‘What do you mean, one day?’ Edge asked quietly, so that only he heard the words as he faced front again and ordered the gelding into movement.
Behind him, people emerged from buildings to converge on the scene of the fire, some of them carrying slopping pails.
‘That was a real lousy thing to do, Edge!’ Ezekiel Taggart accused, swinging clumsily up into the saddle of a powerful looking white stallion.
‘Yeah, real lousy,’ the half-breed agreed. ‘Maybe that’s why I had the itch to do it.’
The others swung astride their horses, the elder Taggart as awkward as his son.
‘Man, I’m glad you’re on our side,’ Barney Tait growled as heat shattered the display window of the store and flames spurted out, driving back the firefighters.
‘Won’t make no difference if you ever call me a bastard again, feller.’
Tait swallowed hard, recalling his use of the word after Edge had removed the threat of the razor. ‘Hell, it’s just a figure of speech,’ he complained as the half-breed took the lead in easing his horse into the shallow water.
‘Maybe that’s all it amounts to,’ came the reply as more horses splashed reluctantly into the broad, muddy Rio Grande. ‘But it just got a store totaled.’
Chapter Four
THE sun-glinting spray kicked up by the pumping hooves of the horses provided a slight and fleeting relief from the harsh heat of the day as the riders crossed the river. Its cooling dampness bathed their sweat-sheened faces and soaked through their clothing to dilute the tacky perspiration which pasted the coarse fabric to the flesh of their bodies and limbs.
But then they rode up on to the Texas bank of the Rio Grande and the sun which beat down was as brutally hot as it had been in Mexico, and the dust was as fine and as clinging. So that, within minutes of entering the United States, the men’s clothes and exposed flesh were again soaked with sticky sweat which tenaciously held on to the dust erupted by the slow moving animals. And the horses, too, became as uniformly gray as the men astride them.
‘You been back there long?’ Barney Tait asked, licking salt-tasting dust off his lips and spitting the saliva between the ears of his black stallion.
‘Since this morning,’ Edge answered.
They were riding beside each other at the head of the group. The Taggart father and son were behind them and the vaqueros were strung out in pairs and singly. The last place in the line was taken by the doleful-eyed old-timer who seemed unconcerned that this position meant he was eating the dust of everyone else in the group.
‘There was a lot of talk about the Quinteros?’ the Big-T foreman probed.
The half-breed pursed his lips. ‘How much of my life story do you want to hear, feller?’
Tait scowled.
‘Edge isn’t the kind of man who appreciates those tactics, Barney,’ old man Taggart growled. ‘And neither are you. So best you ask him direct, I think.’
Edge showed a bleak grin as he waited for Tait to think of a new opening. And continued to maintain an easy surveillance on the south Texas terrain they were travelling. It was a parched landscape of low hills flanking broad valleys, sparsely scattered with patches of tough grass and clumps of brush with, here and there, an occasional stunted tree—mesquite, juniper and scrub oak. But most of the vegetation was cactus, growing more strongly than anything else because it required less from the arid ground to sustain it. These living things provided shapes without contrasting colors for, like the men and horses who moved among them, they were cloaked with the fine, gray dust of the parched earth in which they grew. So there was just the yellow fire of the sun against the solid bright blueness of the sky to add a vivid counter-point to the monotonous tones of the neutral ground beneath.
The younger Taggart had less patience than the half-breed. ‘We want to know if those Mexican cattlemen had anything to do with Matt Saxby,’ he blurted. ‘Or if they were upset simply because we took their outfit away from them.’
Tait spat again, irritated at the Easterners for horning into the exchange. ‘Yeah. You said you’d heard about them guys being good with guns.’
‘From a couple of their line riders,’ Edge supplied. ‘Had breakfast with them on the Quintero spread south of Lampazos about a week ago. Never have heard of anyone called Matt Saxby.’
‘Was top hand of the Big-T,’ Tait said quickly, as if anxious to block further interruptions from the Taggarts. ‘But he ain’t no more. Word is he’s out roundin’ up men instead of cows. Kind of men who’ll...’
