Antonio’s wife raised her head and there were tears in her eyes. Through them she seemed to be expressing a plea for understanding. Pedro was breathing fast, his youthful face dripping with the sweat of excitement.
The man with the Sharps was as impassive as the helpless prisoner at his feet.
Isabella did not trust herself to keep her eyes covered and closed. She whirled around to put her back to Edge.
The half-breed’s resignation to the inevitable death that would come from a large caliber bullet in his heart was total. Anger was completely gone. And there was not even the cold ball of fear in the pit of his stomach. Instead, he could look out from under his hooded eyelids, see the rigid stance of the young girl and feel the stirring of sexual arousal.
Isabella could not keep her eyes closed. She stared out through the bars of her fingers from eyes misted by emotion. A sob was caught in her throat and she thought she was going to choke. She blinked and swallowed. Her vision cleared. Then she flung one hand forward and her throat was cleared to give vent to the shrieked words: ‘Madre de Dios - Indio!’
Her father, mother and brother spun around. Edge leaned as far to his right as the ropes allowed, to look between Antonio and Pedro and through the legs of the Montez horses.
For an instant, there was just the one Indian visible, the shape of the brave and his pony distorted by heat shimmer. But then a group of half a dozen or more appeared behind the leader. They were south-west of the wagon, moving slowly along the tracks left by the mounts of Antonio and his wife.
Isabella lowered her hand, then extended it to the side and clasped the hand of her mother. Pedro scuttled across to retrieve the Winchester. He pumped the lever action, unaware he was ejecting a live shell.
‘Senalda, Isabella, Pedro!’ the head of the family snapped. ‘Do not be afraid. Perhaps they mean us no harm.’
The party of seven or eight Shoshone braves rode closer. Closing in on the crippled wagon as slowly as Edge had done - and as Antonio and Senalda had returned. There was no aggression in the manner of their advance. But its pace and silence generated a strong sense of menace. It hovered around them like a palpable part of the dust rising from under the unshod hooves of their ponies.
‘Do I get a last request?’ the half-breed asked evenly in English.
‘Shut your mouth, hombre,’ Pedro snarled.
Edge ignored him. ‘Sooner take a bullet from your gun, Montez, than be tied up when those braves get here - maybe with something more in mind than passing the time of day.’
Pedro snapped his head around, to show the contemptuous grin on his handsome face. ‘Ah, so you are not made of iron, hombre. Death frightens you.’
‘No, kid. Not death. Just the process of dying.’
‘Father?’ Isabella blurted as her brother rejoined the rest of the family in staring towards the Shoshone advance.
‘Antonio,’ Senalda added in the same pleading tone. ‘The man is not even all gringo. And even if he was not the son of a Mexican father he would surely be with us against a common enemy.’
The broad-shouldered, gray-haired man did not reply for a long time. He and his family were as still as the unmoving half-breed, and now just as uncaring about the irritating flies which buzzed around their ears and crawled across their sweat-run flesh.
The Indians were less than a quarter of a mile away now. And their poverty could be seen in the way their ragged shirts and torn pants hung on emaciated frames, in their disease-scabbed and filthy faces and in the underfed and unkempt condition of their ponies. The leader sat in a saddle. The others rode barebacked or on blankets. Each rode with one hand on rope reins. In the other hand, each held a rifle.
‘I cannot ask a man I do not trust to give me his word of honor, señor,’ Antonio Montez said at length. ‘But if any of my family are to survive, it will be seen whether or not I almost made a tragic error of judgment. Cut him free, Pedro.’
‘But father, what if they mean us no—’
‘The belt of the brave heading up this bunch, kid,’ Edge interrupted. ‘What’s hanging from it ain’t beaver pelts.’
The boy leaned forward, narrowing the gap another few inches as the Shoshonis halted their advance and steered their ponies into a line facing the wagon and the whites.
‘Si, Pedro,’ his father augmented. ‘The Indians have claimed scalps.’
His wife moaned. Isabella gasped, snatched her hand away from her mother’s grip and ran to Pedro. As she reached for the handle of his sheathed knife, the boy whirled away from her.
