"My allegiance is my own affair," the man answered. "I was merely commenting, in a private conversation, upon the state of the war. I would now thank you, sir, to apologize for this interruption and then leave us."
Hedges reached down and plucked the pin from the necktie. The woman gasped and the man looked affronted. "A thief as well as a coward," he accused, a dangerous sneer spreading across his smoothly shaved and powdered face.
"But not small time," Hedges answered. "I don't usually take anything but a life."
"Henry," the woman; said nervously, sensing the evil lurking behind the impassive face of the Union captain.
Never noisy, the elegant barroom had suddenly become deathly quiet. Pale faces turned to look in the direction of the booth.
"No cause for alarm, my dear," the man murmured and began to slide towards the edge of the seat. "This won't take a minute."
"Less than that," Hedges corrected as he folded his fist around the pin and lashed his arm forward and down. A half inch of the needle-like point protruded from the heel of his hand. This sank into the flesh of the man's face just below his eye and slashed a bloody path down the cheek to the corner of his mouth.
"You beast!" the woman screamed as the man put a hand to his torn cheek and looked in horror at his blood-soaked fingers.
"You stuck me," he gasped. He had been drinking brandy from a snifter and smoking a large cigar. As he continued to sit, held thereby the horror of what had happened to him, Hedges lifted the glass and threw its contents into his face.
"Help to stop infection," he said softly.
The man roared all the alcohol seared into the wound, and started to come up out of the seat. Hedges dropped the pin and curled his forefinger inside the wide open lips. He jerked his hand and the flesh tore an inch along the line inscribed by the pin. The lower section of the wound flapped open. The man screamed and crumpled to the floor as his hands nursed the lacerated flesh.
"Now folks can see you've got a big mouth," Hedges muttered as he turned and found Jeannie staring at him with wide eyed shock. The woman in the booth began to wail and Hedges leaned over to the ashtray, picked up the smoking cigar and crushed it down between her ample breasts. Her wails became a shriek of pain.
"Let's go, Miss Fisher," he said, "It's too noisy in here."
The girl was like an automaton as she allowed herself to be ushered ahead of Hedges between the tables and the pale-faced patrons who sat at them.
"That was vicious," she whispered as they emerged into the warm Washington night.
"He did the talking and she thought it was funny," he said softly. "They had to pay for it."
"But so cruelly?"
He sighed. "Would you have cared what 1 did to that drunken soldier back in Parkersburg?"
"That was different," she protested.
"Because your honor was at stake?"
She flushed and the deep color added to her prettiness. "If you want to put it like that," she said softly, dropping her gaze.
"That loudmouth was questioning my honor," Hedges told her and began to walk away from the front of the saloon, heading back towards Pennsylvania Avenue.
She ran to catch up to him and they walked apart for a few yards. Then her hand found his arm again. Their silence lengthened and was emphasized by the bustle in the street around them.
"Where are we going?" she asked suddenly.
"Hotel."
"It's early," she protested.
"It's overdue," he answered.
"I heard about it and I've seen it. About time I tried it."
She halted abruptly and her grip on his arm pulled him up short. Her green eyes flashed angrily as he looked into them. "If you mean what I think you mean, Captain, you've come to the wrong girl."
"You came to me, Miss Fisher," he pointed out.
"I hardly know you."
"Don't see what that's got to do with it."
"A girl likes to be courted," Jeannie said, her tone softening, and a coy smile turning up the corners of her I slightly pouted mouth.
Hedges bent forward suddenly, swept her into his arms and crushed his lips against hers. The kiss lasted several long moments and the passing crowds laughed at the couple. But neither of them were aware of any existence except their own as they pressed against each other.
"There's not much time for courting in a war," Hedges said as he eased his embrace and looked steadily into her eyes which showed an expression he had never seen there before. "Figure that takes care of it. Can we get on with the humping now?"
"Captain!" the girl exclaimed.
"Yes, Miss Fisher?" he asked evenly.
"That is no way for a gentleman to talk."
