The dude seemed on the point of exploding into anger, but he held it back. “I’ll think about it,” he said tensely.
“Figured you would. And thinking’s best done like a lot of other things—on a full stomach.”
With his own wagon wrecked, Case loaded his gear onto Singh’s cage vehicle after breakfast. Everyone attached to the carny helped to move the wreckage off the logging trail, for until it was cleared there was no way south for anyone. Edge was the only man with a saddle horse to ride and he rode it several hundred feet ahead of the train. Not to scout the way, for such a chore was unnecessary. The narrow track cut through the timber for about a mile, curving to the left and right by turns and then broadened into a trail proper after swinging past a sawmill. Today was Monday but it was still early morning and there was only one man at the mill. Smoke curled from the chimney of a small shack at the side of the larger building and the man was sitting in the doorway, drinking coffee, smoking a pipe and contemplating a distant patch of blue that was the ocean viewed between the brows of two hills. He was an old man with skin like cracked leather, and no teeth.
“You live here?” Edge asked, reining the stallion to a halt.
“All the time. Night watchman when it’s dark. Fix the boys their food in the daytime.”
“Have any visitors last night?”
The old man sucked wetly on the pipe. “Seascape Lumber Company don’t pay me much, mister. Information’ll cost you a dollar.”
Edge swung easily out of the saddle. “Cost you a fat lip if you don’t give it me, feller.”
The old timer pressed himself hard against the back of his chair. “You wouldn’t hit an old guy like me, mister!”
Edge swung his head and narrowed his eyes to glinting slits to look towards the distant ocean. “Tell you what I’ll do. I’ll give you the dollar; you bet me I wouldn’t smack you in the mouth; and I’ll win it back.”
He turned to survey the old timer and the blueness beneath his hooded lids was brighter than that of the Pacific. It looked a lot colder and a lot deeper, too.
The old timer swallowed hard. “Not visitors, mister. Guy went by in a buggy. Big fat guy. I ain’t never seen a guy so fat. White horse. Then later—two or three hours—a couple of riders. Moving fast. Like they had bullets up their asses and the lead was still hot.” He squinted his weak eyes and saw the hardness had retreated from the surface of the half-breed’s weathered features. “Ain’t that worth nothin’, mister?”
Edge could hear the rattling of the approaching wagons as they trundled down the logging trail. He swung back up into the saddle. “Sure is. My appreciation.”
“I can’t put that in my pipe and smoke it!” the old timer yelled irritably after the departing rider.
“Quit smoking and live longer.”
“I’ll be ninety-seven day after tomorrow!”
“So die.”
He returned his attention to the ground, which was dustier out from under the trees, and retained sign better than the logging trail. There had been too much traffic in the immediate vicinity of the sawmill for anything to be learned from the wheel tracks and hoof prints. But further south, as the trail swung towards the coast, it had been used less recently. The sign left by the buggy and the single horse in its shafts were plain to see: over stamped by the hoof prints of two saddle horses. As the morning progressed, the sun’s heat seeming to increase with every passing minute, the half-breed dropped back to stay closer to the lead wagon of the train. This was the one carrying the gold and the tigers: Singh taking the reins and Case sitting up on the seat beside him. The dude wore a neckerchief like a bandit’s mask over his mouth and nostrils. But his eyes stayed screwed up and his forehead remained lined in a constant grimace: for the silk fabric was unable to completely combat the stench of tiger wet and droppings that emanated from under the canvas cover.
Because of the foul miasma, which clung to the cage wagon like an invisible cloud, the second vehicle in the train maintained a wide gap to its rear. Edge was far enough ahead to be out of range, except when an infrequent air current leapt off the ocean to grasp and spread the smell. Familiarity with bad odor, or a diminished sense of smell, left the Nepalese unmoved by the noisome nuisance caused by his animals. He either rode in the wagon in beaming contentment, or serenaded the tigers with his harmonica.
