“Friends,” Forrest whispered. “Who’s head man?”
No answer came. Forrest wanted to bellow for a response, but curbed the impulse.
“No foolin’. Abe Lincoln sent us. You wanna fight for it, you can get free.”
Feet shuffled on the rough timber floor and a massive Negro clad only in filthy, once-white underpants approached the troopers. The whites of his eyes seemed to be luminescent in the murk.
“Me head boy in whole stockade. What you want here?”
Forrest spoke to him in low tones, the man listening with deep distrust. He had to take him out across the dangerously open ground of the stockade and show him the dead guards before he could allay suspicion. Only then did the Negro smile and it seemed to be the first expression of joy he had shown in a very long time. Forrest exchanged a few more soft spoken words with him, then beckoned to Seward. The two troopers made good time back to where the others were crouching.
There, the white men watched in an agony of suspense as figures, clad only in ragged levis, were dispatched from the head man’s bunkhouse to the others. Then, moments later, in complete silence, more than two hundred slaves loped in single file across the stockade and through the open gate. There they divided, filtering to each side of the supply depot: and sub-divided, splitting into small groups. One such unit was comprised of the head man and four others. They joined the troopers.
“All know must be finished in thirty minutes,” the big man told Forrest. “Before guard changed.”
Forrest nodded for the Negroes to lead the way. Then they moved off.
Throughout the depot with which they were so familiar, each group reached its objective and started to work with a will they had never possessed before. Doors were swung open with only the smallest of scraping sounds and men flitted inside, to emerge moments later with their burdens.
A group with clips of bullets joined another with a supply of Spencers and Colts. Men weighed down with shot canisters and cannon balls carried their booty to where other men were sighting artillery pieces. Powder kegs were handed over to men realigning the position of wagons. Four horses were cut out of the corral and harnessed to a wagon in the rear of which Hedges lay sleeping. A dozen liberated slaves loomed around the wagon, loading it with rifles, ammunition and a Gatling gun. Douglas and Scott sat on the box seat, the latter with the reins. Forrest and Seward set up the Gatling. Rhett and Bell - with nothing to do - sweated and jumped at each small sound.
Every trooper knew the deadline was drawing near. The camp on the far side of the road remained peacefully quiet. The perimeter sentries paced up and down in their boredom. The change-of-guard and duty officer dozed in the headquarters building annex.
Then an owl hooted and the grinning face of the head man appeared over the tailgate of the troopers’ wagon.
“You count, please,” he whispered to Forrest. “I never learn.”
Forrest grimaced. Another owl hooted. “Your boys?”
The head man nodded. “Must hear this many before all ready.” He raised both hands, fingers splayed, lowered them and raised them again.
“Jesus, that’s a lot,” Seward rasped.
“Too damn many,” Forrest snarled. Another bird call sounded. He pulled his knife and made a slit in the canvas on the left hand side of the wagon. He swiveled the Gatling so that its muzzle snouted through the slit. “There just can’t be that many birds awake around here.”
Three hoots sounded together.
“How many more?” the Negro asked politely.
An owl call sounded. A shot rang out.
“That’s it!” Forrest lied, and raised his voice to a yell. “Let’s go, Johnnie!”
Scott cracked the whip and slapped the reins. The wagon leapt forward and Bell and Rhett gripped Hedges’ arms to keep him from being flung across the wagon bed.
Shouts sounded from every section of the camp as men scrambled from their tents and gave vent to their confusion. A score of cannon roared and rained body-mangling death on a distant area. A score of Negroes stained their sheened backs against four wagons and the vehicles trundled across the road trailing flaring fuses, Rifle, pistol and rapid Gatling fire peppered the night with deadly sound.
As the duty officer and guard ran from the headquarters building two men fell beneath the crushing wheels of a wagon and chunks of flesh were scattered hundreds of yards under the impact of a violent explosion. The wagon and half the building disintegrated, raining burning timber and tongues of flame on to men and canvas. The three other mobile bombs rumbled into the camp and their searing explosions turned a dozen running figures into human torches.
Cries of agony ripped across the angry roar of spreading flames. A naked soldier stared in disbelief at his twisted leg, lying ten yards from where he sat. Then his head exploded under the impact of a burst of Gatling fire.
The terrified sentries on the depot perimeter rushed forward, firing blindly. A Negro crouching beside a powder magazine, took a bullet in the head and fell forward. The match in his hand raked across timber and flared. It dropped into the prepared fuse trailing through the open doorway. Seconds sliced away at time and the building exploded with an ear-splitting roar. Thirty Negroes and four guards in the vicinity were either charred to cinders or torn limb from limb.
Naked and half-dressed soldiers, unable to hear the orders of their officers against the din of gunfire and screaming, rushed among the tents in panic, shooting indiscriminately towards the road. More than one Rebel fell wounded or dead, shot in the back by a comrade.
