Edge: A Town Called Hate (Edge series Book 13)

by George G. Gilman

The regular series of sounds from the steam engine at the mill were infiltrated by other noises from the side of the hotel. Shovels being thrust into the ground to dig up clods of earth.

  “So Alex Burgess is wasting his time collecting up that money,” McNally muttered.

  “Didn’t say that,” Edge corrected. “Could be I’ll have to kill Corners to settle my beef with him. In that case I wouldn’t be averse to taking the thousand.”

  “Strange way of thinking,” McNally said flatly.

  “Maybe it’s the town that’s affecting me,” the half-breed replied. “It’s a strange place.”

  “Wasn’t always the way it is now,” McNally said, a trifle heatedly.

  “Nothing is,” Edge answered. “It’s called progress. Ain’t always good.”

  Running footfalls sounded out on the street and the old man’s son lumbered into the saloon, breathless and sweating.

  “They’re comin’, Pa!” he panted. “Miss Dorrie and some men. I counted six of ’em!”

  Edge crushed out the cigarette in the drying grease on his plate.

  “Billy’s talking about the gunslingers Corners sent to Trasker for,” the old man explained. “He wanted to send one of his deputies for them. But his bitch of a niece said she’d go. Reckoned she wanted to do something to help get you, mister.”

  “Guess I must have upset her a little,” Edge understated.

  “Way out still,” Billy cut in. “Ridin’ slow. Reckon me and the others’ll have the graves dug before they get here.”

  “Preacher found some space then?” Edge asked.

  “Openin’ up old graves,” the simpleton answered. “It was my idea.” He grinned. “Makes the diggin’ easier.” He turned and hurried out.

  “Like I said before, that feller ain’t so simple,” Edge told his father.

  “Thea used to be a good town to live in,” the old man continued, picking up from where Billy had interrupted the conversation. “This place was mine. Storekeepers owned their own places. The lumber men worked their own areas of timber. Had to haul the trees whole to Trasker, but it worked okay. Then Corners moved in and built the mill.” He shrugged his thin shoulders. “Nobody was about to raise any objections. Lot easier to just haul the trees down to the mill, get paid and let Corners worry about freighting out the milled planks.”

  “Acted the nice guy in those days?” Edge said, feeling pleasantly drowsy from the effects of the heat and the food.

  “Like his middle name was kindness,” McNally replied sourly. “Had a lot of it to spread around. The dollar kind. Opened up the bank next door and started to lend out money.” His tone became more bitter. “My boy’s the town idiot, mister. But turned out we was all simple enough to get took by Luke Corners. Got everyone in town in debt to his bank, then foreclosed. Me and the rest of the folk in business had to sell to him to pay back the debts. Lumber men had to start working for him instead of themselves or be tossed out of their homes.”

  “Nobody objected then, either?”

  McNally banged a glass on the bar top, so hard it shattered. He cursed. “Not a thing we could do about it. Corners had the territorial law on his side. Marshal Colman came to town and told us that. In three-and-a-half years, Corners got to own this town—lock, stock and barrel. And he had the papers to prove it.”

  “And nobody left?”

  “Couple of youngsters with no kin or responsibilities. Corners let us keep our houses and businesses, rented from him. Takes a lot for a man to uproot himself and his family from the place he’s sweated his guts out to build up.” McNally gave another shrug of his emaciated shoulders. “Guess everybody just kept hopin’ a feller like you’d come ridin’ through. Never did happen ’til now, though. Corners changed the town name, made himself sheriff and judge, and brung in gunsels to call deputies.”

  “How about Colman?” Edge asked, standing up and stretching, flexing his muscles to drive out the threat of inertia.

  McNally used one of his cupped hands to scrape the broken glass into an ash pan. “Nothin’ but a shit,” he said vehemently. “Rides in twice, maybe three times a year. Inspection tour, he calls it. Lumber man tried to tell him what was happenin’ one time. Colman listened to him, but didn’t do nothin’ except tell Corners. Day after Colman left, lumber man had an accident. Fell under a loaded wagon out back of the mill. Marshal’s on a kickback, mister. Long as Corners don’t cause no trouble while he’s here, Colman turns in a good report.”

