After Edge stooped, laid the Winchester on the floor and drew the razor, he looked more closely at the face on the pillow. It appeared almost fleshless, the skin hanging loosely between the high points of the bones.
‘You got to be Ira Walker,’ the half-breed whispered, clamping a hand over the man’s mouth and resting the razor against the throat.
The gaunt man awoke with a start, his eyes snapping wide and filled with terror. Edge lowered himself on to the side of the bed and pressed a little harder with the razor.
‘Going to let you talk, feller. But if you don’t do it right, you won’t have the time to make any more mistakes. You got the idea?’
He raised his hand away from the man’s mouth. The tongue came out as if to lick away the taste of Edge’s touch from his lips. ‘That a knife you got against my throat?’ he whispered.
‘Close enough,’ Edge answered. ‘You Walker?’
‘Yeah. What is this?’
‘What’s known as a rude awakening, feller. But we can keep it polite if you forget about asking questions and just answer them. Your share in the room here?’
‘Share?’
Edge clamped his hand back over Walker’s mouth, tilted the razor and dragged it down the man’s throat a half inch. A sliver of skin was flaked off and Walker struggled.
‘Answers, remember?’ Edge said, and raised his hand from the mouth. Walker became still. ‘And remember something else, feller. You’re just one of a pack. So I can afford to make a lot of cuts.’
‘Con and the rest of the boys—’
‘Are sleeping,’ the half-breed interrupted. ‘You want to wake them? Won’t cost you anything but your life.’
The man’s Adam’s apple bobbed against the pressure of the razor’s blade. Not enough to draw blood. But Walker felt the keenness of the honed metal.
‘I guess you gotta be talkin’ about my share of what we took outta the grave, huh?’
Edge showed an icy grin. ‘Now you’re getting the idea.’
‘Saddlebags in the corner,’ Walker rasped. ‘I told Con we should’ve just killed Tom Diamond ’stead of foolin’ around with that slow death crap. He pointed the finger to here, I bet.’
Edge shook his head. ‘You can’t afford to bet, feller. You’re broke.’
‘Tom’s sister Emma hired you, I guess.’
‘A mind like you got, you should have learned to write, feller. What’s your share?’
He grimaced. Twenty grand, the same as Con’s. On account I helped Tom bust out of the pen and told Con old man Diamond could get took for a bundle. Then it was my idea to take it outta the grave after the old man kicked the bucket. Others got fifteen thou apiece after Tom was wasted for tryin’ to get greedy. Wanted half.’
‘Much spent?’
Another grimace. ‘Drop in the friggin’ ocean when you’re talkin’ about that kinda bundle. Livin’s cheap in El Paso.’
‘Same as dying anyplace,’ the half-breed replied.
‘Mister, I’m doin’ like you asked and you—’
Edge clamped Walker’s mouth as the man’s voice started to rise with his fear. ‘Sure, feller, you did everything was asked of you,’ he said in a soothing tone. ‘You can go back to sleep now.’
Fear became confusion in the sunken eyes. Then, as Edge started to rise from the bed, Ira Walker betrayed a flicker of defiant hope. As the pressure of the razor was removed from his throat and the hand lifted away from his mouth, he sucked in a gulp of air. His lips parted to vent a yell.
But the half-breed’s apparent carelessness was a false front: designed to lull Walker into a sense of security and break the man’s concentration. Thus, as Walker thought he saw an opportunity to turn the tables, Edge swung into a lightning attack. The hand which had clamped the mouth dropped to cup the crown of Walker’s head. That gripping the razor clenched into an even tighter fist. And the bunched knuckles slammed with vicious power into the point of Walker’s jaw.
The man could not move his head a fraction of an inch. His open mouth slammed closed. The teeth crashed together and there was a muted but horrific cracking of shattered enamel. Walker was unconscious within an instant, but he threatened to wake his partners with choking sounds as pieces of his teeth rained against the back of his throat and were involuntarily rejected.
Edge bunched a fistful of the man’s hair and jerked him upright, then pushed his head down towards his chest. The broken jaw fell open and fragments of teeth spilled out on a stream of blood from burst gums.
