Edge struck a match on the stock of the Winchester as von Scheel climbed awkwardly up to the driver’s seat and stabbed a pudgy finger at a point on the map some ten miles from where the marked route ended.
‘We are here, Herr Edge. I intended to be much closer to my destination by this time, but the horses were tired by the steep climb. And while they rested, I myself fell asleep. If you had not approached, I would perhaps still be sleeping.’
The half breed folded the map, and inserted it back where he had found it. ‘You figure to do good business beautifying women at a mission, feller?’
The German picked up the reins. ‘It is all right ve leave now?’
‘It’s your rig. I’m just along for the ride.’
Von Scheel nodded and flicked the reins as he released the brake lever. ‘And I am pleased you are vith me. There are Apache Indians in this area. If there is trouble vith them, ve can protect each other, Ja?’
The wagon rolled forward, along a just discernible trail that followed the line of the cliff rim some twenty feet back from it
‘Your rig and team are all that appeal to me about you, feller,’
The German scowled. ‘But ve are both white men, Herr Edge. Surely if hostile redskins attempted to halt us, you vould—’
‘Do my damnedest to stay alive and make them regret they ever laid eyes on me. Guess Santa Luiz isn’t just a mission anymore, uh?’
Von Scheel shot a sidelong look of disgust at Edge, then nodded and concentrated on the trail ahead. ‘That is right. I vas told in Santa Fe about this place. It vas left to decay many years ago by the Mexican priests after three of their number vere murdered by Apache Indians. Then, three years ago, some vhite people - Americans - came there. Sick people from the cities in the east. They came for the dry climate vhich is good for their health. Old people, you understand. Many more have come since those first ones.’
‘And old ladies are more in need of that sweet smelling junk in the back than young ones,’ Edge added evenly.
A smile with undertones of avariciousness wreathed the fleshy face of the German. ‘There is no voman so vain as an old voman, mein herr. And also they have had more time in vhich to accumulate vealth vith vhich to buy my merchandise.’
He glanced at Edge and the lack of response to his smiling good mood caused it to fade.
‘People may buy or not, as they choose. And it is an honest business I am in,’ von Scheel said quickly, defensively.
Edge wrinkled his nose and blew out a stream of tobacco smoke. ‘My opinion is your business stinks, feller.’
‘Mein herr, I carry only the finest perfumes and cosmetics manufactured by the best factories in Europe and—’
‘Save the sales pitch for the old biddies down the trail,’ Edge cut in. He rested his booted feet on the top of the boarding in front of him and slid down into a more comfortable posture on the seat, tilting his hat forward so that its brim cast more shade over his eyes. ‘I ain’t in the market for what you got to sell.’
‘I thought you vanted to talk,’ the driver snapped.
‘Just about Santa Luiz, feller. And since you ain’t been there before, don’t figure you can tell me what I want to know about it.’
‘Vhat is that?’
‘If there’s a place there that sells horses.’
‘That I do not know, mein herr?’
‘Like I just said, I figured.’
For awhile, von Scheel seemed to be uneasy with the verbal silence as the horses clopped unhurriedly along the old trail hauling the creaking wagon behind them. But then he became as content as his taciturn passenger with the lengthening pause in conversation. Although he was far less philosophical about the dust raised by the horses and the sweat that the afternoon heat erupted on his face! He constantly brushed his jacket and pants, and mopped at his flesh with the handkerchief, after rasping low keyed German curses at the causes of his irritation.
Edge surveyed the terrain over which they moved. They were away from the top of the escarpment now, rolling south west along the barren bottom of a rocky valley, the monotony of the sandstone relieved here and there by clumps of dusty brush and the occasional cactus growing in stately isolation. Notable by their absence from the cloudless sky were buzzards, and the half breed grimaced briefly as he considered an image of the ugly birds squabbling in their greed to tear and claw at the flesh of the horse carcass, eager to gorge deeply inside the gelding and find the gory entrails.
