EDGE: The Final Shot (Edge series Book 16)

by George G. Gilman

  Table of Contents

  COPYRIGHT

  DEDICATION

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  EPILOGUE

  DON’T MISS THE NEXT EXCITING EPISODE

  The Final Shot

  By George G. Gilman

  First Published by Kindle 2013

  Copyright © 2013 by George G. Gilman

  First Kindle Edition April 2013

  Names, Characters and incidents in this book are fictional, and any resemblance

  to actual events locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form

  or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any

  information or storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author,

  except where permitted by law.

  Cover Design and illustrations by West World Designs © 2013.

  This is a High Plains Western for Lobo Publications.

  Visit the author at: www.gggandpcs.proboards.com

  For S.R.

  a girl who knows her rights

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  This is the final book in the Civil War sequence of Edge stories. As in previous books of this type, a large part of the novel is devoted to the experiences of Captain Josiah C. Hedges against a backdrop of the War Between the States. Although complete in itself, the book does conclude the sequence (in chronological order): Killer’s Breed, The Blue, The Grey And The Red, Seven Out Of Hell, Vengeance Is Black, The Biggest Bounty and Blood Run.

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE sun crested the high peaks of the Funeral Mountains and shafted down over the foothills to bring the first promise of a new day’s heat to Death Valley. It shone brightly through the east-facing window of the stage line way station and woke Dan Hochman. A grey-haired, bearded old-timer in his early seventies, Hochman greeted the new dawn with a cough, a curse and a spit. The tobacco-colored globule of saliva missed the brass spittoon and started to dry into a fresh stain upon many old ones.

  Hochman climbed stiffly out of the stinking bed and hunted around the filthy, all-purpose room for his eyeglasses. He did some more cursing until he found the spectacles on the scarred table littered with the remains of yesterday’s eating and drinking. Two empty bottles - one had contained whiskey, the other pulque - a dirty glass, a coffee pot, a tin mug, chunks of stale sourdough bread and a cracked plate that was rancid with the congealed leavings of a meal of beef stew.

  With the wire-framed spectacles firmly set across the bridge of his nose, Hochman was able to unscrew his weak blue eyes and see his squalid surroundings in fuzzy detail. He showed no reaction for there was nothing abnormal about the combined bedroom, living room and kitchen that comprised one-half of the way station’s main building. The old-timer had held down the job as manager of the Funeral Mountains way station for fifteen years. At first the whole place had been kept spick and span, but only because Mrs. Hochman had been a house-proud woman. She had died of a rattlesnake bite ten years previously and since then her widower had confined his cleaning chores to the passengers’ rest room and the stables.

  Able to see reasonably clearly through the finger-marked lenses of the spectacles, he began his daily routine – which he had never varied from that grief-stricken morning when he buried his wife. He put fresh kindling on the embers in the stove, filled the coffee pot and set it to heat. Then he dressed in boots, Levis and checked shirt over the dirt-and-sweat stiffened underwear in which he had slept. These top clothes, although old and patched, were reasonably clean: for two stages - one eastbound and the other headed west - halted daily at the way station for fresh teams, and the company insisted Hochman made some concessions for appearance stake. He went out to the privy to relieve himself, squinting against the bright sunlight and not bothering to look around him.

  There was nothing new to see after fifteen years, he told himself. To the east, north and south the barren peaks and ridges of the mountain range with the stage trail cutting a tortuous route across the broken terrain on a line of least resistance. West was the equally barren foothills above the vast, desolate expanse of sand ridges, salt flats and rocks spread across the deep floor of Death Valley. If there had been a wind in the night - and Hochman’s drunken sleep had been too enveloping for him to know - some sand would have shifted. That would be all. So Hochman returned to the squalor of his room without even a glance around: and thus failed to see the man leading his horse towards the way station from the north.

  Inside, the heat was building fast: from the fire in the stove and the effect of the now fully risen sun beating on the roof and walls of the way station. Hochman dampened a piece of cloth to rub the sleep from his eyes and used a comb to rid his tangled beard of pieces of stale food. He chewed tobacco until the coffee pot boiled then left the ugly wad on the littered table while he drank two mugs of the bitter brew. The coffee went a long way to unfogging his brain from the effects of a hangover. The wad of tobacco had dried but he soon got it moist again in his slack mouth as he went out into the rest room to unbolt the station’s front door.

  There had been a night wind, for sand and grit had blown in through the crack at the foot of the door. Hochman cursed and opened the door and two windows, then started to cough again as his sweeping raised dust. He brushed the invading dirt back where it had come from without lifting his dull-eyed gaze from the ground. So he did not see that the man leading the horse had reached the stage trail where it curved towards the way station, a half mile distant.

  But he could not fail to hear the shot. It cracked out with shocking clarity, splitting the perfect silence that had previously been clamped over the mountains and valley. He had returned the broom to the closet and was thinking sourly that he now had to attend to the horses. For long moments, as the sound of the shot diminished through a series of echoes, he thought his imagination was playing a trick on him. Since death had robbed him of his wife, he alone had been responsible for man-made sounds in this desolate patch of country between dawn and the time the morning westbound stage came through. So it was natural that Hochman - a little crazed by loneliness - should take a while to adjust to this violent break in his routine.

