"Like to buy the dead man's horse."
Cash suddenly grinned and glanced at the stallion which was now standing calmly beyond where the body of his former rider was crumpled. He ignored his wife who was now as silent and almost as unmoving as the dead man six feet away from where she lay.
"Ill wind, ain't it?"
"How much?"
Cash looked briefly and contemptuously at the undernourished gelding. "Guess old Clyde's mount is the only halfway decent horse around for a whole lot of miles, mister."
He was half-turned away from where his wife lay, half-turned toward Edge. Edge did not move a muscle in his face and revealed no tensing of his body as he glimpsed the woman reach out a hand toward Bodelle's discarded Colt, the hammer of which was still cocked.
"Spare me the sales talk about supply and demand, - feller. How much?"
The woman had to stretch her arm to the full extent of its reach, and her fingers likewise.
"You after bounty or runnin'?"
"Neither."
She fisted a filthy hand around the butt.
"See, it's a matter of how much you can afford to pay, mister. Bounty hunter ridin' south wouldn't have much of a stake. Man on the run might be runnin' with a big roll."
"Name your price."
She lifted the gun no more than an inch above the ground and showed by the tacit plea in her eyes that she was aware Edge knew of her intention.
"Can you afford a hundred?"
"I can afford it. Ain't prepared to pay it, though."
Flo's face was tense now, sweat drops standing out from every pore as she inched her arm around. And drew a bead on the broad back of her husband.
"So no deal," Cash answered. He made to turn away from the half-breed, but was a fraction of a second too late.
The gun exploded and bucked in the fisted right hand of the woman, and sent a bullet smashing through
Cash's right hand and into his hip as he saw the aimed Colt and reached for his own revolver.
"Jesus," he rasped as the impact of the shot rocked him on his feet.
Edge took a step to the side and swung the Winchester across his chest, holding it two-handed now.
Cash made to reach across the front of himself and draw the holstered Colt left-handed. But his wife cocked Bodelle's gun and squeezed the trigger again. This bullet took Cash in the belly. The blood it erupted spread across his shirt while that from his wounded hand continued to drop to the dust.
Flo came up into a sitting position, folded her other hand around the gun butt and sent another shot across the ten feet of hot, smoke-smelling air.
Cash took another bullet in the belly, but stayed on his feet. He revealed his strength even further when he took a step toward the woman whose expression of gleeful triumph was abruptly replaced by terror.
"Help me, Edge!" she shrieked. And blasted a fourth shot at her husband.
This bullet hit higher, tearing into and through his left shoulder. It caught him in mid-stride, stopped and half-turned him. The man groaned his pain now, but changed the sound into a roar of rage as he made to advance again.
"Help me!" Flo demanded, shriller.
She screwed her eyes tight closed, cocked the hammer, squeezed the trigger, cocked and squeezed again.
The fifth shot opened up a bloody hole in his right cheek. The sixth missed him, but it was of no consequence. For like all the other bullets, the fifth one was fired on a rising trajectory; it tunneled up through his head and penetrated his brain to kill him.
For long moments after he had crashed to the ground, his widow continued to cock the hammer and squeeze the trigger of the Colt, her sobs masking the series of clicks as the firing pin hit against expended cartridges. She kept this up until Edge went to her, stooped and plucked the empty gun from her hands. Then she screamed.
"No sweat, lady," the half-breed told her. "He's dead."
She curtailed the sound of terror, opened her eyes and stared at the blood-spattered corpse of Jack Cash. At first she was incredulous. Then she grinned her triumph. Next showed a sneer to the tall, lean man towering over her.
"Thanks a whole bunch for the help," she rasped.
"Try never to get involved in family disputes," he answered, dropped the empty gun and went to take a closer look at the two stallions.
But as he examined them, and decided that the mount of Jack Cash was the best, he did not totally ignore the woman. He was aware of her as she got painfully to her feet and shared a new grin of triumph equally between the two dead men.
"Worked out like you planned or better?" he said, uncinching Cash's saddle.
