Killing Time In Eternity - Edge Series 4 (26 page)

Edge swallowed hard and felt as firmly rooted to the spot as the too bright smile seemed to be pasted to the woman’s lean face. He did not reply until he had reached her with a half dozen cautious strides. Then clutched her compliant form in his arms as she began to sway. And held her close as he murmured with his lips brushing her sticking out ear: ‘One day you’re going to find something you can’t do well, Sue Ellen.’

She shuddered and sounded only slightly less tense as she challenged: ‘The hell I will, you goddamn nosy sonofabitch!’

‘Uh?’ He peered intently at her.

Her laugh was gratingly harsh and far too loud and she abruptly curtailed the ugly sound then explained: ‘You see, unlike Gus Brady, I can think of all kinds of cuss words. Call you lots of nasty names to make sure I’m thinking straight.’ She began to tremble and he held her more tightly, concerned she was close to passing out in reaction to the violent act she had just committed. But he felt disconcertingly out of his depth and was unable to find words to calm her.

Then she suddenly pulled away, crouched beside the man curled on the ground in the foetal position and felt for his pulse then probed his scalp through the greasy blond hair. Next looked up at Edge with a wan smile that was slightly crooked but was nonetheless an expression he liked much better than the one it replaced. ‘I’m okay now: honestly. And I’m sure Brady will be, too. Except for the headache you warned him about.’

‘I’m happy for you. Not for him.’

She came erect and sighed. ‘Thank God he will be all right. I gave that whack with the rifle all I had.’

He made a loose fist and rapped her lightly on the side of the jaw. ‘So, emancipated female like you are, it’s lucky you’re still one of the weaker sex, uh?’

She confined her response to a more fleeting smile and he thought she was close to another shudder. But he ignored her high anxiety to consider another problem. Brady may recover at any moment and he could not leave Sue Ellen to stand guard on the man. He had to take a chance, so he stooped to pick up the shotgun and said: 138

‘We need to move while he’s still out cold.’

He went to the rear of the longer than it was wide bunkhouse and tossed the weapon far out into the high brush. Then when he reached to take the Winchester from the woman as she came up behind him she tightened her two handed grip on the barrel and frame.

‘Not unless you really need it, Edge?’ Her pale blue eyes looked extremely large within their deep sockets.

‘Are you sure you’re okay, Sue Ellen?’

‘Better by the moment.’ She held the repeater out at arms length and raised and lowered it. ‘And as for that weaker sex jibe, don’t they call this thing an equaliser?’

‘That’s a revolver,’ he corrected. ‘But if you use a Winchester the way it was intended to be used it’ll make you more than equal.’

She countered: ‘Haven’t you heard that us women don’t want to be equal with you men, Edge? That we’re quite happy being superior.’

‘Next time there’s a comedy at that theatre if yours, you shouldn’t hide your talent behind the scenery, Sue Ellen,’ he said as he moved along the rear of the building to the opposite corner.

‘I always try to be funny around men,’ she replied and waited for him to glance back at her before she added: ‘Kind of like an insurance against getting serious about any of them.’

Their quizzical gazes locked for a moment, then Edge turned away and leaned forward to peer across the gap between the two buildings: beyond the buggy and its hitched horse toward the front corner of the cannery plant and slaughterhouse. The acrid smell of tobacco smoke continued to waft out from the door-less doorway, along with the mumble of distant voices. Next a few moments of silence followed by a burst of laughter from several throats. Then heavy footfalls approached the doorway that was out of sight from the rear of the bunkhouse. And Troy Shaver yelled:

‘Okay, Gus! We’re all though now! Let’s get on back to town!’

His footfalls crunched on a shale-covered area out front of the cannery entrance and when Edge jerked back into cover he banged into the woman who confined her startled reaction to a subdued squeal.