Edge looked ruefully at his knuckles after he had sheathed the razor. ‘Guess that makes my bark worse than your bite, feller,’ he muttered.
He went to the corner where Walker’s gear was untidily stowed and returned to the bed with the saddlebags. He upended them to spill out the contents. Amongst the lesser necessities of life there were nineteen bundles of bills, each held together by a paper band. All the bills were tens. Edge decided he had neither the time to count the money, nor any reason to doubt that there was an even thousand in each bundle.
Walker’s clothes were strewn beneath the bed and the hip pocket of the pants produced a further seven hundred dollars. Loose change rattled in another pocket, but he ignored the coins and jerked the blanket off the unconscious man. Walker slept in long johns which he had neglected to button after completing his final chore before going to bed.
Edge went to the door, opened it and looked along the landing. It was as dark and as quiet as before. Back at the bed, he pushed the money inside his shirt. Then he wrapped Walker in the blanket and slung the limp form over his shoulder. He canted the Winchester to his other shoulder and went out of the room and down the stairs. Walker did not have enough flesh on his bones to be heavy and just a single stair tread creaked under the weight of two men. The clerk was still slumped across the desk.
The half-breed went to the desk, rested the rifle for a moment, and took a deep swig from the uncapped whiskey bottle. The almost raw liquor burned all the way down and started a fire in his belly. But its effect had dissipated by the time he had draped Walker over the gelding, mounted and rode the horse at a gentle walk across the quiet town to the law office. A dim light burned behind the lettered windows and he could see a man sitting behind the desk. The same tall, broadly built man who had visited the back room at the Bella Cantina.
The sheriff was not asleep. As the gelding was halted, to curtail the only sound in this part of El Paso, the man rose from the chair and moved around the desk to approach the door. After he had swung it open and stepped on to the threshold, he dropped his right hand to cup the butt of the holstered gun at his thigh.
‘You look like you were expecting me, feller,’ Edge said, hooking the fingers of each hand together and resting them on the curved back of the blanket-wrapped Walker.
‘Run a tight town by stoppin’ trouble before it has a chance to start,’ the sheriff replied in his lazy drawl. ‘Have to keep watchin’ and listenin’ to do that, Mr. Edge. My deputies had their eye on you ever since you rode back into El Paso. He dead?’
‘Banged his jaw into my fist is all,’ Edge supplied.
The sheriff nodded. ‘Figured somethin’ like that. Or you wouldn’t have come ridin’ up here like you did - after what I told you at the cantina. What’s on your mind?’
‘Same thing that’s on yours, I guess. El Paso has got some dirt in it. Like to clear it out. Won’t be no trouble, feller.’
The lawman smiled. ‘You mean for me?’
Edge did not respond to the smile. ‘You made your position pretty clear and I got the message.’
A nod that finished the smile. ‘I’ve got your position clear, Edge. Got to thinkin’ about you after you left and I ran through my wanted bills. Found an old flyer put out by the law in a Kansas town. You don’t look much like the picture of Josiah C. Hedges. But you look enough like him.’
Edge pursed his lips. ‘One flyer for one killing is enough. And it could be somebody’ll have to die for me to get wh
at I want.’
‘Maybe more than one,’ the lawman drawled. ‘You think his buddies will care that much about him?’ He pointed at the slumped form of Ira Walker.
‘If you tell them I aim to get them all. And you also tell them I’ll be two hours fast riding across the Rio Grande. Due south.’
‘How would I know that?’
‘Because I told you.’
‘To send them into a trap?’
‘My gamble, feller. All you got to lose are five big-spending tourists.’
The sheriff nodded. ‘I’ll tell them. When?’
‘When they wake up.’
‘All right.’
Edge gave a curt nod of farewell and turned the gelding.
‘One thing, Edge,’ the sheriff called, his tone abruptly hard.
The half-breed looked back over his shoulder at the tall man silhouetted against the light from the law office doorway.
‘What’ll I tell the room clerk about the lump on his head?’
‘You have to expect things like that in those big old buildings,’ Edge replied lightly, and showed his own brand of quiet grin.
‘What things?’ the sheriff asked.