Timber grew in isolated stands now and for the most part the trail cut through, or curved over, low hills. The ground was covered by tough brush which leaned to the east, witnessing the strength of the ocean winds that powered inland during the winter months. But winter seemed a long way off on this day, when the sky competed with the ocean for a depth of blueness and the sun blazed so fiercely it seemed about to evaporate the vast expanse of water. The terrain had been steadily sloping towards sea level all morning and it was little after midday when the half-breed spotted traces of a small camp.
A narrow stream meandered down from the hills, cut across the trail and emptied into a rocky pool that would be submerged by salt water at high tide. The grey and black ashes of a fire, long out, were spread at the side of the trail where it was crossed by the stream. A half-dozen cigarette stubs were nearby. Other sign showed clearly where the buggy had been parked, the shafts leaning into the ground after the gelding had been unhitched from the harness. There were the tracks of two more horses close to where a patch of brush had been foraged for meager food. And the dust held the impressions where three men had rested. Deep tracks across the soft sand suggested Clarence French had taken a dip in the ocean before moving out along the trail again, escorted by Grainger and Salter.
“The men who try to steal the big gold camped here, sahib?” Singh asked as he rolled the cage wagon to a halt short of fording the narrow stream.
“Picked a good place,” Edge answered, sliding from the saddle and then stretching out full length to drink some water a couple of feet upstream from where the stallion was sucking in refreshment.
“You park that rig there!” Walter Peat yelled, swinging his wagon around the stalled, one and splashing across the stream.
The other vehicles in the train took the same line and rolled to a halt in a long arc just off the trail three hundred feet south. Case watched them enviously as men and women leapt to the ground and began to gather brush for cooking fires.
“You think Grainger and Salter might try again, Edge?” he asked.
“They’re heading the same way as we are,” the half-breed pointed out. “But then there aren’t any other trails a buggy could take but this one.”
“Buggy?” The dude was bewildered. Then it hit him. “The fat man—French—is involved?”
“Build a fire, Singh,” Edge instructed, and the little Nepalese went to work eagerly. The lean half-breed nodded. “Looks like. Seemed to me he knew Dana Breeze in the saloon last night. And he got a little hot under the collar when Breeze started to make trouble. Then he headed out of town a couple of hours before they tried to knock off your gold.” He spat into the dead embers of the old fire as Singh built a new one. “And the three of them tied up here and then lit out together.”
Case thought about the evidence, and for awhile it disturbed him more than the evil smell from in back of him. Then he reached a decision, and clambered down from the wagon, dragging the mask off his lower face.
“So you’d better keep a sharp look out for trouble,” he ordered. “That’s what I’m paying you for. I don’t have to suffer this obnoxious stink while I’m eating lunch.”
This said, he hiked up his pants cuffs to keep them dry and waded the stream to go to join the main body of the carny transport. Singh watched the retreating figure, dusting himself down as he walked.
“I am very pleased indeed that you do not find the odor of my most magnificent beasts unpleasant, sahib,” he said to the half-breed as he set a match to the kindling.
“I think they stink to high heaven, feller,” Edge replied.
“But you will stay to share the repast with
me, I hope very much indeed.”
“I slept with the stink, I guess I can eat with it.”
“I cook most fine beef curry for sahib?” He grinned. “I most fine cook.”
“Do that,” Edge told him, looking across the stream to where a figure had broken from one of the groups around a fire and was walking back along the trail. The full figure of Jo Jo Lamont, today dressed in a modest, high-necked gown of plain white. She carried a pitcher to get water from the stream and walked with her eyes gazing down at the ground, to avoid meeting the half-breed’s cool stare. He waited until she had crouched at the bank and submerged the pitcher. Then he drew the Colt, cocking the hammer as the barrel cleared the holster.
She saw the image of his actions in reflection on the sun-shimmered surface of the stream. A gasp escaped her lips. She started to rise. Edge squeezed the trigger and she screamed, falling backwards to sit down hard. The bullet hissed into the water and clanged against the metal pitcher. It bored a hole in either side and then buried itself into the streambed.
