Silver in the Blood

by George G. Gilman

  "You stole this?" Edge asked.

  The injured man saw no point in a denial. "Mason Wilder, can afford to lose fifty times that much and not notice it."

  "It'll come harder to you;" Edge said with a cold grin as he scooped up the money and stuffed it inside his shirt. "You shouldn't have lit the fire."

  The man was bewildered. "What fire?"

  The response threw Edge for a moment and a frown etched across his leathery countenance. But again he wasted the minimum time in contemplating the unknown. With the Winchester held casually, but only an instant away from spitting death, he jerked a blanket from a bedroll, spread it on the ground and tossed the thieves' weapons into it. Then he gathered the four comers and hefted the bundle of guns on to his back. He stood regarding Fats and Blue, the former trembling, the latter clutching at his wounded shoulder and answering Edge's stare with a scornful gaze.

  "Was I about right on the bounty for you two?" Edge asked.

  "Hundred each last time we saw a poster," Blue answered. "Chickenfeed now you're rich?"

  "Not worth the trouble," Edge agreed, indicating with a motion of the rifle that they should move to join the sole survivor of the gang. They complied with the tacit order.

  "You going to gun us down?" Fats stammered through his funk.

  Edge moved to where the tunnel narrowed towards the mine entrance. "You and your partner jumped me, Fats," he answered. "Little boy Blue ain't going to get his horn blown no more and I reckon you died a thousand times on the trip up here. I'm calling it quits."

  "You maybe," Blue said. "Jake Tabor won't."

  Edge shot a quick glance at the man he thought was familiar. "Brother?"

  "You know Jake?" the man with the injured hand asked.

  "We were at a wedding together," Edge answered.

  "Miller Tabor's his only son," Blue supplied with deep enjoyment at imparting the information.

  "Was," Edge pointed out.

  "That makes you a dead man walking."

  "Don't rile him, Blue," Fats pleaded.

  Edge began to back down the tunnel. "Any man comes out of this mine before fifteen minutes is up won't be telling any lies to his grandchildren."

  As he rounded the bend in the tunnel, losing sight of the three men, Edge was suddenly engulfed in smoke. It had come too early and he hadn't had time to gasp in a lungful of clean air. He spun on his heels and broke into a run, the bundle of guns knocking against his back as if to urge him on. The smoke was no longer a mere curtain, but a billowing pall which no longer found an exit through the crack in the ceiling and therefore pushed ahead down the length of the tunnel. Edge began to cough and struggled to hold his breath as the acrid vapor seared at his throat. As he broke into the open air he could feel the tears streaming down his cheeks as the smoke attacked his eyes. He began to breathe deeply, not breaking stride, and tossed the bundle of guns on to the fire as he passed.

  The cartridges in the guns began to explode as he reached the edge of the shelving and dropped down, taking the steep slope at a headlong dash, gravity assisting his own momentum. From the shadowed entrance of one of the other mine adits, a pair of large eyes watched Edge's disappearance down the slope. The pupils were dilated against the night and they were of a dark color, emphasizing the gleaming whiteness of the eyes. And beyond the whites there was darkness again—a coal black darkness of pigmentation developed by a limitless ancestry living under the merciless glare of the African sun.

  Anatali, a pure blood Zulu warrior, drew back his fleshy lips to show the gleam of opalescent teeth and moved forward to pursue Edge. But suddenly he drew back, as three more men stumbled out of the smoke-filled tunnel, coughing and gagging.

  Anatali bided his time.

  Chapter Five

  DESPITE the maintained force of the north wind, which seemed to be gusted by some avenging spirit with a grudge against the world, Edge was encompassed by a warm feeling as he widened the distance between himself and the worked-out mine. He had money for the first time in a long while and he had come by it in a manner that he considered reputable, by his self imposed code of ethics. And, in the process, he had gotten rid of the two hillbillies who were not worth the trouble for the prices on their heads. He was heading west now, by the crudest of reckoning: simply that the Sierra Nevada was a range of mountains that stretched like a great length of knotted rope in a north-south direction down one side of the country and therefore if he rode up to the top and then down the other side he would eventually come to the ocean. He was aware that mountain country could not be reduced to such simple terms in practice, but any problems that faced him were still in the future as he entered a gulch that seemed to be ill line with what appeared as a pass between two peaks, many miles distant.

