They lunged into motion with an explosion of clattering hooves against rock and hard-packed dirt.
Edge broke into a run at the same moment, away from the bolting horses and at an angle, backtracking on his route from the canyon rim.
He heard shouts above the diminishing beat of galloping hooves. And curled back his teeth to show another private smile. Until gunshots exploded.
Instinctively, he pumped the lever action of the Winchester and stooped into a half-crouch. But no bullets cracked close to him. He straightened and started up the slope towards the canyon rim, constantly altering direction to put areas of cover close at hand should he need them. But the continuous barrage of rifle and small arms fire, competing with shouts of terror and screams of pain, was confined between the canyon walls.
Close to the top of the slope, he slowed, dropped out full length and bellied himself over the final ten feet.
The fire he had lit was now a heap of red embers. But the glow it emanated was enough to supplement the moonlight and illuminate almost the entire canyon floor.
Three figures were sprawled in the open, their clothes stained dark with fresh blood. Two were white men, shot in the back and transfixed by death close to the dying fire. One was a Shoshone brave, a bullet blasted into his heart, folded double against the dirt at the canyon entrance.
The other four men from Amity Falls were trapped at the blind end of the canyon. Their backs were to a sheer, thirty feet high wall of rock. Between them and a dozen or so Indians who had surprised them the only cover was the scattering of boulders at the canyon entrance. The braves were in the secure cover of these rocks, firing at a measured pace towards the whites.
A third member of the posse was hit as Edge gained his vantage point. The man took the bullet in his throat and slid down the wall, leaving a slick trail of blood against the moon-bright rock. His death triggered fresh screams of terror from the survivors and sparked an even more frenetic fusillade of panicked shooting.
A careless brave was wounded in the shoulder and his shrieks of pain rose more shrilly than the groans of another brave with a shattered kneecap.
Edge was a dispassionate observer, witnessing the dying and the agony through narrowed eyes, the set of his thin lips betraying nothing of his thought processes. He had wanted only to delay the posse, possibly cause them to lose heart in the chase.
Two more white men died within two seconds of each other. Both were hit in the chest, the impact of the killing bullets slamming them against the rock wall. Their corpses were rigid as they bounced, then became loosely limp as they crumpled to the ground.
The half-breed had not known a band of hostile Shoshonis would happen by at the right moment to box the posse in the blind canyon. But that was what had occurred. And the slaughter taking place below was of concern to him only in that any possible threat from the posse was now completely removed.
‘Okay!’ the last white man left alive shrieked. He hurled his rifle far ahead of him and thrust his arms high in the air. ‘Don’t shoot no more! I’m finished.’
The leader of the braves barked an order and all firing ceased. Gun smoke, thicker and more acrid smelling than wood smoke, eddied up out of the canyon. But it was not odor which caused Edge to grimace as the Indians rose from among the rocks and advanced along the canyon. Nor self-reproach for being responsible for what had happened, and what was happening, below him.
‘On you, they ain’t even started yet, feller,’ he growled softly.
The Shoshonis were in the same sorry physical state as the ones who had attacked the crippled wagon. Ill-dressed, underfed and showing pocked and scabbed signs of disease. There was no elation in their victory. They approached the man from Amity Falls at a slow, weary pace. And their silence and complete lack of expression caused the white man’s terror to expand.
Two braves halted and crouched down beside the dead at a midway point along the canyon. They began to strip the corpses of clothing, the Indians as well as the white men.
‘Please!’ the surviving member of the posse begged, dropping to his knees. The impact jarred his entire body but he seemed to feel no pain. He extended his arms in front of him, still stiff, as the advancing Indians veered around the fire. ‘We didn’t mean no harm to you! Honest we didn’t! We was out hunting white men killers! We’re a deputized posse! Take anythin’ you want from me! But please, don’t kill me!’
He was ignored by all but one of the Shoshonis. As the other braves systematically robbed the dead of clothing and guns, the leader of the band halted in front of the pleading white man.