‘Mein Gott, an Apache Indian!’ the German blurted suddenly, moving to snap the reins above the backs of the two horses.
Edge reached out his free hand and fastened it around one of von Scheel’s wrists. ‘That one on the skewbald top of the valley to the right, feller?’
‘Ja!’
‘He’s been shadowing us from ahead ever since we started through here. No sense in worrying unless him and a whole lot more get a deal closer.’
Some of the tension eased out of the German with a sigh and Edge released his hold on him. ‘You have experience vith the Indian race?’
‘Had the occasional run in with them. So far always came out winning. Except with the Sioux up in the Dakotas, I guess.’
Von Scheel was spending more time looking up, squint eyed, at the Apache brave riding along the top of the valley side than at the trail ahead.
‘You drive, feller,’ Edge instructed evenly. ‘I’ll take care of the shotgun end.’
The German gave almost his full attention to keeping the team moving in the right direction, sparing just the occasional glance toward the Indian who for a long time had made no secret of his presence.
‘Vhat happened in the Dakotas? Vith the Sioux?’
‘My business.’
‘But you spoke of it first!’ von Scheel complained, irritated again.
Edge pursed his lips and blew between them. ‘Yeah, I did didn’t I? Got so used lately to only talking to a horse. He never asked questions.’
The Sioux had been responsible for the horrifying death of Beth Hedges. At a time when the man called Edge was trying to revert to the identity he was born and bred to.
The way he had started out was as an Iowa farm boy and when the War Between the States shattered the country, he fought for the Union, never certain if he would survive, but sure that if he did he would return to the farmstead and continue to work it as before. But his ruling fates dictated otherwise.
When former Captain Josiah C. Hedges of the Union cavalry rode away from the battlegrounds of the east, he was riding a trail that was destined to lead him into a west where he would never be able to forget the lessons of war - if he was to survive.
His crippled kid brother Jamie had not taken such lessons for he had been left at home to tend the farm. Alone-for the Hedges boys’ parents were peacefully dead before the start of the war - so that when six of the meanest troopers to ride for the Union reached the farm ahead of the officer who had commanded them, the kid was more than simply outnumbered. He was also outclassed in depravity and brutality.
The buzzards were feeding on his corpse under the shadow of smoke rising from the burning farm buildings when Joe Hedges got home from the war.
He found the killers of his brother and he took his revenge for what they had done, using the lessons of a war that was ended. Which meant that a man who killed his enemy was no longer doing his duty. He was a murderer. In stepping outside the law, Josiah C. Hedges became the man called Edge, unable to return to his home.
Man-made justice never did catch up with him as he accepted his role as a drifter, but his ruling fates punished him to a degree worse than any hangman could have done. The trails he rode were seldom free of violence and death, deprivation and suffering. And, except for an occasional lapse, he came to accept that this was the way it would always be - life itself and the bare essentials for maintaining it were all he would ever have. To simply survive he would have to fight in peacetime more ferociously and with less compassion than during the war. But alone
, sometimes forming alliances of convenience - friendships were doomed to end in anguish.
Then he met and married Elizabeth Day and they set up house on a farm in the Dakotas not unlike the Hedges’ place in Iowa. Edge became Josiah C. Hedges again and the difference went far deeper than a mere change of name. He knew from harsh past experience of the risks he was running in terms of the danger to Beth, and the anguish that would be his if his worst fear was realized.
But as the days went peacefully by in the wake of their marriage, the tension eased. He had spat in the eye of those ruling fates and it seemed they had admitted defeat this time. Or perhaps had agreed that he had suffered enough for past misdeeds.
Then the Sioux came. And by the cruelest twist of all, he was made to feel responsible for the terrible way in which Beth died, draining out of him the last dregs of compassion for his fellow human beings. Convinced he was doomed to be a loner he took the best life could offer when he could get it and cared not at all when the rewards were denied him. Cold, impassive, brutal and lacking in all ambition beyond the desire to survive.
