“Hey Frank,” Seward yelled. “You can’t appoint yourself the new sheriff. The old one’s still around.”
Forrest sighed, aimed his rifle and squeezed the trigger. The sheriff arched his back once and died. “He ain’t now,” Forrest said.
Seward gave a shout of glee and leapt down from the sidewalk, flipped the dead Peacock over onto his back with a vicious kick. He stopped, ripped the star from the man’s shirt. Then his saber went high, made a swishing sound as it fell and drew a deep seated gasp of horror from the watching crowd as the blade slashed cleanly through Peacock’s neck, severing his head from his body.
“That makes it for sure,” Seward said, tossing the star to Forrest who caught it and pinned it to his own shirt-front.
At the rear of the crowd, unmoved by the horror of what had taken place outside the sheriff’s office, Edge judged that the time was right. He felt cold and calculating, his muscles relaxed, his mind and body ready to act like a machine, obeying the spur to vengeance but open to the caution for self-preservation. He drew the Remington, his hand curling around the cold hardness of its butt. Then, like a released coil spring he sprung as fingers clawed into his arm. The muzzle of his revolver was an inch from Gail’s horrified face and Edge’s finger was within a split instant of squeezing the trigger.
“What are you doing?” she demanded sharply, her voice lost to all others in the buzz of startled conversation that had sprung around the crowd.
“Attending to my business,” Edge snapped, lowering the gun, shaking free of the girl’s grasp.
“There’s innocent people here,” she urged. “Women and children. They’ll get hurt.”
“That ain’t nothing to do with my business,” he came back, looking across the crowd, seeing that all but Bell and Seward and gone into the sheriff’s office. These two stood a menacing guard outside.
“You’ll fail,” Gail pressed on. “You can’t hope to go up against their rifles with a revolver.”
Edge stared down at the Remington snuggled in his hand and realized the truth of the girl’s words. He’d been wrong. He wasn’t ready. He had acted on an impulse, taking no account of a primary factor that loaded the odds overwhelmingly against him.
“Don’t listen to her,” the toothless old man encouraged, anxious for more action. “Go and get ‘em son. They’re tough but you’re tougher. Go blast them out of the office.”
Edge looked at him and from the expression on his face, the old man was sure his words had convinced Edge not to wait.
“Go get my horse ready, feller,” he said easily. “Feed him, water him, rub him down till his coat shines like a mirror, and saddle him. If he ain’t ready by the time I want to ride out of here you’ll have three minutes to make your peace with whatever kind of God makes scum like you.”
The old man turned and scuttled away, and the rest of the crowd began to break up, only two men having the stomach to cross and pick up the headless body of Sheriff Peacock under the menacing guns of Bell and Seward. But even they turned away from the displaced head, white faces twisted by terror.
“Thank you,” Gail whispered, and took Honey’s arm for support as the couple moved away.
Edge cast one more glance at the sheriff’s office before using the cover of what remained of the crowd to go into the hotel.
The gold-studded clerk eyed him fearfully. The drunk slept on. No longer snoring. The only sound in the lobby was the heavy tick of a large clock above the door. Its hands pointed to the hour of two o’clock. Peaceville was suddenly quiet.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THOSE who considered themselves the good citizens if Peaceville didn’t go to bed after witnessing the scene in front of the sheriff’s office. Edge, stretched out on his own bed in the hotel room, awake and fully dressed, staring up at the ceiling and thinking out a plan of campaign, neither knew nor cared what the townspeople were doing. He had stood at the window for several minutes after returning to the hotel room, watched as the street cleared of people save for Bell and Seward on sentry duty up on the sidewalk: and the grisly severed head, tipped over on its right side in the dust. But that couldn’t count because no part of Sheriff Peacock could be considered people any more.