‘I’ve got a wife and baby son! Another baby’ll be here in three weeks! Please, Indian! Spare my life! For their sakes!’
The man screamed as the muzzle of the Indian’s Spencer came close to his face. The rifle was jerked upwards and the man’s hat was knocked off his head. Out of moon shadow, his face was young, the naked fear it expressed starkly emphasized.
‘I’ll do anythin’ you want!’ he pleaded, his tone a croak now.
‘Take off clothes, White Eyes.’
‘Sure! Sure!’
His shaking hands moved fast. Still on his knees, he stripped off his coat, vest, shirt and kerchief. Then unbuttoned the top of his long Johns and wriggled out of them.
The braves were quicker in claiming the clothes of the dead. By the time the white man got to his feet and stooped to take off his boots, pants and long John leggings, every able-bodied Indian was watching him. One of them moved quickly forward to gather up the heap of discarded clothing.
Naked, the man looked younger still. His trembling flesh was dough white. He had little body hair. He stood with his arms limp at his sides, making no attempt to cover up his genitals.
‘I done what you asked, Indian,’ he croaked.
The leader of the band turned just his head to look back along the canyon.
‘One brave dead,’ he said. ‘Two wounded. That demands more than clothing, White Eyes.’
The naked man raked his eyes around the impassive faces of the braves, then found they were trapped by the suddenly intense glare of the leader.
There was total silence and no movement for stretched seconds. Then the Shoshone leader whirled, snapping the Spencer repeater to his shoulder.
The brave with the shoulder wound was supporting the one with the shattered kneecap as they advanced slowly along the canyon floor. The rifle cracked twice in the hands of an expert marksman. The two wounded braves expressed fear but no resentment. Both were shot in the heart and they crumpled to the ground with their arms locked together.
‘We have little, White Eyes,’ their killer announced as he returned his attention to the naked prisoner. ‘Especially we do not have time or medicine to take care of injured braves. So, three dead.’
The indifference of the Indians to the new killings witnessed that they had been prepared for the summary executions.
The prisoner fell to his knees again, venting a scream and clawing at the ground. The leader of the braves issued a curt order in his native tongue and stood aside as two braves stepped forward. Each stooped to grip a shoulder and wrist of the white man. Their touch silenced his vocal outlet of terror.
‘It is because of the White Eyes that the Indian has so little!’ the leader of the band said dully. ‘They have robbed us for so long. Now it is our turn. We have died at their hand for so long. Now it is our turn.’
He nodded and the two braves moved forward. The man trapped between them raised his head and looked towards the glowing embers of the fire, immediately in front of him. His mouth gaped wide, but the prospect of what awaited him constricted his throat and no sound emerged. But there was no such restriction upon his bowels and bladder. An evil smelling, liquid trail was left in the wake of his struggling form as he was hauled towards the fire.
Edge was no longer scowling. The man had acted stupidly and the half-breed had scant patience for those with such a failing. Trapped and outnumbered, the whites had been
doomed to die from the moment the first shot of the battle was fired. The man now being dragged inexorably towards a humiliating and agonizing death could have chosen a quicker way. Either by his own hand or in the process of fighting, perhaps taking some Shoshone braves with him.
He screamed now, as he felt the heat of the fire. The two braves raised him, so that just his knees, lower legs and feet were on the ground. As they lowered him, he arched his back and bent his head towards the top of his spine.
The audience of Shoshonis gathered around the fire. They gazed bleakly at the naked torso and the face of the man, red now in the reflected glow of the embers. Beaded with sweat. Then the moisture evaporated as one of his captors placed a foot in the centre of his back and eased him down.
The scream rose to an incredibly high pitch of shrillness. Then was curtailed as his face was forced into the fire. A billow of black smoke rose. His hair caught fire and burned brightly for a moment. Sparks flew. His body spasmed once and was still. The braves released their hold on his arms. The aroma of roasted meat seemed to fill the entire world for a few seconds. Then the cold air of the mountain night neutralized it.