“Why the hell did you do that?” she shrieked at him.
Singh had looked up in alarm at the shot. Then he shrugged and continued with the cooking chore, chanting in his native language as the tigers growled and rocked the wagon. Shocked faces looked towards the stream from where the other wagons were parked.
“Get your attention,” Edge replied evenly.
“My name’s Miss Lamont,” she snapped, getting up on to her haunches and snatching the pitcher out of the stream. She stood up, her eyes blazing malevolently across the water. “You could have just said that.”
Edge nodded. “Miss Lamont?”
“Yes!”
“You’re getting another dress all wet.”
She looked down at herself. The entry and exit holes of the bullet were on the same curving side of the pitcher. Spouts of water arced out of both of them to drench the full skirt of her dress.
“Oh, you beast!” she rasped, and hurled the pitcher into the stream. She whirled and made to run back to the main camp.
The Colt bucked in Edge’s hand. Four times. The girl froze, sideways on to the half-breed, covering her ears with her hands and trembling from head to toe. Two bullets tossed up divots of dirt in front of her and two behind her.
“Wasn’t your bad luck with water I wanted to talk to you about,” Edge said. “And I’ve saved one bullet in this gun in case you don’t tell me what I want to hear.”
She had moved her hands away from her ears to cradle her cheeks. Her long, painted nails dug into the flesh beneath her tightly closed eyes as she struggled to control her trembling.
“Please, sahib!” Singh implored. “I would most humbly beg you not to shoot the gun no more. My tigers, they very much do not like it.”
The wagon was rocking frenetically as the two wild beasts prowled around the rich freight and vented deep-throated roars of anger.
“Play one of your sad tunes to them, feller,” Edge suggested. “Might help Miss Lamont to sing.”
The Nepalese already had the harmonica to his lips. The moment Edge was finished, he began to make music with it, marching anxiously around the wagon as the plaintive notes drifted through the hot air.
“What do you want from me?” the girl pleaded, her voice anguished.
“You were up and about when the fat man left Seascape last night,” the half-breed said evenly as the volume of the tigers’ anger subsided. “Out at the side of the clearing where the logging trail cut south.”
Her shattered nerves were calming: as if Singh’s mournful music had the same effect on her as it did on the tigers. Her trembling had stopped and after a few moments she was able to let her hands fall to her sides. There were vivid red marks beneath her eyes where the fingernails had left their impressions. She hung her head to avoid meeting the half-breed’s hooded stare when she turned towards the stream.
“I swear to God I’m going to tell you the truth,” she said hoarsely.
“You’ll be able to do it in person if you don’t,” he answered. “Providing it’s true that all virgins got a free pass.”
The girl gave a deep sigh and continued to gaze down at her own reflection in the stream. “That was the truth, what I told you last night. I’m deeply ashamed.”
“Tell some more truth and I’ll give you the gun so you can shoot yourself,” Edge invited.
She looked up at him then, to show him the tears crawling from the corners of her eyes and coursing down her cheeks. “Please, I’m desperate. And you are the cause. Try to understand.”
He didn’t answer and she drew in a deep breath. “I’m a good girl, but I want a good life. Turk said he’d pay me well for helping him with his show. Maybe he would have, if we’d got to San Francisco and he still had his show. I was so mad at you . . . that’s why I tried to kill you.”
“I know that part,” Edge told her as Singh succeeded in calming the tigers and returned to the fire. “I was there.”
“Then I offered to let you . . . you know.”
Edge pursed his lips. “I was there that time, as well.” His impatience showed in a further narrowing of his eyes, which looked like slivers of ice against the burnished flesh of his face.
“It gave me the idea. The fat man kept looking at me in Seascape. From the time we arrived he just didn’t seem able to take his eyes off me. I knew he wanted to . . . you know?” She colored and stared into the stream again. “Well, I got to thinking. Being a . . . you know? Well, it ain’t something really special is it. So I figured I’d trade it. The fat man wears good clothes and carries them fancy guns—drives an expensive buggy with a fine horse. It looked like he was rich.”
