“Get up slow, señor,” he was told. “Like you were in a tub of black treacle.”
Edge did so, heard a grunt and felt the knife snatched from its sheath at the back of his belt. Edge only removed his clothes and weapons when he took a bath or made love. He looked into the grinning face of each Mexican, saw in their dark eyes the enjoyment they were deriving from the violence and their triumph. They were hopeful he would make a play. One of them took a cigarillo from behind his ear, ignited it: took a fresh one and lodged it in the resting place vacated by the first. “We are robbing the bank,” the other one said in a conversational tone as the shooting died down outside, finally ended.
“Never did trust those places,” Edge said. “Bankers ain’t going to do much to protect other people’s money.”
“You’re the law, you should protect the bank,” the man with the cigarillo pointed out.
“How many are you?” Edge asked.
“Twenty, led by El Matador.”
Edge grinned coldly. “I figure the money’s yours,” he said.
They both grinned. “I think this is a wise man, Juan,” one said.
“Wise men live longer,” replied the second. “But not very much longer.”
They both laughed. Then, while the smoker leaned his rump against the desk and kept his rifle trained steadily upon Edge’s chest, the other started to search the office, opening drawers and cupboards and spilling their contents haphazardly across the floor. With each discovery of what was to him worthless rubbish, his expression darkened. Even after he had found the key to the safe his mood did not return to its former humor. For there was only a half-empty bottle of whiskey inside and when he had taken a long pull at it, was no nearer finding any money.
So he ceased the search and came to stand directly in front of Edge. He was shorter than the big, lean man, but his fellow bandit’s rifle more than compensated this physical disadvantage.
“You don’t trust banks, señor,” he said softly, hardly moving his lips. “So where you keep your money?”
Edge treated him to a mean grin. “I’m a lawman,” he said. “Not a bandit. I don’t have any money.”
The Mexican’s hand lashed out and the back of it thudded into Edge’s face. Edge did not so much as blink an eye.
“Not so wise, señor, I think you are going to die. Maybe it could be easy, or maybe hard. You get wise again, and we make it easy.” He reached up a grimed finger and prodded Edge just above the ear. “Here a bullet is good. Here, not so good.” He jabbed Edge with a short, powerful fist into the lower belly.
Escaping air whooshed out of Edges mouth, but he made no other sound. The Mexican rubbed his knuckles, bruised by the hard ridge of stomach muscles. The other bandit, while he kept the rifle leveled, allowed his gaze to wonder about the office and his face was suddenly wreathed by a grin again as his eyes fastened upon a loose board high on one wall.
“Juan,” he called softly.
The other looked at him with irritation, saw him motion with the cigarillo towards the board.
“What you think?”
Juan snapped his attention back to Edge, caught a sudden angry narrowing of the slit eyes.
“I think we found it,” Juan said and moved quickly, dragging a chair across the floor and climbing on to it. He tore aside the board and gave a yell of delight as he saw the bills stacked on a joist. “Such a rich lawman,” he said, clawing the money from its hiding place. “I think when I retire from being a bandit I become sheriff in a gringo town.”
Even two thousand five hundred wasn’t worth dying for in Edge’s book. But Jamie had died for two thousand of it, and the death of his kid brother put the matter in a different light. Not to die for. But to take the risk. At a time when the risk was worth taking.
“What are you doing in there?”
The voice came from the now quiet street, authoritative, speaking the kind of Spanish Edge had learned from his father.
“We found the sheriff had a bank of his own,” Juan shouted in reply.
“Outside.”
The smoker dropped his cigarillo and mashed it beneath his boot, jabbed the rifle muzzle viciously into Edge’s side.
“You heard what El Matador said,” he commanded. “Move.”
“And I guess he ain’t talking bull,” Edge answered, and moved.
CHAPTER THREE
THE bandits were formed into a half circle of defense across the front of the sheriff’s office, menacing an otherwise empty street. The dead Norman Chase was inside the defenses, the trampled saloon whore outside. Also inside was El Matador and Torres each with a bulging canvas sack at his feet. Edge, emerging in front of the guns of the two men who had disarmed him, took in the scene at a glance, had to do a double take at the bandit leader to check that he was not a child, so small was he. But he saw in the dark brown face a kinship with the set of his own features and he knew this was a man who had lived with violence.
Matador also sensed an affinity and he seemed to find it confusing. His dark eyes fastened on the face of Edge for a short moment, flicked to Juan.
“How much you find?” he demanded.
Edge looked over the heads of the half circle of bandits, searching for a sign of retaliation from the town. He did not expect it, but one had to take account of the unexpected. At the first sign of trouble the sheriff would be blasted, so Edge figured he had to anticipate the moves if he wanted a chance of survival.
“Many hundreds of dollars,” Juan said with pride, pulling a handful of samples from inside his shirt. “Maybe thousands.” The exchange had been in Spanish. Now Matador looked at Edge with a kind of respect, and spoke English. “You are a crooked lawman?” he asked.
“I am not a lawman,” Edge replied in Spanish, his knowledge of the language providing the bandit leader with another jolt of surprise. “Somebody killed the real sheriff. I killed the killer. The town gave me a job.”
