Again, the hapless Ellis could not understand the half-breed’s cryptic comment. But the threat was plain enough.
‘I told it like it is,’ he rasped miserably, licking dry lips as he continued to gaze hopelessly across the river.
Edge nodded in acknowledgement. The situation was precisely as Ellis had said it would be. Matt Saxby had deposited two and a half thousand dollars of hard-earned cowhands’ money in a San Antonio bank and made it known that he was looking for guns to hire. When the Ash bunch rode into town, three hundred dollars had already been withdrawn—as half payment for the trio of gunslingers sent to delay the Big-T drive.
Now there was just eleven hundred dollars in Saxby’s San Antonio bank account. For Boyd Ash had the other eleven hundred, with a promise of a like amount after he had halted the Big-T drive. Nothing had been said about the possibility of the first three gunslingers returning to claim their second half payment for services rendered.
Ellis’s story had checked out thus far. And the presence of the Ash bunch on the other side of the Pecos was further proof that he had been too scared to lie when he blurted out answers to the half-breed’s questions, across the crumpled corpse of his partner in the strengthening light of this morning’s dawn.
Ellis had revealed that he and Hayes were sent to confirm Saxby’s claim that the Big-T herd was being moved north by just a handful of vaqueros, trail boss, the owner and his son, and a single gunman. And that after making the check, the two were to ride west and report to Ash at the Pecos crossing.
‘So now you know I told you the truth, Edge,’ Ellis whispered hoarsely. ‘I’m as stiff as a friggin’ board and thirsty as all get out. You told me I’d be okay if I didn’t try to sell you any bill of goods.’
‘You come to any harm so far, feller?’
The half-breed unhitched the lead line from around his saddlehorn and tied it to a low branch of the nearest sycamore.
Ellis watched him with baleful eyes. ‘I ain’t so far away from dyin’ of fright, godamnit.’
‘I turn you loose now, I’ll maybe die of something else.’
‘One against eight, for chrissake. You ain’t got a chance. Not against the Ash bunch. Turn me loose and I swear I’ll…’
‘Easy, feller. Which one’s Ash?’
Ellis ran his tongue along both lips. The one that’s smokin’. Okay, there ain’t no reason you should trust me, Edge. But there’s a bottle in my saddlebag. The one down on the left. Give me a drink, at least.’
‘Don’t want you sitting tight that way,’ the half-breed answered, and eased down from the saddle.
He hitched his gelding to the same branch as the stallion and slid the Winchester from the boot.
‘What if you don’t make it?’ Ellis groaned.
‘You worry too much, feller.’
‘What d’you expect?’
‘The worst. That way I’m never disappointed.’
He moved away from the helpless Ellis then, going south through the timber and brush towards the ravine. Thinking that his final flippant comment to his prisoner contained more than a grain of truth.
Ever since he had been made aware that his ruling fate decreed he was to possess nothing that he paired, he had almost always taken what he wanted with the certain belief that it would be snatched from his grasp. So it was possible he had suffered more than a man who expected to keep that for which he fought. For was not the pleasure of having diminished by the knowledge that soon it would be lost?
And was this final awareness of the depth of his destiny’s cruelty the reason he had held back from taking Isabella, when he could have done so on countless occasions? But even for his negative attitude towards her, he had been made to pay the price. Without knowing what it was until he saw Ezekiel Taggart smash a knee into the crotch of a defenseless man.
When he witnessed this brutal and cowardly act, Edge saw a mirror image of himself that was only slightly distorted. Zeke, free from a sheltered existence under the dominant influence of a father whose power had been abruptly diminished, had felt the need to flex his newly discovered muscle.
The half-breed had been sure of his own power since the early days of the war. But for a long time—between his first meeting with Isabella and the moment when he drew against the Quintero brothers—part of the kind of man he had become was in a state of suspended animation.
Since then?
Had he tried, he could have handled the two Mexican cattlemen without need to kill them. His treatment of the elderly couple who ran the dry goods store had been triggered simply by spite. Likewise the act of crippling a man’s hand because of mis-used words.
