For the Big-T herd galloped straight on its newly ordered course, in the wake of the big steer which had been the leader all the way from the home range, flanked by fast riding cowhands who yelled at the tops of their voices and exploded countless shots into the air.
Edge sat his saddle and stroked the neck of his gelding, speaking softly into one pricked ear of the animal. But the horse continued to tremble, eyes bulging and nostrils flaring, until the ground beneath its pawing hooves was still—the stampeding longhorns, and the riders content to let the herd run itself into exhaustion, thundering away to the west.
Then the horse was calm and at ease again and the half-breed heeled him into a gentle walk over to what was left of Oscar Taggart.
All of what once had been a man was there on the trampled grass and hoof-pitted earth of Wyoming. But it was no longer in one piece. For, after countless steers had crushed Taggart into a pulpy mess of crimson meat mixed with stark white bone fragments, others had torn the body apart and scattered it over a broad area. Thus was the verdant pasture land scarred by a broad swath of moist red, featured with gruesome heaps of the trampled flesh of a human being.
The gelding was as unmoved by the sight and smell of recent death as was the man in the saddle. But the memory of terror was still freshly imprinted on the brain of the animal. And he was comforted by the soothing sound of Edge’s soft spoken words.
‘There’s a cattleman who let his business get on top of him.’
Chapter Twelve
FAR off to the west the herd was slowed by the dictates of failing stamina, and the men who had once been maneuvered into opposing forces continued to co-operate in turning the front runners back on to the centre of the following stream of tiring longhorns.
The activity was so distant now that only the sound of gunfire would have carried to where Edge rode slowly in on the stalled chuck wagon and mounted man beside it. But guns were no longer necessary, the weary steers responding to the less powerful sounds of men’s voices.
Pancho did not have a voice. Nor anything else possessed by a living man. He was slumped across the seat of the chuck wagon, a revolver still clutched in his right hand and a hole in the centre of his forehead with a widening trail of dried blood leading down to his open right eye. The other eye was closed and the single open one seemed to be watching the approaching half-breed, showing mild displeasure.
Zeke Taggart’s expression was more intense, his hard green eyes asking a question Edge refused to answer until it was put into words.
‘Dad didn’t move fast enough, did he?’
‘He couldn’t hold on long enough,’ the half-breed corrected, reining his horse to a halt six feet in front of where Taggart sat the white stallion. He jerked a thumb towards the dead Mexican cook. ‘Pancho try to stop you?’
‘It was him or me, Edge. You understand that kind of situation.’
The man’s veneer of toughness was beginning to crack. He was still holding the Winchester with which he had started the stampede and killed Pancho. He was resting it across his middle, in a two-handed grip with the hammer back. His fists tightened around barrel and frame as his fear of the soft-spoken, dispassionate half-breed mounted.
‘No sweat, feller. Unless your problems are mine. And that’ll only be if you don’t have any ready cash.’
Zeke blinked.
‘Your Pa’s dead,’ Edge augmented. “I guess that means you inherit the business. And the debts. I was paid just the one week in advance.’
‘Same as the Mexicans...’ Zeke started to blurt.
‘That’s their business,’ the half-breed cut in.
Zeke nodded vigorously. ‘You’ll get paid. Everyone will. Just as soon as the herd is handed over to the army in Laramie. There’ll be plenty for everybody.’
‘After that?’
Nothing had changed about Edge’s attitude, expression or tone of voice. But Zeke sat easier in his saddle now, as a group of riders headed out from the stalled herd towards the chuck wagon. The new owner of the Big-T was confident he would not be gunned down by the impassive half-breed.
‘It’ll be the same as it always was!’ His tone was vehement and his newly bronzed face expressed spiteful determination. ‘Dad was getting soft. He was going to give in to the men,; wasn’t he?’
‘Guess he must have told you what he planned, feller.’
‘Sure he did! And he also said he wasn’t going to hand over control to me at Laramie the way he intended it to be at first. He was going to sell out to every man who works for us before m retired! All my life he tried to make me the same kind of a sonofabitch he was. And as soon as it happened he went soft!’
The three men who had ridden from the herd pulled up their horses ten feet from where Zeke Taggart and Edge faced each other. Barney Tait was at the centre, flanked by the bearded man and Luis Lacalle. They had taken their time riding up, mounts and men recovering from the exertion of the chase. But the anger of the men simmered dangerously close to boiling point in back of their accusing eyes. The Mexican did a double take at the slumped form of Pancho and curled back his lips from his gapped teeth in a scowl of hatred.
‘It was Taggart or the cook,’ Edge said in Spanish.
‘We all speak that language, too, mister!’ the bearded man growled.
‘I don’t, Edge!’ Zeke snarled, again gripping his Winchester tightly. ‘And with Dad dead you’re working for me. Does everyone understand that?’
He was not afraid of the trio’s enmity towards him. But neither were Tait, Lacalle and the bearded cowhand concerned by Zeke and Edge.
‘You did okay,’ the tobacco chewing Tait said to the half-breed. ‘Out there when this crazy shit spooked the critters into a run. You got outta the way and let guys that know cows take care of it.’
Edge nodded. ‘Like I always say, every man to his trade.’
‘Or business,’ the bearded man added. ‘And this ain’t none of yours. Unless you want to join us.’
‘I ain’t the joining kind, feller.’
‘Unless the price is high enough, señor,’ Lacalle rasped. ‘But your high price will not be paid on this occasion if you continue to…’
‘He wanted his old man dead, Edge,’ Tait interrupted, his voice harsh with impatience. ‘The boss told me that days ago and he wrote and signed a piece of paper. Assigns the Big-T spread and stock to me in the event of his death. So it’ll be me gets paid for the herd at Laramie.’
