‘In a pig’s eye!’ O’Brian roared, ‘You can’t just hire and fire the law, mister!’
‘On your way, feller,’ Edge said evenly. ‘You’re a peace officer. Keep the peace by setting an example to this savior of the down trodden and his converts.’
The smile was gone now, replaced by glinting-eyed contempt for the shocked and confused cowhands.
‘Matt!’ a man with a knife scar on his right cheek growled. ‘There’s just Taggart and the gunslinger. And Taggart ain’t even armed. The greasers we can forget.’
Three other men in the group from Laredo nodded their approval of the uneven odds. Saxby was not among them.
‘I told you men!’ he snapped. ‘I came out here to talk is all. No trouble.’
He wheeled his horse to face the cowhands. Not until they all showed their willingness to comply with his leadership—the scar-faced men and three others reluctantly—did he turn his intense gaze on the Mexicans. ‘You people have been told the facts. Up to you what you do now.’
Then he faced front again and the group of hands jostled their horses to open up a passage for him to ride through.
A relieved looking O’Brian signaled for his deputies to close in on the group. But held back himself to glare malevolently down at the tense and sweating face of Oscar Taggart.
‘You been lucky, mister,’ he rasped between tightly clenched teeth. ‘Because I take my job seriously enough to believe that the law’s for the protection of every citizen who ain’t breakin’ it. But there ain’t many peace officers like me. So I figure that outside of my county, you—and the help your money can buy and the people your hired gun can scare—are on your own.: And if I was a religious man, I’d pray you get what you deserve.’
‘Thank you for your good wishes, sheriff,’ Taggart replied, confident of his victory in this encounter. ‘Since it’s my experience that if a man wants to succeed badly enough, then he will. I therefore deserve to get my beef to the Laramie stockyards.’
O’Brian’s rage expanded as he searched his mind for a retort. Then had his attention wrenched away from the smiling Taggart by the sharp crack of a rifle shot. And the choked cry of a man in pain.
He, and everyone else, looked from the smoking muzzle of the half-breed’s Winchester to the scar-faced man. He was half turned in his saddle, his left hand clenched around the wrist of his right. His right hand was folded into a tight fist and blood was oozing through the cracks of the pressed together fingers. Crimson droplets fell to the dusty ground to form ugly brown stains.
Down at the base of the natural crater among the hills, a few steers snorted and scratched nervously at the cropped pasture.
Barney Tait, who had ridden halfway up the slope, jerked his horse to a halt and snapped his head around to rake angry and fearful eyes over the unsettled herd.
‘What the frig?’ O’Brian croaked to shatter the shocked silence clamped over the men in front of the ranch house.
All of them followed the direction of his furious gaze to locate Edge, who still stood at the fence, the Winchester resting across the top bar. ‘Mistakes happen,’ the unexpressive half-breed responded to the spoken question and the tacit curiosity.
‘Mistake?’ the sheriff blustered.
‘He made it.’ A nod towards the scar-faced man dripping blood from his holed palm. ‘He called Mexicans greasers. He shouldn’t have done that.’
‘Damnit, they didn’t give a shit about it!’ the injured cowhand snarled.
‘They got other things to worry about,’ Edge replied evenly as he canted the rifle up to his shoulders. ‘I ain’t.’
‘You have now, mister!’ the man countered. He sucked blood from his fist and spat it at the ground. ‘I ain’t the kind to forget somethin’ like this!’
He splayed his fingers to exhibit the blood-oozing hole through his palm.
Edge nodded impassively while others eyed the wound with disgust, ‘You catch on fast, feller. These vaqueros are Mexicans. Same as my Pa was. Figured I’d give you a hand to remember that.’
The cattle had calmed and Barney Tait was completing his ride up the slope, chewing angrily on a wad of tobacco.
‘What crazy fool fired off a gun and spooked the critters?’ he yelled as he closed with the group.
‘That crazy fool!’ O’Brian taunted with a curt nod at Edge. ‘He might be a real hot-shot gunslinger, Tait. But you got a lot to teach him about how to act around a herd of cows this big!’