  The start of the gulch was not wide, and it got narrower, the sides growing steeper with every yard he covered. After the initial burst of speed away from the mine and because of the ever-rising ground on the route west, the horse was reluctant to move at more than a walking pace and Edge demanded no more. He was deeply tired himself and had been searching for a suitable campsite, sheltered from the weather. The gulch offered no respite, its smooth floor and sides—which doubtless became a channel for melting snow in the spring—acting as a funnel down which the wind blew with an eerie howling sound.

  They jumped him as he emerged from the upper end of the narrow ravine, Fats approaching from the right, Blue lunging from a narrow ledge of rock. The sound of the Colt was whipped away by the wind and carried up the mountain. Fats stopped dead in his tracks for an instant that seemed to stretch into seconds. His tiny eyes had grown wide to stare at the smoking hole in the end of Edge's holster. His mouth open, too, drooling the foam of saliva. But then a spurt of blood gushed from the wound in the back of his throat and stained his many chins red as he fell to his knees and pitched forward.

  "You're always running off at the mouth, Fats," Edge muttered and was knocked from the saddle as Blue crashed into him, a knife held high.

  Edge hit the rocky surface with a jarring thud that made Blue's frail body feel like a ton weight on top of him. Blue yelled in pain as his shoulder wound opened up under the impact, but his good arm continued its swing in a deadly arc, hand clutching the knife. Edge saw it coming and put all his strength into a heave that sent Blue's thin body rolling away from him. The knife clanged against rock. Both men leapt to their feet at the same moment, Blue brandishing the knife from side to side, Edge's right hand streaking to the holster. It was empty, the Colt dislodged by his fall from the horse. The animal, with the Winchester rifle in the boot, was looking on with manifest disinterest from several yards away.

  Blue grinned with dark evil at Edge. "You don't look so big without a gun, mister," he taunted. .

  "I'm versatile," Edge hissed, left hand going to the back of his neck and emerging with fingers clasped around the razor.

  They began to circle, like vicious animals looking for an opening. Blue's face was a black blob with the bright glints of his eyes in the shadow of the coat hood. The wind tugged at Edge's shirt and howled its fury at finding no slack. The bulk of his body and additional padding of the paper money plastered the cotton tight to him.

  "Miller's boy went to tell Jake Tabor," Blue said, downwind, the words loud and clear.

  Edge waited until he was in a similar position. "You should have gone with him."

  Blue shouted an answer but the wind wrenched away his voice in the wrong direction. "I said I'd rather have the money than get within a hundred miles of that Quaker killer."

  He lunged as he spoke the final word, the knife held out in front of him, his body going into a crouch to get beneath the swing of Edge's razor. Edge leapt to the side, sucking in his stomach and the knife flashed across his middle within a fraction of an inch of the target. He altered the angle of the razor's path at the last moment and cut a long slash across the side of Blue's coat hood. Blue twirled in an instant and with the balance of an experienced knife-fighter put all
his weight into another lunge. Again Edge's reflexes enabled him to twist his body away from the knife. But Blue's headlong rush sank his good shoulder hard into Edge's stomach. Both men went to the ground with Edge underneath again, his head crashing against the rocky surface, sending pain jangling inside his skull. His vision blurred and he saw a fuzzy image of Blue's face, bright with triumph. Edge struggled to raise his hands, but his muscles refused to respond. He tried again to throw his opponent clear, with the same negative result. The knife came towards him and he knew it was aimed at his throat. He experienced no fear: merely a deep resentment that he should have to die at the hand of a man he considered an inept moron.

  But suddenly Blue was frozen in the act of the kill, his jaw dropped in an attitude of screaming, the sound stolen by the wind. Edge's sight cleared and he blinked at the sudden projection which had appeared in the center of Blue's chest. It was the shape of a spearhead, gleaming with dark moisture. The same dark staining began to spread across the front of Blue's coat, matching the patch at his shoulder. Then his eyes closed and he started to topple forward, the blood coated point of the spear aiming at Edge's face. His muscles responded now, and Edge found enough strength to toss the dead man from him and leapt to his feet in one fluid movement. He had a fleeting impression of Blue's body lying on its side with the wooden shaft of the spear growing from the middle of his back before he lunged toward his horse and snatched the Winchester from the boot. Then he turned and fanned the whole area with the rifle, jerking it into a rock steady position as the barrel pointed at Anatali. He blinked to make sure the crack on the head was not playing tricks on him. It was the only reaction he showed, His voice was soft.