He grinned his pleasure at this and tobacco juice squeezed between his clenched, discolored teeth and ran down the bristled jaw.
‘So best you just sit and watch, mister!’ the bearded man growled. ‘If you wanna get paid by the only man who’ll have cash at Laramie. Unless, like I already said, you wanna help us make Taggart pay. For puttin’ our lives on the line as well as his old man’s?’
‘Edge!’ Zeke croaked, the old fear constricting his throat and forcing his hands into tight fists around the rifle. ‘You can’t…’
He snapped his head around from staring at the unmoving half-breed—his eyes widening in terror at the sounds and scene of a trio of men drawing guns on him.
He gasped and tried to bring his Winchester to the aim.
But there was not time.
A single gun was jerked from its holster and exploded six times in rapid succession: the trigger finger constantly pulled back as the gun hand swung one way and then the other, the free hand fanning the hammer.
The bearded man, Tait and Lacalle each took a bullet in the chest. Then the curses and screams they vented as they began to topple from their saddles were silenced by other bullets. And blood torrented from head wounds, in contrast to the slow, spreading stains on the fronts of their shirts. The riderless horses snorted and scratched at the ground as the limp forms of the corpses crashed down among them.
‘God in heaven, thanks,’ Zeke blurted. ‘For a second there I thought you were with them.’
‘I’m with me,’ Edge answered flatly, turning the
Remington skywards and clicking the cylinder around to let the expended shell cases drop from the chambers. ‘Until somebody pays me to be with them. Right now I’m being paid Taggart money.’
‘But Tait said Dad had assigned…’
‘And I guess he wasn’t lying,’ Edge allowed, taking bullets from his gun belt and feeding them into the empty, smoke-smelling chambers of the Remington. ‘But it ain’t like it was a couple of steers that were transferred from one owner to another. Proving that piece of paper’s valid would take a lot of legal time and trouble. A man could starve waiting.’
Zeke grimaced. ‘So you killed three men just to save time. Irrespective of the rights and wrongs of it?’
Edge showed a cold grin as he holstered the fully loaded revolver, recalling Oscar Taggart’s ambivalence towards necessary killing. ‘If your Pa hadn’t changed, Zeke, he’d have been real proud of you. Seems you’ve become almost exactly what he used to be.’
‘And I’m proud of it! Even if I had to kill him to show what I am!’
Edge spat to the side. Then nodded as he dug the makings from a shirt pocket. ‘Like that almost as much as your money, feller.’
Zeke was perplexed. ‘What? That I killed my father?’
The half-breed’s lean, bronzed, narrow-eyed face expressed a brief scowl. ‘That you decided to do something and went right ahead and did it. Without needing to have a bunch of two-legged sheep to back you.’
He struck a match on the stock of the Winchester jutting out of the boot, lit his cigarette and tossed the match down on to the corpse of Tait. The flame was out before the stick of wood lodged on the blood-stained shirt.
‘Or even two,’ he growled.
Taggart was still uncomprehending, unaware of the complete loner’s ruthless contempt for men like his father, Matt Saxby, Barney Tait, Luis Lacalle, Boyd Ash and even, except in this one instance, Zeke himself. Equally for men who took no drastic actions unless they were led by others. Like a herd of Texas longhorns and the lead steer.
After long seconds, the new owner of the Taggart empire abandoned his attempt to understand and shifted his puzzled gaze towards the grazing herd where the Mexican and American cowhands were waiting.
‘You think they’ll do what I tell them?’ he asked, his eyes and tone apprehensive.
‘You’re the boss, feller,’ the half-breed answered. ‘And right now they haven’t got anybody to tell them what to do.’
Zeke Taggart wasn’t convinced as Edge turned his horse and started towards the herd. He hurried to catch up with the half-breed. ‘We should reach town by nightfall. For one day I’ll pay double rates. That should keep them happy. You’ll make sure nobody gets out of line?’
‘You’re the big wheel now,’ Edge muttered. ‘You make sure they know that. I guess they’ll figure out for themselves that I’m around to make sure nobody mistakes what you mean.’
Zeke licked his lips and scowled, as if he didn’t like the taste of the salt sweat of fear which had dried on them. He looked out across the pasture land towards the ghastly stain and small heaps of human flesh that had once been his father. ‘I’m not sure I didn’t make the biggest mistake of anybody,’ he croaked. ‘I’m already starting to hate myself for what I did.’
‘Learn by it, feller,’ the half-breed growled, the bitterness of his tone directed at himself. ‘Maybe that way you won’t screw up again.’
That’s what I intend.’
‘You and me both.’ He curled back his lips to reveal his teeth in a humorless grin. ‘And maybe tonight the whole town will love us.’
‘What?’
‘I hear tell Laramie welcomes careful drovers.’
Other titles in the EDGE series from Lobo Publications
#1 The Loner
#2 Ten Grand
#3 Apache Death
#4 Killer’s Breed
#5 Blood On Silver
#6 The Blue, The Grey And The Red
#7 California Kill
#8 Seven Out Of Hell
#9 Bloody Summer
#10 Vengeance Is Black
#11 Sioux Uprising
#12 The Biggest Bounty
#13 A Town Called Hate
#14 Blood Run
#15 The Big Gold
#16 The Final Shot
#17 The Final Shot
#18 Ten Tombstones To Texas
#19 Ashes And Dust
#20 Sullivan’s Law
#21 Rhapsody In Red
#22 Slaughter Road
#23 Echoes Of War
#24The Day Democracy Died
#25The Violence Trail
#26Savage Dawn
#27 death Drive
And More to Come…
EDGE: Death Drive (Edge series Book 27) Page 14