‘The kind that go bump in the night.’
Chapter Ten
THE sun was up and harshly hot when Edge rode down the slope towards the squalid little farm house on the plain to the east of the Sierra Madre. The smell of breakfast - and the two dead horses - was tainting the citrus-strong air. But there was no longer smoke rising from the chimney. Manuel limped into the open doorway as Edge swung out of the saddle and led the gelding towards the stable. Emma Diamond, her right cheek black with the bruise, gazed miserably out of one of the glassless windows.
‘Now I understand what you meant last night, senor,’ the Mexican said wearily.
Edge took the gelding into the dilapidated stable without responding. A thin burro with sores on his belly and hindquarters eyed the newcomers with distaste and anger. He bared his teeth in a snarl and pulled at his restraining rope. But then he submitted to the intrusion and concentrated upon swatting at the flies with his tail.
‘I know just how you feel, mule!’ Ira Walker growled.
Edge continued to ignore his prisoner as he lifted him off the gelding and dropped him dispassionately to the straw-spread floor. He had failed to respond to every complaint Walker had made since the crossing of the Rio Grande had revived the man. The blanket had been tied around him with a lariat rope since he came out of unconsciousness, and his discomfort had increased by degrees as the heat of the rising sun grew harsher.
When the gelding was unsaddled, Edge put down feed for him, and transferred the water pail from the burro’s stall to where the horse was tethered. Only then did he use the razor to cut through the ropes binding Walker.
‘Button it up,’ the half-breed ordered.
‘Ain’t no point in openin’ it where you’re concerned, mister,’ the gaunt-faced man snarled. ‘You ain’t no talker.’
‘I’m talking now. And not about your mouth.’ He jabbed the muzzle of the Winchester into Walker’s exposed crotch. ‘There are ladies around.’
The man grunted with the pain of the blow, then fastened his long johns. Edge moved behind him and this time jabbed the rifle at the small of Walker’s back. Walker staggered out into the bright sunlight, still weak from unconsciousness and more than three hours riding in such an unnatural position.
‘I said I understand what you meant last night, senor,’ Manuel insisted. ‘When you say you hope trouble is not over for Maria and me. You bring it here again.’
Walker saw Emma at the window and recognized her. He halted and looked back at Edge. His bloodied and broken jaw gaped in a permanent expression of pained surprise. But his dark, deep-set eyes were able to show independence. They expressed fear now.
‘Look, the Jap always likes his own way,’ he pleaded. Despite the broken bone in his lower face, he was able to pronounce words distinctly.
‘Just move on over to the window, feller,’ Edge urged, and Walker complied before the rifle muzzle punished him once more.
‘This is one of them?’ Emma asked dully.
Manuel remained where he was in the doorway, miserably resigned to whatever was going to happen. Behind Emma, the bed-ridden old Mexican woman raised her head for a fleeting glance towards the window, then returned to her enforced contemplation of the ceiling.
‘Ira Walker,’ Edge answered evenly. ‘Your brother’s buddy. Helped Tom to break out of prison. Had charge of what happened out at the river because it was his idea. Gave the Jap the go-ahead to—’
‘You seem to have punished him,’ Emma interrupted, showing pity as she grimaced at the sight of Walker’s broken jaw and the shattered teeth in the blood-caked gums.
‘That was to keep him quiet, ma’am,’ the half-breed answered, and ambled towards the door. Manuel stood aside to allow Edge to step inside the house. ‘Punishment’s up to you.’
Nobody had eaten the breakfast that had been prepared. The bacon and beans were a congealed mess on the three plates on the table.
‘I leave punishment to the Lord,’ Emma replied.
Except for the old Mexican, Walker was alone outside the house. He looked hurriedly about him, but the vista of dry and near barren terrain, in combination with his injury and lack of protective clothing, merely added despair to desperation. He returned his gaze to Emma across the window sill.
‘I did you a favor, ma’am,’ he implored. ‘I’d said no, the Jap would just’ve gone ahead anyway. And he’d have been feelin’ real mean as well as horny ... beg your pardon, Miss Diamond, ma’am.’
