yards away. It proved to Joe just how tired he was, for when he was fresh nobody could get this close to him without him being aware of their approach.
“If I was a female I would go real crazy with desire for such a hombre. He is magnificent.”
This one was a Mexican, over on the right, but forward of the other so there would be no direct crossfire.
“You ought to see him from where I am. The firelight flickering on him and all that crap.”
An older man. From the trees. Joe knew he should have paid attention to the restlessness of his horse during the few minutes before the newcomers announced their presence.
“Don’t you move now or you won’t have a head.”
Immediately behind him, accompanied by the cracking of a twig under a boot and then the gentle prod of a large bore muzzle in the neck. A series of clicking sounds cut through the night, more than four, as the guns ringing Joe were cocked. He knew he could quite easily grab the gun of the man behind him, but there were too many imponderables in what might happen then, so Joe continued to remain immobile.
“Any of you fellers want to stay for supper, you’re welcome,” he said and the man behind him gave a small gasp. He sounded nervous, and that worried Joe. The muzzle felt large enough to be that of an old fashioned blunderbuss, unpredictable but devastating at such close range, “I figure six of you.”
“Seven.” The man in the trees.
Joe carefully lifted his mug and sipped at the coffee. “That’ll be about a mouthful of peas for each of us.”
The man came out of the trees, appearing as a shadow, lighter against the dark background.
“Divided by eight?”
“Yeah.”
“You may not be around.”
“You’ve got to have a better reason to kill me than a spoonful of peas.”
“We’ve been killing men for less reason than that,” came the reply as the man stepped forward into the light of the fire and Joe was able to see the long blue coat and the tarnished buttons of the Federal infantry uniform. He held a Colt loosely in his left hand, pointed idly at the fire.
The others came in then, including the man who had been behind Joe and all were ex-Federal infantrymen, travel stained and weary-eyed. They were privates, all armed with revolvers except the one from behind. He had an ancient blunderbuss. The man from the trees was in command, perhaps because he was the oldest. Close on fifty, Joe guessed. The others looked about twenty as they tried to appear tough, fighting a losing battle against fatigue.
“You said seven,” Joe said when he had glanced around the ring of six, stubble covered faces.
“Ed’s holding the horses,” the oldest man replied, raised his fingers to his lips and let out a piercing whistle.
Within moments hoofs rattled and another young soldier appeared, holding four sets of reins in one hand, three in the other.
“What’s your name, hombre?” the Mexican asked, coming closer, peering with great interest across the fire into Joe’s face.
“I didn’t know there were any Mexicans in the war,” Joe countered.
The man grinned and shrugged, “A few. I was the best.”
Joe’s eyes narrowed and glinted dangerously in the firelight as he watched the man finished tethering their horses and move across to poke among the saddle and bedroll at the foot of the tree. But he looked no further than the clothes piled on top of the heap, gave a startled yell of surprise that could not have communicated greater pleasure had he discovered the two thousand dollars in the saddlebags.
“He’s a priest,” the man said excitedly, and the others glanced at him briefly before returning their attention to Joe, eyeing him with renewed interest.
“Well what do you know,” the man in command said, and the Mexican crossed himself.
“Put away your guns,” the one who had found the clothes said sharply. “A priest will not harm us and we have no right to treat him so.”
The rest of the men looked towards their leader and after a moment’s hesitation, he struck his own gun in his belt and the others lowered their weapons. Joe saw the tension escape from their expressions, but he remained keyed up.
“You are a Catholic, father?” the Mexican asked reverently.
Joe shook his head.
The Mexican shook his head. “It does not matter. I think you can get dressed now.”
Joe looked at the older man, received a nod and stood, finished his coffee unembarrassed by his nakedness and crossed to where the man still stood holding the cassock. Actually, he was a boy, no more than seventeen, his beard a mere white down that gave his face a vulnerable look. But in his eyes was mirrored a multitude of pain and brutality.
“We are sorry, padre,” he said. “If we had known …”
Joe had seen many such men during the war, tender in years but aged in bitter experience, often more frightened by the authority of an officer’s uniform than the guns of the enemy.
“But you didn’t know, son,” Joe said, feeling nothing for him but injecting softness into his voice.
Out of respect the boy turned his back while Joe dressed, and he acted as a screen for the others, who had squatted around the fire, all apparently discomfited by their elaborate precautions and disrespectful behavior towards a harmless man of the cloth. He was thus able to put on his concealed weapons without arousing any suspicion. Fully dressed, including his hat, he moved back to the fire, accompanied by the boy, who seemed to feel some kind of profound rapport with Joe.
“Mind if we use your fire to boil up some coffee ...?” the older man asked, letting the sentence hang in the air as if unsure of how he should address Joe.
“Certainly,” Joe said and one of the men got hurriedly to his feet, went to the horses for a pot and carried it to the rivers edge to fill.
“Have you ridden far?” Joe asked to end a lengthy silence during which they all glanced furtively at him, except the boy who appeared constantly on the point of posing a request but lacked the gall.