She vented a short, harsh, bitter laugh. "You bet, mister. If you was a woman, would you want either of them to screw you?"
Edge took the long, dead cigarette off his lower lip and arced it to the ground. "Figure if I was a woman, I'd take more care choosing a husband, lady."
"It ain't as simple as that," she flung at him. Then moderated her tone as she watched him cross to get his own saddle, and slide the Winchester into the boot before carrying it to Cash's horse. "Where you headed, Mr. Edge?"
"Place called Mesa del Huracan."
"I know where that is. Can I come with you?"
Edge began to saddle the horse. "Trail's free to anyone who wants to ride it, lady."
"I'm free now," she said huskily, hands on her hips and body provocatively posed, following him with eager eyes as he carried his bedroll from the gelding to the stallion. Flies began to swoop toward the corpses and, high overhead, a group of buzzards started to circle.
"Figure they don't come any cheaper than you."
She was abruptly rigid with rage, her face suddenly dark and heavy with venomous spite. "You're as mean and evil as them two were!" she snarled with a wave of her hand to encompass the pair of bodies on which the flies were feeding. "Without an ounce of common decency in you!"
Edge sighed, nodded and swung up astride his new mount. "You and me both, I figure, lady," he muttered. "And there just ain't no peace for the wicked."
The Woman
In The Blue, The Gray and the Red the flashback sequences were told how Captain Hedges and his men were captured by the Confederates, held in Andersonville Prison and began their escape bid. Chapter Eight of that book begins: "It took Hedges six weeks to fully recover from the effects of his initiation into Andersonville . . ." What follows took place toward the end of this period of recuperation.
Captain Josiah C. Hedges no longer felt any pain from the beating and the long hours of hanging by the wrists from a framework in the center of the Andersonville Prison stockade. This punishment, ordered by Captain Henry Wirz, commandant of the prison, in retribution for the Union officer's leadership of an attempted mass escape, had been inflicted several weeks previously. How many weeks, Hedges did not know because he had been delirious for a great deal of the time.
Not that it mattered. Except for waking, eating and sleeping, time was of little consequence in this hellhole of a prison built on the edge of a Georgia swamp. He realized this from eavesdropping on the sporadic talk among the six men who shared the crude shebang with him; Sergeant Frank Forrest, Corporal Hal Douglas and Troopers Billy Seward, John Scott, Roger Bell and Bob Rhett, a group of the meanest and most vicious killers who had ever worn any kind of uniform in any war anywhere.
But they did not look so tough on this morning when Hedges came silently awake and, for the first time since he was cut down from the punishment frame, was aware of a world that existed beyond the confines of excruciating private agony.
He discovered he was lying on his back on a patch of straw against a tin wall of the shebang. The three other walls were of timber and the roof was formed of an area of canvas stretched taut across the walls. There was no door, just a hole in one of the walls through which sunlight entered, hot and bright. But not only the light of the day came in through the hole, along with the stench of swampland, human waste, bad cooking, smoke, defeat, d
egradation and death. These foul odors mingled with those which were generated by the seven men who shared the cramped space beneath the canvas roof.
The men seemed to have shrunk since the captain had last been aware of seeing them. Cracking his eyes against the cruel brightness of the mid-morning sun and because he did not wish the men to know he was awake and alert, he studied them for a full minute.
They had not shrunk in height, of course, but certainly they had lost a great deal of weight. None of them had ever been fat, but now leanness and strength had given way to something approaching emaciation. Their uniforms looked to be at least two sizes too big for them, the bone structures of their faces were gauntly prominent and their eyes were sunk deep in the sockets. Stubble had grown into beards and their flesh and clothing were filthy.
Each small movement they made and every brief sentence they spoke served to emphasize the low level of weakness to which incarceration and malnutrition had driven them.
