The priest and the woman had their backs to the half-breed. They were shouting. But not to him. Above the crash of water and creak of timbers, he heard disjointed words and phrases. O’Keefe was praying at the top of his voice. Angel North interjected countless Amens.
The boat was surrendered by one current to another. Edge, his face streaming with water, acted instinctively to reposition the rudder. But had no way of knowing whether this had any effect on the diagonal course of the mackinaw out into mid-stream. More drenching water broke over the gunwale to slop along the bottom of the boat
The single fight in the town of Fallon was now behind him. So was the moon. There were just the white slopes of the valley on either side. The star patterned sky above. And the raging river beneath. Droplets of spray clung to his eyelashes, blurring his vision and making it even more difficult to keep his bearings.
He recalled his pathetically lame excuse for taking the night ride to Fallon—the near empty tobacco poke. This thought sparked self-anger which blocked any reasoned consideration of why he had elected to join O’Keefe and the woman aboard the flood-tossed boat.
Then it was over. With a suddenness that sprang the word miraculous into his mind. He saw ahead what seemed to be an impenetrable wall of solid blackness against the snow. A powerful current rushed the boat toward it and there was no response from the rudder. The craft was turned sideways-on, as if at the start of an uncontrollable spin. The low boughs of a tree slapped across the half-breed’s face, spattering him with the wet of melted snow.
The mackinaw did do a complete turnabout, but slowly. And the pitching motion was almost halted. It was being propelled by its own momentum across a small lagoon encircled by timber.
The priest curtailed his prayer.
Angel North stood erect and gazed around in wonder. ‘We are saved, Father!’ she gasped.
‘Do not sound surprised, Daughter,’ O’Keefe said calmly. ‘It is God’s will.’
‘Best you wait until we’re ashore to thank Him,’ Edge growled. ‘I’m told shipboard romances don’t last.’
He licked the water from his thin lips and tasted salt. He realized it was the sweat of fear which had opened his pores.
‘Do not conceal your faith, sir!’ O’Keefe chided. ‘You have it, or why else did you cross with Daughter and me?’
‘I don’t know,’ the half-breed replied as he picked up his Winchester from the deep water in the bottom of the boat. ‘It even seemed a lousy idea at the time.’
The lagoon’s opening to the river was some twenty feet wide. The flood water continued to rush by but its angry roar was less loud now, the sound strangely absorbed by the surrounding trees. The boat grounded with a gentle thud on a snow-covered shingle beach.
O’Keefe and Angel North hauled the bow of the mackinaw high out of the water as Edge started through the trees, the beacon light of the Fallon Hotel gleaming among the evergreen foliage to show him the way to take.
The diagonal crossing of the Wind River had carried the mackinaw a half mile downstream and Edge had covered almost half the distance back again before a glance over his shoulder showed him the priest and the woman emerging from the trees.
‘At least two people are having a frigging good time this Christmas,’ he muttered.
He stayed close to the river all the way to the point immediately opposite the Doniphan house. Lamplight continued to shine from two windows and the open door. The horses had wandered a little, but not far. The bodies of Wilder, Groves and French looked from this distance like abandoned sacks of something unspecific.
On this side of the river there was a broad jetty which sometimes showed above the surface and was a moment later awash. A much larger ferryboat than the mackinaw was moored by six lines to the downstream side of the jetty. The ropes were rigidly taut under the strain of holding the boat against the powerful challenge of the river. It was a purpose-built craft with low sides and a bow and stern in the form of long ramps at present in the raised position. It was large enough to carry a wagon and four horse team.
It creaked and shuddered and the ropes which held it groaned.
After a glance toward the light in Fallon and another back at the couple hurrying through the snow, Edge was gripped by an unreasonably compulsion to draw the razor from his neck pouch and saw through the ferryboat’s mooring lines.
But he spat forcefully into the dark, white-spume scarred river, having decided he had done enough unreasonable things for one day. And started up the steep slope to town.
