California Killing (5 page)

Wood extended the dipper to Dexter, who drank with an angry frown adding more creases to his face.

Edge scowled at them. "You guys figure to take a bath as well before you give me a hand?"

"Right with you," Wood answered with an ingratiating half-smile as he scampered to get the spare wheel.

Dexter was less eager as he knocked loose the retaining pin on the broken wheel and seemed to draw some kind of secret pleasure from the amount of time Edge had to take the strain of the wagon's weight. Once the good wheel was in place, Edge left Dexter and Wood to put the pin back while he unhooked the bucket from the rear of the wagon and watered the grateful horse. Then he climbed up on the seat and back into the wagon.

The Walker-Colt was still where Magda had dropped it and he noted that one cartridge had been fired. Then he slid it into his holster. In addition to a carton of supplies, one large trunk and several small valises, the wagon also carried a double mattress covered With three blankets and a crude vanity table formed by a crate and a mirror with a crack in it. He looked at all this with a disinterested eye and then climbed back out on the seat. Wood and Dexter were nowhere in sight.

"You ready to roll?"

Wood poked his head out from under the wagon. "Man down here is alive, Mr. Edge. Hasn't been shot. Beaten up, it looks like."

"You ain't nothing but a bleedin' heart, Justin," Edge said with a sigh.

"It is his wagon," Wood pointed out.

"So do your good deed," Edge allowed; "But hurry it up."

The photographer went from sight and Edge heard him grunting under the strain of dragging Stricldyn's dead weight. Then he heard footfalls to one side and turned to see Dexter standing below him, cradling Magda's limp body in his arms. His coat was draped over what had once been her face. "How long before we get to The Town With No Name, you think?" the rancher asked stonily.

Edge stared into the distance, to where the Santa Monica Mountains showed up as a soft purple line in the waning glare of the sun. "Hard to say. Few hours."

"It'll get cooler."

Edge swilled saliva around his mouth and this time sent it shooting out in a decaying arc across the back of the horse. "I won't be riding in back. I won't smell the stink of her."

"You disgust me, Edge," Dexter retorted, taking his burden to the rear of the wagon.

"Maybe you'll get elected president of the club," Edge murmured to himself as he released the brake.

Dexter and Wood hefted their burdens up into the rear of the wagon and Edge clucked the horse into motion.

"My equipment!" Wood yelled, leaping down from the tailgate and racing back to where he had dropped his valise.

Edge did not ask too much of the weary horse and the little photographer was able to catch up and clamber on to the passenger seat with relative ease. When he had regained his breath, he dusted off his suit and tilted his hat to a jaunty angle, preparing to relax for the first time since the Hood gang had hit the stage.

"If I had known it was going to be like this in California, I'd have stayed in St. Louis," he said with a sigh, shaking his head sadly.

Edge turned a narrow-lipped, hooded-eyed grin towards him. "Don't let it get you down, Justin," he said easily. "Maybe there's a bright future for guys with cameras out on the coast."

"You really think so?" the small man asked, brightening.

Edge shrugged. "I only said maybe. It's not my scene. I can't call the shots."

Wood sighed again. "Why you going to The Town With No Name, Mr. Edge?"

"I'm a patriot, Justin," the tall half-breed replied. "See America first."

"It's an expensive trip for you."

Edge's dark-skinned face, which had become relaxed, was suddenly set in lines of granite hardness. He held the reins between his knees and took out the makings of a cigarette. "Hood called the odds right," he said softly as his long fingers formed the cylinder. "Judd bucked 'em and got what he deserved, figured it best to loan those bastards the money."

Wood looked at Edge in surprise. "Loan?"

Edge's tongue ran along the paper. "I'll get it back, Justin. With interest. Taken out of their hides."

The horse was champing at the bit, as if anxious to get off the floor of Hood's valley and up into the foothills. Edge gave the animal its head and the wagon began to trail dust as it picked up speed.

