“Digging a man’s grave before the trial and then hanging him for spitting in the street is justice?” Edge asked wryly.
He didn’t care, one way or the other, but conversation was filling the time until the trial was over and someone from the hotel would rent him a room and fix a tub for him.
“Sure is when the spit hits the street just as Mr. Corners is passing by.”
It was an odd name: memorable because of its strangeness. Edge asked: “Any kin to Joe Corners?”
The preacher shot a quizzical glance towards Edge, then sighed. “Joe was Mr. Corners’ son. He’s dead.”
The half-breed knew it. A bounty hunter who got greedy and turned to bank robbery. A blown safe door sliced his leg off and a hail of gunfire finished him in a small town in the Dakotas.* (* See—Edge: Bloody Summer.) It had been winter then and it was pleasant in this heat to recall the biting chill of the air streaming across the frost-cloaked Badlands. But cool thoughts were no substitute for cool water.
“Corners is the big man in Hate, uh?”
Again the preacher became tense at the mention of the town’s name. Edge’s narrowed eyes spotted the change, then saw the fat old man struggle back to his normal level of composure.
“Mr. Corners runs the mill, the bank, the hotel, the livery and all the stores. He’s also the sheriff and the judge.”
“That’s pretty big,” Edge allowed wryly.
A short silence settled between the two men. Another man broke it—with a high-pitched scream of anguish. It sounded distant but in fact came from the courthouse, the stout walls of which had trapped inside the less strident noises of the proceedings. The aggressively minded dog barked once then returned to his listless rest beneath the water trough. The sun had sunk low enough to pitch the shadow of the mill twenty yards along the street. The heat stayed high.
“Reckon he’s guilty,” Edge muttered wryly.
The doors at the head of the courthouse steps folded inwards and the judge emerged, untying a cord at his neck to remove a black cape. Beneath this he wore neatly pressed pants and a matching vest unbuttoned to show a crisp white shirt with a silver star pinned to the left breast pocket.
He was a big man in good condition, his torso tapering down from massive shoulders to an almost slim waist. He had long legs. His face showed more than fifty years of living, most of them hard. A high forehead under close-cropped, silver grey hair; brooding brown eyes set deep and wide; full mouth above a jutting jaw line; a nose beaten out of shape so that he hung on the verge of handsomeness; a deeply tanned complexion pitted by an ancient illness and scarred by the ruts of time. His movements were lithe and free flowing. He exuded an aura of powerful self-assurance.
“That’s Mr. Corners,” the preacher whispered, in the kind of tone he might use to announce the second coming.
The man who owned the town started down the steps. At the top he was smiling but by the time his highly polished boots were on the cement pathway which divided the lawn in two his expression had altered to a heavy frown. He stared fixedly at Edge, leaving no doubt about the cause of his displeasure.
“He just rode in, Mr. Corners!” the preacher called hurriedly. Apologetically.
More people emerged from the courthouse. A ruggedly built youngster in his early twenties wearing a gun belt and hat of his own and carrying a higher quality set of the same gear. He handed them to Corners and as the former judge now sheriff exchanged the cape for the belt and hat, the man scheduled to be hanged came out into the sunlight. He was weak looking, with a bald head and a mask of anguish twisting his face. He wore a storekeeper’s apron. Quaking with terror, he looked ready to collapse, but two men supported him. Like the youngster who took care of Corners’ gear and three other men, they wore deputy’s badges. The citizens of Hate who had no power in the town filed out of the courthouse in ranks of two, in procession behind Corners as he led the way across the street. The men, women and children wore no badges. They did wear expressions of meek sadness.
Halfway to the mouth of the alley, Corners finished buckling on his gun belt with just the single holster on the right hip. He halted abruptly and fixed Edge with another dark-eyed stare.
“Man’s allowed to carry sidearms but not rifles inside town limits, mister,” he pronounced. His voice matched his physique: powerful. “And we like folks to be clean.”