The temperature had dropped again and when he moved off the trail from the ferry and on to the street, he heard no dripping of melted snow from the eaves of the buildings. The only sounds were made by the distant river and his footfalls in the snow. Until he reached the square formed by the intersection of two streets where the Fallon Hotel was sited. Then a clock, higher up in the town, began to chime the hour of midnight. Higher still, on the snow capped ridge above Fallon, a wolf howled.
The windows of the hotel were dimly lit, in contrast to the bright lamp illuminating the wooden sign. And were misted with condensation. When the double, one-piece wooden doors were pushed open, a little more light spilled out to fall across Edge.
Two men stood swaying on the threshold, each with an arm hanging around the shoulder of the other. They had sweat-sheened, liquor-reddened faces. And each had a brimful shot glass in his free hand. They grinned foolishly at the half-breed, drunkenly friendly.
‘Hey, hear that, mister?’ one of them invited.
‘Means it’s Christmas day,’ the other added. They both lifted their glasses and emptied them down throats immune to the searing effect of the whiskey. ‘You wouldn’t by any chance be Santa Claus?’
‘No, Fred. He ain’t gotta sack.’
‘Looking for one to climb into is all,’ Edge answered as the clock finished chiming and the wolf ceased its anguished howling.
‘Come along inside, stranger!’ a third man invited, friendly without being drunk. ‘This is the place you been lookin’ for.’
Edge stepped up on to the stoop.
‘Big night, Jethro!’ the elder of the two celebrating old-timers announced after peering across the intersection. ‘Two more folks a-comin’ up the hill.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Sad, ain’t it, George?’
‘What is, Fred?’
‘Folks bein’ far from home at Christmas? Away from their loved ones and all?’
‘Hey, Fred?’
‘Yeah, George?’
‘What’s with Ralph and Emily Doniphan tonight? All them lights on in the house at this hour?’
Edge glanced down the hill and across the river just before he entered the hotel. The horses were gone from sight now, perhaps around to the blind side of the house. The dark humps in the snow were even more difficult to recognize for what they were from this distance.
‘Does it matter, George?’
‘No, Fred. Not to us.’
‘Then let’s have another drink.’
‘Sure thing, Fred.’
The saloon section of the Fallon Hotel was well appointed by frontier standards. It was a square room with a bar counter running halfway along the rear and a side wall. The counter was of polished timber and the walls were whitened and hung with badly executed oil paintings in gilt frames. The tables and chairs were in the same style as the L-shaped bar. In one corner were gaming tables for cards, roulette and craps. Plus a wheel of fortune. In another was a semi-circular stage fringed with velvet drapes.
The middle-aged, brightly smiling man behind the bar looked as neat and clean as the bottles and glasses arranged on the shelves behind him. The two old-timers, their Sunday-best suits a little rumpled and stained by the drinking session, had been the only patrons before Edge entered. They returned now to the table nearest an ornate stove which had filled the saloon with pleasant heat before they opened the doors.
Light was supplied by only four of the many lamps which hung around the walls.
&nbs
p; ‘Only got us two boarding guests right now, sir,’ the bartender said as Edge moved up to the bar in front of him and rested the Winchester stock on the floor, the barrel leaning against his leg. ‘So you and your friends almost got the pick of the hotel rooms.’
‘Friends?’ Edge said, and added: ‘Whiskey.’
With the dexterity of a man proud of his craft, the bartender swung a bottle and a shot glass from a shelf behind him to the counter top in front of him. ‘They said two others were coming.’ He looked toward the open doorway which was admitting the cold night air. ‘I thought that as you reached Fallon more or less at the same time...’
Edge uncorked the bottle and poured liquor into the glass. ‘I know them,’ he allowed, and swallowed the slug of whiskey in one gulp.
The old men at the table by the stove were drinking slowly now, savoring the last drainings from the bottle which stood empty between them. They blew out fresh cigar smoke which served to mask the staleness of the old which permeated the atmosphere.