"All officers ain't gentlemen, Miss Fisher."
She fluttered her long eyelashes and found something of intense interest in the area of his chest. "I haven't ever ... before," she whispered.
He began to walk towards the hotel and she fell in beside him. "But you thought about it?" he asked.
"Yes," she caught her breath. "What it would be like when I was married."
"I'm not the marrying kind, Miss Fisher."
"I know you're not, Captain." Her tone spoke volumes of regret. It was awkward and unsuccessful at first in the small bedroom on the first floor of the hotel. Their naked bodies, her's soft and yielding, his hard and demanding, became bathed with sweat as they attempted, to attain congress. Each time she cried, aloud her pain he withdrew from her, desperately wanting release from the ache of desire but afraid to hurt her.
She would not look up at him and pressed the side of her head hard into the pillow, shutting her eyes tight as she spread her legs and arms wide in submission.
"You gotta help me, Miss Fisher," he gasped.
Her hands reached for him and the gentle touch of her fingers was almost painful in the jolt of pleasure it sent through him. The hardness of her erect nipples pressed through the hair of his chest as he lowered his weight on to her and the squeal of pain that burst from her lips became a sigh as he pierced into her.
"Captain," she murmured, locking her hands at his neck to press her face into her shoulder. "Captain, there's an earthquake." She began to move her body in concert with his. His teeth sank into the soft firmness of her flesh as he sucked upon the saltiness of her. The tempo mounted and Hedges wanted to cry aloud his exhilaration. But his lungs were near to bursting and his throat was filled with an emotion which he did not understand. This is what it must be like to die, he thought, and gave himself up to whatever was possessing him, driving into the girl relentlessly.
"That was wonderful, Captain," she sighed as he finally lay still.
He raised his face from her shoulder, licking her blood from his lips. "Beats kissing," he said. "Obliged, Miss Fisher."
He rolled off her, on to his back. She reached for his hand and squeezed it. She laughed suddenly. "It really did feel like an earthquake."
"Something moved, sure enough," he confirmed. "I feel different."
"You are," he told her, and tried to force his grin to show humor. "You're a woman now. You came into this room a maiden and then you lost your head."
For long moments she was silent and he looked sideways across the pillow at her afraid he might see regret in her face. But it was a puzzled expression that creased her forehead and crinkled her nose. Then it was gone, as she saw the joke and happy laughter burst from her bruised lips. He broke into his own, harsher laughter and the sound of their joy filled the room. Without shyness she released his hand and reached down to find the source of her pleasure. His body offered an immediate response to her touch and their laughter reached a crescendo and then died as she urged him onto and then into her again.
"Where's your sister, Miss Fisher?" he whispered as his teeth tugged gently at her ear.
"Out with a man," she answered breathlessly.
"Humping?"
"One family can't have that much luck," she sighed, clasping him to her.
The cold grey
light of dawn was streaking across them eastern sky as Hedges left the hotel to begin the bleak walk back to camp through the desolate city streets. He felt weak but replete, emptied but satisfied. If he had come through the opening horrors of war with any relic of his youth intact, tonight he had lost it. He felt the complete man in every sense of the word.
"Hold it right there, soldier boy." The words were spoken in an easy drawl, almost conversationally. But the expression on the speaker's face gave the lie to his easy manner. He was leaning against a pillar in the porchway of a bank, ten feet in front of Hedges. He was tall and thin, dressed in an eastern suit with a fancy vest which had a gold watch chain looped across the front. His low-crowned hat was tipped back off his brow so that the dawn light showed every line of his thin, aquiline features. His hands were thrust casually into his pants' pockets and a half-smoked cheroot angled from the comer of his mouth, issuing blue-grey smoke in a vertical column.
"You talking to me?" Hedges asked, slowing his pace.
"I've been waiting all night for you. Not likely I'd be addressing anyone else."
"Must be something real important you want to say to me," Hedges answered, halting a yard from the other man.
"Message from the Senator."
"Which one?"
