"Kindly walk this way and do your best to act like a gentleman while you are in this house," she instructed tightly.
Edge fell in behind her and expressed a wry, fleeting smile as he drawled, "If I could walk that way, lady I don't figure I'd be any kind of man."
CHAPTER SIX
THE room into which the woman ushered Edge was at the rear of the house. It was large and as expensively furnished with good taste as every other part of the Worthington home he had seen. The view from the lace-curtain-hung window was down into the walled courtyard and the timber beyond which screened all but the crests of the rises which enclosed the rich valley outside the immediate vicinity of the house.
Edge poured coffee into the small cup and drank it at a swallow as he stood at the window and watched Ralph lead the gelding into the stable.
The door closed and he was not aware May was still in the room until she spoke.
"I can have the help bring a tub and hot water, Edge. Or arrange anything else you need to make you comfortable."
The hardness had left her voice and Edge detected a brand of coy invitation in the tone she used, then saw it blatantly displayed when he turned from the window. For there was a smile on her plain face which was at once eager and gentle, and she stood against the door in an attitude which displayed her slim body to the best advantage.
"You mean you'll be happy to have me screw you, lady?" he asked evenly.
She was disconcerted for just a second. Then she vented a throaty laugh. "I should have expected you to say something like that, Edge. You being the kind of man you are. Not the kind to waste time beating about the bush."
She came further into the room and sat on the side of the big double bed as the half-breed poured more coffee into the small cup. He remained with his back to the window.
"Seems like you people figure you have all the time in the world to waste, lady."
She leaned back and half lay against the headboard of the bed, her eyes puzzled.
"No one seems to give a shit about what kind of trouble your sister is in."
She laughed again, and Edge experienced a stab of cold anger as he realized she was laughing at him. She saw the dangerous glint in his slitted eyes under the hat-brim and curtailed her mirth, swung her feet up onto the bed, raised her knees and hugged them to her small breasts.
"I'm sorry, Edge. You're a complete stranger here and can't be expected to understand the kind of situation you've entered. Do you want me to explain?"
He moved from the window to sit in a basketweave chair and used the toe of each foot to ease off his boots. The need to sleep was becoming more urgent with each moment and as his weariness increased, so the strange quality of unreality enclosed him more tightly. He emptied the cup a second time and tilted the pot to refill it.
"If you can tell it all before I've finished this."
"One word sums it up," she said. "Money. This house and the whole valley was built and made with money. And it exists for the sole purpose of making more money."
"I'm through with first-grade learning, lady," Edge interrupted. "There are some things I can figure out for myself."
"Money buys a great many things," she went on as if he had not made any comment. "You know that, of course, and you can see all around you that Worthington money has paid for a lot of creature comforts. But all this is of little importance to my father, Edge. Had it not been for my late mother he would have been content to live in a hole in the ground and spent every cent that came his way on buying the only thing that does interest him. Power, Edge. It's all he's ever wanted and he won't be satisfied until he's the most powerful man in creation. Which is impossible. But he doesn't think so. Because, Edge, Kane Worthington is crazy."
She paused to invite a response from the half-breed. But he merely refilled the cup to almost empty the coffee pot.
"When those Mexicans took Grace off the stage," she continued, " they showed they didn't give a hoot for Worthington power. And that is what riles my father. The fact that it is a daughter who has been stolen from him is of no consequence. He would be feeling exactly as he is now if they had stolen money, a horse or a few head of cows from him. He's not angry at what Felipe Cortez did so much, as outraged that the man had the gall to do it."
Edge expressed mild and fleeting surprise—as he recalled how the bandit chief reacted each time Grace Worthington called him Felipe. And May smiled her satisfaction at drawing a show of emotion to the half-breed's face.
"Guess you haven't ever come across a man like that?" she posed.
"Your father and Cortez know each other?" Edge countered and set the record straight about the reason for his surprise.
"Yes." She shook her head, but not in contradiction of her reply. "You really are an innocent abroad, aren't you?"
