He stood beside the window, waiting and sweating and hurting, his mind devoid of thought, his bruised and bristled face expressionless.
Ten minutes passed, during which time the talk below became desultory and interrupted by several pauses of varying lengths. Until there was a curtailment, rather than a fading away of what was being said. Which was a signal that something was about to happen.
Edge turned sideways on to the window and raised his left arm, the elbow crooked.
Joe Straw screamed. A high, long lasting, animalistic sound that spoke volumes about the depth and breadth of the man’s terror.
Edge crashed his elbow at the centre of the window. And could not withdraw it fast enough to prevent broken shards of glass from piercing his shirt sleeve and stabbing into his flesh.
Above the shrill scream, he heard the window pane shatter at the blow. But not the crash of the glass against the dirt of the yard.
Another wait. Of just a few seconds this time, hearing strained to its limit as his right hand draped the jutting butt of the holstered Colt.
Then the scream subsided to a whimper.
‘You say you are more Comanche than white eyes, Joe Straw! Comanche brave would not cry like baby because he is afraid!’
Triangular pieces of razor sharp glass were still held in the frame of the window. Edge began to ease them out very carefully, and set them down on the floor.
‘What you gonna do to me?’ Straw wailed.
‘Kill you, Joe Straw.’
‘Nooooooo!’
The slap of a hand against bare flesh silenced the half breed. Then an order was given in the Comanche language.
‘Why? Why you doin’ this to me after I - ’
‘You joined us to save your life, Joe Straw. And took a hand in killing the white eyes blood brothers of your father. Are we to believe that you would not kill us - the blood brothers of your mother - if it suited your purpose?’
Edge had cleared enough glass from the base and sides of the frame to allow his exit. Now he leaned far enough out to check that there was no rear window to the room in which Joe Straw was pleading a denial of what the leader of the Comanches had said. Then he withdrew, went to the bed and drew off its covers: carried the mattress to the window. The tension that knotted his every muscle acted to sharpen the pain that assaulted him. And he felt as if each bead of sweat oozing from his pores was a drop of strength draining out of him.
‘You got no reason to think that! I ain’t never killed an Indian! But I killed plenty of whites! Whites, they all hate me for bein’ part Comanche! But I ain’t never been hated by no Indians for bein’ what I am! Not until now! Oh, sweet Jesus, I’m startin’ to burn!’
The mattress hit the ground with a dull thud. The empty Winchester fell on top of it with less noise.
‘You want a cool drink, Joe Straw?’
A bottle was smashed and there was a strange roaring sound. Then another shrill scream vented by the half breed. This time accompanied by a gust of cruel laughter.
Even had Edge been curious about the reason for the series of sounds, he would not have been capable of rational thought. For his mind was under attack by bolts of agony that felt as bad as any he experienced during the beating and its aftermath. So intense he did not think he could survive the drop without passing out again.
This as he hung down the rear wall of the way-station building, his fingertips curled over the ledge of the broken window, his boots dangling less than six feet above the mattress. A short enough drop under normal circumstances, but the act of climbing out through the window and lowering himself gradually down the wall had stretched his punished flesh and the tissue and muscle beneath it, so that both his shoulders and the lower area of his belly seemed to be at the seat of raging fires.
There was another scream.
He was certain it was vented involuntarily from his own throat: and so it was an instinct for self-preservation that caused him to release his hold on the window ledge. And his right hand streaked to the Colt and had it cocked and clear of the holster as he landed flat-footed on the mattress and fell to the side.
Tears filled his eyes and he squeezed the lids tight closed. Nausea could erupt only bitter bile into his throat. One section of his mind longed for unconsciousness to flood through him and swamp the agony. Another section warned him this would be dangerous.
He was still screaming. And this after an agonizing and agony-wracked time when his silence was of paramount importance. He dragged his free hand up to his mouth: discovered with exploring fingertips that his lips were curled back and his teeth were gritted. But there was no rush of hot breath to power a scream.
He opened his eyes, blinked away the stinging salt moisture of tears and sweat: stared at the weathered timber of the rear wall of the building. On the other side of which, far down its length, Joe Straw ended his scream and begged:
‘Please. If I gotta die, make it quick. For God’s sake, shoot me.’
Edge heard his pent up breath whistle out between his clenched teeth. He rolled on to his belly and rose on all fours. Fisted a hand around the frame of the empty Winchester before coming slowly up on to his knees. Then needed the support of the wall to get to his feet.
Just as hatred had served to overcome the demands of pain for as long as it took to kill the men who beat him, so now anger acted to calm the waves of fresh agony that threatened to break over him and drown him into unconsciousness.
The Comanche bastards were killing Joe Straw. And if Edge allowed them to do that, it had all been for nothing. Joe Straw had to be hanged by the people of Crater, Colorado. That was the deal. With a thousand dollar reward for the trouble Edge took.
‘A blood brother of the Comanches would not beg for mercy, Joe Straw! Perhaps you would like another drink, eh? We have plenty to spare!’
More raucous approval was roared by the braves.
It had all been for nothing.