  Then, fearfully, with tobacco juice spilling from the corner of his mouth, he went to a window and peered through. He saw the man and the horse for the first time, now no more than five hundred yards out along the trail curving in from the north. And getting no closer, for the horse was spread out on its side and the man was half-crouched over it, rifle still aimed from the shoulder at the animal’s head. Then, while the horse remained as unmoving as only a dead thing can be, the man straightened and canted the rifle across his shoulder. Had Hochman seen the approach of the stranger and his horse earlier, he would also have seen the group of a half-dozen buzzards circling high on the overhead thermals. Now the big birds swooped gracefully down and became ugly and ungainly as they perched on rocky outcrops: waiting.

  The man who had shot his horse eyed the birds for long moments and there was a rigidity in his attitude. But then the tension drained out of him as he stooped over the saddle, bedroll and bridle he had removed from the animal before killing it. He slid the rifle into the boot, then hefted his gear up on to a shoulder and began to trudge towards the way station.

  Hochman chewed his tobacco fast, spilling more juice to stain his beard as an ex
pression of anxiety added new creases to his deeply scored, dirt-grimed face. He even considered hurrying back into his room to get the ancient Volcanic carbine which he kept under the bed. But, just before he started to turn away from the window, he cursed himself for a fool. The horse must have been lame. The rider had nursed his animal along, maybe hopeful of reaching a town that contained a horse doctor. Instead, he had reached the way station so had put the animal out of its misery. What was there in that to scare a guy? Except, maybe, the appearance of the man who kicked up dust as he walked slowly down the trail. And that only because, to Hochman, this was unique. In all his years on the job, nobody had ever come to the way station except on a stage.

  Still anxious, Hochman moved to the open doorway and stepped out on to the porch which was shaded from the direct glare of the sun. He sensed that the stranger had spotted him but there was no change in his steady progress towards the way station. At first, because of the weakness of his eyes, Hochman saw only a blurred form, gaining the impression of a tall, lean frame. But, as the gap across which he looked was narrowed, he saw the man in more detail.

  Tall, certainly: at least three inches over six feet. And lean as opposed to thin, with a lot or muscle knotting the flesh tight-packed to the towering frame. He weighed maybe two hundred pounds, not an ounce of it soft fat. His dress was subdued - riding boots, Levis, shirt and neckerchief all black sprinkled with the grey of trail dust. The low-crowned, wide-brimmed hat grey anyway, stained dark above the band by sweat. A gun belt slotted with bullets supported a holster tied down to his right thigh. The butt of a Frontier Colt jutted from the holster. Like his clothes, his gun was far from new. But, as he halted six feet from Hochman, the old-timer saw that the stranger’s face showed more signs of long use than any other aspect of his appearance.

  It was the face of a man who could be any age from late thirties to late forties. It was a long face, framed by thick black hair that reached down from under his hat to brush his shoulders. Like an Indian, Hochman thought fleetingly. But this guy wasn’t an Indian. Not even a ‘breed’; although neither was he a full-blooded white American. Leathery skin, lined by hardship and suffering and burnished to dark brown by sun, wind and ancestry. A broad forehead, aquiline nose, high cheekbones, wide mouth and firm, strong-looking jaw line. All these features were dominated by ice-blue eyes which surveyed the world from between heavily hooded lids. Part Mexican, Hochman decided. One parent from north of the Rio Grande, the other from the south.

  As he reached this conclusion, the old-timer realized why he had been afraid at first sight of the man. It had nothing to do with the fact that he had approached the way station like no other before him. Rather, it was that the man was like no other. He was big and he looked mean, but neither was it simply this. Hochman had seen countless stage passengers who fitted such a description. No, this man had something else about him that had frightened Hochman from long range and now caused him to bunch his hands into fists to keep them from shaking, and to chew the tobacco more frantically than ever in order to keep his mouth from drying up. An indefinable aura which warned that death was never far behind when this man approached.

  It took a great effort for the old-timer to tear his gaze away from the trap of the cold eyes and peer out along the trail. Wings beat the hot air as the buzzards thrust up from their perches. The big birds swooped across the intervening space and settled upon the horse carcass, screeching at each other as talons and beaks attacked the meat.

  ‘He was a good horse,’ the tall man said flatly.

  Hochman watched the scene down the trail for a moment longer, as the vicious beaks tore strips of blood dripping meat from the carcass, then looked back at the stranger. ‘Went lame, uh?’

  The man moved towards the porch and stepped up on it. Hochman backed in through the doorway. ‘Winded was all. And I’m saddle sore. Didn’t reckon I’d be able to sell him here. When’s the next stage to Monksville, feller?’

  In the shade of the rest room, the man didn’t look quite so threatening. He dumped his gear on one of the benches and sat down gratefully beside it, pushing his hat on to the back of his head.

  ‘Ten o’clock.’

  ‘Place I can wash up and get a shave?’ He rasped the palm of a dirty hand across his jaw, stubbled with at least three day’s growth of beard.