The man took the cheroot from his lips with long fingers. "The one from Virginia. The one you attacked last night."
Hedges narrowed his eyes. "He can still talk?"
"Enough." The man rolled the cheroot between his thumb and forefinger and suddenly flicked it towards Hedges.
Hedges sidestepped, feeling the adrenalin pumping through his body, driving out the euphoria of post-sexual relaxation. A man cried out and Hedges made a half turn and looked at two hulking roughnecks, one of them raising a hand to where a circular burn mark decorated his cheek. But the second man had no such preoccupation. The massive fist he had launched continued on its course and only its target as altered. Aimed for Hedges' kidneys, it landed on the side of his waist, with enough force to tear a grunt from the injured captain's lips.
"He could say kill the bastard," the instigator of the violence announced casually as he lit another cheroot.
The man with the burned face recovered from his shock and directed his anger at Hedges, sending a straight right low towards the captain's solar plexus. Hedges chopped down with the edge of his hand on the wrist and launched a kick towards his attacker's groin. Both connected and the man yelled and staggered back as his partner landed a vicious punch to Hedges' neck. He staggered to the side, feeling the pain ricochet around the inside of his skull like a solid object.
"And, he said, painfully."
One of his attackers had not yet been hurt, and Hedges' mind, working coolly in spite of the pain, demanded that this roughneck had to be taken first, while the other nursed his injuries. Hedges turned to face square on to the advance, his eyes narrowing to slits as he saw the flash of a knife.
"Just stick him," the well-dressed man ordered. "Don't kill him—yet."
The knife arm raised high and began its descent. Moving with the speed of an animal fighting for its life, Hedges stepped inside the swing, raising one hand to clutch at his attacker's wrist while the other went up behind the descending arm to grip his own wrist. Pain sent the man bending backwards as Hedges applied pressure—but not fast enough. The arm snapped like a twig at the elbow, making a similar noise that became lost under the onslaught of the scream. The knife clattered to the sidewalk and as Hedges stooped to snatch it up he sent a knee hard into the man's groin and threw him crashing backwards into the bank wall.
"Break!" he muttered as the man sailed away from him. He heard a heavy footfall behind him and spun. The second man, in a half crouch, his expression pained, was coming at him with fists flailing. Hedges had to take two blows on his shoulders as he leaned forward and thrust the knife deep into the chest, feeling the hilt change direction as the point glanced, off a bone. The man sighed and closed his eyes. His body went limp as he crumbled and Hedges withdrew the knife, a crimson fountain erupted. "Makes your heart bleed."
"I have to do everything myself!" The words were as soft spoken as any he had previously used and when Hedges spun to face the spokesman he had not altered his casual attitude. Only his expression had changed and his thin features showed distaste as his eyes flicked over the slumped forms of his strongarm men. But as Soon as Hedges took a pace towards him, he was galvanized into action. His body stiffened and the fresh cheroot arced away from him. The hand which had rejected it continued on its upward line of travel, halted for a moment at the rear of his neck and then came forward, gripping something that gleamed with a dull sheen. A grin split his mouth as he saw the flicker of bewilderment cross Hedges' face.
"Pa was a barber," he said evenly as he took a step to the side.
Hedges moved in the opposite direction, recognizing the weapon as a cut-throat razor with a four inch blade. "Guess he was a real demon."
"Gave a man a close shave," the other said conversationally, taking a further side-step in the tight circle around the dead man. "But I get closer still. Specialize in the short and curlies."
He made a threatening lunge towards Hedges' lower stomach. Hedges recognized it for what it was and did not back off. They came full circle. The man with the broken arm regained consciousness and groaned. Nobody looked at him.
Hedges went forward, leaping over the crumpled body and slashing sideways with the knife. The other man sucked in his stomach and sprang backwards, into the street. The grin altered the line of his mouth again. "Fast But not fast enough."
He feigned to the right, then came forward on the left. The swing of his arm was blurred and, as he withdrew, Hedges felt a warmth on his thigh. He glanced down and saw a three inch long slash in his pants. The cut began to sting, but was not deep enough to sap the strength from his leg.