The harshness left the half-breed’s lean features and he curled back his lips to bare his teeth. “So you reckoned it was time you made use of your hole card.”
“Must you be so crude?” she demanded, brushing the tears from her cheeks.
Edge tipped up the Colt and turned the cylinder to eject the spent shells. He started to reload fresh ammunition from his belt.
“He just rode right on by me,” Jo Jo said sulkily. “Just scowled at me and went on his way. Twice in one night I shamed myself. And for what? Nothing?”
“You still got something,” the half-breed told her evenly. “But right now Singh’s curry is the only hot stuff that appeals to me.”
Jo Jo stabbed a withering look at him through her tears and whirled. She ran back to where the wagons were parked, feet kicking up dust to cling to the damp patches on her dress.
“You believe the most distressed lady, sahib?” Singh asked as he stirred the cooking pot.
“I reckon,” Edge replied softly, catching sight of something which moved at the brow of one of the brush-covered hills through which the stream flowed. “What would she want with just a share of a ton and a half of the stuff . . .”
He whirled and powered into a crouched run, curling out his free arm. The Nepalese gave a shriek of alarm as he was snatched bodily from the ground. He was carried, writhing, across six feet of open ground and then flung beneath the wagon. His head cracked against an axle again and he thought the explosion was inside his own head. But then, as Edge thudded down beside him and snatched up the Winchester, he saw the stallion drop into a kneel and then topple sideways. Blood gushed in a vivid fountain from the hole where the animal’s left eye had been. It looked like smoke billowing in the stream water.
The half-breed worked the rifle’s lever action and completed his sentence against a background of further shots: “When she’s just found out she’s sitting on a gold mine.”
CHAPTER SIX
“OH dear, dear me!” Singh exclaimed, pushing his face hard against the ground and covering the back of his head with his hands. “I have no wish to die here.”
The movement Edge had seen was that of a polished rifle barrel as it swung to the aim and the sun glinted on it. But after that first shot which had killed the stallion instead of him, there was more than just
a rifle to see. Eight men crested the brow of the hill. Seven were already mounted and the eighth, who had been prone in the brush to fire the opening shot, swung up into the saddle of a horse led by one of the other men.
Now they galloped down the hillside in line abreast. Grainger and Salter were on the flanks, controlling their horses with heels and knees, prairie Indian fashion, as they used both hands to fire their Winchesters. One man rode with the reins gripped between his teeth as he blasted down the slope with matched six-guns. The others were less skilled riders, firing past the necks of their animals with repeating rifles while keeping a firm grip on the reins.
“So get ’em before they get you!” Edge rasped, using his elbow to push the discarded Colt towards the cowering Singh.
Bullets were thudding into the ground and the wagon. Wilder shots clanged against the cooking pot, showered sparks from the fire and splashed into the stream. Edge drew a bead on Salter, whose left pants leg was crusted with dried blood from where Case had winged him. He squeezed the trigger and fresh blood erupted. From the chest, left of centre. The man died in the saddle and fell backwards over the hindquarters of his horse. The animal, frightened by the thud of the dead weight against his rump, veered suddenly to one side.
It slammed hard into the flank of the next horse in line. This was ridden by the man with the reins in his teeth. As his mount leaned, he dropped his revolvers and tried to keep his balance. But the angle of tilt was too great. He fell to the side, one foot slipping free of the stirrup. But the other was held firm. He crashed to the ground with a scream that spurted his horse to greater effort. He was dragged at breakneck speed on his back.
“I friggin’ missed!” Grainger yelled, and snatched up the reins to haul his horse into a wheel.
“I am most non-violent Nepalese,” Singh shrieked as a bullet ricocheted off a wheel rim and spat dirt into his hair.
EDGE: The Big Gold (Edge series Book 15) Page 7