And yet Hedges himself felt reasonably well. Weak, certainly, and if he elected to concentrate he could experience a dull ache in his lower belly and other areas of discomfort in muscles which had been punished by the long hours he hung on the frame. And he guessed his flesh contributed as much as anyone else's to the rancid atmosphere within the shebang. But his comparative well-being surely resulted from more than just the enforced rest…
"All right, Bob, go start cook' up some steaks," Forrest growled from where he lay on his back against the wall across from Hedges.
The effeminate New Englander scowled and continued to sit on his haunches beside the hole in the wall. "I wish you wouldn't make jokes about the shit grub we have to eat, Sarge," he whined.
"I wish we didn't have to give the lousy captain the best of the lousy crud we get to eat," Billy Seward rasped.
Hedges eased his eyes fully closed as Seward and Scott and Bell, leaning their backs against one of the wooden walls, shifted their hollow-eyed gazes toward where he lay.
"One more time, Billy," Forrest said as Rhett crawled wearily out through the hole. The non-com's voice was weak, but he managed to inject a familiar note of menace into his tone. "The same for all you lunkheads. Come up with an idea I think gives us half a chance to bust outta this stinkin' joint and I'll be happy to let Captain Josiah Friggin' Hedges waste away in his friggin' sleep."
"I ain't never said nothin' about—" Hal Douglas tried to interrupt.
"You ain't never said nothin' worth a friggin' damn in your whole life!" Forrest cut in on him. "Same as the rest of you guys. Hadn't been for Hedges and me lookin' out for you, not one of you would have made it through the war this far."
"Bein' dead's gotta be better than bein' here," Seward muttered.
"You really want it that way, kid, you let me know," the sergeant countered. "You lost some fat, so after I've choked you to death, we oughta be able to have us some nice lean, real steaks."
Hedges cracked open his eyes again, in time to see Frank Forrest slide the straight razor out of the neck pouch he took from a pants pocket.
"Bob'll really go for a piece of your ass, Billy," Scott said, trying to laugh but ending up coughing.
"Choke, you bastard, choke!" Seward snarled.
As had happened several times earlier since Hedges became aware of his surroundings, the talk came to an abrupt end, the men closing their eyes, sagging their heads and slumping their shoulders, as if the mere act of uttering words sapped their already vastly depleted reserves of stamina.
Hedges closed his own eyes and expended the slight effort necessary to feign continued unconsciousness. He now knew why he did not feel so sick as the men looked and knew also that in this never-before-experienced situation, nothing had changed in his relationship with the men. They were keeping him alive because they needed him. So, for the time being, he was content. To the extent that, against the murmur of sounds which entered the shebang from the stockade beyond, he drifted involuntarily into a deep and natural sleep.
Then he came awake with a start as fingers forced his lips apart and something metallic rapped against his teeth. Instinctively he brought up his hands to defend himself and as he opened his eyes he saw only a blurred image of a man stooped over him.
"Hey, you guys, the captain's back in the land of the livin'."
Hedges recognized the voice of Forrest, then saw the haggard face of the man clearly.
"If you can call this friggin' livin'," Billy Seward growled.
The captain recalled his earlier lucid period of being awake.
"Figure you can handle it yourself," Forrest said, and thrust into Hedges' hand a tin cup. The lip on one side had been hammered out of shape to form a spout.
"What is it?" His own voice sounded reedy to him.
"Somethin' that passes for food in this shithole of a prison camp," John Scott supplied as Forrest crawled to the other side of the shebang and picked up a tin plate and joined the others in eating solid food. There were no irons, so they ate with their fingers.
Hedges rose onto one elbow and sipped at the liquid contents of the mug. It was a thick soup with a distinctive and not entirely unpleasant flavor.
"Better than we got, sir," Bob Rhett amplified without enthusiasm. "We have what the rebs give us. Always arrange something special for you."
"I'm honored," Hedges said wryly, never expecting to be asked how he felt, so not concerned by the embittered tones and soured expressions which greeted his return from prolonged unconsciousness.
"You're right not to grovel your thanks, Mr. Hedges," Forrest muttered. "You know what happened, where you are?"
The captain nodded.