“Twenty miles or so,” the Mexican replied. “We are going home from the war.”
The older man nodded. “That’s right. Jose here to Baja California for some more fighting in the Mex army and the rest of us out to Salt Lake country. We figure to start ranching there. Seems some people can’t get killing out of their systems.”
The man had returned with the water filled pot now and set it alongside Joe’s pot of peas. He wore a puzzled expression, but refused to meet Joe’s eyes.
“How do you mean?”
“Ran into a bunch of five cavalrymen this afternoon,” came the disgruntled reply. “Raiding a stage station. Wearing the same uniforms as us and killing innocent people for a few lousy dollars.”
“We were only fooling when we crept up on you,” the Mexican put in hastily and the older man was suddenly embarrassed.
“Yeah,” he said, “that’s right. Wanna get to a nice part of the country and live peaceful like.”
Joe hardly heard what he was saying. “Five cavalrymen?” His tone was sharp and seven pairs of eyes examined him. He fought a smile on to his face. “I am sorry. I have been a long time riding alone. News is scarce and I am interested.”
It satisfied all save the one who found Joe a constant form of bemusement.
“Real tough, mean bastards … Pardon me. Led by a sergeant. And one was a busted corporal. We chased them out of there, I can tell you. But not before they killed the liveryman and raped a woman waiting for a stage.”
“Which way did they go?” Joe asked, forcing his voice to maintain an even tone. “I wouldn’t like to run into them.”
“This way,” the man answered as the Mexican shoveled coffee into the pot and stirred it with a knife. “They had fresher horse
s than us and there was nothing in chasing them. Probably came through this part of the country. Heading southwest. Just got killing in their blood, I guess.”
The men dipped mugs into the pot and sat silently drinking coffee for several moments.
“Padre?” It was the boy, finally finding the courage to pose his question.
Joe looked at him quizzically.
“I wish to take communion.”
Joe was thinking about Frank Forrest, a sergeant; Hal Douglas who was busted from corporal after he looted a widow woman’s house in Tennessee; and three other men. He was thinking about Jamie and what these men had done to him. He was thinking he had guessed their moved right. He was certain he had narrowed the distance between himself and them.
The suddenness and subject of the boy’s question almost caused Joe to curse aloud.
“Well ...” he said and faltered.
“After supper, boy,” the older man put in, giving Joe a time leeway. “Eat first, padre.”
Joe took the offered opportunity, munching slowly at the meager meal. Realizing that at the end of it he would have to make his play and that getting the drop on seven men, even though they were unsuspecting, was not going to be easy.
Then the time for planning was virtually non existent.
“You’re Captain Josiah Hedges.”
The words came fast, with the speed of abrupt realization after long pondering, from the man who had cast so many puzzled glances in Joe’s direction.
“I knew you were familiar. You ain’t no priest. I seen you at Five Forks, Virginia on April one this year after we beat the gray-coats, strutting around in your captain’s uniform like you’d done it all yourself.” He spat into the fire. “Christ, I hate officers.”
Before the man’s spittle had ceased its hissing, while the other six men were still recovering from the shock of the revelation, Joe was on his feet and his left hand had streaked under the cassock, emerged holding the ready cocked Remington. The pent up tension that had coiled Joe’s nerves into a tight ball ever since the first voice had come out of the night was released through the trigger finger and the mighty roar of the Remington exploded like a crack of thunder. The man who had spoken made no sound of pain as the heavy caliber bullet crashed through his skull. There was a creak of his bones as he toppled sideways under the impact and a greater hissing that before as a fountain of blood mixed with gray particles of brain tissue gushed on to the fire.
“And I hate privates with long memories,” Joe said, swinging the revolver around the heads of the others, ensuring they realized they were covered.
“He said, Edge,” the Mexican mispronounced. “I want to remember that name.”
“That’s close enough,” Joe told the ring of shocked faces. “And you might all have some years left to remember it if you do like I say.”
Five of the six recovered from the shock of sudden violence and from their expressions Joe was sure he had nothing to fear from them unless he gave them a wide even opportunity to draw on him. But the boy was still stunned, his mind refusing to accept the fact that a man dressed in such garb could kill in cold blood. He rose, as if in a trance, and reached out a hand towards Joe, perhaps to feel if this was a real living man and not some terrible component of an obscene nightmare. But Joe mistook the gesture and his right hand flew to the back of his neck, shot forward again as if to hit the boy open handed across the cheek. But there was no smack of flesh against flesh and for a moment the boy was as surprised as the others. Then a hairline of blood appeared at each corner of his mouth, extended an inch on either side and the boy gave a terrible scream as his lower lip and bottom of each cheek flapped forward and down, revealing a perfect set of milk white lower teeth seeming to float in a sea of bubbling blood.
Oh my dear God,” the older man exclaimed hoarsely.
“Guns in the fire,” Joe said coldly as the boy collapsed into a heap on the ground, both hands going to his lower face, the sounds of pain and terror reduced to pitiful gurgling noises as his throat filled with blood. “Clockwise, one at a time. You first.”