The wagon carrying the Union troopers reached the road and made a slithering, lock-wheeled right turn. As Scott crouched low on the seat, lashing the team, Douglas pumped rifle fire into the camp. Then, with Seward feeding the hopper, Forrest opened up with the Gatling gun.
Answering fire pecked at the speeding wagon from both sides, the Rebels aiming at it, the Negroes firing to the front, rear and under it. Soon the side on the left was a mass of splintered wood and the canvas was peppered with holes.
A second salvo of cannon fire roared. The thump of metal against flesh and the ground gave rise to a new crescendo of screaming. Then improvised battle cries and the thunder of hoof beats added to the din.
Delirious with the joy of freedom attained amid such revenge, scores of bellowing Negroes poured on to the road, running at full tilt and galloping bare-back on stolen horses. They streamed in the wake of the racing wagon, firing wildly as they went. Answering fire brought down riders, runners and horses. Coal black bodies pitched to the ground to feed it with their blood.
The wagon hurtled through the opening in the perimeter at the north end of the road and the less than sixty survivors among the freed slaves dashed out after it. A rattle of rifle fire followed them.
Then two more powder magazines exploded with gigantic roars which sent heat waves swirling across the entire camp. Ammunition stored in two buildings was destroyed in a series of minor, chattering explosions.
Forrest, Seward, Rhett and Bell looked back down the road as the wagon slowed on the incline out of the valley. The whole depot side of the camp was engulfed in smoke-billowing flames while a score of lesser blazes dotted the area of the soldiers’ quarters. In the flickering firelight, men ran in every direction, or stumbled about in a daze. Against this backdrop of death and destruction the Negroes on horseback halted their animals so that their fellows on foot could swing up. The gunfire from the camp had ceased, as had the battle cries of the freed slaves. For each had taken time to look back along the road: to see the gruesome spectacle of twisted and bloodied bodies that littered the way to freedom.
In the rear of the wagon, Hedges moaned and stirred, but the morphine held him prisoner to his sleep.
“We sure gave ’em hell, didn’t we, Frank?” Seward said in high excitement, drinking in the sight of the carnage before the wagon crested a rise and all he could see was the orange hue doming the sky above the valley.
Bell stabbed a finger at H
edges. “You reckon he’ll ever believe what we did?”
Forrest spat over the tailgate of the wagon, watching the Negroes streaming over the hillcrest behind. “Reckon he will,” the sergeant replied. “He’ll have it in black and white.”
The wagon and its strange escort rumbled into the night, every yard travelled taking them a yard closer to safety.
*****
MOST of the hostages left the freight train at Salt Lake City to transfer to the comfort of passenger cars. But Edge, Alvin and Beth, with no facilities for raising the fare, stayed aboard: until Cheyenne where there was a changeover of crews.
Both the new engineer and his fireman were company men who worked by the book: and the book said no passengers on freight trains - especially no passengers without the price of a ticket. Sheriff Bodie, two deputies and a quartet of railroad officers backed up the order. With the former crewmen nowhere in sight, neither Edge nor the couple even attempted to explain their situation.
They were escorted outside the town limits. Edge, weaponless apart from the razor, accepted the treatment philosophically. Beth was incensed by the bum’s rush. Alvin asked how far it was to Deadwood in the Dakotas, because his mother’s brother ran a saloon up there.
It was a long way, across the south-east corner of Wyoming and the north-west segment of Nebraska. For no better reason than it was a place to aim for, Edge went with the runaways.
At first they walked but then, with the tacit approval of Alvin and Beth, Edge stole a wagon and two horses from a farm. Edge waited impatiently while the conscience-stricken Alvin scrawled an unsigned IOU in the dirt outside the barn door.
Food and water were plentiful along the route and they made good time. But in the malicious emptiness of the Dakota Badlands their luck ran out. One of the horses broke a leg in a gopher hole. The following morning, as the second of the pair was grazing, it was spooked by a snake and bolted.
After a full morning’s walk, fighting a biting north wind the whole way, they entered a small village peopled by dirt farmers. Strangers were not common in the area and always viewed with suspicion.
The dour-faced saloon keeper, who had rooms for rent, demanded payment in advance and backed them out with a shotgun when their poverty became obvious.
“What now?” Alvin asked wearily as they moved down the only street in the village.
He was holding the arm of Beth, but she was giving him more support than he to her. Both were tired, hungry and struggling against a depression which threatened to drop them in their tracks.
Edge’s hooded eyes raked the street on both sides, unwilling to berate the whim that had brought him to this God forsaken spot. Instead, he reasoned that he had chosen to come, and all that mattered was finding an answer to his immediate problem.
He spotted a shack on the edge of the village, crudely built and badly maintained. A wooden sign on the roof proclaimed: SHERIFF. But it was not this lettering which attracted him; caused him to alter direction and angle across to the decrepit law office.
