‘Ain’t that allowed on a cattle drive, feller?’ Edge countered as he lashed his bedroll behind the saddle.
Tait was unshaven and still stained with yesterday’s dirt. He dug a plug of tobacco from a shirt pocket and bit off a chew. ‘Just one rule covers drivin’ a herd of critters, mister. No matter what else happens, the cows come first.’
The half-breed coaxed the gelding out of the stall and led him across the stable. ‘Obliged for the information. I’ll be sure to watch where I’m treading.’
Tait scowled and stood aside to allow Edge and the horse out into the yard. Then he spat some tobacco juice at the ground and went into the stable to attend to his own mount.
There was just a wisp of smoke from the stack on the cookhouse roof now. The lamp was out and the fireglow almost gone. Above the eastern horizon the stars were fading into infinity under the advance of gray dawn. In the yard, a line of bleary-eyed Mexicans moved into and out of the cookhouse, having their empty plates and mugs filled by Pancho and carrying them back to the bunkhouse. Some of them cast envious glances towards the freshly washed up and shaved Edge as he mounted the gelding and rode across the yard. Others looked at him with something akin to scorn.
He ignored them as he joined the end of the line, still astride the horse. When he reached the doorway he dug out a mug from inside his bedroll and leaned down to thrust it towards Pancho.
‘Just coffee, feller.’
‘It is bad to start a day’s work with a belly that is empty,’ the almost bald old-timer advised as he carried the coffee pot to the door and tilted it over the extended mug.
‘You sound like my Ma used to.’
‘But now you are old enough to know your own mind?’
‘Maybe,’ Edge allowed, and sipped the hot, strong coffee as he watched Barney Tait lead his stallion from the stable, mount up and ride through the open gateway.
‘And not to like what you have become, I think?’
‘You’re a good cook and you make fine coffee, feller. Stick to what you know best.’
‘Si, señor. But a man cannot help what he thinks. And an old man like I am ... he has behind him the years to make his advice good. Give Taggart back his money and leave.’
Edge sipped the scalding coffee, draping his free hand on the saddle horn. ‘My Ma gave me advice because she loved me, feller.’
A sad-faced nod. ‘Si. That is one of the things mothers are for. I offer it because I have regard for those hombres.’ He waved a hand towards the bunkhouse. ‘I think that if you leave, they will have the courage to go.’ He sighed and shrugged. ‘But you will do only what is to your own advantage. So I am wasting my time, am I not?’
‘I owe nothing to you or to the vaqueros’ the half-breed pointed out.
‘Nor to anybody who does not pay you?’ He sighed again as he turned and went back towards the range. ‘I tried, even though I knew I was bound to fail.’
‘Know the feeling, feller,’ Edge replied softly, and tipped the coffee dregs out of his mug before he stowed it back into his bedroll. ‘I do that all the time.’
He tugged on the reins to turn the gelding and then heeled him forward across the yard and out of the gateway. Behind him, the Taggart father and son emerged from the ranch house, washed and shaved: smiling in anticipation of breakfast. As four disheveled but already fed vaqueros headed for the stables.
Down in the basin Tait was circling the herd alone, having signaled the quartet of Mexicans to head up the hill to eat. They closed with the half-breed at a midway point on the slope between the ranch buildings and the steers. The forty-year-old, broad-shouldered and barrel-chested man with two front teeth missing—who was obviously the top hand among the Mexicans—gave a grim-faced nod as he and the others reined in their mounts.
‘Do something for you?’ Edge asked.
‘Pancho the cook, he has spoken with you?’
‘A couple of times. Once to tell me he’d like to bury me, Then he said I should leave.’
The man pushed his tongue into the gap where his teeth had been, his dark eyes pondering a problem. The three vaqueros with him seemed anxious to ride on as the relief guards came out of the yard. ‘You will not do this because, I think, in your own way you are as honorable as we are, señor. You have accepted money and put your name to a contract. I said this when we talked while you slept.’
‘What are you saying now, feller?’