  "You sure as hell ain't the one that didn't grow no bigger."

  "What you say?"

  "The one they put in the Wild West show," Edge answered as the Zulu continued to eye him with mild bewilderment.

  The man was enormous. Six feet six inches tall at the least with shoulders that probably meant he had to go through doorways sideways as well as stooped. His chest was a convex of latent power and his stomach bulged, not with the bloatedness of fat but the ridges of muscles. His legs had the length and girth of immovable tree trunks. Strength also showed in his face, round and smooth, but looking as hard as it was black, with widely spaced eyes under a high shiny forehead, flaring nostrils in a bulbous nose and a wide, protruding mouth, all topped off by long, crinkly hair that instead of falling about his face sprouted upwards and to the sides like painted wire. He was dressed in an Eastern business suit, pin-striped with a red velvet vest visible beneath the open jacket. The, whole outfit seemed a size too small for him so that he showed a lot of wrist at the sleeve cuffs and his pants ended a good two inches above his white trimmed, patent leather shoes. He wore no gunbelt, but the throwing of the spear did not leave him without a weapon. He clasped the handle of a wicked-looking club in his enormous right fist.

  "I don't understand."

  Edge knew he was not a southern slave enjoying new-found freedom after the end of the war. For there was no twang of any American influence in his voice. His English had more of a British accent.

  "Kid's rhyme," Edge explained, "You throw a mean spear."

  "My assegai save you life?"

  Edge snapped a glance at BIue. "It sure didn't do a lot for his."

  "So you give me Mr. Wilder's money now."

  His tone didn't suggest a query this time. Edge had a Winchester and the Zulu only a club, but Anatali made the statement with bland confidence.

  "Miller Tabor and his boys had the money," Edge pointed out. "Maybe I know where they got it, but I don't care. It's mine now. You fixed the fire at the mine?"

  "One of Mr. Wilder's mines," Anatali answered. "I know about smoke hole. I follow the robbers there. I light fire and climb cliff to block smoke hole. Smoke, them out. You spoil my plan. I hear others say you have money. I follow two who follow you."

  Edge nodded. "Wilder's got a smart boy working for him. But it rifle against a club says you lose out, feller."

  Anatali's blank expression did not change as he began to move towards Edge. Edge held his ground and his eyes narrowed to glinting slits as he pumped the action of the Winchester, sliding a shell into the breech. "I'm obliged to you," Edge said evenly, raising the angle of the rifle so the Zulu could look full into the black hole of the muzzle. "So don't get stupid and make me kill you."

  Anatali stopped in his tracks, aware that the white man was prepared to use the Winchester. Edge grinned without warmth and began to sidestep, keeping the rifle aimed and never taking his unblinking eyes off the Zulu.

  "I hear your boss is a very rich man," he said.

  The Zulu remained immobile, staring straight ahead, his round face still devoid of expression. "Mr. Wilder has more money than anyone in Virginia City. That why he cannot allow any man to steal from him."

  Edge nodded. "I see the point, let one get away with it and every bum in the west will figure him for a sucker."

  He had made a wide circle of the Zulu and was now behind him. From the back he seemed bigger than ever in the tight-fitting suit. Edge wondered if he bought his clothes small on purpose to emphasis his bulk. But he decided not: a man such as this needed no false trimmings. "Own many mines?"· Edge asked, looking at the mass of wiry hair and considering the dampening effect it would have on a blow.

  "Many mines, but all flooded," Anatali replied as Edge began to move forward, towards the broad back, stepping light and easy. "All over Comstock mines are flooded. But him still rich man."

