Edge: Ten Grand

Her deep-set eyes fastened upon his face for several moments, then began to travel down, halted with a flicker of surprise at his chest before continuing down to his feet.  Then back to his chest.

“Why’d you say you had a hundred on your head?” she asked. 

Edge glanced down, saw the star still pinned to his shirt front.  He grinned, jerked a thumb at the bodies of Luke and Chuck.

“Didn’t want them to think they died trying for zero,” he answered. “Friends of yours?”

“I rode with them,” she said shortly.

“Which one you sleep with?”

She wasn’t insulted. “They took turns.”

“I don’t see you shedding tears.”

“Weeping women have no right in this part of the country,” she came back. “Will anybody cry for you if I shoot you?” 

Edge liked the word if. He thought fleetingly of Gail back in Peaceville, felt an odd kind of resentment that she would mourn him. She was a link with the past and he was a man for whom the past was a dead thing. It did not exist, so therefore must be dead-unless there were memories to keep it alive. The thought of Gail triggered off other recollections and Edge suddenly shut his mind to them.  Now was what mattered: this woman with this gun discussing his death.

“Nobody,” he answered.

She nodded, happy with his answer.  Perhaps feeling less alone because there was at least one other fellow human being on earth in similar circumstances. She raised the rifle and her finger whitened on the trigger as she drew a bead on the star. Edge prepared his muscles for a sideways leap, but suddenly the muzzle dropped and the rifle crack sent a bullet thudding into the ground between his spread feet.

“That’s to show I could have plugged you good,” she told him, holding the rifle in one hand, low at her side, offering no threat.

Edge holstered the Remington and moved slowly across to her, grinning.  Not until he stopped immediately in front of her, his head at the same height as her own, did she recognize the expression as a parody, see the viciousness shining in the eyes. As one of his hands ripped the rifle from her grasp the other moved as a blur, back and forth, knuckles and palm slapping with force into each of her cheeks.  She accepted the beating without flinching, her eyes dull, lips set in a firm line that barred any sound of pain.  Finally, Edge stopped, breathing deeply from the exertion, watching the bruises rise on her thin face.

“I met men like you before,” she said without emotion. “They done worse than that to me.”

Edge nodded, acknowledging his belief of her words. A beating was not a new experience for this woman.  Edge thought she had taken so many that she would miss them if they stopped.

“I get better as I go along,” Edge said wryly.

The woman shrugged her thin shoulders. “I’m a woman and I got the better of you, a man. You couldn’t let it rest. Where you headed, mister?”

The shot and the beating might never have happened.  The words were spoken in a conversational tone, as if they were strangers who had met accidentally and were passing the time of day.

“My business,” Edge replied.

“I got no money and only a few supplies,” she answered. “It’s a bad country for a woman alone.”

Edge spat, and reached up his hand again, gently this time.  His exploring fingers felt her scrawny neck, travelled down over her narrow shoulders, formed a cup over one small, hard breast, traversed the protrusions of her rib cage and halted on the taut flatness of her belly. She submitted tacitly to the assault of his hand. Like the beating, it was something she had been forced to accept many times before. Edge stepped back.

“I got delicate skin,” he said sardonically, “I could cut myself on you.”

It got no reaction.  “I got other uses,” she said.  “I cook good and whenever you get mad at anything, you can beat me. You were going south when Luke made his play. I’m heading for Mexico.”

“I travel light.”

“I won’t be no trouble.”  For the first time the woman revealed a positive emotion, her features forming a tacit plea. “Just to the next town.”

“What if there ain’t no man there so hard-up he’d take you in?”

“I’ll take my chances.”

“Go and get the horses,” Edge told her.  “Just the best two.”

She had been holding her breath for his decision, and let it out with a small gasp as she turned and started back up the slope, towards a craggy column of rock.  Edge went over to the dead horse, unfastened her girth and dragged off his saddle and bedroll. He dusted off the Henry and was reloading the Remington when the woman emerged from around the rock, started down the slope leading two stallions, a big bay and a smaller piebald. They were both saddled, but carried no bedrolls.

“What’s your name?” Edge asked as the woman approached.

“Amy,” she answered.

“Pretty,” he said, holstering the Remington. “Don’t match your looks.” 

“What’s yours?” 

“They call me Edge.”

“It suits,” she told him shortly.