‘That we have all made a bad mistake. Because we were greedy for money. But men must learn to live with their mistakes. We will ride for the Big-T as long as you do, Señor Edge. And if there is trouble, you will tell us what to do. We will not be like helpless children—as we were when the gringo insulted all Mexicans.’ He smiled his pleasure at having spoken his piece. The other three were still unhappy. ‘My name is Luis Lacalle and my word is my bond.’
He extended his right hand and leaned to the side. Edge accepted the handshake and noticed that the quartet of guards riding by were as sullen-faced as three of the men they were relieving.
‘Glad to know I can rely on you, feller,’ the half-breed acknowledged.
‘On all of us!’ Lacalle growled, treating his fellow countrymen to a scowl. ‘But some of us take longer than others to recover from our mistakes.’
Edge nodded and heeled his gelding forward. He rode slowly in the wake of the four new guards as Lacalle and the other three continued on up the slope to the ranch house.
Tait had completed a circuit of the perimeter fence to check the stock and now he sat in a relaxed attitude astride his stationary stallion, contentedly chewing on his wad of tobacco as he watched the enormous herd of longhorns. Just as had happened the previous afternoon, the Big-T foreman’s bad humor had been soothed out of him by contact with the cattle.
But he was moved to glowering bad temper again by the half-breed’s approach. ‘Lacalle tell you I’ve made him top hand?’
‘No, feller. But I figure you made a good choice.’
‘What was the hand shakin’ all about?’
‘His idea. Gave me his word he and the rest of them will make the best of a lousy job.’
‘Damnit, you ain’t the boss around here!’ Tait snarled.
‘Never made no claims, feller. You heading the herd due north from here?’
Tait shot a sour glance up the slope. ‘Just as soon as them sonsofbitches move their asses down here to start work.’ He snapped his head around as Edge urged his horse into movement. ‘Hey, where you goin’?’
‘Break that rule you told me about. The herd has to come after me if I check on what’s ahead.’
‘Take us till midday to reach the county line, mister. And there won’t be no trouble from Saxby before that. Weren’t no hand-shakin’, but when O’Brian makes a promise, he keeps it. So best you stay with the herd; Learn how to handle this many critters on the move while there ain’t nothin’ else to worry about.’
Edge looked back over his shoulder. ‘If Taggart had wanted me to herd cattle, feller,’ he said as the gelding continued to carry him away from the glowering Tait, ‘he’d be paying me a hundred a week. He figures I rate higher than that and I figure a man deserves value for his money.’
‘That don’t mean you gotta go lookin’ for trouble where there ain’t any, damnit!’ Tait snarled.
The half-breed ignored the angry words as he reached the low point of the basin and started to swing the gelding to the left, heading him around the outside of the barbed wire fence enclosing the longhorns. The entire sky was gray now, all the stars dimmed into nothingness and the quarter moon reduced to just a pale crescent above the southern arc of hills. The air had altered from cold to cool and the brightening area above the eastern horizon promised a comforting warmth that would precede long hours of harsh heat.
The massed steers accepted the half-breed indifferently, some of the animals on the fringe of the herd not even interrupting their grazing when he rode past at an easy pace. He came close to two of the vaqueros as
he swung around the western side of the fence and acknowledged their grim-faced nods with a brief raising of his hand.
Then, as the first yellow shaft of sunlight lanced down into the basin from a gap between two hilltops, he rode away from the cattle and the men whose job it was to handle them. Heading up the slope of the northern curve of hills into country that appeared devoid of all human presence save his own. And he at once experienced a lightening of his mood—which was the first indication he had that he had been infected by the aura of gloom and discontent which prevailed at the ranch behind him.
He found the knowledge vaguely disconcerting, for it meant that he had not become entirely a new man during that violence-shattered day in San Parral. He could still be made to feel the burden of responsibility which others elected for him to carry—or paid him to accept.
But out in the silent and uncrowded open country he was his own man, self-confidently conscious of what he had to do and relishing the freedom of action he possessed.