"You were going to change that, lady. The coffee's almost all gone and you haven't said anything except that your pa aims to be ruler of the world and doesn't take kindly to people who spit in his eye."
She sighed. "Very well. In a nutshell. Felipe Cortez used to run the cantina in Indian Hill. Like a lot of other people had good businesses in town. Father wanted to buy up everything there, after he'd made the valley what it is. Extend his empire maybe. Call it what you like. But only a handful agreed to sell. Those that didn't, he put pressure on. The town can't exist as anything better than it is today without drawing customers from the valley. So Father forbade anyone who works on the Bar-W ranch and farms to go to town. And he had shipped in all the supplies people would normally buy in town. And sold it at a loss to undercut the Indian Hill stores.
"Offers to sell started to come in quickly then, but Father didn't take them up. The town hadn't given him what he wanted when he demanded it so he set out to punish Indian Hill. And since you rode through the town to get here, you'll have seen the result of his spite.
"Cortez was one of the first to go broke. He went south over the border, collected a bunch of other Mexicans, called himself Satanas and took to crime. He stays mostly in Mexico now. But right at the start of it, he brought his men to Indian Hill and burned down every property there that father had been able to buy.
"Chuck Meyers who's the sheriff in town couldn't or wouldn't do anything about it. And that was when father went as high as was necessary to get himself appointed a territorial marshal and hired men like Ralph Quine, Larry Wylie and Warren Hanson as deputies. There's seven more like it around the place and they've never been able to track down Cortez.
"But now there's a chance that they can. And Father intends to see that they do. He doesn't need you, Edge. But since you're around and available, he'll use you. Be warned, though. You killed Larry, beat up Ralph and virtually broke into this house. All that will be sticking in his craw and when this business about Grace is finished, he'll have the time to make you regret what you did."
Edge got up and set the empty coffee pot and cup on a bureau. Said, "Obliged for the information and the warning, lady. Like to bed down now."
She swung her feet to the floor and rose from the bed, an intense expression in her pale green eyes as she watched him stretch out on top of the bedcovers.
"Listen, I have a proposition to put to you, Edge," she said in a tone to match her expression.
He tipped his hat forward to cover his face and answered as he clasped his hands at the nape of his neck, "You ain't my type, lady."
He heard her foot stamp at the carpet. "Listen. You can make much more than a measly two thousand dollars out of this. You can have it all. If you tell father that Cortez insisted you bring the money to him—on your own—you can just ride off with it."
"Leaving Grace to be murdered."
"Cortez won't kill Grace!" she came back quickly. "Because then he wouldn't have anything to bargain with. He'll just demand another fifty thousand. And Father will pay. By which time you and I will be a long way from the Bar-W. And Kane Worthington is only a tin god in this neck of the woods. Outside of Arizo
na—even outside of Pima County—he has no more power and influence than a sharecropper."
"Uh uh," Edge said under his hat. "Just one thing. Why should I share the bundle with you, lady?"
"It's my idea," she answered.
"Worth how much, you figure?"
"As much as you're willing to give me," she said dully. "I just need to get away from this place. Far enough away so Kane Worthington can't force me to come back again. Out of the territory would be best. Then you can go your own way alone if you like. Or maybe you'll like having me with you. I'm not blind and I'm not a fool, Edge. I know that Grace got more than her fair share of the good looks in this family and that I'm a long way short of being a raving beauty. But believe me, I know what it takes to please a man. And if you say the word I'm willing to prove that right here and now."
There was a tremor in her voice as she made the offer.
Edge's tone was harshly cold as he said, "Get your clothes off, lady."
She caught her breath and there was nervous excitement in the sound. Then he heard her shoes kicked off, her feet padding to the door and the click of the key turning in the lock. Next came a series of softer sounds—the rustle of fabric as May Worthington removed her dress and underthings and dropped them to the floor. While she undressed—standing no more than three feet from the side of the bed—she breathed deeply, as if she had to make an effort to contain a powerful excitement. Then there were long seconds of total silence before she spoke again.