Killing Hayes this morning and the shootings after the cattle stampede could not be included in the catalogue of uncharacteristic acts he had committed or condoned since taking the job Oscar Taggart offered him. Those men died for the good reason that they had had it in mind to kill him.
Everything else?
A reaction to the slaughter of Isabella Montez. She had been his for the taking and he had failed to claim her, because he was afraid of the consequences when he would eventually lose her. But she had died anyway, caught up in the wash of violence that marked his progress along every trail.
And he had thought he was empty of emotion with which to mourn her passing. But he had been wrong. Somewhere deep inside him there was a response which had been secretly nurtured on the long ride from San Parral to the village on the bank of the Rio Grande. And not until he saw Zeke Taggart lash out at Ellis did the half-breed realize what it was.
Deep into the ravine, he crossed the Pecos River, treading carefully to find a solid footing in the soft bed and holding his Remington and Winchester high above his head. At one point the water flowed around his shoulders and the current threatened to snatch his legs from under him. But a new-found strength of purpose powered him towards the opposite bank without mishap. And he was effortlessly and instinctively cautious as he headed north in his dripping wet clothes, as eager for violent action as the eight men he intended to kill.
He veered away from the river, moving diagonally up the slope to gain a high vantage point above the waiting Ash bunch.
As he crouched in a niche behind a small outcrop with leafy brush to either side, he was conscious of the memory of Isabella which he had subconsciously ignored for so long, and embittered by her loss to him. But not as a woman—or even a person. Simply as a possession he had failed to use.
But he could relegate this callous thought to the dark recesses at the back of his mind as he raked his narrow-eyed gaze over the unchanged scene seventy-five feet below and away from him. For she and all that had happened—and not happened—between them were a part of the past. And he had at last assimilated the teachings of their lesson.
He shot the chain-smoking Boyd Ash first, blasting a bullet into his heart as he lit a fresh cigarette from the butt of the old one. The bullet which twisted through his body thrust him hard against the rock at his back. Then he folded forward and became inert, head and arms limp between his splayed legs.
Two of the card players died before the leader of the bunch was still. One took a blood-gushing bullet in the head and the other was hit in the heart, with a shot that drilled through his back. Both were stopped in the act of powering up from the ground, turning, and drawing their Colts.
The five survivors of the initial burst of fire from the half-breed’s rifle screamed and cursed and blasted wild shots as the pair of new corpses thudded their unfeeling flesh to the ground.
Isabella had nothing to do with the dead and living men below the ruthless killer on the rocky slope. For he was no longer a disorientated wanderer grasping the first opportunity to vent vicious spite at the slightest provocation—against whoever it happened to be for no reason he understood.
That phase was gone.
And, if he felt anything, briefly, as he exploded a fourth bullet to spin another card player into blood-pumping death, it was a mild sense of regret about two other corpses.
He killed a fifth man before the remaining trio gained the solid cover of rocks. It was another back shot, fired with the same total lack of compunction as the one which had hit the card player. The man was running away from Edge, seeking cover. The bullet took him low down, smashing through his spine. Its impact added momentum to the run and he did not halt until he pitched face down into the shallows at the river bank. He thrashed his arms, making white water to contrast with the red of billowing blood. But he could not get his face above the surface and within moments became a sodden, drifting corpse.
Three Winchesters sent a hail of lead towards the half-breed’s position and he crouched low to feed fresh shells through the loading gate of his own rifle.
The men below him had died, and would die, because it was their paid assignment to stop the Big-T herd. And it was Edge’s paid assignment to get the longhorns to Laramie. That was reason enough to slaughter them and to risk his own life against their defense. But a man’s actions always had some premise on past experience and the half-breed’s strength of purpose and will to succeed in this instance was augmented by the deaths of two cowhands. An American named Edwards and a Mexican he could put no name to.