‘Mein herr,’ von Scheel said suddenly as, close to the end of the valley, the Apache brave demanded a gallop from his pony and veered to the side to ride out of sight ‘I have been thinking.’
‘It passes the time, feller.’
“I have been thinking it vas my fault that your horse had the accident.’
Edge nodded as he saw that the trail out of the valley curved in the same western direction the Apache had ridden. Into a forty foot wide ravine with steep sixty feet high walls. An ideal place in which to spring an ambush. ‘I figured that out when I saw him start to slide.’
‘I vill buy you a fresh horse, Herr Edge.’
Another nod. ‘I’d decided that soon as he broke his leg’.
The German scowled as he steered the creaking wagon around the curve of the trail, and spared just a quick glance for the half breed before looking apprehensively up at the rims of the ravine walls. ‘Take care, mein herr,’ he growled. ‘I am beginning to lose patience with your attitude tovards me.’
‘Hang on in there for awhile, feller,’ Edge muttered, pointing toward a two-armed timber signpost set up at a fork in the trail. On which black painted lettering indicated. ‘Santa Luiz 1m’ through the ravine, and ‘Thunder-head 5ms’ along the southern spur.
The German obviously had weak eyesight because it was not until the wagon was passing directly by the signpost that he was able to read what was painted on it. And now he smiled avariciously.
‘Thunderhead vas not marked on the map. But it is a very old map. Another town. More business. Is good.’
The wagon rolled into the ravine where the heat of the day trapped between the walls felt more uncomfortable than out in the open valley. Von Scheel began to work harder at brushing the dust from his clothing and mopping the sweat off his face.
Edge sat up straighter on the seat and gripped the Winchester across his thighs a little more tightly, his narrowed eyes shifting from the tops of the flanking rock faces to the trail. A trail that seemed to lead nowhere as it rose gently toward a restricted horizon of clear blue sky at the ravine’s end, some two hundred yards away.
There was no ambush and at the crest of the rise through the ravine a broad, panoramic expanse of solid terrain came into view, with Santa Luiz as its centerpiece.
The former Mexican mission was a little over a half mile distant in the base of a dish of land encircled by sandstone ridges, with the tops of the ravine the highest points. There was a barren grandeur in the erosion shaped formation of the surrounding hills and an incongruous beauty in what mankind had made of the settlement within them, aided by nature in the ready supply of water.
For water there had to be in plentiful quantities to sustain the lush vegetation that was the first thing the two men aboard the wagon noticed about Santa Luiz. There was grass, trees that were not all native to the high desert country, and many patches of colorful flowering shrubs. The green foliage and the multi-hued blooms contrasted pleasantly with the stark whiteness of the buildings.
The oldest of these buildings, showing the weathering signs of much time, was the mission church, long and low with a square bell tower at the eastern end. This was sited at the end of the trail over which the newcomers were approaching with, in front of it, a broad plaza flanked by newer buildings of the same adobe construction.
The largest patch of grass was to the north of the mission, featured with several flourishing trees scattered at random and two rows of neat white crosses to mark the graves of the dead. But each of the smaller buildings stood on a plot of land which was cultivated, with lawns and flower beds out front and vegetable gardens to the rear.
There were ten of these houses along each side of the plaza and as the wagon rolled closer it could be seen that only half a dozen of them were recently built. The others were as old as the church but had been lovingly renovated.
‘Vhere are all the people?’ von Scheel muttered, nervous again, as he steered the wagon off the trail and on to the plaza which had a grove of aspens at its centre with rustic benches placed in the shade of the trees.
‘They’re around,’ the half breed answered softly, aware of the signs of much movement on the dusty surface of the plaza. He spat into the dust. ‘Seems they don’t have much use for horses, though.’
A great many booted feet had left impressions on the ground. There were few hoofprints and all of these had been made by unshod animals.