There was a period of activity a few moments later when Forrest, Douglas and Scott emerged from the office and swaggered across the street to the Rocky Mountain Saloon. Bringing up the rear, Seward could not resist a sadistic kick at the head, which arced clumsily over the sidewalk to smash a window on the side of the street Edge had only a restricted view of. When the five had entered the swinging doors of the saloon, Edge could hear some shouts, a woman’s response and then some laughter. Then peace returned to Peaceville, apparently for the duration of the night if its citizens were prepared to allow it to be so.
Edge wasn’t.
So he lay on the bed, contemplating the ceiling, deciding how the murderers of Jamie were going to die. Then the rap of knuckles on the door sent his hand to the floor to snatch up the Henry and he was suddenly sitting up, rifle aimed, finger on the trigger.
“Come in slow and live longer,” Edge said, narrowed eyes glinting through the darkness which was suddenly split by a line of light, widening as the door was pushed further into the room, leaving a section of the hallway to view. Edge’s finger whitened on the trigger, eased slightly when he saw Gail step into view. She looked afraid. Edge licked his lips. “Last year I blasted what I took to be a nightmare,” he said evenly. “Turned out I half killed a corporal come to wake me up. You ain’t no nightmare, but best you say something so I know you ain’t a dream.”
Gail swallowed hard, stepped closer to the door. “We’ve had a meeting,” she said, and the words rasped over her nervousness.
“We?”
“The Citizen’s Council,” she explained, gaining a little confidence. “Honey’s a member. When they made their decision he suggested I come to see you. He thought you and I … well that we were friends.”
Edge heard the shuffle of feet in the hallway, out of the angle of view and he was suddenly off the bed, standing in a crouch, the Henry’s muzzle swinging from one side to the other. But then Honey forced a smile to her lips and raised a hand in a gesture of peace.
“Honey’s here,” she said. “And Mr. Chase, the banker. Eddie Old the schoolmaster and Reverend Peake. We’re a deputation Mr. Edge.”
Edge shook his head. “I don’t want no deputation. They had you come here, you knocked and you’ve spoken up ‘til now. You say the rest.”
Gail looked to either side of the doorway, and the man’s voice said something in low tones, the sense of which did not reach the interior of the room. Then the girl held out her hand, received something and dropped to her side again. She took a deep breath and stepped forward, just across the threshold, not really in the room.
“The town’s Citizen Committee had a meeting and decided it had to rid itself of the gang of vicious swine which is trying to take it over,” she paused, to see if this stirred anything in the taciturn Edge, and was disappointed that he continued to look at her with complete disinterest. She hurried on. “We—the men of the town anyway could go up against Forrest and his gang. And the committee’s certain they could oust them but a lot of people would get killed before it was all over.”
“You mean innocent people,” Edge said. “You said innocent people down on the street awhile back.”
“Very well,” she replied with a show of impatience. “Innocent people if you will. What do words matter at a time like this?”
“They matter,” Edge came back. “You’re using them, in a kind of sidestepping way, but I figure I get your drift. You want me to put my life on the line by going up against Frank Forrest and the rest.”
Gail nodded. “Yes, that’s it. I wouldn’t have put it that way. But we want you to rid Peaceville of that vermin.”
“No matter how you put it, comes out the same,” Edge said and in a dimly lit room Gail could not see if his grin was touched by hu
mor. “Guess I haven’t led an entirely blame-free life,” he went on. “No ... no, I guess nobody could call me innocent. I get killed, well ...”
“Oh you won’t get killed,” Gail said. “I’m sure you’re better than all them put together. You thought you were, awhile back.”
Edge didn’t like getting caught out by Gail, and was suddenly angry. She heard it in his tone as he spoke: “How much you offering?” The words seemed to be thrown at her, hard and fast like bullets.
She raised her arm from her side, offering him a handful of bills. “Five hundred dollars,” she told him.
Edge nodded. “That’s a hundred dollars a man.”
The girl drew in her breath, shocked. “You don’t have to kill them. Just rid the town of them.”