The bartender’s smile continued to expose his teeth and form the line of his lips. But his eyes showed anxiety. There won’t be any trouble, sir?’
‘Seems that depends upon the Almighty,’ the half-breed replied, doing nothing to sooth the other man’s unease. Then he delved into his hip pocket and produced a five dollar bill which he placed on the bartop. ‘For the drink and in advance for the room, feller. Be obliged if you’d tell me where to find the room. The closest one will be fine.’
The bartender blinked several times. Then cleared his throat and nodded toward a door at the end of the bar section running along the rear wall. ‘Through there and up the stairway, Mr. …?’
‘Edge.’
‘Yes, well. Up the stairs like I say. Any room except number ten. That’s the bridal suite and we … yes, well.’ He cleared his throat again. ‘You’re wet through, Mr. Edge. If you’d like to leave your clothes outside your door, I’ll bring them down to dry by the stove. I’ll be closin’ up pretty soon. Then I have to decorate the saloon for tomorrow and—’
‘Obliged, feller,’ the half-breed interrupted as the footfalls of O’Keefe and Angel North sounded on the stoop boarding outside. He showed a quiet smile as he picked up his rifle. ‘But it ain’t my birthday. And that’s the only suit I got apart from these clothes.’
‘Sir!’ the priest called excitedly as he escorted the woman into the saloon. ‘Please tell Daughter and I that we have reached the end of our search?’
The old timers got hurriedly to their feet. They bowed unsteadily.
‘Howdy, ma’am,’ Fred greeted.
‘And a merry Christmas to you, lady,’ George added.
Angel’s radiant smile rewarded them and still had ample warmth to spare for the nervous and bemused Jethro behind the bar.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Please, a woman with child named Mary and her husband Joseph?’ O’Keefe implored, his voice tremulous with avid expectation.
‘Oh, yeah. We got Maria Lass—’
Edge closed the door behind him on the warm, dimly-lit, smoke-reeking saloon. And heard nothing more of the exchange except a squeal of delight from the one-time Virginia City whore.
Enough moonglow and the reflection of its blue light off snow filtered through windows to show him the way up the staircase and reveal halls leading off the landing at the top. Nine of the doors flanking the landings stood ajar and he pushed open the one bearing the numeral two.
It was functionally comfortable, furnished with a single bed, a chair, a bureau and a closet to hang clothes. There was a strip of rush matting beside the bed. Small framed prints were fixed to the whitened walls. A window overlooked the square in front of the hotel.
The air was cold and free of odor, except that of being unused for a long time. No sounds intruded from outside.
There was a pitcher of water in a bowl on the dresser and a towel folded beside it. After he had stripped off all his clothing, Edge ignored the water but used the towel to rub dryness and warmth into the flesh of his bullet-scarred body. Then he hung his damp clothing in the closet and climbed in under the clean blankets. The bristles of his face rasped on the crisp fabric of the pillow. The wood and metal of the Winchester stayed cold for a long time in the bed. He slept his shallow, energy-restoring sleep with his right hand fisted around the frame of the rifle.
But there was no risk of him putting a bullet into the full, ripe body of Angel North when she stepped into the room: unless his sub-conscious defensive mechanism had warned him the woman posed a threat.
He heard the click of the door latch and sprang open his eyes. The narrowest, brightest blue threads against a background of dark hues—dark brown skin and jet black bristles.
Brilliant sunlight streamed in through the window, entering at a low angle to show that the day was still very young. Edge did not blink in response to it as he shifted his eyes to the full extent in their sockets without moving his head. The door swung open noiselessly on well-oiled hinges and the woman moved across the threshold. She looked much as she had when he last saw her, except that the semicircles of creased shadows under her brown eyes were much darker. Her hands were at her sides and empty.
‘I know it’s Christmas,’ he said evenly, and the words froze her into immobility and spurred a gasp from her full lips. ‘But you ain’t my idea of God’s gift to mankind, ma’am.’
She recovered quickly from the surprise. The momentary fear was gone from her once-beautiful face and the former expression of nervous tension took command of her features.
