Return to Massacre Mesa - Edge Series 5 (15 page)

instead of having just the twenty-four bucks that was all he had left in his back pocket. He had done all he could and that was that. There was something considerably more irksome that bothered him: which was that he liked to go his own way as well as to pay for it. But what if something had happened that meant he needed to remain in this town for good reason? How then would he have responded to the deputy sheriff’s request, soft-spoken but bordering on an order, that he better hit the open trail or else?

Hell, in the old days he’d have – ‘Damnit, the old days are long gone, you stupid sonofabitch!’ he rasped.

‘You say something to me saddle-tramp?’

Edge had reached the end of Cedar Street and swung on to the start of Farm Trail between Fort Chance and the church. At this early hour of the new day the gates of the post were securely closed and the sentries were positioned on the walkways behind the top of the wall.

The uniformed man assigned to the northeast corner was a sergeant who was peering down at Edge with a surly expression on his grizzled, hard-eyed features. After a double take at the rider below the veteran non-com queried: ‘Hey, I guess you must be that guy who Sam Tree gave his marching orders to, ain’t that right?’

‘Yeah, sergeant,’ Edge answered grimly and reined in his horses. ‘That’s what’s bothering me.’

‘I guess it would.’

‘It wouldn’t have happened in the old days,’ Edge said ruefully. ‘But the old days are long gone, that’s for sure.’

The sentry accused: ‘Hell, mister, you ain’t making any sense at all to me. Talking to yourself: and talking crazy, it sounds like to me. But then I gotta figure you for another one of them crazy guys fixing to go looking for Uncle Sam’s long lost dollars. And any man trying to do that has gotta be plumb out of his mind.’

Edge withdrew again into a private world of sardonic contemplation of his 101

changing circumstances and attitudes as he heeled his horse forward: raised a hand in indifferent farewell as he moved off at the same unhurried pace as before. Later, when the sun had climbed a little higher in the cloudless eastern sky, he crested the hill beyond the creek to reach the point from where the adobe of Rose Bigheart came into view. No smoke rose from the shack’s chimney and this initial sign that the squaw had left was confirmed when he rode closer and saw the cow and hog were gone from their shaded pen and the horse from the corral out back.

He dismounted near the vegetable patch, hitched his reins to the post and went to where the door stood ajar. When he pushed it open all the way the slight creak of a dry hinge was the only sound except for his own breathing and that of the two horses. He didn’t ask himself what he thought he was doing as he listened to the pervading silence of the surrounding foothills for he knew there was no logical response. Nothing about his actions since the Lakewood sheriff fired the first shot in the saloon last night made much sense to his usual way of thinking.

All he found inside the ill-furnished adobe were signs that the Comanche squaw who had once lived here with a dying white man was now gone. And had taken with her what little of material value or mundane use she could carry: of spiritual need, too, for the crucifixes were also missing. Which maybe meant Rose intended to be gone for a long time: or even for good and all.

From the window in the rear wall he was able to see the elongated mound of fresh dug earth that marked where Devlin was buried. There was a crude wooden cross standing at one end of the grave and he felt drawn to leave the adobe by the only door and move around to the rear. When he reached the graveside he saw that Rose Bigheart had painted a name on the cross and he grinned wryly at the fact it was the wrong one. Andrew Devlin, the crooked lawyer who had cheated him out of two thousand dollars was buried under a marker that named him as Lyndon Andrews. Then he abruptly abandoned the grin as he acknowledged it was asinine to derive pleasure from such a trivial triumph: and recalled what the sergeant at the fort had said about him being crazy. As he returned to the horses his short-lived good humour over the grave marker began to be replaced by a simmering anger: because he recalled how 102