Risking ricochets, he bellied out of the niche. To back-track on the route he had taken up the slope, making use of the same cover as before. And he did this unseen, having chosen his initial position because of its escape route.
Each man below emptied his Winchester and hurried to reload. Then they realized the attacker was no longer pouring a lethal hail of bullets down the slope.
‘Wes?’
‘Yeah?’
‘I think we killed the hushwhackin’ sonofabitch!’
‘You wanna go up and check on that, Jim?’
‘I sure as hell ain’t gonna.’
Edge bellied down the slope, a yard or so at a time with a halt in between. He had seen where Wes, Jim and the third survivor of the Ash bunch had scrambled into cover. Now he kept a constant check on them to ensure they did not change positions.
‘I reckon he could be waitin’ us out, Chas! Jesus, he shoots good!’
‘And hears good, too, you dummy! Keep the talk down, the both of you!’
There were stretched seconds of silence. Then the rasping sounds of whispered words scratched the riverside stillness of early evening.
Because he was the kind of man he had been forced to become, Edge could not live by any socially acceptable code. But he had always striven to maintain an ethical standard which raised him a cut above such men as those who rode as the Boyd Ash bunch—no matter how narrow that cut. Thus he experienced the mild regret that he, a professional gunman, had humiliated a cowhand into trying to kill him. And the nameless vaquero who was pulped into the ground many miles back down the trail? Regret, with perhaps a feeling of failure. For the half-breed was paid to keep trouble away from the herd and he had neglected his job while still unknowingly under the influence of an event a thousand and more miles away,
But now there was no such side issue as he made his way back to the ravine and recrossed the river. All was quiet on the west bank at the cattle crossing point in the gathering dusk under the gray sky which looked low enough to reach up and touch.
‘Figure you’re dying to say something, feller,’ he rasped to the tense and shocked Ellis as he came up to him in the stand of sycamores. ‘If you do, you’ll be one over the eight for the last time.’
Ellis screwed his eyes tight shut and nodded curtly. When he opened them again, the half-breed was gone, having dropped down on to his belly to ease out through the brush between the timber and the river. Jim, Wes and Chas were in full sight, crouched tensely at rocks which protected them not at all from the advancing enemy. They were silent and unmoving, prepared to out-wait the man they thought was above them, or perhaps simply waiting for the cover of night.
At the bank of the river, Edge went up on to one knee. He pressed the stockpile of the Winchester against his shoulder and took aim at the closest target. His lips were curled back from his teeth and his hooded eyes were narrowed. He was exposed now, and afraid of death. But there was no element of bravado in his actions. He had to show himself to allow for the swing of the rifle needed to cover each target.
He squeezed the trigger and harnessed his fear to increase his speed. One man died from a bullet which entered his side to find his heart. Two more yelled their panicked fear and whirled to aim their rifles as Edge pumped the lever action of his. The man who had won most pebbles in the card game was hit in the belly and knocked over backwards.
A wild shot cracked across the river, loosed by a trembling man aware that he was the final survivor of his group. The bullet went over Edge’s head as the half-breed jacked another shell into the breech. And Ellis shrieked his terror as the lead smashed through the sycamores.
‘No!’ the last man left of the Ash bunch screamed, fumbling to work the lever action of his repeater.
His voice sounded simultaneously with the report of Edge’s rifle. And he died with a crimson stain spreading across his shirt front and tears streaming down his face.
‘Your boss should have told Saxby that, feller,’ the half-breed muttered as he came erect, feeling the tension drain out of him.
He scanned the corpses littering the opposite bank with no sense of triumph. He merely vented a low sigh of satisfaction at a job well done as he turned his back on the scene and went to where Ellis sat the stallion, slumped in the saddle from the after effects of the mind bending tension.
‘You friggin’ massacred them,’ the prisoner croaked, staring with horror-wide eyes at Edge as the half-breed slid the Winchester into its boot.
‘What did they plan to do to the Big-T outfit, feller?’ Edge countered without interest in the answer, as he approached Ellis and drew the razor from the neck pouch.