"Real sharp," Hedges complimented.
"Yes." The move to the right was not a feint this time and as Hedges was fooled the razor found flesh again. His other leg spilled blood—from higher up, dangerously close to his manhood. "The end of your end is near," the man said and allowed a laugh of pure enjoyment to rip from his lips.
"You mean I'm going to have it off?"
"With knobs on, Yankee."
This time he relied entirely on his speed, coming in straight and low, preparing to make the final slash with a mere wrist action. Hedges kicked his feet forward and up, the toes of his boots smashing into the knees of his attacker. He hit the ground hard and threw his torso backwards, thrusting upwards with the knife as the razor came down, now aimed at any target available. The man was falling towards him, his expression showing fear for the first time. The razor cut through Hedges' tunic close to the hip, but didn't touch flesh. The knife went into the man's throat, the force of the thrust and the weight of the fall driving it deep. Hedges twisted it viciously. The man gurgled and vomited blood. More blood issued from the wound where the knife point came clear at the back of the neck. Hedges pushed the limp body from him and got painfu1ly to his feet, stood for several seconds breathing deeply of the morning air as he waited for the tension to drain from him. Then a sound on the sidewalk caught his attention and he looked over there to see the man with the broken arm trying to get to his feet. He picked up the fallen razor and moved across to stand watching.
"You killed 'em," the man accused, his voice a croak.
"Wasn't very hard."
"I didn't see nothin', captain," the man pleaded. "I wasn't even here."
"Wrong," Hedges answered. The razor cut through the air and so sharp was its edge that there was hardly a sense of resistance as it slashed across the man's throat. He slid down the wall into a sitting position. "You were here. Now you ain't."
He turned and went to the well-dressed man. He used the razor again, to slit through his elegant suit jacket, vest and shirt collar. Beneath, he found a long pouch of hand-sewn leather, hanging down the man's spine and held in place by a beaded c
ord looped around his neck and tied in front. Within moments he had relieved the dead man of the pouch and transferred it into a similar position around his own neck.
Then he moved away, buttoning his tunic, as the first sun of the new day threw long shadows from the slumped figures of the three men. Three cats watched him curiously as he made practice draws with the razor. Then they turned and sped away, recognizing perhaps a streak of animal viciousness in the man's gesturing.
"Scaredy cats!" Hedges called after them.
*****
"WE'RE goin' to get him out of here," Thomas Hope said with determination as he looked down at the peacefully sleeping man.
"But if the sheriff's on his way like ma says…"
The father was not normally a harsh man where his family was concerned, but the look he turned upon his son was sufficient to silence the boy. Thomas was short and thickset, with the powerful shoulders of a man who has worked hard for most of his fifty-some years. He had an open, honest face, with dull black eyes which hinted at his lack of intelligence. His son was several inches taller and although his face bore a strong family resemblance, nature had subtly rearranged the features into more handsome lines and added a polish of brightness that advertised a fine, if undeveloped mind.
It was early evening at the farm, the sky darker than usual because of the low cloud which was thinning but still hiding the sun. The men had arrived tired and hungry with a stock bull and forty-six cows. They had been looking forward with pleasure to their homecoming every hard step of the way from Kansas City. But the story Margaret Hope had told and the sight of the man on the bed replaced their feeling of exhaustion with a sense of foreboding. This was stronger in the elder man and emerged as anger.
"A posse should be here soon, Tom," Margaret said quietly. She had struggled through many lean years with her husband and shared with him the satisfaction he drew from owning the farm and working it successfully. But she knew that it was too much to expect that a line could be drawn between the bad times of the past and the just reward of a trouble-free life ahead. "They'll take him away."
Tom shook his head, fixing Edge with a frightened stare. "I heard about this man, Maggie," he said. "He's so mean he'll kill a guy for bumping him in a crowd. What you reckon he'll do when he finds out who turned him in?"
Killer's Breed (Edge series Book 4) Page 12