‘Around to the other side again,’ he rasped, stepped by her and led the way to the front corner where Brady showed no sign of recovering consciousness. More than one pair of footfalls sounded outside the larger building now and two men started across the gap toward the bunkhouse doorway. And Lester Hardin joined Shaver in shouting for Brady, apprehension creeping into both their voices. 139

‘Edge, they’ll start to come looking for him soon and – ‘ Sue Ellen’s voice was a tremulous whisper.

He cut in on her. ‘Follow me.’ Then he stepped away from the wall. Dropped on to hands and knees, checked to see that she did likewise and saw her grimace as she made contact with the damp grass and earth.

Shaver and Hardin were yelling louder, sounding more anxious by the moment. Out of sight of the retreating Edge and Sue Ellen Spencer, Lee Baldwin and another man emerged from the bunkhouse, leading horses. Baldwin demanded to know what was wrong.

Hardin snarled: ‘It’s Gus, damnit! Something must’ve happened to the stupid bastard!’

Olivia Colbert instructed imperiously: ‘You had better take care of this matter, Mr Shaver! We cannot afford any troublesome mistakes at this late stage!’

The buggy jolted forward. One of the mounted men spurred his horse into a fast gallop to head back the way the night visitors to the derelict buildings had come from town. The second rider moved toward the buggy and matched its sedate pace, seemingly bound for the Colbert spread. Still blind to what he could hear taking place, Edge glanced at Sue Ellen again: saw she was staying close behind him but was scowling her distaste at what they were doing. She mouthed that she was fine and gestured impatiently for him to keep on going. Shaver and Hardin began to lace obscenities into what they yelled, their anger now directed at the departing men and Olivia Colbert as well as the unresponsive Brady. Edge with Sue Ellen close behind him, halted alongside a heap of crumbled bricks, timber off-cuts and broken metal fixings. The woman sucked in and expelled several deep breaths. Edge asked: ‘Are you still okay?’

‘I won’t pretend I haven’t been better,’ she answered tensely. ‘But since I came along as a willing volunteer, I won’t complain.’

‘It wouldn’t do you any good right now, lady.’ He grinned. Hardin roared: ‘Troy! Troy, get over here! The other side of the stable! Some bastard’s cracked Gus over his stupid head!’

Edge did not risk showing himself to look in the direction of the fearful toned raised voice and then running feet as Shaver responded to the news.

‘Damnit, Lester! Whoever laid him out cold took the shotgun. This is getting to be .

. . ‘ There was no more shouting and the two men discussed the situation in low tones that carried as no more than an indistinct, rasping murmur to where Edge and Sue Ellen strained to overhear what was said. Next came subdued, ill-defined sounds and another 140

exchange of inaudible talk between the two men. And now Edge risked a brief look toward the bunkhouse then ducked back down and reported:

‘They’re hauling Brady away.’

‘So what do we do now?’

‘I’ll take a look around inside after they’ve gone.’

‘What if just one of them tends to Brady? And the other one stays here to see if – ‘

Edge grinned, touched fingertips to his holstered Colt then moved his hand to indicate the Winchester that Sue Ellen gripped so tightly. ‘I doubt they’ll split up. But if they do, we’ve got the equaliser and better.’

She was grimly unconvinced. Then she gasped when horses whinnied, men cursed and hooves stamped the soft ground. Edge made another hurried survey out across the tops of the brush and grunted his satisfaction when he saw Shaver and Hardin astride their mounts, the younger man leading a third horse with the unconscious Brady draped over the saddle. He waited until they were out of sight then reached down to help Sue Ellen up from where she was crouched.

‘Are you – ‘

‘Quit that!’ She glowered at him.

‘What?’

She warned in a brittle tone: ‘If you ask me one more time if I’m okay, I’m just bound to start getting doubts about how good I am at almost everything I do. And I could even be hit by a fit of female screaming.’

He started forward. ‘Do me a favour, Sue Ellen?’

‘What?’

‘Whatever else you happen to find you’re not so hot at anymore, don’t let it be having a sense of humour?’

‘I’ll do my damnedest, Edge – just so long as I don’t die laughing.’