“At such a salary?” In Spanish.
“No.”
Matador did not like the single negative. Then he shrugged. “No matter. We do not care where the money comes from. Just so long as it comes to us. Dinero has no allegiance.”
Edge did not answer, and Matador didn’t like this, either. He leaned forward to open the mouth of the sack and indicated that Juan should bring his find and deposit it with the money from the bank. As he did so, several of the bandits on guard duty shuffled their feet restlessly and licked their lips, greedy eyes watching the bills fall into the sack. Others paid no attention, but maintained their concentration on the street. It was too quiet: there was hanging over the town the kind of silence that portends danger and the more sensitive members of the band could feel this and it made them nervous. Edge watched the money going into the sack: old, loose bills that fluttered in the still, morning air. Juan stepped back with a finality of movement, grinning and waiting expectantly for a word of praise. Matador merely waved him away as he pulled the cord to close the mouth of the sack. Edge ran his, eyes over the figure of Juan, trying to spot where he had concealed the solid block of five hundred dollars which had been his bounty for killing his brother’s murderers. He decided it had to be in the folds of his loose fitting shirt.
Matador turned his back upon Edge and looked to left and right along the street, between the ring of bandits. His voice was loud, his English heavily accented, but good.
“You people got nothing to gain from causing us trouble,” he shouted. “We’re leaving now ‘cause we got what we came for. We take your sheriff and anyone shoots, we blast him to hell. Then we set fire to every building in this town and we take every woman who don’t look like a horse. We rape them, then we slice them up. You figure out if that’s worth the lives of a few lousy Mexican bandits.”
Several bandits who understood English laughed, perhaps to prove to themselves they were unmoved by their leader’s easy insult. “Bring the horses,” Matador called in Spanish and two of the band came from the rear of the Rocky Mountain Saloon, l
eading the mounts of the rest. The men mounted in small groups, so that there was always a number of guns primed for trouble. There was no horse for Edge. Torres swung astride his mount, hefting the sack in front of him. Then Matador.
“Out to the head of the line,” the leader instructed, drawing and waving a Colt.
Edge sighed and stepped down off the sidewalk, went to the center of the street and halted, looked over his shoulder to see his personal guard mount. Matador holstered his revolver and pointed the foreign scatter gun.
“Now you walk, lawman,” the leader commanded. “This gun is not new, but it has lost none of its power. Anybody else who tries to stop us, I will blow off your head with it. If you attempt to escape, I will aim lower and death will be much slower. Move.”
Edge began to walk and Matador allowed him a space of ten yards before urging his horse forward. His men followed as a group behind him, eyes roving the buildings on each side, glancing ahead and back it might have been a ghost town. In front, nothing. Behind, the settling dust raised by the many hoofs: until a shape broke from cover and the bandit at the end of the line raised his rifle, finger shaking so much he missed the trigger. Then a nervous giggle erupted from his lips as he saw the big white dog dash across the street.
CRACK.
The shot seemed to tremble the air over the whole town and Edge tensed his entire body for the stinging impact of whatever was loaded into Matador’s blunderbuss. But no bandit had fallen and they did not break stride as they glanced back down the street. The big white dog lay on its side, its snout still buried into the bloody pulp inside the opened skull of Norman Chase. A wisp of smoke rose from an open second-story window of the hotel.
“I thought Americans loved dogs,” Matador said. “You live a little longer, señor,”
When they had ridden clear of the town by some two hundred yards, Matador called a halt. Edge turned to face the band.
“You ride now,” the leader told Edge.
“Why we not killed him here,” Juan said. “They will not come after us.”
Matador’s eyes narrowed. “Who is your leader?” he asked softly and Juan’s expression became sullen under the steady stare.
“You are, El Matador,” he answered, hanging his head.
Matador nodded, looked at Edge and pointed to Juan. “You ride with him. Here, beside me.”
Juan heeled his mount forward, halted her so that Edge could. swing up behind him. Matador raised his hand and the band moved off again, heading south in no haste. One of the men at the back began to whistle tunelessly. Edge rode with his arms wrapped around the waist of the man in the saddle, but kept his face averted, diminishing the effect of Juan’s rancid smell.
“Where did you learn to speak our language?” Matador asked suddenly after they had rode in silence for some time.
“From my father,” Edge answered, annoyed that his line of thought had been interrupted. He had been watching Matador, noting the casual way he carried the Turkish gun, the looseness of the Colt in the holster on his side. He thought he could slit Juan’s throat, grab the two guns and blast Matador from the saddle: maybe take 22 two other men with the Colt before he went down under a hail of bullets. There was no chance for survival, of course. But, perhaps in another plan, his life was not so worthless. Just one bandit would die now. Edge decided he had the patience to wait his time for the rest.
“You speak it well,” Matador said in a conversational tone. “Your father was a good teacher of the language.”
“He spoke it like a native,” Edge replied.
Matador looked deep and long at Edge as they jogged along. Then he nodded. “You have the look of Mexico in your face, señor … what is your name?”
“They call me Edge.”
“Your father was Mexican?”
Edge nodded.