‘Take it easy, Barney,’ Taggart placated as the Big-T foreman reined in his horse and glowered at Edge. ‘There’s been no harm done.’
‘There’s been harm done!’ the scar-faced man growled, waving his injured hand. And transferred his anger from Edge to O’Brian. ‘You gonna let him get away with this, sheriff?’
‘You were warned you were trespassing, Edwards!’ Oscar Taggart snapped. ‘All you men got the same warning. If you leave right now I’ll guarantee you safe conduct off the Big-T.’
‘We’re leaving!’ Saxby growled, moving his intense stare from Edge to Taggart to Tait and to the vaqueros. ‘And you’ve been given fair warning. The other side of the county line you’ll have to fight for every inch you try to drive those cows!’
His spurs jabbed his horse forward and the other cowhands were quick to follow. Only Edwards spared time for a backward glance, his eyes filled with hate for the man who had blasted a hole in his hand.
The four deputies waited eagerly for O’Brian’s order to move out. The vaqueros tacitly implored him to remain, but he shook his head as the lines of sourness in his sun-darkened skin seemed to deepen.
‘Saxby told you like it is. Up to you boys. For what it’s worth, I wouldn’t ride for the Big-T outfit for a thousand bucks a week.’ He shifted his gaze to ensure that Taggart, Tait and the half-breed saw the full measure of his loathing for them. ‘This whole thing makes me sick to my stomach!’
Edge moved to his gelding and pushed the Winchester back into the boot, ‘So take a powder.’
Chapter Six
THE bunkhouse of the Big-T ranch had cots for twenty men but Edge had the place to himself for what remained of the hot afternoon. He entered the long, narrow, low-ceilinged room after stabling his horse, not surprised to discover that, in relative terms, the animal was enjoying better creature comforts than he was. For he had already seen that Tait had a higher regard for stock than for men, and that Oscar Taggart’s sole concern with his spread was that it should produce the highest return for the lowest investment.
But, even so, the half-breed relished the feel of the lumpy mattress on the hard boards beneath his back as he lay on the cot and listened to the sounds of men and animals outside. For he had not had access to the simple luxury of any sort of bed, except for his blankets on the parched earth of Mexico, since he rode out of San Parral. And that had been many weeks ago. Just how many scorching days and bitterly cold nights had passed since then, he was not sure. Enough, though, for him to be certain that he had accepted the brutal death of Isabella Montez with ice-cold resignation—despite the miles he had travelled and the men he had killed in the vain attempt to possess her.
So the sadness which the boy at the cantina had detected in the lone stranger was not a sign of fading grief. Rather, it was a response to the now certain knowledge that the man was unable to experience grief. For if he was denied that deepest of emotions surely he had been drained of the capacity to feel lesser human reactions to the events triggered by his presence.
Since his accidental shot had shattered Jamie’s life, he had always insulated himself against emotional involvement in circumstances outside his control. Then, when the death of his parents made survival entirely his own responsibility, he had begun to build a defense against being affected by the consequences of personal conflicts.
He had never regarded himself as different from other men in this respect, accepting this hardening process as a necessary step along the way from adolescence into adulthood.
During the war it
had been essential for every man engaged on the field of battle to possess such a defense against the evils of human cruelty. For then, a certain way to violent death was to pause in futile reflection on tragedy that had already occurred.
The peace which followed was to be more harrowing than war for this man: and he survived it, in large part, because of his impassiveness to the death and destruction which continually dogged his tracks or lurked ahead on the trail he followed.
But, until he turned on that dusty street in San Parral and saw the inert, blood-stained corpse of Isabella Montez, his defense against dangerous emotion had been only a shield, a skin deep veneer for the benefit of others. Behind this he had suffered whatever brand of mental torment his cruel fate had decreed for him,
It had become easier to bear since he overcame his grief at losing Beth Day—for he made a conscious effort to remain apart from his fellow human beings, in contact with them but inviting no warmth into the relationships. There had been occasions when he thought he was completely free of any sort of punishment that went beyond the physical. But when his resolve weakened so that he felt an affinity with somebody, he was always proved wrong. Tragedy inevitably struck and the familiar pain assaulted his mind. But each time with less intensity.