  Edge moved to the doorway and scanned the street. It was empty, except for the two dogs stretched out under the water trough. The horse he had ridden and the three which had carried the dead men had been led away into the shade somewhere. He guessed Billy had attended to the chore. The sounds of the grave digging continued to come from around the side of the hotel. He saw a movement down at the far end of the street, and recognized the stooped form of Alex Burgess emerge from one house and scuttle into another.

  “Corners lets you run a Citizens Committee,” the half-breed said as he swung his head to look in the other direction - out across the bridge, past the lumber mill and along the trail.

  “With one of his deputies sittin’ in,” McNally replied bitterly.

  Three flatbed wagons were stalled halfway to the trees. A group of riders were clustered around the lead wagon. As Edge watched, the horsemen urged their mounts into a gallop, heading for town. Dust billowed behind them. The wagons lurched into a tight turn and the teams were whipped into pursuit of the riders.

  “Not last night,” Edge said, turning from the door to cross towards the foot of the stairway.

  “Secret meetin’,” McNally replied.

  “A deputy found out what was said at the meeting,” the half-breed revealed, and held out a hand. “Obliged if I could have my old room back.”

  Anger and confusion did battle across the old man’s thin features. He reached under the bar, hauled out a key and arced it across the saloon. Edge caught it.

  “We got a spy!” McNally rasped.

  “Reckon so,” Edge replied as he started up the stairs. “Ought to be Burgess or Maclean, but I guess it ain’t. Got a guy named Philby in town?”

  “No,” the old man answered, perplexed.

  “Just a thought,” Edge called as he went from sight on to the landing.

  As he moved along to the door at the end, galloping hoof beats sounded out on the trail, clattered over the bridge and along the street. The riders reined their horses to a skidding halt outside the hotel and, as Edge slid the key into the lock, boots scraped against the floorboards of the saloon.

  “Six beers, bartender!” a man demanded raucously. “Ridin’s thirsty work in this heat.”

  Edge swung open the door as, down in the saloon voices were raised in agreement with the opening remark.

  “Ease in slow and set that rifle down gentle,” Marshal Colman instructed the half-breed.

  Edge remained frozen in the doorway for stretched seconds, hooded eyes cold and lips set in a thin, cruel line. The stockily-built lawman was sitting on the side of the bed, pointing both his revolvers at the tall half-breed. The hands folded around the ornate butts of the guns were as steady as Edge’s gaze.

  “Hurry it up, old-timer!” a man roared below. “I been eating dust most of the night.”

  “Said out there on the street wouldn’t be the last of it,” the marshal said as Edge stepped across the threshold and closed the door behind him. “The rifle, mister.”

  “Should have believed you,” Edge replied, leaning the Winchester against the wall at the side of the door. “Real smart of you to get into my room.”

  “I make out,” the lawman said, easing up from the bed.

  “Yeah, you’re as keen as mustard, Colman.”

  “You’re under arrest. Unbuckle the gun belt.”

  Edge began to comply. “How’d you get in here?” he asked evenly.

  The marshal refused to be captured by the half-breed’s steady gaze. Instead, he concentrated
upon the long brown fingers as they unfastened the belt buckle. “Billy McNally will do anything for a handful of pennies. I bought your room number and his pass key.”

  Edge nodded. “Guess he’ll be heading out for Trasker again,” he said, allowing the gun belt and holstered Colt to thud to the floor.

  “Way it ought to be,” Colman answered. “Impressionable man like he is shouldn’t be forced to watch too many hangings. I’m taking you across the street to stand trial.”

  “For what?” Edge asked.

  “Record will show murder - of those three men you hauled into town.” The weak-looking face of the lawman was abruptly twisted out of shape by venomous thoughts.

  “But I’ll know it’s for making me look a fool out there awhile ago.”

  “Have to plead guilty to that,” the half-breed admitted easily, and the casual words lit fires of rage in the dark eyes.