The German reined in the team beside the aspens and asked raspingly out of the corner of his mouth, ‘So vhere are they?’
He looked intently in every direction, even leaning to the side to peer back at the trail sloping down from the ravine. While Edge, who had a well honed instinct for such things, gazed unblinkingly at the closed doorway in the base of the church bell tower.
‘I’m here to buy and he’s come to sell!’ the half breed shouted.
After the wagon had come to rest, total silence was clamped over Santa Luiz and the surrounding countryside. All that moved for stretched seconds were shadows, lengthening to the dictates of the sun sinking down the late afternoon sky. Edge’s sudden, loud voiced announcement triggered a gasp of shock from the throat of von Scheel. Less pronounced were a series of smaller sounds made by the just as startled people gathered in the church.
‘Nothing else!’ the tall, lean man added less stridently, as he half rose and jumped easily down off the wagon. He canted the Winchester to his shoulder and reached up to get the rest of his gear.
There was talk inside the church now. Enough of it to capture the attention of the German drummer.
‘I do not like this,’ he said tensely.
‘They know how you feel,’ Edge told him and then both of them looked across a hundred feet of plaza as the door of the church creaked open. And three elderly men shuffled over the threshold, unarmed and showing on their time crinkled faces the same brand of nervousness which moments before had a grip on von Scheel.
For a few seconds, while the old timers and the strangers to Santa Luiz eyed each other, a subdued splashing of constantly falling water could be heard from within the church.
‘Iffen that’s the truth, then welcome here,’ the tallest and thinnest of the old men said. ‘Though us folks ain’t in need of anythin’ to buy. Ain’t got much of anythin’ to sell, either.’
‘You men’d be better off goin’ to Thunderhead,’ the old timer with a pronounced limp in his left leg advised coldly. ‘If it’s business you’re after doin’.’
‘Come mornin’, Lloyd,’ a woman said quickly as she emerged from the church doorway and swung around the trio of men to step busily toward the wagon, a bright and friendly smile on her sallow complexioned face. It’s a long ways from anywhere to here so I reckon you young fellers are mighty weary. Be fed and housed by us for the night and go to that awful place refreshed tomorrow.’
‘That is most kind of you, mein frau?’ von Scheel
responded effusively, as he clambered awkwardly down from the wagon on the same side as Edge. And when he was on the ground, clicked his heels together and bowed stiffly from the waist. ‘I Fritz von Scheel, vill most certainly accept your generous invitation.’
The tension reinforced by hostility which Edge had sensed emanating from inside the church when he first became aware that people were gathered there, had virtually subsided to nothing by the time the seventy year old woman reached the wagon, and was girlishly flattered when the German took her right hand, raised it and kissed it.
But then a man shouted a single word. And a rifle shot shattered the embryonic atmosphere of trust in the wake of suspicion that was settling over Santa Luiz.
The bullet came closest to tunneling through the flesh of the grey haired old woman, cracking over her thin shoulder and then speeding between Edge and von Scheel before it buried itself in the plaza with a puff of disturbed dust.
Edge did not have to see where the lead came to rest in order to get a line on the point from which it was fired. For as he watched the people emerging from the church in the wake of the old woman, he had glimpsed a spurt of grey muzzle smoke through the east facing aperture at the top of the bell tower. Recognizing it for what it was he had dropped his gear and was in process of bringing the Winchester down from his shoulder before the report sounded.
On the periphery of his vision, as exclamations of shock were voiced from many throats, he saw the German hurl away the old woman’s hand and throw himself into the cover of the nearest team horse as he reached under his coat.
‘Get down, lady!’ Edge snarled.
The woman, terror supplanting the shock which had swept away the smile, was about to turn around and run for the church.
The half breed took a single long stride toward her, and hooked his leading foot to one of her ankles. Became rigid, with the rifle aimed and cocked, as she fell hard to the ground with a cry of alarm and pain.
EDGE: Massacre Mission Page 2