Now it was finished. He could never be made to suffer mental anguish again. And on the ride from San Parral to the cow town on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande he had come to terms with this—venturing close to the border line of self-pity. For, in beating fate’s decree that he should suffer for every step he took along his trail of violence, he felt he had become less of a man. As cold as a Sierra Madre night, the old Mexican had called him. Always he had sought to appear this way.
There was no longer any need for pretence.
‘You wish food, señor?’
Edge had not slept through the afternoon. He had simply sprawled out on his back on the cot closest to the door of the spartanly furnished bunkhouse, his right hand close to the Remington in his holster and his left just a few inches from where the stock of the Winchester jutted out of his gear piled on the floor. His hat was tipped forward over his forehead, but his eyes remained open—idly watching the changing pattern of light and shade on the walls and ceiling as the sun crawled down the western sky.
It was the old-timer who spoke from the threshold. A small man of no more than five feet, with crinkled features and a sparse body. Almost bald but with a thick moustache. His dirty white shirt was spotted with grease marks and the bandana which now hung from his belt was damp from mopping sweat. He was holding a tin plate heaped high with beef and beans.
‘Taste as good as it smells?’ Edge asked, folding up and swinging his feet to the floor.
‘I have cooked thousands of meals on hundreds of trails. In Mexico and the United States. The drovers they always complain because that is their way. But never have I been fired.’
‘Obliged,’ the half-breed said, thrusting out a hand.
The cook advanced into the bunkhouse and surrendered the plate of food. Edge delved into his gear for his own eating implements.
‘Everybody stay?’
Saxby and his men and the sheriff and deputies had still been in sight when the half-breed led his horse into the stable blocks The vaqueros had been watching the departing riders enviously, while Oscar Taggart and Barney Tait issued tacit challenges for the Mexicans to follow suit. Then, when Edge walked from the stable to the bunkhouse, the owner of the Big-T had been countering Saxby’s threat of unemployment—warning the hapless vaqueros that he had more influence than the spread’s former top hand and promising he would use it if the men broke their contract with him.
Reasoning that he would learn the outcome sooner or later, Edge had made no attempt to eavesdrop on Taggart’s speech or the responses it drew. He had listened only to the sound of voices, then the clop of hooves and slap of harness as trail-weary horses were urged into movement. After that, the loudest sound which reached the quiet bunkhouse was the lowing of cattle in the basin below the ranch buildings, until advancing footfalls on the hard-packed dirt of the yard signaled the approach of the cook,
‘Si, señor,’ the little old man replied. ‘It was allowed we should discuss the position and we did this. And agreed one job is better than no job. Especially a job such as this one. The money we earn will last a very long time in Mexico. Long enough for people to forget how we earned it.’
Edge nodded, then swallowed hurriedly as the cook made to leave the bunkhouse. ‘Glad to have you along, feller, What’s your name?’
‘Pancho, señor. Something else you should know of me, I think. I despise the kind of man you are.’
The half-breed was chewing food, and spoke around it. ‘Should that worry me, Pancho?’
A shake of the head, the expression regretful. ‘I can cause you no harm, Señor Edge. But it will be my pleasure to dig your grave should this be necessary. For Don Camilo and Don Jorge who were fine men. And for the storekeeper and his señora.’
‘I ain’t known for spreading happiness, feller,’ the half-breed said, moving the old man to anger by his easy acceptance of the hatred.
‘Your kind of man is good for…’
‘So dig a deep grave.’
Pancho was puzzled.
‘And pack the dirt real well. It’s hard to keep a good man down.’
Edge was weary of Pancho’s helpless enmity towards him. And brought an end to the exchange with a brief, ice-cold stare through glinting blue slits in the shade of the hat brim. The old man’s response was a fast and unsteady whirl and a vicious slam of the door. Then Edge continued with the meal, plain, plentiful and well cooked. He listened to Barney Tait talking with Pancho out in the sun-drenched yard. Again he failed to catch the words being spoken, but detected in the tones of the men that questions were being asked and answered. Then the door opened wide enough for the Big-T foreman to thrust his head inside.