He turned to look at the bristled, sweat-run, dusty profile of Edge, interrupting his flow.
‘But you got to me before he did,’ the half-breed said evenly into the pause.
Tait was again disconcerted, not trusting Edge’s apparent indifference. ‘I didn’t mean...’
‘I am what I am, feller. And I ain’t either proud or ashamed of it...’ He paused himself now, before he added: ‘Any more.’
There had been times in the life of the man called Edge when he had experienced the basic human emotions of shame and pride. But that had been far back in the long period of years between two deaths—the finding of the buzzard-ravaged corpse of Jamie on the Iowa farmstead and turning to see the lifeless form of Isabella Montez sprawled in the dust of a Mexican village called San Parral.
And he had felt other normal human responses, too. Perhaps everyone from love to hate. All this in a time after the war in which he thought he had been drained of the capacity to experience any depth of feeling that was not rooted in evil. So he had suffered more from mental anguish than physical pain as he followed the endless violent trail which zigzagged over half a continent between the farmstead and the village. Always leaving and hardly ever arriving. Fighting a lone war against an enemy far more powerful than the entire Confederate forces had been—his own destiny which had ordained, as he had told the old woman in the dry goods store, that his life should be nothing more than a training session for the purgatory he would suffer after death.
On occasions he had been tricked into believing he had achieved victory. Most vivid in his memory was the marriage to Elizabeth Day and their brief period of happiness on another farmstead, this time in the Dakotas. But Beth died more terribly than Jamie and, because he was still able to respond normally, Edge had endured grief.
But he had spilled no tears for Isabella, who he thought he had loved as deeply as Beth and who he would certainly have married had she not been gunned down in San Parral.
And so he knew, as he rode out of the village watched by a young boy the same age as the son of the cantina owner in the cow town on the Rio Grande, that he had won something over his fate. He was at last totally without emotion, indifferently callous to the results of the evil and violence which were always close to wherever he happened to be. Thus, he would never again have to suffer the harsh agonies of a mind tormented by such futile emotions as grief, remorse or the thirst for vengeance. Because such responses had to be triggered by others—from mere desire to a need to love. And the death of Isabella and his reaction to it had proved he was equally immune to these.
Yet the boy in the cantina had detected a degree of sadness beneath the surface of the man. That was an emotion.
‘You’re too jumpy, Tait!’ Ezekiel Taggart accused. ‘Those Mexicans were ranchers. And rich ones, I’d say. They wouldn’t hire themselves out to Saxby for a few dollars.’
‘You asked him, too!’ Tait snapped.
‘Calm down, both of you!’ the elder Taggart growled. ‘Edge here has made sure we don’t have to worry about those Quinteros any more. But if it makes any difference, I agree with Zeke. They were just mad because we outbid them for the men. I’d have felt the same if somebody bought my outfit out from under my nose.’
‘How did you lose them, feller?’ the half-breed asked, not having to rely on Tait to lead the way to the Big-T spread. For the sign left by the Taggarts and their foreman on the ride south was still plain to see in the dust.
&
nbsp; Tait was taking a drink from one of his canteens. He swilled the tepid water around in his mouth and decided to swallow it instead of spitting it over the head of his horse. The bastards quit on me!’ he snarled. ‘They rounded up the friggin’ critters like everythin’ was fine and they didn’t have no gripes. Then the sonsofbitches just up and rode off the spread. Leavin’ me with five thousand head of trail-ready cows and no one to help drive them!’
Edge glanced over his shoulder at the grim-faced Taggart and his irritable son. ‘Which one of you is going to tell it straight this time?’ he asked.
‘All right, all right!’ Tait growled. ‘The Big-T ain’t the best spread in Texas to work on. We pay low and we expect every man in the outfit to work his butt off every minute he ain’t in the sack. We can do that because there’s more cowpunchers than there are jobs for them. Most times, the hired hands just complain or beat it. If they beat it, there’s always been others to take their places. The new ones soon get to gripin’ the same as the rest.’ He managed a brief, cynical smile. ‘It’s dealin’ with all the friggin’ complaints that got me the bad mouth I’m known for.’
