Return to Massacre Mesa - Edge Series 5 (18 page)

‘This young buck is right, Edge!’ The normally resolutely unperturbed squaw swallowed hard and her lips trembled as she went on to warn: ‘So we must leave as soon as possible before Mountain Lion gets here. He’s likely to kill you and Miss Lucy quickly just for being white. And me more slowly for being worse than white.’

‘What’s wrong?’ The unseen Lucy Russell’s tone signalled she had just awakened from deep sleep in the wickiup.

Edge rose to his feet, looked around the dark and silent apparently sleeping village then at Crooked Eye and Rose in turn. Settled his attention on the anxious squaw as the even more worried looking face of Lucy showed at her shoulder. The older woman urged tautly:

‘It’s important we put as much distance as we can between ourselves and this village, Miss Lucy. Mountain Lion is on his way and it will be very bad for us if we are here when he comes. And the Comanche who had shown us kindness will be made to suffer for their good deeds.’

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‘I will get the horses?’ Crooked Eye hurried away without waiting for agreement to his suggestion.

‘Get your things,’ Rose instructed Lucy and ushered her back inside. Edge began to gather his belongings together.

Inside the lodge Lucy pointed out uneasily: ‘I can’t believe the Indians won’t know we’re leaving?’

‘They’ll know, Miss Lucy,’ Rose acknowledged. ‘But we are not escaping from them. Because of what they fear Mountain Lion would do to them if he found us here you can be sure they will be glad to see the back of us.’

The village remained silent and there were no sounds of any activity except those made by the trio at the wickiup close to the trees. Then of the four horses being led from the remuda by the boy. Perhaps they were seen, perhaps only heard, as they made the final preparations to leave and swung up into their saddles. Rose spoke Comanche to the grave faced Crooked Eye who squinted attentively up at her astride the horse. He responded in English then after a few words looked away from her toward Edge, clearly with an ulterior motive.

‘Somebody may tell Mountain Lion you were here? And perhaps also tell him I warned you and helped you to get away from the village? But if I am to be punished, then I will accept my suffering like a full grown brave for I will know that my conscience is clear?’

‘Much obliged, kid,’ Edge said as he tugged on the reins to steer his horse in the same direction Rose Bigheart went. ‘There’s nothing like a clear conscience for letting a feller get a good night’s sleep – all else allowing for it, too.’

He yawned to emphasise his meaning about the early hour of his waking, then winked at the boy to signal he was joking and ushered Lucy to move off behind Rose as he brought up the rear. A final glance over his shoulder showed Crooked Eye still stood beside the faintly smoking embers for a moment, a look of dissatisfaction rather than fear on his youthful face before he turned and loped from sight beyond the lodge. 122

The three riders remained silent as they held the single file formation to enter the timber. Maintained the same walking pace until they were half a mile or so from the Comanche encampment that was lost to sight beyond the trees. Twice Lucy looked back at Edge in the dappled moonlight and both times seemed about to ask a question but kept silent when he shook his head. Rose never turned her head that seemed to be firmly cemented on to her rigid shoulders. And when at length she began to speak, facing unwaveringly to the front still, her tone of voice was as stoical as all else about her.

‘I was made an outcast by my people because of what I could not help doing many years ago, Miss Lucy. Then, as a young squaw, I allowed myself to love a White Eyes just as deeply as I am sure you loved your handsome young lieutenant.’

She broke off and shuddered, perhaps finding it difficult to keep her emotions under firm control. Lucy again turned around to look at Edge and once more he shook his head and remained impassive in response to her tacitly helpless lack of comprehension. There was a tremor in Rose’s voice when she continued:

‘I had become the squaw of a White Eyes, which was bad enough. But much worse than that, I was the wife of a Comanche brave and mother of his son. This happens much in the world of the White Eyes, does it not?’

‘Does it?’ Lucy’s tone was almost harsh and she was clearly shocked by Rose’s confession of desertion and adultery. ‘I have not heard that it ever happened to any married people in Lakewood.’

Edge said flatly: ‘You haven’t been anywhere much, have you lady? There’s a big wide world full of all kinds of people outside of Lakewood. And I’d say what Rose is talking about is something that happens a lot more often than you could possibly believe.’

‘It happens rarely in the Comanche nation,’ Rose said dully. ‘I know of no other squaw who has done what I did.’ Her tone became resigned as she continued: ‘Some of my people have changed the way they think of me: have even forgiven me my sin. But such a Comanche as Mountain Lion, young as he is compared with the three old 123

chiefs you saw at the village where . . . ‘ She sighed deeply and hardened her tone. ‘He is not able to forgive any Comanche who even expresses a wish to live in peace with the White Eyes. For myself, I am ready to accept whatever fate holds in store for me because of my past misdeeds. But because you are with me I am fearful . . . ‘

‘I’m trying to understand how you could have done what you did all those years ago, Rose,’ Lucy cut in plaintively. ‘How could you do that? A husband you must have loved once: and a baby? Edge, do you understand how a woman of any race or creed could do such a thing?’ She turned her head around to show an imploring expression.

‘Indians are different from me, lady.’ He shrugged. ‘The same as women are. And I’ve had enough experience of both to know that for a whole lot of the time I won’t ever understand what they’re doing or what they’re doing it for.’

Rose started to explain: ‘It happened a long time ago when I was much younger and I – ‘

They emerged from the shadows of the trees into the bright moonlight and Edge suddenly reined in his mount and muttered softly: ‘Let’s hold it here, ladies.’

The two women halted their horses and turned in their saddles as Edge wheeled his gelding to face back the way they had come.

‘What’s wrong?’ Lucy looked and sounded deeply afraid.