There was a door in the rear wall of the building and Edge staggered toward it.
Too many people had died.
He shook his head and droplets of sweat sprayed away from his flesh. Josiah C. Hedges would have been concerned about that. The man called Edge didn’t give a shit about it. What he did give a shit about was that four punk cowpunchers had beat the crap out of him. And he was still suffering the effects of the beating. And that had to be worth a thousand fucking bucks.
He yanked the door open and staggered into a passage which ran from the rear to the front of the building, where bright sunlight streamed in through a window. Peered along it with his eyes cracked against the brilliance, and saw where the stairs ended halfway along on the right.
He should have used those stairs. Instead of taking all that time, using all that nervous energy and suffering all that extra pain to get out through the window.
That had all been for nothing, too.
And why had he done it?
To keep clear of the Indians. Until he found his gear. The saddlebags with a couple of cartons of shells for the Winchester in one of them. He didn’t want to be halfway down the stairs and meet some curious Comanche coming up. Not when there were six of them armed with Winchesters. And he had just an empty rifle and the Frontier Colt.
Why hadn’t the bastards started in on putting Joe Straw to slow death earlier? Gotten Edge riled up enough to hit them hard and fast right off instead of pussy-footing around looking for rifle shells he might not find until it was too late.
Damn the stupid questions that nobody was going to answer.
Straw was shrieking another high pitched and drawn out plea for his suffering to be at an end. And Edge knew how he felt. He could smell the sickly stench of roasting flesh which negated the odors rising from his own body. Sickly because he knew it was human meat that was cooking.
Another bottle smashed.
Evil delight was voiced by every Comanche brave.
The strange roar sounded again. And this time Edge recognized it for what it wa
s as he staggered along the sunbright passage, Colt thrust out ahead of him.
The noise of a great tongue of flame exploded from a fire when liquid fuel was splashed on to it.
The victim’s scream masked the shouts of his tormentors which covered the thud of Edge’s footfalls along the passage.
He swung into the archway immediately across from the foot of the stairs. Gazed across the width of the room into the agony contorted face of a man feeling greater agony than he did. And drew back his lips from clenched teeth to rasp: ‘Hi, you half baked half breed.’
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE white heat was abruptly taken out of Edge’s anger and the powerful emotion was reduced to a tiny ball of ice in the pit of his stomach. But it was no colder than the look in his glinting eyes as they made a lightning survey of the room.
A room that was almost a perfect replica of the one at Way-Station Number Three. With the Boston rockers by the front window, the counter along one side with a gap at the centre to separate liquor from provision sales areas and the trestle tables and bench seats at the rear.
The main difference was that, instead of a cooking range, this room had a corner fireplace, which was the instrument of Joe Straw’s torture.
His wrists were lashed together again, but they were above his head now, the bonds hooked over a wall bracket which usually supported a kerosene lamp. The bracket at such a height that with his arms fully extended, just the tips of his toes touched the hearth.
He was naked except for his spurred boots: his pants and Indian waistcoat having been burned off him by the roaring flames of the fire in the grate behind him. Flames which diminished as the last drops of liquor from the second bottle to be smashed against the rear of the fireplace were consumed.
Edge triggered a shot from the Colt and tracked the gun on to a new target without seeing the first bullet puncture the back of an Indian. And shot a second brave in the same area - midway between waist and shoulder, left of centre - before the others were aware of his intrusion.
All were grouped in front of the screaming and writhing Straw, intensely interested in the suffering of their victim until they saw two of their number fall, blood pumping from back wounds.
They were not as drunk as Straw had been at the way-station down the south trail. But more drunk than the cowpunchers. And totally unprepared for the lethal trouble that had exploded upon them.
Edge shot a third Comanche while they were still staring at the first two who had not yet finished spasming on the floor. The bullet drilled into the side of this one. The left side, and his fall sent him crashing into Straw, who was swung helplessly into the fire and screamed to the full extent of his vocal range as the flames licked his bare legs before he came forward and clear of them.
None of the Comanches had sidearms, just knives and tomahawks on their weapons belts. Each of them clutched a bottle of rye. Each had discarded his Winchester to have both hands free for eating and drinking and torturing.
The cold anger that gripped Edge had a cooling effect on his thought processes. So that he was able to see each important detail and catalogue it in terms of how it threatened his survival.
One brave dropped into a crouch as he whirled around, and reached for his knife. Edge blasted a shot into the top of his head.
Before this Comanche was knocked on to his rump and began toppling backwards, the other two were diving for rifles. One to the left and the other to the right.
Edge allied speed with deliberation to select his next target as the brave who had the least distance to get to a Winchester. Shot him in the side of the head, the bullet biting out a piece of his ear before drilling into his skull.
‘Edge!’ Joe Straw shrieked in terrified warning.
The Frontier Colt tracked from the sprawling brave, across the tortured form of the half breed Comanche and drew a bead on the final target. Who was stretched full length on his side, a double handed grip on a rifle which he had swung to aim at Edge. On the periphery of his vision, Edge had seen the brave work the lever action. But no shell or shellcase had been ejected.
