Then Edge reached the halfway point of a full turn: his right foot and his fisted right hand swinging with greater speed than his body. The foot hooked behind one of the splayed legs of the surprised bushwhacker an instant ahead of his fist crashing into the side of the man’s jaw. The man’s gun hand thudded against the door of the newspaper pressroom and the revolver slipped from the pain-slackened grip. Then the man’s shoulder and his head hit the same door, powered there by the force of the punch. Next he was sent staggering across the landing when Edge completed the full turn, propelling the man with the foot hooked around the back of one of his ankles.
The half-breed had barely glimpsed the man as he whirled to counter the act of having a gun muzzle jammed against his back. He saw fleetingly in the dark shadows of the neighboring buildings and the false front of the alley as his punch landed that the man was almost as tall as himself, guessed he was a great deal lighter from the way he started to go down from the blow. He only realized just how slightly built the man was as he crashed off the landing and started to bounce down the stairs in a confusion of flailing arms, flying legs and twisted torso. He was as stringbean skinny as Austin
Henry Loring and, just for one hallucinatory moment, Edge was gripped by the insane thought . . .
But then the man, having uttered no cry of pain or alarm as he clattered clumsily down the open-tread stairway, came to a spread-eagled halt on the hard-packed ground at the bottom, face up, with his top half clear to see in a patch of moonlight— some of which glinted on the five-pointed star pinned to the left breast pocket of his shirt.
There were some confused sounds from within the Best in the West. Then the door on the other side of the landing was wrenched open and Marsha Onslow vented a strangled cry of pain as she stepped across the threshold.
“Oh, shit!” she snarled as she stooped to pick up what her bare foot had stepped on, and came up holding the Army Colt that had fallen out of the grasp of Sheriff Milton Rose.
Edge plucked the gun from her hand while she was still scowling at it for causing her injur}', and _ murmured: “Obliged again, Miss Onslow.”
She scowled at him now, then glanced down at the unconscious man at the foot of the stairs and did a double take. She gasped: “Holy cow, it’s Mr. Rose! What happened?”
“I don’t like having a gun aimed at me.”
“He could have fractured his skull, falling all the way down—”
“If he did, it should be a neat fracture,” Edge cut in as he started down the stairway, while the muffled voices and muted footfalls from the Best in the West rose in volume.
“What are you talking about, mister?” the woman demanded wearily, exploring the blood-crusted and bruised area on her own head.
“He was a sucker to brace me the way he did, lady. And 1 always try to give a sucker an even break.”
Chapter Nine
MARSHA Onslow got the door of the newspaper press room closed before the one across the outside landing was wrenched open and a man with a sleep-thickened voice growled irritably:
“Goddammit to hell, Marsha, what’s all the noise?”
Edge was in a crouch to pick up the sheriff’s hat from a tread midway to the foot of the stairway. The lawman’s gun was in his free hand and he made to swing it up to aim at a target. It was not cocked when he took it away from the woman and now he just rested his thumb over the top of the hammer without clicking it back.
A little light reached feebly out over the threshold after spilling along the inside landing from a lamp in one of the rooms on the second floor of the Best in the West. And the shadow of the man who complained the loudest at being woken up further diminished the level of light that fell onto the woman in the diaphanous nightdress. But it was sufficient to clearly show the scowl that remained firmly set on her no-longer-beautiful face as she continued to explore that injury at her temple. She scratched it now, though, instead of gently massaging the discolored bruise so that her fingernails scraped off the congealed crusting of old blood and drew fresh, liquid crimson from the split in the skin. Then, with the eye on the blind side of the spokesman for the complainers, she winked at Edge and lied:
“It was about me falling down the lousy stairs, Wilbur.” She moved forward, into the open doorway. “Stepped outside for a breath of air. Couldn’t sleep on account of thinking so much about Frank lying dead down at the mortician’s parlor and—” Men and women began to make sympathetic noises while others expressed concern about the blood on her face. But what they were all saying and the conclusion of Marsha Onslow’s invented explanation for the disturbance was abruptly reduced to an incoherent murmuring when the woman closed the door, and the outside stairway was once more shrouded in moonshadow.