  But Colman controlled himself in an instant. It was further proof that the man was no fool: knew better than to allow a prisoner to taunt him into anger. An angry man does not think rationally and is therefore prone to make errors. Possibly a fatal error in this situation. So the marshal forced himself to be coldly calm: and died anyway.

  “Turn around and open the door!” he rasped.

  He stepped away from the bed and in front of the window. Edge saw the flash of sunlight on gun metal and the figure of a man crouched on the roof of the courthouse across the street. “Ain’t been nice knowing you, marshal,” Edge said softly, and waited for the tell-tale puff of muzzle smoke.

  The crack of the shot sounded a split-second later, merging with the smash of splintered glass. In that instant, Colman expressed bewilderment at the half-breed’s comment. Then Edge powered down into a crouch and the marshal’s puzzlement was frozen into a death mask. The bullet took him midway up his back, to the side of his spine. It tunneled through his flesh, smashed chips from a rib bone and sank deep into his heart. It didn’t exit.

  Edge had the Winchester in his hands as Colman started to fall forward, arms dropping limply to his sides and matched Tranters clunking to the floor. The dead man crashed on top of them. An expanding stain of dark red spread across the back of his expensive vest.

  “I got him!” the man on the courthouse roof yelled ecstatically as flies droned in through the smashed window and swarmed around the fresh blood.

  Edge crossed the room in a crouch, slitted eyes directed at the sharpshooter who was on his feet, dancing a gleeful jig. The flies swooped away as a bone cracked. It was a bone in Colman’s hand as the half-breed’s unmindful heel crunched down. The marshal did not feel it - and the man on the courthouse roof did not hear it. Neither did he hear the metallic clicks as Edge worked the Winchester’s lever action to pump a shell into the breech. He probably heard the explosion of the bullet from the muzzle.

  He was hit in the face, the lead smashing into him below the nostrils. It tore a furrow across the roof of his mouth and tunneled through his head to burst free at the back of his neck. The bullet killed him as he was in mid-air, completing a small jump in his crazy dance routine. He smacked hard down on to the roof of the courthouse with no muscles to hold him erect. His legs buckled and he executed an almost graceful spiral as his body collapsed. Blood spouted from the entry and exit holes of the bullet, inscribing ugly splashes of red across the sparkling white facade of the building, then he toppled over the eaves.

  Only now did a scream pierce the hot air. But it did not emerge from the blood-run mouth of the dead man. It was high and female, uttered by Dorrie Corners as the dead weight of the falling corpse smashed on top of her and crushed her to the courthouse steps.

  Edge caught a fleeting glimpse of the woman a moment before she was knocked down. Frozen in an attitude that was half-relaxed half-terrified. Dressed in black blouse and pants with her hair rolled up under a grey hat. Her clothing was dusty from the ride. So was the pad of dressing that covered the bullet wound on her cheek. The unmasked parts of her face and the posture of her body beneath the tight-fitting clothes suggested fear. But the way she rested a rolled parasol on the steps was a clue to the casual way in which she had been waiting for the fatal shot to be fired.

  Now, as she recovered from the horror, she struggled desperately to wriggle out from under the corpse. Edge waited until she had got her head and shoulders out from under, then thrust the Winchester forward. The muzzle struck a shard of glass still held in the window frame. It was smashed free and the sound froze the woman’s struggles. Her wide eyes were fastened upon the figure of Edge standing at the window, aiming the rifle at her. She groaned.

  “Sometimes things just get on top of you, don’t they?” the half-breed called wryly.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THE regular hiss and thump of the steam engine that had been masked only fleetingly by the two shots, was at once doing battle with the rattle and hoof beats of the wagons approaching at high speed. The engine noises lost out for awhile when the wagons reached the end of the trail. Edge leaned out through the window and snapped a glance towards the source of the sound. He saw the first two wagons make a dust billowing turn in through the gateway of the lumber mill as the third one skidded and swayed to a halt on the bridge. He had time to spot Corners as the passenger and the squint-eyed deputy as driver before he flicked his slitted eyes back to the woman. She had not moved, pinned down by the physical weight of the corpse and the mental pressure of the pointing Winchester.

  “Uncle Luke! “she yelled.

