The Negro spat into each shallow indentation as he followed Edge across the corral.
The rain and wind had continued for a long time after the half-breed had ridden away from the place. The corpses had sheltered the sign they had made, but all other traces of what had happened at the way station had been obliterated by the storm. Looking in the direction he had seen the Warrens ride, Edge could see no clue that they had passed over the once muddy and now solid ground.
‘They just took the money and took off?’ he said softly, taking the makings from a shirt pocket and starting to roll a cigarette.
‘I saw them go north,’ Power replied miserably. ‘I didn’t ask no questions before we hit the bank. And weren’t no time afterwards. Alarm was raised too soon. Wasn’t even a chance for them to get to their horses. They just went off into the storm. But they said they’d be back. And I believe it, Mr. Edge.’
He broke out some jerked beef from one of his saddlebags and handed several pieces to the half-breed. Edge finished smoking his cigarette before he started to eat. Then both men chewed on the dried meat for a long time, not talking and becoming increasingly aware of the cold now that they were no longer on the move.
‘Didn’t they trust you, feller?’
The question startled the Negro and he swallowed a mouthful of softened meat before he replied. ‘What kinda question’s that, mister? I was the only one around Democracy they did trust.’
Edge nodded. ‘You get much trouble with the Sioux in Carroll county?’
Power found the abrupt change of subject equally surprising. But then a dull light of partial understanding showed in his dark eyes. ‘Not for a long time. Sometimes we heard about renegade bands raidin’ over to the east. And north in the Dakotas. But that stuff with the stage this mornin’ - first time somethin’ like that’s happened since I don’t remember when.’
‘More than just a half dozen braves around this part of the state, though?’
The black man had seen the half-breed’s drift completely now: and the frown he expressed showed that he did not like it. He spoke softly. ‘Over at Whitehead Crossin’ is a big meetin’ place for them, mister.’ He raised a hand to point north-east from the broken down corral fence. ‘Ten miles or so along the old trail. Always some there. Every now and then a whole bunch gather for the council.’ He looked hard at the impassive profile of the slowly chewing half-breed. ‘But just because a handful of liquored-up braves took it into their heads to...’
‘Just an idea, Conrad,’ Edge cut in quietly. ‘On account that Warren told me his wife used to teach at an Indian school.’
Power had not eaten all the beef. He looked at what was left and suddenly lost his appetite. There was an angry set to his black face as he stuffed the dried meat into his saddlebag. And the new emotion was again displayed as he fastened the straps. When he swung up into the saddle of his black gelding and looked down at Edge, there was just a trace of how he felt visible in the set of his features.
‘A good idea, mister. On your part. Should have figured it out for myself, I guess. Dan Warren don’t have the same connections as Stanton. And he ain’t stupid. Not stupid enough, anyway - to ride into some cattle town and advertise that he’s got seventy-five grand to hire fast guns.’ He pursed his lips and whistled through them. ‘But Indians! One lousy idea. No wonder he didn’t tell me. Kept stallin’ me whenever I asked him what he figured to do.’
Edge mounted his bay mare. ‘So he didn’t trust you that much, uh?’
He heeled the horse forward, veering to go between a gap in the leaning fence. Power held back, debating whether or not to follow. He made his decision and urged his mount from the standstill. It took him only a few moments to catch up with the slow riding half-breed.
‘And for good reason, mister! My Pa and Ma were both killed by a bunch of liquored-up braves. When they was out on a huntin’ trip in the Black Hills. First vacation they took after sweatin’ out their guts buildin’ the Palace.’
‘That the only one, feller?’ Edge asked as they turned on to the trail, heading north-east.
‘What, mister?’
‘Reason.’
‘No, it ain’t. Which is why I’m still ridin’ along with you. But understand this - I ain’t no Indian-hater just because they’re redskins.’ He vented a hollow laugh. ‘How could a nigger be that?’
‘Speak your piece, Conrad,’ Edge invited coldly. ‘And I’ll listen.’ He negated some of the harshness in his tone by curling back his lips. ‘Providing it ain’t too colorful.’