The rifle trigger was squeezed and the expression of evil triumph was abruptly wiped from the emaciated face of the brave. This as Edge checked his own trigger finger, without putting warmth into the ice cold grin that had formed on his battered features when the slaughter began.
A hysterical laugh was forced from Straw’s throat. ‘I knowed it! I knowed them sonsofbitches had give me an empty rifle to hit this place! That’s the one!’
The surviving brave was staring down in horror at the Winchester which had responded with a dry click when he squeezed the trigger. Then he jerked up his head to stare with malevolent defiance at the tall white man who moved between the gap in the counter.
‘If there ain’t no bullet, it can’t have my name on it, feller,’ Edge said softly, and fired the final shot from the Colt. Placed it between the teeth and into the back of the throat as the Comanche gaped his mouth to voice a curse.
The brave died instantly and was jerked over on to his back, the wrench of his head causing a stream of blood to jet out in a whiplash action, and lay a stain from his mouth to the foot of the wall beside the fireplace.
Edge’s nostrils were filled with the stench of his own sweat, the stale vomit, the rye whiskey spilled from the bottles dropped by dying braves, gunsmoke and the scorched flesh of Joe Straw.
Waves of pain crashed over him again. The empty Winchester dropped from his left hand and the Colt which had been expended came free of his right. If he had not been standing between the two sections of the counter and abie to support himself with a hand on the top of each, he would have fallen.
The corpse littered scene swam before his eyes. He heard Straw say something to him, but lacked the ability to concentrate. For his mind was concerned entirely with his own suffering. Then it fastened on something outside of himself - one of the stinks assaulting his nostrils.
The whiskey.
He backed painfully out from between the gap, but needed to steady himself with one hand on the counter as he moved along it. He reached down a fresh bottle of rye from a shelf, pulled out the cork with his teeth and spat it to the floor. Raised the bottle and drank from it.
The liquor going down his throat met bile coming up, but he fought against gagging and won.
‘Hey, man. Please cut me down, man.’
Edge heard the weakly spoken words after he had taken a second drink from the bottle and the liquor got all the way into his stomach without resistance.
‘It ain’t midday yet,’ he muttered.
‘What, man?’
Edge was talking to himself. He turned and leaned his elbows on the counter, holding the bottle in both hands. ‘Medicinal.’ He raised his eyes from the bottle and gazed bleakly over it at Straw.
Behind the almost totally naked man the fire was dying. And so was Joe Straw. When it had been stoked high, fuelled with dry wood exploded into roaring intensity by the whiskey, the flames must have seared terrible injuries across the back of the man after burning the clothing off him. Edge could see areas of his legs and flanks where the flesh was scorched black and marked with ugly blisters.
But it wasn’t the bums he would die of.
‘No, Joe.’
‘What?’ Straw was weakened by a degree of agony far greater than that which Edge was experiencing. But he had the strength of will to keep his head from dropping forward and to shout the single word.
‘The Indians roasted you, Joe. I need to grill you.’
‘Shit, man, you can’t let me - ’
‘Seems to me I can do whatever I like.’
‘Go to hell!’
‘Something I figure you know about, Joe.’
He eased up from the counter and left the bottle where it was. Straw watched him in horror as he moved back along the counter, then was dumbstruck for long moments when he turned to go through the archway instead of coming out of the gap.
‘Don’t leave m
e here!’ he wailed with a sob when Edge had gone from sight. ‘I’ll tell you what you want if I can!’ Edge could hear him still sobbing until he was outside and halfway across the yard.
The team which had hauled the Concord from Way-Station Number Three was in the stable. So was the black mare, Edge’s and John Hackman’s saddles and bedrolls.
He checked that the money was still in the saddlebag. He counted out eight hundred dollars from the bills Straw had stolen from the stage up in Colorado and pushed it into a shirt pocket.
Then he saddled the mare, lashed his bedroll in place and led the animal out through the doorway into the corral. Across to the gate that opened on to the trail and over to the stage, where he hitched the reins. Again opened a saddlebag and this time took out a carton of shells. Which he carried in through the open doorway of the way-station, without looking at the sprawled corpses of the father and son who used to run it.
Avoided even glancing at the dead because he was not yet ready to trust himself to control the anger at their dying. To keep this ice-cold feeling, as was the way of the man called Edge. Did not want yet to test that Josiah C. Hedges was really dead.
Straw jerked up his tear run face and showed an expression of relief. ‘So you ain’t gonna leave me here, man?’
Edge ignored him to cross to the gap between the two lengths of counter where he picked up his Colt and Winchester. This didn’t hurt quite so much as when he had swung the saddle up across the back of the mare.
‘Please, man. . .
Edge kept his back to the naked man as he fed shells through the loading gate of the Winchester, then extracted the empty cartridge cases from the Colt and reloaded the chambers with fresh bullets from his gun-belt. He holstered the revolver and left the Winchester on the counter top as he went along behind the provisions side. Found some notepaper and a pencil which the father and son used to total the cost of purchases. He began to write.
EDGE: The Prisoners Page 13