California Killing (8 page)

The rancher nodded. "When we were held-up, I took you for a coward. Now I know you're not. You're hard and you're smart. I picked up the story you put around - about Wood here taking a picture of Hood. You think Hood's got a man in The Town With No Name feeding him information."

"And you know there's no picture," Edge 'said, glancing out of the window, noting that Holly had gone.

"I know it, but Hood doesn't. But he did know there were rich pickings on the stage. 1 talked to the sheriff awhile back. He happens to think the same way. Everytime Hood hits, he scores. Either money or women. There has to be a contact man here. A man who knew I was bringing in fifty thousand to buy cattle from Mayer."

Edge sighed. "Okay, Dexter. You've convinced me. You think I'm the sharpest thing to hit the West since Jim Bowie stopped using his knife to clean his fingernails. Make your pitch."

"Sure you're sharp," Dexter agreed. "But don't try to be too sharp. While you're getting back what they took from you, you might just figure to make a profit on the deal. I'm willing to let you make it honestly. Ten thousand - reward money."

"Obliged," Edge muttered, the single word heavy with sarcasm.

Dexter refused to be angered, and continued in the same even tone as before. "But don't try to take the whole fifty thousand, Edge. If you do, I'll spend the rest of my life and every cent I've got if need be - to have you hunted down."

The discordant music from below subdued by distance, was an incongruous accompaniment to the high tension within the room, which mounted with each word Dexter spoke. As the heavy seconds dragged by, Wood expected an instant blur of movement and the crack of a gunshot. But it was only Edge's lips that moved, and these, almost imperceptibly.

"I gave Mayer one warning," he whispered. "You get the same, Dexter. Threaten me again and the rest of your life won't be worth your last cent."

Dexter was momentarily shocked into muteness. He had been aware that the man standing across the room from him was the hardest and the meanest he had ever met. But as he listened to his words, each one seeming to be chipped from rock, and looked into the slits of the hooded eyes, so ice cold they appeared to freeze the very air in the room, Dexter sensed a previously unimagined power within the half-breed. It was as if death itself had pointed a warning finger.

The rancher's tone had lost its authority as he asked: "Is it a deal? For ten thousand?"

"Was that Judd's price tag?" Edge asked, and Wood breathed an audible sigh of relief as he heard the lighter tone.

Dexter dropped his gaze to the floor. "Judd had a wife and six children. Seven come next month. He needed his job and it was riding on the stage with the money."

"Seven children," Wood whispered. "Oh, my. That poor man."

"Shut up, Justin," Edge snapped and Wood clamped his lips tight. "I'll think about your proposition, Dexter. You’ll be around town?"

"I've got a suite at the Metro," the rancher replied.

Edge nodded. "Okay. Next time, don't call me. I'll call you. Now beat it."

Dexter had regained his composure and pieced together his shattered dignity. He was angered by the tone of the dismissal, but after a glance at the stony expression of Edge, he decided against retaliation. "May I take my gun?"

"Give him the iron, Justin," Edge instructed.

Again the photographer handled the gun gingerly, as he picked it up from the bed and handed it to Dexter. The rancher slid it into his holster, spun clumsily on his stiff leg and let himself out of the room. Wood gazed longingly at the closing door. Edge ignored him as he picked up the chair and placed it against the wall, midway between the door and the window. He motioned with his head for Wood to sit down, and the photographer did so, clutching his valise tightly to his lap.

"I'm gonna sleep before I eat, Justin," Edge told him, crossing to resume his position on the bed, taking off his hat and resting it across his face so that he spoke into its greasy crown. "You hear anybody trying to get in here, you yell like you were scared to death."

Wood glanced anxiously from the door to the window and nodded. "I will be scared to death, Mr. Edge," he said.

"I'm counting on it," Edge told him. Silence settled within the room, except for the quick, nervous breathing of Wood and the regular, relaxed sound of Edge seeking sleep. After several minutes had slipped by, some of the tenseness wept out of Wood and his thoughts were able to range beyond pity for himself. He sighed.

"You got a problem, Justin?" Edge asked softly, sleepily.

