He vented a roar of alarm.
Edge said again to the growling dog, "Easy feller," as he backed across the alley with his burden.
The older man, with his attention divided between two areas of trouble, was making progress with the horse now that the German shepherd was moving away, staying close to Edge.
The half-breed halted his stooped-over backtracking beside his own horse out front of the hotel and released his grip on John's collar.
By this time the young victim of the attack had recovered from alarm and was filled with a high anger as he fumbled to get a revolver out of his holster.
But instead of straightening to draw his own gun, Edge dropped to his haunches, left hand going into the long hair at the nape of his neck and coming out fisted around the handle of the straight razor. Which, in a blur or speed, was moved downward, so that the cool meted of the flat of the blade was resting across John's pulsing throat before the young man's gun was halfway out of the holster.
"Hey, mister! This horse is always spooked by dogs! John was just—"
John was about twenty-five. Tall and lean and strong, with a mean, unshaven face. Probably rode shotgun while the older man—who yelled the excuse—was the driver.
There was a stir of noise and activity. Some people hurrying toward the focal point of the excitement. Some eager to withdraw from it.
Once more the half-breed told the menacingly growling dog, "Easy, feller." Briefly glanced at the animal, who was standing on the other side of the terrified man with a sharply honed blade at his throat, then looked down at John again to say in the same tone of voice: "Push the gun back in, uh? And don't ever draw it against me in future unless it's to kill me."
"Edge, what the hell's happenin' here?" the Lakeview sheriff demanded as he and a group of the other local citizens came to a halt in an arc across the street out front of The Webster House.
"I just told him to—" John started.
"My pa was a Mexican, feller," Edge cut in.
"What?" John rasped, flicking his eyes across their sockets to find the impassive face of the half-breed after they had sought out Sheriff Herman.
"I said my pa was a Mexican."
"What the hell, Edge?" Herman snarled and jerked aside his duster to drape a hand over the butt of his holstered Remington. "If you don't put away that blade and let John Cox get up on his feet—"
"Say Mexican, feller," Edge instructed.
The man swallowed hard and grimaced as this acted to push the skin of his thin throat harder against the blade of the razor. "What?"
"Say Mexican."
"Mexican, for Chri—"
"Fine, feller. So next time such an occasion arises, you'll say, 'Get that frigging dog out of sight, Mexican.' "
"Whatever you say."
"Edge, I'm warnin' you!" the sheriff snarled.
"I've said it," the half-breed told John Cox, and now he rose to his feet, bringing the razor up to the back of his neck and sliding it into the sheath.
Cox eased cautiously up into a sitting posture and the dog half circled around him to move in closer to the left heel of Edge.
The team horse, which had become calm now, began to toss his head and scrape at the ground with a forehoof as the dog changed position.
"Mister," the older member of the stage crew said in a pleading tone, "I sure would appreciate it if you'd get your dog off the street. This nag just has a crazy hatred of any dog that gets this close to him."
There was a mixture of lumbermen and merchants in the group around Sheriff Herman. The only woman close by was on the hotel stoop—a fine-bodied, sour-faced woman in her forties in a black dress and a white apron. She stood, her arms folded across her ample bosom, directly in front of the hotel's open doorway.
"Mrs. Webster?" Edge asked, tipping his hat to her—as John Cox scrambled to his feet and hurried across the alley mouth, scowling.
"Miss Webster!" the half-breed was corrected. "You allow dogs in the hotel?" "Never had had occasion to have a rule about that before. But I guess me and my brother won't have no objection to a dog. Long as he behaves himself."
"You have a room available?"
"Certainly there's a room available. But what applies to dogs, applies to people. They cause any trouble, out they go."
A man emerged from the shaded lobby behind her. A giant of a man close to seven feet tall and perhaps weighing more than three hundred pounds—little of his bulk comprised of excess fat. Despite the fact that he had a naturally good-humored face, in contrast with the soured look that sculptured his sister's features, there was a strong family resemblance between them. In the light blueness of their eyes, the near whiteness of their hair, and the cleft in their chins. He was in his early forties, she in her late.