He nodded to the Mexican who hesitated for only a second before inching the gun from his holster and tossing it into the flames. The other followed suit, automatically, unable to take their wide, horror-filled eyes from the boy as he writhed before them, moaning in agony. Joe stooped and freed the boy’s gun, tossed it after the others, then moved quickly towards his gear. Without weapons, still numbed by the speed and viciousness of the last shattering seconds, the men went to the aid of the injured boy, paying no heed to Joe as he saddled up, tied on his bedroll and mounted.
“What the hell did you use on him?” the older man said, shaking his head as he looked up from the boy who was holding the great flap of flesh in place with his hand, as if waiting for it to heal back to the rest of his face.
Joe, still covering the group with his Remington, flashed his free hand to his neck and back again, and showed them his open palm. The handle of an open razor lay along the center of his hand with the blade, gleaming silver in the moonlight, clamped between his two middle fingers.
“This kid shouldn’t have moved,” he said flatly. “Pity, he’s hardly old enough to start shaving.”
As Joe returned the razor to his neck pouch the first gun on the fire exploded and after he had wheeled his horse and set her at a gallop flames reached the cartridges in the others and the men dived for cover as lead and burning wood were thrown across the campsite.
“I’ll remember you, Edge,” the Mexican called after the escaping rider.
CHAPTER SIX
THE cluster of buildings called itself Anson City, proclaiming its status on a clapboard sign at the side of the trail which suddenly became Main Street as it ran between the church and the schoolhouse, the bank and the hotel, the sheriff’s office and the saloon, the dry goods store and the livery stable, the stage line headquarters and the restaurant before fanning out in several directions to become roads evidently named for the farms to which they led. It looked like a nice, peaceful place to rest up for a few hours, to have a decent breakfast and a bath with soap and hot water in the hotel before a sleep in a soft bed until maybe noon.
That was what Joe thought as he rode in just as the sun was dragging itself above the horizon behind him, pale and anemic but heading into an unblemished sky which promised another hot and dusty day. It was too early for many town dwellers to be awake and Joe might have been the only living being in the country as he rode his horse slowly down the center of the street, hoofs raising tiny puffs of dust. But the double doors of the restaurant were open and a column of gray wood smoke rose lazily up from the chimney at the rear of the building. The smoke told of ham and eggs, grits and fresh coffee, great hunks of still warm bread with butter direct from the churn.
Hunger became a stronger desire than vengeance and Joe justified the change in priority by pointing out to himself that the five men he had swore to kill also had to rest from time to time. And he had as many years as life allowed him to avenge the death of Jamie.
So he jerked on the reins, heading across the street towards the livery stable with its big FEED sign, intending to take care of the animal before tending to his own needs. But then another door on the street came open, thumping back against the front of a building and Joe turned quickly in the saddle to see a man standing in the doorway of the sheriff’s office, aiming one of the new .52 caliber rim-fire Starr rifles at him. The man, a five-pointed tin star on his chest, had the rifle raised to shoulder level and Joe could see the steely glint of his eyes behind the back-sight.
“I ain’t never shot no parson,” the lawman said evenly, “but then you ain’t no more a man of religion than I am. You get off that horse real slow and easy and you keep your hands way out at your sides.”
Joe knew better than to draw against a man with a rifle aimed at him from less than ten yards away, so he did as instructed, dropping easily to the ground. But then his horse gave a sudden nervous jump an
d her hindquarter caught Joe in the back, sending him stumbling across the street. A rifle cracked and a hunk of leather was bitten from Joe’s right boot toe, went bouncing off into the dust. He froze and glanced across the street, saw a man perched on the roof of the bank, in the same stance as the sheriff, blue smoke curling away from his rifle muzzle.
“My deputy,” the sheriff said evenly. “He didn’t miss. If he had known that wasn’t just a stumble you’d have a bullet where your brains are. We heard about you shooting a feller and then cutting up another one. Mex came through here early on and told us. Wouldn’t stay around so I guess we’ll have to put you in the cooler until we can find him as a witness. Plenty of time. Circuit judge ain’t due for a month or more.” He glanced down at the bank. “Okay Hank,” he called. “Come on down here and get his guns.” Then back at Joe. “Hank’s been up there and me waiting here for a couple of hours. Figured you might be through this way. Man’s got to eat and the way the Mex told it you ain’t been doing too well in that respect.”
The shot and raised voices had brought the whole town awake now and several doors and windows were opened on both sides of the street. But nobody came down off the sidewalks except the deputy, who approached wearily, rifle at the ready. He had one the new Starrs too, which he now carried at hip level, finger ready on the trigger.
“He’s got a handgun under the cloak and some kind of razor tucked in at the back of his neck someplace, Hank,” the sheriff called.
Joe felt a hand go under the cassock from the rear, remove the Remington, then there was a movement at his neck as the razor was withdrawn from its pouch.
“Got em, Mr. Hammond,” he said with deep satisfaction in his tone. “Guess he ain’t so tough now.”
Edge: The Loner (Edge series Book 1) Page 4