‘Indians can’t be trusted! It’s a known fact and I’ve always figured they can’t help bein’ that way. Especially they can’t be trusted when they’re liquored up. And you give an Indian money, he spends it on liquor first chance he gets. Ain’t that your experience, mister?’
‘Ain’t me who’s speaking my piece right now, Conrad.’
Power spat. ‘Hell, you know what I’m gettin’ at. The big wheels back at Democracy done a bad thing bringin’ in the Kerwin gang. But no one’ll get hurt if they don’t cause no trouble. Indians, though! If enough of them get turned loose on a white man’s town, no tellin’ what’ll happen. A massacre. When they got war in their bellies, they don’t care who they slaughter. Women and children - babies even. And even if the folks in town don’t like the Kerwin gang any more than we do, they’ll fight alongside them to defend Democracy.’
He paused, waiting for a response from Edge. When none came, he sighed. ‘I tell you this, mister. I’d rather see those folks back there squeezed dry by Snyder and his crowd than murdered by liquored-up Sioux. I reckon any man deservin’ of the name would.’
‘Dan Warren ain’t a man?’
Anger was full born again in the dark eyes of the Negro. And each word he spoke was like a piece of flint he was spitting out. ‘Dan Warren ain’t been thinkin’ straight since he got cheated out of his spread, mister. And Laura, she’s always figured that the sun shone out of every Indian’s ass-hole. Both of them need straightenin’ out - and I just hope we’re in time to do that’
He heeled his gelding into a gallop, but slowed him again and looked angrily back towards Edge as the half-breed continued to hold his mare to an easy walk.
‘What the hell?’ he snarled. ‘We’re already more than a day behind them!’
‘Ten miles you said, feller,’ Edge pointed out as he drew level with Power. ‘It’s just an idea that they went to Whitehead Crossing. If they did, they been there a long time. Waiting for the council to meet. I’m with you, Conrad. Don’t trust Indians. So I don’t figure to just ride up in full daylight and ask for a cup of coffee.’
Because he had been carrying a heavy load of anger, it took the black man several moments to lose it. And then he showed a sheepish grin. ‘Dan Warren ain’t the only man who don’t think straight all the time, right?’
Edge dug out the makings of another cigarette and rolled and lit it before he responded. ‘Lots like it, Conrad. But some of them live to an old age. They either stay lucky or learn by their mistakes.’
There was another long silence then, Edge smoking the cigarette and maintaining a careful surveillance of the surrounding terrain: Conrad Power staring directly ahead but wearing an expression which suggested his mind was elsewhere.
The country through which they travelled, as the sun sank behind and to the left of them, was a barren wasteland of rock, hard-packed dirt and scrub grass. It rose and fell with gentle grades and was scattered with occasional stands of mixed timber and rearing bluffs which were never so high as they looked from a distance.
The trail they rode along was well marked, but long disused. Here and there were the derelict remains of former farmsteads which had been abandoned by optimists who had thought the land could be made productive.
‘Some of the folks who used to own these places live in Democracy now,’ Power said sadly. Worked the herds for old man Warren or rented farmsteads from him. Easy to see how Snyder and his crowds were able to sweet talk them.’<
br />
‘Seems to me a backward five year old could sell those people any damn thing, feller,’ Edge replied, and there was a savage tone in his voice although his expression as he continued to scan the land on all sides remained unrevealing.
‘Your turn to say your piece, Mr. Edge?’ Power asked, still sad. ‘And maybe tell me why you and me set ourselves up like ducks in a shootin’ gallery when the Kerwin gang hit town?’
‘To give the people one final chance to mean something in my book, Conrad!’ the half-breed told him, rasping the words through clenched teeth.
‘The schoolteacher said he was with us, and he was the only one ready to do anythin’ when the crap started to fly.’ A shrug. ‘He surprised me, Mr. Edge. But I wasn’t surprised at all when no one else backed us up. I could’ve told you. You didn’t have to set yourself up to be blasted.’
‘Do things my way, Conrad.’
‘’Cause you don’t trust nobody?’