The depleted band of Indians moved towards the mouth of the canyon, clutching their battle booty of clothing and guns. The flesh of the new corpse was dough white again on his body and limbs. His head was charred black and featureless. Elsewhere on the canyon floor, the other naked dead grew colder in the night.
Edge eased up into a squat and remained where he was. Until the hooves of unshod ponies beat at the ground. Then, as the sound diminished westwards, he rose and moved off. He returned to the night camp at an easy stroll.
Everyone there, with the exception of Antonio Montez, was fearfully awake. The wife of the critically injured man was in the rear of the wagon. The others were on the ground, draped with blankets.
‘They sent out a posse from Amity Falls,’ Edge supplied evenly in response to the questioning looks directed at him through the silence.
‘So much shooting, hombre,’ Pedro rasped as the half-breed unfurled his bedroll. ‘You killed them all? Alone?’
‘Ran off their horses is all,’ Edge replied, dragging his bedroll under the wagon and crawling into the meager shelter. ‘Figured to hold them up. Bunch of Shoshone braves stopped them. Dead.’
Isabella gasped.
‘Put it down to providence providing,’ the half-breed suggested, stretching out under his blankets and pushing his hat forward over his face. The Winchester was under the covers, too, his right hand curled around the frame.
‘Pity those not who die/Who meant harm to you/For misfortune to such as they/Is salvation/To you.’
‘It is bad poetry, Isabella,’ Pedro said softly. ‘But the meaning of the Celestial’s words makes good sense, I think.’
Then there was silence, except for the low sounds of the Montez family and Ree bedding down for the night.
‘Word was brought to Amity by the stage passengers yesterday,’ Ree announced after a few moments. ‘Many Indians have escaped from the Shoshone reservation in the west. Soldiers are trying to find them.’
Nobody responded to the comment. More silence, until:
‘Señor Edge?’
‘Yeah, lady?’
‘Should not we stand guard? Perhaps the Indians will—’
‘They’re on the run from the army,’ the half-breed muttered. ‘They won’t come back this way.’
‘Of course!’ Ree put in, sounding relieved. ‘They will move far and fast to escape. You saw them doing this, sir?’
For a moment, Edge thought he could smell the cooking meat of the naked man’s face on the glowing embers of the fire. Then he realized that it was the stench of Antonio’s gangrenous wound that was assaulting his nostrils.
‘Something like that, feller,’ he replied sleepily. ‘Guess you could say the last time I saw the Shoshonis, they were forging a head.’
CHAPTER SIX
EDGE slept as he always did. Shallowly, but soundly. His mind just below the level of awareness and his resting body an instant away from explosive response should danger threaten. Once, he came awake to sounds other than those made by the stirring horses and oxen. And raised his hat brim to look through the slits of his eyelids at the back of Pedro Montez. The boy, clutching his father’s Sharps rifle, was heading towards the trail which crossed the mouth of the canyon.
Like an animal, Edge was aware of the youngster’s return. He did not know how long the boy had been gone, but the sounds of his moving were familiar. And the half-breed slept on, resting his body and mind, restoring energies drained during the day, in the manner of a man well schooled in the arts of survival. The lessons of war now a habit.
He was first to wake as the light of dawn spread across the cloudless sky from the east. He lit a new fire on the ashes of the old, boiled a skillet of water and drank a mug of coffee as he shaved off the thick, black bristles, leaving only the drooping moustache at the top and corners of his mouth.
‘You can be very handsome in the right circumstances, Edge,’ Isabella said, speaking for the first time after watching him several moments. ‘For when I saw you yesterday, I thought you ugly. Yet, today—’
‘You still look the same,’ he replied. ‘Good.’
‘Beauty is skin deep, they say,’ she responded grimly, tossing off her blankets and getting wearily to her feet. ‘I think there is much ugliness inside you. And I feel I am no better. In my heart, I can experience no pity for the men of that town who came after us.’
She stretched, arching her back so that her tight-fitting shirt and pants emphasized even more the contours of her body and limbs.
Edge forced himself to look away from her. ‘I figure you’d feel real good to me, lady,’ he murmured.