‘I will do it! And I will watch him as closely as I watch the Indians.’
He crouched beside Edge, drawing the knife and first cutting through the kerchief at the half-breed’s ankles.
‘And maybe you can do it, kid,’ Edge growled, feeling the pressure of the rope around his body ease as the blade was sawn back and forth. ‘You do a lot of talking through your ass. Maybe you got eyes back there as well.’
The Shoshone braves watched stoically, their heads protected from the blistering sun only by matted black hair held off their impassive faces by rawhide bands. Antonio, Senalda and Isabella Montez returned the unblinking stares with mounting apprehension.
‘First the snake, now the Indians, hombre,’ Pedro rasped as the final strand of restricting rope was severed. ‘Twice I give you a new chance to live. I would expect—’
From the neck down, Edge was stiff from the long period of enforced idleness. There was even pain where the tightness of his bonds had cut through his shirt and impaired his circulation. The pain became intense and forced a groan through his clenched teeth as he powered into sudden movement.
His right arm folded up from the elbow as his right streaked across the front of his body. Both hands fisted around the barrel of the Winchester. Pedro, off-guard as he pushed the knife into his sheath, vented a cry of alarm.
His family snapped their heads around.
Edge had half rolled on to his right hip. Now he went into another roll to the left.
Pedro’s cry became a snarl of anger as the rifle was wrenched from his one-handed grip. He started to come erect, drawing the knife out of the sheath again.
The half-breed’s left elbow cracked against the ground. The entire length of the arm seemed to be on fire with agony. But he used it as a lever to rock into a second roll to the right.
The boy had the knife clear of the sheath and was swinging it high.
Edge raised the elevation of the back-to-front Winchester.
The two women were screaming, their shrill voices masking the words which Antonio Montez was yelling.
Pedro’s knife hand started forward, in a downward stabbing action. The stockplate of the rifle crashed into his wrist. The sound of the boy’s anger became shriller. Then changed abruptly to a scream of pain as his hand was crushed between the rifle stock and the side of the wheel rim.
‘Always expect the unexpected, kid,’ Edge growled as the knife fell to the dust. ‘Ain’t no formula for a life of happiness, but it can cut down on the grief.’
He made no attempt to turn the rifle as he shifted his gaze from the tear-stained face of the boy to meet the enraged stare of Antonio.
The women were silent now.
‘He stole both my guns, feller. Happy for him to keep the Colt until this is over.’
‘I would have ensured you were armed, señor. If the Indians showed signs of being hostile.’
‘Obliged for the thought, feller,’ Edge answered, grimacing at new stabs of pain as he eased upright, using the Winchester and wheel for support. ‘But, given the freedom, I prefer to take care of my own needs.’
‘Bastardo!’ Pedro hissed, rubbing at his injured hand.
‘My Ma and Pa were married, kid,’ the half-breed rasped. ‘So don’t call me that again. Feel the same way about that word as I do guns aimed at me.’
Antonio glowered darkly at his son, angered by the word.
‘What are they waiting for?’ Senalda
rasped fearfully.
Her blurted words were accepted by the others as a warning that the potential threat of the Shoshone band was of more immediate concern than the enigma of the tall, lean stranger with the glittering eyes and cruelly set mouth.
‘It sure ain’t Christmas or a train,’ Edge muttered.
‘Help, perhaps?’ Antonio suggested to anyone who cared to comment.
‘So why did they show themselves this early, feller?’
‘Talk will achieve nothing!’ Isabella moaned. ‘Unless it is with the Indians.’ She raised her hands to her face and cupped them around her mouth. ‘You! What do you want? If you want food and water, we have a little to spare!’
The braves remained unresponsive astride their ponies. Their posture was slumped and weary. Had it not been for the bunch of scalps hung at the waist of the leader and the rifles in every hand, the group would have presented an image of pitiful dejection.
‘You have experience of dealing with Indians, señor,’ Antonio asked, without turning around.
‘I’ve killed a few,’ Edge replied flatly. He was holding the Winchester across his stomach now, one hand around the frame with a finger curled to the trigger and the other fisted on the barrel.
