Edge: Ten Grand

Neither did he see Juan catch the full blast of the blunderbuss load on the side of his head; the great shower of blood, mangled flesh and shattered bone; the horse bolts forward with its dead rider still mounted, head hanging at a crazy angle and attached to the body by a few strands of lifeless tissue.

Nor the block of bills as it sailed up into the air with a death spasm of a hand, to be neatly caught by the impassive, pock-marked Torres, who thrust the money into his sack. Matador looked from the bolting horse to Edge, his eyes showing satisfaction. He patted the elaborately decorated stock of his weapon.

“I think maybe I killed two birds with one stone as the gringos say,” he muttered in English. “One a jackdaw and one an eagle.” He raised his hand. “We ride.”

This last in Mexican. They went at the gallop.

 

 

 

CHAPTER FOUR

 

 

 

EDGE accepted the facts of what had happened to him that morning without experiencing anger. As he raised himself from out of the shade of the boulder and started back down the trail towards Peaceville, his face was a mask of cold emptiness, blank of any expression.  His mind was laid as waste as his features for there was nothing with which it could work.  El Matador had robbed him and El Matador was a Mexican who would ride south across the border. The decision was made. He needed his horse, his guns and his knife and Edge would go south.

The town was still in a state of shock from the violence of its early morning waking.  Its citizens went about their normal business with the unhurried movements of people in a daze. Physical signs of the bandit raid were in the process of being erased as a group of men worked at repairing the hole in the rear of the bank, householders and businessmen fixed broken windows and, in the church the priest tolled the death knell as two gravediggers sweated outside.

As Edge started down the street, heading for the sheriff’s office, he became the object of shocked recognition which quickly transformed into expressions of mute accusation. He should have been dead: that he was not indicated a sell-out. And men like El Matador did not enter into deals without strong reasons.

Edge ignored the looks and the people. They owed him nothing and he felt not a flicker of interest in them.  They had used each other for as long as it suited all parties and now that was over.

“Edge!”

He recognized the voice and knew he was passing Honey’s Restaurant, glanced over to the door showing no sign of halting his steady pace.  Gail, the paleness of her complexion and residue of horror in her eyes not detracting from her beauty, beckoned to him from the doorway.

“Edge!” she said again, on a rising pitch when she saw he was ignoring her.  “You’re walking into a trap.”

This brought him up abruptly.  He took a final look ahead down the street, narrowed eyes searching for danger, then stared at the girl.

“You part of it?”

“There’s two territorial marshals in your office,” she said.

Edge looked round again, obliquely at the front of the sheriff’s office.  He saw no movement there and crossed quickly to step up on to the sidewalk, brush into the restaurant as Gail stood back.  The tables were empty, set for breakfast on a day when nobody had felt like eating.

“Lunchtime will be slow as well,” Edge said, looking towards the door to the kitchen. “Where’s your boss?”

“Honey’s fixing the funeral arrangements. They killed three people, Edge.”

She closed the door, looked with concern at the man’s facial injury.

“Tell me about the lawmen,” he demanded. 

“You’re hurt.”  She approached him. “Come into the kitchen.  I’ll clean it before it becomes infected.”

Edge’s aim came up and he hit her back-handed across the cheek. “The lawmen!” he demanded harshly as Gail’s eyes filled with the tears of pain and she raised a delicate hand to her face.  But in the next moment those same eyes spat hate at him.  The kind of hate that is just over the dividing line from love.

“You can’t hurt me,” she threw at him.  “You can beat me to a pulp and you’ll still be the only man I’ll ever love.  And I’m not going to help you get clear of Peaceville only to have you die with a body full of gangrene.”  The fire died in his eyes and her voice softened. “Now, get into the kitchen, you big oaf.”

Edge’s hands clenched into hard-knuckled fists and his cold eyes bore into those of the girl. Then he suddenly spun and went between the tables, knocking over chairs as he cut a direct route through to the kitchen door.  Gail followed him, a tiny smile playing at the corners of her mouth, which she wiped away as he sat down at a table and his eyes found her again. She had learned just how far she could push this man of iron in whose make-up a pinprick of regard for her provided the only vulnerable spot.

A pot of water was already near the boil on the large, wood-fired stove and she poured some into an iron basin, and got a length of clean cloth from a drawer.