He had a great many shining examples in back of him. Apart from the sweat on their faces, every man, woman and child appeared to have stepped straight from a tub into their Sunday-best clothes. The vast majority of the upwards of thirty men wore holstered revolvers. Edge’s pants and shirt were caked with dirt held to the fabric by old sweat. His low-crowned hat had been changed from black to grey by the dust of travel. A forty-eight hour growth of bristle sprouted from the dirt-grimed skin of his face. The Winchester was held easily in his left hand, pointing at the ground.
“Happy to get separated from the dirt, sheriff,” he replied evenly, aware of the massed stare focused upon him. “Just as soon as somebody’s ready to fill a tub for me. Stow the rifle soon as I reckon I won’t need it.”
There was no actual noise from the group of watchers. But the half-breed sensed a great intake of breath, which was held for the brittle silence while Corners glowered at Edge.
“Nobody’s fired a gun in Corners for five years, mister,” the man of many parts said gravely. “Obey the town ordinances and you’ve got nothing to fear.”
“Obliged for the information,” Edge replied, noting that the town had a new name different from the one on the sagging marker sign. “Real anxious to abide by the rule about being clean. So if you’d just get on with the lynching.
This time the crowd did give vent to its shock. A series of gasps quivered in the hot air. The redness of anger spread beneath Corners’ tan. His deputies toughened their expressions. The condemned Ezra Hyams emitted a mournful groan.
“This is a legal execution carried out under due process of law,” Corners intoned.
Edge sighed. “Okay, sheriff. Call it whatever the hell you like. Hate’s your town.”
The sound of massed shock was loud enough to mask the churning water wheel for a fleeting moment. But not the slap of flesh on leather and the metallic click as four of the deputies drew their revolvers and cocked them simultaneously. The two supporting Hyams had to be content with tightening their grip on the doomed man. He groaned again. Corners quivered with rage, then struggled to contain it. His powerful voice sounded strained.
A much colder anger glinted in the blue slits of Edge’s eyes. It was firmly in control as he raked his stare over the faces of the men aiming guns at him. Each of the deputies was hard and capable and wore the indefinable stamp of those who are prepared to kill. But each of them betrayed a tremor of naked fear as he returned the stare of the half-breed. For each recognized that he faced a man far more experienced in the way of sudden death than he was. Experienced and adept: for this man was not hampered by the reflex-slowing influence of fear.
“I got this allergy towards pointing guns, sheriff,” Edge said in quiet-voiced earnestness. “Tell your boys to either blast me or holster those Colts real quick.”
“So you came in on the old east trail and the sign’s still there,” Corners said levelly, as if he had not heard the half-breed’s comment. “I hanged the man who put up that sign. And warned that anyone who referred to the town as anything except Corners would get the same treatment.”
“What about those guns?” Edge said in the soft-toned voice.
Corners ignored it again. “But you’re a stranger and I guess the preacher man didn’t give you the word. So I’ll just put you on probation for the time you’re in town. Break that probation in any way and I’ll put you under arrest.”
As Corners was announcing his intention, Edge moved his hip off the sill and stood erect with his back to the window. The Winchester stayed pointing at the ground, but it was no longer held in a loose grip. Like every other muscle in hi
s lean body, those in the half-breed’s hand were knotted tight. The deputies sensed a change in Edge but could see nothing positive. Although he had moved slightly, his stance continued to look loose limbed and relaxed. He appeared totally incapable of backing up the menace of his expression and soft-spoken words.
“The guns, Corners,” Edge urged, paying as scant attention to the sheriff’s words as the man had paid to his. He sensed a kind of breathless excitement emanating from the preacher but did not look towards him.
“I give my men their orders in my own good time mister,” Corners growled.
“It ran out,” Edge replied, and launched into violent action.