"Any trouble, Max deals with it, Mr. Edge," Polly Webster said and cast a look of pride at her powerful brother. "He's good at that. But he'd just as soon take care of your horse or your luggage. Fix you up with a tub of hot water. Wash and press your clothes. That kind of service." She turned to go back into the hotel, and her brother, who was grinning foolishly, stepped out on to the stoop. The woman added, "You have only to ask."
"You bet, mister." Max confirmed.
The crowd began to disperse.
The stage driver snarled, "Don't be crazy, John!"
Edge whirled, instinctively reaching for the Frontier Colt in his holster as he adopted a half-crouched attitude, sideways on to the threat posed by the scowling young man intent upon revenge for his humiliation.
Cox was up on the high seat of the Concord and had been pretending to check that the roof baggage was secure while he listened to the exchange between Edge and Polly Webster—and came to a decision that he could not allow the matter to rest as it was. And so turned on the seat, a thumb cocking the hammer of the Winchester he had drawn from between two valises.
A chorus of gasps and rasped curses sounded from the stage passengers in process of boarding the Concord and the group that had begun to break up from around Herman.
Edge slid his revolver smoothly from the holster, thumbing back the hammer as he tilted the Colt at his hip to aim the muzzle at the chest of the man with the rifle.
"Damnit!" the sheriff snarled, and squeezed the trigger of his Remington. Which had been clear of the holster and aimed before the stage driver shouted. For he had not turned away from the Concord, worried that the hotheaded youngster might not be able to hold his temper.
The bullet from the lawman's gun cracked toward John Cox a part of a second before a second revolver shot sounded—this almost in perfect unison with the more deep throated report of the Winchester.
The young man on the Concord seat took the Remington bullet in his left shoulder and the impact of the lead into his flesh and against the bone half turned him, spoiling his aim with the rifle at the same instant the bullet from Edge's Colt drilled into the side of his head.
The rifle bullet went high and wide and probably cleared the two parallel streets of the town to splash harmlessly into the water far out in Mirror Lake.
By which time John Cox was slumped across the double seat of the stage, dead from the bullet that had blasted through his brain before coming to rest against the inside of his skull. A gush, then a trickle of crimson from the thick blackness of a sideburn marked the entry wound.
"Damnit to hell!" Sheriff Herman yelled to draw all but one pair of eyes to him after a tension-lengthened pause during which everyone stared at the corpse on the high seat. "I winged him, Edge! That was enough to stop him! You didn't have to kill him!"
The half-breed half cocked the Colt and turned the cylinder; thumbed aside the loading gate to extract the spent cartridge case. Then reloaded the revolver with a bullet from his belt. Only when the gun was back in the holster did he look at Herman to reply: "He was mad enough for a flesh wound not to stop him, sheriff. But that's beside the point, far as I'm concerned. Told him if he drew against me he'd have to kill me." Then
he shifted his gaze, the slits of ice blue not glinting so brightly now the killing was done, to look at the massively built Max Webster. And asked, "Be much obliged if you'd have my horse taken care of, feller."
Max, with a confused frown, looked to his sister for guidance, and the sour-faced Polly urged, "Do as our new guest asks, Max."
"Hey, you gonna let this gunfighter get away with blastin' John into hell, Mr. Herman?" the driver asked bitterly.
"Clear case of self-defense," the lawman answered in a similar tone, and thrust the Remington back in its holster.
"But like you said, you winged him and John wouldn't've—"
"Get him down off of there and roll your rig outta here!" the sheriff cut in. "And let's everybody else attend to their own business!"
He glowered around at his fellow citizens and also included the passengers in the dictate with a dismissive gesture of his now empty gun hand.
Along both stretches of the street and at the intersections of the cross streets, a far larger audience had begun to form, drawn by the three gunshots.