  Edge brought the rifle in towards the side of the hirsute head, gripping the stock with both hands, and the barrel crashed against bone just above the Zulu's right ear. The man's body remained stiff, as if paralyzed by the blow, and fell like a redwood. He hit the ground with a sickening thud, the club slipping from limp fingers. Untrusting, Edge moved in close, the Winchester aimed, and hooked a toe under the club to kick it aside. Anatali's eyes were closed, his mouth slightly open arid he was breathing as if in a peaceful sleep. Edge glanced towards his horse and saw it had been joined by three others at a patch of coarse grass. He recognized the mounts of Fats and Blue. The big black stallion, its coat as dark and shiny as the face of the unconscious man, was carrying what Edge needed.

  He moved quickly, going to the horse and unhooking the lariat from the horn of the polished saddle. Then he used his razor to cut off two lengths and fumbled with cold hands to tie the Zulu's ankles together and his arms behind his back. He glanced around, saw a small crevasse that offered protection from the wind and dragged Anatali into it. Then he went to the body of Fats and removed the hillbilly's coat slashing off the buttons with his razor rather than taking the time to unfasten them. When he carried it back to the crevasse, the Zulu was awake. He looked at Edge without rancor.

  "Mr. Wilder will order me to find you and get the money," he said.

  Edge nodded and dropped the coat over the Zulu. It was still warm from Fats' not yet stiff body. "Virginia City far from here?"

  "Two hours fast ride." Anatali nodded in the direction Edge had been going.

  "It'll keep you warm till someone finds you," Edge said, moving the coat with his foot to cover the Zulu's ankles. He looked ruefully towards the crumpled form of Blue. "I had a hankering for his, but he's covered it with blood."

  The Zulu looked at Blue. "Him sure a messy bleeder."

  "Yeah," Edge said, failing to appreciate the British humor. He went in search of his Colt and when he found it, spent a few seconds taking the crumpled money from inside his shirt and arranging it into a neat stack, which he put into his hip pocket. The Zulu watched him with steady, unblinking eyes. Edge ignored him and crossed to his horse. He mounted and headed for Virginia City letting the animal set his own slow pace.

  Chapter Six

  AMONG the first prospectors to discover silver in the Sierra Nevada was a man with the unlikely name of Pancake Comstock and because he was a fast talker who showed more
enthusiasm about the find than anyone else, they named the lode after him. The lode ran through the center of Sun Mountain and in 1859 the miners laid out a single street of tents and cabins on the slope. One night an ageing Easterner named Old Virginia came home drunk, stumbled in the doorway of his shanty and broke the bottle of rye he was carrying. As he saw the whisky soaking into the dirt he shouted: "I baptize this ground Virginia Town." Not long afterwards silver-hungry residents changed the Town to City and the site became Mount Davidson after the first man to buy ore from the Comstock.

  The city now had many more drunks among its twenty thousand or so inhabitants, and Edge happened to find one sitting on the edge of a sidewalk on B Street who insisted upon slurring out a potted history of the area before imparting any information. He cried a lot in the telling, blaming water and the rich mine owners for his downfall. But really, he told Edge, Mason Wilder could be found at the Ritz Hotel on Main Street. His bloated face formed into a grimace as he spoke Wilder's name and he emphasized, his feeling by spitting into the gutter, immediately replacing the powerfully expelled moisture by sucking up the remaining liquor from his bottle. An emaciated mongrel appeared from the shadow of a building across the street and the drunk hurled the empty bottle towards it. A pained howl told of a direct hit.

  "Be kind to man's best friend," Edge rebuked with a grin. "Remember, dog is God spelled backwards."

  The drunk blinked up at him. "What you say, stranger?"

  "Somebody said it to me once," Edge answered. "I've never been able to figure its significance either. Obliged."

  He urged his horse forward. It was the early hours of the morning in the big town and a lot of it was sleeping, many of the buildings presenting an unlighted, blank facade to the wide, wagon-wheel rutted streets. But a muted, far-off din and a halo-like glow in the sky over the rooftops signaled the location of the tenderloin section. In a town the drunk maintained was dying because of mine cave-ins and flooding, one street was very much alive and kicking. Windows blazed with light, pianos rattled out raucous music, girls sang hoarsely and men laughed and cheered and shouted. There were six saloons on the lower end of Main Street and in each of them a horde of barflies was acting as if there were no tomorrow.