Edge let out his pent-up breath and turned as he straightened. He pushed the lawman’s gun into the waistband of his pants at his belly and carried the dislodged hat down to its still unconscious owner, where he fixed the Stetson in its proper place by using the chinstrap before he lifted the man and draped him over a shoulder. He carried him behind the newspaper office, the stores and the telegraph office and then across the end of the street and the railroad track to where the chestnut gelding was hitched beyond the depot.
It was no great strain for him to carry the tall and skinny Sheriff Milton Rose, who did not weigh more than a hundred and sixty pounds; and was so flaccid in unconsciousness he might have been boneless. It was equally easy for the powerfully built half-breed to fold the lawman face down over the saddle on the gelding. He did not tie him there. He led the horse at a slow walk that did not threaten to upset the slumped balance of the oblivious Rose and paid scant attention to the shallowly but regularly breathing man. Instead he maintained a cautious watch on the almost silent and not quite entirely darkened town that was huddled to his left as he half circled around the northwest side—to get onto the little-used trail he had taken the first time he needed to leave Prospect secretly. But Marsha Onslow’s playacting had apparently been a genuine effort to help him get clear of town, for he reached the timbered ravine through which the west trail cut without an alarm being raised.
Here he called a halt after leading the horse off the gently rising trail and into a clearing among the timber on the south side where the night air was redolent with fresh sawdust. He hitched the gelding to a low branch of a young pine and lowered the unconscious man to a patch of turf—on his back with his own hat to provide a pillow of sorts. Then he sat down on one of several tree stumps and rolled and lit a cigarette. Still he devoted less attention to Rose than to watching for a first sign he had been followed from Prospect, until, shortly after he crushed out the cigarette butt beneath a boot heel, Milton Rose groaned back from unconsciousness and snapped open his eyes.
They were dark-colored eyes in a dark-stained, leather-textured face. His thinning hair was darkest of all. His teeth, displayed in a grimace of pain as he tentatively moved his limbs and eased his head up off his hat, looked extremely white by contrast, like those of a Negro. This was the first time Edge had cause to look carefully at Rose from close quarters and saw now that the man was a lot older than he appeared at a distance. He was close to and perhaps more than sixty.
“So your right arm ain’t broken, feller,’’ the half-breed said evenly.
Rose had been able to start thinking despite the pain and he clawed a hand toward his empty holster the instant he recalled why he was in such pain. Then, as the first word was spoken, he wrenched his head to the side; had to blink his eyes a number of times to bring the image of Edge seated on the tree stump into sharp focus.
“Nor your neck,’’ Edge went on. “You want to try moving everything else?’’
The grimace that had been displaced by a scowl now returned to die long and lean face of the lawman as he struggled to sit up and did a lot more blinking as he peered about himself.
“I get riled at having a gun poked into my back, sheriff. Like it even less than having one aimed at me. Cocked or not. You ever h
ave cause to draw against me again, try to kill me. I sure as hell will be trying to kill you.”
Rose shook his head several times with his eyes closed, then opened them again and made a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree survey of his surroundings. There was confusion mixed in with the pained expression on his face now.
‘‘You took a tumble down the stairway between the saloon and the newspaper office—”
“I’ve figured that out for myself, mister,” Rose cut in.
“Fifteen, maybe twenty minutes ago. We’re about a half mile out along the west trail from Prospect.” Now the lawman nodded, and rasped between gritted teeth as he hauled himself up onto a tree stump ten feet away from where the half-breed sat: “Thought I recognized this ravine.”
He remained puzzled until Edge explained: “I had some help, sheriff. Marsha Onslow gave the people you woke up a good story to cover for the racket you made taking the tumble down the stairs.” Rose nodded again, as he gently massaged the pained areas of his body and head, giving most attention to his crown and his right knee. He said in a self-satisfied tone: “Yeah, it’s about time that woman came to the good senses I always knew she had.”
“You lost me,” Edge told him.