he had heard that some people regressed to showing child-like sentiments as their years sped by into old age. Then he cursed and told himself he was not yet in his dotage. Studied the disturbed dust on the hard packed ground out front of the shack and recognised the sign that somebody had ridden up to the adobe and hitched a horse to the post. Later two mounts were ridden away. And cloven-hoofed prints showed the milk cow and the hog had been led off in the same southerly direction. It was still early in the day and the only activity on the three farms he passed by was signalled by smoke rising vertically from the chimneys in the inert, gradually warming air. Then, when he saw the tracks of the cow and the hog were no longer visible, he reflected idly that the squaw had probably sold her stock to one of the farmers, or exchanged the animals for supplies. The well-trodden trail petered out after he was beyond the gated entrance to the most southerly farm and became a little used track that followed the line of least resistance over gently rolling, almost barren country sparsely featured with clumps of dull coloured brush and stunted trees. But although it often veered to left and right, sometimes at a sharp angle, it seemed ultimately to be leading toward the highest peak in the distance mountain range, which became less distinctly outlined against the sky as the increasing heat created a blurring shimmer in the air.

Because the track had been so little used in recent times it was clear to see that he was still trailing the same pair of riders who had left the squaw’s adobe. Two or three hours ahead of him, he estimated as he rode at an unhurried pace that conserved the energy of his mount and the pack horse as the day grew hotter by the minute. Then when the position of the blazing sun marked the time at noon he saw a distant column of white smoke in the hazy air and checked an impulse to quicken his progress. And a few minutes later he called a halt to rest the animals and eat some jerked beef washed down with tepid canteen water.

The campfire smoke continued to rise against the southern sky as he set off. But before long the flames were doused and again there was just the sign on the hard packed, dusty ground to show that two other riders had recently headed this way. It was mid-afternoon when he reached a small hollow half circled by scrub trees where 103

the midday fire had burned and two horses were rested while the riders ate a hot meal and drank coffee. Several diminutive footprints in the dust confirmed what he had suspected at the adobe early this morning – that Rose Bigheart’s late night visitor and then riding companion was almost certainly a woman. And it figured this was surely Lucy Russell?

Discarded coffee grounds close to the fire ashes in the circle of stones triggered Edge’s taste buds but he ignored what was a mere want rather than a pressing need and remounted the chestnut gelding to continue the trek southward. And as he had done ever since leaving the abandoned adobe, he occasionally peered out over his back trail. And never glimpsed a sign that anyone else had left town behind him to ride across this desolate sand coloured foothill country that baked in the hot, bright sun glaring out from a cloudless sky.

Darkness fell fast but the moon was almost full where it hung low above the horizon to cast elongated solid black shadows from the sparse features on the rolling terrain. He found a place to make camp, attended to the two geldings then built a fire and started a pot of coffee and a skillet of beans to heating. After supper he unfurled his bedroll, arranged his saddlebags to form a pillow and waited contentedly for sleep that came easily tonight. He slept soundly and woke to the grey light of the false dawn feeling rested and as ready as he could expect to be these days to face whatever the new day would bring.

He washed up but did not trouble to shave before he readied the horses, hitched the lead line between them and started southward again, paying passing attention to the sign made by the riders ahead of him. The red shading to yellow disc of the sun was just clear of the horizon when he saw the smoke of the women’s breakfast fire and estimated he was less than two miles away from where they had spent the night and were about to start a new day. A day he planned to share with them. He cantered the horses for a short distance in the cool of the early morning until he reached the foot of a long and broad, gentle slope. He guessed that from the top of this he guessed he would be able to see the source of the smoke that had continued to rise at a constant rate ever since he first spotted it. He dismounted then and led the 104

horses through the increasing heat of morning: aware of the unobtrusive sounds made by hooves against the dusty ground and the creak of harness leather. Which contributed to the effect he wanted to create of a man with nothing to hide so with no need to be furtive.

‘All right, you stop right where you are, mister!’ The solidly built Rose Bigheart issued the harsh toned order as she unbent from a crouch on the flat top of the rise, a scowl on her somewhat masculine features. She gripped in a tight fist the big, worse for wear Starr revolver of pre-Civil War vintage that had been too heavy for the dying Devlin to hold steady. The glowering squaw aimed it unwaveringly at the centre of Edge’s chest.