Herman was the first to withdraw from the scene of violence, and began to snarl negative retorts to the queries that were voiced by those too late on the scene to see what had happened. Then, when the passengers got aboard the Concord and urged the driver to hurry to do what was ordered of him, the other local citizens moved off—most of them anxious to relate their version of events.
This as Max Webster came down off the hotel stoop and unhitched the horse while Edge and the dog stepped up and crossed the boarding to enter the lobby. Where, on the other side of the room crowded with overstuffed furniture and luxuriantly growing potted plants, Polly Webster stood behind a desk in an alcove. Flushed and breathing heavily, as if from a period of hard exertion—hard, but enjoyably exciting, since she seemed to be having difficulty in keeping a smile of satisfaction off her normally soured face.
"Room seven, which I can't say is the best in the house, Mr. Edge," she said breathlessly. "Because they are all equally good."
"It's the only one available, Miss Webster?" he asked as he zigzagged among the close-packed furnishings.
"We have no other guests at present, Mr. Edge. And please call me Polly. This is a very friendly hotel."
"That's nice, Miss Webster," he said as he reached the front of the desk and she took a key off a row of eight numbered hooks. "That the room that's next to yours?"
She smiled. "It can get to be a very friendly hotel if. . ."
Her face was suddenly at its most sour as the start of a smile was wiped away, caused by Edge ignoring the proffered key to lean over the desk and take the one off the hook numbered 1.
"Figure this is the key to the room furtherest from yours, lady?"
"What's the matter with you, mister? Is a gun all you can shoot?"
He smiled and tipped his hat as he answered, "Keep thinking the worst of me and you could get lucky, Miss Webster."
"What the hell are you talking about?" she demanded.
"I get to make enemies easier than I make friends."
Chapter Nine
Edge, with the dog close on his heels, moved out of the lobby, along a dark hallway to the rear of the building, and up a flight of steps that angled toward the front. Followed numbered doors until he found that marked 1. The room was scrupulously clean, spartanly furnished, and very cold, with a small window that overlooked the alley between the hotel and the stage-line depot.
There was a single bed, a free-standing closet, a chair, a bureau, and a strip of carpet. Plain white walls with nothing hung on them and a whitened ceiling with a kerosene lamp suspended from its center. Beneath the blankets the linen was crisp and immaculately white. And in the top drawer of the bureau there was a Bible that looked as if it had never been opened. There was no dust, even inside the drawer.
The German shepherd sat close to the door whining his dislike of the confined space, and watched with sad eyes as Edge surveyed the contents of the room. His investigation completed, the half-breed turned the cane chair away from the window and sat facing the door. The dog moved across to sit beside him, thumping his tail on the floor a few times to register approved of the way his neck fur was being ruffled by one brown-skinned hand.
The left hand, which allowed the right to rest on the chair arm, ready to go inside the sheepskin coat and draw the Frontier Colt again should this be necessary.
After perhaps three minutes, footfalls sounded on the stairway and then the landing. The heavy footfalls of a man. They approached the door of Room 1 and halted. Knuckles rapped on the panel and Max Webster called:
"It's Max, Mr. Edge. Got your saddle and stuff. Okay to come in?"
Edge answered, "Sure thing," and although he showed no sign, tensed to reach for the holstered gun as he heard the latch rattle and then watched the door swing inwards.
The big man, with the half-breed's gear held easily under one arm, needed to duck his head to get through the doorway. And when he reused it again, it was to show that his face wore an expression of firm resolution. He dropped the gear on the floor and asked, as he closed the door, "Okay to dump it here, sir?"
The courtesy title did not match the look on his unintelligent face.
"Sure, Max. Just me being in here makes the place untidy, so why not—"
"Yeah, Polly's real house proud. Got this hatred for dirt. I'll be bringin' you up some water in a pitcher after, sir."
"After what, Max?"