“If I can get together whatever good senses I got, I’ll try to tell you what I was plannin’ to say before you laid me out, mister. Which I figure I can’t blame you for doin’. A man gets a gun stuck in his back in a town where he’s got no reason to figure anyone sees things from his point of view, he’s just bound to get a mite mad. But you gotta see my point of view on what I done, mister.”
He abandoned ministering to his bruises and hooked his bony hands over his angular knees as he eyed the half-breed with a brand of odd-in-the-circumstances repentance; like Edge was the wrongfully injured party.
“I do?”
“Yeah, you do. On account of I’m on your side in this thing. And I’d like to lend you a hand to sort out the mess. Same way that Marsha is rooting for you and helped you out. But you got no reason to believe a word I say nor to trust me in anything unless you see why I done—”
“Which of Crowell’s wartime buddies can you tell me about, sheriff?” Edge interrupted.
“Not much about any of them. But most about Barry Donovan.” He said this very quickly and then spoke even more rapidly. “I don’t sleep too good these days. I got the insomnia that the doc says there ain’t no cure for unless I drink myself into a stupor, which ain’t of no interest to you. So, anyways, I was wide awake and fixin’ to start out on my normal midnight swing through town when I seen you ride into town off the north trail and leave your mount in the cover of the railroad depot. Recognized you from the way you move. Don’t get many of your kind through Prospect. So, anyways, I seen you move on foot into town and
I’m real puzzled, mister. Way I seen the kinda trouble you took to shake off me and the posse out in open country. So I bides my time instead of roustin’ out some help to get you locked up in the Prospect hoosegow. Seen you go up the stairway between the Tribune buildin’ and Frank Crowell’s place. Did some sweatin’, I can tell you, mister. While I waited to hear a shot or somethin’ that would’ve meant you’d killed somebody else. And I almost yelled up there for you to quit what you was doin’ when I seen you carryin’ the woman outta the saloon and into the other buildin’.
“But I’m real glad I didn’t, mister. And that’s no horseshit. After I heard you and Marsha Onslow talking. But, like I told you, I figured you’d be tensed up real tight when you stepped outta the Tribune doorway. Likely to lash out or worse when I opened my mouth to say somethin’—or if you just plain saw me before I had a chance. Reason I held my gun on you, and I sure hope you believe me?’’
His tone of voice and quizzical expression made it a query.
Edge told him evenly: “No harm done, feller—to me. Donovan, Red and Ben?”
Milton Rose Obviously was not fully satisfied with the response he had drawn from the halfbreed. But it rankled for just a few moments, before he shrugged and sighed, and supplied without his earlier haste:
“Red Maguire and Ben Tremayne. I was a Texas Ranger when I had my dealin’s with them as a bunch of four hard men back from ridin’ with Micky Rankinn’s Rebel Raiders in the war. I rode up from the San Angelo ranger post to check out a rumor about some kinda massacre some place along the route of the Prospect and North Texas Railroad track. But just found what’s to be seen there today, more or less. The grave markers and the church— not so fallen down, I guess. Some wickiups and some old sign that a wagon had been driven away from there. Along with a bunch of unshod horses. But this was eight weeks after the rumors said it happened, and there’d been no official complaint lodged. And since, most of the stories went, it was all redskins that were killed . . . well, anyways, even if I had set much store about a minister’s wife bein’ under one of the headstones ...”
Milton Rose shrugged his skinny shoulders again: and was shamefaced as he remembered part of his seven-year-old past and realized that the passage of time had not made lame excuses any more valid.
‘‘Prospect was just startin’ to change from bein’ a railhead for cattle shippin’ to what it is today,” the lawman went on, drawing himself back from the brink of self-pity. “The first sodbusters were ploughin’ and sowin’ on their claims and-a half dozen merchants were startin’ in to build stores. Frank Crowell and Tremayne, Maguire and Donovan vere gettin’ off the ground with what I guess was what was to become the Best in the West. In the old Cattleman’s Association buildin’ that ain’t there anymore on account of it was burned to the ground when some oil lamps got busted in a big fight.