"I don't consider I am too hard to look at, Edge."
He removed one hand from the nape of his neck to raise the Stetson brim and turned his head just a fraction to look at her slender nakedness. She had fine skin for a woman of her age and despite her tall and narrow build the flesh was firm rather than slack and her bones did not protrude overmuch. The small mounds of her brown-crested breasts did not sag and despite his weariness and his contempt for the woman, he experienced the beginning of arousal as his slitted eyes were drawn to the triangle of luxuriant red hair which veed at the base of her flat belly between her lithe and long legs.
He knew she was aware of this as he raked his eyes up the length of her body and saw the smile of satisfaction which parted her lips—failed to reach her eyes which were filled with lust in urgent need of fulfillment. Then anger and hatred claimed her plain features when he allowed the hat to cover his face again and said,
"Get dressed, lady. Anything that easy ain't worth having."
She tried to hurl words at him, but they were trapped in her constricted throat and emerged only as a series of startled gasps. But then she tried again and snarled, "You lousy, rotten bastard!"
A boot heel crashed against the door and it burst open. Before it banged against the wall, Edge had rolled off the bed and his right hand was fisted to the butt of his holstered Colt. He thumbed back the hammer as May Worthington screamed.
It was Ralph Quine who had broken in the door. But the deputy, hand clear of his Colt, stepped back off the threshold so that Kane Worthington could stride into the room. He did not wear a gun, and Edge eased his hammer to rest and came erect as the gray-haired rancher rasped,
"Can't you ever get enough man, you slut?"
Rage seemed to quiver every fiber of his being and the color of his face shaded from crimson to mottled purple as he halted in front of his naked daughter. She had managed to snatch up a chemise and now held it tightly to the front of her body, concealing her breasts and sex. Terror of her father's anger seemed to transfix her to the floor.
"Not content with shaming yourself and me under my own roof, you were also planning to rob me! Maybe at the expense of your sister's life!"
His arm swung and she gasped and leaned back, fearing a blow. But he simply caught hold of the chemise and ripped it from her grasp.
"Let's all see what kind of goods you were trying to trade with, girl!" Worthington snarled. And slapped away his daughter's hands as she attempted to use these to cover herself. "Though I reckon Ralph's not looking at anything he hasn't seen before! From what I've heard, there's not a man on the Bar-W who hasn't screwed that scrawny body bare-assed! Come here, girl!"
He caught hold of her right wrist and she screamed in pain as he wrenched her around, took two forward steps, sat on the side of the bed and forced her, belly down, across his thighs.
"No!" she shrieked, and tried to writhe from his grasp. But he grasped a bunch of her hair and hooked one of his legs between hers so that she was trapped. Then he began to pound on her naked rear, each powerful crack of his hand against her flesh drawing a high-pitched wail from her gaping, spittle-run mouth.
"It's long overdue, you whore!" he roared. "It's about time you learned that men aren't just around to satisfy your demands, girl! And the next time you plan on robbing me, maybe you'll recall this and think again!"
Kane Worthington's rage held him locked in a private world where just he and his helpless victim existed. And when Edge shifted his gaze from the rapidly reddening buttocks of the woman he saw that Quine was also temporarily detached from everything except enjoyment of his own fantasy. For the deputy was staring fixedly at the punished flesh of May Worthington—his eyes bright with lust as his tongue darted constantly in and out while he breathed rapidly through his nostrils.
"Enough, feller," the half-breed said, but nobody heard the words. And the powerful barriers of strong emotions—sexual desire, blind rage and stinging pain—were not penetrated until he rounded the end of the bed and fastened a grip on Kane Worthington's arm just as the man was about to launch another blow at his daughter.