‘The cook tells me you know we’ve still got an outfit. We’ll be headin’ out with the critters at sun-up tomorrow.’
Edge nodded.
Tait seemed about to withdraw, then halted the move. ‘Oh, yeah. More critters there are in a bunch, the harder they are to control. We got five thousand cows down there. Any loud noise they don’t expect is liable to send them runnin’ every which way.’
Another nod from the man eating the beef and beans. ‘Makes cows like some people then, uh?’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
Edge set his empty plate down on the floor and stretched out again on the lumpy mattress. ‘Don’t like being in crowds, feller.’
Tait scowled and slammed the door with greater force than Pancho had used. The footfalls of the Big-T foreman stomped on the yard, then became merged with many other sounds as the vaqueros not engaged in watching the herd gathered for the evening meal.
Edge slept, resting just below the level of consciousness. Dreamlessly. On occasions he was brought close to waking as the Mexicans bedded down for the night or came and went as the guard on the herd changed during the dark hours. But there was no threat of danger from the embittered men who entered and left the bunkhouse with a minimum of noise. They did not talk, and if they paid any attention to the sleeping half-breed it was simply to glance at him fearfully: secretly apportioning to him a large share of the blame for their predicament.
He awoke an hour before sunrise, to the pleasant aroma of cooking food which infiltrated into the bunkhouse through cracked timbers and broken windows, carried on the cold morning air. When he hauled his gear outside, the early hours’ air was colder, damp with dew. Dark wood smoke rose from a stack in the cookhouse roof, rising high in a seemingly solid column towards the star-pricked blackness of the sky. A kerosene lamp burned dimly and a range glowed brightly behind two windows of the cookhouse. Elsewhere the ranch buildings were in total darkness. At the foot of the basin the herd was still bedded down under the sullenly watchful eyes of the four slow-riding sentries.
&nb
sp; In the stable, crowded and sweet smelling with the horses of the off-duty men, the half-breed stripped himself naked: revealing to the disinterested gaze of the animals the hard, muscular leanness of a body liberally scattered with the scars of physical suffering.
Cold was a familiar discomfort and he accepted stoically its touch on his undraped flesh. And he vented only a low grunt through clenched teeth as he lowered himself into the brimful horse trough. Then worked vigorously with a cake of soap to remove old sweat and trail dust from his pores. When his skin was clean, he used the razor from the neck pouch to scrape the bristles from his cheeks, jaw and throat. He had no need of a mirror to stop the blade short at the moustache and the long sideburns that reached far below the level of his earlobes under the thick fall of his hair.
He was fully dressed again, and had drained and refilled the trough with fresh water, when footfalls sounded on the yard outside. And the bunkhouse door was kicked open.
‘All right, you men!’ Barney Tait snarled. ‘Outta the sack and get some grub! Time to start earnin’ your pay!’
The half-breed began to saddle his gelding as groans and curses greeted the Big-T foreman’s raucous words.
‘Where the hell’s Edge?’ Tait sounded at once angry and afraid.
There was no response from the bunkhouse.
‘I saw him go to the stable, señor,’ Pancho supplied from the other side of the yard.
‘Feed everyone. Includin’ the men down at the herd. Then get the chuck wagon ready to leave. You men attend to your horses soon as you’ve eaten. We ain’t got no...’
‘Senor Tait!’ a vaquero cut in calmly.
‘What you want?’
‘We have been on many drives. We know what to do.’
‘So friggin’ do it!’ the foreman retorted. ‘And do it quick!’
He had been crossing to the stable as he yelled his ill-tempered orders. As he issued the final one he jerked open the door and stared at Edge with undisguised surprise.
‘Neat and clean as a new pin,’ he drawled after the half-breed had straightened from cinching the saddle to the gelding’s belly, and nodded a greeting.
EDGE: Death Drive (Edge series Book 27) Page 6