There was some ready-cut bread on the table and Edge chewed on a hunk, passing up the rancid butter. The coffee pot was warm to the touch and he poured some of the tepid liquid into a mug and drank.
‘They killed your brother because he wanted too much of the take,’ Edge supplied.
‘But I didn’t wanna make him suffer the way he did, Miss Diamond!’ Walker defended. ‘That was the others.’
‘Where are the others?’ Emma asked, and half turned to look at Edge.
He unfastened his shirt and started to unload the bundles of money. Manuel stared in awe at the mounting pile of bills.
‘Back in El Paso,’ Walker supplied. ‘He just brung me.’
‘On their way here, I figure,’ Edge countered. He placed the loose seven hundred on top of the heap of money and continued with his meal. ‘Walker’s share, less the three hundred he’s spent.’
Manuel abruptly lost interest in the money on the table. ‘More bad men are coming here to my place, senor! So much trouble you bring. And my wife, she is very sick. Both of us are very old.’ He held his shaking hands out in front of him. ‘To bury the three bandits used all my strength, senor.’
Emma gave an emphatic nod. ‘Manuel is right, Mr. Edge! He and his wife do not deserve any more trouble. We will go to El Paso and take our chances with that coward of a sheriff.’
‘What about me, Miss Diamond?’ Walker demanded.
Emma considered herself fully in command of the situation. ‘You will return with us and be handed over to the custody of the law.’ She returned her hard-eyed attention to Edge. ‘And if we get no satisfaction at local level, we will approach the state authorities.’
‘No way, ma’am,’ the half-breed told her evenly, and then stifled a yawn. ‘You hired me to do a job and I aim to finish it.’
‘Yes, I hired you!’ Emma snapped. ‘Which means I can also fire you! We can discuss severance pay, which you may take from the portion of the money you have recovered.’
In her own language, Maria asked her husband what was happening. The old man shuffled across to sit on the side of the bed and began to talk to her in low tones.
‘Bad time, ma’am,’ Edge said, and didn’t try to stop the yawn,
‘You have brought it upon yourself!’ Emma retorted stiffly.
The half-breed used a finger to print
calculations in the dust of the table top. “I’ll take ten per cent, as agreed. That comes out at nineteen-seventy dollars. Leaves you plenty to buy the old feller’s burro and maybe a gun if he’s got one around the place.’
‘Come on, ma’am!’ Walker urged. ‘If that’s the way he wants it.’
‘I have only very old gun, senor,’ Manuel said miserably. ‘Must keep burro.’
‘I have no use for a gun,’ Emma snapped, directing her ire at Edge as he began to take the specified amount from the pile of bills.
‘But her mouth’s in better shape than yours, Walker,’ the half-breed drawled. ‘She likes to talk. You figure she’ll be able to talk faster than the Jap can jump?’
The confidence drained out of Emma’s face and body. There was still a lot of anger in her, but it was trapped by speechless frustration.
‘I’ll protect you, Miss Diamond, ma’am!’ Walker urged. ‘If they’re comin’ like he reckons they are, I’ll tell them to leave you alone.’ As the woman swung around to give him a helpless look, he realized the foolishness of the claim. ‘Or we could take a roundabout way back, Miss Diamond, ma’am. Swing wide so that we miss them?’
Emma shook her head. ‘It’s no good, Mr. Walker. Things are too well advanced the way Mr. Edge has planned them.’
The former despair crowded into the gaunt man’s eyes.
‘The lady’s always changing her mind, feller,’ Edge said, dropping the handful of bills back on the pile.
‘You’re...’ Emma started.
‘Insufferable, I know,’ Edge said, rising from the table and finishing the last of the coffee from the mug. ‘But seeing as how you’ve decided to suffer me a little longer, what about giving me a hand. Be a switch from all the mouth I’ve been getting from you.’
‘I’ve got no alternative but to help you, I suppose,’ Emma groaned. Then her voice became a snarl. ‘But you’re an easy man to hate, Mr. Edge!’
The half-breed grinned. ‘You should keep your Pa’s money, ma’am.’
‘I would never dream of doing that!’
EDGE: Ashes And Dust (Edge series Book 19) Page 11