“There was a fight at the place,almost every night. About a woman or a card game or just for the hell of it. Like I say, though, Frank Crowell and his buddies were a hard bunch and they could handle their own trouble. And they never did have any of the kind that gave the Rangers cause to have any kinda official interest in them. But I didn’t like the kinda place they was runnin’ in the kinda town that Prospect was tryin’ to be. And nor did a lot of other folks that I guess you could call the foundin’ fathers of today’s town.”
Edge took out the makings and started to roll another cigarette as Milton Rose paused: the sheriff seeming to need to take the time off from talking while his mood altered from depression to contentment in response to the more pleasant memories that crowded into his mind. But after he looked away from the infinity on which he had been reviewing the events of the past and saw the unencouraging lack of expression on the face of his listener, he felt it necessary to sidetrack:
“All this I’m tellin’ you is kinda important, mister.”
“When there’s no rush, I’m a good listener, feller.” . .
“There’s no rush.”
“There isn’t?” Edge countered, and gave the lawman an up-from-under look as he ran the tip of his tongue along the cigarette paper.
Rose fleetingly smiled more brightly at having produced a visible reaction in the naturally impassive half-breed, and supplied: “Barry Donovan ain’t scheduled to reach town until three-thirty tomorrow afternoon, mister.’’
Now Edge showed a smile of his own. But from the way in which Rose suddenly appeared nervous, it was apparent the lawman saw the dangerous glint in the ice-cold eyes that lit with no warmth as the lips were drawn back from the teeth. But his tone was easy when he said:
“Like I say, a good listener, feller.”
“Sure. Okay. Where was I? Oh yeah, I was a Texas Ranger when I spotted them four as trouble. But they didn’t cause none that I could take a hand in as a Ranger. And I left to go back to San Angelo. But I had it in mind to come back, mister. See, I was nearin’ the end of my time. And a bunch of sodbusters and business people hereabouts—the decent ones that wanted Prospect to become a fine and peaceable town . . . well, they let it be known that if I was still interested in bein’ a lawman after the Rangers figured I was too old for the service, they’d be happy to have me
as sheriff.
“Which is what I got to be, less than a year after I was first up this way to look into that business out along the railroad. Even though there was precious little call for the place havin’ a fulltime peace officer. Town was really startin’ to build up and there weren’t no real flies in the ointment. Like I told you, the first saloon and cathouse and gamblin’ place in the old Cattleman’s Association buildin’ was out of business after the fire. And Maguire and Tremayne, who were the meanest of the bunch we’re talkin’ of, and Donovan, had all left these parts. Only Frank Crowell was still here and he was runnin’ a plain and simple saloon.
“Didn’t stay just that for long, though. Branched out into gambling again first. Then built another floor on the place and brought in the whores. But he always kept a tight rein on the place and I never had any call to visit the Best in the West on law business. Never was alone in figurin’ there never should be a place like that in a town like Prospect. But Frank Crowell kept all the sinnin’ out of sight behind the batwings of the place, he gave more than any other local businessman to the Community Chest and worked real hard to stay in the good books of even the folks who made no secret of how they felt about the kinda place he was runnin’. Just had this bee in his bonnet about the church and anythin’ to do with the church. Couldn’t abide to pass the place except on the other side of the street. Wouldn’t come to any meetin’ if the town preacher was gonna be there, too. And if he spotted a Bible or a crucifix or a rosary or any kinda religious thing like that in a room, either it went out or he did.
“So i figure you can start to see it from my point of view now, mister?”
“No, feller.”
Rose expressed a scowl of irritation. “Rumor had it that four men did the killin’ out along the railroad track. Crowell and his three buddies could’ve been by there at about the time it happened. One rumor said the wife of a preacher was included in the dead. And there sure was a church bein’ built when the killin’ put pay to it. Maguire and Donovan and Tremayne left this part of the country but Crowell stayed. Got to be as respectable as someone in his business can get, but never could clear his conscience, I figure. You gotta be able to see why I always had a strong notion Frank Crowell and his three buddies was the bunch that did the—”
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