At one instant he was lounging in his pretence of relaxation. The next he had flung himself into a backward leap. He powered himself clear of the ground tucked his chin hard down against his chest and crashed his shoulders into the window. The window comprised a dozen small panes held into the main frame by slender cross frames. Wood snapped and glass shattered under the impact of his lunging weight. He arched his body over the jagged pinnacles of broken glass and thudded hard to the floor inside the hotel. The fallen debris crunched and splintered under him as he rolled on to his belly and thrust up into a crouch, whirling to peer out of the window along the barrel of the Winchester. He drew a bead on the glinting silver star pinned over Corners’ heart. The action scraped.
The whole incident had taken no more than three seconds. Time enough for the crowd to scatter and the deputies to fire. But nobody had moved so much as a trigger finger. Just the odd facial muscle so that a few of the townspeople arrayed behind the lawmen betrayed faint smiles.
“Either they put those irons where they belong or that star gets blasted out through your back,” Edge announced.
“I think—” the deputy holding the cape began.
“I know he means it,” Corners cut in, and now he was pallid under the tan. From a higher plane of rage rather than fear. “Put the guns away men.”
The violent exertion had erupted sweat from every pore in Edge’s body. But the eye behind the Winchester’s back sight was cracked too narrow to admit the salty beads dripping from his forehead.
“Hey, mister!” Ezra Hyams shouted, his tone akin to delight. “Now you got the drop on ’em, make ’em let me go.”
The silent mood of some of the people in the crowd changed from just visible glee to ardent hope. Edge stifled it.
“Everyone’s got problems feller,” he answered. “I just take care of my own.”
He was immediately an object of contempt in the eyes of the townspeople. The deputies showed him hate. Corners was suddenly like a man eyeing a piece of prime property he considered buying as he looked at Edge through the shattered window.
“You just broke probation, mister,” he accused without rancor.
Edge stood up, presenting a much bigger target through the jagged glass opening. The aim of the rifle was negligent, from the hip. But everyone was now fully aware of his speed. “All I broke was a window,” he replied quietly. “Another gun points at me in this town and it’ll be the guy holding it that gets smashed up. You want to string him up now, so I can get a bath?”
“Thanks one hell of a lot, you bastard!” Ezra Hyams screamed, and sagged between his captors his body wracked with sobs.
“Spitting and using bad language,” Edge mocked as Corners led the procession forward. “You were born to hang, feller.”
The preacher crossed in front of the broken window, clutching his prayer book more firmly to his bulbous stomach and fixing a solemn expression on his pink features. Edge leaned out through the glinting shards still slotted into the main frame and saw the townspeople form into orderly rows at the mouth of the alley. All were gazing with hypnotic fascination towards the gallows. Against the churning of the water wheel there was now just the deep-throated sobbing of the condemned man. Then the hollow thud of footfalls on the steps and platform. A piercing scream cut through the stifling air. It ended abruptly with the crack of a hand on flesh. Flies droned and there was a pained yelp as one of the dogs opened his mouth too wide for a yawn. The preacher began to intone the Lord’s Prayer into the quietness of the late afternoon.
“May God have mercy on your soul,” he concluded.
Hyams screamed for a final time. The release lever creaked. The trap door opened with a crack. Hyams’ neck broke with a muffled snap. The audience of townspeople did not make a sound until they turned away from the gruesome sight of the limply suspended body. And then there was just the shuffling of their feet dragging through the dust. A gamut of expressions from horror to abject misery was carved upon their faces. A tall, thin old man shuffled towards the hotel entrance. He was trailed by another, half his age who looked enough like him to be his son. Both halted at the doorway and looked balefully along the hotel frontage at Edge leaning out of the window.
“It’s disgusting,” the old man muttered, his bloodless lips trembling. “They hang some poor wretch and make us line up to look at it. Like it’s some kind of entertainment we’re supposed to enjoy.”
His son glanced around nervously, as if fearful the words would be overheard.
“Seems like it was a lousy show,” Edge replied wryly. “Only the one guy had a swinging time.”