"You've had it easy. Sleepin' all the time. Figure when you find out how bad it is in this lousy pigpen, you'll want out. And if anyone can get out, you can."
"Takin' us with you, of course," Hal Douglas put in.
"You bet," Roger Bell added.
The sunlight shafting through the hole in the wall was abruptly interrupted. All the men looked toward the shebang entrance, but only Hedges expressed interest after a man rasped:
"In you go."
There was a small cry, then a flurry of movement. A stooped figure staggered into the crude shack, forced by a shove from behind, and collapsed to the dirt floor with a groan that encompassed both pain and despair.
"Olsen says thanks for the loan, Mr. Forrest," the man outside called. "He can maybe use the goods again after they been patched up some."
The men laughed and moved away, so that the sunlight poured into the shebang again. Hedges could see clearly the hapless individual who had been tossed across the threshold was a figure clad only in a stinking blanket, this held in place by lengths of rope around the waist and under the armpits. The feet and lower legs and the back of the head were left uncovered, enough to cause Hedges to do a double-take.
"Yeah, you can believe what you see, Captain," Forrest confirmed. "It's female."
Like the others, the sergeant continued to chew without enjoyment on the unappetizing food totally ignoring the woman sprawled on her face in front of them.
"She ain't much," Roger Bell said, "but you oughta be real grateful to her."
"Been your meal ticket, sir," Scott added.
The woman shifted her head, turning it to the side so that Hedges was able to see her face as it emerged from among the strands of matted, long red hair. It was the face of a woman in her late twenties fixed with an expression which told silently of unspeakable suffering. A face with a broad forehead, high cheekbones and blunted jaw, with coal black eyes set deep in hollow sockets, a finely shaped nose and a thin-lipped mouth. The eyes had been cried dry of tears, the mouth was slack and gave a glimpse of discolored teeth and the dirt-ingrained skin was marked with the scars and contusions of old and more recent beatings.
The dark eyes gazed without blinking at the bearded face of the captain and he guessed the woman was trying to transmit an emotion to him but had been drained of the ab
ility to feel anything except abject hopelessness.
"I believe what I see, Sergeant," Hedges said. "You going to tell me what I can't see?"
Forrest thrust a final piece of food into his mouth and chewed on it, grimaced as it went down his throat.
"Rebs tossed her in here two nights after the lights went out for you," he replied around his thumb which probed for a shred of something lodged in his teeth. "Said she was a Union spy and they figured passin' her around the prisoners would make her suffer more than just stringin' her up."
Hedges shifted his slitted eyes briefly to the deathlike face of the punished woman but she expressed no response to Forrest's dull-voiced explanation. "Looks like they were right."
Forrest freed the discomforting piece of food and spat it out. "Guess even the Rebs have to be right sometimes."
"Sure picked the right bunch to give her to."
"You oughta hear Frank out before you climb on your high horse, Mr. Hedges," John Scott growled.
"Yes, sir," Bob Rhett added. "If we didn't make use of the woman the way we did, you'd probably be long dead by now."
Hedges raked his eyes over the face of each of the men and then settled his gaze on the countenance of the sergeant. The grin he saw there revealed that Frank Forrest had won another play against him. He pursed his lips, lowered the back of his head to the straw and looked up at the canvas ceiling.
"You traded her body for my food, uh?"
"Yeah," Seward said, and giggled. "Guess you can say that, in a manner of speakin', you been eatin' pussy."
Nobody laughed.
"There's a man in this pigpen named Olsen," Forrest explained. "A fat slob of a prisoner who lives higher off the hog than the friggin' Rebs guardin' us. For a price, he can get anyone most anythin'. Decent food, liquor, materials to keep the rain outta the shebangs, patent medicines . . . most anythin', 'ceptin' for a woman. We got the woman, so we traded."
"After we sampled the goods ourselves, naturally," Roger Bell put in.
"Not countin' Bob, course," Scott added.
EDGE: A Ride In The Sun (Edge series Book 34) Page 9