To one side of the door was a board nailed to the wall, and a half dozen wanted notices were thumb-tacked to it. All of them were yellowed by age and weather and one of the oldest showed a picture of a young man in the uniform of an army captain. The faded lettering beneath was as familiar to him as the face depicted on the poster:
WANTED
FOR THE MURDER OF WAR
VETERAN ELLIOT THOMBS
former Captain J. C. Hedges
Beneath this, scrawled in charcoal, was the additional information:
$100 REWARD
Edge moved along to the window and a grin spread across his face as he peered inside and saw a bearded, pot-bellied man in his fifties sleeping soundly in a swivel chair at the desk.
Alvin and Beth looked at him oddly as he returned to them, unable to comprehend the reason for the cold grin. He spoke softly to them and Alvin seemed to greet every word with an emphatic shake of his head. But, after a dispirited glance around at the unfriendly cluster of buildings and the harshness of the surrounding countryside, Beth gave a nod of approval.
Out-voted, anxious to please the woman, Alvin fell in with the plan. He bunched his fist in his jacket pocket, simulating the bulge of a gun, and followed Edge back across the street towards the law office. Beth hurried ahead, tore down the wanted poster and pushed open the door. The sound of footfalls in the office jerked the sheriff from sleep.
“What—?”
Beth held out the poster and dropped it on the dusty desk. “It says a hundred dollars for him,” she cut in. “He’s the one.”
The sheriff stood up, squinting at Edge, obviously not connecting the leathery-faced prisoner with the youthful reproduction on the poster. But he drew one of the two six-guns bolstered at his hips.
“That’s Hedges?” he asked.
“Lot of blood’s flowed since I looked like that,” Edge said easily, his narrowed eyes moving from the perplexed face of the sheriff, to the safe in one corner, the barred door of an empty cell in the other.
Alvin was nervous, trembling before his own conscience. Not so Beth. She was experienced in the harsh realities of life on the wrong side of the tracks. She smiled beguilingly at the lawman.
“Hundred dollars, sheriff,” she reminded softly. “Then my fiancé will help you lock him up.” She looked at Edge venomously. “He’s a real mean bastard.”
Alvin gasped at the profanity as Beth tried to bite back the word. The sheriff looked from Edge to the swells of Beth’s breasts.
“Yes ma’am. You did your duty and you’re entitled to the reward.”
He came out from behind the desk and moved sideways to the safe.
“You keep him covered now, young feller,” he urged, then turned and fitted a key into the lock on the safe. He swung the door wide. Then he began to count out a wad of five dollar bills, still holding the Remington revolver in one hand.
Edge moved on the balls of his feet and reached the sheriff in three strides. A floorboard creaked just as Edge’s hand grasped the butt of the holstered gun.
Beth gasped and the sheriff whirled. His face was painted with fear. His finger tightened on the trigger and the Remington leapt, spitting flame. The woman did not live long enough to scream. The bullet angled in through her jaw and tunneled the roof of her mouth up to her brain. Alvin darted forward and caught her dead body in his arms.
“Drop it, sheriff!” Edge rasped, pressing the Remington against the lawman’s temple.
The matching weapon clattered to the floor as the sheriff straightened, staring at the dead woman with dazed eyes. Edge scooped up the gun and snatched the sheaf of bills from the limp hand.
Alvin looked with wide, tear-bloated eyes at the blood coursing down Beth’s chest to channel into the valley between her breasts. Horror etched deep lines in his young face.
“She’s dead,” he said incredulously, as if he had to convince himself of this truth.
Edge looked at the sheriff through narrowed eyes. “Where’d they bury whores around here?” he asked.
All along the street, doors and windows were slammed closed. The inhabitants of the village were learning once more that you could not trust strangers in the Badlands.
The sheriff was deeply afraid, aware he could expect no help from the citizens, who paid him to protect them.
“She wasn’t a whore,” Alvin challenged with a sob, cradling her head. “That was all behind her.”
“Sheriff?” Edge insisted.
The man gulped. “Everyone gets buried out of town aways. Out in the hills. Place called Wounded Knee.”
Edge nodded and peeled two five dollar bills from the roll. He held them out towards the kid. “Here.”
Alvin accepted the money unthinkingly, then came out of his daze with a start. His eyes were full of hurt as he watched Edge go to the door. “This won’t get me far,” he accused.
“Ain’t for you,” Edge told him. “It’ll get her where she’s goin’. Six feet - stra
ight down. Ought to cover it.”
“For the funeral!” the kid exclaimed as realization hit him and he began to shed tears on to the dead face of the woman.
“Right,” Edge confirmed. “To bury your tart at Wounded Knee.”
COMING SOON!
EDGE #9 BLOODY SUMMER & EDGE #10 BLACK VENGEANCE
Adam STEELE #2 THE BOUNTY HUNTER
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Title
Credits
Author's Note
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
COMING SOON!
Seven Out of Hell Page 11