‘Maybe because I want to live to be an old man. Or know the reason why I’m dying when I die.’
Power nodded, looking wise and sad. ‘And if you cash in around here, it’ll be on account of a bunch of folks whose backbones got melted by greed. Folks who want everythin’ and don’t care how they get it - long as they don’t get hurt.’
There was another lengthy silence. The sun turned red as it began to slide behind the distant mountains in the west, and a breeze sprang up, attacking exposed flesh with a sample of the night’s intense cold to come.
Edge called a halt in the lee of a low bluff and set a small fire. They stewed some of the jerked beef and ate it with hot coffee to wash it down. The stop was only long enough to prepare and eat the meal. Then they set off again, Edge taking the lead and swinging a half mile to the south before turning to ride parallel with the trail.
An hour later, with the moon and stars bright and glinting against a matt black sky, a dome of orange showed above a bluff ahead and to the left.
‘That’ll be Whitehead Crossin’,’ the Negro said tensely. ‘Big fire’s gotta mean a big bunch of Sioux, I guess.’
Edge did not reply until they had ridden another five hundred yards to a stand of timber, the trees canting to the south as a result of a stronger wind than the one blowing tonight. He dismounted and tethered the mare to a branch.
‘With sentries posted, feller,’ he said, watching Power slide from the saddle. ‘If it’s war talk.’
He slid the Winchester from the boot and the black man unhooked the strap of the shotgun from around his saddle horn.
‘A war that never had anythin’ to do with you, Mr. Edge. Dan Warren wants it. The Snyder bunch asked for it. The ordinary folks back in Democracy don’t deserve to be saved from it. ’Ceptin’ by a man who cares enough about them.’ He spat into the tough grass at which the horses were cropping. ‘Which I do. But you don’t give a shit for them, mister.’
‘Right, Conrad,’ Edge agreed.
‘So why are you here? Could be I don’t trust you, mister!’ It was a loud snarl.
There was menace in Power’s voice and when Edge glanced at him he saw the suspicion carved into the handsome young face of the Negro. But the shotgun was held loosely in two hands across Power’s belly, hammers at the rest and pointing at no target.
The half-breed’s Winchester was held in the same manner, but the expression on the lean face was nonchalant as he started to turn. It was a slow, casual movement - which suddenly exploded into high-speed violence.
Thinking Edge was about to lead the way on foot through the timber, Power leaned forward, thrusting out a foot.
He had time to vent a roar of anger and alarm, but not to draw back or bring up the shotgun.
For Edge had powered into a forceful whirl, tilting the rifle to bring the stock to shoulder height. His hands tightened into hard fists around the frame and barrel and the full impetus of his turn was behind the crack of wood against the black man’s jaw.
The blow curtailed Power’s roar, but Edge did not accept this. As the Negro staggered to the side and corkscrewed to the ground, he followed him down, bending from the waist and prepared to use the rifle stock again.
But the Negro was out cold, the shotgun slipping from his opening hands. The broad chest of the man was unmoving for a stretched second. Then began to rise and fall, the breath rattling in his throat.
The half-breed rested his rifle against a tree trunk and worked with smooth speed. He used the lariat from Power’s saddle and his razor to cut lengths of rope and tie the black man - first the ankles, then the wrists behind the back, then the ankles to the wrists. Not tight enough for the rope to cut into the flesh or for the shoulders and legs of the Negro to be drawn taut.
The man’s breathing was less labored when Edge straightened up from him, returning the razor to the neck pouch and retrieving the Winchester.
‘No sweat, Conrad,’ he said, lips curling back and eyes narrowing to form what was almost a warm smile. ‘Now I trussed you.’
Chapter Nine
As Edge made fast but careful progress towards the bluff with the fire glow beyond it, he was no longer smiling. But he felt no sense of regret for what he had done to Conrad Power. He knew the Negro would wake to pain, then anger: perhaps even a little regret of his own. But then he would see the two horses still tethered to the tree branch - probably before he had time to experience fear. Then the anger would return, mixed in with a great deal of resentful wondering.