CHAPTER TWO
SINCE Edge was the only guest, he was offered the pick of the rooms in The Last Drop Hotel. Because the first floor of the place was completely taken up by a saloon, restaurant and living quarters for the old man and his son, all the rented accommodation was on the second floor. The half-breed selected a room at the front at the far end of the hallway. It had a window overlooking the street and no other way in but through the door - which had a lock that worked. The room was at the opposite end of the building from the saloon on the floor below, but this was not a consideration in choosing it. For, even at the best of times, the town called Hate did not seem to be the kind of community in which rowdiness was tolerated.
The men who ran the hotel were named McNally. Cyrus was the old man and his son was Billy. Cyrus had accepted two dollars as advance payment for one night’s room rent. It was Billy who lugged a tin tub into the room and made a half dozen trips down and up the stairs with a pitcher to fill it with water from the pump out back. Edge gave him a dollar and a half and began to unbutton his shirt.
“Gee that’s a big tip, mister,” Billy exclaimed, his weak eyes gleaming with delight.
The man’s natural ugliness was made more so by his emaciation. Fate had been even more unkind and given him a simple mind.
Edge shook his head. “Fifty cents for your trouble. Dollar for the liveryman to take care of my horse and gear for the night.” He looked hard at Billy. “Can you do that?”
The man carefully segregated the fifty cents from the dollar in separate pockets, his happiness unimpaired. “Gee, mister. I can’t remember the last time I was give any money.”
“Just remember to fix up my horse,” Edge told him, and nodded towards the door.
The man went out, still wearing his broad grin and Edge locked the door behind him. Then he crossed to the window and saw that the street was empty in the fading light as afternoon closed with evening. All the horses except his own were gone. The dogs rose from under the trough, stretched and began to prowl, sniffing at lingering smells with the boredom of familiarity. The only signs of human activity were out at the lumber mill on the far side of the river. Four men - too distant to be recognizable - were unharnessing the teams from the wagons. Then a movement below captured the half-breed’s attention and he snapped his head around, hooded eyes raking the street. But it was only Billy McNally unhitching the gelding to lead him along to the livery stable.
Edge did not grin at his whiplash response to what turned out to be the innocent action of a simpleton. Rather, he accepted it as the norm and was impassively satisfied. For there was always the danger that, in the period of anticlimax following an explosion of violent action, a man’s reflexes might be dulled. And if
Edge was to stay alive he could not afford the luxury of dropping his guard for even a moment. Thus, as he stripped off his travel-stained top-clothes and then peeled the red underwear from his sweat-tacky body, the Winchester was close at hand, resting across the bed. His lithe muscular body was just a shade lighter than his face: except for the puckered, livid scar tissue of healed bullet wounds at his left shoulder and thigh and right hip. These were the visible marks left upon him by that metamorphic period in his life when he learned how to kill without compunction.* (* See—The Civil War books beginning with Edge: Killer’s Breed.)
As he lowered himself gratefully into the tepid water his lean features betrayed nothing of the pleasure he experienced: and this constantly indifferent attitude to outside influences had also been a legacy of those blood-drenched days, weeks, months and years which forged him from a sensitive youth into a machine-like man. And almost everything that had happened to him during the intervening years had served to harden him in the mould that fate had shaped for him.
Edge raised his naked body from the water and soaped the firm, rippling flesh. No, not almost everything. Everything. For even his marriage to Elizabeth and the true happiness it brought him was all a part of life’s grand plan to cause him pain and suffering. A vicious trick that offered him hope and then shattered it with the most tragic blow he had ever been struck.* (* See Edge: Sioux Uprising.)
He sat down in the tub again and rinsed off the lather, turning the water from grey to black. Then he soaped his face and drew the razor from its pouch, still held at the back of his neck by the leather thong strung with beads. He shaved quickly with long strokes that rasped off the bristles and when he was finished he stepped from the tub and toweled himself. It was murky in the room now, as the red glow of sunset beyond the window changed to the darkening shade of twilight. He shook the dust from his clothes and dressed. With the advance of evening the temperature had fallen a little, but the air had become humid and the mild exertions of drying himself, shaking his clothes and then putting them on opened his pores again.
Edge: A Town Called Hate (Edge series Book 13) Page 2