He opened his mouth wide as if he was about to demonstrate his ability to bawl out miscreant cowhands. But instead he tossed a plug of tobacco against the back of his throat and began to chew some juice out of it.
‘But then that shit-stirrer Saxby showed up,’ he continued, and abruptly there was venom in his tone. ‘I guess I should have spotted there was somethin’ wrong about the bastard when he didn’t do no gripin’. Just did his work real well and never put up no arguments about the hours and the pay. I even promoted him top hand, on account of how he knew cowpunchin’ so well.’
‘Zeke and I live in New York,’ Taggart supplied without invitation. ‘I left the Big-T completely in Barney’s hands as far as the day-to-day running of the place was concerned,’
‘You just made the rules, uh?’ Edge asked.
‘I own it!’ came the irate reply. ‘And I require the highest return on every investment I make.’
‘I ain’t complaining, feller,’ the half-breed said evenly. ‘Just sorry I never got into the cattle business before if the rates you pay are so low.’
‘You know better than that, Edge!’ Tait rasped. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder to indicate the strangely quiet vaqueros strung out behind the Taggarts. ‘What them and you are bein’ paid is a small fortune compared to even the top rates for trail drivin’. But we been backed into a corner by the law of supply and demand.’
‘Ain’t no corners out on the open trail with five thousand head of cattle,’ Edge countered. ‘Which makes it rough when the shooting starts.’
‘Okay, okay!’ This time the stream of saliva that was directed between the ears of the stallion was stained brown by tobacco juice. ‘That, too. Mr. Taggart and me didn’t want no hagglin’. If you’d stayed in the cantina, you’d have heard what I told these Mexicans. We need ’em bad, so we know we gotta pay high. But there weren’t no sense in leavin’ it rest there. So I told them the pay’s extra high on account of the risk from that sonofabitch Saxby.’
‘He can afford to hire guns on what the Big-T paid him, feller?’
‘I dunno if the rumor’s true or not,’ Tait growled. ‘Just tellin’ you what I do know. Day Mr. Oscar Taggart and his son showed up at the spread, Saxby called a meetin’ of the whole outfit. Said that if we didn’t pay ’em extra back pay and up our rates for the drive, they’d walk out on us. And see to it that no man within fifty miles of Laredo would work for the Big-T.’
‘And we called them!’ Oscar Taggart rasped, Then fooled them when they pulled out. Came across the border for Mexican labor.’
‘Whose taking care of the herd right now?’ Edge asked.
‘Four deputies outta Laredo,’ the tobacco chewing foreman answered. ‘It was one of them said he’d heard Saxby was hirin’ pro gunslingers.’
‘Personally, I doubt it,’ old man Taggart said thoughtfully, “Even if he could raise the money, it wouldn’t look good for them high ideals he talks about having.’
‘So why did you hire Edge?’ the tobacco-chewing foreman asked pointedly.
‘Let me finish, man!’ Taggart snapped. ‘I don’t reckon he’s got any more ideals than you, me or anybody else in the cattle raising business. He’s just out to make a name for himself. But not the kind you get setting professional gunmen on honest people going about their lawful business.’
‘Same question, Mr. Taggart,’ Tait insisted. He had been watching the half-breed surreptitiously and taken note of the way the glinting slits of his eyes constantly raked the sun-baked terrain. And this relentless watchfulness started to unnerve the foreman. His anxiety could be heard in the tone of his voice, and seen in his own, much more obvious vigil.
‘I told you to let me finish!’ his boss snarled. ‘Saxby’s making himself out to be some kind of messiah, sent specially to get a better deal for cowhands. So he’s not about to lay himself open to trouble from the law and all the bad publicity that would get him. But he’s a hot-head deep down inside. And it’s a long way from the spread to Laramie. The farther north we get, the more it will rile him. Because he’s committed to making the Big-T his test. So there’s no telling what he’ll do to stop us if he thinks we’re going to make it to the end of the trail. That, Barney, is why I hired Mr. Edge.’
‘You’re actin’ like you don’t go along with that line of thinkin’,’ Tait muttered to the half-breed.