‘And did that teach you anything about them?’ the Mexican retorted in a tone of rebuke.
‘Yeah. That when they’re dead, they can’t kill me.’
‘I do not talk with White Eyes squaw!’ the leader of the Shoshonis shouted suddenly, drawing himself erect on his pony. ‘I talk with man who leads you. I say to him to take other men and leave wagon. Go away from there. Squaws stay. We come. Take what we want. Take squaws. Then we go.’
Senalda fastened fingers like talons on to her husband’s forearm. Antonio growled like a cornered animal. Pedro drew the Colt left-handed. Isabella folded her arms across her breasts, cupping her shoulders with her hands.
‘That feller drives a hard bargain,’ Edge muttered, remaining at the side of the tilted wagon as Pedro stepped forward to stand beside Antonio.
‘And one you would accept, were it left to you, señor.’
‘But it ain’t, so we’ll never know.’
‘I wait for your answer, leader of the White Eyes!’ the spokesman for the Shoshonis demanded.
‘Isabella, take the pistol from my belt,’ Antonio instructed calmly. ‘When they come close enough, use it. Pedro, you will also hold your fire until they are close.’
‘I think you will fight, White Eyes!’ the Shoshone called. ‘Your choice! All will die!’
The Indian leader made the first move, releasing his hold on the reins and throwing the stock of his rifle to his shoulder.
Antonio Montez wasted time in compensating for his daughter’s reluctance to reach for the old Griswold revolver. He wrenched it clear of his belt and arced it across in front of his wife.
A rifle shot exploded. From behind the Montez family. The bullet spiraled out from the muzzle of the half-breed’s Winchester, cracked between the shoulders of Antonio and Pedro and buried itself in the heart of the brave on the far right of the line. He, like the other Indians, had aped the actions of the group’s leader. His rifle slipped, unfired, from his dead hands as he was tipped backwards over the rump of his pony, the slick patch of wet crimson on his shirt front providing a splash of bright color against the drabness of his shabby clothing.
Seven Shoshonis did fire, sending a wide spray of lethal lead towards the group of whites at the side of the wagon.
Edge was already down on the ground, pushing himself backwards with his elbows under the shade and token cover of the wagon.
Isabella had failed to catch the tossed gun and was stooping, with a strangely feminine grace, to pick it up. Antonio fired wildly as he dived full length, dragging his screaming wife with him. Pedro was late in going under the bullets. But he was lucky. Bullets cracked close to him, but not close enough. And, when he went down, it was behind the cover of his father’s horse, the animal having dropped like carved rock as blood spouted from two head wounds.
But cover to the front was not enough. For the braves had wheeled their horses and were galloping them on a circular path, stringing them out with wide gaps between. The leader and one other brave had repeater rifles. After the initial fusillade, the other five spaced their shots so that a constant barrage was maintained, despite the need to reload.
In the drifting dust and gun smoke, the stink of burnt cordite and the cacophony of shooting and shouting, the family of Antonio Montez followed his orders instantly. With bullets thudding into the wagon timbers, ricocheting off the metal work and snagging into the dirt, they scrambled out of the open and under the wagon.
‘Front and left!’ Edge yelled at the head of the family. ‘I’ll take rear and right.’
He exploded a sixth shot and scored only his second hit. A pony, the cannon bone of a right foreleg chipped by the bullet, stumbled and rolled. The rider leapt skillfully clear of the animal. He landed sure-footed and powered into a fast spring towards the wagon.
Pedro fired the Colt and hit only dirt.
‘Wait, I told you!’ Antonio snarled, fumbling a fresh round into the breech of the Sharps.
Senalda was in a kneeling posture, hands over her ears and forehead pressed to the ground. Her son was on one side of her and her daughter the other. Antonio was at her head and Edge at her heels.
The horseless Indian ran closer. He emptied his single shot Spencer and vented a shriek of frustration when the bullet went high. He dragged a tomahawk from his belt.
Edge fired another shot and missed his target, galloping at full speed through billowing dust.
‘Now, Pedro!’ Isabella screamed.