"I can't help thinking about that poor man, Judd," Wood replied, "A wife and seven children. He must have been frantic to try to save Mr. Dexter's money the way he did."

"Forget it, Justin," Edge murmured. "Man with a family as big as that - must have had a good life on the whole."

Chapter Eight

I
T
was after midnight and the Paramount Hotel was closed and quiet, in darkness except for one kerosene lamp which cast a dim light along the balcony from the top of the stairway. When Duke Scott, moving silently in stocking feet with his boots tied together by their laces and slung around his neck, turned down the wick to its limit, the whole place was plunged into pitch blackness. This was a signal for four other men, moving with similar stealth, to take the steps two at a time and join Scott on the balcony. They moved in single file towards the door of room five.

Out on the street a few lamps continued to glow above the sidewalks and from windows, but their yellowness was made insipid by the light of the near full moon which bathed some parts of the buildings in ghostly white luminescence and threw other sections into deep shadows. Such an inky patch of shade fell across the front of the Paramount, concealing from anybody who chanced to look up, the forms of Randy Wayne and two other men crouched on the porch canopy.

Inside room five, Edge slept peacefully, unmoving except for the regular rise and fall of his powerful chest. Justin Wood dozed fitfully in the chair. He had tried valiantly to stay awake, but the strain of the day and the time-stretching task Edge had set him finally took its toll and forced his body and mind to surrender to their weariness.

Edge came awake the moment the turning door handle emitted the softest of squeaks. He had slept with his right hand curled around the butt of the holstered revolver. Now his forefinger moved to caress the trigger. Every one of his senses was instantly alert and the training of so many years living on the knife edge of danger stood him in good stead. Despite their stocking feet, the intruders were unable to move in complete silence, and Edge counted each man as he slid in through the half-opened door. Because there were five of them, he made no move. Five were four too many for a simple murder attempt.

"Sorry fellers," he said into the near silence which had settled within the room when all the men were inside. "Room's already taken."

Wood came awake with a startled cry. A match flared. He blinked in the sudden brightness and saw the five men with guns drawn, each with his boots slung around his neck. "Oh, my," he exclaimed.

"Get the lamp," Duke Scott rasped as knuckles rapped on the window. "Eddy, open the window."

Edge folded up into a sitting position and tipped his hat on to his head as one man fired the lamp and another ripped aside the curtains and pushed open the window.

Randy Wayne and his two companions entered, their revolvers held at the ready.

"I heard of double booking, but this is ridiculous," Edge said easily.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Edge," Justin whined!

"Shut up', Justin," came the harsh retort. "Your eyes and ears are about as much use to you as your tongue."

"Cut it out!" Scott demanded and Wood gulped and began to shake. "We're a properly constituted vigilante committee. We want the picture of Sam Hood. Who's got it?"

Edge pointed a finger. "Justin's the photographer."

"Guy's got a gun, Duke," Wayne warned.

"We got eight," Scott returned crossing to stand in front of the quaking Wood. "Kill him if he moves."

"I haven't got any picture," Wood said hoarsely, shaking his head from side to side. "He made it up."

Scott lifted the Colt and side-swiped Wood's hat. The little photographer let out a yelp of terror as the derby scaled across the room. Scott's expression was utterly devoid of emotion as he upended the gun and let the muzzle rest precisely in the center of Wood's skull. "Mr. Mayer wants this done legal," the gunman said softly, steadying his gun as its resting place began to shudder. "But anyone tries to sway the course of justice, we got authority to put some pressure on. Don't need much pressure to squeeze this trigger, pint size. Where's the picture?"

"Honest to God!" Wood yelled. "I'm not trying to…"

"In the bag," Edge interjected softly.

Eight hard-eyed stares were turned upon Edge, then swiveled to the valise resting upon Wood's bony knees. Edge thought he could draw and blast at least four of the men before they knew what hit them. But those odds were not good enough. So he concentrated his attention upon the little man in the chair, silently threatening him with a thousand ways to die.