They reached the solid cover of the bunkhouse and gratefully rested their tensionstiffened muscles while they listened intently for stretched seconds. The five horses that remained in the makeshift stable continued to make contented champing sounds. The men heading back to Eternity were now far out of earshot. As Edge and Sue Ellen drew close to the larger building no sound came from inside, until they heard a scuttling noise followed a few moments later by the squeak of a small rodent.

‘You wait here while I take a look, okay?’ Edge said.

‘No you don’t, mister!’ she protested tensely. ‘I’m still enough of a fallible female to be scared of mice.’

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‘So you do have a weak spot?’ he chided as she stayed close enough to bump into him before she was able to match her pace precisely to his. She countered: ‘Did I ever claim to be perfect?’

He stepped through another door-less entrance into another longer than it was wide building. One that seemed much larger than it did from the outside. An impression created by the total lack of furniture and fittings in a place that was designed to take beef on the hoof in at one end and process it into canned meat by the time it reached the other. Tonight this building where it had been planned to turn western cattle into food for eastern tables contained just a half dozen small wooden crates up-ended to serve as chairs arranged on either side of two larger ones that formed a makeshift table. Cigarette and cigar butts and dead matches littered the floor nearby. Too many of them all to be from the most recent gathering.

‘It doesn’t tell us much, does it?’ Sue Ellen was clearly easier in her mind as she made a final survey of the bleak scene that was illuminated by moonlight from glassless windows and holes in the roof.

‘Reckon not,’ he agreed.

‘It does seem an unlikely place for those people to meet up. Especially since one of them was Olivia Colbert and she’s got that big, comfortable house just a couple of miles along the trail.’

‘She’s got help on the spread that she maybe didn’t want to know anything about this get-together.’

‘All right, but wouldn’t Shaver and his men – and that Baldwin character who works for her - be able to scare the help out of not poking their noses into whatever was being talked about?’

‘I guess it’s important enough to Olivia Colbert for her not to want to take any more chances than she has to,’ Edge said. He went out of the larger building and returned to the old bunkhouse to take a closer look than he did the time before. It smelled and looked like a stable and the horses that were well provided for within its shelter were content for this to be so. He saw he had made a mistake earlier: that there had been eleven animals feeding on the hay, for only five had been removed and six remained. Also, he had failed to notice that these animals were hobbled to keep them from wandering off through the unbarred doorway.

‘What now?’ There was a trace of dejection in Sue Ellen’s tone and expression as she stepped outside and peered around the abandoned canning plant site.

‘Hey, what happened to that sense of humour I’ve come to know and love, lady?’ he chided her.

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She sighed, showed a wan smile and shrugged. ‘I have to admit I feel a little let down after all the excitement. I’d hoped we’d find out something important.’

‘Some you win, some you don’t, Sue Ellen. Take the word of an old gambler for that. But the game’s not over yet, though. Where was it you left our horses before you went Brady hunting?’

‘Follow me, you old gambler.’

She set off at a fast pace, angling away to the left from the front of the buildings. And no more was said until some five minutes later when they were in their saddles, heading back the way they had come.

‘Tell me something, Edge? Honestly?’

‘If I can.’

She chewed her lower lip, sighed and almost blurted: ‘If I hadn’t been around tonight

. . . If you were on your own, would you have done anything differently?’

He showed an ironic smile. ‘The way I recall it, if you hadn’t been around, it could be I wouldn’t any more.’

She made an impatient dismissive motion with a hand. ‘That was just the . . . I mean, if you were on your own and that didn’t happen . . . Or it did and you took care of Brady on your own? Do you think you could have found out something about why Olivia Colbert and Troy Shaver and the rest of those men went to the trouble to come all the way out here tonight?’

‘Why is that important to you, Sue Ellen?’

She pleaded: ‘I really do want to help you find who killed the doc. And if this has something to do with why he was murdered . . . And I was in the way for being so stubborn about tagging along with you, I – ‘

He cut in: ‘What I know for sure, Sue Ellen, is that I’m real glad you were there when Brady came around the corner with that shotgun. That made twice tonight I was jumped –