It was not the Negro’s motives which the half-breed distrusted. Instead, the black man’s ability to achieve what he had set out to do. For Power was a hotel man with a belief and guts: determination and a shotgun. All of these things useless - and even disadvantageous - if they was not tempered with experience.
So Edge had elected to work alone, closing in on the Sioux encampment: treading silently and constantly alert to react to the first sight or sound that would indicate sentries were posted. He had made such an approach towards an Indian stronghold before - more than once - either alone or in the company of men who shared his skills and abilities. And who, above all else, considered their own skins of prime importance.
Birdcalls, slightly off-key, were the first signs of posted sentries. They were passed along in a four-part relay at the base of the bluff. Edge was stationary on the blind side of a low rise when he heard the signals. He back-tracked down the hill and veered to the south in a crouch, zigzagging to take advantage of every chance at cover. All around him, trees, brush and grass swayed under the tug of the icy breeze. And, like an Indian himself, he used the motion of weather against natural formations to conceal his own movements.
His progress was slow and arduous and, all the time, fear stayed a cold ball in the pit of his stomach. Beads of sweat were like pinpricks of ice under his armpits, at the base of his spine and in the creases of his throat.
From the southern end of the bluff he was able to see the crouched forms of two Sioux braves. Moonlight glinted dully on the barrels of their rifles. Four more birdcalls sounded as the sentries reported to each other that they were still unharmed and on watch.
Edge left them unaware of his passing and worked his way around the bluff, to the slope on the far side. He had no way of knowing whether the council had posted a second line of sentries and continued his advance on the assumption that they had. Slow and careful, as before. Surviving from instinct and practice. Caring only about his own life, because if he lost that, everything was lost.
Conrad Powers would not have been in such a compassion-less frame of mind had he not been forced to remain back in the stand of timber. Even had he got this far, by curbing his impatience and learning in a few moments how to outwit Indians by adopting their own tactics, his mind would have been concerned with others and how he could achieve the high ideal of saving them.
He could not have crouched behind a rock, seen the evil that was being done to Fay Reeves, and remained as impassively detached from the harrowing scene as was Edge
T
he half-breed had moved across the slope, inching forward on his belly to gain the vantage point in cover of a scattering of boulders. Spread out below him was the Sioux meeting place, sited at a point where the old stage trail forded a narrow shallow stream. Once, there had been a way station at the ford, but it had long ago fallen or been torn down so that now only the outline of the building foundations remained.
There was a rope corral containing some fifty ponies on the other side of the stream. Beyond this, about three hundred yards from where Edge crouched, were a score of tepees, erected in a wide circle around the blazing fire.
To one side of the fire, which leapt with flames and billowed with smoke at the dictates of the strengthening wind, a large group of braves daubed with war paint and wearing bonnets were seated before the tallest tepee. Close by two wagons were parked, each with a team of four horses in the traces. They were flatbeds, pressed low on their springs, their freight securely covered by canvas sheeting lashed tightly in place.
There were no raised voices at the council and the crackling of the fire was the only sound from the camp which reached the ears of the watching Edge.
The whore from Democracy was too exhausted to utter more than a mild protest at each degrading humiliation which was forced upon her by the Indians - braves and squaws - not engaged in the council. She was naked and spread-eagled on the ground, wrists and ankles tied to short stakes. Without the restrictions of her heavily boned undergarments, her torso was full-blown, the belly bulbous and breasts sagging under their no longer conical weight. But her upper arms looked almost slim in comparison with her flabby thighs.
Her nudity and suffering were plain to see in the bright firelight. But the half-breed was too far away, and at a crosswind to her, so he could not smell her.
She had been raped many times, that was obvious, from the semen diluted blood crusted on the lower belly and thighs. And her bruised and torn lips showed that not only her womb had been sexually violated. But such assaults had ceased long ago. Whatever sexual attraction the naked Fay Reeves had held for the Sioux braves had been obliterated by their own lust. Now, whenever a brave or a squaw approached the helpless whore, it was to stand or crouch over her - to empty bladder or bowels over flesh already run with wet filth.
EDGE: The Day Democracy Died Page 10