The man astride the horse became tense again, then almost collapsed with relief when he realized the restraining ropes were to be cut,
‘What?’ It was the only word he managed to force from his constricted throat as Edge finished slicing through the ropes.
‘On your way, feller.’
Ellis licked his lips and blinked. ‘You mean it? You won’t kill me if I leave?’
Edge took the makings from his shirt pocket and grimaced at the mess of wet tobacco and papers. ‘My word is about all I ever get to keep,’ he muttered.
Ellis made to heel his stallion forward, but paused. He looked down at Edge as the first spots of rain dropped from the evening sky.
There’s money in the pockets of them dead men mister. And eight horses over there that’ll fetch good prices in El Paso or someplace like that. You mind if I help myself?’
‘You won’t get none from me.’
Ellis swallowed hard. ‘Thanks a lot.’
‘Pleasure’s all yours.’ The young gunman rode away from the timber, out on to the cattle trail and splashed across the ford. He had the bottle out of his saddlebag and up-ended to his mouth before he was halfway to the far bank,
Edge dug an oilskin cape from his bedroll and donned it before sitting down on a tree root to gaze impassively through the lightly falling rain.
Ellis worked fast and furtively at robbing the dead, with frequent swigs from his bottle, and he pointedly avoided looking back across the river. When he was through he led his horse up to the top of the slope and out of sight over the brow. A few minutes later the unmoving half-breed heard the beat of many hooves as the man led his four-footed spoils away at a gallop.
Then, for a long time, there was just the hiss and splatter of falling rain hitting the river, the earth, the rock, the vegetation, the living man and the dead ones. The clouds broke up later, and rolled eastwards to reveal the bright dots of stars and allow the moonlight to shaft down on the scene of carnage. The night air grew colder and Edge exchanged the oilskin cape for a thick, warm, knee-length coat.
When he heard the distant thud of the herd’s hooves against the rain-softened groun
d he mounted the rested gelding and heeled him out on to the trampled trail which was now a strip of sucking mud,
Barney Tait and Luis Lacalle came into sight first, riding at point to either side of the lead steer. Both men made as if to rein in their mounts when they saw the stationary rider on one side of the river and the deathly still forms sprawled on the opposite bank. But then the foreman snapped an order and both he and the vaquero angled into the path of the longhorns’ leader—to halt this steer and the thousands stretched out behind.
After the rain, the cows were unexcited by the smell of the Pecos: and were content to graze quietly on the damp grass either side of the trail.
Then the tobacco chewing Tait growled another order to Lacalle, which sent the vaquero reluctantly back to report to the Taggarts. Only weariness was visible on the bristled face of the stockily built foreman as he walked his horse down to where Edge waited.
‘That the Ash bunch?’ he asked with a cursory nod across the river.
‘It was.’
‘The man you had told the truth, uh?’
‘His life depended on it.’
Tait came close to showing a smile. ‘Fine. You did a good job, Edge.’
‘No sweat.’
‘We’ll bed the critters down on this side tonight. Take ’em across in the mornin’.’
‘Figure you know your job, feller.’
Tait wheeled his horse and the half-breed rode back to the head of the herd with him. Then watched with mild interest as the American trail boss and the vaqueros closed up the long-horns into a tighter bunch until his attention was captured by two horsemen curving around the cattle towards him.
The two Taggarts, Zeke with a dirty, wet, blood-stained bandage around his head, halted their horses with a smooth, newly-learned skill. And stared down at the stiff and sodden corpses. Both were trail weary, but that and the family name was all they shared now. The father was like an older, smaller, skinnier imitation of the man who had started out from the Big-T Ranch. The shallowness of his expression as he attempted to display the depth of his shock was an indication of how much his strength had been drained. Whereas it was obvious that Zeke had been further hardened mentally and toughened physically by the passing of another day. But still there was a childish quality about the way he accused:
EDGE: Death Drive (Edge series Book 27) Page 11