The rancher snapped his head around so hard that a bone in his neck cracked. And the anger aroused by May was abruptly directed at the half-breed. But there was less ferocity in his eyes now and his color was not so high—the interruption having taken his rage off the broil. He abruptly looked close to exhaustion and there was no bite in his voice as he growled, "This is none of your damn business, stranger."
"Say the word, sir!" Quine asked eagerly, and draped a hand over his holstered revolver.
Worthington looked toward the doorway when Edge released his arm—and saw the final remnants of vicarious pleasure on the deputy's face.
"Get back downstairs, Ralph," he said, softly but with heavy menace.
Quine complied immediately, scowling his displeasure at the dismissal. Then May began to sob, and vented a high-pitched cry as her father stood up and she fell hard to the floor.
"You conducted yourself far better than I in this unfortunate situation, Mr. Edge," Kane Worthington said quickly as he stepped over the shaking form of his naked daughter. "It is not my custom to spy on my guests or my girls. But it is Quine's business to see that my interests are protected. May's behavior and my response to it disgusts me. I am much impressed by the way you acted. We will discuss the more important matter after you have rested."
He left the room in a manner that was as stiff and formal as the words and the tone of voice in which he spoke them.
When Edge looked down at the woman he saw she had reached for her dress and was holding it against her flesh. Her pale, tear-run face with the eyes red-rimmed was half turned toward his towering form.
"Thank you for stopping him," she whispered after gulping for breath. "In that kind of rage, he was capable of killing me."
"I did it for me, lady," the half-breed told her coldly is he lay out on the bed again. "Find it easier to sleep when things are quiet."
He shifted his hat from the pillow to his face again. And closed his eyes gratefully against the pale daylight flat filtered in under the brim of the Stetson, heard the woman groan as she eased to her feet, pulled on her dress and gathered up the underthings.
"You'll live to regret throwing in your hand with Kane Worthington, Edge," she warned morosely.
"Right now, lady," the half-breed muttered, "be obliged if you'd take note of what your pa's hand did to your butt."
"That's something
I'm never likely to forget," she replied bitterly.
"Just so long as you keep it in mind until you're o of this room."
"Uh?"
Edge sighed. "Beat it, lady."
CHAPTER SEVEN
EDGE came awake to the hammering of a fist on the door. And he smelled the stink of his body and tasted the acid of old cigarettes in his mouth. As always, he had total and instant recall of where he was and the events which had led him to be here. His eyes still felt gritty with tiredness and his head was a little fuzzy—he had not slept long enough to make up for being awake almost the entire night.
But he was ready to draw, cock and fire the Colt as he knocked the hat off his face, sat up on the bed and swung his feet to the floor. Only then called out, "It ain't locked and I'm decent."
The man who swung open the door and stepped into the room was another who wore a tin star on his left shirt-pocket. But he was not one of Kane Worthington's hired deputies. He was in his late forties, about five feet ten inches tall and solidly built with just the beginning of a fleshy thickening at his belly. He had a round face with a high forehead where his dark hair had receded. A thick moustache concealed his top lip and drooped to each side of his mouth. His eyes were as narrowed as those of Edge, but their color was inky black. He was dressed in black, from head to toe: the lawman's star, the bullets in the loops of his gunbelt and the Remington revolver in his hip holster providing the only contrasts.
"You're Edge, I guess," he growled as he halted just "side the room, and hooked both his thumbs over the front of his gunbelt.
The half-breed nodded and stood up as he said "And I figure you for the Indian Hill sheriff. Meyers
"Right, mister. Which means we got us a bone to pick. Concernin' murder and kidnappin'."
"Way I heard it, feller," Edge said as he began unfasten the buttons of his shirt, "you ain't usually too concerned with what Felipe Cortez and his bunch get to."
Meyers used the back of a boot heel to kick the door closed. "I'm here to listen to the facts concernin' the abduction of Miss Grace Worthington, mister!" he snarled. "Her old man's opinion of how I carry out my duties as sheriff don't interest me one bit."
EDGE: Death Deal (Edge series Book 35) Page 6