‘Hush, woman.’ Rose warned.

Edge gestured into the timber. ‘We’ve got some company.’

‘What?’ Lucy clutched a hand to her throat.

‘It’s a matter of who, Miss Russell.’ Edge continued to concentrate his attention on the timber that in the dark early hours of the new day had a black and forbidding quality. ‘The way he’s got all the damn cover, I just hope it’s not somebody who means us harm.’

Rose said: ‘
Somebody
means there’s just one, Mr Edge?’

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‘Just one that I can be sure of.’ He did not shift his narrow eyed gaze away from where the two women’s stares were now transfixed as they heeled their horses forward to flank his own. Then he raised his voice to ask: ‘Do you want to show yourself? Or are you like me these days?’

‘Like you, Mr Edge? I do not understand?’ Because of the muffling effect of the trees it was difficult to pin point exactly where he was.

‘The Indian boy?’ Lucy gasped.

‘Crooked Eye,’ Rose did not try to mask the relief in her tone. Edge ignored them to explain to the unseen young Comanche: ‘I like to be on my own mostly, but there are times when I need to throw in my hand with others. There’s no shame attached to taking the second course, kid. These days, though, it takes me longer to make up my mind one way or the other.’

The short and starting to get thick set Comanche buck stepped from behind a sturdy trunk and advanced out of the shadows into the full moonlight.

‘How did you know I was here, Mr Edge?’

‘Like women and Indians,’ Edged replied cryptically as he beckoned Crooked Eye to come closer and then added with a fleeting grin: ‘The way the sixth sense works is something I hardly ever understand.’

Rose said: ‘Except when a man has been told he is in greater danger than he thought he was? And so he takes more care to watch out for himself?

‘She makes a good point.’ Edge looked down at the young Comanche who had come to stand beside his horse, a dejected expression on his immature face. ‘But when I sense somebody’s following me and there’s a near full moon, I get a little help if that feller is wearing something that the light bounces off.’

‘Uh?’ the perplexed youngster grunted.

‘A couple of times that dingus you got hanging around your neck flashed like a 125

lamp, kid. Even in the trees back there.’

Crooked Eye grimaced down at the silver disc hung on a cord around his neck and rasped something terse in Comanche through gritted teeth. Rose spoke sternly in the same language and the young man became more miserable as she explained to Edge and Lucy: ‘I told him that I hope he will some day learn from the Comanche and the White Eyes more useful lessons than how to cuss his own stupidity.’

‘It’s an easily picked up knack that sometimes helps a feller not to feel so much of a damn fool,’ Edge told the squaw. ‘So kid, what’s this all about? Just why are you trailing the ladies and me?’

The boy spoke through clenched teeth again, but this time in embittered English:

‘I am sick of living in the lodge with women! I wish to go with you people.’

‘You are doing a very foolish thing and you will regret it for the rest of your life, boy!’ Rose rebuked earnestly. ‘You must not turn you back on your own kind. And no Comanche knows that better than me.’

‘But I am not one of these people!’ He shook his head violently. ‘They say I am bad medicine. And I get blamed for much that goes wrong. They say that I am evil and must be bad medicine. Just because I have this crooked eye for which I am named. Also, I was a long time with the White Eyes after my parents were killed and they say this is bad.’

Lucy murmured bitterly: ‘That’s terrible - to blame the boy for his disability and for circumstances he cannot help.’

‘There’s no place for you with us, kid,’ Edge told him. ‘We’re not equipped to take care of a – ‘

‘I do not need to be taken care of by anybody!’ Crooked Eye snapped angrily. ‘I look after myself! And if you let me come with you I can help you.
I can look after your horses, maybe? And I cook real well and I do as I am told. I am no longer a 126

child. And even when I was a child I learned quickly to take care of myself. So, if that is how you want it to be, you can go on now and I will make my own way.’

He swung angrily around and strode purposefully back into the timber, complaining in his own tongue as he went from sight. Then he either moved out of earshot or had exhausted his vocal anger for those who had rejected him. Rose said something in Comanche.

‘Poor boy,’ Lucy murmured in melancholic tones.

‘He’ll make out.’ Edge was the first to turn his horse and with the pack pony behind him took the lead in pressing on again into the south-west through the dark predawn hours.

‘How can you be so sure of that?’ Lucy demanded.

‘I’m as sure as I can be because making out is what loners have to do, one way or another,’ Edge answered evenly. ‘If we don’t, we die. And a tough kid like him alone in his own territory ain’t the kind to lay down and die.’

After a half second of silence a shot rang out from within the timber behind them. As the three reined in their mounts Edge rasped an oath and instinctively slid the Winchester out of the boot. All of them peered back to where Crooked Eye was last seen and even as he raked the rifle from side to side Edge guessed the bullet had not been aimed at the area where he and the women waited in tense anticipation of another shot.

Lucy Russell’s eyes were widened by fear as she started to ask: ‘What do you think that – ‘

A man warned: ‘You better put up that rifle, mister. Or this little Injun is gonna end up deader than yesterday’s pot roast!’

‘Edge?’ Lucy implored tensely.

He ignored her as he yelled: ‘Why should I care about the kid, feller?’ He

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continued to track the rifle from side to side and followed the same arc with his narrowed eyes. He failed to see any movement within the curtain of darkness that veiled the stand of timber. At the same time he tried to recall the handful of men he had recently met in Lakewood and failed to match a face to the strained voice of Crooked Eye’s captor.

‘So he’s an Injun, but whatever colour he is, he’s just a damn kid, mister!’ This was a second man, sounding less belligerently confident than the first. ‘You wouldn’t want his death on your conscience, would you? All we want is to talk over a deal with you and the women.’