‘No, Rose, it’s all right!’ Lucy Russell announced as she appeared from behind a nearby outcrop of rock on the crest of the hill. Her tone and the expression on her angular, attractive to Edge face suggested she was both nervous and relieved. ‘I know who he is and he’s – ‘

‘I also know this man, Miss Lucy,’ the hard-eyed squaw cut in flatly. ‘And he’s one I don’t trust: like most of his kind. What do you want of us, Mr Edge?’

They were both dressed in the same clothes as when he last saw them, but Lucy’s mourning garb was, like her long dark hair, now much more dishevelled. She was as unwashed as Rose after a gruelling day of travel and a night of sleeping in open country.

The same as Edge himself, he acknowledged fleetingly as he rasped the back of a hand over the sharp bristles on his jaw and kept his tone even when he replied: ‘I know it’s supposed to be a woman’s prerogative to change her mind. But I figure a man ought to be allowed to do the same on occasion?’

‘Why?’ Rose asked as Lucy looked from her to Edge and back again, apprehension shaping her expression.

‘I just think it should be that way is all.’ He tried a wry smile but drew no encouraging response from either woman.

105

Rose said firmly: ‘I’m sure you well know what I mean, mister! Why did you change your mind and come out here tracking Miss Lucy and me?

He moved a pace closer and Lucy gasped and took a backward step. Rose stood her ground and thrust the old Starr sixgun threateningly toward the advancing target. Edge came to a stop at a point from where he was able to look between the two women and down the slope to their night camp in another hollow. There were no trees this time. Their horses were hobbled off to one side of where the fire now gave off less smoke. There was a pile of tack to one side of it and blankets not yet rolled after they had been slept under. An empty, unwashed skillet was no longer on the fire and two used plates were beside it. A pot stood in the embers.

‘Is there some coffee left, ladies?’ He nodded toward the camp.

‘Yes, sure!’ Lucy blurted.

‘Maybe,’ Rose contradicted. ‘And perhaps we can be of a mind to act hospitable toward you. But I’d like to know why you changed
your
mind, mister? After you told Miss Lucy you weren’t interested in what she wanted to do?’

Edge grimaced as he looked at the lawman’s daughter and told her: ‘One of the whore’s saw you coming out of my room at the Wild Dog, Miss Russell. And the way she told it your pa figured you did more than just talk to me.’

She gasped, clutched at her throat with both hands and murmured bitterly: ‘It was Dolores Jiminez, wasn’t it?’

‘Your pa heard her tell what she’d seen and what she thought about it: which caused him to take a wild shot at me. And the way it was, he could’ve killed Sam Tree and Tree sort of ran me out of town.’

‘You want to take Miss Lucy back to town so she can tell her father and Mr Tree that – ‘ Rose Bigheart started.

Edge broke in: ‘I don’t give a damn what people in Lakewood think of Miss Russell’s reputation, Rose. And I don’t have any kind of reputation of my own that 106

needs protecting. And I sure don’t think I’ll ever have any reason or inclination to ever go back to that town.’

‘So what do you want to – ‘

Edge cut in again on the squaw: ‘What I don’t want to do is spend the rest of my life concerned that Billy Russell or some fast gun he hired is hunting for me – on account of what I’m supposed to have done but didn’t to his daughter.’

‘It amounts to the same thing, seems to me,’ Rose argued insistently. ‘You want Miss Lucy to do what she doesn’t want to do. Which is for her to go back there and tell her pa the whore lied?’

‘I’d like for her to do that, sure enough,’ Edge allowed. ‘But it doesn’t have to be right now.’

The younger woman had continued to rock her head from side to side, looking anxiously from Edge to the squaw and back again as they discussed her. Finally she said:

‘Look, Rose, it seems to me there’s no reason why we can’t give Mr Edge a cup of coffee while we talk about this Rose, don’t you think?’

The squaw spoke a single word that only she knew the meaning of in a tone that suggested it was a Comanche curse. Then she thrust the big gun into the side of her belt around her middle, whirled and strode down the hill without a backward glance to where Lucy stood and Edge started forward with his two horses.