“Not your mother?”
“No.”
“You do not have a Mexican name.”
“It’s a long story.”
Matador raised his hand and reined in his horse. They had reached a point on the trail south where a dried-up creek bed curved in from the west.
“It is a pity you do not have the time to tell it,” Matador said, glancing back over his shoulder. The horizon was shrouded in a heat mirage which cloaked Peaceville as effectively as a heavy mist. His eyes fastened back upon Edge’s face. “I think you understand why I cannot let you live,” he said and Edge thought he detected a note of apology in the voice. He decided it had to be Matador’s brand of humor.
“Your men wouldn’t like it,” Edge said as Juan tried to break the grip around his waist, anxious to get clear of the agony that was to blast in a wide angle from the evil-looking blunderbuss.
Matador made a deep-throated sound of disgust. “I do not consult this scum when I make a decision,” he said and glowered back at his men to see the effect of this new insult. To a man they grinned at him in a collective parody of good humor. “They represent no threat to me,” he said, turning his attention to Edge. “But you, señor Edge.” He drew in his breath, “You are different. I see in your face a look I could fear if I understood what fear was. I let you live and I think I would spend much, time looking over my shoulder.”
“That bothers you?” Edge asked evenly, getting a forceful whiff of evil origin as fresh sweat broke from Juan to reactivate the staleness of the old.
Matador shook his head. “No, it does not bother me. Except that one time I might not look over my shoulder. And you are a man who would not shrink from shooting an enemy in the back.”
“It’s safer that way,” Edge said as the blunderbuss was raised and leveled. “Maybe I could buy my life.”
Matador halted his movement, narrowed eyes showing bewilderment mingled with suspicion. “We have already taken your money.”
“Not all of it,” Edge said, maintaining his vice-like grip on the trembling Juan.
“How much more you got?”
Edge pursed his lips. “Five hundred dollars. Maybe a few loose bills.”
“Where?”
Edge suddenly released his grip and streaked a hand inside Juan’s shirt, popping buttons. The bandit released a sound of horror as the hand came out holding the block of money. Throughout the ride it had been held pressed against Juan’s sweating side by Edge’s forearm. It smelled of the man.
“Here,” Edge said.
Matador’s cruel eyes flashed from the money to the face of Juan. Every muscle in the bandit’s body was trembling and his mouth worked soundlessly for several moments as he struggled to hold his leader’s withering gaze.
“I did not know,” he managed to gasp finally. “El Matador, please. As soon as I found it hiding in my clothes I would have given it to you.”
“Give it to me now,” Matador demanded his voice as hard as the rosewood stock he gripped.
Sobbing, Juan snatched the block of dollars from Edge’s hand and reached out towards his leader. Edge looked on without breathing, his eyes narrowed to the merest slits, knowing that a miscalculation by a split second could end his life. Chances were he would die anyway, but self-preservation is an instinct that refused to accept defeat.
At the moment he saw Matadors finger whiten at the knuckle curled around the trigger, Edge pushed himself backwards, his seat sliding over the hind-quarters of Juan’s horse. He heard the gun explode into thunderous sound and felt a searing pain beside his right eye before the sun went out and empty darkness enfolded him. He did not know that a piece of ball shot had smashed into his face, causing a gush of blood: he did not feel his limp body thud into the ground at the edge of the trail and slide down to become an inert, face-down shape in the stream bed.
Neither did he see Juan catch the full blast of the blunderbuss load on the side of his head; the great shower of blood, mangled flesh and shattered bone; the horse bolts forward with its dead rider still mounted, head hanging at a crazy angle and attached to the body by a few strands of lifeless tissue.
Nor the block of b
ills as it sailed up into the air with a death spasm of a hand, to be neatly caught by the impassive, pock-marked Torres, who thrust the money into his sack. Matador looked from the bolting horse to Edge, his eyes showing satisfaction. He patted the elaborately decorated stock of his weapon.
“I think maybe I killed two birds with one stone as the gringos say,” he muttered in English. “One a jackdaw and one an eagle.” He raised his hand. “We ride.”
This last in Mexican. They went at the gallop.
CHAPTER FOUR
EDGE accepted the facts of what had happened to him that morning without experiencing anger. As he raised himself from out of the shade of the boulder and started back down the trail towards Peaceville, his face was a mask of cold emptiness, blank of any expression. His mind was laid as waste as his features for there was nothing with which it could work. El Matador had robbed him and El Matador was a Mexican who would ride south across the border. The decision was made. He needed his horse, his guns and his knife and Edge would go south.
The town was still in a state of shock from the violence of its early morning waking. Its citizens went about their normal business with the unhurried movements of people in a daze. Physical signs of the bandit raid were in the process of being erased as a group of men worked at repairing the hole in the rear of the bank, householders and businessmen fixed broken windows and, in the church the priest tolled the death knell as two gravediggers sweated outside.
As Edge started down the street, heading for the sheriff’s office, he became the object of shocked recognition which quickly transformed into expressions of mute accusation. He should have been dead: that he was not indicated a sell-out. And men like El Matador did not enter into deals without strong reasons.
Ten Grand Page 2