  “You stupid fools!” the big, silver-haired man bellowed.

  “Corners!” Edge shouted as a floorboard out on the landing creaked.

  “Let her up, you bastard!”

  “Call your hired guns out of the saloon!” Edge shouted back. Another creak out on the landing. He poised his muscles. “I figure five.”

  “You let Dorrie up and then I’ll—”

  The half-breed was not listening. His ears were strained to pick up sounds from behind him. He heard the faint scratch of the metal tongue withdrawing from the groove as the door handle was turned.

  “Correction!” he shouted, and whirled. He jerked the Winchester in from the window and swung it. The door was cracking open. He fired, pumped, fired, pumped, fired, pumped. A splintered hole in the left of the door, another in the right and a third in the centre. The first and second hit the man. In the chest and throat. He was flying backwards by the impact of the bullets, dying with a gasp. He hit the wall hard, and crashed forward. His forehead cracked against the unlatched door and flung it open. He stretched across the threshold and was still. The flies did a meal hop from the marshal to the gunslinger.

  “Make that four!” the half-breed called as he swung back to the window.

  Dorrie had struggled another few inches clear, but the menace of the rifle froze her again. Corners was halted abruptly, too. He had leapt from the wagon, shotgun at the ready. But he had made only a couple of yards from the bridge.

  “What are you gonna do, drifter?” the big man snarled. Sweat beads ran down his misshapen nose and splashed into the dust.

  “Kill her in five seconds - and I ain’t counting out loud.”

  “Come on outta there!” Corners roared frantically. More splashes in the dust: this time from spittle that spilled from each side of his mouth and made the long drop from his quivering jaw.

  Between the thud of the piston and the hiss of steam, boot leather scraped on the floorboards of the saloon. Edge dropped his gaze and saw the four men move out into the sunlight as a group.

  “He’s bluffing, Mr. Corners,” one of them drawled. “Took us longer than five seconds to come out.”

  Two of them still held glasses of beer. They sipped from them as they ambled across to where Corners stood.

  “Never was much at telling the time,” Edge responded. “But I sure as hell can shoot good.”

  “That ain’t no lie,” the talkative gunslinger agreed with a rueful glance at the dead man draped over Dorrie. “Al
ways thought Jake could as well.”

  The four were of a type. Hard-faced, solidly-built: lithe bodies constantly primed for action and glinting eyes for ever alert to signs that action was required. And more than this. The indefinable mark that violent death could well be the result of the action. The killer type. Edge’s type.

  “He could,” the half-breed assured the spokesman.

  “Who’d he blast?” the man wanted to know, and took a swig of his beer.

  “Nobody important. A crooked territorial marshal.”

  All four grinned, but it was the same man who responded. “No sweat. He had to get it as well as you. Weren’t no reward on him.”

  Corners was fuming with silent anger as the exchange took place. Once or twice his broad mouth flapped open, but no words were uttered.

  “Guess you killed Bob as well?” He spoke in the tone of one asking another whether he had read the paper that morning.

  “Reckon so. He fell down and he ain’t got up yet.” The man finished his beer and nodded as he ran the back of his hand across his lips. “No sweat, mister. Just cuts down the competition for that five grand Mr. Corners here has put up.”

  “Uncle Luke!” Dorrie pleaded with a note of hysteria adding a shriek to her voice.

  “I told you to play it cool!” Corners bellowed, finding his voice at last. “I told you to wait ’til Colman left town.”

  Three of the men seemed about to whirl on Corners: perhaps even gun him down for his criticism. But their spokesman spread an incongruous expression of pained innocence across his rugged, deeply burnished features. “Hell, Mr. Corners,” he defended in a fake tone to match the phony expression. “Weren’t any of us that tried to blast the drifter. It was Jake and Bob.”

  “And look what happened to them,” Edge warned easily.

  “We come outta the saloon like you wanted,” the garrulous gunman went on. “And that’s real hard to do on a hot day like it is.”

  Corners’ piercing eyes shifted from the men he had hired, to his niece, then up to the window where Edge stood. “What now?” he barked, almost in complete control of his rage.