Chapter Five

T
HE
Town with No Name consisted of a single broad street cutting through the southern foothills of the mountains. A sign at one end proclaimed: YOU ARE NOW ENTERING A BOOM TOWN. But there was nothing to back up the proud boast. At the eastern end of the street there was a row of buildings on each side - two hotels, a bank, a restaurant, a cantina, livery stables, a few stores and offices. But beyond this, construction had been begun and then halted abruptly, so that many structures were in the form of mere facades, with nothing behind them.

In the failing light of dusk, about twenty men and women were clustered in front of one of the completed buildings, their faces mere pale blobs in the yellow glow of a kerosene lamp hung from the sidewalk canopy. Six of the group carried white placards tacked to poles and daubed with crudely lettered slogans: GET BREEN OUT OF OFFICE - ROBBIN HOOD'S .45 BEATING THE SHERIFF - YELLOW IS THE COLOR OF OUR LAWMAN'S BACK - CLEAN UP OUR VALLEY - LAW AND ORDER SOCIETY - WE WANT ACTION.

As Edge turned the wagon onto the street and angled it across to the far side, the demonstrators watched it disinterestedly. Edge saw a glass door with a gold-blocked sign: LAW – OFFICE - Sheriff Breen - NO ADMITTANCE EXCEPT ON BUSINESS. Angry eyes were turned on him as he moved the wagon closer, scattering some of the group. Many looked away quickly when they saw the frigid expression on his lean face. But not those of a tall, funeral-faced man of about fifty who’s bearing was as solemn as his bone structure. Nor the two men who flanked him, both handsome, both in their mid-twenties, both strongly built and exuding an aura of toughness. None of these toted placards.

"You trying to break up this demonstration, stranger?" the solemn-faced man said in a booming voice.

None of the group wore gun-belts, but the tall man's companions adopted the stance of gunfighters, seemingly from habit.

Edge climbed down from the wagon and matched his height with the older man. Their stares met and held.

"You got a right to make a picket line," Edge said evenly, with quiet menace. "I got business with the sheriff so I got a right to cross it - through it or over it."

"What kind of business?"

"Mine."

The two gunslingers without guns hustled in close to each side of Edge. "You want we should feed him some knuckles, Mr. Mayer?" the one on the right asked.

"No!"

a woman called from the rear of the throng. "You said we'd keep it peaceful for one more day, Mr. Mayer."

"We want to report the stage was held up." Wood called from the seat.

"Hood did it again!" a man yelled. "He hit another stage. Get Ford."

Edge continued to clash eyes with Mayer. "Thought Breen was the law?"

"He is," the older man replied. "But, John Ford will want to know. He directs the stagecoach operations around here." He looked from one of his sidekicks to the other. "Duke, Randy. Let him through."

Edge waited for the others in the group to move aside, then nodded. "Obliged.'' He headed for the door of the sheriff's office.

Wood jumped down from the wagon and scuttled after the tall half-breed with nervous, sidelong glances at the latent menace of Duke and Randy.

"Somebody help me with the injured man," Dexter pleaded from the rear of the wagon.

As with Mayer in command, the group clustered around the wagon, asking questions and shouting advice, Edge pushed open the door of the law office and followed it inside the sparsely-furnished, cigar-reeking room. Wood was like a frightened puppy scampering at his heels.

"Hold it, citizen," Breen ordered and Edge complied so quickly that Wood thudded into his back.

The photographer peered around the towering figure of Edge and caught his breath. The sheriff was a stern-faced man in his mid-fifties with broad shoulders and a muscular frame that bulged his sweat-stained shirt. He had rough-hewn, angular features the color of old rust against which his discolored teeth looked white in comparison. The hair sprouting from under his high-crowned black hat was grey. He wore the star of his office pinned to the front of the hat. The cause of Edge's abrupt halt and of Wood's anxiety was the way Breen rested the barrel of a Starr .54 across the top of the desk, aimed at the door. The man's eyes and the muzzle bore of the rifle were equally steady, and the same impenetrable black.