Edge nodded. “That’s a hundred dollars a man.”
The girl drew in her breath, shocked. “You don’t have to kill them. Just rid the town of them.”
“Throw the money across,” Edge told her and she complied. Chase had obviously opened his bank. The notes were new, held together in a block by a paper band. Edge flipped through the money, enjoying the feel of its newness. “You people are paying the freight,” he said, looking to the doorway. “I make the rules on delivery.”
The girl looked to the left and right, and then back into the room and nodded.
“They may be vermin,” Edge told her. “But I ain’t no rat catcher. My way, and my way means dead.”
Gail nodded again. Not liking it, her expression showing that she regarded Edge as no better than the men she had just paid him to kill. There was more murmuring down the hall and Gail looked away from the door, nodded and returned her attention to Edge.
“We’d appreciate it if you didn’t take too long, Mr. Edge.”
“I don’t work too long for five hundred,” he answered. “It’ll just cover the night. If any of them are still alive tomorrow, the town will have to pass the hat again.”
The girl’s lips tightened and there was more murmuring from the unseen Citizens Committee. It had a dissenting sound. Edge made a motion with his free hand.
“Now get out of here and tell them to stay off the street if they don’t want their innocent heads blown off.”
The girl returned to the hallway, pulling the door closed and Edge realized he could have been wrong, but just as her face disappeared from view, it showed a flicker of concern. Alone, he grinned and flicked through the five hundred, enjoying again the feel of the crisp new bills. Getting paid to do something he had intended to do anyway was unexpected and added flavor to the experience. It didn’t make him anymore determined to succeed but it added fullness to the anticipation. After the sound of shuffling feet in the hallway had diminished, he spent thirty minutes cleaning and oiling the Henry and the Remington, polishing the blades of the razor and knife until they gleamed. Then he climbed out of the window onto the roof of the porch and prized back the board to add the five hundred to his capital.
The town was almost silent, with nothing moving on the street, and everywhere in darkness except the Rocky Mountain Saloon, from whence came the only sounds. These were of conversation, pierced by occasional laughter, and the clink of bottle neck on glass rim. Edge’s footfalls on the wooden planking sounded like thunder and he spent a few moments removing his boots. Then he moved forward again, testing each step before he took it, searching for planks that creaked.
A sound down the street caused Edge to freeze and he peered down, saw a large white dog dart out of an alleyway, skid to a momentary halt and then run in a wide circle with a bark of joy. Edge saw the sheriff’s head swinging from its slavering jaws.
“Guess you just lost your head, sheriff,” Edge murmured as he stepped across the narrow gap that separated the hotel porch from that of the saloon.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
THE saloon had just two stories and, like the hotel next door had rooms facing the street with windows that opened out onto the porch way. There were four such windows, none of which showed light as Edge stood quietly, listening to the sounds from below. Although he could not distinguish the words being spoken, he could differentiate between the male and female voices and recognized the nasal twang of Forrest’s accent. He stood like that for perhaps a full minute and thought he heard two other men talking but could not make out who they were. Nor could he be sure that all of the men were still downstairs, two of them remaining silent, drinking or doing things with the saloon girls that required no conversation.
Then he moved and the first window he came to was open a crack at the bottom, enough for him to push his fingers under it and ease it upwards, an inch at a time, ready to stop at the first sound of a squeak. But it slid up smoothly and soundlessly and when Edge put his hand into the room he could hear even, regular breathing. He remained immobile at the window for several seconds, allowing his narrowed eyes to become accustomed to the darkness, until he could see the dresser and the wooden bed, the form of the sleeper rising and falling regularly with breathing upon it. He lowered the Henry in first, then his boots, finally threw a leg over the sill and climbed inside. A floorboard made a tiny sound as it took his full weight, did not disturb the figure on the bed.