"Open the bag, pint size," Scott ordered, bearing down on the gun, forcing Wood's chin to rest on his narrow chest

"Tell 'em, Justin," Edge urged.

''Tell them what?" Wood choked, his voice on the verge of hysteria, his terrified eyes finding nowhere to rest as his gaze rebounded back and forth between the unpitying faces of Edge and Scott.

Edge sighed. "Obvious folk out here in California don't know anything about picture making, Justin," he said softly. "Tell 'em how, if you open the bag and light gets on the plate, there won't be any picture. Tell 'em about positive and negative and fixing. Won't mean a damn thing to these clucks, but if Mayer finds out his boys ruined the picture, I don't reckon he'll renew their contracts."

"You tryin' to pull a fast one, Edge?" Scott barked, half angry, half confused.

Wood licked his lips rapidly and struggled to find his voice. "He's right about developing techniques," he stammered suddenly. "The exposed plate has to be kept in the dark."

"How long?" Scott snarled. Wood had succeeded in telling the truth. But now he had to shoot a pleading glance towards Edge for support. Edge splayed his fingers and thumb across his forehead to push his hat on to the back of his head.

"Five min…" Wood began, but caught the negative movement of Edge's head. "Five hours. Five more hours!"

Edge smiled coldly as Scott's hard-faced handsomeness showed his anxious thought processes. Then, suddenly, he realized the solution and snatched the valise from Wood's nervous grasp.

"We take the bag!" he snapped, backing away from the seated man, relieving the pressure on Wood's skull. But the Colt continued to be aimed at the man in the chair. "And you, pint size. We need you to make sure there's no slip up."

Wood's terror heightened and the trail of dried blood on his chin seemed to grow darker in contrast to his pale face. "But I don't…"

"Do like they say, Justin," Edge urged. "No sense in having the picture spoiled. They won't hurt you - they need you to work on it."

Wood looked along the line of vigilantes and drew no. comfort from their wooden expressions. But the validity of Edge's statement cut through his fear and he nodded. He got shakily to his feet.

Scott passed the valise to the stocky gunman called Eddy. ''Take pint size over to the Metro," he ordered. "Randy and me got some unfinished business to settle with this guy."

As the two men moved in to flank Wood and then hustle him towards the door, Wayne moved in close to the window side of the bed, jabbing his Colt painfully against Edge's ear. Scott contented himself with merely scowling at the half-breed until the rest of the men had left the room, closing the door behind them. Then he reached the foot of the bed in two strides and fastened his coldly angry eyes upon Edge's impassive face.

"We gotta be careful with you," he hissed softly. "Mr. Mayer don't want you dead. He don't ever want anybody dead. Causes too much trouble. But he can't let you get away with blasting off his arm."

"Figured it might have pained him a little," Edge said easily, holding his head firmly, refusing to give way to the pressure of Wayne's gun.

"Course," Scott continued. "You'd tried to draw your iron, you'd be dead. But that would have been self-defense. And that ain't no trouble at all. But I reckon you ain't gonna make a play. So Randy might as well take your gun. Mr. Mayer thought two broken legs would be a fair exchange for a lost arm. Busted when you fell out the window."

"He's a deep thinker," Edge put in.

"Course, they'd have to be broken real bad - so you'd never walk again. And we can't be sure of that if we just shove you down on the street. So we figure to bust them in a couple of places before you take the dive." His voice rose. "Get his gun, Randy."

Edge had seemed at ease on the bed, his body slack in the sitting position. But as Scott was speaking, he was preparing himself - coiling every muscle in his body like a series of steel springs, priming them to react instantly to the single trigger of opportunity. And the moment came when Wayne reached down to hook the Walker-Colt from its holster. Edge's right hand moved like a piston, the fingers uncurling from the butt of the gun then stretching to the limit to gather together the laces that hung down at each side of Wayne's neck. Even before the man could open his mouth to utter a cry of alarm, he had been jerked off his feet and was sprawled crosswise on the bed over Edge's outstretched legs. Working in unison with the right, Edge's left hand had drawn the razor and it streaked downwards as he jerked his head clear of the pointing gun.