Three shots, in perfect unison and amplified by the close confinement beneath the tilted wagon, drew a high-pitched sound of utter terror from the older woman.
The running brave was stopped in his tracks. And lifted up on to his toes. Then he threw his hands out to the sides, hurling away the tomahawk. He fell in the form of a cross and remained so in the stillness of death. Three areas of slick red on his chest expanded, touched and formed one.
‘I got the bastardo!’ Pedro roared. His voice was high with excitement. Then became a growl as he snapped his head to left and right to glower at his father and Edge. ‘Alone I would have killed him!’
Antonio nodded and, just for an instant, there was an expression of surprise mixed with pride on the crinkled, sweaty and dust-smeared face.
‘Long as I know, kid,’ Edge allowed, snapping his head around as a bullet clanged against an iron wheel rim.
He pumped the action of the Winchester and fired at the brave who was wheeling his horse for a direct charge at the wagon, swinging the single-shot rifle around his head like a club. The bullet drilled into the centre of the filthy forehead. And exited through the top of the skull. The brave dropped the rifle but his nervous system kept his muscles taut. He rode perhaps three yards, a corpse with brain tissue gushing out of the top of his head. Then he crumpled and went backwards off his pony, which veered to the side and galloped away from the gun battle arena.
‘Sure shot your idea all to hell, feller,’ the half-breed growled as the brave bounced to the ground, the impact spewing a fresh gout of gore out of the top of his head.
The Sharps cracked out. A Shoshone screamed. Antonio groaned.
‘Father!’ Isabella shrieked, lunging across her terrified mother to reach for him.
‘I need more shells!’ Pedro demanded.
Edge counted four braves still astride ponies. They were still circling, but riding wider on each circuit to spiral outwards from the wagon. Abruptly, they closed up into a group and veered sharply away. Dust rose around them. Gray shafted with yellow sunlight, shrouding them. The beat of unshod hooves galloping became less loud. Senalda curtailed her screams. Isabella sobbed and called to her father softly. There was the sound of a hammer being cocked, a trigger pulled and a firing pin clicking against a spent cartridge case. Many t
imes.
The half-breed turned his head. He saw that Pedro was up in a crouch, as high as the sloping underside of the wagon would allow. The Colt was thrust out in front of him, gripped two-handed. It was aimed at the diminishing cloud of dust. The face behind the gun was bathed with beads of sweat, but the bared teeth and wide eyes gleamed far more brightly than the moisture. Excitement had also caused more wetness to flow, spreading a dark stain at the crotch of the boy’s pants.
‘Ain’t saying the game’s over, kid,’ Edge said, reaching out to close a fist over the hot barrel of the Colt. ‘But the opposition called a time out. And you ain’t about to score again with an empty gun.’
The soft-spoken words broke into the private world which the boy had wrapped around himself. He abruptly surrendered the gun and altered the focus of his eyes from the fleeing Shoshonis to his immediate surroundings. First he saw the impassive, stubbled face of the half-breed. Next he became aware of the huddled form of his mother. Then the prostrated figure of his father with his sister demanding that the wounded man show her some sign of life.
He moaned, thrust his mother roughly aside and then became gentle. He spoke placatingly to his sister in Spanish, eased her away and carefully rolled his father over on to his back.
Antonio Montez had taken a bullet in the belly. There was blood in the dust where he had fallen. A great deal more was staining the front of his shirt, spread out wide in every direction from his navel. His eyes were closed, the lids brown in color. The remainder of the deeply lined face was gray, several shades darker than his hair.
Isabella sensed, like her brother a moment ago, that there was a world outside her private thoughts. Her brother spoke softly to their father, stroking his cheeks. She looked away, and saw Edge. The half-breed was taking shells from the left-hand side of his gun belt and feeding them through the loading gate of the Winchester.
‘Va a—?’ she began, fear trembling her voice and spreading the dullness of resignation across her lovely eyes.
‘If he lives, he’ll know he almost made a bad mistake, Isabella,’ Edge cut in. ‘I never wanted anything from you people.’
EDGE: Violence Trail (Edge series Book 25) Page 3