‘Father!’ the girl blurted, ashamed she had forgotten. She whirled and hurried to the rear of the wagon.
‘You continue to look at my sister in a way I do not like, hombre,’ Pedro growled as he folded up into a sitting posture, fisting the grit of sleep from his eyes.
‘A woman to a man/Is a wondrous sight/And it must come to pass/That—’
‘Shut your stupid mouth!’ Pedro cut in on the newly-awakened Ree. ‘And be on your way!’
Ree showed fear.
‘You got any fancy words about a kid who likes looking at corpses, feller?’ Edge asked evenly.
‘My father lives still,’ Isabella announced as she climbed from the wagon. ‘But is much weaker.’
‘He is going to die!’ Pedro snapped. ‘Until he does, we, his family, can take care of him. We can light our own fires and bathe his wound ourselves. We do not need you, or you!’
He shifted his scowling eyes between the Siamese and the half-breed.
‘Pedro!’ the girl snarled. ‘They have aided us. They mean no harm to us. We will be the losers if they choose to leave.’
Once more, the boy took heed of his sister’s words. But his anger remained high, and he threw himself down on to his bedroll again, pulling the blanket over his head.
Isabella busied herself preparing and cooking breakfast. Edge fed the horses and oxen from supplies taken out of the wagon. Senalda stared vacantly at her dying husband. Pedro feigned sleep, or perhaps slept. Ree talked in a monotone, apparently uncaring whether anyone listened to him.
‘I am a useless man. For none will take account of my poetry. I wander half the world to bring comfort and understanding with words. But I receive only abuse. I am mistreated. When I work, as a man must to live, I am—’
‘What were you doing in Amity Falls, señor?’ Isabella asked. Neither her tone nor expression suggested interest. Perhaps there was sympathy in her indifference.
‘Amity was another place on the path I travel, madam,’ he replied, obviously appreciating her intrusion on his monologue. ‘The people mistreated me. Because I was a foreigner who does not look, talk or dress as they do. I offer my labor when my poetry falls upon their deaf ears. I was made to work in hotel. Menial c
hores, but worthy of payment. For one month I work. There is no payment. Only abuse. I am grateful to be rescued by other foreigners hated by the people of that evil town.’
They ate breakfast. Then Ree bathed and applied a fresh dressing to Antonio’s stomach wound. Pedro prepared to shave, but then decided against it. Perhaps because he caught sight of his reflection in the basin of water and liked the look of hardness which the bristles gave his face.
When they set off, the boy rode horseback on one side of the wagon and Edge on the other. Ree and Isabella were on the wagon seat, the Siamese having control of the team.
They were back on the open trail again, since it offered the only southerly route through the mountains for a heavy wagon. Although they were already at altitude and constantly on an upgrade, the sun got hotter as it inched up the eastern dome of the sky.
‘I will scout ahead,’ Pedro announced when they had travelled more than two miles without conversation. ‘You watch the rear, hombre.’
Isabella looked sharply and nervously at Edge for his response to the snapped order. She was in time to see the half-breed direct a stream of saliva into the dust. Then she sighed as her brother galloped ahead of the wagon. And a fleeting smile of something akin to pride turned up the corners of her full mouth.
‘He rides like he is part of the horse, does he not?’
‘Yeah, which part?’ Edge growled.
‘I am of an age with Pedro,’ the girl said absently. ‘But I make allowances for his youth. Cannot you do this?’
‘I ain’t killed him, have I?’
Isabella looked anxiously at the half-breed again.
He showed a cold grin. ‘But I ain’t his sister. So don’t ask me to love him.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Maybe you’ll get around to-doing that later. One good turn deserves another.’
The girl wrenched her gaze away from the trap of Edge’s blatant stare and directed her attention to the trail ahead.
Ree spared a gentle smile for each of them.
‘Between love and hate/There is a line/One gentle breath of breeze/For fortune or evil/Will cause a turn/In a direction/For good or ill.’
EDGE: Violence Trail (Edge series Book 25) Page 7