‘Why’s that, feller?’
‘Way you’re watchin’ like you expect to see trouble behind every rock.’
‘Like chewing tobacco.’
‘Uh?’
‘Habit.’
‘One that impresses me,’ Oscar Taggart said grimly.:
‘It gives me the friggin’ heebie-jeebies,’ the stocky foreman murmured.
‘Relax, feller,’ Edge said evenly. ‘I’ll let you know when to be scared.’
Tait spat the whole wad of chewed out tobacco over the head of his horse now. Thanks for nothin’,’ he growled sourly.
‘A hundred and fifty dollars-a week is not nothing, Tait,’ Zeke Taggart pointed out, and sounded almost as embittered as the man riding ahead of him.
‘No sweat,’ Edge told Tait.
‘Maybe not for you, mister: But I feel like I’m friggin’ meltin’. And it ain’t just because of that stinkin’ sun up there!’
Behind the four Americans the vaqueros remained silent: as nervous as Barney Tait. But their mood owed nothing to Edge’s present attitude, for they had shown signs of their misgivings from the moment they gathered on the south bank of the Rio Grande. Perhaps then it had simply been that they regretted the killing of their previous employers and, like the townspeople, had begun to consider the implications of what had happened. In the fetid atmosphere and relative comfort of the cantina, their hip pockets bulged by American dollars, they had been concerned only with the moment. Except for the old-timer. But outside, in the bright, harsh, blistering sunlight they faced reality and experienced the first pangs of doubt.
And as they were led deeper into Texas, doubt grew towards fear, the money in their pockets becoming less and less important to them.
Edge did not care enough about the Mexicans to consciously consider what was running through their minds as they sat their slow-moving horses. But he had sufficient experience in dealing with men to be aware of why this group was so morosely taciturn. They were cattlemen, tough and hard because of the nature of their work. But just ordinary men, some with homes and families, maybe: prey to the weakness of greed. Dazzled by Taggart money to buy luxuries for themselves or necessities for their dependants.
But out here in the hostile wilderness of south Texas—with the prospect of the long trail to Laramie—money was so much excess baggage. Even though he was in a crowd, each man was somehow alone. With time to examine his motives and reflect on his mistakes. Each of the dejected vaqueros must surely have been pondering the ri
sks which Barney Tait had warned him about. And comparing the new job with the old. The old had been hard and low paid. But the work was regular and free of dangers, if a man knew his trade. In the new job, only one member of the Big-T outfit had the specialist skills the foreman had predicted would be needed.
‘There they are, the beautiful critters!’ Tait exclaimed gleefully—almost lovingly.
The Texan’s mood had lightened as soon as they rode through an arched gap in a wire fence—passing under a sign proclaiming: TAGGART BIG-T—PRIVATE PROPERTY—KEEP OUT. Beyond the fence the landscape continued to be an undulating panorama of gentle hills. But the grass grew in more extensive patches and there were stands of timber instead of individual trees. Further into the Taggart spread, wind-driven water pumps provided an additional feature to the landscape. The grass and foliage was greener. Cowpats were everywhere, dried and brittle beneath the hooves of the horses. Occasionally the group rode past the bleached skeleton of an animal which had died and been left to the scavengers.
It was good cattle raising country, well supplied with water from underground springs, and not over-grazed. And it was obvious to the ever-watchful Edge that Barney Tait—only foreman of the spread—had a great sense of pride in the Big-T. While the owner and his son felt nothing for it, except for a mild relief that they no longer had to endure the irritation of rising dust clinging to their sun-reddened, sweat-oozing faces.
Tait gave voice to his new-found happiness as he and the half-breed led the others out from a fold between two curving hills and saw the vast herd of longhorn cattle. It was below them, the closest steers over a mile away, at the lowest point in a huge natural crater encircled by verdant hills. On the western slope was the ranch house, a frame building constructed to two storeys at the front and one at the rear to take account of the incline. The house, four forage store barns and a stable and bunkhouse block were fenced off and from a distance the whole place looked neat and well cared for.
EDGE: Death Drive (Edge series Book 27) Page 4