In collecting so much brawn, it seemed that Max Webster had missed out on his full complement of brains. And Edge's comment and his response had sidetracked him from whatever he had felt needed to be said or done when he first entered the room.
"Oh, yeah, sir. Want you to know that you killin' that guy off the stage don't make me afraid of you."
The tension had begun to drain out of Edge, but now he got ready again to move his right hand to the butt of the revolver as he replied: "That was personal between Cox and me, feller. Wasn't meant to be—"
"So don't you try no funny business with my sister, sir. Or I'll make you regret the day you ever came to Lakeview." He wrapped the palm of his right hand over the fist of his left and made the knuckles crack one at a time.
"What if she sets her cap at me, Max?"
"You tell her no, sir. And you either go see Rita down at the Treasure House or you take a swim in Mirror Lake. You know what I mean, sir?"
"Sure thing, Max."
"That's good, sir. I'll go bring the water now. Leave it outside the door for you to get when you're ready. In case you don't wanna be disturbed. You have a nice stay with us, you hear?"
Edge nodded.
The big man opened the door and ducked his head to step out of the room. Then paused to look back, a sheepish expression on his face, as he said: "Ain't got nothin' against you, sir. Tell it to every stranger that comes to Lakeview. Same as I've warned off every man that lives around here. Man crazy she is, and I ain't gonna let her get to be like that Rita Cornell down at the saloon."
Edge nodded again and Max went off the threshold, closed the door, and moved away down the landing and then the stairs. After which, the only sounds to be heard were muffled by distance into a low, murmuring hum comprised of all kinds of noises made by the citizens of Lakeview engaging their early-afternoon activities.
After listening to the background sound for a few moments, the half-breed moved from the chair to the bed and stretched out on his back. He heard Max approach and then withdraw as he delivered the promised pitcher of water.
The dog padded across to the door and curled up in front of it, ears pricked for any suspicious sounds while his eyes gazed unblinkingly at the man on the bed. Edge had now tipped his hat forward to cover his face, not to encourage sleep, for he needed none after his better than eight hours of rest in the cabin across the lake. Instead, as an aid to concentration while he reflected on the recent past and endeavored to find some logic in the way h
e had responded to outside influences.
Barney Galton had willed him the claim, and his time spent working it and sharing the isolated existence with the big German shepherd had been fine. Perhaps there had not been a better time since his tragically short marriage to Beth when they worked the Dakotas farm together.
He grunted into the semidarkness under the Stetson, not wanting to delve that far back into the past. The dog raised his head and cocked it, as if expecting the sound to be followed by a command. But no word was spoken and the animal misinterpreted the grunt for a snore, rose, and padded back to the bed. Where he sat down and rested his head on the bedcovers.
94
This as the half-breed's face, heavily bristled with a half day's growth of beard, grimaced under the hat, the expression triggered by the recollection of how he had allowed Ralph and Janet Galton to take over the claim unscathed, despite the aggressiveness of their approach to him.
The lines of the grimace, hidden to the intelligent eyes of the dog, deepened into the heritage and element-browned skin of the lean face. This as his mind conjured up a series of vivid images so that he relived his fatal run-in with the young John Cox. Who might not have died had the day started better for Edge.
The German shepherd put a paw on the bed and laid his ears back, expecting to be ordered down. But the man made no sound outside of his regular intake and exhalation of breath. So the dog came half off his haunches, extended the other front paw, and slithered rather than jumped on the bed. To lay alongside Edge, still disconsolately expectant of a harsh-voiced order for several seconds. Then sighed with relief certain the man was asleep and unaware that he had canine company on the bed.
Edge had no regret about taking another life. The kid off the stage had insulted the Mexican side of the half-breed and been paid out for that with a bad scare. And he had been warned about drawing his gun. One of the few rules that Edge lived by insisted that Cox die for ignoring that warning. All that was questionable was the degree of the scare and its parallel humiliation, which had caused the kid to go for the Winchester.
EDGE: The Killing Claim Page 7