"Friendly town, ain't it, Justin?" Edge muttered, hooking his thumbs over his gun-belt at the front, well clear of the holstered Walker-Colt. "Get held up on the way, you're met by an unwelcome committee and then the law holds a gun on you."

A flicker of interest showed in Breen's eyes, but disappeared as quickly as it had come. "You got a complaint?" He had a rasping voice, devoid of emotion.

"I ain't the kind," Edge replied. "I handle my own trouble. Figured you ought to know. Stage held up and three men killed. Driver, guard and a guy who should have known better."

"Out in the valley? North of the hills?"

"You've heard already?" Wood put in. A half-finished cigar was smoking in a tin ashtray. Breen reached for it and clamped it between his teeth without diverting his attention from his visitors. "Always happens there. Hood hit the waystation this morning. Anything else?"

Angry voices sounded out on the street. Edge jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "Set the record straight," he said. "Guy on the wagon's' been roughed up by Hood. Woman killed. Looking for an accident. It happened."

Breen sent more evil-smelling smoke streaming out into the rancid air. "Makes a change. Hard to recall last time anyone died around here wasn't natural or something to do with Sam Hood."

"You keep the record," Edge said. "The Hood gang made her into an accident by raping her."

"Thanks. Now get out of here and let me think."

"Hey, Breen!" Mayer boomed from the street, silencing the disgruntled voices of his fellow demonstrators. "The Mex and the drummer tell you what happened?"

Edge's hooded eyes narrowed to slits and the line of his mouth tightened. He started to turn and Breen stood up so abruptly his chair tipped over backwards and it slammed against the rifle rack.

"Freeze!" the lawman snapped.

Breen was not so tall as he had looked when slumped in the chair. But the leveled rifle compensated for his physical disadvantages.

"I don't like having guns pointed at me, sheriff," Edge hissed softly. "There's a lot of it about today."

The implied threat had no effect on Breen's cool composure. "You ain't in no position to do anything about it, citizen," he said evenly, his hat badge shining in the lamp light. "Just walk out of here slow and easy. Mayer's a troublemaker, but that's my department. Lead the way, drummer."

"I'm not a salesman, I keep telling everyone," Wood said, showing his irritation behind the solid shield of Edge's body.

"You hear me, Breen?" Mayer shouted.

"Move it, citizens," the sheriff demanded. Wood sighed, pulled open the door and stepped out on to the sidewalk. Edge followed and the sheriff brought up the rear. Night had fallen almost completely now and more kerosene lamps glowed up and down the street, fighting the darkness. A piano jangled from one of the saloons. Two men were moving away from the wagon with the body of Magda Stricklyn swinging between them. Her widower sat on the edge of the sidewalk with his head in his hands, emitting dry sobs as two women crouched in front of him, offering comfort.

"It was Hood and his gang again," a man hurled at the stone-faced Breen. "How much longer you gonna sit on your fat ass and let them get away with it?"

"You're pretty good at holding a gun on law-abiding people," a woman accused scornfully, thrusting her placard into the light. It was the one accusing the lawman of having a yellow streak.

Breen motioned with the gun, first at Edge and then at Wood, gesturing that they should join the group. Wood waited for Edge to make the first move, then followed him. The tall, cruel-faced half-breed stepped down from the sidewalk and moved casually up behind the angry-looking Mayer, who was still flanked by his younger, tougher companions.

"Go on home all of you," Breen urged. "You ain't helping none, parading the streets like this."

"We're sure as hell keeping you from sleeping on the job," the woman with the placard retorted.

"Breen's right," a man put in, and then grinned as the others turned angrily towards him. "We ain't doing no good. Awake, he's as useless as when he's sleeping."

It drew a trickle of strained laughter.

"Sheriff, I lost fifty thousand and my best man out in the valley," Dexter complained. "I demand some action."

Mayer looked across at the rancher. "You Elmer Dexter? Big D spread up north?"