So he rode easy in the saddle over the crest of the hill and maintained a relaxed, involuntary watch on the features of the broad valley stretching out ahead of him. The warm air of sunrise was clean, untainted by the odors of men unaware of their destinies and animals doomed to die in a short while.
Life was not good for the man called Edge, but at a time such as this it was the best he could ever expect,
Death brushed him two hours later.
He was four miles beyond the boundary of the Big-T spread by then, having crossed on to public land through a broad gap in the fence, enlarged from a conventional gateway so that the massive herd of longhorns could he driven north without delay. The sun was high and hot enough to create a haze along every horizon and the Big-T pasture had given way to an arid terrain of convoluted ridges of rock with depressions of dusty soil between.
Edge was riding north west along such a ridge, flanking the only trench broad enough to take the large herd, when he glimpsed a flash of sunlight off metal. The brief glint showed at the top of the slightly lower ridge a quarter mile to his right. Then, as he snapped his head around to get a firmer bearing on the position, it was pin-pointed by a puff of white muzzle smoke.
He had wheeled the gelding and plunged him down the slope on the blind side of the ridge when the report of the rifle shot cracked against his eardrums. But Edge’s head and back were still exposed and the bullet came close enough to him for him to feel the disturbed air of its slipstream rush across the flesh of his neck.
Horse and rider were out of sight, the gelding snorting with panic as his hooves slithered on loose shale, when the second shot cracked: the sound simultaneous with the thud of the bullet into rock.
Edge fought for control of the terrified animal with skilful use of the reins and his heels. But the onus was on the gelding to beat his own fear—to bend and straighten his legs at the right moments to take account of degree of slope and treacherous movement of the surface under its hooves. The half-breed could do little more than stay in the saddle and stirrups as the downward plunge continued, his lips sealed over the urge to snarl obscenities and eyes cracked against the billowing dust.
For more than twenty feet there was a danger that rider and horse would be flung to the cascading rocks with their dust-veiled threat to shatter limbs. But then the gelding responded to the calming influence of the man: bending his hind legs to slope his back into the hill and using his rigid forelegs as a brake to the down slide.
The momentum slackened, then suddenly stopped. Pieces of shale continued to skitter downwards. But not for long. All sound except for the breathing of Edge and the horse was silenced. The dust settled. The eyes of the gelding ceased to bulge and the half-breed began again to sweat at the normal rate.
‘Easy, feller,’ Edge said, soft and soothing when the horse snickered as he made the first move to dismount. When he was himself standing on the treacherous shale, he stroked the animal’s neck. ‘Figure to make him pay for trying to upset us.’
Careful of where he trod and constantly watching the unsafe ground in front of the animal, he slowly led his mount to the foot of the slope. It was a narrow stretch of parched and dusty earth with a solid but steeper rise on the other side. There were no trees or brush to which he could hitch the horse, but it had been a long ride from San Parral and Edge had used part of the time to train his mount. So it was sufficient for him to hang the reins forward to the ground—and when he moved away after sliding the Winchester from the boot, the animal remained stock still.
Edge went back up the slope as carefully as he had descended the second half—but on a long, diagonal line which brought him to the crest some two hundred feet left of where he had been a target for the sharpshooter. He gave the man credit for not being a fool and he removed his hat and made use of morning sun shadow to chance a look across the quarter-mile wide valley.
Nothing moved on the opposite ridge and there was no rifle barrel in position for the sun to glint on. He waited a few moments and made another fast survey. Longer than the first because this time his coldly glinting eyes raked over the intervening low ground as well as the ridge.
A black shadow moved across white rock, but it was cast by a buzzard which swooped low through the hot air above the arid land. Then spiraled high with a croak of disappointment.
‘Stick around,’ the half-breed murmured as he settled into a comfortable sitting position on the shale, watching the scavenger as it found the effortless rise of a thermal, and pumping the action of the rifle. ‘Up to the feller across the way whether you’ll get late breakfast or an early lunch.’