He left his boot where they were, carried the rifle across the room. It was a woman in the bed, a large, ugly woman with a face streaked by run mascara, and enormous breasts that hung down on each side of her chest, made naked by the blanket which she had thrown back in her sleep. Edge assumed she was the madam of the establishment, taken to her bed when she discovered Forrest and his men were in no frame of mind to talk terms for the favors they sought.
Edge upholstered the Remington, raised it and brought it down with a swish of air. It thudded into the sleeping woman’s temple with a dull sound. She whimpered, her breathing missed a beat then became suddenly deep. Even in the darkness Edge saw the skin swell and begin to discolor. He went to the door and cracked it, put his eye to the opening to peer into the hallway. A candle flickered at each end, leaving a pool of darkness in the middle. Nothing moved except the two small flames, dancing in the draught he caused as he stepped out of the room and closed the door softly behind him. There were four doors on each side of the hallway, and the stairs at the end.
“You’re a cute little broad and make no mistake,” he heard Forrest say with a laugh, the words coming up the stairs and along the hallway with perfect clarity.
“And you’re the kind of man I like,” the object of his attention replied. Then she squalled. “Hey, that hurt.”
“But you still like me?”
“You bet.” Pained.
“I had enough to drink,” another man said. “Let’s go join Billy and the others.”
“Yeah,” agreed another. “This little girl’s got the hots for me and I don’t want to waste what’s left of the night.”
“You’re a naughty boy,” a girl said, her voice brittle. She sounded as coy as a mountain lion.
“Finish the bottle,” Forrest said, his voice making it an order. “Night or day, don’t make no difference. We screw these girls into the ground and then we get some more. Maybe from the cantina. I hear those Mex gals can keep it up twenty-four hours a day and still come back for more.”
“We ain’t no beginners,” one of the girls put in with irritation, but Edge was no longer listening. From what he had heard there were just two of Jamie’s murderers upstairs, Billy Seward and one other. It was all he needed to know for now.
The room next to the one he had entered by was empty, and so was the one next door, but when he stepped up to the next one across the hallway he heard sounds. There was a series of sighs, interspaced with grunts of pleasure and the occasional word of breathless endearment. With, in the background, the creaking of a bed that had provided support for too much lust and simulated passion in the past, protested noisily at this latest onslaught. Edge turned the handle, opened the door wide enough, slid inside the room and closed the door behind him in one silent, fluid movement.
&
nbsp; Neither Scott nor the girl beneath him were shy, for a candle flickered at each side of the bed, one on the dresser, another on a broken backed chair. The girl was naked, the man dressed in filthy under-vest and pants, opened where it had proved necessary. The girl was staring up at the ceiling, her expression of disinterested acceptance belying the sighs and words of encouragement she whispered. Scott had his face buried in the crook of her shoulder, was breathing like an ancient horse sloughing the last furrow in a long day. He would not have been aware of it had a train thundered through the room but the girl was different and so Edge was careful to hold his silence as he crossed the room in long strides.
He stood for a moment at the foot of the bed, looking at Scott’s thrusting body move between the girl’s spread legs. Then, just as the girl sensed his presence, he leaned the Henry against the bed and sprung forward, withdrawing the razor from its pouch. The girl’s eyes grew wide, her mouth wider as she opened it to scream a warning. But Edge’s free hand, clenched in a white-knuckled fist, caught her on the point of the jaw and her mouth closed with a force sufficient to crunch her teeth together so that the tip of her tongue was hanging over the bottom lip, still attached by a mere sliver of skin.
Scott’s sigh of climax was curtailed into a grunt of pain as Edge’s full weight smashed on to his back. Then Edge rolled off him, on to his back on the bed beside the unconscious girl, dragging Scott bodily off her, across himself and thumping him on to the floor. As he looked up at his attacker surprise became horror and he prepared to shout for help. But the downswing of the razor ended and as he felt the cold edge of the blade below his left ear he killed the words.
Edge: The Loner (Edge series Book 1) Page 11