‘Please, I beg of you? There may be trouble. Father has asked if you will help us.’
The half-breed had sat upright, his back against the head of the bed so that the blankets fell away from him, revealing his naked torso to the base of his flat belly. She was a onetime whore and he knew it. He did not expect, and she did not show, any embarrassment. Nor interest in the muscular, dark-toned body with its matting of black hair on the chest and the livid, dead tissue which was the sign of old bullet wounds at his left shoulder, right hip and just below the elbow on the inside of his left arm.
‘How’d I get to owe you two anything?’ he asked, and threw off the bedcovers to swing his bare feet to the rush matting.
The woman’s expression did not alter as he stood up and moved to the closet, revealing his total nakedness. She made no point of not looking at any particular part of him. It was as if he were fully clothed.
‘Not us, mister. The world!’
‘That ain’t done nothing for me either, lady,’ Edge growled, grimacing at the stiff, cold, still damp touch of the red long johns against his flesh.
‘Money!’ Angel North sneered. ‘You want money?’
‘Not right now. Got enough for my needs.’ He pulled on his pants. ‘What kind of trouble?’
The question was impulsive: to such an extent that for part of a second he did not believe he had asked it. The woman spoke eagerly across the start of his self-anger.
‘Maria Lassiter wants to get to her Pa before he dies. But she’s near to her time. The local doctor says she can’t travel. And because of that Redeker won’t give us the okay.’
The air in the small room had been fugged with the effects of Edge’s sleeping. With the door open the atmosphere had freshened and now seemed to be laden with invisible icicles which jabbed their points into his flesh. He glanced out of the window and saw that the sky was almost solid blue, marred only by the yellow ball of the rising sun. The snow sparkled with an overlay of frost crystals. The section of the Wind River he could see was still at a high level, but it flowed slow and smooth with no whitecaps to disturb the surface.
‘Can’t O’Keefe handle killing them himself?’ the half-breed asked as he finished buttoning his shirt.
She crossed the room and, close up, he saw the depth of her fatigue inscribed on the sallow skin of her face. And smelt the staleness of her body which had been too long in the same clothes. She thrust up the win
dow and a new invasion of clean, ice-cold air dispelled the smell of her.
‘Take a look, mister,’ she invited.
Edge buckled on his gun belt and tied the holster down to his thigh as he pushed his head and shoulders out of the open window.
The snow on the streets had been trampled by many feet. Immediately below three men stood in front of the hotel stoop, wrapped in warm clothing and holding rifles. Higher up the broad main street of Fallon, a group of people were filing into the church. Countless footprints in the frost-crisped snow indicated that many other worshippers had preceded them.
Above and to the right of the window the lamp that illuminated the hotel sign glimmered ineffectually in the morning sun. It was impossible to see if the lights in the Doniphan house over the river were still on. The frozen corpses of the Bar-M hands were veiled by the dazzle from water and snow.
Edge withdrew his head and closed the window. ‘Lots of people go to church at Christmas,’ he said as he shrugged into his topcoat, put on his hat and carried his boots over to the bed. ‘What kind of service are the three fellers down below giving?’
‘We told the men in the saloon last night about all the signs of the second coming,’ Angel North said quickly. ‘We demanded to see Mary … Maria. The bartender wouldn’t let us. He held a scattergun on us. Sent the drunks out to fetch some people. The sheriff and the doctor and the local preacher. But they told others. The saloon was crowded. We been talkin’ and arguin’ all night. You must’ve heard the noise?’
‘Would have if it had been any business of mine,’ Edge answered.
The woman showed brief confusion at this, then shrugged it off as irrelevant. ‘Anyway, this town is filled with people who have faith, mister. Our message of the signs has been received in the manner we give it. Almost everyone in Fallon believes Jesus Christ is to be born again.’
She savored the triumph of this achievement as Edge lifted the Winchester from the bed and canted it to his left shoulder.
EDGE: Eve of Evil (Edge series Book 28) Page 11