Edge was as patient and unmoving as the gelding below him. He had his hat back on now to shade his head from the strengthening heat of the sun and in the shadow of its broad brim the lines of his dusty and sweaty face were as relaxed as if he were asleep. In fact, his eyes were closed, so that he could concentrate all his attention on the sense of hearing.
Only occasionally did he crack open the hooded lids, to check on the passage of time from the sluggish movement of his own shadow. After an hour had slid silently into history, he re-checked the eastward view from the top of the ridge.
The man who had tried to kill him was the scar-faced Edwards, whose curiosity had negated cautious patience. When Edge first saw him, he was halfway down the slope, the barrel of his rifle swinging to and fro at the same nervous tempo as his moving head. The half-breed saw him for only a part of a second, but there could be no mistake about his identity. For the right hand fisted around the barrel of the Winchester was wrapped in a blood-stained and dirt-streaked bandage.
Edge resumed his previous position, eyes closed and hearing strained to pick up the first sound of Edwards’ approach. And the hot morning silence was scratched by footfalls on rock. It was counter-pointed a few moments later by the rasping of labored breathing—perhaps caused by exertion or, more likely, the tension of fear.
The half-breed’s face was abruptly not in repose any more. The slits of his eyes glinted like slivers of blue glass and his thin lips curled back to reveal the whiteness of his teeth in a cold grin of evil intent. He remained seated on the shale, but turned his head and nestled the stock plate of the Winchester against his shoulders. His eyes and the muzzle of the rifle became fixed on a point a hundred feet along the ridge where he was certain Edwards would appear.
The footfalls faltered and the man cursed at his near stumble. Edge took first pressure against the trigger of the rifle.
From the south came a sound like far-off thunder—except that no thunder roll ever lasted so long. It was the beat of cloven hooves against the sun-baked earth of Texas as five thousand head of cattle moved north.
The noise got louder by the moment and Edge could no longer rely on his hearing to signal the moves made by his would-be killer. But he had already pin-pointed Edwards’ position. And when he triggered a shot he heard the man’s shrill cry of alarm.
Before the chips of rock exploded by the impact of the bullet
had completed their flight, Edge had powered upright. Then he sent shale showering down his side of the slope from under his pumping feet. He reached the high point of the ridge in moments, another shell already levered into the breech of the Winchester.
Despite the swelling volume of sound from the approaching herd, Edwards heard the clatter of skittering rock pieces. But he was still recovering from the shock of the unexpected shot. And was driven into deeper fear by the sudden appearance of his prey become predator.
Edge literally leapt into view, using the first patch of firm ground under his feet to power himself into a jump. And, as he landed—in full view of the man who was belly down on the slope a hundred feet away—the Winchester exploded a second shot. This bullet also hit rock, but there was pain as well as fear in the shrill sound vented from Edwards’ gaping mouth. For the broken fragments of rock rained into his face to spot it with droplets of blood.
‘Jesus!’ he shrieked, the blasphemy a continuation of his strident scream.
Edge shook his head as he pumped the rifle’s lever action. ‘You missed me, feller. I just rose up from the other side of the hill. Leave go of the gun.’
Edwards was holding the Winchester by the frame in his uninjured hand, on the far side of his trembling body from where Edge covered him. Just for a moment, his face showed he was considering a desperate attempt to roll and explode a shot. But when the half-breed stepped towards him, rifle in a rock-steady aim on the centre of his blood-run face, he loosened his grip. The surrendered Winchester slithered twenty feet down the slope before its stock was halted by a hollow.
‘You’re gonna kill me?’ Edwards accused, almost choking as he tried to work saliva into his fear-parched throat.
‘You should have been that smart earlier, feller,’ Edge replied, closing in on the helpless cowhand. ‘You want to get on your feet?’
‘It was Saxby’s idea, mister,’ Edwards blurted, trying to control his quaking as he rose on to all fours and then pushed himself erect
EDGE: Death Drive (Edge series Book 27) Page 7