  ‘Ain’t no part of the stage line’s service here, mister. Just got this room for folks to wait while we change the teams.’

  The tall man nodded towards the door at the back of the room. ‘Where does that lead to, feller?’

  ‘My room. It’s private. No one’s allowed back there ‘ceptin’ for me. Stage line rules.’

  The tall man got to his feet and by an almost imperceptible narrowing of his eyes and thinning of his mouth line became more menacing than ever. ‘Been a long time since I set much store by rules, feller. So I’d be obliged if you’d bend yours a little. Be a trifle riled if you don’t.’

  He halted halfway to the doorway and looked inquiringly at Hochman. The old-timer licked his lips and spilled more tobacco juice into his beard.

  ‘Pretty messy back there, mister. I ain’t had no time to clean up this mornin’ yet.’

  ‘Me neither, which is why I’m asking.’

  ‘Go ahead,’ Hochman allowed with a shrug.

  The tall man moved to the door and went through. His expression did not alter at the sight and stench that greeted him.

  ‘You can’t say I didn’t warn you,’ Hochman growled.

  ‘You hear me complaining, feller?’

  The old-timer blinked, shook his head and shrugged his thin shoulders again. ‘Guess not. Help yourself to whatever you want, mister.’

  ‘Usually do.’

  Hochman sat on the rumpled, evil-smelling bed and watched as the tall man filled a pan from a water pitcher and set it on the stove.

  ‘You’ve come a long way fast to wind a horse.’

  The tall man had checked that the coffee pot was empty. Now he tipped out the used grounds on to the dirty plate and put in fresh. He added water and set the pot on the stove beside the pan.

  ‘You really care?’ he asked as he sat down at the table and used a forearm to clear a space in front of him.

  ‘Just makin’ conversation,’ Hochman said defensively. ‘Runnin’ this place I don’t get much chance to talk to folks.’

  ‘Not your day, feller,’ the tall man told him. ‘I never talk unless I got something to say. And there’s nothing else I want from you.’

  ‘Okay!’ Hochman said, and swallowed hard as he tore his gaze away from the cold stare of the tall man.

  Outside, the buzzards squabbled for a few more minutes over their prize, then lifted into flight, bellies heavy with fresh horsemeat. Inside, the pan and the pot began to boil. The two men breathed the fetid air. Hochman remained seated tensely on the bed while his unwelcome guest altered the small sounds disturbing the peace. He poured himself some coffee after first rinsing the mug in the pan of water. Then he set the pan on the table and glanced around the room like a man not expecting to find what he was looking for. He went out and, through the open doorway, Hochman saw him search through his saddlebags. He came up with a bar of soap and brought it back. Stooped over the table, he washed his hands and face, scrubbing at the dried sweat and grimed trail dust ingrained in his pores. Then he reached under the long hair at the back of his neck and drew an open razor from the pouch that was faintly contoured by his shirt. The steel blade glinted in the sunlight and Hochman realized that shaving was only a secondary purpose of the razor. For a man to carry it in such a way meant it had to be primarily a weapon.

  There was no mirror in the room and the tall man didn’t need one. He shaved blind, with fast expertise: long, firm strokes that cropped the stubble to nothing on his cheeks and jaw, to leave a drooping moustache along his upper lip. He used his neckerchief to wipe the razor dry and remove the excess lather from his face. In the vee of his open shirt collar, Hochman saw the tho
ng, strung with colored beads, which held the razor pouch in place at the nape of his neck. Now that the coffee had cooled, he began to drink it. He grimaced at the taste as he dug a hand into a pants pocket. He drew out some change, counted out ten cents and put the coins on the table.

  ‘What’s that for?’ Hochman asked nervously.

  ‘The coffee ain’t good, but I’m a man who pays his way. I reckon the shaving water was free?’

  The blue eyes made the comment a query and Hochman nodded. ‘Sure, mister. And I wasn’t plannin’ to charge you for the coffee.’

  ‘Didn’t ask.’

  Hochman swallowed hard. ‘Anything you say, mister. I got to attend to the horses. The westbound makes a long haul to here. Needs a fresh team to get to Monksville.’

  ‘Ain’t stopping you.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Hochman said, and as he hauled himself to his feet, he wondered why he had expressed gratitude. But, when he was outside in the bright sunlight, beyond the aura of death which seemed to emanate from the tall man, he certainly felt grateful for the fact. Then he shrugged off the mood and headed for the stable, cursing himself for a fool.

  Inside the way station, the man who made the old-timer so nervous took the makings from a shirt pocket and rolled a cigarette. He lit it from the stove and returned to the chair at the table. From his hip pocket he took a slender billfold and extracted an envelope. The telegraph billhead inside was creased and dirty from much travel and a great deal of handling. But the message printed upon it was still legible and the burnished features of the man became set in a hard mask of anguish and evil as he read the words yet again.

  ‘Hey, what the hell you doing here?’

  The tall man had not got past the name and address prefacing the telegraph: EDGE SILVER LODE HOTEL VIRGINIA CITY NEVADA. But he knew the rest as well as he knew the name by which he was called and the address where he had been staying when the message was delivered.